yoos

Is there any additional info in that article? Like number of fires vs number of batteries held in a household? Breakdown into devices and battery sizes? Simply tracking the overall number of battery fires is extremely pointless and misleading: it should be accompanied by the numbers of batteries produces, sold, held in each of the years. All too often you see news headlines like "number of scooter incidents doubled since 2021" without mentioning that the number of scooters in active use might easily have tripled in the same period .

This i consistent with bicycle statistics, where also ~2/3 or deaths are motor-vehicle related. So it's all part of the danger of cars and larger vehicles rather than the small mobility devices. (see, e.g. here https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics/bicycle-deaths/) Overall though, to get a meaningful statistics (that can be judged and acted upon) we would unfortunately need a much higher ridership (to have tens of hundreds of cases annually - there are 1000-1500 annual bicycle deaths in the US alone). Just theorizing I would expect EUC danger not to be any higher than electric scooter danger (both to the rider as well as the public). Anecdotally, EUC riders are more aware and prepared than the typical scooter rider (and definitely better prepared than a casual rental user). The question is whether it's substantially more dangerous than a bicycle (if, say, we only consider some filtered "slow wheel" statistics). Regretfully, politics work in such a way that usually the first fatality triggers a hysterical repressive response ("let's ban all those things!").This is exacerbated by the scarcity of real sources of significant danger in developed countries, which inflates the overall perceived dangerousness of things.

Welcome! Since you have experience with one-wheels, you should already have a good understanding of the dangers of falling and faceplanting EUCs are quite a bit faster so keep that in mind! During the learning phase some people have bruises or just pains in the shins from pushing against the EUC body. This can be solved with cheap shinguards (i think they are sold for football players) or cutouts from yoga mats. However, pads should also help with that already, and your onewheel experience should make the learning curve enjoyable and short rather than steep and painful! If you want to be extra safe, wear some ankle protection and/or robust boots -- ankle bites is something that can happen on EUCs when you dismount clumsily and the heavier the EUCs the stronger the bite .

You are right, provided neither rider in your comparison reaches the wheels torque limit. However, most experienced riders are potentially able to overlean their wheel (i.e. outtorque the wheel). And if both riders are able to reach the wheel's limit, then the lighter rider will benefit from higher acceleration on the same wheel (provided he is able to match the max torque of the wheel with his technique). Maybe I am a bit behind current events, but I had the impression that a reasonabe-sized rider (e.g. 50+kg) can still overlean pretty much any wheel of the market? It's just that it requires you to be brave enough to lean selflessly and you would probably need powerpads.

No, there is no golden rule Just recommendations all over the place. Anecdotally, there are some heavy riders 100+kg happily riding 16S (not S16!) etc. If you do indeed have a V11 (as your insignia suggest), you should be safe and comfortable. The less you weigh, the faster you can accelerate and the faster you can go uphill (or you can manage steeper hills - however you like to look at this). 60kg is on the lower end of the weight of the EUC ridership. It should give you an edge in hard-core racing if you decide to pursue this dangerous sport. Sometimes lighter people complain about managing heavy wheels, but there are also plenty lightweight riders riding relatively heavy wheels (e.g. check out EUCgirl on instagram). So unless you have to literally carry your EUC upstairs etc, handling the wheel with ease is mostly a question of experience.

Just in case, the helmet better be a full-face. Some scooter riders wear motorcycle half-helmets but on EUCs direct faceplants are much more common than on two-wheelers or onewheels.

Having moved in Paris, I have to say that 95% of the EUCs I see here (and I typically see several per day) do precisely this type of riding (note that legally you cannot go above 25kph and your device should be "locked to a max speed of 25kph", which leads to more careful (or just law-enforcement-aware ) riding. Moscow was considerably wilder. The 25kg-50kph wheels fit this calm use case perfectly. I am happy to see recent attention to this category -- the S16, V11Y and Falcon are all great options. Unlike US suburbs, you feel neither the need nor the urge to go 60kph in most european cities. While the french 25kph limit is annoying, many European countries have it much worse -- Germany, UK, Netherlands all treat EUCs as illegal on public roads which is a shame. All three countries would be great EUC markets. But unless EUCs become widespread elsewhere, there will not be much pressure to change those rusty laws.

I am also in the market for a unicorn (25kg, 18", suspension) for commuting in Paris (up to 20km per day) and I too hoped the S18 would be perfected by now into a light, agile and comfortable medium-range (by EU standards) commuter. These issues make me believe I'll have to stomach the weight of a V11Y instead (or fall back to a V10F or 18L, if I can find one). At least the V11Y has a proper headlight, certified waterproofing and a beefy controller to explain the weight. The S16 is too new and too heavy - if only there was a lighter, 1000Wh, possibly slower version (oops, that's the S18).

For the sake of argument, having two independent wheels with adaptive/controlled individual forks & suspension & smart torque control could produce an interesting device. But an adequate implementation is impossible in the current state of EUC industry and within a reasonable price. Another point worth mentioning is that twin wheels (i.e. two wheels which are driven by a single axis and close one to another, which is what Inmotion seems to be doing) is not much different from just one very wide wheel. Remember the "bublik" ("bagel/donut") custom EUC made by a Russian, which you can find somewhere on this forum? It had a 7" wide tire, iirc. It should provide the same tradeoff of "easy to stand or slowly go forward but difficult to turn and dangerous at speed"

This type of wheel might contribute significantly to EUC popularity and growth by being the proper gateway drug device. The leap from bicycle/scooter/pedestrian to unicycle has always been a difficult one, both conceptually and in terms of learning curve (see @Hsiang's post). Now more people might try this and eventually outgrow it (give them a week!) and go for a proper single-wheel vehicle. Another important contribution could be to the image of EUCs, leading to more favorable legislation. The obvious drift of the industry towards heavy and imposing racing tanks is not good for public image and, consequently, legislation. Growing a cute, fun, family-friendly twin-wheel sub-genre would be a good thing PR-wise. So I welcome it and might even imagine getting one to teach my toddler son eventually.

I would report this to Leatt, the previous model was indeed reliable and strong enough to survive dozens of crashes. Even if it's just a freak accident (and they don't get any more reports), they might at least send you a replacement (you could ask for the previous model!)

This is absolutely fair. Still, there is a market share for the S16, even if it is slim. And for these people a 50S version is strictly better than a 50MT version. If you had to choose just between these two options, with no other EUCs under consideration, wouldn't it be obvious? I think that the target audience are commuters or general users on a budget that are not sensitive to the EUCs weight (e.g. they live in a small one-storied town). With 50S cells the wheel offers even better value. I don't think that is what Jason/Kingsong would have in mind. It's still slower than the S19, S22, there is no enthusiast ambition here, rather a value mid-range all-rounder EUC.

Yes, I would readily pay an extra 100-200$ to get +10kph max speed (or extra safety margin at lower speeds - whichever way you look at it) without any tradeoffs (except cost). 60kph would top the S18 and V11, putting it on par with the T4 and the expected V11y. That would make it the cheapest non-Begode 60kph wheel, an important sweet-spot. A lot of countries have 50 kph as the city speed limit (and some still have 60), so the extra margin in this speed region is extremely important for safe city riding.

If you want to spend money wisely, I would suggest scouting the market for a well-priced used beginner or mid-range wheel. You will not be worried about crashing it while learning. You will get to ride soon! And most importantly, you will get a good idea of what you like or don't like and what's important for you, so you can be much more confident when you finally spend serious money on the perfect new wheel (and sell the used learner EUC at little loss). You say you already bought gear - please note that gear may deteriorate, at least helmets have a "shelf life" - a ten year old unworn helmet is not guaranteed to be as safe as a brand-new sample. I have no idea at which rate gear ages in reality (warranties are typically conservative), but it's something to keep in mind. TL,DR: while you wait for the elusive perfect wheel, get a used one to ride and learn, and sell it once you find your chosen one. Don't let that 1K gear die from old age at home!

Yes! I am not saying that this is an enjoyable solution or viable regular behavior, but it's a good option for that once-per-year expedition to a remote location in the wild (compared to buying an EUC with a larger battery or some sort of solar charger). You could potentially rent/borrow the packs from an individual/store (it's really unsustainable to own lithium batteries you only charge a few times a year).