ok, has anyone seen one of these, or more pictures of this one

or plans

or sketches

or ideas

It would be fixed and one gear. And probably brakeless....

"Two wheels side-by-side, 9ft in diameter, joined by a differential
axle which the rider swings beneath. You steer it with the brakes
(like a tank) and itıs very big, very fast and very clever. Indeed
you might say it gives a pretty good head turning circle. The
Dicyclette was built by Maik ter Veer and Fred Abels in Amsterdam
and is in England for itıs first ever trip outside Holland. You
just gotta see this one, then youıve just gotta have a go."

https://www.ihpva.org/pipermail/workb...q2/000617.html

I'd like to see someone try to stop it while going down a nice-size hill... !

jeez i dont think the LBS would carry 9' tires

Is it just me, or would that thing somehow seem more appropriate as some sort of crawl-in machine gun turret? Or maybe I'm just nuts...

But just think of the things you could roll right over with 9' wheels: curbs, logs, baby strollers, small cars... wheee!

(But you'd probably put out an eye if you busted a spoke.)

ha. PONG!

I don't even want to think about how long it would take to search one of those tubes to find a slow-leaking hole.

Didn't someone on here lose a finger tip on a normal size wheel? Wouldn't one of these wheels cut off a head?

Bah! Leaky tires? Why, that's the ultimate low maintenance wheel there, ladies and gents. They're none of this newfangled pneumatic crap. It's all rubber with just a little bit of wire embedded. Cut it to length, wrap it around the rim, and twist the wire together to hold it all together.

Whee!

hahah that's amazing. looks like it was created for a new run of 'american gladiators' or something.

lately, there have been these group pedal bikes that a tour company has been running around times square. it's not very fast and probably not the safest vehicle to be crossing one of america's busiest intersections, but they certainly get looks! let me see if i can find info for y'all...

Perhaps it's the Conference Bike?

https://scout.wisc.edu/Weblog/SWL--Go...hp?EntryId=797

yep!! that's it i'd love to see an entire family from florida get doored on this thing...

Then there's the Big Bike...if you could make it easier to get on and off you could replace city buses






vroom vroom, I wonder how hard it is to manage solo?

what's with the linux penguins heading the pack?!

oh you know how those open-source freeloaders are, probably snuck on during a bathroom break, they'll be booted off as soon a someone sez "Tickets please"

Back to the original questions:

I don't think you could run this thing without additonal brakes - if you read the description, it mentions that steering is accomplished by slowing one wheel, or the other, like a tank. With a fixed gear drive train, this would be impossible, as you need to slow the wheels independently to turn.

Additionally, I think running without brakes would be exceptionally unwise. The rolling momentum of those wheels would be absolutely crazy. to be able to brake with your feet, you would need to have a very very easy gear, given the wheels, but would then to spin like crazy once you got rolling.

Hypothetically, were you to try a skid, assuming your knees could bear the pressure, you would actually flip around the axle (which i would love to see). Of course, given massively powerful brakes, this would also occur with them.

All in all, I'd say hills would be a bad idea. What might be fun, given very lenient gearing and some 9' Gazzies, would be to go on offroad trails for jeeps and the like ...

Hmm ...

what about a suicide version? one pedal/drivetrain/leg for each wheel? strap yourself in for leverage and try not to be torn apart

Didn't I see that in Running Man?

that thing is cool! I wonder if you could build in a mechanism to lock out the freewheels with a switch, thereby sending yourself into an immediate barrel roll! That would be fun! you might need 10' wheels for that though

I've seen motorized things built like that, both single and double wheel, and they roll like that with heavy use of brakes or acceleration. Monowheelers call it gerbilling because it looks like what happens when a rodent runs on its exercise wheel and then stops. Seems to be the main danger of those vehicles.

Kinda what I saw in the fuzzy photos. Pull down hard on both levers and spin around whithin the wheels. Cool for an amusement park, not cool in traffic.

There are similar things on the site below. Most are motorized but the first few aren't.

This one is pretty badassterous:


Their description: "In 1869 the craftsman Rousseau of Marseilles built this monocycle, which perches the cyclist on the inside of a 2 1/2 yards-high wheel. As there is no steering mechanism, it makes uncommon demands on the rider's sense of balance."

Thats right. Brakeless may be a big deal in our wimpy modern world, but no steering is a real test of a rider.

https://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEU...l/motorwhl.htm

HAUTE!!! like a human hamster wheel