Lyre aérienne

Aerial lyra — also called an aerial hoop or cerceau — is a steel ring rigged from one or two points and worked from inside and outside the circle. Unlike silks or rope, the apparatus holds its shape: the sizing decision is made once at purchase and cannot be adjusted afterwards.

What to look for when buying an aerial hoop

• Inner diameter, matched to your height. This is the one measurement that matters and the one most shops leave to guesswork. Sized correctly, you sit in the bottom of the hoop with your head clear of the top bar. Ours run 80–100 cm with a height range published for each size.
• Tabbed or tabless. Tabs are welded lugs at the top for rigging. They are convenient, but they are also a hard point to catch a hip or a knee on. A tabless ring keeps the whole circumference usable and lets you move the rigging point around the hoop instead of wearing one spot out.
• Solid or hollow steel. Hollow tube gives comparable working strength at far lower weight, which matters on an apparatus you spin, lift and travel with. Ask whether the published breaking strength was measured on the hoop as built or calculated from the raw tube — they are not the same number.
• Grip diameter. 25–26 mm is the common range. Thicker is harder to close a hand around in a single-hand catch; thinner concentrates pressure on the hands. Ours are 26 mm, the same as our dance trapeze bar.
• Load rating, and on what basis. Check whether a published figure is per hoop or for the whole rig including the point above it. Ours is SWL 200 kg per hoop, from a Minimum Breaking Strength of 2,000 kg at a 10:1 safety factor.
• What comes with it. A hoop is not a rig. You also need a rated rigging point, a strap to hang it from, a swivel and carabiners — each rated to at least the load of the hoop.

Aerial Obsessed hoops

Tabless hollow steel, black powder coated, 26 mm grip, in five inner diameters from 80 to 100 cm with a height guide for each size. Minimum Breaking Strength of 2,000 kg measured by breaking-load testing of the hoop as built, giving a Safe Working Load of 200 kg per hoop at a 10:1 safety factor. Rigged by girth-hitching a strap around the top of the ring — standard practice for tabless hoops, single-point setups included. Handcrafted to order in Alicante, Spain. Free worldwide shipping, 14-day returns.

Hoops ship on their own. Straps, tape, swivels and carabiners are bought separately — we do not currently stock them, so source them from a rigging supplier and check every part is rated to at least 200 kg.

New to rigging? Start with our guide to SWL, MBS and safety factors, then read how to build the rigging chain and check our rigging and hardware.