>I think the most reasonable way of free-mounting a giraffe over say
>6 foot tall, is the running mount. I'm not sure how tall the uni
>would have to be before this became impossible. Anyone tried this
>on a 3 metre uni?
Javier Ruiz can mount his three wheel unicycle by starting to hop with
his feet between the lower and middle wheel, his body facing the side
of the unicycle. He hops in this position for several seconds, then
makes a big hop up, placing his feet between the middle and upper
wheel. Another big hop up and he's hopping on the top wheel of his
three wheeler. At this point he can do a 270 uni spin down to the
pedals or any other number of things!
Using this method of mounting, one could theoretically mount a taller
unicycle with more wheels. If the total weight the the unicycle could
be kept light enough, it is hard to say what the practical height
limitation of this mount would be.
This mount can be very slow because there is direct control (actually
no rotation movement of the wheels) of the drive wheel at all times.
A similar mount can be done with perhaps a 10 ft (3 meter) giraffe
unicycle by controlling the drive wheel first with the hands and
finally with the feet during a slow ascent.
Getting back to the more mundane quick mounts: Some taller than 8 ft.
giraffe unicycles are equipped with brakes activated by hinged steps
up the frame. The brake keeps the wheel from moving while the
unicyclist scrambles up before balance in any direction is lost in any
substantial amount. No doubt unicycles in excess of 12 ft. could be
mounted by a unicyclist with either a very good sense of balance and/or
very fast arms and legs!
BTW, there's no reason not to use the hopping to slowly mount a
giraffe with step brakes as Javier mounts his three wheeler as
described above. The height limit on a step brake giraffe unicycle
using a hopping mount would probably be much higher than a
multi-wheeler, since step brakes are much lighter than wheels!
In consideration of hopping mounts, it just might be possible to free
mount a 10 meter (32 ft.) step brake giraffe unicycle or even taller?
Also do give consideration riding/climbing mounts on a giraffe
unicycle with multiple crankarms going up its length rather than step
brakes. Simply climb up the frame with one's feet while controlling
the drive wheel with one's arms on the successive crankarms to the
top!
Stay on Top, as you climb ever so slowly to the top of that
10 meter giraffe,
Ken Fuchs <kfuchs@winternet.com>