When you sign up for these sports you’re taking a walk on the weird side From wrestling with your toes to carving a path down the side of a volcano get an all-access pass to some of the wackiest sports for one
Zorbing Let’s Roll IMAGINE YOU’RE STANDING inside a giant plastic ball teetering on the crest of a hill Suddenly someone gives it a push Before you can scream Don’t even think about it you’re hurtling down that grassy slope Wahoo You’re zorbing This sport got its start in 1994 That’s when two thrill-seekers from New Zealand invented the zorb an inflatable ball that you climb into Originally Andrew Akers and Dwane van der Sluis designed the ball so they could walk on water The zorb stayed afloat but the friends found it hard to maneuver So they decided to head for the hills instead zorbing the sport of rolling down a hill in a large inflatable ball 10
Going Down Since its invention hundreds of thousands of people have gone head over heels for the zorb In fact there are zorbing sites all around the world from Canada to Japan The zorb itself is made of thick clear plastic There are two separate balls that make up this sphere The outer ball is 2 7 m 9 ft in diameter and the inner ball is about 2 m 6 5 ft around In between the balls is a pocket of air that acts like a shock absorber keeping riders from getting bounced around too much during the head-spinning trip And to get into a zorb a rider has to climb through a tunnel-like opening In you go dare to compare great moments in zorbing DIAMETER ZORB 2 7 m 106 in BASKETBALL 75 cm 29 5 in SOCCER BALL 69 5 cm 27 4 in BOWLING BALL 68 5 cm 27 in TENNIS BALL 6 8 cm 2 7 in GOLF BALL 42 7 mm 1 7 in PING-PONG BALL 40 mm 1 6 in SPORT SHORTS You may think going headlong down a hill would make a zorb rider toss his cookies but zorbing doesn’t make you feel all that queasy The zorb is so big that the rider inside only makes a complete rotation about every 9 m 30 ft And this keeps his lunch from making a return visit usually 9 9 9 1 NASA National Aeronautics and Space Adminitration used a zorb ball while researching Mars landings 6 0 0 2 The record for the fastest zorb ride is held by Keith Kolver who reached a speed of 52 kmh 32 3 mph while zipping down a hill in New Zealand A typical zorb ride lasts about 40 seconds 11
