Ottumwa gets new ‘human hamster wheel’

OTTUMWA - A windstorm last July destroyed the old-fashioned - and popular - 'human hamster wheel” in Ottumwa Park.

Speculation followed: Could a new running wheel be found?

Questions also followed: Assuming such an item could be found, how safe would it be? Could it be insured for liability?

'I did quite a bit of research online and in playground equipment catalogs,” said Gene Rathje, Ottumwa Parks director.

What he found wasn't exactly the same. The new one is smaller and appears safer.

'The old hamster wheel, it was installed long before the modern safety standards came into being,” Rathje said. 'This is specifically certified as safe, otherwise the city would be liable.”

To protect little ones, the parks department put a soft 'fall surface” below the piece of equipment. The spinning wheel apparatus has been set in cement.

'It's called a Revo, obviously short for revolution,” Rathje said. 'It spins around a 360-degree. vertical circle, just like the hamster wheel.”

It is smaller, too, than the old wheel, which was a 5-foot-high, 4-foot-wide, hollow wooden wheel. In fact, while no one has used it yet, there does not appear to be enough room for even a child to stand within the wheel.

On the plus side, it looks like the rider is much more likely to make a full revolution - completely upside down - than on the original wheel.

The Revo cost $5,760, funded by a grant from the Wapello County Foundation. The parks department handled the installation.

After a photo of the wrecked 'hamster wheel” hit Facebook last July, it garnered a shocked, fairly widespread response. A petition to replace it started within days, asking the parks department to replace unusual contraption.

The petition was started by Rachel Hull, a lifelong Ottumwa resident. She said if the parks department couldn't reproduce the original, she'd like to see some version of the wheel.

Hull said she was hoping to get '20 or 30 signatures.”

Two days later, she had 600 signatures.

Parks director Rathje was watching.

'I got the message,” he said. 'People wanted it replaced.”