V11: Commuting Mode or Off-roading Mode? Hard Pedals or Soft Pedals?

[Tryptych]

I am just curious what everyone prefers on their V11 (and why):

* Commuting Mode or Off-roading Mode?
* Hard Pedals or Soft Pedals?

Lately I have settled in to using off-road mode (regardless of terrain), with 70% "footboard" sensitivity. I find I get a bit more torque with off-road mode and I can accelerate/turn faster with some softness in the pedals.

What do you use guys use?

[Bill Kolk]

I made a similar poll few weeks ago: 

 

 

I preferred commuting @ 100% or off-road @ 60% until i put power pads on.

With all that leverage from the power pads I now have off-road @ 100% and the added bonus of less dip in steep inclines.

[Chaotropic]

I like softer pedals and commuter mode. Commuter mode feels good at all speeds. Off road mode just feels clunky at higher speeds. 
 

Even though I prefer softer pedals I ride at night everyday and the dip is too much for the light, so I just keep it at 100% to maximize light function.
 

I also have pedal angle at -2 degrees, which really helps with acceleration, maintaining speed, and improves the function of the light. 

Edited November 13, 2020 by Chaotropic

[Ádám Szitás]

exactly what chaotropic said.

[mrelwood]

Off-road, 100%. Why?

16 hours ago, Bill Kolk said:

I preferred commuting @ 100% or off-road @ 60% until i put power pads on.

With all that leverage from the power pads I now have off-road @ 100% and the added bonus of less dip in steep inclines.

Also, coming from the MSX, 100% Off is closest to the MSX behavior and stability over sharp roots.

[mhpr262]

WHat does offroad mode vs. commuter mode do exactly?

Edited November 15, 2020 by mhpr262

[Tryptych]

On 11/13/2020 at 1:29 PM, Chaotropic said:

I also have pedal angle at -2 degrees, which really helps with acceleration, maintaining speed, and improves the function of the light. 

Yes I also seem to be preferring -2 or even -3 degrees pedal angle - I should have put that in the poll too. I find it makes me a bit more stable at speed and makes turning a bit easier.

[mrelwood]

9 hours ago, mhpr262 said:

WHat does offroad mode vs. commuter mode do exactly?

Off-road is linear, so increasing the lean always increases the acceleration by the same amount. Commuter Mode is exponential, so it is soft for peaceful riding, but gets progressively harder the more you lean.

 This topic made me test them again, and I realized that I would probably prefer a Commuter Mode that was harder than the current 100%. To me Commuter 100% feels as hard as Off-road 30%.

Edited November 16, 2020 by mrelwood

[Ádám Szitás]

Give a day for the commuter 0% everyone. It is super fun once in a while, first it seems like suicide 

[stephen]

I use commuter and have pedals softness at 98% and  1 degree backwards tilt 

[stephen]

2 minutes ago, Ádám Szitás said:

Give a day for the commuter 0% everyone. It is super fun once in a while, first it seems like suicide 

I tried it at 50% once it was like a see-saw😀

[h3X]

I had it at 30% to get up hills before I got power pads...

[EUChristian]

Great thread...found while searching out hard vs soft pedal modes. I have been in Comfort (Commuting) mode since the first ride. I'm switching to Sport (offroad). 

I am primarily a seated rider. Looking for anyone out there who rides seated or has ridden seated:

-Is Comfort better for seated riding?

-Would you recommend a negative degree pedal pitch to help with seated riding?

-Always ridden at 100% sensitivity. I'm sure changing that would be interesting riding seated...anyone riding seated on less than 100%?

Winter here and bad weather so I can't test. Want to badly and will soon.  

[Rich Sam]

On 11/13/2020 at 10:29 AM, Chaotropic said:

I like softer pedals and commuter mode. Commuter mode feels good at all speeds. Off road mode just feels clunky at higher speeds. 
 

Even though I prefer softer pedals I ride at night everyday and the dip is too much for the light, so I just keep it at 100% to maximize light function.
 

I also have pedal angle at -2 degrees, which really helps with acceleration, maintaining speed, and improves the function of the light. 

Thanks so much for this tip. I was almost ready to write off the v11 headlight as being almost worthless, but the tiltback improved it so much!  I also added more air in tire, and reduced suspension sag which I'm sure added a good inch of height.  Night riding last night was fantastic with the tilt back!

[Mclgnr]

I prefer using off-roading with 100% sensitivity.

I'm a heavyweight guy and I feel that unicycle became much more controlable when you get more torque at very low speeds. I didn't feel any problem at higher velocities.

In case of V10, my pedal angle is +1.0 degree in order to get the vehicle perfecly balanced when idle.

[thefork]

I voted even though I'm on a V10F. Not sure if there's a big difference from the V11.

I've gone softer and softer over time, and nowadays I have the softness pretty much all the way left (0-10%), commuting mode. Now, I'm a pretty small dude at around 65 kg, maybe I'd have it a little harder if I weighed more. I like the feedback soft mode gives me, kind of like the break pedal on a car, and it helps me when I accelerate (no pads).

Oh, and the biggest reason I prefer commuting over off-roading is the constant high-pitched coil whine when in the latter mode. Commuting is whisper quiet to my ears.

Edited July 1, 2021 by thefork

[WebDev]

I have about 500 miles on my V11.  I've been riding it in Commuter mode at 100% pedal sensitivity the whole time.  I found it felt best at the time when I got it.  But today I upgraded my firmware and was trying out different settings again (I heard the commuter mode had been updated) and I feel like 0% pedal hardness/sensitivity is where it's at for me now.  I'm a very light rider and at 0% I can accelerate and brake without much effort at all.

[drbanzai]

On 11/15/2020 at 2:21 PM, mhpr262 said:

WHat does offroad mode vs. commuter mode do exactly?

 

On 11/15/2020 at 11:42 PM, mrelwood said:

Off-road is linear, so increasing the lean always increases the acceleration by the same amount. Commuter Mode is exponential, so it is soft for peaceful riding, but gets progressively harder the more you lean.

Thank you. I can't imagine how I could have figured this out on my own, and I couldn't find this info anywhere else, including the manual. Super helpful.

[drbanzai]

This thread has been super helpful, thanks all.

I know this is going to sound like the dumbest question ever, but please bear with me a second: what the heck does the "Sensitivity" slider on the v11 do?

Here's why I ask. I expect that a control called "sensitivity" would control how responsive the machine is to forward and backward tilt. So, for example, high sensitivity would mean "just lean a little, and the v11 will apply lots of torque," and low sensitivity would mean the opposite: you really gotta lean into it in order to get lots of acceleration. 

As as far as I've been able to figure out, that's almost exactly what sensitivity does, except backwards from the way I just described.

So if I finally have it right, 0% sensitivity actually means "twitchy" and 100% sensitivity actually means "less responsive."

Can anyone help me understand whether I finally have the right idea here? (And while you're at it, any idea why in the world they would call such a slider "sensitivity" instead of something like "gentleness" or something like that?)

Thanks in advance for anything you can tell me. (I really want to love this machine, and trying to get these settings figured out is really bumming me out.)

[Denny Paul]

@drbanzai inmotions “pedal sensitivity” is instead as if the app was asking us “how much of a dead zone do you want between accelerating and decelerating. That’s how it feels to me anyway. 

I’ve been told that commuting vs off-road mode is what changes power output based on lean, with off-road more being the more sporty choice. 

[mrelwood]

10 hours ago, drbanzai said:

Thank you. I can't imagine how I could have figured this out on my own, and I couldn't find this info anywhere else, including the manual. Super helpful.

Actually, reading this now I might have had the linearity and exponential behaviors mixed up. Either way, the Off-Road mode wont let the pedals dip very much on sudden roots etc, no matter the sensitivity setting. While the Commuter mode is more fluid and offers a more natural tilt-to-acceleration curve.

 You just need to try both and go from there, no amount of reasoning will explain the feeling very well. Just remember to press the motor kill switch in the handle for this setting to be applied.

7 hours ago, drbanzai said:

what the heck does the "Sensitivity" slider on the v11 do?

Here's why I ask. I expect that a control called "sensitivity" would control how responsive the machine is to forward and backward tilt. So, for example, high sensitivity would mean "just lean a little, and the v11 will apply lots of torque,"

That’s exactly how it does behave. Low sensitivity, and the pedals will need to be tilted much more for the motor to catch up.

7 hours ago, drbanzai said:

 and low sensitivity would mean the opposite: you really gotta lean into it in order to get lots of acceleration.

Here’s the thing: “pedals tilting” and “lean” are not the same thing. Just like “applying power to the motor” does not equal “acceleration”.

 That’s why the previous quote was correct while this one wasn’t.

7 hours ago, drbanzai said:

As as far as I've been able to figure out, that's almost exactly what sensitivity does, except backwards from the way I just described.

So if I finally have it right, 0% sensitivity actually means "twitchy" and 100% sensitivity actually means "less responsive."

Can anyone help me understand whether I finally have the right idea here? (And while you're at it, any idea why in the world they would call such a slider "sensitivity" instead of something like "gentleness" or something like that?)

Responsiveness is an interesting word, in that if the wheel is very responsive to rider input, it will cancel out immediately any lean you try to do, which causes the acceleration to feel unresponsive.

“Twitchyness” and “gentleness” wouldn’t describe how the wheel operates, only how the adjustments feel to you. For others they could be the other way around. For me, “twitchyness” comes from the tire size, and “gentleness” describes how the rider decides to ride.

 Maybe this helps with your thinking: It’s not sensitivity or responsiveness towards acceleration, but towards balancing. Ie. how much balancing happens if the pedals are tilted two defrees forward.

Maybe also think about the motor when it’s powered off, or if the pedals would be bolted on to the ground: When is it sensitive, when twitchy, when responsive, and when gentle?

 Low sensitivity will apply less power than high sensitivity when the pedals are tilted two degrees. That’s why it’s a technical and perfectly reasonable wording for the setting. Other manufacturers have only three settings: soft, medium and hard. That Inmotion have replaced them with a precise slider is an extremely nice and classy thing to do.

 But when the motor gets only a little power, the pedals are also easier to tilt more. That’s the catch. The wheel is unable to accelerate on it’s own, it’s the rider’s reaction to the wheel’s attempts to balance that causes the acceleration.

”Solidity” or “rigidness” could be words that describe the setting better. Sensitivity slider at minimum the pedals tilt forward and backwards easily, while at maximum the wheel will stay solidly and rigidly horizontal no matter what you throw at it.

7 hours ago, drbanzai said:

Thanks in advance for anything you can tell me. (I really want to love this machine, and trying to get these settings figured out is really bumming me out.)

If the wheel rides fine, you really don’t need to understand the details behind the settings. You can call them colors if you like, the only thing that matters is that they wheel reacts in a way that you expect it to while riding.

[drbanzai]

Thanks @mrelwood for the detailed reply and info. 

Okay, I think I finally have the right mental model here. I'm gonna get this down from a slightly different viewpoint, in the hopes that the few beginners who didn't follow that explanation will "click" with this one, and go from beginner to skilled in a shorter time.

- - -

The thing about EUCs (and hoverboards, which I started on) is that they not only try to keep themselves under your center of mass, but that they also have faster reflexes than humans do.

Why does this matter? Because when most people are learning, they try to keep the thing underneath themselves by consciously moving it into that position, which never works. You see this best on a hoverboard, which is side-to-side stable (because of the two wheels). Instead of falling off to the side, they wind up jerking back and forth ("vibrating") then jumping or falling off. It's a feedback loop caused by the fact that the rider and the device are both trying to keep vertically aligned, but they're fighting each other. Once the beginner learns to just assume that the hoverboard is a stable flat surface that they can just step on a trust will stay in the right place, the fighting stops, the jerking stops, and the forced dismounts stop. The device and the rider have made peace with the idea that the device, not the rider, is in charge of keeping everything vertically stable. 

Okay, but what does this have to do with sensitivity? Simple: if you remember that an EUC has (way) faster reflexes than you, then you'll see that a high-sensitivity device will respond to a forward or backward lean by scooting underneath you quickly. More quickly than your body probably expects at first. So what starts as a slight lean instantly becomes you standing straight up on your device, because the moment you start to lean, it just gets right under you. A low-sensitivity device, on the other hand, will respond to your lean less quickly/aggressively, allowing you to maintain or even increase that lean before it adjusts its position to get under you again.

This is where my kinesthetic intuition misled me: with a high-sensitivity setting, I'd lean and find that the device wasn't accelerating easily. In retrospect, that was because I'd lean, the device would get under me, and then suddenly I wasn't accelerating anymore because I was no longer leaning. It felt like I had to lean hard to keep moving, which I guess was actually accurate: it's harder on a high-sensitivity device to continue to thwart its desire to get under you (and thus return you to stability and vertical alignment). 

On a lower-sensitivity setting, I'm able to more easily maintain a steeper lean, which ultimately leads to more acceleration. 

What at first seemed counter-intuitive ("if it's 'more sensitive,' why can't I *go*?") is now intuitive, because sensitivity really means "how aggressively does the device try to stay directly under you?" 

With that new understanding, I feel like I now better understand what the EUC is trying to do, which increases my sense of control and comfort, and makes it easier for me to understand how adjustments to the sensitivity setting will actually affect the feel of my ride.

Thanks all. Hope this helps at least one other person.

[Hellkitten]

I have a V11 arriving next month, it’s my first wheel. I’ve been an avid mountain biker my entire life and have a good sense of balance. I have zero clue on how ANY of these settings will work or how they will translate to real world use. Any advice on what settings would be good for a learning curve? Thanks for any info, already reading the rest of this post is helping!

[mrelwood]

13 hours ago, drbanzai said:

Okay, I think I finally have the right mental model here.

Your post was an extremely good and precise description on what the sensitivity setting (or riding modes in general) does and how it affects accelerating! 

9 hours ago, Hellkitten said:

Any advice on what settings would be good for a learning curve?

I’d suggest a “medium” riding mode for all beginners, or in the case of Inmotion, “Commuter” mode with Sensitivity at around 50.

Medium modes are solid enough on modern wheels not to struggle on sharp bumps, yet they don’t fight the rider’s lean too much in the way that @drbanzai so well described.

 For a beginner everything about riding is so new, that some even try to ride with a non-existent “factory default” tire pressure without realizing that it’s preventing them from learning. That’s why watching a few instructional videos for beginners is so important.