Zorb Ball

If you have ever wished you could walk on water or effortlessly cartwheel down a mountain range, the Zorb will fulfill your dreams. This latest extreme sport, which already has a cult following in New Zealand, will arrive in the United States this summer.

A Zorb is a huge round clear polyvinyl chloride inflatable ball that looks much like a giant soap bubble. It weighs 200 pounds and spans 10.5 feet in diameter. It has two skins--one inside the other. A person stands inside the smaller skin, or what would be the yoke of an egg, and is suspended by a cushion of air 2 feet off the ground.

“They put you inside the ball and tell you to run like a hamster to pick up some momentum,” said Andrew Peter Spencer, a Zorb aficionado.

After a Zorb is launched down a hill, it can hit speeds of up to 31 mph. Securely cocooned inside the Zorb, the person tumbles, flips and slides back and forth like a rag doll during the three-minute ride.

“All of a sudden you’re all over the place doing cartwheels and getting completely disoriented. It’s awesome,” said Spencer, a 21-year-old Vermont native who currently studies at Massey Palmerston North University in New Zealand.

Zorbing is a rite of passage for people in New Zealand, said Spencer, who enjoys other extreme sports like sprint car racing and bungee jumping. “You have to be a bit of a risk taker to go Zorbing. It gives you bragging rights.”

So far no one has died from Zorbing, according to Lizzie Dean, a spokeswoman for Zorb Ltd., which makes the human-size hamster balls. The company is based in New Zealand but has franchises in more than a dozen countries, including Argentina and Hungary.

“It’s not a dangerous sport,” Dean said. “It’s a lot of fun. You laugh all the way down the hill, and you keep laughing afterward.” She added, “We've had over 100,000 Zorbonauts and not a single one has even vomited inside the Zorb.”