I’ve sold monowheels to Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook, and, by gum, it put them on the map!
We’re about halfway through National Bike Month.
Bicycles as we recognize them date back some two hundred years, but they really hit their stride a bit later, in the 1860s.
The peculiar thing is that as two-wheelers gained in popularity, multiple inventors had the same idea: why not just have one wheel?
If your mind just conjured up a picture of a unicycle, you’re probably not alone.
But that’s not the only one-wheeled ride that inventors dreamed up.
There’s also the monowheel, which is sort of like if you enlarged the wheel and put the seat inside.
The rider propels the wheel forward from within the wheel.
For casual riders, this design was a problem.
For one thing, being inside the wheel means your view is always at least partly obstructed.
And balance is more challenging.
On a bike, one wheel keeps you stable, the other can steer you.
But on a monowheel that single wheel has to do both.
Above all, monowheel riders have to avoid what’s known as “gerbiling.”
Speeding up too quickly or stopping too quickly might send you spinning around like a gerbil in its little wheel.
Still, the monowheel has its fans.
And yes, people still make and ride them today.
Extreme sports people are way into them.
Gerbils, probably not so much.
And before we wrap up the week, some artists have a favor they’d like to ask of you.
They’re asking 1,000 people to do home recreations of a piece by Felix Gonzalez-Torres called “Untitled (Fortune Cookie Corner).”
There are two benefits to participating: one is, you get to actually be in a room with art, instead of just seeing it on a screen.
And two, you do get to eat some of the fortune cookies.
It’s a snack – but is it art?
Rise of the Monowheel (Mashable)
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Monowheel photo By Postdlf, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
