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My first EUC: Monster V3 100V


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Hello all, I've been riding human powered unicycles for about 20 years, building high powered ebikes for 5 years and recently got a Zero. So I've had my eye on EUCs for a while. The other day I finally decided, rather on a whim, that I must have one.

After looking thru the available vehicles it seems there is basically ONE electric unicycle with specs suitable for my needs, which are:

--35+ cruising speed for traffic

--big wheel to roll bumps more easily

Suspension would be nice, but I'll be riding this mostly on "smooth" roads and pathways, not doing jumps or riding gnarly terrain, so it's not essential. 

 

Anyway, this forum may be for people to ask for recommendations but I went a step further and bought the unicycle after doing pretty minimal research. It should come in tomorrow. I'll report my initial experiences with the wheel in this thread, for better or worse. Did I waste $3k? We'll find out! 

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No you did not waste your money - great wheel - the biggest concern I would have for you is the "dropping during learning".  Biggest wheel to learn on and you "will" crash/drop it. Go to Roll.nz and get the cover for it.

I am 55 200lbs, riding ebike for 5 yrs. I started looking last Sept for an e- scooter and came across EUC's, it was love at first site.  After much review, I got the V10F based on recommendation by Ian from Speedy feet UK for a good general all round wheel.  It was great wheel, held up great to my abuse.  After my learning curve I found the V10F to lack the top end cruising speed and torque I wanted. I would cruise average speed 29 - 30 kph but when I hit a long hill on my returned commute home from work , 10% 800 meters long, the wheel would only tilt back on my trying to maintain that speed.  For the torque side, I found when I was at the skate park I could not go up one of the ramps from a stand still just at the base.  I estimate it to be 40%, one of those ramps for them to launch from so step grade is needed. I could make it up the ramp if I hit it rolling already, just not from a stand still a the base. 

So i decided it was upgrade time. I sold it about 8 weeks ago to a friend(140lbs) looking for new wheel. Now waiting for the MSP. Hopefully in next week.

Things that needed to meet my needs:

--- 18inch wheel to smooth out the bumps.

--- 30 kph cruise speed - plenty room there with MSP for that hill on the way home.

--- Torque for that skate park ramp and for those hills I have not encountered yet. I want to go to a local ski hill and climb their service road.

--- Good light - fall and spring my morning commute is in the dark - MSP great light.

-- Trolley handle - Walking the unit in/out of my work and  I go to the store allot on the way home -- I liked the V10F handle - MSP according to most others is the worst. I am looking to do a mod on that.  The KS 16x has the best handle but it was lacking in other areas, mainly 16inch wheel not being a 100V battery but good torque. The Monster None and at 5ft 10in I didn't want to hunch over walking it.

Picking a wheel on the majority of your riding intentions is not a bad idea.  Until you get to those few things you want to do once in a wheel that wheel cant do.

Again  - you picked a great wheel - looking forward to your update on your riding progress  - GET THAT COVER FOR IT newbie😁

Cheers

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OK, I got the wheel. It arrived fully charged, tire inflated and ready to ride. Figuring out that the lift hold button wasn't the power on / off took more time than learning to ride slowly LOL. I got up along the wall, it felt good, so I rode around my yard for about 10 minutes, doing slow circles left and right, where it felt a lot like a regular unicycle. The hardest part at first was making myself lean forward to accelerate. Decelerating was easy. 

Then I went out to the street, for a 1.5 mile ride. I didn't go past about 10 mph, because the wheel has a REALLY huge gyro effect and it feels WEIRD turning at speed. I know this will give it plenty of stability when I'm cruising along at 35, after I learn the handling.

Feels great so far! I wasn't sure what to expect, and figured that pedal unicycle wouldn't help that much. Maybe motorcycle balance skills (one arm accel / decel standing) helped me out too. 

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30 minutes ago, deflated tractioninterface said:

I wasn't sure what to expect, and figured that pedal unicycle wouldn't help that much.

Manual unicyclists tend to learn in minutes. Just like you did:)

Now it's important you wear all the necessary safety gear before you learn the hard way why you need it;)

And don't get overconfident. This phase is dangerous, you think you can ride fine but unexpected stuff (surprise car coming at you) can send you into panic behavior instead of just calmly braking or reacting otherwise.

Congratulations on the nice wheel and progress.

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Yeah, that's interesting that manual unicyclists learn fast. I figured that although the physics are the same the different control scheme would be a problem, because a similar transition with motorcycles (throttle and brake for wheelie, or unicycle mode) is hard for me. 

I'm happy to have gotten rolling fast but feel like I know almost nothing about how it handles which is about right. I will focus much of my riding on practicing drills until I can comfortably ride this thing hard. I do have incoming knee and elbow protection for when I ride this thing more slowly without full leathers. So far I wore the wrist protectors included in the box with a bike helmet. I have $900 EVS motocross knee braces, but I think they will be extremely uncomfortable to ride with so those are probably out. 

For fast road riding, I'll have to feel comfortable with aspects of the unicycle that I have no clue about now, so not sure how long that will take to figure out while pushing things slowly enough to hopefully avoid much crashing. When I do start going fast I don't see myself riding beyond 15-20 on the road without full leathers. I've seen that members here aren't big on full face MC helmets, so I'll be looking for an alternative lid.

Right now I'm just wearing a bike helmet, and riding 10 mph is very quiet and peaceful. Easy wheel to ride slow. Love it! 

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On 5/30/2020 at 4:35 PM, deflated tractioninterface said:

I've seen that members here aren't big on full face MC helmets, so I'll be looking for an alternative lid.

Right now I'm just wearing a bike helmet, and riding 10 mph is very quiet and peaceful. Easy wheel to ride slow. Love it! 

I wear real MC ARAI helmet. I'm very (probably overly) careful but i'm not sure that master who assembled my wheel would be as careful as I am. And if the wheel fails the fall can be so sudden that I risk planting my face right into concrete. So i do not see here how bicycle helmet will help at all to save my jaw from fracture and face for getting "prettier". And also I did not consider motocross/downhill helmets for 2 reasons 1. If I fall face down motocross helmet hits concrete with the visor first. If visor is not collapsible that can lead to at least nasty whiplash on my neck. THere is a video on youtube of some girls in NY experienced just that and switched to bicycle helmet (which is probably worse).  2. I do not like bugs flying into my face when i ride, MC helmet handles that problem pretty well. Motocross/downhill helmethas no face shield because it gets dirty and you wont be able to see. EUC has no such problem so why not having nice MC helmet with face shield and all the comfort and max safety?

THe only downside of wearing true MC helmet for me right now is that i cannot drink easily water out of the bottle without removing my helmet.

Also do not use flimsy wrist pads that came with the wheel, get double-sided flexmeter. They are expensive but medical bills and pain and no fun is more expensive. Wrists are the first target followed by face/jaw, then knees then elbows.

And get good knee pads. triple-eight snowboarding knee pads are pretty good (this is what i have) but unfortunately they take too long to put on. As alternative leatt dual axis knee/shin guard are great and due to special latches they are very fast to put on but all leatt gear I ordered I had to return back because they lie on measurement sized and everything I ordered ended to be 1 size smaller than i measured. Maybe i will order bigger size leatt next time when i'm tired of spending time putting on triple-eights.

With good knee pads you will also tend to jump on your knees when things go sour vs trying to outrun the wheel which most likely will end up in a face plant.

I also wear leatt elbow pads but i ordered bigger fox ones which did not arrive yet so i cannot comment on that. Leatt   elbow pads have advantage that i install them almost instantly (and i will keep them for that) but i doubt they will stay in place if i start to grind the asphalt.

BTW my wheel has not a single scratch and i do not have a single bruise because i learned for 1 week on a soccer field with synthetic grass. :-)

 

Good luck and big respect to a real pedal UC-list :-)

 

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On 5/30/2020 at 7:35 PM, deflated tractioninterface said:

Right now I'm just wearing a bike helmet, and riding 10 mph is very quiet and peaceful. Easy wheel to ride slow. Love it!

Another Monster rider! Cool! Interesting choice for a first wheel. I love mine for sure. 

The Fox Proframe MTB helmets are full face, much lighter and much cooler than a motorcycle helmet. I've got two of them. I'll also vote for the Flexmeter wrist guards. They're comfortable and a lot more protection. Also the Leatt dual axis knee guards are really comfortable and quick to get on/off as well as providing excellent protection. Not sure full leathers are needed. Would be way too hot to wear in Florida.

The body armor I use:

  • Full face MTB helmet
  • Flexmeter wrist guards
  • Elbow guards
  • Leatt Knee and Shin guards
  • 8" tall steel toed hiking boots

The weakness of this setup is no chest, back or shoulder protection. But I've taken a few spills and this seems to cover the bases pretty well while still being cool enough to wear.

 

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Edited by erk1024
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15 hours ago, Alj said:

I wear real MC ARAI helmet.

Thanks for all the gear advice, it was helpful, especially for wrist guards / knee pads. 

I've been continuing to ride the wheel and have done another 20 miles. My capacity to turn at higher speed is limited, so I'm mindful of the pace. Got up to 20 mph so far, which is about as fast as I can run. Haven't dropped the wheel yet or come close, as I've been riding cautiously and not pushing things.

It's a lot of fun figuring out the skills needed to handle these wheels. I can't wait until I feel comfortable doing 35 mph in traffic. That will be a super blast!

For fast riding, yeah, leathers are a pain to wear and they're pretty heavy too. But if not leathers, I would have to wear MC jacket / pants. Pads alone won't stop road rash unless you're lucky.

Once I get comfortable enough to go FAST, I'll definitely wear my full face Shoei.

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5 minutes ago, deflated tractioninterface said:

For fast riding, yeah, leathers are a pain to wear and they're pretty heavy too.

There are also mesh jackets and pants with tough fabric and integrated pads that could work. I have an Icon mesh jacket.

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On 6/7/2020 at 7:57 PM, deflated tractioninterface said:

Looking forward to reaching the 40 mph mark soon, with protective gear. 

I'm not sure this is a good goal. Electric scooters, skateboards, EUC's are great fun and a way to get around that's much faster than walking. Many scooters top out at 15mph (25kph) which is useful for short trips--you'd be hard pressed to sprint that fast. But frankly, it's very boring. You're just grinding away thinking "can't this thing go faster?" It's awesome and fun that our wheels go the speeds they do. But if you have a crash or cut-out, there is no recovery. You're going to superman onto your face in a hot second. The Kingsong wheels top out at 50kph (31 mph) for safety reasons.

And keep in mind, when you run out of torque, it's stops balancing! Because of the duty cycle of electric motors, they naturally loose torque the faster the wheel spins. Watch some of the videos of guy's overleaning and crashing. Terrifying. Daredevils are going to go faster and push the limits, but you have to understand you're risking serious injury. Maybe 35mph is as fast as anybody should ever go on an EUC.

Edited by erk1024
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1 hour ago, Phong Vu said:

 

Watching this makes you realize how lucky he was, Just forget  about the damage caused by the actual crash for a min but look how that wheel narrowly missed his head jeez..how lucky he was that his wheel didn't smash into him after he went down, no amount of protection would saved him..would've been game over!

Edited by Dave Wood
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12 minutes ago, Dave Wood said:

Watching this makes you realize how lucky he was, Just forget  about the damage caused by the actual crash for a min but look how that wheel narrowly missed his head jeez..how lucky he was that his wheel didn't smash into him after he went down, no amount of protection would saved him..would've been game over!

Indeed, when I fall down, I don't mind hitting the ground, I just don't want my wheel to hit me or other pedestrians/cars, that would be a lot of damage...

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1 hour ago, FreeRide said:

link to read about what caused that crash?

Not sure we have a post about this in this forum, you might found some on reddit.
Or you can read the youtube comment, he answer people questions:

Quote

Oscillation caused the amps to spike and make the wheel cutout. Somewhere between 35 and 40. Should not have happened

The point is, he has a lot of experience, he know the wheel capability, it still cutout under him and nothing he can do at that point.
So be aware of what you're getting into when you try to ride at 40 mph.

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5 hours ago, Phong Vu said:

Not sure we have a post about this in this forum, you might found some on reddit.
Or you can read the youtube comment, he answer people questions:

The point is, he has a lot of experience, he know the wheel capability, it still cutout under him and nothing he can do at that point.
So be aware of what you're getting into when you try to ride at 40 mph.

Thanks, yes looked from the video as some internal fault.  Don't worry, you won't find me going anywhere near 40mph on any current wheel, and i'm sure not on any future wheel in my life time. 

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9 hours ago, Phong Vu said:

The point is, he has a lot of experience, he know the wheel capability, it still cutout under him and nothing he can do at that point.

It could be just Master taking a nap during wheel assembly procedure and did not crimp some wire all the way in.

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On 6/10/2020 at 11:30 AM, Alj said:

It could be just Master taking a nap during wheel assembly procedure and did not crimp some wire all the way in.

The rider's called "Kamikaze Joe", he's riding a high speed unicycle, he's on a group ride demonstrating how fast the thing goes and the wheel is oscillating back and forth. And your conclusion is it must be an assembly issue :confused1:

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The oscillation is indeed a known issue with the wheel. Its not a rider problem. Yes he could have stopped as soon as it started oscillating (I wouldnt ride it in the first place) but ultimately it IS an assembly/wheel fault issue ie not rider induced. That he chose to carry on riding it was I admit a bit crazy, but many slower with the same issue have done the same thing. Heck, many riders didnt even know the wheel actually had a problem until Marty rode them and confirmed it.

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8 hours ago, mike_bike_kite said:

The rider's called "Kamikaze Joe", he's riding a high speed unicycle, he's on a group ride demonstrating how fast the thing goes and the wheel is oscillating back and forth. And your conclusion is it must be an assembly issue :confused1:

I did not speak of him specifically.  We just talking here about real expectations of safety. I see no reason for confrontation here.

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4 hours ago, Planemo said:

The oscillation is indeed a known issue with the wheel. Its not a rider problem.

This only affected certain batches of the wheels. Mine definitely doesn't have this problem as I ride it at 50kph most of the time.

 

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