From a Segway-Ninebot One S2 to Kingsong 16X

[George Iliev]

As I posted on the Facebook group, I've decided to track my whole experience on the forums. I've been lurking around for some time now, but didn't have a lot of quality info to add, so i kept my mouth shut... And now I figured... Meeeh, you'll deal with it :D. So this happened today...

Welcome me to the big boy club. From a ninebot one s2 to the 16x's a long way to go...

First impressions - blindfolded and clueless, I'd still know this was manufactured in China. Comparing it to the ninebot experience, it's almost eye-watering: the original King Song app feels like a cheap knockoff of the Ninebot OEM one, the manual is written with Google translate (at best) and the wheel is beeping like crazy when one is trying to set it up with the oem app. Menus, settings, led modes, all of it, is also translated by the same clueless algorithm, which gave birth to the sad sad manual.

Enter #EUCworld. My god, what a change in UX that was. (almost) EVERYTHING ruined by Chinese manufacturing disappeared in a flip of a switch, and oh golly what a joy ride wheel it became! @Seba thank you brother, for bringing this amazing wheel to life with your absurdly awesome software.

 I was using what was WheelLog with my Ninebot One S2 (thanks to @Seba for bringing Ninebot support), and since my white puck failed me (abnormal communication with Battery #1), I've been a bit out of the EUC World, as I had no wheel to ride. Starting EUC World now, with the KS 16X, I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH how far that application has come thanks to that single guy. All of you, not yet using EUC World, do yourselves a favor and start immediately. Also, consider strongly supporting Sebastian. I've been telling him for almost an year now to make the app paid-for, but he won't, as he wants to serve the community. And it's time the community does that right back. We're purchasing wheels costing 2,000$ and up almost every year, so it's only normal to shell 20€ per year for the guy that makes the software, which often (as in my case) makes or breaks the experience. 

 I'm yet to ride it properly in the upcoming days, but my setup experience was a night and day difference thanks to EUC World. Other than that - what I said about the Ninebot experience kinda extends to the materials used too. Wheel is solid, fits together nicely, has no noticeable gaps, but it "feels" hollow in places, meaning it feels like the plastic is a bit thin, or there's no support behind it... IDK how to explain it, it's just a feeling, although I read around, and my friends tell me it's a pretty sweet and solid wheel, that holds good even in some pretty serious crashes. LEDs are not-so-premium looking in person, and the handlebar, although brilliant in design, feels like something that'll give in sometime in the near future.

 Experience-wise for someone coming from a 14" 11 kilo nimble AF wheel, It's on the heavy side, but (to my surprise) manageable for 4 storey historical building (read 4 meters height of a single storey) stairways climb. TBH One of my biggest concerns upgrading my wheel from the Ninebot One S2 to some of the big guys was that I was a bit worried that i won't be able to lug it around, but it's doable I think. Surely it'll get easier with time and training. Keep in mind I'm 220 pounds, and I have a good body strength. 

 Wheel itself oozes performance feeling, and is nimble as f*ck. Almost as nimble as the Ninebot,  weight-feeling being the only difference. I can turn on a dime with it, even tighter diameters than on my s2 due to the much higher pedals. I can scrape the pedal while turning on a spot, and it's still fairly easy to swing it around doing one pedal-scrape to the other pedal scrape. Speed and confidence I can't discuss as I'm not a speed daemon and still haven't ridden it with more than 15-20 kph. I feel the random pedal dip and misbehaving, but I've read that I need to recalibrate it, so I'll do that and then look if it persists as behaviour. One strange thing was that wheel itself feels like it pulls to the right, but I'm pretty sure it's my riding muscles not being used to such weight between my legs (yeah, I know, pun intended). I'm thinking of going for a ride tomorrow to dig into the feeling, and will keep you posted here about it... Like a small journal of sorts.  

 Ninebot One S2 had, to me, THE strongest sense of intuitive unprecedented life-changing human-machine augmentation I've ever experienced in my life. It truly felt like a mechanized part of your body, adding almost super-human like abilities to your own self. KS 16x initially feels like you've just supercharged that component of your android configuration with jolts and jolts of raw, un-pure, untamed energy. 

 All that said, comparing it to the Ninebot One S2 wheel dynamics: pretty different, yet promising and alluring to say the least.... Also 16x has almost doubled it's price both in feeling and experience once coupled with the EUC world app. Consider strongly supporting it. 

[Meserias]

make sure you won't push it over 40 km/h...

[George Iliev]

4 minutes ago, Meserias said:

make sure you won't push it over 40 km/h...

I've read horrid stories about faceplants... I'm also not exceeding 25 before my DH certified helmet arrives. 

[Stillhart]

Nice story and beautiful photo!  

I just purchased a Nikola 84v to upgrade from my Ninebot E+ so I expect to be where you are very soon.  I'll be following your story closely!

[Yunicycle]

Sorry, when you said you had concerns about lugging around the new 16x, I had to do a double take on your profile pic and thought to myself, "are you kidding me?". 

Nice fun read otherwise.

Edited April 13, 2020 by Yunicycle

[George Iliev]

2 hours ago, Yunicycle said:

Sorry, when you said you had concerns about lugging around the new 16x, I had to do a double take on your profile pic and thought to myself, "are you kidding me?". 

Nice fun read otherwise.

Hahaha, I just never had a wheel neither that size, nor that weight, and I was worried it would be kind of cumbersome, which in turn would render me using the wheel less, which is not the outcome I desired, while thinking for an upgrade... I'm also trying to be thorough for anyone reading this, in case he's (or she's) coming from a small-factor wheel like the s2 . But either way - even though the wheel is indeed bulky and defenitely has its own weight, it's not such a PITA and certainly looks like something I'm OK living with on day-to-day basis. 

Edited April 13, 2020 by George Iliev

[Yunicycle]

Hey George, I'm just messing with you, thanks for being a good sport about it.  Enjoy your new wheel!

[George Iliev]

1 minute ago, Yunicycle said:

Hey George, I'm just messing with you, thanks for being a good sport about it.  Enjoy your new wheel!

Always up for a bit of fun, and it doesn't bother me if I'm in the center of it mate  :> I know that this place here is filled only with the best guys & gals and what I'm circling around with this reply is that I'm not lagging behind, yea?  Anyways, 'nough spitballin', I'll post once I manage to get the turtle out again. 

And on the point: Does anyone know how long does it take to charge from 45-50% to full for a KS 16x? It's been plugged for almost 12 hrs now, and still the charger light is red...

[Lefteris]

I hope you have lots of fun with it. 

 

[George Iliev]

  So.. LOG N:2 

  Initial impressions:

  First thing's first: DUDE, that thing is bulky, and heavy, and clumsy. As I said, I live in a historical building with a really narrow doorway on the ground floor, and we had to step outside like a couple having a really heated word exchange, if you know what I mean. KS went outside, and the door almost slammed me in the face before I could catch up. That bulkiness and clumsiness kinda extends to the ride also. Since the pedals are more than a bit, or even more than a couple of bits higher than the S2, when I'm on it, and I try to readjust a foot position the whole thing doesn't like it. It's like a grumpy donkey not happy about me kicking it in the ribs. Not really trying to throw me off, but swinging a little bit left-to right. Again - I'm pretty sure that I'm the problem (like it's ever theirs in a relationship, am I right guys?), but never the less - it's something to look up to, if you're coming from a small-factor light wheel as I am. 

  On the previous end note - the whole setup feels nothing like a small-factor light wheel. The S2, being 11 kilos in weight and 14", 2.125 tire, was really subordinate to my wishes, and kinda read my body-language, and I could turn it around people and obstacles like swinging a featherball racket, and not really thinking about it - it just happened naturally. Kingsong 16X is a totally different story. This thing is like trying to swing an 12-18 kilo kettlebell - You can, but once you do, it takes almost twice the effort to change your mind mid-way. Also, being so heavy and tall and bulky it keeps rattling between your legs, and as a long-married man, two kids, I've forgotten what it is to deal with that violence. I suspect, that having the tire pressure around 40 PSI has a lot to do with that feeling, and will experiment with pressures around a bit. And, the thing is, it's not really un-maneuverable or tough to handle, it just seems to have progressive steering dynamics. If you're going 2-3-5 kph you can swing it left and right, fairly easily due to the high pedals. Going around 15-20 - you can make nice wide turns, and it feels solid. Between those speeds though, there's a spot which I yet cannot put my finger on, where you're going too slow for a wide turn, but not slow enough to take a swift turn, without feeling a little "off" about it. IDK, it might be just me not having experience on it. 

  And while I'm on the thought of tire pressure: That thing is BOUNCY @ 40 PSI. What PSI do you keep at/in yours? I take bar recommendations also . I tried riding on a paved street, and boy is it a workout for my legs. After you exceed 13-15 kph or the terrain gets even a bit more uneven it feels like it's just bouncing around and barely touching ground as you go. I remember feeling like that with my ninebot s2, so I started riding it @ around 25-30 psi and then built up to 35 eventually, when I was feeling like "one" with the wheel. I might try to execute same logic with the X now. 

  Riding bottom line is it feels pretty new to me as an experience. I remember feeling the same way on my first 20-40 km's on the One S2. It's like I'm relearning to ride from almost the beginning. 

  Build quality of the KS 16X:

  The LEDs are horrible. I've disabled them, and I think I would be activating them only @ night if need rises, just to increase other drivers awareness of my presence, because stop lights of  the ks suck IMO, because being so low and narrow, they're easily overlooked. In person, and during daytime they look pretty cheap to me.

   Motor cutoff worked only in like 40% of the time. I have the habit of stepping off the wheel, grabbing it and taking it right off the ground, often even before full stop, if I'm going into a store, up a ladder or climbing a high sidewalk edge. I needed to do that 4 times today, and the handle disabled the motor only one of those times. When trying to replicate it I couldn't figure out why it wasn't cutting off. One time it happened, (the firs one I think) I was shocked that picking it up it didn't chirp, and I heard the wheel spin up. "Please Decelerate". Instant shame from the bystanders. I put it back on the ground and leave a skid mark on the office floor. More shame. Push the handle physically down, try to lift it again - same result. I extend the handle from it's rest, put it back in to "click", and when it did - the cutout worked next time. It was an instant feeling of "Yep. It's Chinese all right.". 

   I went home to leave it, as I had to carry some large and heavy bags from the car and back, and I still don't trust it (or myself with it?) enough to carry cargo with it, and that's coming from a guy that opened two restaurants carrying the materials with a unicycle . The journey up the narrow staircase was a painful one, I'll admit. It's like carrying a drunk or wounded, passed-out friend back to the bunker, if the bunker was a 16 meter high castle tower, and your friend was fat and uncooperative. It's manageable, but it's not joyous or carefree in any way, shape or form. 

  If i think of something more I'll add it later. As I said, I'm a married man, with kids, and my marriage is watching me as I type those words with eyes filled with judgement, because, apparently I made some promises I don't remember. Later guys&gals, TTYL  

[Stillhart]

17 minutes ago, George Iliev said:

 ...

  Riding bottom line is it feels pretty new to me as an experience. I remember feeling the same way on my first 20-40 km's on the One S2. It's like I'm relearning to ride from almost the beginning. 

...

I've seen it said before that getting on a 16X is like learning to ride all over again.  Maybe it was @Mike Sacristan who said it?  Sounds like the man knows what he's talking about!  lol

Thanks for the entertaining read; I like your writing style.

[EUC Custom Power-Pads]

18 hours ago, George Iliev said:

And on the point: Does anyone know how long does it take to charge from 45-50% to full for a KS 16x? It's been plugged for almost 12 hrs now, and still the charger light is red...

Battery has 21AH.
12h x 1.5A charge current = 18Ah (simply put)
It's supposed to be full.
What does the battery voltage say when you turn the wheel on but disconnect the charger?

I guess it fights its way through the balancing process at a snail's pace and depending on the cell voltage difference it can take forever. 

Edited April 14, 2020 by buell47

[Mike Sacristan]

8 hours ago, Stillhart said:

I've seen it said before that getting on a 16X is like learning to ride all over again.  Maybe it was @Mike Sacristan who said it?  Sounds like the man knows what he's talking about!  lol

Thanks for the entertaining read; I like your writing style.

Especially coming from an S2.  That's half a 16X. The 16X is mostly like learning to ride all over again with the CX tyre. I imagine you have the Chao Yang so it should behave rather conventionally. Still, the higher pedals, loose stance, wider geometry will take a while to get used to. And when you do the S2 will feel like a toy and a death trap.

If you were using 25 PSI on the S2 and 40 PSI on the 16X that's like the reverse considering the tyre volume. 

You are still on the conservative size for the 16X if you use your bodyweight in kg divided by 2.5 = PSI.

I push mine over 40 aaaaaaall the time. I gently push it past 45.
But yeah... take it easy and rack up those km and learn all aspects of the wheel.
Practice climbing hills and it will teach you posture and intent for this bigger wheel.
Play around with the soft pedal mode as well it is very comfy and feels more like it reads your mind vs doing more aggressive leaning on the hard mode.

Thanks for sharing it was an entertaining read!

[George Iliev]

5 minutes ago, Mike Sacristan said:

Play around with the soft pedal mode as well it is very comfy and feels more like it reads your mind vs doing more aggressive leaning on the hard mode.

@Mike Sacristan Thanks for the reply mate! I have a couple of questions, first of those being for the PSI:
/2.5.. .really? It really feels WAY too bouncy. I will try out 35 psi, because on paved road it's literally unrideable bouncing left and right like crazy ... My question here is more in the terms of what am I risking here with going low on the PSI? Slippage on turns or... ? 

Second: Please elaborate on the Soft pedal mode, and hard pedal mode, and that whole shebang as I literally understood nothing from the manual. It's like an old pirate's map, that is hell bent on keeping its secrets. Please, allow me to quote it, it's one hell of an explanation:

Quote

" ...

7. Riding Mode: 
Riding mode refers to be the ration mode during start-off and breaking. Experient mode / Riding Mode / Learner Mode. At the beginning, ride at learner mode to feel the accelerate and decelerate, turning and so on. Riding mode and Experient mode is just for high requirement rider who want to try more flexible experience. 
Experient mode can satisfy the group who wants to perform skills like jumping, also it can avoid pedal tilt back when climbing up or down steep hills. 

..."

From what I understood, is that I need to ration my breaking and acceleration (and possibly my food also) if I want to be "experient" (Experiment? Experienced? Ex...crement, oops, nope, wait, that's the manual.). And I won't be able to climb steep hills without tiltback if I'm not performing skills like jumping. While crocodile. On Iceberg...

[Mike Sacristan]

42 minutes ago, George Iliev said:

@Mike Sacristan Thanks for the reply mate! I have a couple of questions, first of those being for the PSI:
/2.5.. .really? It really feels WAY too bouncy. I will try out 35 psi, because on paved road it's literally unrideable bouncing left and right like crazy ... My question here is more in the terms of what am I risking here with going low on the PSI? Slippage on turns or... ? 

You are risking smacking and denting the rim at too low a PSI.
At too high a PSI you are risking air time and loss of traction at high speed.
My bodyweight in KG (63kg) divided by 2.5 would be 25 PSI and that is a rough ride.
My riding weight in KG divided by 3 would yield a lower number and is still a bit too rough for me. I prefer 20  or even better 19.
However then I have to think twice about skate parks, jumping off curbs, etc.

42 minutes ago, George Iliev said:

Second: Please elaborate on the Soft pedal mode, and hard pedal mode, and that whole shebang as I literally understood nothing from the manual. It's like an old pirate's map, that is hell bent on keeping its secrets. Please, allow me to quote it, it's one hell of an explanation:

From what I understood, is that I need to ration my breaking and acceleration (and possibly my food also) if I want to be "experient" (Experiment? Experienced? Ex...crement, oops, nope, wait, that's the manual.). And I won't be able to climb steep hills without tiltback if I'm not performing skills like jumping. While crocodile. On Iceberg...

Hahaha I know man... it's a horror story.

Learning mode = very squishy mode
Riding mode = medium squishy mode
Experienturuuu mode = stiff mode

The squish is a spongy feeling to the pedals which allows them to tilt forward -1 to +1 degrees. This squishy tilt translates into assisted acceleration and braking.
So the squishy softer modes mean we don't need as much forward lean to get the wheel moving and this allows us to maintain more of our body mass over the wheel instead of in front of it.

However as the pedals yield ever so slightly in the softer modes it can feel a tiny bit less predictable than the hardest/stiffest mode.

[EUC Custom Power-Pads]

9 hours ago, Mike Sacristan said:

The squish is a spongy feeling to the pedals which allows them to tilt forward -1 to +1 degrees. This squishy tilt translates into assisted acceleration and braking.
So the squishy softer modes mean we don't need as much forward lean to get the wheel moving and this allows us to maintain more of our body mass over the wheel instead of in front of it.

However as the pedals yield ever so slightly in the softer modes it can feel a tiny bit less predictable than the hardest/stiffest mode.

Fully agree, I'm riding all the time in soft mode since I have the newer control board and not the first batch board (maybe mine was not quite intact right from the start, ?). 

Edited April 15, 2020 by buell47

[George Iliev]

1 hour ago, buell47 said:

Fully agree, I'm riding all the time in soft mode since I have the newer control board and not the first batch board. 

@buell47 What is the difference between control boards tho? I asked my dealer to swap mine (the wheel was first batch) for the latest and greatest but neither of us knew what the difference actually was? 

Edited April 15, 2020 by George Iliev

[EUC Custom Power-Pads]

41 minutes ago, George Iliev said:

@buell47 What is the difference between control boards tho? I asked my dealer to swap mine (the wheel was first batch) for the latest and greatest but neither of us knew what the difference actually was? 

 

[George Iliev]

  Guess what? It's me again. I was on another swift coronavirus supply run

  Changes I made last night and was eager to test: I set the riding mode to soft/learning or whatever the first level was, and let some air out of the tire. I don't have a pressure gauge, so I've got no clue how much I actually let out, IMHO shouldn't be more than a 0.2-0.3 bars, two-three quick fuss-es, but BOY was my experience different. Wheel felt much more cushy, way more rideable, and I was immediately comfortable to run near my normal ninebot speeds of 20+ kph averaged. Turning is a bit different with it, and while low-speed carving is a delight with the high pedals, there's something strange happening when I try to adjust my stance, and it's like the wheel decides to go straight to the curb, doesn't matter left or right, and no matter how subtle corrections you try to keep it going straight, the wheel won't accept them. It just goes it's own way and that's it. You need to throw a lot of weight to counter the direction and then everything's back to normal. It was the same experience with the rock-hard tire, so it's not the pressure, and my best guess is, that the wheel just weighs a ton, and the problem here, again, is me just not having the proper muscle memory, to balance it intuitively where I want it. I remember such conundrums from literally my first day on a wheel. The feeling when you step on it for the very first time, and you keep pushing on the pedal that's going down, and just can't force yourself shift your weight stepping on the higher one, even though that's the proper thing to do. 

  Never the less, I was on a really low personal note after my previous ride, because the wheel felt... well, like it's not gonna click with me, and that really saddened me. I truly wanted to love it at first sight, and that didn't happen. It didn't happen on the second one also. It kept showing me it's negative sides.

  Today on the other hand everything seems to be starting to fall in place. I guess It's a bright road ahead of us, as the wheel put enough effort to lower my expectations on day one, and is now exceeding them daily.

  One thing that made an impression on me was the speed limiters. @Seba I tried bumping the limiters from #EUCworld, and wheel beeped, and everything was good according to the app, but when I accelerated i started getting the beepz again at the previous levels. I had to step down, shut euc world off, open official kingsong sad app, and change the speed settings there. Once set, I closed KS app, reopened EUC World, and everything was working according to the new settings. Is there something I'm missing?

[EUC Custom Power-Pads]

My first wheel was a V8. After 1600km riding experience (drove it already hard offroad) I switched to the 16X. Damn WTF, I can't ride the f...g wheel. After 300 km I finally managed almost as well, but only after 500 km I get really used to it.  

[EUC Custom Power-Pads]

1 hour ago, George Iliev said:

Once set, I closed KS app, reopened EUC World, and everything was working according to the new settings. Is there something I'm missing?

Oh, there is a bug. 

Try confirming the limit with the ENTER key. 

[George Iliev]

@buell47 have you noticed strange pedal dips? I still can't put my finger on exactly when, but it seems that on small incline, or after entering/exiting a corner, the wheel feels like it's 1-2 degrees dipping forward... It's pretty unnerving.

[EUC Custom Power-Pads]

Yes, extremely tilting forward and backwards from new,but the Bluetooth patch fixed that behavior. 

 

But the forward tilt was not complete gone. I had probably the same forward tilt like you. The next 1000km I had it in slow and tight turns. I thought it is normal.

Then after 1000km the forward tilt came up while riding just fast straight or little carving. Tilting sporadically forward and few seconds later back to level. 

@1200km I changed the control board and after that I had no problems anymore. Like a totally different (better) wheel. 

 

[George Iliev]

9 minutes ago, buell47 said:

Yes, extremely tilting forward and backwards from new,but the Bluetooth patch fixed that behavior. 

 

But the forward tilt was not complete gone. I had probably the same forward tilt like you. The next 1000km I had it in slow and tight turns. I thought it is normal.

Then after 1000km the forward tilt came up while riding just fast straight or little carving. Tilting sporadically forward and few seconds later back to level. 

@1200km I changed the control board and after that I had no problems anymore. Like a totally different (better) wheel. 

 

@buell47 the problem is I asked my dealer to change my board to the newest one before shipping me the wheel.... WTF KingSong?! 1 year and you still don't have a finished product?

[EUC Custom Power-Pads]

I don't believe the 1.4 Control Board is bad, probably my board was broken from beginning and got more worse later.