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New rider on giant wheel


svenomous

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Just a quick check-in, without too much to report: I've commuted to work (17 miles round trip) a few times now, and still suffer a little bit of "performance anxiety" about being among car traffic.  When I'm at an intersection waiting for a left turn, I keep looking down at my foot position next to the wheel and visualizing how I will perfectly mount when the time comes, instead of stumbling/fumbling.  Despite the anxiety, there have been no mishaps or false starts, and my confidence continues to increase.  In fact, there was one potential nightmare moment where I stopped at a pedestrian trail crossing because despite having a green pedestrian light a driver was rolling into a right turn in front of me, but then just as my foot came down the driver saw me, stopped, and started waving at me to go.  I waved at him to go instead, but he was insistent, so I felt compelled to immediately remount under pressure and cross the intersection.  It was an imperfect mount with my foot coming down way too far forward on the pedal, and the wheel initially swerved off to the right, but I instinctively swung the wheel back around to the right path and adjusted my balance to account for the forward foot, and got across the intersection with some grace before carefully shuffling the foot into proper position and continuing on my way.

Last weekend I had an opportunity to ride the wheel on a dry lake bed in southern Oregon, the Alvord Desert.  It wasn't completely dry for the season yet, but the eastern half was dry enough.  The surface is super flat and smooth, almost like cement (although more dusty).  People like going there to speed across the playa at 100mph.  Well, I "sped" across the playa at the fastest speed I felt comfortable at, around 25mph, and explored the length and breadth of the dry portions of the lake for over an hour before returning to my campsite.  Even the pretty massive KS18XL is a very portable mobility solution to take along on a camping trip, at least a "car camping" trip (not when hiking, obviously).

I've made the final speed settings adjustments: alarm1 and alarm2 is disabled, and alarm3 is set to 28mph. with tiltback at its maximum of 31mph, although I've yet to exceed 25mph even on downhill sections.  My current pedal calibration position is back to level, although I'm thinking maybe 1-2 degrees rearward angle might be best (after trying more extreme rearward angles and not liking the "dips" during turns).  I kind of like rearward angle on the pedals, but at more extreme angles my ankles get a little angry at me after a while.  Riding mode is set to "firm," which I think I like best.  Still get some wobbles, but they seem to self-dampen instead of rapidly escalating into a "thrum" as was the case early on.  I no longer feel like I'm losing control when it wobbles a bit, although at times it's frustrating to get a stronger wobble that's unexpected and doesn't self-dampen, especially on downhill portions.  It's interesting how the "wobbliness" changes with different forward/rear foot positions, lower leg angles, and road grades...so basically with different relative positions of rider CG vs. wheel CG vs. wheel pivot (contact patch with the ground).

Right now I'm contemplating whether it's a good idea to ride to work on the wheel tomorrow, even though there's a chance of showers that increases in the afternoon.  I've avoided riding in rain so far, although I have appropriate gear I can wear.  I'd prefer not to drive the car, and don't want to ride the bike because I'm saving my quads and tender areas in preparation for a grueling 84-mile training bike ride on Saturday.  Hmm.

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I bought a used KS18S with 2 miles on the clock, used it as my learning wheel, and was up and running inside of a week with maybe 30 minutes of practice per day  

I’ve heard this wheel rides differently from most others on the market, but I didn’t consider it overly difficult to learn on and I am not uniquely athletic or coordinated by any stretch of the imagination. 

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