What do we call ourselves?

[travsformation 1,042]

9 hours ago, Mono said:

Some indeed call themselves wheelers

Not to be confused with....

[mike_bike_kite 126]

Different words:

• A wheel is a good name but it was sadly taken by the Mesopotamia's a few millennia ago. I didn't bother looking but I'm guess our wheels don't appear on the first dozen google pages or so.
• Ewheel would be good but the name is already taken by a web site.
• EUC conjures up little to anyone.
• Electric unicycle doesn't describe anything cool at all.
• Roue is just "wheel" in french.
• Gyroroue sounds interesting but is almost unpronounceable to non-french.
• Gyrowheel? Elctrowheel?

just my 2c

[ZenRyder 155]

1 hour ago, mike_bike_kite said:

Different words:

• A wheel is a good name but it was sadly taken by the Mesopotamia's a few millennia ago. I didn't bother looking but I'm guess our wheels don't appear on the first dozen google pages or so.
• Ewheel would be good but the name is already taken by a web site.
• EUC conjures up little to anyone.
• Electric unicycle doesn't describe anything cool at all.
• Roue is just "wheel" in french.
• Gyroroue sounds interesting but is almost unpronounceable to non-french.
• Gyrowheel? Elctrowheel?

just my 2c

You're making excellent points about why the various names suck. But as most people in business today say, "Don't bring me a problem without offering a solution."

Here, you've come up with a couple unique solutions:

1) GryoWheel - Brings in the aspect of the Gyroscope which electronically provides the forward/back stabilization. Sounds modern, electronic. Kinda cool.

2) ElectroWheel - An expounding of eWheel. I added back the "e" you removed because it makes it too confusing when only saving 1 character. But not bad at all. 

Off the top of my head:

DigitalUni
MechWheel
VoltRide
eUniCycle

I wonder if anyone else can come up with any thing better?

The shorter the better. Maybe we acknowledge that @Jason McNeil was pretty forward thinking with his domain purchase and we call them eWheels. There are plenty of other domains that can incorporate that name. Besides, this is an informal name that could become ubiquitous if we all decided to use it. It seems like it's all over the map currently.

[jonm42 27]

I need to go Xerox something. A name that became a verb.

[Mono 2,957]

People say "bike" when the refer to their motorcycle or their bicycle depending on context. There is nothing unusual in using the same word in different contexts in different meanings. In the same way, some of us (or maybe even many) have come to say wheel when we refer to our electric unicycle. I don't quite see myself starting to say ewheel instead, but maybe that's just me.

When I say "my wheel" it is a pretty unambiguous phrase for anybody around me. There is really not much else I could possibly refer to than my electric unicycle.

Edited December 3 by Mono

[travsformation 1,042]

26 minutes ago, Mono said:

When I say "my wheel" it is a pretty unambiguous phrase for anybody around me. There is really not much else I could possibly refer to than my electric unicycle.

Same here

[RockyTop 1,782]

I agree with @Mono. When talking to outsiders, I use EUC. When talking to some one in our asylum I just say wheel. 

[Aneta 198]

Starting from today, I'm going to call it "segwheel" - this name instantly brings association with Segway everyone on this planet knows about, and really, EUC is just one-wheel version of Segway. Much easier to explain to curious bystanders.

[RockyTop 1,782]

1 hour ago, travsformation said:

Same here

I had to hit the like button. your count was at 999.        1,000 !!!!

[travsformation 1,042]

12 minutes ago, RockyTop said:

1 hour ago, travsformation said:

Same here

I had to hit the like button. your count was at 999.        1,000 !!!!

Does that imply my ever-so-profound "same here" contribution was otherwise unworthy of a "like" ? 

1,000...cool! Thanks for the upvote! I'll never forget who my 1000th was with...  

[Aneta 198]

7 hours ago, Aneta said:

Starting from today, I'm going to call it "segwheel" - this name instantly brings association with Segway everyone on this planet knows about, and really, EUC is just one-wheel version of Segway. Much easier to explain to curious bystanders.

I came up with this word, "segwheel", in a spur of the moment, never heard of this word before. Well... "nothin' new under the moon": 

https://www.google.com/search?q=segwheel

[Tazarinho 105]

16 hours ago, ZenRyder said:

1) GryoWheel - Brings in the aspect of the Gyroscope which electronically provides the forward/back stabilization. Sounds modern, electronic. Kinda cool

Except 'GyroWheel' already exists. Apparently some training wheel to help kids stay upright when learning to ride a bike: http://youtu.be/DERSBnC2VwA

I usually use 'wheel', 'wiel' or 'roue' (all meaning the same thing) depending on whether I'm referring it to a Flemish, Walloon or international colleague. If we're actually discussing the device, I will go for 'electrical unicycle', 'monowiel' or 'gyroroue'.

When discussing other riders, I usually use the term 'wheelers', as it seems to be what's most common around here.

As for how to refer to a group of them: no idea, but I quite like the term 'murmuration', as used for starlings
It brings up an image of softly humming electrical engines, and the intricate pattern in which they weave about each others pathways.

 

 

Edited December 3 by Tazarinho

[Mono 2,957]

15 hours ago, RockyTop said:

When talking to outsiders, I use EUC.

How do you pronounce this?

Don't you then also explain what that abbreviation means?

[travsformation 1,042]

1 hour ago, Mono said:

How do you pronounce this?

Don't you then also explain what that abbreviation means?

I imagine he meant "electric unicycle", not the abbreviated form we use in writing 

[RockyTop 1,782]

2 hours ago, Mono said:

How do you pronounce this?

Don't you then also explain what that abbreviation means?

Yes, They are usually asking to look them up on line and YouTube. I say the following. - “You can find them online and on YouTube. Just look up EUC, Eclectic Unicycle, GotWay, KingSong, @Duf or Chooch. 

 

[ZenRyder 155]

9 hours ago, Aneta said:

I came up with this word, "segwheel", in a spur of the moment, never heard of this word before. Well... "nothin' new under the moon": 

https://www.google.com/search?q=segwheel

Well, I guess you have expensive taste... 

24k gold plate level. Let's hope you have the earning power to match it! 

[mike_bike_kite 126]

"Segwheel" - conjures up images of the film Mall Cop.It's not something anyone sane (and young) would want to be associated with.

"Just look up EUC" - if you just look up EUC then you get 3 pages of links to End User Computing. I don't know why I looked for 3 pages as no-one else looks past the first page. 

[scubadragosan 174]

Don't leave out a wheelie and the wheelies!

[ZenRyder 155]

1 minute ago, mike_bike_kite said:

"Segwheel" - conjures up images of the film Mall Cop.It's not something anyone sane (and young) would want to be associated with.

"Just look up EUC" - if you just look up EUC then you get 3 pages of links to End User Computing. I don't know why I looked for 3 pages as no-one else looks past the first page. 

You've hit the nail on the head! 

Trying to explain or pronounce EUC is ridiculous. Trying to look up that or wheel/s is an exercise in frustration.

But search for "ewheel" or "ewheels" and you get lots of good results including this forum on page 2.

This is why marketing and PR are important. You need words that are unique and descriptive that encompass your sport/hobby. I'm not saying it's the only reason, but it is certainly adding to the problem of the relative obscurity of eWheels. So, I guess "eWheel" looks to me like the best moniker that checks all the boxes. It is unique, comes up in a search, it's easy to associate with the sport, it's not an acronym that needs explaining, it's not hard to pronounce or read. It's 2 syllables instead of the 7 syllables of Electric UniCycle.

Of course a forum like this is a place to discuss ideas and is not any kind of official designation. But I have appreciated the comments, opinions, points of view, etc of the many who are much more experienced than myself. From this discussion, I've come away with the opinion (which is just my own), that I ride an eWheel. If people want to know what that is and just seeing it isn't enough, I'll be happy to explain that an eWheel is an electric unicycle. I think I'll save the EUC moniker for those specialized enough to discuss technical issues of the sport.

In the mean time, I'll try to get out and ride my eWheel rather than just typing at a keyboard. And if the San Diego Electric Unicycle Group schedules an upcoming ride, some interested bystanders might have their minds blown by seeing a swarm of eWheels riding past.   

[travsformation 1,042]

4 minutes ago, ZenRyder said:

You've hit the nail on the head! 

Trying to explain or pronounce EUC is ridiculous. Trying to look up that or wheel/s is an exercise in frustration.

But search for "ewheel" or "ewheels" and you get lots of good results including this forum on page 2.

This is why marketing and PR are important. You need words that are unique and descriptive that encompass your sport/hobby. I'm not saying it's the only reason, but it is certainly adding to the problem of the relative obscurity of eWheels. So, I guess "eWheel" looks to me like the best moniker that checks all the boxes. It is unique, comes up in a search, it's easy to associate with the sport, it's not an acronym that needs explaining, it's not hard to pronounce or read. It's 2 syllables instead of the 7 syllables of Electric UniCycle.

Of course a forum like this is a place to discuss ideas and is not any kind of official designation. But I have appreciated the comments, opinions, points of view, etc of the many who are much more experienced than myself. From this discussion, I've come away with the opinion (which is just my own), that I ride an eWheel. If people want to know what that is and just seeing it isn't enough, I'll be happy to explain that an eWheel is an electric unicycle. I think I'll save the EUC moniker for those specialized enough to discuss technical issues of the sport.

In the mean time, I'll try to get out and ride my eWheel rather than just typing at a keyboard. And if the San Diego Electric Unicycle Group schedules an upcoming ride, some interested bystanders might have their minds blown by seeing a swarm of eWheels riding past.   

I guess it's all down to use-cases. In this forum, EUC is just 3 letters, and wheel doesn't require any explanations.

For the general populace, on the other hand, ewheel is a good term (in line with e-scooter, e-bike, e-skate, etc.). Jason was definitely forward-thinking there!

Although in my case, I have to explain it to people in Spanish so I'm still stuck with monociclo eléctrico. Either way, I usually have to give further explanations anyway ("a one-wheeled Segway with no handlebar [Blank stare] Look, your feet go here and...."), plus tons of follow-up questions, so in my particular case, the amount of syllables I use to refer to my wheel would hardly have an impact on the length of the conversation.

If I want brevity, I just let them believe it's a motorized electric suitcase...

 

[Aneta 198]

5 hours ago, mike_bike_kite said:

"Segwheel" - conjures up images of the film Mall Cop.It's not something anyone sane (and young) would want to be associated with.

"Just look up EUC" - if you just look up EUC then you get 3 pages of links to End User Computing. I don't know why I looked for 3 pages as no-one else looks past the first page. 

I don't get the reference to Mall Cop. Was the word "segwheel" used in this movie? I only see segway. 

[mike_bike_kite 126]

Only the word Segway was used in the movie but that doesn't alter the association.

[Aneta 198]

22 minutes ago, mike_bike_kite said:

Only the word Segway was used in the movie but that doesn't alter the association.

I just spent 10 minutes the other day talking to curious bystanders and explaining what this thing is, using the term "electric unicycle" and realizing how unintuitive this term is (it only dawned on them that it is self-balancing, after 5 minutes - they thought that this is simply motor-assisted unicycle). In the next few weeks, I'll use the word "segwheel" instead and report my observations back.

[ZenRyder 155]

31 minutes ago, mike_bike_kite said:

Only the word Segway was used in the movie but that doesn't alter the association.

Yes, the movie came out in 2009 after Segways failed to gain traction and change cities into the urban hubs envisioned by rich entrepreneurs. By then it was seen as something utilitarian that could be branded and customized into a personal movement device for unmotivated security guards (Paul Blart). So I agree that the association with Segway isn't a particularly flattering one. There are some pretty stark differences between an eWheel and a Segway.

	Segway	eWheel
Speed	12 mph	42 mph
Technology	Old	New
Skill required	2	9
Safety	8	3
Portability	2	8
Range in miles	17/12 li/nmh	50-70
Cred	0	10

 Although there are similar self-balancing characteristics, comparing these two things is like apples and oranges. In practicality, they are very different and I think the association may cause almost as much confusion versus providing an explanation. I personally don't think of an eWheel (EUC) as a very close relation to a Segway in terms of current usability. However, the Segway certainly paved the way in early technology and acceptance. But it's now your Grandfather's device and not one that young people have much appreciation for.

[Cory Brown 10]

I personally am not a fan of coining a word from a brand name. I have a few friends that refer to their wheels as bots (I assume short for Ninebot) and it slightly bothers me.