My Wife is scared of the EUC

[tscottn]

I've tried teaching my wife to ride the EUC, but she seems to just jump off of it when it gets going, impeding her ability to learn to balance the thing.  Its really frustrating but I want her to be able to ride something with me so we can have fun together instead of me saying " honey, ill be back later" .  So I was thinking of getting her something that self balances.. maybe a E scooter or a Onewheel.  What do you guys think?  I got the idea about the onewheel from watching @Mike Sacristan videos of him and his wife enjoying both the EUC and the Onewheel together..  But man, its so hard to justify paying almost 2k for something that only goes 19mph top speed and has less than 20 mile range..  But maybe thats OK if thats what it will take to get my wife out there with me..  What say you EUC Community..?

Edited July 5, 2019 by tscottn

[esaj]

Well, I can't speak for your wife, but probably the best option would be to ask if she wants to ride anything at all, before dropping the money on whatever you think might work?    I tried this too, got a second-hand KS16B for relatively cheap (well, partially also so I'd had a spare wheel) at the same time I bought KS16S for myself... end result: she never even agreed to try it  After it was mostly collecting dust for a couple of years ( think I rode it for maybe 300km), I just sold it off recently.

[tscottn]

1 minute ago, esaj said:

Well, I can't speak for your wife, but probably the best option would be to ask if she wants to ride anything at all, before dropping the money on whatever you think might work?    I tried this too, got a second-hand KS16B for relatively cheap (well, partially also so I'd had a spare wheel) at the same time I bought KS16S for myself... end result: she never even agreed to try it  After it was mostly collecting dust for a couple of years ( think I rode it for maybe 300km), I just sold it off recently.

she will definitely be up for anything that self balances.. its the single wheel balancing issue that is  the problem..  

[Nils]

5 minutes ago, tscottn said:

she will definitely be up for anything that self balances.. its the single wheel balancing issue that is  the problem..  

Hmm, apart from EUCs and the Onewheel, what self balancing vehicles do we have have in mind, Segways? I'll just agree with @esaj and urge you to be really sure this is something she wants to begin with. I got my wife up on my Ninebot ES4 once in standard mode (half-way mode) and that was too much for her. It's all right, we're all different. But you mention the e-scooters already, and that definitely has a lower learning curve, so perhaps have her try one of these out first. Note that Mike's wife now seems to to favour the EUC and doesn't seem that happy about the Onewheel, so there's nothing really saying your wife will appreciate the Onewheel more.

[null]

Mine too, tried a bit but without much motivation. She got a e-kickscooter to cruise around together though.

still.. it’s a shame, the EUC is quite more stable and overall superior to the EKS.

[Nils]

2 minutes ago, Mimolette said:

Mine too, tried a bit but without much motivation. She got a e-kickscooter to cruise around together though.

still.. it’s a shame, the EUC is quite more stable and overall superior to the EKS.

To be fair you can't really compare them though, everyone and their grandma can just step on an e-scooter and drive away the first time, but even for naturally gifted people EUCs take some serious dedication and will to learn.

[Unventor]

I think this touches why people use escioters, they is precived as safer....

So it is all about to bridge the gab from precived to sensation to trust. Excatly how to go about this I can't say for sure.

No matter what I do think you will have to go through a few products to get to the end goal. 

The huge question here is do you end up riding EUCs or something else together...?

I never tested this, but Inmotion have a V3 (different editions), might only be able to find as used, as I think it is discontinued. But this means cheaper bridging cost.

 

[LanghamP]

I wouldn't buy a OW based on principles, much less for someone else whose motivation is questionable.

There's just a pile of PEV that you could pick from that she already knows how to ride:

EBike.

EScooter. 2k buys you an awesome eScooter.

Electric motorcyle of a smaller size, although you wouldn't be able to ride that on trails built for bicyclists and pedestrians.

Or just a plain bicycle, because a lot of people do enjoy the simplicity of one.

Anyway, there seems to be so many options that it seems pointless to constrain her to EUCs.

[Mike Sacristan]

1 hour ago, tscottn said:

I've tried teaching my wife to ride the EUC, but she seems to just jump off of it when it gets going, impeding her ability to learn to balance the thing.  Its really frustrating but I want her to be able to ride something with me so we can have fun together instead of me saying " honey, ill be back later" .  So I was thinking of getting her something that self balances.. maybe a E scooter or a Onewheel.  What do you guys think?  I got the idea about the onewheel from watching @Mike Sacristan videos of him and his wife enjoying both the EUC and the Onewheel together..  But man, its so hard to justify paying almost 2k for something that only goes 19mph top speed and has less than 20 mile range..  But maybe thats OK if thats what it will take to get my wife out there with me..  What say you EUC Community..?

In the end... my wife has now learned to ride my Ninebot One E+ and prefers it to the Onewheel. She never really became friends with the Onewheel and I did buy it primarily for her. $2000 is way too much unless you want to live the float life like Onewheelers do. 

Running off you say? 

This was Monika's learning process:

 

[hartj10]

Maybe an electric scooter could be easier for her? Or an electric bike?

Just bought a V5F for the wife, she's keen on learning. Wish me luck!!!

[ir_fuel]

4 hours ago, tscottn said:

I've tried teaching my wife to ride the EUC, but she seems to just jump off of it when it gets going, impeding her ability to learn to balance the thing.

Stupid question, but have you tried just holding her hand and walking next to her, so she gets used to the feeling, instead of her trying it and constantly jumping off?

That's how I learned my daughter. We spent lots of time with me just walking/jogging up and down the parking lot. Then we progressed from "hold my hand" to "hold around my hand but only actually grab it when you need to", to "I will now hold my hand close to you and grab you when needed" to "ah ok, you learned to mount it by yourself? Let's go for a ride together".  

[ir_fuel]

3 hours ago, Unventor said:

I never tested this, but Inmotion have a V3 (different editions), might only be able to find as used, as I think it is discontinued. But this means cheaper bridging cost.

You can spend ages riding a tricycle. It will never prepare you for riding a bike. On the contrary. That tricycle will feel so stable and safe compared to a bike. It might actually have the opposite effect.

[Rywokast]

literally anything that she were to get that wasnt an euc could be restricting in one way or another, be it too big to fit on a trail that you want to go on, too rough a terrain, too steep a hill, too difficult to carry/trolley around, too far a distance, too slow a speed etc etc.. there are a lot of fun devices but none nearly as versatile as an euc... everyone is scared to fall at first of course, go to a large open field and just convince her to break past that barrier, you have to get past the "abandon ship" tendency, once you do break past the initial fear it will become fun and addictive for most people and the learning can come quickly.. if you cant get past that barrier, you will never learn.. i always encourage people to go to a field, that way falling isnt scary any more youre only a few inches off the ground and its grass, so what if you fall, if you are not scared to fall, you can be not scared to push past the tendency to want to jump off and actually learn how to ride the thing

Edited July 6, 2019 by Rywokast

[MaxLinux]

9 hours ago, tscottn said:

I've tried teaching my wife to ride the EUC, but she seems to just jump off of it when it gets going

For some reason I can't quite figure out, girls just seem less interested in EUCs than guys are. I have reached this conclusion by the gender ratio in this forum (although admittedly not everyone's gender is known here) and in EUC YouTube videos. Based on what I've seen on YouTube, about 95% of EUC riders are male!

[Rywokast]

1 minute ago, MaxLinux said:

For some reason I can't quite figure out, girls just seem less interested in EUCs than guys are. I have reached this conclusion by the gender ratio in this forum (although admittedly not everyone's gender is known here) and in EUC YouTube videos. Based on what I've seen on YouTube, about 95% of EUC riders are male!

same is true for just about any sport or somewhat dangerous activity, females have a much stronger evolutionary survival instinct lol.. you very rarely see them doing a lot of the crazy shit that guys do for fun.. that coupled with societal viewpoints and how they were brought up in general make this statement absolutely true

[mrelwood]

One can just look at motorcyclists. Don’t know the percentage, but a female motorcycle rider is already somewhat rare.

I guess horse back riding is considered relatively safe. No idea on the amount of accidents there.

[UniVehje]

4 hours ago, mrelwood said:

One can just look at motorcyclists. Don’t know the percentage, but a female motorcycle rider is already somewhat rare.

I guess horse back riding is considered relatively safe. No idea on the amount of accidents there.

Seems to be quite dangerous:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8057065

Horseback riding probably doesn’t feel that dangerous as the speeds are usually low. 

My girlfriend started to ride EUC after a lot of persuasion by me. She first learned the basics and then took almost a year off after her first fall. Now she’s back riding again and really likes it. But she has no appetite for speed. 15 km/h is her normal speed if I don’t pressure for more. I guess it’s rare for women to get excited about these toys. 

[Rywokast]

Just now, UniVehje said:

Seems to be quite dangerous:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8057065

Horseback riding probably doesn’t feel that dangerous as the speeds are usually low. 

My girlfriend started to ride EUC after a lot of persuasion by me. She first learned the basics and then took almost a year off after her first fall. Now she’s back riding again and really likes it. But she has no appetite for speed. 15 km/h is her normal speed if I don’t pressure for more. I guess it’s rare for women to get excited about these toys. 

15 km/h i would shoot myself xD

[mrelwood]

2 hours ago, Rywokast said:

15 km/h i would shoot myself xD

@UniVehje was not very interested when I told him to take his wife to a group ride. 

[Dzlchef]

21 hours ago, tscottn said:

I've tried teaching my wife to ride the EUC, but she seems to just jump off of it when it gets going, impeding her ability to learn to balance the thing.  Its really frustrating but I want her to be able to ride something with me so we can have fun together instead of me saying " honey, ill be back later" .  So I was thinking of getting her something that self balances.. maybe a E scooter or a Onewheel.  What do you guys think?  I got the idea about the onewheel from watching @Mike Sacristan videos of him and his wife enjoying both the EUC and the Onewheel together..  But man, its so hard to justify paying almost 2k for something that only goes 19mph top speed and has less than 20 mile range..  But maybe thats OK if thats what it will take to get my wife out there with me..  What say you EUC Community..?

I think most of us with wives at some point hope they get the bug as much as us so we can go on rides together.  If your wife is like mine, that just isn’t going to happen, at least any time soon.  I had her try a rental scooter near the house and we went on a small ride together and she loved it.  I ended up buying her a Speedway III.  It’s taken her a bit to get used to it but now we go on 20 mile rides together which has been awesome! 

A word of caution when looking for a scooter, or any PEV, for the misses. Make sure you’re not getting the model with huge power, range and gadgets that you want. Your wife may not be comfortable and find too much of a scooter intimidating. 

[erk1024]

3 hours ago, Dzlchef said:

I think most of us with wives at some point hope they get the bug as much as us so we can go on rides together.  If your wife is like mine, that just isn’t going to happen, at least any time soon.  I had her try a rental scooter near the house and we went on a small ride together and she loved it.  I ended up buying her a Speedway III.  It’s taken her a bit to get used to it but now we go on 20 mile rides together which has been awesome! 

A word of caution when looking for a scooter, or any PEV, for the misses. Make sure you’re not getting the model with huge power, range and gadgets that you want. Your wife may not be comfortable and find too much of a scooter intimidating. 

I think this is good advice. I had a similar experience with my 16 year old daughter. I tried to get her a OneWheel, and that was too intimidating. I let her try my 18XL a bit, and she was not ecstatic about that one either. I got her a Xiaomi M365 to see if that would work. She loves it, but rides it at 10mph (top speed is 15.5mph). It would have been hard for her to learn a wheel being so timid.

Edited July 6, 2019 by erk1024

[Scubadragonsan]

At 42, my wife didn't know how to swim. A year later, I got her to become an Open Water Scuba Diver. However, instead of 4 open water dives in normal circumstances, I had to take her out for 50 open water dives. But she did it. Later as an Advanced diver, she did night dives in pitch darkness. And for the next 15 years, she was my divemaster for all my classes. At 65, she learned how to ride the KS16. It took her about 1 month to learn it. I held her hands made countless circles with the wheels. Now she rides the InMotion V10F along with me on trails. We rode the wheels in China, Paris and Singapore. How I made this happened with her was a lot and a lot of patience. Persistence and patience paid off. Part of this success is that she has to want to do it and determine to do it! Without any regrets, now she wheels along with me all over the Bay Area. I am almost 60 and she is 68. Hopefully, we will continue to wheel until we drop dead....at 100? We can settle with that!

 

Edited November 13, 2022 by Scubadragonsan

[Planemo]

6 minutes ago, scubadragosan said:

 now she wheels along with me all over the Bay Area. I am almost 60 and she is 68. Hopefully, we will continue to wheel until we drop dead....at 100? We can settle with that!

Amazing! How cool is that! That's got to win the award for 'eldest wheeling couple' in the world! Made my day that has

 

[mrelwood]

@scubadragosan, that is one heart warming story! Although...

30 minutes ago, scubadragosan said:

At 60, she learned how to ride the KS16S.

 

30 minutes ago, scubadragosan said:

she is 68.

The 16S has only been out for 2 years...

[Scubadragonsan]

Thanks Planemo! However, before we accept your 'eldest wheeling couple' accolade. I wonder whether we are really the eldest couple. Anyone genuine challengers out there?

Stand corrected, mrelwood. It was an older KS16 model and she's been riding for roughly 3 years now. Good catch!

Edited July 6, 2019 by scubadragosan