UNO Cycle

The 2008 National Motorcycle Show in Toronto highlights some of the area's top custom builders who have on display a fine array of one-off custom machines.This year's show, however, had one very unusual one-off custom, the Uno. The orange and grey coloured Uno made its first public appearance balanced on its two side-by-side wheels and its footpegs. build by a An 18 year old guy named Benjamin Gulak

Ben created the Uno using SketchUp, a free piece of software from Google. When it was time to translate computer renderings into reality, he used a Yamaha R1 chassis and homemade bodywork which he designed himself. The Uno uses two wheels mounted side by side and the bike stays upright due to its digital gyros. Ben programmed the gyros himself, with some guidance from Trevor Blackwell, a California-based robotics and gyro expert.

The Uno is actually fitted with two gyros – one for making the bike go forward and back, and the other for making it turn. The 54-kilo bike is easy to operate – there is just on/off switch, and once it’s switched on, you lean forward to make the bike move ahead, and lean back to slow it down and/or go backwards.The juice comes from twin electric motors – one for each of the Uno’s two wheels. The more you lean forward, the harder the Uno accelerates, with the gyros telling the electric motors how much current to deliver to the wheels. Of course, the Uno probably isn’t the most practical thing in the world, but as an example of ingenuity and engineering skill, we think it’s very cool…

Now I'm not here to start an argument over who came up with the first one wheeled motorcycle, so, for simplicity, we'll just assume that I did. Anyways, this is the Uno (which is not as cool as the Wild Card I built), a two wheeled motorcycle that has the wheels placed side by side. Oh snap! It was designed and built by 18-year-old Ben J. Poss Gulak, who is probably a genius. It stays upright thanks to advanced gyroscopic technology and a powerful sorcerer using black magic.

Operation of the 54.4 kg (120 lb) machine is simple, in fact it's so simple there are no controls except for an on-off switch. To go forward you simply push your body weight forward to tilt the machine. To back up, just lean back on the seat to tilt it backwards and back it goes. The farther you lean, the faster it accelerates. The gyro tells the ECU how much to accelerate and that in turn delivers the proper amount of current to the electric motors, one for each wheel.Wow, that's pretty cool. Too bad you look goofy as hell riding it. Still, my hat is off to Ben for being able to create something so amazing at 18. God knows the only thing I was making at 18 were bongs out of 2-liter.