Written on May 27, 2008 – 9:59 am | by Bogdan Alex |
I remember seeing the Segway in Paris 3 years ago. I couldn’t understand why people would prefer to pilot these things instead of taking a healthy walk. OK, it may be good for tired people but the fact that it maintained equilibrium on two transversally placed wheels left me wonder a bit. I thought that was some interesting design, but take a look at this awkward motorcycle concept.

I don’t know if you can see, but that motorcycle has two transversally placed wheels that are pretty close to each other. This design would probably be best described as a two-wheeled unicycle. The man behind it, Ben Gulak, has dubbed it UnoMoto, and he managed to take a Yamaha R1 frame, side-by-side wheels and Segway-like gyroscopic technology and wrap it in a custom made body to create a very different kind of electric vehicle.

The guys from Gizmag point out that the UnoMoto prototype reminds of the radical Bombardier EMBRIO Concept, demonstrating even simpler controls. With the UnoMoto all you have to do is turn on/off the main switch all control the vehicle through leaning in the desired direction: forward to accelerate, back to brake, and sideways to make turns. This is possible thanks to an integrated tilting suspension which allows the inside wheel to dip.

The current prototype is able to speed up to 25 mph, but remember that this is a completely electrical vehicle. Compact… checked! Ecological... checked! Awkward-looking… all checked!