Tennessee man tries $1.5 million self-balancing motorcycle and says he’s never been more relieved to end a test drive

Bikes and Beards is a Tennessee YouTuber who’s tried just about every motorcycle you can think of.

The problem is that, on this occasion, he decided to test a self-balancing motorcycle prototype that comes with a few problems.

The first problem is that, well, it’s a self-balancing motorcycle – which already sounds like trouble and a concept that shouldn’t (and won’t) work.

But the weirdest problem, by far, was the steering system.

There’s a reason why this never made it past the prototype stage

YouTube Bikes and Beards – a Tennessee guy with a beard who loves bikes (you have to love the simplicity and the logic) – visited the Lane Motor Museum to explore a rare, one-of-a-kind Gyro-X.

The Gyro-X is an old self-balancing motorcycle prototype from 1966 that uses a massive internal gyroscope to stay upright, a concept that was far ahead of its time.

Maybe too far ahead of its time because it really didn’t work.

“It’s actually the best example of something that the past was trying to become in the future and it just never caught on,” he said in the video.

In order to drive it – or maybe ‘ride’ it – the vehicle had to be restored, and it wasn’t easy.

It took a very long time to rebuild the Gyro-X from an empty shell to a vehicle that works – sort of.

Among other things, they had to build a new swing arm from scratch, source an extremely rare 6-piston Airheart brake caliper, and also fit modern computers to manage the hydraulics and the gyroscope.

The odd motorcycle also features a flywheel that spins at 3,200 RPM, creating enough gyroscopic force to keep the car balanced at a standstill.

But in the end, none of that actually worked and the vehicle was basically undrivable.

This is why this concept didn’t work at all

The list of things that were difficult to manage was pretty long.

The main one was the steering system.

The motorcycle featured counter-steering mechanics, which means you have to turn right to go left and vice versa.

“You come into a corner, it’s not doing what you think it should do. And it’s kind of scary because you’re like, I think it should do this… and it doesn’t,” he explained.

The pedal configuration was also pretty unsettling and, last but not least, this is valuable piece of history.

No one wants to be in charge of a valuable piece of history – around $1.5 million, apparently – knowing they’ll have to pay for damage.

This motorcycle was living in an amazing museum

On the upside, the ‘experiment’ gave the Tennessee YouTuber the opportunity to explore an incredible museum.

Beyond the Gyro-X, he and his team were allowed to visit the museum’s ‘vault,’ a massive basement storage area holding nearly 400 additional vehicles.

Among others, we spotted the Charles Taylor single-wheel car, the Summers Mule, which was basically an early gyroscopic prototype, and the massive military LARK vehicle used for amphibious landings.

It’s funny: the self-balancing motorcycle, apparently, wasn’t even the craziest vehicle here.