New rider! First impressions.

[Kevin]

My first wheel arrived today - brand new IPS XIMA LHOTZ (is it just me or is that a lot of capital letters? ). I'm happy to say, I had a really good time getting started - all told, about an hour to feel comfortable riding around the apartment complex (though it still takes me a few tries to stand up without a railing).

The following are my major takeaways so far:

• 16" is bigger than I expected! I can only imagine how massive the MSuper 18 is...
• Don't use it on your living room carpet. I now have awful black marks where the tire spun when I tried to pick the unit up and carry it a few steps.
• Some observations about getting on:
  • Calf pain can be greatly reduced if you start with the unit at an angle away from your leg. For example, if your right foot is on the pedal, let the unit lean 30 degrees to the left and it won't hurt nearly as much.
  • It's very difficult to balance until moving at about a running pace
  • If climbing on without the help of a railing, a 'push' start (sort of like riding a skateboard) helps get some speed to start with
• Turning seems to be more affected by pushing one hip down than by trying to lean to one side. @Majax mentioned this in his video: http://forum.electricunicycle.org/topic/328-tg-f3-unboxing-review-first-impression-and-general-unicycle-riding-tips/
• Balancing seems to be mainly done by turning in the direction that you are falling. However, this only works with enough speed.

I've been doing wobbly figure 8's in the parking lot, and the biggest problem I have is controlling speed while doing the sharp U-turn at either end. I find that when trying to do very sharp and prolonged turns, I tend to slow down and then eventually have to step off due to not having enough speed to balance. I played around with trying to fix this problem, and found the following:

• Trying to keep speed up by going on tiptoes through the turn doesn't work
• Trying to keep speed up by bending over so my upper body is way forward doesn't work
• I've had some success by consciously trying to *avoid* bending my waist, and keeping my hips forward
• There appears to be a difference between 'front' and 'back' on the wheel - the pedals seem to be slightly tilted toward the back, and if riding the wheel backwards this makes it VERY easy to scrape pedals to the pavement when trying to turn. This is especially bad if trying to turn uphill (the road is slanted in my apartment complex).

Anyway, things are looking good so far! I'd write a review of the wheel, but I really don't have the experience to make any judgments.

[Donafello]

Congrats man.  Yeah the msuper is huge and for my first wheel was very hard to get going. It's just massive and heavy. I got the hang of it and actually went for a long ride last night. Loving my msuoer

[Kevin]

Yeah I'm thinking of riding about my business today instead of driving (pretty short distances involved), but with my wobbly starts I'm a bit worried about getting started at crosswalks.

Do people typically dismount at crosswalks or hang onto a pole?

[Jag_Rip]

I dismount immediately if I see I have to wait for longer at a crosswalk. The better you get the more of a non-issue it becomes.

[Gimlet]

If there's a pole handy I hang onto it until the lights change in my favour if not I put a hand onto a shop front or any other surface that can help me stand there waiting but I still get off at busy complex crossings and carry the wheel across.

[MetricUSA]

There is YouTube video of a Russian/Ukraine old man on eu using cross-country ski poles....

[Kevin]

Well, I survived a trip to lunch and back. I think I am going to spend some time just practicing getting on and off - there were a couple situations where I probably should have dismounted to be safer, but I plowed on because I was too worried about not being able to get back on without an open space to deal with my initial wobbles.

Still, making improvements  

Also, my calves hurt more this morning than they did yesterday =/

[SirGeraint]

I stand at the poles with the crossing buttons or if there's a pole closer to the street then I pull up to the pole with the crossing button, push the button and then move to a pole closer to the street so I am more visible to traffic.  Some of the poles with the crossing buttons are far enough away from the street that cars don't see me.  My first times across the major streets that I have to cross I would bend over and jog my 9B1 across the street because I didn't want to have any embarrassing launches and take too much time crossing the street.  By hanging on the pole that's one less thing to worry about and now I can reliably ride across the street faster (before I lose my crossing signal).  But now I am also better at my launches.

And the part about lifting it on carpet applies to tile, linoleum, etc.  So the lesson is don't pick it up when it's on.  (And according to F-Wheel someone hurt their finger when they tried to lift it while it was on.).

 

[Kroy]

...there were a couple situations where I probably should have dismounted to be safer, but I plowed on because I was too worried about not being able to get back on without an open space to deal with my initial wobbles.

I've been riding over a year & that's still the view I take!
I follow the idea of my 96 year old Grandma - step out into the road & the traffic will stop!

If it works for her......

[Kevin]

Well, end of day 2... rode around quite a bit in the evening and practiced getting on & off. I still haven't 'unlocked' the faster 30kph speed limit, which might be a good thing. According to the app I went a total of 20km, with about 20% remaining at the end - though that would dip down to nearly 0 if going uphill, and shoot up to 36% if going downhill.

Overall things are looking pretty good - I've gotten a lot better at mounting from a standstill, mainly due to realizing that I can make the wheel give itself that initial push by using the pedal instead of trying to force it by 'kicking off' like I was trying to do previously.

And in conclusion: I had my first 'launch', though I was able to run it off. I also later managed to 'overpower' the wheel while at low battery and trying out an emergency stop