Would it Influence Your Decision to Buy a Gotway Wheel, if the Max Speed in the Firmware Were Limited to 30MPH/48KPH?

[steve454]

1 hour ago, Rehab1 said:

Not to worry buddy. I’m sure hardcore bikers passed right over that word and 90% of the others.  

Probably the only reason I knew the word, is that I was a state vehicle safety inspector for 15 years.  We had to look for things like that.

[Rehab1]

6 minutes ago, steve454 said:

Probably the only reason I knew the word, is that I was a state vehicle safety inspector for 15 years.  

I’m sure you had some angry encounters with vehicle owners! Did you wear a helmet? 

[steve454]

It was a bitch sometimes.

[Smoother]

1 hour ago, steve454 said:

I figured you'd be eating Groaty pudding, seeing as how that's an English dish.

Now you're just being ridiculous.....That was last night. Nobody eats Groaty pudding two nights in a row.  What's wrong with you man? 

[steve454]

12 minutes ago, Smoother said:

Now you're just being ridiculous.....That was last night. Nobody eats Groaty pudding two nights in a row.  What's wrong with you man? 

  Oh, snap!  Now I know where the word grody came from!  Thanks!

It looks delicio  oh gad, even googlr cant help me anymore  Sorry to troble you sir.

[The Fat Unicyclist]

5 hours ago, Smoother said:

Now you're just being ridiculous.....That was last night. Nobody eats Groaty pudding two nights in a row.  What's wrong with you man? 

Exactly... Especially if there's the option of Spotted Dick!

[TremF]

I'm all for the speed limit. It would be good if it could be a firmware option? Use the software to select the speed limit or not.

I often rode my Ninebot on the tilt back and never once had it cutout. The ACM I took to 25 mph max and the Monster 22/23 mph though I think once maybe I took it to 28 mph, according to a radar speed sign at the bottom of the road where I work.

[Chriull]

To start off with, i've never ridden a Gotway, nor an EUC without tiltback and neither went up to 30 mph with an EUC,but: 

@Jason McNeil: First of all there should be a nice introductorily description of the available torque (balancing/acceleration possibilities) over speed in the manual - most people starting out with EUC's believe that it's more or less like with a car. Once the speed gets to high the acceleration gets less and one just can't get faster... Until they learn it the hard way (... or read by accident one of the many discussions here about this topic and get an idea of the underlying mechanics...)

Then one would know that a fixed tilt back is just a partial safety measure. The more acceleration (incline) the lower the possible rideable speed gets... 

One important measure is as @WARPed1701D already wrote an "intelligent/dynamic" tiltback, that considers the acceleration so one is not vaulted off the wheel.

Secondly the tiltback has to consider the motor characteristic. The more one accelerates (the higher the load of the motor is) the lower the tiltback speed limit has to be. We already had quite some topics where people wondered why there was no tiltback before the overlean...

In detail described in 

And if, as also already mentioned here before, for this Gotway engages some profound control theory specialist to implement this into the firmware, does enough testing (it's easy to create some new "oscillation bugs" if one just implements some limiting on top off the existing pid controller...) i'd change to a gotway as my next wheel.

Btw.: Some wheel (?Solowheel?) had the pedals vibrating as alarm - would be a nice addition to the beep which is easy to be missed at high speeds.

[Shad0z]

if they got their quality control fixed then i think it would be fine if you could set it yourself how much risk you would take

[Roo Williams]

Just updated my vote for no limits - as I've become more proficient I can see myself wanting to reach greater speeds. In NYC 30 feels like plenty, but if I were to hit the open road and do some more rural exploration I'd love the option to go faster. If Gotway is the brand that allows us to do that, then great. They have already built a community of people that buy for the more extreme EUC riding. I would love to see them focus on, and communicate a commitment to safety through reliability - control boards, axles, build quality, rather than safety through limitation. 

[kour]

i voted 'no' because i basically never go up to 30mph - however, i always disable tiltback and refer to the beeps

[Brian Morris]

unexpected tilt-back can put you on your ass at those speeds.  After reading everything I have online, mine is disabled but I make damn sure I can hear last alarm beeps or I don't push the limits.  Gotway Tesla is a hooligan wheel, take that away and I wouldn't have ever bought one....

[Mono]

On 3/17/2018 at 4:14 PM, Jason McNeil said:

As some others have pointed out, all it takes is for one highly-publicized high speed cut-outs to go viral (e.g. witness the kamikaze chap on the highway), so that Wheeling, instead of being the transportation solution to the future, will become stigmatized, with ensuing draconian legislation, just as we witnessed the association between Hoverboards & incendiary domestic scenes a few years ago. 

The immediate objective is not to Nanny-proof the Wheel, but to do everything that's reasonably possible to reduce the probability of Operator error in a momentary lapse of concentration, thus impairing his future.

One of the problems of the current high-performance class Wheels, is that they bestow a false sense of invulnerability. I have to admit to being personally guilty of this, 'Yes', we think to ourselves, 'Wheeling can be dangerous & others have suffered misfortune, but I'm endowed exceptionally unique skills, so that this won't happen to me!'

Very much appreciated, @Jason McNeil, and I have to reiterate the obvious (sorry): it is not only (and not even mainly) the wheelers themselves who need to be protected against life altering harms as unmistakably as possible.

[Roo Williams]

I do think the alarms need work... With wind noise it is difficult to hear, I tried riding with a full faced helmet for the first time a few nights ago and I could barely hear anything so wouldn't stand a chance at hearing the beeps. Tilt back is one form of feedback... if people are disabling that then maybe time to investigate another form.. maybe a light pointed at the user that flashes to alert them or some other subtle feedback pattern in the motor function.

[oolong]

I know I'm late to the conversion, but the poll is a false choice...   Just because I rarely drive faster than 25MPH doesn't mean I don't want the option in case I do.   The problem isn't the speed, it's the cut off.  Creating arbitrary limits regardless of conditions, wheel, or a rider's skill isn't an answer.  Regardless of the speed a wheel should never get to a point where it is unable to continue unless it cuts off.  This applies to a Gotway Monster all the way down to an MTen.     The question then becomes  what is the best mechanism to prevent a cut off?  Whether this is a tilt back, louder beeps, etc. because setting a limit is moot unless you have a sure and safe way of enforcing that limit.

I don't know why we don't have vibrations or rumble packs in our wheels.  To me that would seem like it might be a good mechanism for alerting the rider without relying on sound.

[Mono]

2 hours ago, oolong said:

The question then becomes  what is the best mechanism to prevent a cut off?

There is nothing really to prevent, a wheel just doesn't need to and should not cut off under load . The real problem is that with increasing speed the torque decreases, linearly to zero(!). And nobody wants to operate a wheel at limit speed with zero reserve torque in practice. Or hit a bump far below the limit speed which exceeds the reserve torque. Hence any wheel must have a speed limiter far below the possible limit speed under load which is again notably below the (non-load) cut off speed. Tilt-back is the only reliable method for an EUC speed limiter I know of. I believe that some wheels (among them Solowheel) had a vibration notification, which is at least a reliable way to notify the rider.

[oolong]

54 minutes ago, Mono said:

Tilt-back is the only reliable method for an EUC speed limiter I know of. I believe that some wheels (among them Solowheel) had a vibration notification, which is at least a reliable way to notify the rider.

I've seen plenty of people power through a tiltback and for others having a the wheel tiltback at a higher speed can make it feel unsafe.  I would be perfectly ok with Gotway setting a tiltback at a point which represented the motor's inability to control the rider safely regardless of the RPM, but I think vibration would be better.

I've never been a fan of just cutting off wheels at high speed.  To me it's just a "feature" that only created a lot of accidents over the years.  Austin said he didn't have problems riding without any speed limiter, he just learned to feel the motor losing torque.  I just wonder if we would even be having this conversation today if automatic cut offs were never a thing.   It might be dangerous if the wheel started tilting forward as it was losing torque, but I've heard of people recovering from that situation.  Whereas a cut off is just being lucky enough to land on your feet which 95% of people aren't that lucky.

 

[eddiemoy]

59 minutes ago, oolong said:

I've seen plenty of people power through a tiltback and for others having a the wheel tiltback at a higher speed can make it feel unsafe.  I would be perfectly ok with Gotway setting a tiltback at a point which represented the motor's inability to control the rider safely regardless of the RPM, but I think vibration would be better.

I've never been a fan of just cutting off wheels at high speed.  To me it's just a "feature" that only created a lot of accidents over the years.  Austin said he didn't have problems riding without any speed limiter, he just learned to feel the motor losing torque.  I just wonder if we would even be having this conversation today if automatic cut offs were never a thing.   It might be dangerous if the wheel started tilting forward as it was losing torque, but I've heard of people recovering from that situation.  Whereas a cut off is just being lucky enough to land on your feet which 95% of people aren't that lucky.

 

From warning to faceplant happens in a split second.  I don't think you want to entrust the rider to react fast enough to a warning.  I rather the wheel handle it.  If the wheel can't reliably deliver the power, don't allow the wheel to get to that point of no return.  

[Mono]

2 hours ago, oolong said:

I've seen plenty of people power through a tiltback

On which wheels you have seen people "power through" tiltback? I have in mind that Gotway seemed to have troubles to implement an effective and reasonably safe tiltback. I can immediately believe that an effective tiltback algorithm cannot be developed and implemented in just a or hours.

[oolong]

5 hours ago, Mono said:

On which wheels you have seen people "power through" tiltback? I have in mind that Gotway seemed to have troubles to implement an effective and reasonably safe tiltback. I can immediately believe that an effective tiltback algorithm cannot be developed and implemented in just a or hours.

KS wheels... People were speed testing and basically just powering through the tilt back until a cut off.  Albeit these were earlier wheels.  I don't know if there have been significant improvements since then.  I was just riding my MCM5 earlier with the tiltback on and I could have ignored it.  If you ride on your toes like I do and have your feet towards the front you might not even feel it that strongly.  Especially with those longer pedals that people seem to like.

[Mono]

49 minutes ago, oolong said:

KS wheels... People were speed testing and basically just powering through the tilt back until a cut off.  Albeit these were earlier wheels.  I don't know if there have been significant improvements since then.  I was just riding my MCM5 earlier with the tiltback on and I could have ignored it.  If you ride on your toes like I do and have your feet towards the front you might not even feel it that strongly.  Especially with those longer pedals that people seem to like.

I see, if you "might not even feel it that strongly" then you haven't ridden a wheel which actually implements tiltback effectively. As an example:

If you want to "power through" tiltback, you have to, somewhat surprisingly, lift your front foot (extremely). If you keep the foot level or push you will either have to slow down immediately after or fall on your butt. If tiltback sets in (too) quickly, it feels like pulling the rug out from under your feet and you lose ground support, because the heel fails to get support from the pedal.

[oolong]

6 minutes ago, Mono said:

I see, if you "might not even feel it that strongly" then you haven't ridden a wheel which actually implements tiltback effectively. As an example:

 

Like I said, I ride on my toes.  The rider in the video, clearly rides on his heels.  If I rode on my heels It would certainly impact me a lot.   I could literally stand on the edge if I really wanted to.

[eddiemoy]

4 hours ago, oolong said:

KS wheels... People were speed testing and basically just powering through the tilt back until a cut off.  Albeit these were earlier wheels.  I don't know if there have been significant improvements since then.  I was just riding my MCM5 earlier with the tiltback on and I could have ignored it.  If you ride on your toes like I do and have your feet towards the front you might not even feel it that strongly.  Especially with those longer pedals that people seem to like.

I have a KS16 and can ride the tiltback for miles with no issues.  Not sure which earlier models you mean.

[Cloud]

5 hours ago, oolong said:

KS wheels... People were speed testing and basically just powering through the tilt back until a cut off.  Albeit these were earlier wheels.  I don't know if there have been significant improvements since then.  I was just riding my MCM5 earlier with the tiltback on and I could have ignored it.  If you ride on your toes like I do and have your feet towards the front you might not even feel it that strongly.  Especially with those longer pedals that people seem to like.

 

1 hour ago, eddiemoy said:

I have a KS16 and can ride the tiltback for miles with no issues.  Not sure which earlier models you mean.

I am not aware of people riding thru tiltback on KS wheels, but i remember that KS issued many different versions of firmware in the past and changed the way tilt back kicks in many many times, some of the versions had a more aggressive , some more mild tiltback. And the tiltback mechanism /approach was changed a few times. It is possible that people were forcing thru mild tiltback. However, normally tiltback would still increase the pedal angle if you slowly continue to accelerate

[eddiemoy]

Just now, Cloud said:

 

I am not aware of people riding thru tiltback on KS wheels, but i remember that KS issued many different versions of firmware in the past and changed the way tilt back kicks in many many times, some of the versions had a more aggressive , some more mild tiltback. And the tiltback mechanism /approach was changed a few times. It is possible that people were forcing thru mild tiltback. However, normally tiltback would still increase the pedal angle if you slowly continue to accelerate

Tiltback on the KS16 and 18S are pretty mild.  Nothing like Ninebot.