Anyone ever ridden on one of these? I was given the opportunity the other evening… pretty cool contraption. Didn’t take long to get the hang of due to my unicycling skills. 
I splurged and bought one… should be here later in the week. Something cool to have around the house for those rainy days.
Someone should e-mail them and have them put unicycling on the list.
i would do that with my old skateboard decks when i bought a new one.just take the trucks off any board and find a round log and you’ve got the same thing.
take the stopper things off the end for a real challenge.
That’s quite a funny name for a rola-bola. Some people in circus can do some decent stuff with those. For example, put two or three of those on one stack.
Hey Adam,
George Pringle, the local unicycle hero in these parts has all sorts of things like stilts and juggling stuff and he’s got one of those boards too. I’ve messed around with it and my son had a good time with it too.
- Frankthat is, in fact, as joona mentioned, called a rola-bola… you can make your own out of a board and a 4" PVC pipe. and yes, people who have had training or lots of practice on them can do some amazing stuff. in fact, you can major in rola-bola performance at l’ecole national de cirque in montreal quebec (my school, hopefully, after i audition)
I’ll start recording some videos once mine comes in, and let you knows if it helps any. This one had adjustable pegs in it so you can move where the bumpstops are to simulate different types of boards etc.
and so the circus skills come back to us, nicely packaged with day-glo stickers and funky new names
replace the roller with a sphere
it gives a whole new dimension to the concept of UPD
hopefull, u must let us know when your audition is so we can burn insence and do circus-school dances for u
i’ll be holding thumbs
Another variation on these are vew-do balance boards which add the vaiation of different shape rockers allow more tricks. see
That I have seen done in some TV-program.
But, what if one makes a wider frame for unicycle and puts a sphere on place of the wheel. It might be fun to try. Not necessarily too hard to drive but would look nice.
My first memory of a rola-bola was seeing an old film clip of Hugh Hefner on one. I thought it was so cool I took a big juice can, and a project I had done in wood shop (7th grade?) and tried it out.
They are fun and pretty easy to master if you’re a unicyclist. They don’t have as much range of what you can do with them as a unicycle. Usually in shows you see someone juggling on one, or on a stacked up one with lots of base pieces and possibly multiple rollers at 90 degree angles to each other. For example, check out the Russian kid below (an amateur performer at the International Circus Festival in Riga, Latvia, 1990).
I haven’t seen a unicycle with a ball for a wheel, but Tom Miller did make one that used a pair of basketballs under a regular wheel. A framework held the basketballs in place, and by using two of them, it rode forward when you pedaled it forward. He brought it to a convention in the 80s. I have a picture of Tom Jr. riding it, but adults were too heavy for the basketballs.
fun
these things are fun but i think they would get boring quickly but as rainy day fun they are ok.the “pro tricks” are for people who have fun to much time on there hands or many rainy days.my G.C.S.E. P.E group had one to test balance after 4 go’s i managed 18 secs but this was b.u and i.s i was the best in the class it hung around the P.E office for a few weeks so we messed around on it in the fitness room.i think i managed about one 1min in the few days we had it.
b.u= before unicycling
i.s = into skateboarding
Re: fun
There is a simultaneous thread on rola bola going on right now over at rec.juggling which includes suggestions for tricks to do with one.
In the book Manipulative Miscellania there is a picture in the back of the author, Reginal Bacon (aka Mr Slim), doing a 3 or 4 rola bola stack while juggling while simultaneously holding a prop in a chin balance (he also does this while riding a unicycle, minus the rola bola, of course).
So while I agree that rola bola can get boring by itself fairly quickly, there are quite a number of difficult to execute trick that can make it much more challenging. That’s, of course, if the whole circus arts thing doesn’t turn you off. 
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ
Re: Re: fun
and if it does, just imagine it’s some wannabee skater’s ‘rehabilitation system’.
(one of the website actually called it that)
My audition is feb. 15 in montreal, quebec. thanks, GILD, i’ll need all the karma i can get.
good luck, montreal is a great place, with regular unicycle basketball.
i was thinking of auditionig myself, but i’ll be gone by the time the next auditions happen.
if you do end up studying here then just wonder about with you unicycle, go to the tam tam on sundays and you’ll be sure to meet loads of great circus type people.
what kind of show are u doing for your audition?