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Monowheels: Vehicles with Insufficient Wheels
Douglas Self, motorwheels, monowheels, monocycles, D'Harlingue
(from Galbiati & Ciravegna) Presumably the bigger outer wheel made bumps in the road easier to negotiate; compare the popular penny-farthing or "ordinary" bicycle. (It only ran from spring 1869 until the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870) They appear to have been sales agents rather than manufacturers since they offered all kinds of cycle: velocipedes, tricycles, quadricycles and the monocycle. Lack of small, internal combustion engines forced the inventor to try out other means of propulsion; sail, pedals or a kind of a "pneumatic device".
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