1930s
Rise of the Monowheel
Because a single wheel is all you need for speed.
September 1932
J. A. Purves drives a Dynasphere spherical car, an automobile shaped like a giant radial tire. Mr. Purves was the vehicle’s inventor.
IMAGE: HULTON-DEUTSCH COLLECTION/CORBIS
The bicycle had its origins in 1817 in the Velocipede, a powerless wheeled frame which the rider sat astride. The first reliable report of self-propulsion by means of pedal power dates to the early 1860s.
Almost immediately inventors were attempting to do away with the second wheel, and in 1869 four different machines appeared, one of them the subject of the first monowheel patent.
Why build a monowheel? Working with a single wheel could result in a more efficient mode of transport, as would the associated reduction in size, weight, and resistance. For some inventors, here was a new and simpler form of mechanised locomotion. For others, the monowheel was a toy, a novelty – albeit one with a very high thrill factor.
But there were more than a few problems inherent in the design that inventors sought to overcome – impeded view, lack of stability, the difficulty of steering and the phenomenon of “gerbiling.” Because a monowheel rider relies on gravity to remain upright, if the machine accelerates or brakes too quickly, the rider spins inside the machine like a pet gerbil in its wheel.
In a conventional bicycle one wheel provides the propulsive force, the other, steering, but a monowheel wheel has to provide both. Leaning, using skids providing drag or extra small wheels or a gyroscopic steering mechanism have all been explored. Keeping upright in a monowheel requires skill and some machines employed an extra wide wheelbase to aid this.
Monowheels are still being produced and ridden today. There are monowheel enthusiasts in the UK and a British Monowheel Association, and a Monovelomachine featured in the closing ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. A monowheel was also the transport of choice of coughing cyborg bad-guy General Grievous in Star Wars Episode III.
December 1924
IMAGE: POPULAR SCIENCE
Feb. 8, 1932
Electronically driven wheels which revolve while the drivers remain stationary are tested at Bream Sands, Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England.
IMAGE: FOX PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES
February 1932
Dynasphere wheels being driven on Beans Sands near Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England.The petrol driven model is on the right and the smaller, electric model is on the left. The inventor Dr J. A. Purves of Taunton hoped to revolutionize modern transport with them.
IMAGE: J. GAIGER/TOPICAL PRESS AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES
September 1932
A Dynasphere being demonstrated at Brooklands race track, Surrey, England.
IMAGE: H. F. DAVIS/TOPICAL PRESS AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES
1932
The Dynasphere was capable of speeds of 30mph.
IMAGE: FOX PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES
September 1932
Weybridge, Surrey, England, UK -The Dynasphere is demonstrated.
IMAGE: AUSTRIAN ARCHIVES/CORBIS
Sept. 1, 1931
Swiss engineer M Gerder at Arles, France, on his way to Spain in his “Motorwheel,” a motorcycle with a wheel which runs on a rail placed inside a solid rubber tire.
IMAGE: FOX PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES
1935
A man on a penny-farthing bicycle alongside Walter Nilsson aboard the Nilsson monowheel.
IMAGE: FPG/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
February 1932
IMAGE: FOX PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES
Michael Bradley - Time Traveler 