Why are there no really fast (60+ mph) EUCs?

[Rywokast]

9 hours ago, Michael Tucker said:

Many people said the same about 30mph 6 years ago. In the next ten years improvements in software, battery tech, and suspension will definitely allow for safe seated riding at 65mph.

yea because wheels were shit and the tech was relatively new... dont think anybody ever really considered 30 mph as "fast" since you could easily do it on a bicycle and still stop on a dime on an euc.... once you start to go more and more beyond that it has nothing at all to do with the wheels capabilities and more to do with just plain physics and your bodies ability to cope.... 30 mph seemed super fast for a new crazy one wheeled device, it was never on its own a fast speed for a human to be moving while standing

 

8 hours ago, Ben Kim said:

it’s not about going 60 mph, it’s about having so much headroom that it would be next to impossible to cutout. I’d like to go 50 mph without always thinking in the back of my head I’m close to cutting out. 

this is a good point... although, they can already easily do this.... they would just have to put a hard cap on the speed and then people would be crying about that too.. i think for that reason the only possible explanation is price and the market for that kind of wheel would be relatively very small, so they dont bother. also, this entire concept to me just completely defeats the purpose and place for an euc as a small and easily portable PEV.... if you want to pretend to be a car, just get a scooter or bike..... or car lmao, at least that way your body wont explode on impact from a cutout.. if im on something that is self balancing, i would never go a speed that could very easily kill me if i crashed due to a machine fault, think i trust this cheap plastic thing with zero backup if something goes wrong with my life?

Edited March 28, 2021 by Rywokast

[Ben Kim]

5 hours ago, Rywokast said:

yea because wheels were shit and the tech was relatively new... dont think anybody ever really considered 30 mph as "fast" since you could easily do it on a bicycle and still stop on a dime on an euc.... once you start to go more and more beyond that it has nothing at all to do with the wheels capabilities and more to do with just plain physics and your bodies ability to cope.... 30 mph seemed super fast for a new crazy one wheeled device, it was never on its own a fast speed for a human to be moving while standing

 

this is a good point... although, they can already easily do this.... they would just have to put a hard cap on the speed and then people would be crying about that too.. i think for that reason the only possible explanation is price and the market for that kind of wheel would be relatively very small, so they dont bother. also, this entire concept to me just completely defeats the purpose and place for an euc as a small and easily portable PEV.... if you want to pretend to be a car, just get a scooter or bike..... or car lmao, at least that way your body wont explode on impact from a cutout.. if im on something that is self balancing, i would never go a speed that could very easily kill me if i crashed due to a machine fault, think i trust this cheap plastic thing with zero backup if something goes wrong with my life?

kingsong implements what you consider a “hard cap” and they still cut out; and eucs aren’t a scooter or ebike that is power limited by the controller; the issue is the nature of a gyroscopic device is it will continue to draw power until it cannot anymore. Kingsong and Inmotion both use tiltbacks to nudge the user into slowing down but both can be defeated. All you can really do is fine tune the alarms, respect the tiltback (if applicable) and use common sense. 

Given this information, there is a reason we want wheels “that can do 60 mph”. Going faster at low battery is a nice additional perk too. 

PS: I’ve crashed at 40+ mph multiple times, the trick is not to panic (wear quality protection) and resist the fall, and use common sense when riding with cars in traffic. When you panic, bones start breaking. Aside from some light road rash and general soreness for a few days, I was unharmed. 

Edited March 28, 2021 by Ben Kim

[xiiijojjo]

15 hours ago, mrelwood said:

You got it the wrong way around though. If you want more acceleration for less effort, you need to switch into a softer mode. The harder the Mode, the more you have to work to get the wheel to accelerate and brake.

Thank you @mrelwoodfor all the help. I've always hated the medium/soft modes on previous eucs without power pads,but on the RS I fell in love with the soft mode after reading this comment and trying it for 40km today - BTW my range has also increased. 

The dips when accelerating hard felt weird at first reminiscent of cut offs but now I already love it and everything is a lot easier and bumps and potholes are far better cushioned the extend of which really surprised me. 

So after another day of 80% beeps I'm opening up to the idea of faster eucs 

 

[.....]

@mrelwood  you wouldnt happen to have a link to the discussion explaining how modes make it easier or harder to tap into the wheel's power? I recall seeing it around here somewhere. Rather than have you explain it AGAIN, I'd really like to read up and wrap my head around it. If 'soft' mode does allow more leverage and easier access to power, I should definitely be changing mine.

[fbhb]

6 hours ago, ShanesPlanet said:

you wouldnt happen to have a link to the discussion explaining how modes make it easier or harder to tap into the wheel's power? I recall seeing it around here somewhere.

Hey @ShanesPlanet this may well be the discussion you were thinking of, as @houseofjob is the expert on the virtues of extracting the maximum amount of performance from "soft mode" and this topic has some of his explanations written here: 

If this is not the topic you were thinking of, it is still a very worthy read apart from the odd comment here and there by a guy named Shane .

Edited March 29, 2021 by fbhb

[mrelwood]

7 hours ago, ShanesPlanet said:

@mrelwood  you wouldnt happen to have a link to the discussion explaining how modes make it easier or harder to tap into the wheel's power?

The one I took part in was titled including a word “zippyness”. But rather than steer you down the rabbit hole of long threads consisting of a lot of misinformation as well, here’s a short version:

 

 The two aspects, how fast one is able to accelerate and how much effort it takes to accelerate are completely different measures. (Therefore “better acceleration” doesn’t tell us anything.)

 For maximum fast acceleration, precise control is the key for the rider to feel safe and confident to be able to lean hard. You won’t ride aggressively if you feel as if the wheel was giving out on you, so a hard mode gives more confidence for fastest acceleration and aggressive riding.

But if you want effortless acceleration, like you get with smaller diameter wheels, it’s about how easy it is to achieve the lean. A hard mode tries to compensate for the slightest imbalance as fast and as strongly as possible, so if you want to get into a strong lean, you are fighting the wheel’s instant attempts to balance.

 Stand on an EUC that’s turned off. How much effort does it take to get into a strong lean? None at all, you’ll fall down right away! A very soft riding mode lets you fall for a tiny moment before it’s even trying to compensate for the imbalance. So you get into the lean with less effort.

[Flying W]

I always played around at slow speed I hard mode. Slaloms, pendulums stuff like that, but rode in medium. This was on a 16s and an mcm5. Soft on the 16s is garbage, it just adds a larger dead zone at top dead center. The mcm5 has an odd soft mode too but it's not bad to rode in. The wheel slowly tilts forward while you accelerate so you end up a few degrees forward. When you break it does the same rearward. It just tilts too slow. I ride this wheel in med like the 16s. 

The RS feels fantastic in soft mode. Bumps absorb better and it take a lot less effort to accelerate and break. I switched to soft after putting pads on just to see of it would let me lean forward easier at higher speeds not expecting it to be so much better. 

 

[houseofjob]

On 3/28/2021 at 10:20 PM, fbhb said:

Hey @ShanesPlanet this may well be the discussion you were thinking of, as @houseofjob is the expert on the virtues of extracting the maximum amount of performance from "soft mode" and this topic has some of his explanations written here: 

On 3/28/2021 at 4:01 PM, ShanesPlanet said:

@mrelwood  you wouldnt happen to have a link to the discussion explaining how modes make it easier or harder to tap into the wheel's power? I recall seeing it around here somewhere. Rather than have you explain it AGAIN, I'd really like to read up and wrap my head around it. If 'soft' mode does allow more leverage and easier access to power, I should definitely be changing mine.

LOL my fav topic rehashed once again (rather my fav topic to debunk misconceptions about once again, thanks @fbhb )

 

It's always easiest to think in exaggerations to understand (numbers are arbitrary):

Hard Mode: To accelerate from 0 to 10mph in 1s requires pushing on an immovable brick wall with 100 lbs of force.

Soft Mode: To accelerate from 0 to 10mph in 1s requires spinning a frictionless, weightless fan an eighth revolution.

 

... but things gets amplified the closer to max speed you reach (ie. the wheel requires more input):

Hard Mode: To accelerate from 30 to 40mph in 5s requires pushing on an immovable brick wall with 300 lbs of force.

Soft Mode: To accelerate from 30 to 40mph in 5s requires spinning a frictionless, weightless fan an eighth revolution, but in 5 quick successions, using only the same portion of the fan (ie. re-uptake-ing the fan "blade")

 

It might be easier to think of it as, Hard mode requires Force, while Soft mode requires Distance Travel  by the pedals (pedals are moving / swinging; ie. the dreaded misnomered "pedal dip")

 

The reason why guys think Hard mode = quicker acceleration, is because they don't know how to use soft mode to begin with; they don't know how to negotiate, and thus can't leverage, the seemingly instability of the soft swinging, dipping pedals falling out from under you.

Their lean strategy is one-dimensional: rider and wheel both stand straight upright, both feet are flat and planted on both pedals, then they lean forward Michael Jackson. Of course this typical rider will hate soft mode!: doing this basic type of all upright-only lean on soft mode, full pedal swing, positions you into superman faceplant position.

 

Key  for riding in Soft Mode: Rider and wheel must not be at the same angle (relative to the ground) when lean accelerating!

• If the wheel tilts right, you counter with your body tilting left of the wheel tilt (while exerting lean force), vice-versa.
• The accelerating wheel itself does not care if your feet are flat and flush and centered on the pedal.
• The accelerating wheel itself does not care if your body is perfectly parallel / in-line with the angle of the wheel body.
• A good way to think of this: while the wheel fully upright with the pedals dipping down feels unstable because you the rider are standing directly on top of them mid-lean, the more you tilt the wheel body over (as if you were dropping the wheel), your body still wants to stay the same upright-ness relative to the ground, so you'll start balancing more at an angle on the pedals, not feet flat and flush on them, not legs perfectly parallel with the wheel body, etc. This negates the "pedal dip" instability feeling because the dip is not happening 12 o'clock to 6 o'clock fully vertical (like a trap door opening from under you), but more like 10 o'clock to 4 o'clock, or 2 o'clock to 8 o'clock, where you can balance better at the angled corners of the "trap door".

 

Thus, if you learn to negotiate the dip stability so you're not standing directly over the "trap door" of the "pedal dip", only then IMHO can you fully take advantage of soft modes. While soft mode riding requires a more dynamic, alternating "carve"-like motion, it requires a helluva a lot less muscle force to accelerate than you would need getting the same degree of acceleration muscle-ing it on hard mode. (not gonna get into the full mechanics here, I've posted ad nauseam on my other post replies)

Secondary soft mode benefits IMHO is not getting as fatigued (since less muscle-ing), and less shock coming up the wheel and into your body, since the pedals have give/swing to them, dare I say similar to suspension(?)  hence my disinterest in suspension

Edited March 30, 2021 by houseofjob

[mrelwood]

43 minutes ago, houseofjob said:

Soft Mode: To accelerate from 30 to 40mph in 5s requires spinning a frictionless, weightless fan an eighth revolution, but in 5 quick successions, using only the same portion of the fan (ie. re-uptake-ing the fan "blade")

While @houseofjob’s description on the soft mode of a Gotway leaves nothing to be added, I’m too tempted to say that it is indeed only a description on the Gotway Soft Mode. KS and IM soft modes don’t work quite like that.

Edited March 30, 2021 by mrelwood

[houseofjob]

50 minutes ago, mrelwood said:

While @houseofjob’s description on the soft mode of a Gotway leaves nothing to be added, I’m too tempted to say that it is indeed only a description on the Gotway Soft Mode. KS and IM soft modes don’t work quite like that.

Agreed. This does not really apply to KS or IM wheels, really mainly Gotway & Vet.

Ninebot is a weird one, where the Z might apply since it can tune both brake backswing and front swing, not sure with previous NB, especially since I wasn't a soft mode rider back when I owned all of those NB wheels (same mystery goes for the defunct iPS and the dormant Rockwheel).

Edited March 30, 2021 by houseofjob

[Darrell Wesh]

2 hours ago, houseofjob said:

LOL my fav topic rehashed once again (rather my fav topic to debunk misconceptions about once again, thanks @fbhb )

 

It's always easiest to think in exaggerations to understand (numbers are arbitrary):

Hard Mode: To accelerate from 0 to 10mph in 1s requires pushing on an immovable brick wall with 100 lbs of force.

Soft Mode: To accelerate from 0 to 10mph in 1s requires spinning a frictionless, weightless fan an eighth revolution.

 

... but things gets amplified the closer to max speed you reach (ie. the wheel requires more input):

Hard Mode: To accelerate from 30 to 40mph in 5s requires pushing on an immovable brick wall with 300 lbs of force.

Soft Mode: To accelerate from 30 to 40mph in 5s requires spinning a frictionless, weightless fan an eighth revolution, but in 5 quick successions, using only the same portion of the fan (ie. re-uptake-ing the fan "blade")

 

It might be easier to think of it as, Hard mode requires Force, while Soft mode requires Distance Travel  by the pedals (pedals are moving / swinging; ie. the dreaded misnomered "pedal dip")

 

The reason why guys think Hard mode = quicker acceleration, is because they don't know how to use soft mode to begin with; they don't know how to negotiate, and thus can't leverage, the seemingly instability of the soft swinging, dipping pedals falling out from under you.

Their lean strategy is one-dimensional: rider and wheel both stand straight upright, both feet are flat and planted on both pedals, then they lean forward Michael Jackson. Of course this typical rider will hate soft mode!: doing this basic type of all upright-only lean on soft mode, full pedal swing, positions you into superman faceplant position.

 

Key  for riding in Soft Mode: Rider and wheel must not be at the same angle (relative to the ground) when lean accelerating!

• If the wheel tilts right, you counter with your body tilting left of the wheel tilt (while exerting lean force), vice-versa.
• The accelerating wheel itself does not care if your feet are flat and flush and centered on the pedal.
• The accelerating wheel itself does not care if your body is perfectly parallel / in-line with the angle of the wheel body.
• A good way to think of this: while the wheel fully upright with the pedals dipping down feels unstable because you the rider are standing directly on top of them mid-lean, the more you tilt the wheel body over (as if you were dropping the wheel), your body still wants to stay the same upright-ness relative to the ground, so you'll start balancing more at an angle on the pedals, not feet flat and flush on them, not legs perfectly parallel with the wheel body, etc. This negates the "pedal dip" instability feeling because the dip is not happening 12 o'clock to 6 o'clock fully vertical (like a trap door opening from under you), but more like 10 o'clock to 4 o'clock, or 2 o'clock to 8 o'clock, where you can balance better at the angled corners of the "trap door".

 

Thus, if you learn to negotiate the dip stability so you're not standing directly over the "trap door" of the "pedal dip", only then IMHO can you fully take advantage of soft modes. While soft mode riding requires a more dynamic, alternating "carve"-like motion, it requires a helluva a lot less muscle force to accelerate than you would need getting the same degree of acceleration muscle-ing it on hard mode. (not gonna get into the full mechanics here, I've posted ad nauseam on my other post replies)

Secondary soft mode benefits IMHO is not getting as fatigued (since less muscle-ing), and less shock coming up the wheel and into your body, since the pedals have give/swing to them, dare I say similar to suspension(?)  hence my disinterest in suspension

Somehow soft mode enables the user to have their cake and eat it too(according to @houseofjob)

Not only is it less taxing (which I agree) but you get better acceleration from it then hard mode(Which I think is ridiculous)
 

Any form that has you going side to side will net slower times/be slower then a straight trajectory. A straight line is the fastest route. 

[houseofjob]

1 hour ago, Darrell Wesh said:

Somehow soft mode enables the user to have their cake and eat it too(according to @houseofjob)

Not only is it less taxing (which I agree) but you get better acceleration from it then hard mode(Which I think is ridiculous)
 

Any form that has you going side to side will net slower times/be slower then a straight trajectory. A straight line is the fastest route. 

LOL, we meet (& disagree) again!

It's not a real "carve" FWIW BTW: I'm not actually turning all that much, the wheel is tilting over side-to-side  more than anything, actual wheel contact point travel is relatively straight line (unless I don't want it to be).

 

Edited March 30, 2021 by houseofjob

[DangerDan]

I see how softmode lets you accelerate and break on "flat" ground easier. I had the same feeling with the diffrent modes of my wheel.
However, i ride a lot paved forest tracks around here and specially fast downhill turns and s curves feel super sketchy in softmode. You allready have the slope of the road and your body weight shiftet towards the front of your foot and now the tilt of the pedal in softmode basicly makes you stand on your toes at 25-30+mph.
I guess not every mode performes the same under the different conditions.

Edited March 30, 2021 by DangerDan

[mrelwood]

That’s a good point, soft modes are usually horrible for going over roots for example. Especially the more spongy KS and IM softs. GW Soft is initially hard so it doesn’t get stuck on roots the same way.

 Although, more testing needed, but the just released V11 firmware has a very interesting Commuter mode. It seems to be much harder than previously at 100% sensitivity. And when lowering down the sensitivity, I do sense a little GW flavor in it. A Gotwayized modern KS soft if you will.

[EUC Sharkman]

A lot of folks providing good commentary on the actual engineering and riding mechanics of going 60 mph on a EUC, all very entertaining to read and follow!

 

But to answer the question, my take is that there's just probably a very small market for it at the moment, not worth designing and putting into mass production using today's tech. These companies are businesses, first and foremost after all, and EUCs are still in their infancy really. Imagine a future where we have as many countries and companies making EUCs as they do cars and the kinds of improvements driven by that competition.

 

Perhaps as tech gets better and the market opens up, and we get vacuum sealed tunnel roads with no air drag, 60+ mph will become more commonplace!

[.....]

8 hours ago, houseofjob said:

It might be easier to think of it as, Hard mode requires Force, while Soft mode requires Distance Travel  by the pedals (pedals are moving / swinging; ie. the dreaded misnomered "pedal dip")

Ding ding ding... we have a winnner. The dim lightbulb flickered and now I get it.  Thank goodness as the confusion was eating my last few cells..

[houseofjob]

23 hours ago, DangerDan said:

I see how softmode lets you accelerate and break on "flat" ground easier. I had the same feeling with the diffrent modes of my wheel.
However, i ride a lot paved forest tracks around here and specially fast downhill turns and s curves feel super sketchy in softmode. You allready have the slope of the road and your body weight shiftet towards the front of your foot and now the tilt of the pedal in softmode basicly makes you stand on your toes at 25-30+mph.
I guess not every mode performes the same under the different conditions.

This makes sense.

I always preface that all my Soft mode opinions are based on street flats riding, not off-road or literal hill / mountain climbing.

I will note that in street flats, you do run into potholes and bumps, which is manageable despite the soft mode, because you are prepping and creating the rigidity entering each divot & bump, via the body weight counter-balancing between legs, one pedal vs the other, one heel foot, the other on the ball of the foot. 

But if the terrain is ALL potholes and bumps, yes, something like a hard mode + suspension is probably better suited (and also not my jam as a rider). Kind of like how ATV's are built and tuned way different than Formula race cars I imagine.

[Nostris]

Because the EUC is totally and absolutely unsuitable for any speed over 35 mph. In fact.. if you think about it for less than a nanosecond, it’s a totally stupid question.