We love innovation. It’s what makes the world go around, and it’s especially important that there are innovators in the automotive world. If there were not, we would all still be driving black Fords. Not that black is a bad color, or that there is anything wrong with Ford vehicles, but, well, you get my point.
Quite a few of us here at Power Automedia (the parent company of Street Legal TV), own and enjoy riding motorcycles as much as we do our cars and trucks, so when we first heard about and saw what Kerry McLean was up to with his invention he called the McLean Monocycle, it was exciting, to say the least.
The McLean Monocycle is no ordinary vehicle. It’s quite exploratory in many ways. It’s a steel ring with a rubber tire surface around its perimeter. The Monocycle has a seat right behind the V8 engine and transmission used to spin the steel ring around the powertrain and its rider, and the spinning of the ring mass creates a certain amount of stability to the Monocycle.
As you watch the video above during McLean’s first full test drive of the Monocycle, you’ll see how it operates and that it runs very well on the street. However, something happens during the test, and the vehicle begins to lose balance, resulting in a rather violent crash. The crash seen in the video above shows just how sensitive the machine can be. At the very end of the video, you’ll also hear McLean talk about the crash in detail, and his thoughts on why it happened.
Would you buy and ride one of these McLean Monocycles if it was perfected and available for purchase? Let us know your thoughts in the Comments section below.