Thinking of getting into EUCs

[.....]

Practice looking over your shoulder. A mirror is great, but dont allow it to undermine your training to get that shoulder look. Just like a car, you look in a mirror and then over the shoulder to double check. Unlike a car, turning to look over your shoulder, will take a little practice. I recall turning to look at speed in teh beginning and it was dicey as hell. Now, nuttin' but a thang on a chicken wang!

Glad the leg pain is leaving. Amazing how quickly we toughen up to it, isnt it? I've looked at euc tours in the past and its usually reporting the wheel speed AND gps in my logs. Perhaps the speed you saw was a gps glitch or a freespin condition at one point? I'd imagine it depends on WHICH speed reporting you are seeing, wheel or gps. You can always download the csv (if you bothered logging it) and get TONS of great info. Regardless, Im sure you are getting a feel for what speed is what. Honestly, 23mph (40kmh) is my goto cruising speed on the 18" wheel, 32mph on my 20". Im sure each wheel is different, but once we quit focusing on the actual speed # and more on how a wheel behaves at a given speed, we enjoy it all more. I'm sure youll find that 'golden' speed soon and maybe youll be surprised that it isnt near top speed afer all. Still, itll be fast enough to hurt in a crash

Mount/dismount and backwards takes time. Unofrtunately, to be safe in congested places, you really need know the first two very well. Until you can reliably mount and dismount w/o wobble, its a gamble to be near people and cars imho. Im a slow learner i guess, it took 100's of miles for me to feel comfy start/stop. Of course, where I ride, its not uncommon to get on the damn thing and ride for 45minutes without having to slow down much.

Tis great to hear about your progress! Keep it up, be patient and youll be whizzing around likea boss in no time! I guess the REAL question is: Has the virus gotten a hold of you now? Are you already eyeballing your next wheel..

Edited December 5, 2020 by ShanesPlanet

[KiwiMark]

58 minutes ago, ShanesPlanet said:

Mount/dismount and backwards takes time. Unofrtunately, to be safe in congested places, you really need know the first two very well. Until you can reliably mount and dismount w/o wobble, its a gamble to be near people and cars imho. Im a slow learner i guess, it took 100's of miles for me to feel comfy start/stop.

When I was riding on the roadside I waited until there were no cars coming in any direction before mounting and getting going.  The issue is that I'm wobbly when barely moving and then get steady enough once rolling at an OK speed, so I don't want to have a car coming up from behind as I'm just getting going.  I'm sure I'll improve in this aspect with practise.

I've seen videos of people learning where they learn to go further and further with one leg on the wheel, this might be a good exercise to help with mounting and maybe with dismounting too.

I look forward to seeing where I'm at in 2 or 3 weeks time!

[Tawpie]

Try to practice not “stepping up” onto the wheel, keep your knee bent and sort of slide your weight from your ground foot. Worked for me!

[mrelwood]

 

12 hours ago, KiwiMark said:

I seriously doubt that I really hit 43kph yesterday

Of course, it’s the speed the wheel accelerated to while lifting or tumbling. I’m a bit ashamed for not thinking about that before my last comment. Sorry about that! You actually seem to be one of the most sensible learners I’ve read about, kudos!

I always use a helmet mirror, but I agree that turning to look is something that should be learned as well. Maybe attach the mirror when you start riding in traffic and around other people.

 For starting and stopping, pushing the knee that remains on the wheel inwards might help in keeping the balance. Learning one-legging teaches your body that pretty well, even when just hopping forward.

[KiwiMark]

Day 5: Another hour of practising.  Yesterday I noticed a bit of pain & redness on the back of my neck, the summer sun here is catching me between my helmet & shirt.  Today I rode to the nearby Intermediate School (I guess close to 'middle school' in the US) and with no one around I was free to ride around in a nice space under a roof - take that hot sun!  I rode around a bunch, just becoming more comfortable on the wheel, speeding up & slowing down, turning left & turning right, etc.  Then I stopped and stepped on foot off the wheel, mounted and got up to speed, stopped again, mounted again, etc.  I should do this each day, the more practise starting and stopping the better I'll get at it.

While practising at the school, a woman approached and asked about the EUC, I had a nice chat with her and she took a picture with her phone, she said it was very interesting.  She is actually the principal of the school, so with her having no problem with me practising there I guess I can go there again.  Unfortunately at the time I finish work and get home it will be way too early in the day (I start work by 3am and finish by lunchtime most days) and school will be in session for the next 5 days, so I won't be able to go there unless I wait until after dinner time.  On the positive side - after Friday the school won't have classes for around 6 weeks or so (summer holidays), this makes it a good place to practise in the shade on hot days.

I took my Insta360 One R and sat it on a tripod in the middle of the area that I was practising in, so I have footage of me riding around and practising my mounting & dismounting.  My laptop doesn't handle running Insta360 Studio for much more than 10 minutes before it shuts down and reboots, I think maybe it is so CPU intensive that it causes overheating?  I'll have to transfer the files to my gaming computer and try editing with that, it has enough grunt to run the software, I'm pretty sure.

My inner shin/calf area seems to be experience no pain at all.  This is probably a combination of conditioning and helped by the padding I've added to the shell (double layer of that baby proofing stuff with the adhesive backing).

Riding back home at a little over 30kph I felt what I assume was tilt-back, I was happy with this as the speed I was going was fast enough for me for now.  I might increase that speed later, but there is nothing wrong with going around the speed of an e-bike when riding on a public road.  Naturally I once again wore my FF helmet, mesh jacket, Boblbee backpack, wrist guards, knee guards & motorcycle boots - I would have been fine without them (this time), but one day I might be very glad to be wearing the right gear.

[Tawpie]

As they say around here when the hook has been firmly set: “FISH ON!” 

Sounds like you’re doing fantastic, keep it up and before you know it you’ll have three wheels (that the SO knows about anyway)

[KiwiMark]

10 minutes ago, Tawpie said:

Sounds like you’re doing fantastic

I'd bet there are thousands of things I could learn where I wouldn't be doing so well after only 5 hours.  With riding this wheel I had made good progress in the first hour and was quite a bit better after the 2nd hour.  After the 3rd hour I felt that I had made huge strides in the control I had over the wheel while riding it.  This sort of significant progress that you easily notice really does help to keep the motivation up.  Also the feeling when riding at any speed above 10kph, you know, gliding effortlessly - that really feels good and makes me want to ride more.  I think the rewards for learning to ride an EUC make it VERY worthwhile!

If I spend some of my practise time each day for a week doing the same mounting, riding, dismounting, mounting, etc that I did today - I figure that I'll be getting much more comfortable hoping on and riding this compact electric vehicle.  I'm really glad I decided to do this exercise for a while as I've felt that it was a very important aspect to improve on.  Currently I'm probably most likely to crash as I take off or as I stop, so the sooner I improve those two parts the better.

[KiwiMark]

Before I got my wheel I recorded a little demo of some safety gear I added to the back of my backpack:

 

This seems like a really good idea when riding on the road.  It should improve visibility while also letting cars coming up behind me know when I'm stopping or turning.

[KiwiMark]

Day 6:  More of the same - practise, practise, practise.  I did a lot of mounting, riding around, stopping & dismounting, mounting, riding . .  .  I also did some aggressive braking, every motorcycle course I've done included braking practise and it is something that is well worth getting good at.

I'm still new to riding and far from perfect, but I can mount and ride and that really is all that is needed to get out and practise.  I think the turning point for me was on day 3 when I got good enough to follow a path or whatever, controlling the line well enough to be able to go more places to gain more practise.  So I'm now able to ride an EUC OK and all that remains is to keep up the practising to become more confident & competent.  I'll be able to go riding some shared paths after I'm confident enough that I can ride near people without being an undue danger to them.  I'll do a few more days of mounting & dismounting practise because those are very much essential skills for any rider of EUCs.

I'll try to get some time to edit some of my video footage to post up for you guys.

[KiwiMark]

I have been on a couple of longer rides and I can feel myself becoming much more comfortable riding, but on day 1 when I first started the learning curve was so very steep - here is a bit of video from that day: https://youtu.be/02dxa3AaBDQ

 

[KiwiMark]

Here is my mounting/dismounting practise from day 5, still very new at that point - but improving.

 

There are mistakes being made in that video, but that is why I'm doing the practising.  On the last ride I did, I covered ~30km without dropping the wheel once which suggests that the practise is paying off.

[Scottie]

Looking good!   I wish I was doing that well at that point. Your day 5 looks like my week 5. 

[.....]

2 hours ago, Scottie said:

Looking good!   I wish I was doing that well at that point. Your day 5 looks like my week 5. 

we should wager on him! I bet his big first aha moment is within 2 weeks.   Well  done @KiwiMark! You could be riding backwards by the time i post this. The no-roll transition is the worst and you're doing great!

Edited December 28, 2020 by ShanesPlanet

[KiwiMark]

Here's a long vid:

This was day 8, after around 7 hours of riding I now felt confident enough to hold my selfie stick with the Insta360 One R while mounting & riding my RS.  I ride the streets and around a nearby school with some more practise at starting and stopping thrown in.  Not 100% flawless riding or anything but definitely improving and becoming more comfortable riding, even hitting the 40+ kph and activating the tilt-back.

[KiwiMark]

Day 9 - edited down, can't have all my videos as long as the previous one:

I'm currently trying to catch up on my saved videos, trying different things on the Insta360 Studio and getting a better idea of how to record my next ride.  The long video was a quick and lazy edit with deep track keeping the video on me, this video was done with manual aiming and setting keyframes along the video, which gives me a lot more control but takes more time.  My next couple of videos are getting more interesting as I take my wheel new places to have fun exploring.

[KiwiMark]

Day 10, ride from town out to velodrome along shared path:

 

And the ride back:

 

I'm now working on the next video, going to try picture in picture and putting music track on - definitely a bit of time & effort required to create videos.  I'm only just starting to come to grips with Insta360 Studio and DaVinci Resolve, maybe a bigger learning curve than riding an EUC,

[.....]

Looks like you're getting the hang of it. Perhaps consider using eucw and csv files for video overlay, or even just a simple gopro overlay...err insta360 overlay (oops). Looking forwards to watching your videos progress!

Edited December 31, 2020 by ShanesPlanet

[KiwiMark]

39 minutes ago, ShanesPlanet said:

Perhaps consider using eucw and csv files for video overlay

Damn, another thing to learn?

[.....]

1 minute ago, KiwiMark said:

Damn, another thing to learn?

I began making crappy videos last year. I was shocked at the talent and artistry it really takes. Hell, Im learning to ride MUCH faster than I am learning to create good content and decent editting. If its new to you too, just wait and see how freaking involved it can become. I call my video style 'minimal' and 'old school'. What it really is... I've not the talent nor the sheer desire to make it very good. Perhaps youll take to it like a duck to water. Best of luck, there's entire threads dedicated to helping you develope camera skills. Me, Im stuck on developing riding skills and people skills in general.... slow process on both.

[KiwiMark]

Here is a ride along the Te Awa River Walk that runs alongside the Waikato river in Hamilton:

Complete with Picture in Picture and some music.  It is pretty long but a nice scenic path for most of it.

[KiwiMark]

Found some time to edit and upload another video:

I didn't worry about the Picture in Picture for this one, but I think I did a better job on having the camera in the right place while riding.

[KiwiMark]

I might get in some more riding in the next couple of weeks, but then I'm off work for 4 weeks annual leave and will be away from home for ~3.5 weeks on a personal vehicle that has 2 wheels and isn't electric - using a 1000cc parallel twin petrol engine instead.  Hopefully I won't be too rusty when I get back.

[AtlasP]

3 hours ago, KiwiMark said:

Hopefully I won't be too rusty when I get back.

I wondered about that the first time I had a long work trip after I started riding, but it turns out it's just like riding a bike, there's no real 'losing' the skill once you've learned it.

[UniMe]

31 minutes ago, AtlasP said:

I wondered about that the first time I had a long work trip after I started riding, but it turns out it's just like riding a bike, there's no real 'losing' the skill once you've learned it.

+1 on this comment, it's totally muscle/implicit memory learning. I lost a bit of ground (like perhaps 15%) the first break I took but got that back within 15 minutes on the wheel. I've taken a break for as much as a few weeks since (just started this past June) and get back rolling immediately now. I also got my second wheel recently and by the time I was at the end of my street was rolling perfectly well.

[KiwiMark]

I think this would be true, even if I'm a little rusty on my first ride after getting back from my motorcycle trip, I'm sure it will not take more than a few minutes of riding to be back to where I had been.  Even on my day 13 ride (haven't uploaded the video yet) I was getting more confident and quicker as I was riding, often I'm a bit more wobbly as I start off than 5 minutes in.

On Day 14 (haven't uploaded that one either) I was getting quicker with a lot of >40kph riding and touching on 50kph at one point.  There were driveways across the path that weren't flush so there was a wee bump down and then up again - I slowed down for each one to start with and then not as much, on the way back I didn't slow down at all, I just kept a good bend in my knees and happily rode over the bumps at over 40kph.

One way to improve your riding: ride more!