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electricpen

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Was waiting for the ninebot today so haven't had a chance to go out yet but the ninebot is now here. Pic also has the current KS16s with its newbie padding on. Note the helpful air valve extender included with the ninebot. Too bad all the instructions and even the power brick is Chinese (does not have a US three-prong adapter). That's to be expected though since the S2 is not for the American market. No, I didn't really take any extra effort to pad the bottom of the KS16 pedals but you can't see the scratches when the pedals are down anyway. That ninebot is very pretty though, maybe it's good I'm learning on the KS after all...

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5th session report: Thanks to @meepmeepmayer @ir_fuel @dpong for the tips! I was going too slow (partially because trying to lean forward with my whole body was causing me to lose balance). Manipulating my center of balance with my pelvis and a concerted effort to go faster did the trick today! My time upright is better expressed in minutes now instead of meters :wub:. I was doing multiple laps of the entire parking lot I practice in (about 100 x 35 meters I'd guess). I was able to turn the corners to make it around on purpose, straighten again, reverse directions, and even turn around 180 to go the other way. Occasionally felt unstable still and did feel that wobble that others have spoken about at times.

I found that while turning, my foot on the inside of the turn would sometimes slide slightly forward on the pedal. Over time going around the lot it eventually felt out of place and I would usually fall down trying to scoot it back to where it belongs. I also fell trying to stop twice although my second attempt at stopping was better - I basically came to a near halt before stepping off the wheel and letting it fall.

Now I just need consistency, better turning control, ability to stop smoothly, and ability to free mount to master the basics in most beginner videos. I may not have had a good big flat area with fencing to learn in, however, there is an amazing area for transitioning to practical riding I think once I get these basics down. There is a huge park maybe 5 minutes walk away from me. It has a lot of fairly wide walking trails with some hills and winding paths through the trees. It is usually pretty empty most of the day and there are probably at least a dozen miles of trails inside the park. Better than trying to immediately transition to sidewalks with pedestrians and less boring than spending another 20 hours in the parking lot haha.

Anyways, pretty excited. The jump between can't go more than 5 meters to doing laps around parking lots was pretty sudden. I was worried I was a slow learner or something but I guess I got to this point in perhaps 4 hours over 5 practice sessions in 3 days. I probably would have floundered for another day or two without your good advice though, so thanks! The beginning was pretty frustrating and I'm sure there's more frustration ahead but just being able to glide around for a couple minutes at a time at least is more fun than crashing and picking up the wheel every few meters.

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Congrats on the riding progress!  :thumbup:  If you can find a large basketball court or parking lot that is level just keep doing laps and try to stay on as long as you can.  Practice coming to a complete stop and shifting your weight to one side to step off on that side.  Work on launches from a standstill.  It's basically like learning how to ride a bicycle all over again.

BTW nice job on the wheel protection!  You'll find after you get used to riding that once you take it off everything is still pristine which is nice.  Maybe post up some riding practice videos so we can see how you are progressing.

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Nice it's getting better! But give your brain time to learn too. You could literally stop riding for a week now, and would be notably better after that. 3 days isn't long. Of course lots of practice force your brain to learn faster, but still, some time may just be required.

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I felt a few wobbles and a bit weird feeling and found my tire was only at 1.5 bar or around 20 psi. Inflated it to the recommended 40 psi and went in the morning for like 10 minutes before I had to do some work and was able to do 2 full laps around the parking lot in each direction. I only had one fail to launch out of 3 tries so starting to feel a bit more consistent. I was able to control my speed a bit, going faster and slowing almost to a stop but couldn't quite control the wheel at the stop and it tipped over. I feel like I need more open space than I have available now to practice turning because the parking lot has too many cars in it during the day. The only large spaces I can think of nearby are all grass so I might do some practice over there later today if the parking lot is full of cars again later today.

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Session 7 update: I went back to the parking lot and was able to essentially keep doing laps around as long as I wanted to without being in much danger of falling off. Right turns are a bit harder than left sometimes, I tend to scrape the pedal more often going right for some reason but it doesn't cause me to fall. I'll probably need to replace the pedals at the rate I'm peeling material off the bottom though. I also took my first real fall today. I've bailed on the wheel many times but was always able to hop or walk off it so that my wheel was doing all the falling and I was just walking away. Not today. I took a spill Superman style where I launched off it flying forward and landed on my hands, elbows, and knees at probably 15 km/hr. I was wearing full gear though and my clothes didn't even get damaged. I endorse the demon flex double sided wristguards though. I think my palms hit the ground first and I didn't even really feel it. I also endorse wearing heavy boots which I have been through this entire learning experience. The wheel has banged into my left ankle from all different angles and speeds through the last few days and I probably would have a seriously sprained ankle by now if I didn't have supportive boots on.

So I wanted to try circles and figure 8's but the parking lot has too many cars so I decided to walk to the aforementioned park. Ha! That was a terrible idea. The grass looks flat from a distance but the uncut grass is hiding a very bumpy dirt surface - there were 1-inch bumps and dips everywhere. It is actually so bumpy I think you would not even want to ride a bike over it. I walked pretty deep into the park and got impatient enough to try to mount the wheel without a support to lean on (I hadn't seen one for the last 10 minutes of walking). I was able to get on within 2 attempts and rode all the way to the exit of the park along the walking paths and at the end, there were two elderly pedestrians in the way and I smoothly came to a stop and stepped off the wheel without it falling over.

I think I will mix the parking lot with riding trails in the park. The uneven roads, inclines, relatively narrow curving paths, and occasional pedestrians are all probably a good transition to riding outside the protected empty parking lot environment without having to deal with cars or crowds yet. I also increased my speed limits. My first alarm was set at 10kph and tiltback at 15kph. I've moved first alarm to 15kph and tiltback at 20kph now. Before I was basically constantly getting the beeps from the first alarm. Happy with my progress so far and think there's a decent chance I will be ready to try to do some practice commutes with it (not under time constraints, not in rush hour, etc) in a week or so.

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Session 8 update: My new digital electric air compressor came today and I discovered my Kingsong has been at about 14.5 psi... I inflated it up to 40 psi and went back to the parking lot and proceeded to fail to launch about 5-6 times in a row from the different feel of the inflated tire. I got it down after that though and proceeded to do laps around the parking lot relatively smoothly. It was a pretty windy day and I discovered huge gusts of wind can have a pretty destabilizing effect and I struggled to stay upright through some of them. When doing my laps I am focusing on making the turns tight enough so I could feasibly make a 90-degree turn in the width of a normal sidewalk. I did a few tight 180's and then, feeling confident, I went to...

Golden Gate Park. It was a nice day and I was feeling ambitious so I got on the wheel right at the NE corner and started along the pedestrian trails. Google claims this park is flat and I suppose if you average the entire length of it, that might make sense. But there are numerous 20-50 meter long inclines that can be fairly steep and/or narrow and/or very badly paved. There were a lot of bumps, cracks, potholes, and other unfortunate situations I had to navigate or simply run over and try to not fall off. I managed to do about 5 km through the park and since it is Saturday it was fairly busy near the major points of interest. Through this time I navigated through a fair amount of pedestrian traffic and nobody thought I was a threat to them or their small children so I must not have looked too unstable.

The biggest takeaway from this ride is that I am consistent and stable enough at a speed range of moderate jog to 20kph that I can stay on the wheel until I need to stop or go at about walking pace or slower. I have enough control to go around pedestrians when they leave me a small opening on one side. I can go up hills, even fairly steep ones, quite easily but going down those same hills still feels a bit strange. This causes a funny scenario where I go faster up hills than I do going down them.

Things I would need to improve in order to commute on a wheel imo:

  1. Be stable at a slower speed, ideally around a slow walk, but normal walking pace would be ok.
  2. Be able to stop without dropping the wheel. I can slow down to a stop easily but I usually drop the wheel 6/10 times between my legs due to lack of stability as I slow down. 3/10 times I slow down and can bend over and catch the handle before it hits the ground. 1/10 times I slow down and keep a foot on the pedal and it remains upright.
  3. Be able to launch consistently, even in bad terrain and have control to do so with pedestrians close by. I sometimes still wobble or don't have 100% control of my direction for a second or two after launching from a support.
  4. It would be nice to be able to launch consistently without a support but not 100% necessary for an urban commute since there is pretty much always something to lean on to help get started.
  5. Go down hills with confidence (My commute to school is mostly downhill - obviously the opposite returning).

Anyway, pretty happy today. Was the first time I had moments where I could relax and enjoy the scenery I was riding through. Going relatively straight is pretty automatic now, it's only tight turns, really narrow spaces, and slow/stop situations that I have to think about now. Cheers to everyone in here that helped me get out of the newbie doldrums!

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Session 9 report: Went back to the parking lot after dark. During the day it's nearly full the last couple days so, not a lot of space to practice. Started to practice slaloming to help with turn control since I can't do the traditional circles - there simply is no place wide and flat enough near me. This actually seemed to help so I will continue to mix it into my practice routine. I had 1 "successful" stop in maybe 5 tries. Success meaning I kept the wheel upright with one foot on a pedal. Interestingly I had 4 successful freestanding mounts in a row at the end of the session. I had tried to do this maybe 6-7 times earlier in the session but failed every time. Then all of a sudden I got it every time 20 minutes later. We'll see if that continues into the next couple days. It would be weird to master mounting the wheel before I can stop it though I think. That's not the normal order of operations from what I've read.

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Wind = dangerous, and the muscle tension form balancing it makes the ride wobbly (side to side).

Your list of improvements needed is harsh, you can't expect that much after such a short time. Especially all the low speed stuff is not that easy.

Stopping: maybe brake faster/with more power, so the entire time needed for stopping is shorter. (Emergency) stopping can be done by bending your knees/squatting (shifts your weight back), not just leaning back.

But really, don't expect too much, this stuff just needs more practice. Just go on your commute and see how it goes. Worst case, you trolley your wheel at every intersection and need longer between lights than you'd on foot, but so what. Going slightly beyond what you're comfortable with makes you learn really fast. As long as you can brake reasonably well...

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Session 10 report: I headed out in the morning to do some riding and took a short video of me doing one lap around the parking lot. I don't have a gopro or tripod so my phone was just leaning against a parking block. I practice my emergency stops by getting up to speed (about 20 kph currently) and then trying to come to a complete stop within the width of one of those parking spaces. I can do it every time now and almost always keep the wheel under control at the end as well as you see in the video.

Boring video

I went to the park and did another 6 km. I rode the wheel to the park and back home as well in addition to riding on the trails. I mounted without support every time throughout the park and did so successfully probably 5/7 times. And when I failed it was not a spectacular fail, just a little step forward and reset. No falls and pretty in control the entire ride. I went on fairly narrow paths, up and down hills, ducked low branches, and was able to navigate through pedestrians without any issues. Based on this experience I think I actually have enough skill to commute now which is a huge jump for me. My slow speed balance is getting better and I am able to stop and either grab the wheel or keep my leg on it 100% of the time. It never hit the asphalt today which was a first.

The only other thing I'd say I need to practice a bit is turning on inclines. I had a couple times riding home that I had to make turns going up a steep incline and it was a little odd feeling and hard to maintain momentum. I managed to do it but I feel like more practice would make it smoother. My commute has a lot of hills in it so this is something that I'm going to practice no matter what if I ride the wheel lol. The other thing is I need to practice riding with a backpack. Not sure if that will change the balance any but I should do some practice runs with some weight on my back as well. Anyways, it hasn't 'clicked' yet as in everything is super unconscious but I'm getting closer to that and have a lot of sections of the ride where I can look around at the scenery and interact with people in a relaxed manner as I ride. I just have to concentrate when stopping, starting, and making really tight or tricky turns.

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You can officially ride now!:thumbup:

13 minutes ago, electricpen said:

The only other thing I'd say I need to practice a bit is turning on inclines.

You really have too high expectations for yourself:)

16 minutes ago, electricpen said:

Anyways, it hasn't 'clicked' yet

Not everyone has to have a "click", you can already ride and are therefore beyond that point (click usually refers to being able to stay on the thing in the first place), and you'll simply get better with usage (I would no longer call it practice).

--

Any thoughts on how it feels to ride Ninebot vs 16S?

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7 minutes ago, meepmeepmayer said:

You can officially ride now!:thumbup:

You really have too high expectations for yourself:)

Not everyone has to have a "click", you can already ride and are therefore beyond that point (click usually refers to being able to stay on the thing in the first place), and you'll simply get better with usage (I would no longer call it practice).

--

Any thoughts on how it feels to ride Ninebot vs 16S?

I have filled the tires and charged it up but have not taken it out yet. I was kind of waiting until I stopped dropping/crashing the kingsong every day before I tried it. I also haven't put padding on it yet which I will still do since it is just so pretty... I don't ride the Kingsong faster than the ninebot can go yet so I probably won't be sad about the speed difference but the power the KS has to just run up a hill without slowing down (since I'm operating at only 60% maximum speed) is pretty amazing feeling and not sure the ninebot will be able to replicate that but I am planning to wrap it up and take it out soon now that I can ride for an hour plus without crashing or dropping the wheel.

Incidentally, I am pretty tempted by the new Gotway Mten3 since it should have enough juice to go up the hills with speed but I want to try the ninebot first since I like how it looks a lot more and it is not much heavier than the Mten3. Yeah it has less speed but I am a bit worried about going over some of the cracks and bumps we have in the streets here on a 10" wheel at higher speed than the ninebot can go anyway...

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:cheers:  Good riding video - and slaloming too!  Nicely done.  I'd say you're there.  It might be hard going to the Ninebot after riding the KS, but I hear it's a pretty good wheel too.  Maybe you can get together with the rest of the SanFran riders for a group ride pretty soon.

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45 minutes ago, Hunka Hunka Burning Love said:

Maybe you can get together with the rest of the SanFran riders for a group ride pretty soon.

 

Thanks to everyone's help I got up and running in under a week! :cheers:  

I never see the SanFran group post in that local subforum and the meetup link hasn't been used in almost 2 years so I'm not sure how to find them. I spent 2 more hours on the road today after making that video running errands. Now I look for excuses to have to go somewhere so I can go for a ride lol. I took a light backpack to carry stuff and get used to having one. I tried going in some pretty minimal sneakers instead of my boots but it felt so weird I turned around and went back into the house to put my boots on. Didn't feel confident to ride in traffic with the shoe change haha. I'll need to practice with them in the parking lot for a little bit to get used to them probably. I'm going to wrap up the ninebot soon to try it I think. I may actually unwrap the KS in a week or so if I continue to do a good job of not dropping it on the ground. But I need to get used to my lighter sneakers first since I anticipate some dropping when I switch. I was amazed how much different it felt, I thought it would be no big deal.

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Not going to lie though, I am pretty tempted to get that Mten3 but what I really want is a ninebot s2 with the Mten3 motor and battery. Trying to resist since the s2 is already filling my small wheel role and probably will get the new ninebot z10 for my big wheel if it lives up to its specs. I really just need to take the ninebot s2 on my local hills and see how it does. If it handles them fine I guess I don't really need the Mten3. In fact I am going to pad it up and take it out now so I can either stop being tempted by the new shiny wheel ... or maybe convince myself I need to buy it. This isn't really working that well haha. Oh well, I guess I'm going to have like 5 wheels eventually.

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27 minutes ago, electricpen said:

Thanks to everyone's help I got up and running in under a week! :cheers:  

I never see the SanFran group post in that local subforum and the meetup link hasn't been used in almost 2 years so I'm not sure how to find them. I spent 2 more hours on the road today after making that video running errands. Now I look for excuses to have to go somewhere so I can go for a ride lol. I took a light backpack to carry stuff and get used to having one. I tried going in some pretty minimal sneakers instead of my boots but it felt so weird I turned around and went back into the house to put my boots on. Didn't feel confident to ride in traffic with the shoe change haha. I'll need to practice with them in the parking lot for a little bit to get used to them probably. I'm going to wrap up the ninebot soon to try it I think. I may actually unwrap the KS in a week or so if I continue to do a good job of not dropping it on the ground. But I need to get used to my lighter sneakers first since I anticipate some dropping when I switch. I was amazed how much different it felt, I thought it would be no big deal.

The San Francisco riders do all of their organizing on their Facebook Group page. Do a Facebook search on "Bay Area Electric Unicycle Group" or click this hyperlink.

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37 minutes ago, Marty Backe said:

The San Francisco riders do all of their organizing on their Facebook Group page. Do a Facebook search on "Bay Area Electric Unicycle Group" or click this hyperlink.

Ah facebook. I never use mine. I guess its good to know though, I'll keep an eye on it, thanks! Time to go try to see what a ninebot is like after my KS-16s, be back a bit later.

https://goo.gl/photos/KauZB9MkNhmWtdHK6

All dressed up and ready to go out!

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1 hour ago, electricpen said:

I never see the SanFran group post in that local subforum and the meetup link hasn't been used in almost 2 years so I'm not sure how to find them. 

Some of us are here too! The Meetup group is an older group but many of us are active here and on our FB group. Hope to see you sometime and happy wheeling!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/621491334621039/

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Ok I just got back from taking the ninebot for a spin and wow, I really like it actually. It was easier to stay balanced at very slow speeds, easier to wiggle through very small spaces, easier to stop and control the wheel, easier to mount without a support... easier to run out of batteries :whistling:

Its very light and very nimble, it feels very easy to twist, tilt, and turn it between your legs where the kingsong has more weight and momentum behind it and is just a little more sluggish. The KS is not really sluggish but the ninebot just felt very very responsive. Yes I ran into tiltback pretty easily too but I really enjoyed the handling of the wheel and would actually choose it over the KS if I knew I had to ride through heavy pedestrian traffic. But the KS has so much more range and power that overall it is definitely the better wheel and I'm sure as I get better I will be able to do all those things on it too, it was just easier on the ninebot for me right now. But yeah I also burned off 30% of the battery in like 35 min of riding - and part of that time I had to do 1 km at like 6 or 7 km/h limited speed to unlock the wheel. I did put it to the test on some hills though so that probably was not kind to the battery.

Still, I was afraid I would regret buying the ninebot but after that ride, I have no regrets, it is different enough from the KS to have a place and it has just enough power to go up the majority of the non-crazy hills around here which is good enough for me.

I'm going to post a review of these two wheels later when I put more miles on them. I'm still too new and haven't had enough experience with them but I do enjoy riding each of them.

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On ‎8‎/‎13‎/‎2017 at 4:52 PM, electricpen said:

Ok I just got back from taking the ninebot for a spin and wow, I really like it actually. It was easier to stay balanced at very slow speeds, easier to wiggle through very small spaces, easier to stop and control the wheel, easier to mount without a support... easier to run out of batteries :whistling:

Grr!  It was three weeks ago that I was thinking of getting a 9B to tide me over, but chose to be "reasonable" and wait.

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100 KM update: I have put 100 KM on my KS-16s in the first week of ownership. I am now able to do all basic drills consistently - jump mount, stop and dismount, small circles, slalom, slow speed maneuver and balance (fast walk speed is now stable, slowly getting better). I have pushed the KS to near its max safe speed (33 km/h) and have gone through pedestrian filled sidewalks as well as shared bike lanes with bikes and the cars next to them. I have ridden over dirt, grass, rough asphalt, and smooth concrete as well as some wet grass and concrete. I can mount and dismount on inclines as well as turn up and down inclines well (I haven't tried circles on incline yet though). I can look to the sides and behind me without losing balance (this actually was never a problem for me but I've read it can be tricky for some at the beginning). I can do a 180 without dismounting on a normal width sidewalk.

My thoughts? Very efficient, fun, and practical which is everything I had hoped it would be when I decided to jump into the EUC world without a parachute. I am going to be starting school in one week so I will not have as much time to practice as I have had this last week but I will be commuting on my EUCs so I will still be getting some time in. I plan to work on jumping so that I can hop over street curbs and larger bumps in the road as well as the "pendulum" technique to stay stable in one place. Probably going backward too. I probably won't get much progress on these skills until school is out in 3 months but I look forward to gaining as much skill as I can so that I can enjoy these amazing machines to their fullest. While it took me a few days to get going I am happy with my skill progression overall in the last week.

I am also logging battery and mileage for my wheels during my commute and will post the numbers when I do my review of the ninebot and kingsong after I have put more time on each. But right now the KS is averaging 11WH/km traveled. This number seems pretty consistent so far (it is actually averaging 10.81WH/km but I round up). This means I should be able to go about 61 km before I hit the 20% mark.

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I have put roughly 7x as many miles on my KS-16s as my ninebot S2 and the ninebot still feels easier for me to ride in small spaces, slow speeds, etc. It just seems to be better at fine maneuvering than the KS even though I have specifically taken time to practice these things on the KS and have spent zero time doing dedicated practice on the ninebot. Is this just inherent to a smaller wheel? I can now do fairly tight slow circles on the kingsong after a practice session doing only this but the ninebot still feels more maneuverable for some reason.

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On 8/15/2017 at 0:24 PM, electricpen said:

100 KM update: I have put 100 KM on my KS-16s in the first week of ownership. I am now able to do all basic drills consistently - jump mount, stop and dismount, small circles, slalom, slow speed maneuver and balance (fast walk speed is now stable, slowly getting better). I have pushed the KS to near its max safe speed (33 km/h) and have gone through pedestrian filled sidewalks as well as shared bike lanes with bikes and the cars next to them. I have ridden over dirt, grass, rough asphalt, and smooth concrete as well as some wet grass and concrete. I can mount and dismount on inclines as well as turn up and down inclines well (I haven't tried circles on incline yet though). I can look to the sides and behind me without losing balance (this actually was never a problem for me but I've read it can be tricky for some at the beginning). I can do a 180 without dismounting on a normal width sidewalk.

My thoughts? Very efficient, fun, and practical which is everything I had hoped it would be when I decided to jump into the EUC world without a parachute. I am going to be starting school in one week so I will not have as much time to practice as I have had this last week but I will be commuting on my EUCs so I will still be getting some time in. I plan to work on jumping so that I can hop over street curbs and larger bumps in the road as well as the "pendulum" technique to stay stable in one place. Probably going backward too. I probably won't get much progress on these skills until school is out in 3 months but I look forward to gaining as much skill as I can so that I can enjoy these amazing machines to their fullest. While it took me a few days to get going I am happy with my skill progression overall in the last week.

I am also logging battery and mileage for my wheels during my commute and will post the numbers when I do my review of the ninebot and kingsong after I have put more time on each. But right now the KS is averaging 11WH/km traveled. This number seems pretty consistent so far (it is actually averaging 10.81WH/km but I round up). This means I should be able to go about 61 km before I hit the 20% mark.

This post brings a figurative tear to my eye, as we can see just what a game changer having one is, and also some slight depression because when I was in my twenties I had no such device.

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