Roadless Monocycle

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Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Roadless Monocycle

What is a Roadless Monocycle? It's a great way to simulate riding your bicycle. Hence our slogan,"Working hard to go nowhere." Of course any posts about exercize, training, cycling (no motors, please.) will be welcome.
I also dabble in liberal politics so I accept as an alternative sensible blogs on politics. Any hint of talking points or dogmatic screeching and I will dump it like a bad habit. Now I'm going to see if I can put pictures up on this thing.

8:26 am est

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I have been messing around with this type of exercize monocycle for thirty years. My original proof of concept was a Schwinn XR-5. After using it as intended for about six months back in the 1970s I realized two things. First, the XR-5 was capable of making one's muscles work, but the effort was very different from that required for actually riding a bicycle over the road. Second, the XR-5 really required one to use a fan to avoid sweat puddles forming on the floor under the machine. It seemed to me that there ought to be some way to combine the two problems into one solution.

Then one day I saw a pair of squirrel cage blowers on the scrap heap of an air conditioning contractor in Houston and the proverbial light bulb lit up. I still have this unit today as the brake on X-Mike #1. I tried to sell the idea to Schwinn, but they informed me that while it probably provided some "beneficial wind cooling effect" the didn't think it would provide as mucn resistance as their then-new Airdyne(c). I have ridden the Airdyne. The Roadless Monocycle is a much better simulator. In addition the X-Mikes include a feature unique in bicycle training machines. They have discrete gear ratios. In low gear your mother could push it. In high gear a touring cyclist can stand on the pedals and use the Mike as a stair stepper.

I do some conversions of old SR-5s that are still around, though the small wheel size limits the resistance to about 3/4 of an actual over the road experience. Please note the variations permitted by this machine. Three or more gear ratios, variable airflow for use in A/C or for heat training. I have found that changing the settings helps to simulate the riding experience and deters somewhat the boredom that besets many who use trainers.

Converted XR-5

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Working hard to go nowhere