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Zorbing

by Erik Olsen (RSS feed) on Aug 10th 2005 at 4:00PM

From the folks who brought you bungee jumping (sort of) and glow worm cave tubing, not to mention Kiwi fruit and the knock your socks of scenery of the Lord of the Rings, now comes Zorbing.

Huh? What's that you say? Zorbing? WTF is that? Well, imagine yourself taking momentary leave of both your senses and the little cubicle you call your office, and harnessing yourself into a VW-sized, transparent ball of plastic. Then imagine someone rolling you down a steep hill at 25 mph. You are the boy in the plastic bubble, on steroids.

Well, the whole Zorbing thing started in New Zealand, but it has now rolled its way to the United States, and like any good fad, has attracted a legion of Zorbing fans…call them Zorbians, like some race of mega-cranium aliens from Star Trek. The fun begins this December in Boulder City, NV where the first official Zorbing park will be set up. Knowing my fellow Americans, I can only imagine where the Zorbing trend will head. Zorbing meets, Zorbing marathons, crash Zorbing where teams of Zorbians roll into each other on the field of battle, perhaps with knives affixed to their Zorbs. Perhaps even a Zorbing Olympic event someday.

Hail hail human ingenuity and, well, human weirdness.

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Carl Dec 18th 2005 5:08PM

Zorbing made an appearance on The Amazing Race not long ago. Can't remember which season (one of the last 2 I believe) but it looked pretty fun! The teams on the race looked they enjoyed the challenge... and got soaked in the process.

Speaking of New Zealand sports... they are also into river (or hydro) boating. Basically you use a special body board (they added handles to hold on) and hit the rapids. It's like whitewater kayaking on a body board.

That also made an appearance on The Amazing Race... looks like a great time for adrenaline junkies. I'm surprised it hasn't caught on elsewhere.

Check it out:

http://www.riverboarding.co.nz/riverboarding/index.html

Erik Olsen Dec 18th 2005 5:08PM

Thanks for the comment Carl! I missed the Amazing race thing. Damn. And thanks too for the other NZ sports ideas. Those crazy Kiwis.

Dave Dec 18th 2005 5:08PM

I'm actually just back from a trip to New Zealand where I did Zorbing which was excellent but as Carl pointed out River boarding as he calls it is brilliant.

I did that in New Zealand too but I did it up in the Lake Taupo region where it is known as sleging and appears to be more intense up there than in Queenstown.

I did it with a company known as Sledge-It [http://www.kaitiaki.co.nz/about_sledging.asp] and it was insane, I just can't believe that it's legal to allow people pay you money to do something so dangerous. At one point I went astray and went over a 2.5m waterfall!

If you want you can check out my pictures of my sledging trip on Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveirl/tags/sledging/

bloodthirstyrobot Dec 18th 2005 5:08PM

Peter Gabriel used that very prop on stage during his last tour. It was the first time I'd ever seen one of these...(and this post is the second time). On stage, Gabriel bounced around and then ran around inside this thing like some kind of mad, bald hamster dressed in black. It was quite the sight.

Steven Vance Dec 18th 2005 5:08PM

Zorbing was also on VH1's (or MTV's, but they're the same) Celebrity Fit Club 2. One of the races the participants had to compete in was "Zorbing" to the end of a track before the competitor.