We’ve been puzzling over this image posted to the H.A.M.B.’s pre-WWII photos thread for a few days. Originally posted by swi66, we’ve been able to determine that a Mr. M. Goventosa of Udine, Italy, built this monowheel in 1931, and that it was capable of 150 KPH, or about 93 MPH. And thaaaat’s about it. Any search for more information we’ve undertaken has led us straight back to the same measly tidbits. The most insightful analysis of it came from our friend David Greenlees, who noted
I think it is a single because if you look close there in only one lead from the mag. What looks like it maybe a second plug on the left I think is maybe a compression release for starting because I can see a lever a with a cable attached to it. The cable goes under the tank and heads back towards the steering wheel.
The only other photo we found of Goventosa’s monowheel is the one below, from 1933, showing what appears to be a completely different monowheel, a little more refined, but of the same general layout. (Come to think of it, the riders in the two photos don’t look the same either.) So who was Goventosa? What inspired him to build his monowheels? And what happened to them since these pictures were taken?
UPDATE (29.November 2010): It appears that neither man in the photos above was M. Goventosa, nor was the monowheel solely his creation. We have more on these photos in a follow-up post.