The Monocycle

[Larry Zimmer]

Been around a few years. Always good for a repeat. http://biggeekdad.com/2010/12/monocycle/ .

[Carl]

Larry....I see he lives in your state. A neighbor of yours by any chance?

[Don]

Man, he should'a had a V-8 . . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4YmVP6i4qw

. . . . or NOT!

Ever notice how nearly every 'neat thing' eventually gets taken to the extreme . . . . and beyond?

Don

[EMS]

Mmmh...when I started to watch the V8 video and saw the word "Crash" in the title, I could sort of anticipate what would happen. Here you deal with Mr Isaac Newton and the laws of physics. Each force has an equal reaction force. And the only force you have in this thing reacting to the torque during acceleration and braking is the weight distribution off vertical center translating into a vector that will offset this torque. Looking at the vehicle, you almost know from the beginning, that this will be a problem. No wonder that the guy has his feet down all the time Just imagine how your CBX reacts. How it dives into the forks during braking (if you don't have Don's CB1100F Trac fork) and how it wants to sit down during hard acceleration (if you don't have CB1100F shocks)... How are you compensating for these forces in a Monocycle? Try to design a helicopter with just a main rotor.

[Don]

That was my thinking too, Mike

Here you have a 'vehicle' which can barely handle the acceleration provided by the 5 hp lawnmower engine . . . . so you want to swap that for a 200HP V-8???? - The net result seems fairly obvious

I guess he figures that the added weight of the V-8 allows you to apply both more acceleration and deceleration forces than you can with the lawnmower engine before it starts gerbiling - No . . . . not *THAT* gerbiling (get your mind out of the gutter!) - This gerbiling - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monowheel

Don

[Don]

Try to design a helicopter with just a main rotor.

It's already been done, Mike

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOTAR

Works considerably better than the monocycle!

Don

[Larry Zimmer]

Never met the guy, Carl. Or, saw him out riding. Lives about 20 miles from me, though.

Appears he might be the only smart one: knew how much torque NOT to install.