OK, try to picture this. This thing sits upright on two side-by-side wheels, much like a Segway. It could be a motorcycle if it had a wheel in front, but it doesn't. The rider starts rolling and as he picks up speed, lo and behold, a third wheel slides out from the underside of the body and it becomes . . . a motorcycle. What!?
It was two and one-half years ago that I did a piece on Ben Gulak and his side-by-side two-wheeler, the Uno. Ben was 19 then and already was established as an engineering wizard. He has done a lot more work on the Uno since then, and has raised funding to push ahead with his vision. The result is the Uno 3, which is the machine described above. You've got to see it to believe it, and fortunately you can. Just click on that video over there on the left.
Here's what the company, BPG Motors, has to say about the Uno 3:
It’s small enough to fit in an elevator or bring inside an apartment and stable enough to handle Boston’s morning rush hour. The Uno now has three wheels. In Uno mode, the vehicle is a dicycle that balances on a single pair of parallel wheels, enabling unmatched nimbleness with an extremely tight turning radius. At high speeds, a middle wheel deploys forward and the outer wheels shift backwards – transforming the Uno into a full street bike. This patented system allows the U3 to be stable throughout the transition.
By the way, there is an Uno 2 that bridged the gap between that first machine and this latest one. That one had two wheels and they would extend and align to form a two-wheeled motorcycle. Oh, and did I mention that all the Unos are electric-powered? And it may have three wheels but it steers like a motorcycle.
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