The Wheelsurf - calling all thrillseekers

Getting away from standstill with the Wheelsurf is where you need the most practice. From standstill you rev up the engine until the centrifugal clutch grips onto the outer wheel.

Once you've mastered the characteristics of the engine, weight distrbution, body balancing and throttle, you can ride away slowly and in control. Reaching that point is a challenge that only the well coordinated can achieve in the first few attempts.

Too much throttle and the clutch grips the outer wheel causing the inner frame to rotate backwards and you loose balance. Once the Wheelsurf starts to roll though, the gyroscopic effect of the large rotating wheel comes into play and the name of the game is then throttle control and weight distribution, so the name of the game is gently-does-it and remember to balance the forces whether accelerating or decelerating and you'll be right. Half an hour later, you've achieved rudimentary control, though we suspect mastery might take MUCH longer than that.

One of the problems obvious to anyone with a rudimentary understanding of physics is that of braking. This was the big question for us - an associate in the Netherlands had ridden the Wheelsurf for a limited acquaintance period but had far from become expert with the machine. He reported that the tiny "landing wheels" that descend to give stability under brakes worked well at low speeds but hadn't tried the braking near the Wheelsurf's maximum speed of 30kmh.

These "landing brakes" sit above and away from the road during normal riding and descend during braking. Our fear was that a sudden handful of brake would see the Wheelsurf roll over these wheels and render it uncontrollable.

Like all vehicles such as bicycles and motorcycles where the rider is exposed to external objects and forces, the Wheelsurf makes the rider potentially vulnerable too.

Unlike the motorcycle though, the Wheelsurf is not as responsive to steering and braking and instant manoeuvring and we had fears that in an emergency stop situation, such as a truck looming or a child running onto the road in its path, the Wheelsurf might career out of control with the rider spinning along inside ... a circumstance almost too horrifying to contemplate.

If the driver wants to bring the Wheelsurf to a stop at low speed, the procedure is to gently apply the brake and lean backwards to counter the forces. This clearly will not give instant stopping capabilities anywhere near those of a car or a motorcycle.

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