VikB

I ride a bike all the time. I actually sold my EUC. I missed the exercise from riding my bike.

Riding an EUC is not legal so you were doing something illegal. You probably just got unlucky as enforcement on that issue seems pretty lax in BC. If you are okay with getting a ticket just keep riding and you likely won't run into another problem in the short term. That said there is no way to 100% guarantee you won't up at least paying some $$ for riding an EUC. I'm not sure if they can give you any grief with your driver's license.

I figured I should provide a final update to end off this thread. I sold my V10F to a gentleman in Vancouver today. I had fun learning to ride an EUC, but I eventually realized EUC life was too passive for me to be super interested in it as a hobby. I spent the EUC sale $$ on a splitboard so I can skin up our mountains in winter and snowboard down. Thanks to everyone that provided useful tips and encouragement. This is a great community and I appreciate everyone's stoke for riding EUCs. Ride safe.

I would skip the power pads at first. There is nothing you are doing learning to ride an EUC that you need them for. They are a performance add on you can make use of later once you are up and riding confidently. I'd run the stock foot plates while you learn. Being able to more easily reposition your feet is a benefit and again until you are riding confidently you don't need the performance benefit of spikey foot plates that secure your feet better.

Riding an EUC is not legal in BC. There are a number of ways you can be fined depending on what you are doing at the time and how the police officer is feeling. The only place you can ride an EUC without issue is on private property. All that said the police are mostly ignoring EUC riders in BC. If you ride it like a bicycle [speeds/locations/signaling] and wear safety gear I think you are unlikely to have an issue. If you ride an EUC like a motorcycle on the road and/or ride dangerously [high speed bike path or cutting people off, etc...] you'll end up with problems.

We see electronic equipment failures around us all the time. You can reduce the likelihood of a failure, but you cannot eliminate it. The more redundancy you want to build in the more expensive it will be and people have to be willing to pay for that. I worked at an aerospace composite manufacturing company. The cost for quality/reliability was very high. Will people pay that premium for a "safer" wheel? Maybe....maybe not. We'll see what happens.

You can also have an overheat situation that would take out both sides of the EUC even if you could split them into independent circuits that could support the whole wheel at high load. You could add a 3rd unused set of electronics which would take over if both the working circuits failed, but of course you could have a switching failure or a failure in one of the components of the back up system. So making a safety EUC less likely to cut out is possible, but there is no way to make one that cannot fail. If that's what you are after get an e-scooter, e-bike or e-skate. You can coast to a stop on all of those if the power system fails.

So a few thoughts: Mandatory helmet laws not being in place don't force someone not to wear a helmet. When I lived in an area without a mandatory helmet law I wore a helmet when I was "performance" road biking & mountain biking, but often not when I was cruising around town. Let's just assume my risk assessment was correct...in that case I was wearing a helmet when I was likely to get hurt so if helmets work I would get the benefit despite the lack of a mandatory helmet law. I now live in an area with a mandatory helmet law and lots of people don't wear bike helmets. Cops have better things to do than ticket bicyclists without helmets....although I am sure that does happen from time to time. Let's assume a bunch of those folks not wearing helmets are the sort of people who take more risks in general and ignore laws/rules they could end up getting hurt more and would not have the benefit of helmets. Studies have shown that motorists give a cyclist with a helmet on less space than someone without. Cyclists with helmets may feel safer and may take more risks. So maybe whatever benefit you get from wearing a helmet might be countered by the way that impacts other aspects of safety? Bicycle helmets only offer a limited amount of protection. If you get hit my a bus or a dump truck or a giant SUV/pickup it may not matter much that you had some styrofoam on your head at the time. Now I am not an expert in terms of having studied the data on this. I am a lifelong cyclist that has a solid safety track record. So these are just ideas that may be true. I am not saying they are 100% correct or anything, but I think it shows how helmets can have a limited protective benefit in the lab that doesn't show up in the hospital admission data in terms of correlation to mandatory helmet laws. When looking at overall health impacts it's pretty clear that getting more people biking without helmets being mandatory is way better for overall health than making helmets mandatory and seeing fewer bicycle trips occur. At its core the reality is riding a bicycle for transportation is incredibly safe compared to any other alternative other than walking.

The science is that the overall health benefits of not having mandatory bicycle helmet laws are significant over the specific benefits of having it. It also seems like jurisdictions with mandatory helmet laws don't have reduced rates of brain injuries vs. places without them. Keeping in mind not having a mandatory helmet law doesn't mean everyone will not wear a bicycle helmet. For cycling there are far more important considerations for safety and overall population health than helmets. But #1 you have to buy a helmet so business like that and #2 it's easy to focus on that vs. the real issues.

I agree that EUCing and skiing are the same except for being totally different.

Most jurisdictions don't have laws for EUCs and since they aren't e-bikes or scooters you are kind of in no mans land. My advice would be to ride one like a bicycle if you want to be on multi-use paths and in bike lanes. Be courteous. Wear a helmet. You'll blend in best and unless you run into a cop who is having a really bad day you should be fine. If you want to ride fast get out in the driving lane and hope for the best when it comes to enforcement. You'll be acting like a motorcycle, but without any insurance or registration so it'll be hard to argue you are an "e-bike/scooter". I'd stay off sidewalks all together other than for short distances where there is no other option. Adults don't belong on the sidewalk on a motorized vehicle or even a bicycle.

I could see wanting a specific tire on my EUC and getting that tire installed at the dealer before they ship me the wheel. I could also see choosing a different tire when the stock tire wears out. On any wheel device/vehicle tires are one of the easiest ways to make the biggest changes to performance so it's worth considering. That said no way would I be tearing down my EUC and swapping tires on a regular basis. Just too much hassle. I just cruise around town on my EUC so the stock tire is fine. I have no desire to change it. If I was going to ride dirt a lot I'd probably want something else for a tire.

Glock? I mount a 50 cal to my EUC. I'm not plinking beer cans!

V8 or V8F? MTen3 84V?

What EUC do you have that won't do 20mph on level ground?