page_title: Nik Wallenda
section_title: Wheel of Steel
hierarchical_section_title: Nik Wallenda / Career / Wheel of Steel
caption_attribution_description: Nik Wallenda walks a tightrope over Baltimore's Inner Harbour, on a 1-inch cable.
context_page_description: Nikolas Wallenda is an American acrobat, aerialist, daredevil, high wire artist, and author. He is known for his high-wire performances without a safety net. He holds 11 Guinness World Records for various acrobatic feats, but was best known as the first person to walk a tightrope stretched directly over Niagara Falls. Wallenda walked 1,800 feet on a steel cable over Masaya Volcano in Nicaragua, his longest walk, on March 4, 2020.
  Wallenda is a 7th-generation member of The Flying Wallendas family, and he participated in various circus acts as a child. He made his professional tightrope walking debut at age 13, and he chose high-wire walking as his career in 1998 after joining family members in a seven-person pyramid on the wire. In 2001, he was part of the world's first eight-person high-wire pyramid. He performed with his family at various venues from 2002 to 2005, forming his own troupe in 2005. He performed with Bello Nock in 2007 and 2008 in a double version of the Wheel of Steel that he helped invent. In 2009, he set new personal bests for highest and longest tightrope walks, completing a total of 15 walks above 100 feet in the air that year.
context_section_description: In 2007 and 2008, Wallenda was a featured performer in the Ringling Brothers production Bellobration, performing with Bello Nock on a newly contrived, double version of the Wheel of Steel. At the beginning of the act, Wallenda and Nock stood balanced atop twin circles 39 feet in the air. To the audience, the circles appeared to be connected until the act started with a burst of fireworks. The wheels then split, sending the performers in opposite directions without safety nets or harnesses. To stay on the device, the duo had to move in unison, running at up to 20 miles an hour. Vibrations were transferred from one wheel to the other, meaning each performer was affected by what the other was doing. At the top of each arc the performers were rendered weightless, while being subjected to several times the force of gravity at the bottom.
  The act was set around a story line. During the first half of the circus, Wallenda's wife, Erendira, played the love interest of Nock. After intermission, Wallenda and Nock "battled" it out on the Wheel, competing for her heart. To enhance the entertainment value, they mixed jumping rope, somersaults, and leaps into the routine. In all, the Wheel performance lasted seven minutes.
  Also part of the same show was a sway pole performance by Nock and Wallenda's wife. Using 73-foot (22 m) poles that swayed as much as 20 feet (6.1 m) in all directions, the couple did a series of tricks that included climbing up and sliding down the poles, swinging all around, and jumping from pole to pole. In all, sixteen members of the Wallenda family were part of Bellobration.
  The double Wheel of Steel was invented by Wallenda and Nock. The two had grown up together in Sarasota and had talked about teaming up for years before coming up with the double Wheel concept, drawing up the initial plans on a tablecloth during dinner in 2005. They then spent nine months building the device in Nock's backyard workshop, and a further four months testing it and designing a performance. The greatest challenge was to find a way to split the wheels while they were still spinning. "There were a lot of back-to-the-drawing-board moments", Wallenda later recalled. Ultimately, the problem was solved via a system of piston-like pneumatic cylinders. Wallenda's uncle, Timothy Stephenson, who is an engineer for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), suggested that an axle be built of custom-blended, hardened steel alloy to keep it from breaking. In the end, the device cost more than $100,000 to produce.
caption: Wallenda walks a tightrope over Baltimore's Inner Harbor
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