failing The Mullings of a Beginner

[Smoother]

4 minutes ago, Lutalo said:

I'm drawn to women that are drawn to big, bad, and scary. What can I say. It's a thing. I'm working on it. 

Why work on it? Embrace it. Celebrate it. Sorry, what was IT again?

[Marty Backe]

6 hours ago, Smoother said:

Ehh? No. Riding an EUC will not get you laid.  Laid out flat on the ground maybe, but laid, naah!

However I'm sure everyone would love to hear of a real EUC event that lead to something "interesting".

 

EDIT Speaking of sweet things. I have begun charting my weight twice daily.  No charts till today buy last night I was 80kg 176lb.  this morning I'm 79kg 174lb. (it fluctuates a bit but I'm always lighter when I wake up (the sleep all day diet?).

What I do know is that a few weeks ago I was fluctuating around 84kg 185lb.  There has definitely been a downward trend AND I eat cake every evening!

By creating my chart I hope to motivate myself and see if I can get down to 75kg 165lb by the end of the month.

I think charting your weight is critical to maintaining a desired weight. I have about 10-years of my weight logged and plotted. Every day after I get up and hit the bathroom, I weigh myself on a digital scale, naked. So my weight is captured in the same conditions every day. I also calculate the average for every week (my week runs Saturday thru Friday).

The daily weight moves around, and like clockwork it goes up during the weekend and recovers during the week. But what drives me is the average weight, which smooths out all the vulgarities of the daily weight. By seeing my weight, plotted every day, staring me in the face, it's easy to adjust my food intact to keep in balance.

I think a lot of people stick their head in the sand, not wanting to be confronted by reality. And their weight creeps up and up.

Good luck.

[Unventor]

3 hours ago, Smoother said:

Ehh? No. Riding an EUC will not get you laid.  Laid out flat on the ground maybe, but laid, naah!

However I'm sure everyone would love to hear of a real EUC event that lead to something "interesting".

 

EDIT Speaking of sweet things. I have begun charting my weight twice daily.  No charts till today buy last night I was 80kg 176lb.  this morning I'm 79kg 174lb. (it fluctuates a bit but I'm always lighter when I wake up (the sleep all day diet?).

What I do know is that a few weeks ago I was fluctuating around 84kg 185lb.  There has definitely been a downward trend AND I eat cake every evening!

By creating my chart I hope to motivate myself and see if I can get down to 75kg 165lb by the end of the month.

Oj..you stole my target, now I had set a target of 72kg 😟

So now I just have to set a timeframe....

[LanghamP]

3 hours ago, meepmeepmayer said:

@LanghamP Help this poor man with his misbelief.

Though it seems you need a sleek and shiny and sexy EUC like a V5F, not the big and bad and intimidating big scary wheels.

And luck (rhymes with looks) I assume...

Actually the KS16s with speakers is probably best, and while wheels won't get you laid they do give you just tons of opportunities to get laid just by virtue of exposing you to all sorts of people.

If you just trolley the flashy lights around, and women ask you what it is, just tell them it's a Bluetooth speaker. If they press for more, just lean in and whisper "that you can sit on". Eventually they'll insist on trying. They'll need to hold on to someone.

I'm sure a young in-shape guy in his twenties would, without a doubt, clean up. I did know a 14 year old kid who rode one of these wheels; he got a lot of obvious signs of interests from young girls, it was insane.

Presumably a young man with a puppy, and well-dressed with leather shoes would clean up.

[Smoother]

3 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

I thinking charting your weight is critical to maintaining a desired weight. I have about 10-years of my weight logged and plotted. Every day after I get up and hit the bathroom, I weigh myself on a digital scale, naked. So my weight is captured in the same conditions every day. I also calculate the average for every week (my week runs Saturday thru Friday).

The daily weight moves around, and like clockwork it goes up during the weekend and recovers during the week. But what drives me is the average weight, which smooths out all the vulgarities of the daily weight. By seeing my weight, plotted every day, staring me in the face, it's easy to adjust my food intact to keep in balance.

The only vulgarity i "see" in this scenario is the image of a 58 year old man naked on a bathroom scale looking down between his legs. Oh the humanity! I can't get that image out of my head.

BS. Charted daily for over 10 years? WOW!  That explains why you are so weight proportional.  You are able to spot a negative trend and nip it in the bud.  Very cool.  I think most people let obesity creep up on them, but how they can't see it once they start approaching 50lb over, is any one's guess ( a river in Africa maybe?)

You have inspired me, not to buy a bigger better faster wheel, but to chart my weight like you do. Yet another "I wanna be like Marty" barrier falls to the wayside. And the beauty is, it cost absolutely nothing.

[Smoother]

2 hours ago, Unventor said:

Oj..you stole my target, now I had set a target of 72kg 😟

So now I just have to set a timeframe....

Yes, a target is just a number without a time frame. You can share my target, there's plenty of target to go around.  Any other fatties  "plus sized" people want to join us on our lose the flab quest? Can you lose 4 to 5kg by the end of the month? Your EUC will thank you for it.

[Unventor]

20 minutes ago, Smoother said:

Yes, a target is just a number without a time frame. You can share my target, there's plenty of target to go around.  Any other fatties  "plus sized" people want to join us on our lose the flab quest? Can you lose 4 to 5kg by the end of the month? Your EUC will thank you for it.

Ohh so I hear a challenge and contest brewing 😉 

Well I need to travel to a family event in Denmark at 28th of april. So my plan is to go by EUC from home to ferry then from ferry to eventplace, total distance of 15-20km. Then change to a suit. And then 6 hours later do the return trip, gearing up. I just hope it don't rain...

[Smoother]

1 hour ago, LanghamP said:

Actually the KS16s with speakers is probably best, and while wheels won't get you laid they do give you just tons of opportunities to get laid just by virtue of exposing you to all sorts of people.

If you just trolley the flashy lights around, and women ask you what it is, just tell them it's a Bluetooth speaker. If they press for more, just lean in and whisper "that you can sit on (it)". Eventually they'll insist on trying. They'll need to hold on to someone.

I'm sure a young in-shape guy in his twenties would, without a doubt, clean up. I did know a 14 year old kid who rode one of these wheels; he got a lot of obvious signs of interests from young girls, it was insane.

Presumably a young man with a puppy, and well-dressed with leather shoes would clean up.

Sit on it? Nice!  I could go way off piste here with a reference to saddles and the olfactory sense, but I wont.

I'm sure that 1) I am not an in-shape guy in his twenties, and 2). An in-shape guy in his twenties does not need an EUC to get some.

This would be the only reason I would own a dog, but I don't want to have to pick up poo, and walk something twice a day, so I don't.

Regarding trolleying it, someone here recently said that when asked about his trolleying in the office, he said it was a measuring device.  When asked what he was measuring he said "my shortest route to the fire exit"  I love that.

[Smoother]

1 minute ago, Unventor said:

Ohh so I hear a challenge and contest brewing 😉 

Well I need to travel to a family event in Denmark at 28th of april. So my plan is to go by EUC from home to ferry then from ferry to eventplace, total distance of 15-20km. Then change to a suit. And then 6 hours later do the return trip, gearing up. I just hope it don't rain...

Challenge? sure, why not?!.  Why can't this forum encourage people to improve their diets, weight and health?  We are a community and any community not trying to improve is poisonous.  Let's do it.

[seage]

9 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

I think a lot of people stick their head in the sand, not wanting to be confronted by reality. And their weight creeps up and up

Thats EXACTLY what i was doing! Ive started charting my weight since that post. Burned off all that extra weight and water that was making me sluggish and fixing my meals. No cheating since that post and I feel great. My weight is fluctuating a bit, but its nice to see it down from where it was on that first day. Cant expect to see grand results in a week, but its nice to see and mainly FEEL something. Gonna keep going down this path towards being healthy.

8 hours ago, LanghamP said:

Actually the KS16s with speakers is probably best, and while wheels won't get you laid they do give you just tons of opportunities to get laid just by virtue of exposing you to all sorts of people.

If you just trolley the flashy lights around, and women ask you what it is, just tell them it's a Bluetooth speaker. If they press for more, just lean in and whisper "that you can sit on". Eventually they'll insist on trying. They'll need to hold on to someone.

I'm sure a young in-shape guy in his twenties would, without a doubt, clean up. I did know a 14 year old kid who rode one of these wheels; he got a lot of obvious signs of interests from young girls, it was insane.

Presumably a young man with a puppy, and well-dressed with leather shoes would clean up.

Lmao...alright, so carry a puppy while riding in a suit and leather shoes past the college campus and go for the profs, since im 32 and not trying to meet no first yeah "Hi, im 18 and have 0 life experience but can get you drunk on a daily basis and have too much energy for drama" girl. Sounds good! Lmao. In terms of attention, old people and little kids are my favorite.. Old people in my city always have comments to say and they're so sweet. And kids cant contain their excitement. Its a laugh for me. Ladies around my age kinda look down or away when i zip past. Which i dont mind. They dont understand how cool i am yet. I'll give them time LOL.

6 hours ago, Smoother said:

The only vulgarity i "see" in this scenario is the image of a 58 year old man naked on a bathroom scale looking down between his legs. Oh the humanity! I can't get that image out of my head.

BS. Charted daily for over 10 years? WOW!  That explains why you are so weight proportional.  You are able to spot a negative trend and nip it in the bud.  Very cool.  I think most people let obesity creep up on them, but how they can't see it once they start approaching 50lb over, is any one's guess ( a river in Africa maybe?)

You have inspired me, not to buy a bigger better faster wheel, but to chart my weight like you do. Yet another "I wanna be like Marty" barrier falls to the wayside. And the beauty is, it cost absolutely nothing.

Aye, this is it. Its just ignoring it, or not even noticing that your super metabolism  stopped ticking 20 years ago, and now you're criminally obese and are just sitting there in a pile of cheetos dust wondering where you went wrong. I swear to you, this was where I was headed. If it wasnt for this wheel, i wouldnt have even started thinking about it. Suddenly im trying to make adjustments to get more out of my ride LOL....

6 hours ago, Smoother said:

Yes, a target is just a number without a time frame. You can share my target, there's plenty of target to go around.  Any other fatties  "plus sized" people want to join us on our lose the flab quest? Can you lose 4 to 5kg by the end of the month? Your EUC will thank you for it.

This plus sized model is in!

[Smoother]

3 hours ago, seage said:

and now you're criminally obese and are just sitting there in a pile of cheetos dust wondering where you went wrong.

It's almost like you have a camera in my den. 

If you're in, go over to my March weight loss challenge thread and sign up. or have you done that already?

[seage]

20 minutes ago, Smoother said:

It's almost like you have a camera in my den. 

If you're in, go over to my March weight loss challenge thread and sign up. or have you done that already?

Lmao!!

And I have not. I shall now!!

[seage]

Did a 19km ride today. Found a bunch of new areas in my city. Parts I didnt even know existed, it was awesome. 

Started off the ride with those little warmups and found the ones that helped the most were the acceleration and hard breaking. It forced me to stop gripping the wheel with my legs and in turn placed me in a more comfortable riding position. Also, found that the warmer weather helped keep me loose from the gate. Normally when i go out, i get a chill through my entire body and i stiffen up. I get the feeling summer is gonna be nice. Oh and lastly, i got into a consistent habit of placing my foot on the pedal in a pretty comfortable way. With my heel closer to the body at the back and toe flush with the edge. Just now i need to find a good forward to back area as sometimes there was 0 strain and other times id get a tension in my calf. I'll keep riding till i naturally figure it out. Bottom line though, i had so much fun. It was a great ride and I didnt want to stop. But it was starting to get stupid windy again and my legs were burning, haha. 

 

Oh, question for you guys. When going over speedbumps and curbs, i loosen my stance and let the wheel kinda do its thing. I usually bounce a little, but not enough for it to feel bad. But i tried going down a tinnny curb today, just to see what it felt like, and i got a little too much airtime for my liking. Do you guys lock your wheel with your legs during curb drops or stay loose and bend your knees more?

[Rywokast]

1 hour ago, seage said:

Did a 19km ride today. Found a bunch of new areas in my city. Parts I didnt even know existed, it was awesome. 

Started off the ride with those little warmups and found the ones that helped the most were the acceleration and hard breaking. It forced me to stop gripping the wheel with my legs and in turn placed me in a more comfortable riding position. Also, found that the warmer weather helped keep me loose from the gate. Normally when i go out, i get a chill through my entire body and i stiffen up. I get the feeling summer is gonna be nice. Oh and lastly, i got into a consistent habit of placing my foot on the pedal in a pretty comfortable way. With my heel closer to the body at the back and toe flush with the edge. Just now i need to find a good forward to back area as sometimes there was 0 strain and other times id get a tension in my calf. I'll keep riding till i naturally figure it out. Bottom line though, i had so much fun. It was a great ride and I didnt want to stop. But it was starting to get stupid windy again and my legs were burning, haha. 

 

Oh, question for you guys. When going over speedbumps and curbs, i loosen my stance and let the wheel kinda do its thing. I usually bounce a little, but not enough for it to feel bad. But i tried going down a tinnny curb today, just to see what it felt like, and i got a little too much airtime for my liking. Do you guys lock your wheel with your legs during curb drops or stay loose and bend your knees more?

personally i would recommend locking with the wheel when going over a bump of any kind larger than like an <1 cm curb.. but it all depends on your riding style.. i find it most comfortable for my feet to always be touching the shell of any euc so any largish forseeable bumps i will just bend my knees a little,, some people i see like to ride on the outside edge of the pedals and if you were to come off a large curb or hit a speed bump, pot hole etc your foot could easily slip off and that would have a 99% chance of resulting in a crash for all but the most seasoned riders.. being so inexperienced, i would recommend that it is far safer to be closer rather than farther from the shell for any bumps

[LanghamP]

1 hour ago, seage said:

But i tried going down a tinnny curb today, just to see what it felt like, and i got a little too much airtime for my liking. Do you guys lock your wheel with your legs during curb drops or stay loose and bend your knees more?

If you don't know the curb drop is there then you can damn near drop off a curb at least knee high, and probably even waist high, with some possibility of breaking the axle. However, if the wheel drops on the cement and then you drop lightly upon the wheel, as you should on from any fall, then even the axle might be entirely fine.

I found this out at night (of course) when the sidewalk I thought was a sidewalk wasn't actually the sidewalk despite looking exactly like a sidewalk but was, instead, the edge of a wall which abruptly ended above, you guessed it, a sidewalk! I dropped down a knee high drop at ~12 mph and landed before I even knew what happened. No fuss, no drama. Just nothing.

If, on the other hand, you  have even the slightest bit of caution and are leaning ever so slightly backwards, then it's game over for you, because the wheel will shoot out from under you as it goes into the air, and then you instantly pancake into the cement. I imagine this is exactly how a cutout would feel like, except in reverse.

There's two odd cases, both of which I've crashed on.

If you drop off a curb on a round form-factor wheel do not go too slow as the rear of the wheel catches on the curb.

If you drop off the curb at an angle the pedal will catch the curb, and instantly throw you off. If you're lucky like me then the wheel then runs over your fallen body.

[tessa25]

28 minutes ago, LanghamP said:

If you drop off the curb at an angle the pedal will catch the curb, and instantly throw you off. If you're lucky like me then the wheel then runs over your fallen body.

[Smoother]

Curbs and speed bumps, etc.  The knees should be bent when riding obviously (although I do admit to riding known smooth trails with straight knees now and then)  , but the amount of bend depends on the situation.  The rougher the trail or the bigger the bump/curb in your path the more the knees should be bent.

If you are going off a curb of say 5" your knees should be bent enough that when the wheel/pedals drop the 5" your legs straighten most of that 5" leaving the majority of your weight at more or less the same height as it was before the drop.  This takes a lot of the strain off the axle, and your body.  Instantly after the drop you will automatically adjust your knee bend to suit the new terrain; smooth, rough, etc.

There are at least two ways to climb over a bump:

1. @EUC GUY I believe published some data sheets on how to ride  an EUC  one of them described the "feck you" technique someone ( @meepmeepmayer I believe) told you about 1/2 a moon ago. when handling things like speed bumps.  He wasn't being silly he meant it. What he was describing was a process where (upon approach to a know bump) one thrusts the wheel out in front of you a few inches (feck you), from the hips and bent knees, thereby placing the body weight slightly behind the wheel , momentarily. This is done just prior to hitting the bump.  This removes some of the riders weight from directly above the pedals just before the wheel starts to rise up over the bump.  As the wheel climbs, it slows slightly but soon the algorithm kicks in and accelerates to compensate.  Right about now your body weight is starting to catch up with the wheel and somewhere near the top of the bump (it doesn't have to be exact) your normal stance is resumed.  It sounds really complicated but it isn't.  Try it a few times on small bumps, you'll see.  If you do the thrust, the rest should take care of its self.

2. Here's where things get a little different but it makes sense once you've read it all.  Situation: approaching an actual speed bump from a smoothish surface , to a smoothish surface.  The knees should be bent, but only slightly.  Only slightly, because as the wheel starts to climb the speed bump, you are going to bend you knees further to allow the wheel to climb BUT without actually having to raise your body weight too.  The text book goal is that the wheel and your knees rise by the exact height of the bump, and your body remains at the same height all the way through.  in reality it is seldom if ever, that you can reach perfection as it's nearly impossible to off load 100% of your body weight from your knees without falling to the ground.  But, if you can save the wheel from lifting 80% (not a scientific based number) of your weight over the bump you've done good.  There are two sorts of good going on here; the first is that you have saved your body from the shock of suddenly hitting a speed bump with a rapid upward force that can make you crack your teeth together, and possibly throw you off, and second by relieving the wheel of the job of hefting your weight into the air, you have reduced the energy spike needed to keep you going forward.  On smaller batteries, or well depleted batteries, this is the sort of energy spike that can cause the wheel to die and dump you right there and then.  And on some older wheels it has been known to blow a MOSfets.

The reason I said "smoothish " surfaces before and after the speed bump in the scenario, is because this is where one can get away with only slightly bent knees just prior to the bump.  If the surface is anything other than smooth, then obviously a bigger amount of bend would be needed to deal with that surface before entering the bump.  When riding constantly varying trails, as seen in @Demargon s and Chooch's excellent trail riding videos, the rider is constantly varying his stance for the current (right under the wheel) and future ( the next 30cm, 60cm, 90 cm, etc) terrain.  The whole body has to be fluid, constantly changing and adapting to the dictates of the trail and the wheel.  This is way beyond beginner stuff though.  One has to put in hundreds of miles, constantly broadening the scope of the terrain one rides on before one can hope to ride a trail like @Demargon does.  Oh yeah, and you have to be fit too or your legs will become jelly in the first 3 minutes.  That why I said "Smoothish" in the example.

dropping off a curb at an angle can cause a scrape of the pedal on one side but it doesn't always lead to a @LanghamP style FP and run-over scenario (very amusing). Sometimes its just a scrape and a wobble and you're on your way.  If you must leave the sidewalk at an angle, do it at speed, so the pedal clears the curb before you touch down on the other side.