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"The first thing that's wrong with being a science-fiction writer today is that the present has caught up with the future and surpassed it."
- Peter Watts

Gyro Two-Wheeled Truck  
  A gyroscopically-stabilized truck with just two wheels.  

Now Alexander saw that the two-wheeled truck was still waiting, backed up to the loading platform...

The Gyro was one of the air-driven Robling types, very simple, vey reliable, the flywheel driven by a tiny stream of air impinging on the peripheral turbine blades. Once it was in motion, very little air was needed to keep the heavy rotor turning at a high enough velocity to stabilize tha truck.

From The Sign of the Tiger, by Alan Nourse (w/Meyer).
Published by Amazing Science Fiction Stories in 1958
Additional resources -

Compare to the gyrocar from Two Boys in a Gyrocar the story of a New York to Paris motor race (1911) by Kenneth Brown, the Gyro-Hat from An Experiment in Gyro-Hats (1926) by Ellis Parker Butler, the tumblebug from The Roads Must Roll (1940) by Robert Heinlein, the Two-Wheeled Ground Car from First Lensman (1950) by E.E. 'Doc' Smith, the Gyrocar (Gyro) from The Ring (1969) by Piers Anthony (w/R. Margroff) and the smart bike from Distraction (1998) by Bruce Sterling.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Sign of the Tiger
  More Ideas and Technology by Alan Nourse (w/Meyer)
  Tech news articles related to The Sign of the Tiger
  Tech news articles related to works by Alan Nourse (w/Meyer)

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