E unicycles - a safe way forward!

[antberz]

I have been reselling E unicycles in South Africa for a few years and in my experience it seems that pretty much all the crashes I know of have been caused by riders pushing the wheels beyond their specified capabilities (ie: simply riding or accelerating too fast). I have been riding for about 4 years mostly on the highest performance e unicycles I can get my hands and often within 5-10% of their max performance capacity, but never pushing into that last 5%, as it seems senseless to go a few kmph faster to take the potential risk from what seems almost non-existent risk, to being on a fine line (especially if the batter is less than 50% charged) in which bodily harm and fairly serious injury  is almost guaranteed if one crosses that line, which I don't think is such a grey area, if one pays attention to the beeps of speed settings and develops a bit of a feel for how much power the wheel they are riding comfortably has. Essentially all the wipeouts I know of at speed of all the wheels I have sold have happened when riders neglect this fine line and try push for a little too much performance. Do others have this same experience of a pretty negligible amount of crashes coming from any actual failure in the wheel (electronics etc)?

Edited December 8, 2019 by antberz
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[Aneta]

What seems absolutely baffling to me, is that NONE, zero, nada of manufacturers and resellers of segwheels ever included a several pages booklet explaining in layman terms this inherent weakness of segwheels, using graphs similar to @zeke's doodles like here:

An average person buying a segwheel doesn't know anything of this and naively thinks that it's like an ebike or escooter where you simply push the throttle to the max and you get max speed. They will learn the inherent segwheel weakness only by crashing it (and only if they're smart enough not to blame the wheel that it's defective). And only small percentage of people ever go to topical forums like this, they're too busy with their lives.

If manufacturers don't make this leaflet because it's normal in Chinese culture to not care about safety, why don't American, European, etc. resellers do this themselves? A simple double-sided page will save a lot of injuries and customer aggravation.

[Mono]

On 12/8/2019 at 11:00 PM, antberz said:

Do others have this same experience of a pretty negligible amount of crashes coming from any actual failure in the wheel (electronics etc)?

Agreed, crashes due to wheel failures are rare (though I had two so far, but didn't really hit the ground hard). Non-negligible are IMHO crashes due to road inconsistencies which I would not count under the category trying to "push for a little too much performance".

On 12/9/2019 at 12:03 AM, Aneta said:

A simple double-sided page will save a lot of injuries and customer aggravation.

Mine has many more than two pages and it says nonsense like

• Do not drive on rainy days and on other wet roads.
• You are strongly advised against riding at night and in an environment with poor light.

No sane person can take "safety" advise of todays user manuals seriously. And no normal person wants to be bothered with the amount of technical detail that is relevant to understand and safely ride EUCs.

Edited December 10, 2019 by Mono

[mike_bike_kite]

On 12/8/2019 at 10:00 PM, antberz said:

never pushing into that last 5%, as it seems senseless to go a few kmph faster to take the potential risk

Surely, if you're riding along using 95% of the available power of your wheel, then any bump in the road, change in incline or sudden gust of wind could push you past the limit of your wheel anyway.

[Ddolik]

13 hours ago, Mono said:

....

No sane person takes "safety" advise of todays user manuals seriously. And no normal person wants to be bothered with the amount of technical detail that is relevant to understand and safely ride EUCs.

I will be minority,  but I do like to read manuals and instructions papers. Idk why... maybe just in case.

[Mono]

2 hours ago, Ddolik said:

I will be minority,  but I do like to read manuals and instructions papers. Idk why... maybe just in case.

I obviously read mine too, otherwise I couldn't have been citing from. I couldn't say I dislike reading them, they are often entertaining and funny in their own way. But when push comes to shove, I could I take them seriously?

[Coffee guy]

Maybe it would be helpful to your customers (antberz) if you would include a little pamphlet of your own with certain information your regional customers can appreciate, along with a link to this and/or any euc related forum where they can be further educated. This way it can be given in their own parlance. And it also counts as good customer service. Of course you can't make them read/use any of it. But it still counts.  Imho, this method may make it more likely they will at least give it a look.

[antberz]

On 12/13/2019 at 2:16 PM, Coffee guy said:

Maybe it would be helpful to your customers (antberz) if you would include a little pamphlet of your own with certain information your regional customers can appreciate, along with a link to this and/or any euc related forum where they can be further educated. This way it can be given in their own parlance. And it also counts as good customer service. Of course you can't make them read/use any of it. But it still counts.  Imho, this method may make it more likely they will at least give it a look.

Thanks for the input (Coffee guy) -  I shall look into putting something together. With most of my customers, I tend to meet with them and include a lesson to get them up and riding as well as talk them through precautions and guidelines, but details are often forgotten and  it tends to be difficult to focus and retain new info whilst learning a new skill as well..