Gerbiling

Is the greatest term I’ll learn today, possibly this year.

A monowheel is a single wheeled transport wherein the rider sites inside or beside the wheel as opposed to on top, like a unicycle. Early ones were largely pedaled, but modern monowheels often have engines. Kerry McLean builds them today.

A problem with a monowheel is stability, and if the rider tries to stop too quickly, momentum can overcome gravity causing the rider to spin around inside. There’s a video of this on the McLean link above, and it’s called ‘gerbiling.’ The refernce is to a gerbil loosing footing inside a rodent wheel and spinning around.

That is fantastic and utterly made my day.

Why? What did you think it meant?

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