Newbie here and loving my Glide 3! A few questions and experiences.

[zuckermania]

Hi everyone! I recently bought a Glide 3 as my first EUC. Unfortunately the protective cover shipped a week late so my beautiful new wheel is all scratched up. No big deal... it's my first wheel, scratches were inevitable. This thing is so much fun! After one day I was able to ride around the parking lot. Day two was around the neighborhood. Day three I was free mounting with 40% success! I strongly recommend to people just starting that you learn by doing... just accept the fact that you are going to bang up your wheel, leave the safety of the fence and just go for it. Riding slow is a bit challenging, but riding above 5 mph is very intuitive. Don't overthink things, you will teach yourself how to turn and ride slowly by doing. I've had a number of slow speed wipeouts but all of them I was able to just run them off. That's another learning point... if you're going down just run it off. Let the wheel fall. It's just a wheel.

Some questions for you veterans... I'm still a little nervous to be looking at my phone while riding so I don't know my top speed. Does the wheel give an auditory warning before tiltback? I ask because sometimes I definitely feel the wheel tilting back but I can't tell if it's just resetting itself to level position and I can ask it for more speed without a cutout. On the (garbage) app I slid the top speed up to 19 mph. Is there anything else I can do to optimize the ride? It's kind of fun to play with the lights! Last question... how do you start learning to ride backwards? I think my next step will be getting 100% with free mounting and slow speed riding, but after that I want to ride backwards!

[Mono]

On 9/15/2018 at 4:30 AM, zuckermania said:

Some questions for you veterans... I'm still a little nervous to be looking at my phone while riding so I don't know my top speed. Does the wheel give an auditory warning before tiltback?

You can check that out yourself by setting the top speed slider to a lower speed. Though the acoustic warning you might only hear at the lower speeds (due to wind noise at higher speed). I highly recommend to get used to the speed limiter at lower speed before to set it to the maximum speed.

Edited September 16, 2018 by Mono

[mrelwood]

12 hours ago, zuckermania said:

I think my next step will be getting 100% with free mounting and slow speed riding, but after that I want to ride backwards

Welcome to the greatest mode of transport/hobby in the world!

I recommend getting a lot of miles under your belt before learning going backwards. No matter how many thousand miles under ones belt, on an EUC we are always learning. So there is no 100%. Every little aspect of control you improve during the first thousand miles will make it easier to learn going backwards. So I recommend getting perhaps 500 miles before seriously trying to learn that.

I think going extremely slow (forwards) is the first step in learning to go backwards. Then stop for a second, and go on. Then 2s. Then go just a few inches backwards during the stop. Then a bit more. Then go roughly one feet back, 10 forwards, one back... and so on. Then 2 back, 8 forwards, ... etc. Once you get to a slow pendulum (4ft front, 4ft back, ...) , you are at a good start in learning how to actually ride backwards.

[duaner]

> how do you start learning to ride backwards?
Same as you did forwards, only going backwards (I'm not joking).  The learning curve for balance is the same or shorter backwards as it is forwards.  What I did (and still do) find more difficult backwards is looking where you are going!

[meepmeepmayer]

There's some videos about backwards learning on @Marty Backe's old channel and @Duf has some too. I think you start by pushing off backwards from a wall or so, and go from there. I can't ride backwards so I wouldn't know :-)

https://www.youtube.com/user/MartyBacke/search?query=learning+to+ride+backwards

https://www.youtube.com/user/Dufisthenics/search?query=Learning+to+ride+an+electric+unicycle+backwards

As with regular learning, don't overthink, just do what seems to make sense for you

34 minutes ago, mrelwood said:

I recommend getting a lot of miles under your belt before learning going backwards. No matter how many thousand miles under ones belt, on an EUC we are always learning. So there is no 100%. Every little aspect of control you improve during the first thousand miles will make it easier to learn going backwards. So I recommend getting perhaps 500 miles before seriously trying to learn that.

That's a very good point. Though I'd say, if you feel you should learn backwards riding now, do exactly that. Follow your intuition, usually that works best for people and it's a lot of fun anyways.

Edited September 15, 2018 by meepmeepmayer

[MaiKi]

My first wheel is the v8 (glide3) too. Have it since 3 or 4 month and i can tell you that you feel a difference between real tilt back and resetting! If you are hitting the top speed you hear the beep and feel tilt back at nearly same time. Just try it at lower speeds. And watch out cruiaing with top speed as a newbie... I made the same misstake... I thought i can ride my wheel like a pro and got a cutoff at topspeed. First learn to feel you wheel, the speed youre riding and how it react on different grounds, then go for speed.

 

And a very import thing with the v8 / glide3 MAKE A FULL CALIBRATION WITH THE APP!!! 

Edited September 16, 2018 by MaiKi

[zuckermania]

Spoiler

 

Thanks for the great advice everyone. I'll definitely try lowering the speed bar. Let's say you set it at 12 mph, hit that speed (get the warning and tiltback) and keep pushing forward. Will the wheel cutout or keep going at the same speed (because presumably you aren't asking the motor for more power than it has available)?

When did everybody feel comfortable taking off the knee pads and elbow pads? They are very inconvenient (at least while I'm not sliding down the street face first).

[meepmeepmayer]

2 hours ago, zuckermania said:

Let's say you set it at 12 mph, hit that speed (get the warning and tiltback) and keep pushing forward. Will the wheel cutout or keep going at the same speed (because presumably you aren't asking the motor for more power than it has available)?

The wheel will accelerate (you're leaning forward, so it has to) until it can't. So it would accelerate right to the top speed for your weight and the battery state, and then you have an overlean - a sudden dip of the pedals forward, and you're on your face (or the wheel might even just switch off in an instant, not sure what the Inmotions do).

2 hours ago, zuckermania said:

When did everybody feel comfortable taking off the knee pads and elbow pads? They are very inconvenient (at least while I'm not sliding down the street face first).

Never These aren't for learning (which is safer due to the low speeds), they are needed in any fall.

If they're uncomfortable, get ones that aren't sleeves that you have to slide into, but ones that close around you knees/elbows from the outside, butterfly-like. These are very much a big improvement, the slide-ins are indeed annoying (and never quite fit right).

I'd say elbow pads are less important, but wrist guards (your palms) and knee pads (knees) are where you pretty much inevitably hit and slide along the ground if anything happens.

Edited September 16, 2018 by meepmeepmayer

[steve454]

2 hours ago, zuckermania said:

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Thanks for the great advice everyone. I'll definitely try lowering the speed bar. Let's say you set it at 12 mph, hit that speed (get the warning and tiltback) and keep pushing forward. Will the wheel cutout or keep going at the same speed (because presumably you aren't asking the motor for more power than it has available)?

When did everybody feel comfortable taking off the knee pads and elbow pads? They are very inconvenient (at least while I'm not sliding down the street face first).

I would suggest setting it even lower, say 5-6 mph, and slowly accelerate to that speed and experience the tiltback a few times.  I don't know Imotion tiltback behavior, but my ninebot S1 won't let me go much faster than tiltback speed.  The tiltback is so strong it forces the wheel to slow down, unless just barely hitting the set speed, in which case the tiltback is very mild.

Be cautious hitting the full speed tiltback while accelerating, it can be strong enough to make you lose your balance and get thrown off.

[Marty Backe]

4 hours ago, zuckermania said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Thanks for the great advice everyone. I'll definitely try lowering the speed bar. Let's say you set it at 12 mph, hit that speed (get the warning and tiltback) and keep pushing forward. Will the wheel cutout or keep going at the same speed (because presumably you aren't asking the motor for more power than it has available)?

When did everybody feel comfortable taking off the knee pads and elbow pads? They are very inconvenient (at least while I'm not sliding down the street face first).

I always wear my wrist guards. But when I'm riding around town, usually below 15-mph, I'm not wearing any pads or helmet. It's when I go for a dedicated ride that I fully gear up.

[Mono]

10 hours ago, zuckermania said:

When did everybody feel comfortable taking off the knee pads and elbow pads?

Since day one. The wheel will not "cut out" when hitting the speed limit.

7 hours ago, steve454 said:

I would suggest setting it even lower, say 5-6 mph, and slowly accelerate to that speed and experience the tiltback a few times.  I don't know Imotion tiltback behavior, but my ninebot S1 won't let me go much faster than tiltback speed.  The tiltback is so strong it forces the wheel to slow down, unless just barely hitting the set speed, in which case the tiltback is very mild.

Be cautious hitting the full speed tiltback while accelerating, it can be strong enough to make you lose your balance and get thrown off.

+1, same experience with the V8.

[zuckermania]

Thanks all, great advice. MeepMeep... you're right it's the slide on pads that are uncomfortable. Will definitely need to look around for something better.

I can't believe how much fun it is to go flying UP hills. It's almost like cheating

[binks00]

I have 450 miles on my glide 3. My experience is with the slider set at 18mph, I first get sign has of tilt back at around 16 mph depending how smoothly excelerate. Uphill I notice at 15ish and downhill at 17. This is with 80-100% battery.

If you continue to accelerating while experiencing tilt back to reach a top speed of 18.6. Tilt back will increase more and more as you approach Max speed. I ride at 16-17 because I find tilt back is harder on the legs. Also seems a bit less stable with tilt back turning in and off.

I can ride backwards finally. I recommend learning by stopping and transitioning to backwards. Paying close attention to body position with respect to the wheel while transitioning and riding backwards is what made it all click for me. Also, learning to dismount cleanly (just like when learning to ride forward) gave me a new confidence level.