KS 14" 800w 840wh first impression and learning

[adhermes]

So I just finished day four of my first ever EUC riding. I thought it might be helpful for new beginners to see what my experience was like. This has been quite a journey! So first, about the hardware: king song ewheel.com exclusive 800w 840wh 14" model with all the new features, thanks to Jason Mcneil! I received it in one business day on December 31st. It shipped from Florida and I live in Phoenix. 

 

In the box is the standard stuff, but no wrist guards. Also, this new model with 840wh battery does NOT have the USB charging port even though the manual says that it does. I can't seem to get the Bluetooth speakers to work, so I wonder if this feature was left off of this model as well. I can connect to the app but not play any music. I'm using an iPhone 6S Plus. Also, if you've never owned one of these before (which I haven't- this is my first one), this unit is heavy! I'm not actually sure exactly how heavy but definitely 30 pounds. I would recommend that a beginner start with a lighter unit. The weight, coupled with my inability to ride or balance it, made for a very steep learning curve. Aesthetically it doesn't compare to something like the IPS zero or ninebot, but man is it solid and feels like high quality. In four short days I have managed to mangle the holy heck out of it, but I've already made peace with that. 

 

So on to my learning experience. Let me start off by saying that I'm 28 and about 160lbs, 6' tall with no experience and relatively out of shape. This machine was HARD to learn! Both my friend and I were so discouraged after two days of practice that I almost gave up, which wasn't really an option when you consider how expensive this unit was. Let's go by days:

 

Day 1- mostly riding around inside with my hands on either side of a hallway. Couldn't go two feet without crashing and leaving black tire marks all over the carpet. I would suggest not riding inside especially on carpet. Played around for about 3 hours total this day and never went outside.

Day 2- tried to go outside for the first time with the help of my friend. I held onto his arm and tried to learn my balance. Any time I let go of his hand I would immediately crash. Did this for about 2.5 hours with little success.

Day 3- this day I decided to try on my own and was mounting using my hand on my garage door as support. Felt comfortable going forwards and backwards while keeping my hand on the wall. My driveway is small though so after I would let go I would have a very small area in which to ride before I hit a wall, car, or bush. Made very little progress so I tried going out into the street. Was able to ride maybe 10' before falling. I had a safety belt on this entire time as well, so it was physically exhausting falling so many times and having to essentially lift the unit so that it didn't go spinning out of control. I had to give up due to exhaustion. Note that the pedals hit my legs in multiple places and I have many nasty bruises from this day.

 

Day 4- this was today and boy let me tell you did it feel good. I decided to go to a park with my friends and my dad. The park had huge flat grass fields which was ideal for me to learn on for a few reasons: 1, I didn't have to wear the safety strap which was a huge plus. 2, when I crashed I could simply walk off and not worry about too much damage to the unit, and 3, when I crashed it hurt a lot less. Today I was able to learn to ride and successfully mounted on my own and rode for 600' without falling off. It felt so good! I finally found some semblance of balance and not having obstacles in my way was the biggest help. I'm now trying to learn to turn which is hard but I'm getting the hang of it.

 

So, I thought I would share some tips that helped me and might help you too.

 

1. Wear safety gear! I wore a helmet, wrist guards, knee pads, elbow pads, and then I took two full sized towels, folded them and wrapped them around my legs, taped them together at the seams, and put stretchy pajama pants on over this. Yes I looked ridiculous but I avoided all further injuries from the unit spinning and clipping my legs. Also, the towels are somewhat heavy so it doubled as strength training for your legs. I've found that I'm working out muscles I never knew I had and each day these muscles are becoming stronger, helping me to get better. But PLEASE wear wrist guards. I would have had some nasty scrapes if it wasn't for those.

2. Don't try to learn in small places. The house, hallways, driveways, and small crowded streets are all terrible places to learn. You can't get a sense of how to ride without being able to careen off in any direction for a long time. This was the biggest help in my learning.

3. Having a friend hold your hand is OK but it's better to practice mounting yourself, as this is the hardest part. I would mount and dismount dozens of times to try to get the feel for it. Along with this, if your foot isn't in the right position simply dismount and try again. Foot placement is key and when you're learning you won't be able to adjust your feet while riding.

4. When you fall, roll with the fall to minimize injury.

5. If you don't want a scratched unit, buy some cheap yoga mats and pad the heck out of it. Also, buy some sidewalk or skateboard grip tape to put on the pedals.

 

most importantly don't give up!!! I truly didn't think I could learn this but after today I feel much more confident. Just keep at it, accept that you WILL crash, and be confident in your wheel. Confidence and relaxing is huge. 

 

I havent had a chance to take any video yet but hopefully I can soon. If you have any questions please feel free to ask!

 

 

[Skylightica]

Great job! Before I went out to an open space for the first time, I practiced 'skating' the EUC in my den until I could ride a little more than half a meter on each leg. Being able to control it temporally with one leg helped with mounting without support, dismounting, and adjusting my feet position while riding.

[Mono]

23 hours ago, Skylightica said:

Great job! Before I went out to an open space for the first time, I practiced 'skating' the EUC in my den until I could ride a little more than half a meter on each leg. Being able to control it temporally with one leg helped with mounting without support, dismounting, and adjusting my feet position while riding.

This had been my plan, but I never succeeded, as it turned out to be too painful to my inner calfs.

[Skylightica]

1 hour ago, Niko said:

This had been my plan, but I never succeeded, as it turned out to be too painful to my inner calfs.

It does hurt. You can try wearing more padding, or you can keep going and the pain will decrease as muscles grow there to protect you. It's like 'body conditioning / harding' in martial arts. These threads has good tips too. You can do it! I find the skill of skating short distances invaluable, it helps with turning as you gain better control with each leg! ...now if I only I can manage further than half a metre...

http://forum.electricunicycle.org/topic/1065-how-to-ride-on-one-leg-help/
http://forum.electricunicycle.org/topic/220-riding-a-euc-one-legged/

[Mono]

On 1/5/2016 at 3:01 AM, Skylightica said:

It does hurt. You can try wearing more padding, or you can keep going and the pain will decrease as muscles grow there to protect you.

I did wear protection (hard shinpads turned inwards). The last time I checked my anatomy book there is no muscles to grow where the leg contact with the wheel hurts most. 

Quote

They call it 'body conditioning / harding' in martial arts.

I stopped Ju Jutsu for this reason: it just hurts constantly. 

Quote

These threads has good tips too. You can do it! I find the skill of skating short distances invaluable!

Meanwhile I can start on one leg and use the other to adjust the pedal  What I wanted to say is that this skill came way after I could rather safely mount or dismount or adjust foot position smoothly. And it's yet far from being my favorite position on the wheel. 

[adhermes]

2 hours ago, Niko said:

This had been my plan, but I never succeeded, as it turned out to be too painful to my inner calfs.

Try my towel idea. Full sized towel folded in half and then wrapped around your entire leg from knee to shoe. Looks ridiculous but man is it comfy!

[Mono]

1 hour ago, adhermes said:

Try my towel idea. Full sized towel folded in half and then wrapped around your entire leg from knee to shoe. Looks ridiculous but man is it comfy!

I used hard shinpads turned inwards, which should be much more effective than towels.

[Colestien]

Good to hear you kept at it.  You have learned a lot so far, just keep riding and all the rest will come with time.  I can't tell you what day the bumps in the rode stopped bothering me, but one day the things that were making me stop or fall didn't make a difference anymore.

[adhermes]

One week later update,

 

so I can now ride on the road, albeit with a LOT of sloleming going on. After about 5mph I get some pretty intense "wobbles" and I have to slow down immediately or jump off. 

 

I took it onto an outdoor basketball court yesterday that has rubberized cement. Practicing turning left and right and it went OK. Definitely progress. Later last night I went back out again at night and did very poorly, so perhaps low light makes it harder to balance for some odd reason. I also had a couple beers so I'm sure that didn't help. 

 

I took a pretty nasty fall and landed right on my knee, but even with knee pads it still hurt me pretty good. I now am wearing a knee brace on my left leg because I want to keep riding. 

 

I did away with the towels on my legs in favor of high top hiking boots plus soccer shin guards turned inward. This is a huge improvement and I really like it. 

 

I feel like the ride modes on the king song app don't actually do anything. I can't seem to feel a difference between the three modes but maybe that's because I've only ever gone about 8 miles per hour. 

 

The battery on this thing is insane. I haven't even managed to get one bar to go down before I'm completely exhausted and have to take a break. I rode 2 hours yesterday and it was still all 10 bars. 

 

I'll keep updating this thread as I learn. 

[Cloud]

13 minutes ago, adhermes said:

.....The battery on this thing is insane. I haven't even managed to get one bar to go down before I'm completely exhausted and have to take a break. I rode 2 hours yesterday and it was still all 10 bars. ....

Ok, here is the thing...the battery indicator on Kingsong mark 3 is a bit weird, much like your car gas gauge, not uniform. The first two bars do not represent the top 20% of battery power ( and just fyi, the battery bars go out in pairs, there is no such thing as one bar going off - there is 5 sets of two bars going off one by one)

so, the first two bars for me go off when ive ridden about 8-9 miles, which with my total range of 24 miles represent 30-40% of the battery power. My weight is 220lbs, yours is 160. So i am 1.375 times heavier than you. This means that for you the first two bars will go off when you have traveled 9*1.375= 12.375 miles. When you are learning and your feet are hurtin its hard to travel far, so this is no surprise for me that you havent traveled 12 miles yet.

However,  this will not represent 20% of your total range. Your total range will be approximately 30- 36 miles, and with a very slow riding in super ideal conditions up to 40. Please test my prediction and let me know.

 

[davek]

7 hours ago, adhermes said:

One week later update,

so I can now ride on the road, albeit with a LOT of sloleming going on. After about 5mph I get some pretty intense "wobbles" and I have to slow down immediately or jump off. 

 

I've had my KS-14C for a week now and today got those same intense wobbles. I mean I thought the wheel was bent or something!

Glad to know it is just part of the learning process.

I live in the foothills and tomorrow plan on seeing how steep a hill this 800/680 can climb.

[adhermes]

It can go up a serious slope. Make sure you have the skill or it's scary! I went up a pretty steep grass hill today and it had no problem. 

[davek]

1 hour ago, adhermes said:

It can go up a serious slope. Make sure you have the skill or it's scary! I went up a pretty steep grass hill today and it had no problem. 

Thanks, my riding style suffers from lack of endurance.

I used to ride 30 to 50 miles a day on my road bike - I had huge legs.

After 12 years of sitting behind a desk I'm weak as a kitten... but even now I can see that changing

[adhermes]

UPDATE 1/18/16:

 

So it's been a few weeks now since I've gotten my KS-14C. I can say that I am IN LOVE with the EUC hobby. I can ride fairly proficiently now and was able to get to about 15 MPH yesterday on the unit. I have uploaded a Youtube video showing off a couple minutes of pretty lame riding, but riding that I never thought I would be able to do a week ago:

 

 

 

Just today I decided to buy the IPS Lhotz 340wh from Amazon. I chose this for a few reasons:

 

1. The LHOTZ seems to be pretty well reviewed, so I was comfortable with the quality

2. It's fulfilled by Amazon so that offers a whole new level of guarantee

3. It's a 2.5" wide 16", and my 14" has some troubles going through the grass and such, so I thought this would be better for off roading

4. My friends have learned to ride my KS, and now I want to have something that they can ride with me

 

It's due to arrive tomorrow (man, next day shipping for $17.99, can't beat that) so I'll be sure to take some unboxing videos and post them on here. For reference this is the unit that I bought:

http://www.amazon.com/IPS-Balancing-Electric-Unicycle-Monocycle/dp/B00WQNJRVM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453141908&sr=8-1&keywords=ips191

 

 

A couple notes on learning, especially learning figure 8's:

1. I found that putting my hands together in front of my body (as shown in the video) greatly increases my sense of balance and stability. I would recommend anyone new that is learning to try this. Doing this instantly stopped the wobbles. 

2. Use a basketball court to practice figure 8's. Smooth surface and no obstacles. 

 

I'm going to be getting a go-pro and some accessories so that I can start taking more videos as I get better. Happy wheeling!

 

 

[Colestien]

Good video.  Thanks for sharing.  Do you see what I was saying?.  More relaxed, being able to do more on it.  The funny thing about it,  the increase came from you just spending time riding.  It will get better still.

[adhermes]

Ok so an update. I have gotten MUCH better at this puppy, and decided to push it a bit today. This was an off road test for myself:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fEIHEcXsKg

 

i really enjoy this. I tried my best to ride backwards today but I just can't seem to figure it out. Also, I can only seem to ride on one leg for about 15 feet before I either lose control or get going too fast and lose my focus. Turning is almost impossible with one leg as well. 

 

Baby by steps I guess. I learned to do a 180 degree pivot today so that's a start!

[Cloud]

Looking at your video i can tell you are obsessed. So you are definitely one of us! Ride on friend!