Simon, sorry . I went back and reread the first post. Thought LF was too smart to try that but then people thought I was too smart to try some thing like that also.
Couldn't help myself. It was always the challenge.
Steve.
I understand. Back in '92, a friend in Houston built a uni-wheel ride, with an old Honda 750 twin powering an 8 ft diameter wheel. It had a pair of "training wheel" outriggers that you retracted manually once you hit about 5-8 mph with it, and he claimed it would do 140 mph. I never got anywhere near that speed in it, but I rode it from Houston to Austin at freeway speeds (75-80 mph) with him following me in his pickup.
That thing was INSANE!! Let out the clutch, get it rolling straight, retract the outriggers and twist the throttle, going up through the gears - it would out accelerate anything he ever ran it side by side with. He used to hit the amateur drag races with it, and ALWAYS collected a crowd.
Sadly, it ended up killing him - best we could figure one of the rim bearings failed and the rollers the rim ran in locked up - he gerbiled it down the San Antonio freeway about 40 miles out of SA from Houston at about 120 mph. Lost it on an upslope to a county road overpass - witnesses said he was spinning insanely fast when it drifted off the pavement, nit a hump in the dirt, and CLEARED the overpass. What a mess.
It was enormous fun, but looking back, that coulda been me