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Sphereing

Zorbing is the practice of humans traveling in a sphere, generally made of transparent plastic, usually for fun. Sphereing or globe-riding is generally performed on a gentle slope, allowing the rider to roll downhill, but can also be done on a level surface, as well as on water, permitting more rider control. In the absence of hills, at least one vendor has begun constructing metal ramps. Most spheres are constructed for a single rider, but some hold two or three. The longer runs are approximately half a mile. Globe-riding is very popular in New Zealand and the very first Zorb site was Zorb Rotorua.

Construction

The sphere is a double-hulled sphere, with one ball inside the other with an air layer in between. This acts as a shock absorber for the rider, dampening bumps while traveling. It also allows for a much more light-weight sphere made of flexible plastic, as opposed to the rigid plastic of a hamster ball. Many spheres have straps to hold the rider in place, while others leave the rider free to walk the sphere around or be tossed about freely by the rolling motion. A typical sphere is about in diameter, with an inner sphere size of about , leaving a 50–60 centimetre (20–24 in) air cushion around the riders. The plastic is approximately thick. The inner and outer sphere are connected by numerous (often hundreds) small ropes. Spheres generally have one or two tunnel-like entrances.

Facilities

Sphereing is generally performed at commercial sphereing facilities, where prospective riders pay a fee for each ride or for a whole day's activity. In many cases, corporations lease facilities for events. While the Zorb Limited business model involves leasing spheres to franchisees and not selling them to private individuals, several companies now offer sphereing balls for sale. The quality of some of these has been called into question. Sphereing is currently (2008) practiced in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, New Zealand, the middle of Sweden, Estonia, the Gold Coast in Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Japan, Thailand and Slovenia. In the United States, there is a facility stationed in Smoky Mountains, Tennessee, and a facility in Amesbury, Massachusetts has recently opened. Several franchise-based companies (Spheremania, Orb 360) have entered the market and begun to compete with Zorb Limited.

History

Hamster balls, hard plastic single layer spheres made for the use of hamsters and other small rodent pets, have been manufactured and sold since at least the 1970s. A Russian article on the Zorb mentions a similar device having debuted in 1973. In the early 1980s, the Dangerous Sports Club constructed a giant sphere (reportedly across) with a gimbal arrangement supporting two deck chairs inside. This device was eventually cut up for scrap, with some of the plastic remnants used to cover a compost heap. Human spheres have been depicted in mass media since 1990 when the Gladiators event Atlaspheres first aired albeit with steel balls. In 1994, Zorb Limited was founded in New Zealand, and widely popularized the activity.

The Zorb company

In 1994, Dwayne van der Sluis and Andrew Akers conceived the idea for a type of sphere in Auckland, New Zealand, calling their invention the "Zorb", and patenting and trademarking the term. With Craig Horrocks and one other investor, they created the firm Zorb Limited, and set to work commercializing sphereing. Their business model was to develop the activity world-wide via a franchise system. In 2000, van der Sluis exited from the company to return to his career as a software engineer. Akers continued to run the company as CEO until April 2006, when he resigned due to problems with Horrocks (ex director of failed carpets company Feltex and part of the group of directors being sued by Feltex shareholders for the 2004 prospectus which is alleged to be "misleading and deceptive, [and] contained untrue and negligent statements." ) Around this time, Zorb Limited's European master franchise operator, Michael Stemp, and Hungarian master franchise operator, Attila Csató, ended their affiliation with Zorb Limited and started a manufacturing firm, Downhill Revolution.

Many of the franchisees, employees and shareholders who left Zorb Ltd stated Craig Horrocks' method of dealing with people as their reason. This method may be summed up by the term coined by Neal Stephenson; 'Bullshytt' defined as a "... technical and clinical term denoting speech (typically but not necessarily commercial or political) that employs euphemism, convenient vagueness, numbing repetition, and other such rhetorical subterfuges to create the impression that something has been said. [...] It is inherent in the mentality of ... bulshytt-talkers that they are more prone than anyone else to taking offense (or pretending to) when their bullshytt is pointed out to them."

Zorb's products

The inside of the original Zorb product has nine straps to keep the rider in place. New versions use a 5 point safety harness for Hypersphering activities. Variations include strapless Zydro Zorbs, or Hydrosphering, where water is added for an experience somewhat like a water chute. The latter variation can be ridden with two or three riders. Zorb Limited strictly prohibits the use of the Zorb Ball to walk on water however they produce other products which can be used for this purpose.

Safety

On June 19, 2008 reporter Rebekah Metzler of the Lewiston Sun-Journal, fractured her back and bruised a kidney while rolling down a ski hill in a copy product at Lost Valley, Maine.

Terminology

Due to the success of the Zorb company, Sphereing is often referred to as Zorbing, and Zorbing entered the Concise Oxford English Dictionary in 2001 where it was defined as: "a sport in which a participant is secured inside an inner capsule in a large, transparent ball which is then rolled along the ground or down hills". While in a popular sense, Zorbing is a genericized trademark, probably being used by more people than the term Sphereing, like Jell-O and Band-aids, it is still a legally protected trademark owned by a corporation.

Records

The Guinness Book of World Records recognises 2 sphereing records, set over two consecutive days in 2006:

Longest sphereing ride held by Steve Camp who travelled .
Fastest sphereing ride held by Keith Kolver who reached a speed of .

In popular culture

The 1967 British tv series The Prisoner features a large translucent white sphere, Rover, which chases down and stuns or kills escapees, presumably by suffocation.
In the 1980s, a The Far Side cartoon depicted a cow in a "cow ball", a scaled up hamster ball.
The television series Gladiators includes an event called Atlaspheres which follows a similar concept to zorbing in which participants are placed in large steel balls and must roll around on the arena floor to either score on pods or prevent scoring.
At the beginning of the 1991 film Armour of God II: Operation Condor, Jackie Chan rolls down a cliff in a sphere.
On the Nickelodeon T.V. movie Rocket Power: Race Across New Zealand the characters had to zorb as part of a marathon race.
In MTV's 1998 Road Rules: All-Stars, the cast went zorbing in New Zealand.
Peter Gabriel used a Zorb as part of his 2002-2004 "Growing Up" tour. The Zorb was lowered onto him from overhead scaffolding and he rolled around the stage in it, singing using a wireless headset microphone. Tour staff populated the pit at the edge of the stage in many venues as protection against rolling off the edge.
In the 2004 reality television show The Amazing Race, the racers' task for the roadblock in leg 10 involved a Zorb ride in Rotorua.
An upcoming (planned UK release March 2007) video game called Spinout has players racing in translucent spheres called "Xorbs".
Zorb Balls are featured in a 2008 commercial for the Toyota Sequoia sport utility vehicle.
Zorb balls are also in the 2008 Hutchinson 3 ad.
Repeated mentions of human-sized hamster balls by the characters from the popular webcomic xkcd.
In the Discovery Channel series Smash Lab, the zorb is used as a concept for stopping a car from rolling down a hill.