How could anyone possibly ride an impossible wheel (:)) ? I really just can’t imagine how you would go about even trying to ride one. Any comments?
Thanks,
Andrew
Re: Impossible wheels…
i’ve never tried and have never seen one in real life
i have however seen some circus performances that took my breath away
i suspect it just another (REAL STEEP) learning curve…
Re: Impossible wheels…
GILD.jrrdy@timelimit.unicyclist.com writes:
>
>andrew_carter wrote:
>> *How could anyone possibly ride an impossible wheel (:)) ? I really
>> just can’t imagine how you would go about even trying to ride one.
>> Any comments?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Andrew *
>
>
>i’ve never tried and have never seen one in real life
>i have however seen some circus performances that took my breath away
>i suspect it just another (REAL STEEP) learning curve…
I wonder HOW steep. It took me 7 months to master wheel-walking, and that
was after 22 years of unicycling. On the other hand, it only took a few
more days to master one-footed ww.
I’m looking forward to trying out an IW this month at the next Unatics
meeting. I’ll get back to you.
David
Well, as someone who tried an impossible wheel for the first time this weekend, I’d like to comment.
I was able to go 30 feet or so on my second or third try. I didn’t get much further than this on consecutive attempts and most fell short of this distance. I’d say the learning curve would be fairly short and not very steep. Given a day I think I (and therefore many others) could come out of a gym a semi-competent impossible wheel rider.
Later,
Eli.
would the more experienced people be able to say if the ultimate wheel is more difficult?
i’ve been pondering this thing and it strikes me as being very ‘knacky’
once u have the right form while on the machine, u r likely to be ok
comments from the iw riders?
Thinking about it, I think it would be easyer to ride if the pegs were below the axle. If they are above the axle, you would actually be balancing above the half way point, therefore making it harder to correct balance!! (?)
You get what I mean?
Well i do! LOL
Joe,
P.S - I want an Ultimate Wheel 
Thanks everyone, I actually thought that the pedals did drive the wheel…now that would be difficult!
Does anyone know where I can find a video of someone riding an impossible wheel?
Thanks,
Andrew
Sorry, no vids, but here is an old post that has some pictures of guy hansen attempting to ride and IW with his hands and then one with him riding regular.
I guess you’ve already seen those.
Oh well.
From those pictures it looks like the hub is offset on one of them and not on the other. Am I just seeing things? What’s it meant to be like?
Andrew
Generally they’re two variations on the same theme – both are accepted as Ultimate or BC Wheels.
Later,
Eli.
Isn’t the one with the offset hub really hard to ride? Everyone seems to be making out that they’re not too difficult.
Mmmm… seems I misunderstood your question. I thought you were wondering about the pedals being offset from the hub, not the hub being offset itself. I would think you’re seeing things there, if you thought someone had made an offset-hub impossible wheel – that does sound “impossible” to ride (though give someone a few weeks and I’m sure they could do it =).
A rather amusing note from the Toque games was seeing Kris trying out an impossible wheel for (what I assume to be) his first time. He definitely went down on the floor and the IW shot forward to be stopped by a wall 15 feet away. It was cool to see that he doesn’t have perfect balance for everything. I made this comment to someone beside me, to which they said, “Yeah, but give him 15 minutes…” I couldn’t argue with that.
Later,
Eli.
That was a fast reply! Have a look at the photo I attached…doesn’t that look offset to you?
Andrew
Sort of, but not really. Any look of off-settedness I would blame on the angle of the shot.
Later,
Eli.
I knew macro photos screwed up the proportions of things a little but I didn’t realise it happened that much. It still looks strange to me but I’ll just accept it.
Thanks for clearing that up for me.
Andrew
The angle on that particular shot does give the illusion the hub is offset but that is not the case. (I took the photo by the way 
That particular impossible wheel is owned by Tony Melton. Tony managed around 25m the day I took the photo and it was only his second time trying the ultimate wheel.
It helps a lot in the early stages if you can get someone to tow you to begin with (ala pull gliding). Let go of your tower when you feel stable enough and see if you can carry on by yourself.
As with anything the learning curve is going to be very dependant on what you have been exposed to already. Neither Tony or I found it too hard to make initial progress but then we can both coast on a normal uni for short distances.
I think riding an impossible wheel is very much akin to coasting in that it is hard to achieve consistency until you get really good. Some runs you’ll go 2m and others 20m. Because the balance point is so fine, if you don’t do anything wrong you’ll go a long way but a small error results in instant dismounts when you are learning.
I must add that learning to ride an impossible wheel was the only time I wore ALL my body armour. It felt dangerous. The thing is just so unstable.
a couple of vids here: http://www.unicyclist.com/gallery/albuo99?&page=4
About half way down the page. Sorry that one is sideways.
I was destracted by those sexy gams. 
-C