Talk:Uno (dicycle)

Definition

The lead sentence currently calls this device a motorcycle. Tony Foale in Motorcycle Handling and Chassis Design starts Chapter 4 - Balance and Steering with "As a single-track vehicle, a motorcycle lacks inherent static balance." Vittore Cossalter in Motorcycle Dynamics starts section 1.1 - Definition of Motorcycles with "a motorcycle can be defined as simply a spatial mechanism composed of four rigid bodies: the rear assembly, the front assembly, the front wheel, [and] the rear wheel." In “Bicycles, Motorcycles, and Models” published in IEEE Control System Magazine, David Limebeer and Robin Sharp present a "historical review of single-track modeling." These prominent researchers and authors all define a motorcycle as a single-track vehicle or a vehicle having one front wheel and one rear wheel. Since WP:RS says "for information about academic topics, such as physics or ancient history, scholarly sources are preferred over news stories," the word motorcycle should not be in the definition of the Uno. -AndrewDressel (talk) 20:46, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Excellent and cogent point. Perhaps discuss with article creator User:Franamax? I see no problem with then moving Uno (motorcycle) to Uno (vehicle). The author was providing description s as provided in the majority of sources, where writers might have called it a "motorcycle"... perhaps becuase they had lack of knowledge about dicycles, or because they wished to couch a description in familir terms, or because of the vehicle's appearance. One might wish to keep a reference to its mispercieved nomenclature, as it adds to undertsnding of events surrounding its creation. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 21:44, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

This is admittedly a tricky definition - what scholarly source adequately defines a concept not yet thought up? In the cites above, the authors have decided to write about something then define the "thing" as what they want to write about (see esp. Ref#1 in the motorcycle article verifying single-track). I made my initial reversion based on the reference to "what the WP article says it is" - which is not authoritative any way you look at it, the Uno would end up as "my firend Jamie is so cool!". ;)

I authored this as (and reverted to) (motorcycle) based on the broad definition - it has a motor and wheels. Living Webster defines motorcycle as "A two-wheeled vehicle..."; Webster's New as "a 2-wheeled automotive vehicle"; OED as "A two-wheeled motor-driven road vehicle". The RS which have actually considered the bike generally term it "a motorcycle that's not a motorcycle" and "a unicycle that's not a unicycle" etc. I termed the lead sentence carefully and deliberately qualified monowheel with the crucial words design variation since we had no linkable referent to this vehicle - surprise, surprise, it just got invented.

That said, though I think I used wording understandable to the casual (as opposed to hyperwikicritical) reader, I'm OK with the dicycle wording and will try to improve that crappy article.

Also OK with moving to Uno (vehicle). Franamax (talk) 03:59, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I think it should be moved back to unicycle as it has two wheels but they operate as one. The same way that the Dodge_Tomahawk has four wheels but is essentially a motorbike.The majority of the sources don't support the term either. Pleasetry (talk) 23:11, 15 February 2014 (UTC)