Word: urb
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...front wheel acts like a stabilizing gyroscope. He attached a second front wheel, parallel to the first that did not quite touch the ground. It could thus be spun in the opposite direction of the standard wheel, canceling out the gyroscopic effect. Jones optimistically named his creation URB I (for Unridable Bicycle 1). But surprisingly enough it proved to be easily ridable...
...regular front wheel with a small furniture caster mounted directly in line with the steering-post axis so that turning would not shift the point of contact. Trouble was. the caster quickly became almost red-hot and could not negotiate bumps more than a half inch high. Jones abandoned URB 11 as inconclusive...
...Physics Today, "it ran on for yards before falling over." By moving back the contact point, Jones had inadvertently increased the front wheel's torque. This twisting force normally counteracts the bike's tendency to fall over by steering it in the direction it is leaning. URB III was. in fact, even more stable than an ordinary bicycle...
Baffled, he turned for help to a computer. After analyzing many more unridable designs, he finally felt ready to build URB IV, an awkward-looking machine whose front wheel was four inches ahead of the normal position. The result was smashingly successful. Even when it was given a hard shove forward, the riderless URB IV quickly toppled. "It seems a lot of tortuous effort to produce in the end a machine of absolutely no utility whatsoever," Jones concluded, "but that sets me firmly in the mainstream of modern technology...