monocycle motorbike

[Erik]

I just saw on tv a guy who made a motorbike that was just one wheel with him riding INSIDE the wheel!!!

O_o

very weird

[Nimrod]

Have you seen the EMBRIO? (http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/2003/11/04/cx_dl_1104vow.html)

[Erik]

no, the guy was sitting inside the wheel! The wheel was some 1.2 meters in diameter.

it was crazy. It went 60 miles an hour...

the link you sent looks good though, does it work?

[RONIN]

Did you mean this?

Unicycle Site (http://www.unicycling.org/unicycling/whatsnew.html)

[mtw]

I've seen that on an episode of Monster Garage. The guy crashed it while filming.

[Joeslucher]

WOAH the Embrio is probably the sweetest most genius design I've seen in a while. I imagine I'd end up smashing my brains out on the pavement but boy do I want one.

[Erik]

Ronin: yeah, that was it.

Ridiculous idea isn't it? I can't understand how it works and the guy is not spinning around while the wheel stays put... Anyway, seems that some concepts really are not that otherworldly!

lol

[Atomick]

Whoa, looks just like what a friend did about 3 years ago (Richard Green - his stuff is in that Expose book, he worked for TotallyGames):

http://www.artbot.com/

His website content is offline for revision, so you can't see the images, but this piece actually got built into a full-size 3D maquette for a trade show - nifty!

Best,
-Atomick

[cybercyst]

agreed, that EMBRIO cycle is freakin kick-arse. I hope it comes out soon, but I fear it will not catch on, like the stupid Segways. The design is great, though. But like the Unicycle that's in this thread, how do you keep your balance? It's gotta be hard.

[Nimrod]

In the articles I've read, it seems that the EMBRIO is a concept vehicle mostly - Bombardier isn't ever going to actually make one. They were trying to promote new transportation ideas or something like that. Anyway, it has those two wheels on front behind the shield, and at lower speeds and at stop it rests on those. when it picks up it lifts off those wheels and is gyroscopically balanced. While I also thinks it's really freakin' cool, the discussion thread about it over on slashdot brought up a lot of salient points about why it would be a pretty worthless vehicle in reality. In short, it really is just like a motorcycle with a host of other disadvantages and no advantages. :/