Learning to ride on a V11

[.....]

6 hours ago, Hellkitten said:

Day 5.5- went back out after a tea and break. Did a bunch more laps and went up and down my st, plus more cornering, I even managed half a dozen free mounts. Very wobbly ones, but no posts or trees. My bruises have new bruises now though. Very happy with my results today. Had some good flying moments. 🦅 getting a feeling for the addiction.......

congrats! Yeah, thos tender inner legs will quit bruising in a week or three. Youll toughen up about the same rate you get better at mounting. Wobbles are no big deal and expected in the beginning. Yup, 'floating style'. Let the wheel stay loose and its less work on you.

[Scottie]

@Hellkitten is doing very ... very well at this stage of the game because the V11 demands more control than other wheels due to it's geometry. If he were to try a Nikola right now, he would find it easy to control. But the V11 is a dream to ride when you get in tune with it. The V11 is very maneuverable. To ride a V11 well, the EUC control muscles need more conditioning as well as better reflexes. 

I find myself a small bit wobbly when I get back on the V11 after having ridden other wheels for a while. It always takes a couple miles for my reflexes to reacquaint themselves with the V11 after another wheel made them a little lazy. After my reflexes are back in V11 mode I find myself ignoring bumps that have me slowing way down on non-suspension wheels. Then when back on a non-suspension wheel I have to remember I can't take a beating from the bumps and have to slow down again!

Hellkitten may feel like he is working hard for everything now. But I say he is way ahead of the curve and will be riding like a boss in a month ... if the weather up there doesn't get in the way. I learned in the middle of winter and was sometimes frustrated that I could not practice as much as I wanted. I think that slowed down my development.   

9 hours ago, Hellkitten said:

Had some good flying moments. 🦅 getting a feeling for the addiction.......

If I may barrow a phrase ... Yeah Buddy! 

Edited October 29, 2021 by Scottie
Trying to be more PC on the PC!

[Tawpie]

"Arm flailing"

I call that the fledgling stage.

Everyone is different, I did a year and 2400 miles before I added pads. It's all opinion mind you, but I too believe that "relaxed and loose" is the way to go and I find that when I'm leaning into my pads, the additional connection to the wheel removes the looseness and makes things a bit sketchier—bumps directly affect my center of mass because I'm more tense and more directly connected.

Edited October 30, 2021 by Tawpie

[Hellkitten]

Yup, shins are yellow. 🥴 Worth the pain. 🤘🏽 

Ive never ridden another wheel before so I have nothing to compare with, but I do find the v11 easy to over lean while cornering. It’s a bit top heavy and once it’s past a certain point it wants to fall. I’m really glad I got a wheel with suspension, it’s doing a lot of work for me. Trying to get semi comfortable before winter kicks in here. It’s already cool and leaves are on the ground. 🎃

I did try riding on the lose side last night too. Left the pads on, but shifted my feet a little outward and didn’t lean into the pads so much. It felt good, for the most part. I’ll have to play around more with that, but it did seem worth pursuing. 

[Paul A]

Heated vests are good for winter.

USB plugs into a power bank, provides very good heat for hours. 

Warm to hot heat settings.

Around USD $20, free international delivery.

Vest made with fabric material is much better than the ones made with rubber material.

The rubber material smells terrible, not a nice feel to it either.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/133901873072?hash=item1f2d2c6fb0:g:U7kAAOSwJ4RhZWdo

[Hellkitten]

I have decent winter gear, nothing heated mind you. I almost bought some a few years back during a particularly cold winter. 

 I’d be mostly concerned about the excessive salt used in Toronto over the season. Anyone know much about that damaging a wheel? 

[Paul A]

@winterwheel

Salt query.

[winterwheel]

2 hours ago, Paul A said:

Salt query.

All I can say really is that my personal experience is it hasn't been too much of an issue for me. Our city used calcium chloride the first couple of years I was winter riding and the winter bike riders were freaking out about it so I got a bit worried as well. I did replace the bearings on that (now four year-old) wheel this year and there was lots of rust inside the bearing. But that could also just be wear and tear from two seasons of hard, daily winter rides with a wheel I never really took many precautions with aside from taping up the external seams. The rest of the wheel itself doesn't seem to be too much affected by it, still rides fine today, no issues with the motor or anything else I could see when I took it apart.

We have a few winter riders here, nobody worries too much about salt. But then, people in our group seem to be upgrading to new wheels every year, so I suppose nobody can really say for sure what the long term effects would be.

Edited October 29, 2021 by winterwheel

[Hellkitten]

1 hour ago, winterwheel said:

All I can say really is that my personal experience is it hasn't been too much of an issue for me. Our city used calcium chloride the first couple of years I was winter riding and the winter bike riders were freaking out about it so I got a bit worried as well. I did replace the bearings on that (now four year-old) wheel this year and there was lots of rust inside the bearing. But that could also just be wear and tear from two seasons of hard, daily winter rides with a wheel I never really took many precautions with aside from taping up the external seams. The rest of the wheel itself doesn't seem to be too much affected by it, still rides fine today, no issues with the motor or anything else I could see when I took it apart.

We have a few winter riders here, nobody worries too much about salt. But then, people in our group seem to be upgrading to new wheels every year, so I suppose nobody can really say for sure what the long term effects would be.

Thank you for the information! I’ve had salt wreak havoc on my mountain bike in the past. Mostly on the drive train and disk brakes. Do you have any tips for winterizing a wheel? Are there any threads here? I have a V11 not sure which generation (I received it in aug this year) so I’m hopeful that the hollow core bearings are sealed and won’t be an issue. 

[rcgldr]

On 10/28/2021 at 2:17 AM, Paul A said:

Place ankles at the center of the pedals.

I haven't read this before. In Kuji Roll's and EUCO's how to ride EUC videos, they state to center your feet on the pedals (equal distance from front of toes and back of heels to edge of pedals). The EUCO guy mentions he has his feet a bit forwards, but recommends beginners start off with their feet centered. Other's suggest keeping center of the ball of the foot and the center of heel of the foot equal distant from edges of pedals, but this turns out to be only about 1/4 inch forwards of feet centered, not much difference.

[rcgldr]

On 10/28/2021 at 9:31 PM, Hellkitten said:

I tried the leaning on one pedal to turn it worked very well for the most part.

The goal here is to tilt the wheel, not to put more pressure to either side or forwards | backwards. Tilting the wheel causes it to steer, but the reaction isn't linear and is affected by speed. To learn tilt steering, I did a very mild weave at a slow rate, 1 second to the left, 1 second to the right, adjusting tilt, sometimes just enough tilt to balance for a mild lean, other times increasing the tilt inwards to reduce the lean and return to vertical, to get used to using tilt steering to correct for a lean due to imbalance. Doing this at about the same speed, 8 to 10 mph in my case, made this a bit easier, since it eliminated the speed factor that can affect tilt steering response, and it was at a speed where my V8F was stable.

I kept working on tilt steering, initially just estimating out how much tilt I needed to maintain a mild weave | turn, and tilting more if I started to lean too much, or tilting less if I started a turn with too much tilt and it just returned me to vertical. All of this involved consciously tilting the wheel, as it wasn't instinctive for me (unlike arm flailing which was instinctive from the start), and involved a lot of conscious mid-turn corrections. I just kept working on tilt steering, hoping that eventually I would develop a reflexive reaction to tilt steering. Over time (experience), I was doing fewer and smaller mid-turn corrections, mostly because I was estimating the tilt I needed for a turn more accurately. Eventually I finally transitioned into having a reflexive reaction for tilt steering, between 40 to 100 miles or so. Part of the slow progress was due to me mostly riding on a long and wide straight path, with a large half circle mid-way, so I wasn't getting much turn practice. Once I switched to a bike trail with a lot of mild turns, declines, and inclines, my reflexive response improved at a greater rate. Now I just think about body leaning, and rely on reflexive tilt steering. Forwards | backwards leaning for speed control was instinctive for me, even during turns.

However, tight turns at low speeds (3 to 4 mph) with a lot of tilt was yet another learning curve, since I never needed to do this at any of the locations I rode at. I've done about 4 sessions on this, starting with a bit more than 12 foot diameter circles, and last time about 8 foot diameter circles. The issue is with the greater tilt, the contact patch becomes offset to the outside relative to the center point between pedals, and I had to adjust my center of mass to compensate. It seems to help if I push on the outer upper pad with the inside of my outer calf, but that could just be an issue with me and|or the V8F.

For me, slow tight left turns are more awkward than slow tight right turns, so I practiced slow tight left turns about 4 times as much as slow tight right turns. There's still some difference, but the left turns feel almost as comfortable as right turns now.  What was strange about this is that right turns seemed more awkward than left turns when I was first learning tilt steering at 8 to 10 mph.

 

 

Edited October 31, 2021 by rcgldr

[Hellkitten]

I’ve definitely noticed the difference in turning while at various speeds. I’ve been over leaning to much and trying to address that. It’s what’s caused most of my bailouts. I’ll try more back and forth turns to brush up on them. Like you I’ve found my right hand turns more intuitive, I’ll take your advice and add extra lefts into the mix. Being right handed may have something to do with that. I was hoping to get some more miles in, but it’s been raining for the past two days. Mind you my legs need a bit of a break. 

Happy Halloween all! 🎃👻🎃👻

[Old Glider]

Sounds like you are well on your way now!

lots of online skill tutorials by Pico and Marty Backe and practicing figure eights and forwards/backwards transitions ahead for you and next summer you’ll be a pro riding the waterfront trail and all the other amazing trails you have there (Danforth , lakeshore etc)

enjoy!

[Hellkitten]

25 minutes ago, Old Glider said:

Sounds like you are well on your way now!

lots of online skill tutorials by Pico and Marty Backe and practicing figure eights and forwards/backwards transitions ahead for you and next summer you’ll be a pro riding the waterfront trail and all the other amazing trails you have there (Danforth , lakeshore etc)

enjoy!

You sound local......... 

Thanks! I hope I can get semi decent soon. I’d love to be riding regularly in the spring. 🙏

[rcgldr]

16 hours ago, Hellkitten said:

I’ve definitely noticed the difference in turning while at various speeds. I’ve been over leaning to much and trying to address that.

I just did very mild leans at 8 to 10 mph, a stable speed for the V8F. On a long and wide straight, the weave was very mild pattern of 1 second turns to the left or right, long enough to see what my estimated small tilt accomplished and try some small mid-turn tilt adjustments. For me, to tilt steer, my focus was to move the inside foot down a bit, the outside foot up a bit, without thinking about the difference in leg bend, and always keeping both legs bent. The point of the small leans and small tilt inputs is to keep the EUC within it's somewhat self-stable mode. With too much tilt, the turn is aborted and you straighten up, which isn't an issue if you are on a wide path. Just enough tilt, and you'll maintain the turn for the 1 second. Avoid too little tilt, since that will lean you more than wanted (unstable), always be ready to tilt or "counter arm-flail" to steer into the direction of fall.

Using that same video I linked to before, the weave pattern I tried to emulate is seen at the time I set the link to here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hWMwK3Cfs0&t=164s

I also did some faster pace weave patterns, like 1/2 second mild turns, which was a bit easier, and something I could also do at slower speeds (5 to 6 mph), as seen in this video of me on that long and wide pathway. The headlight helps gives you an idea of what I'm doing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keDvRMScO1g&t=50s

On the other extreme, there is a large half-circle on the side mid-way through the long path, that takes over 10 seconds at 8 to 10 mph to complete, which gave me more mid-turn correction practice. This is where I noticed my progress in making better initial tilt estimate and fewer and smaller mid-turn corrections. Developing a reflexive response didn't really happen until I rode on a bike path with a lot of mild turns.

Edited October 31, 2021 by rcgldr

[Hellkitten]

That first video looks like she could have got some bad road rash! Good style though. 

You were doing really well for a ten day learning curve. I’ll start some leaning turns this upcoming week. If the weather is decent. I think I might venture out of the school yard I’ve been learning in and try some quiet side streets at night. 

[rcgldr]

19 minutes ago, Hellkitten said:

That first video looks like she could have got some bad road rash! Good style though. 

You were doing really well for a ten day learning curve. I’ll start some leaning turns this upcoming week. If the weather is decent. I think I might venture out of the school yard I’ve been learning in and try some quiet side streets at night. 

The poster of that video mentioned it was 2 months and hundreds of miles since she first started riding EUC. They kept speed at around 15 mph. However, there are a bunch of comments about road rash on that and later videos. It's been 5 month and probably over 1000 miles by the time of that guy's most recent video, and so far no falls. They mostly ride at locations they know well and ride conservatively. Still road rash is always a potential issue.

[Hellkitten]

Oh don’t get me wrong, it looks great and way more leisurely. I’d just be paranoid about the scabbing. But I’m also a super newbie. 

[BongoFlip]

On 10/29/2021 at 7:56 AM, Scottie said:

@Hellkitten is doing very ... very well at this stage of the game because the V11 demands more control than other wheels due to it's geometry. If he were to try a Nikola right now, he would find it easy to control. But the V11 is a dream to ride when you get in tune with it.

I just started riding for the first time with a V12 yesterday. I have to say, the weight of it makes it very difficult, compared to something with a lighter weight. From the very beginning I knew it would take some dips, scratches and scrapes (and it sure has!) but I wanted to buy a wheel that I would learn in to and use for the next couple years, rather than buying a starting wheel and then upgrading again with even more money. I hope I made the right call lol.

[Hellkitten]

3 hours ago, BongoFlip said:

I just started riding for the first time with a V12 yesterday. I have to say, the weight of it makes it very difficult, compared to something with a lighter weight. From the very beginning I knew it would take some dips, scratches and scrapes (and it sure has!) but I wanted to buy a wheel that I would learn in to and use for the next couple years, rather than buying a starting wheel and then upgrading again with even more money. I hope I made the right call lol.

Congrats on your new wheel! I felt the same way. I know some people suggested getting a learner wheel before moving onto something bigger. I knew the learning curve would be bigger going this route, but I’m glad with the decision I made. The people here are very friendly dnd have offered me good advice on starting out. Good luck with your learning! Start a thread and keep us posted. 👍

[Scottie]

@BongoFlip I think you did make a good choice with the V12 and will enjoy it for years. It's features and capabilities are attractive to advanced riders. You will get used to the weight quickly. It is an individual choice if you want to start with a small learner wheel or not. Many factors come into play. Some people are not sure if they will enjoy the hobby or not and choose to dip their toes in with a smaller wheel to save expense if they don't become addicted, or at least enjoy the wheel. Others, like you,  are more certain they will enjoy the hobby and just go "all in".

But its a funny thing. There are advanced riders that enjoy the smaller wheels anyway. The smallest - the Mten3 - is desired for it's crazy nature and small handiness. It is a great one to ride down a long driveway to get the mail, or just waste time on the driveway. But can I call that wasting time? Probably not. If it is fun, it is not wasting time. People also find the smaller wheels better for last mile commuting, and so on.

It is good that you accept that it will get scuffs and scratches. Once you knock "the new" off it, you will be free to enjoy. But you can also minimize damages by wrapping the wheel with cardboard, carpeting, yoga mat ... whatever you have during the early learning time.

And while you are at it, wrap your ankles with some protection. Many of us have had our ankles bitten by those unforgiving pedals while learning. That pedal/ankle drama fades away quickly and becomes a non-issue after you are up and riding reliably.  

[Hellkitten]

4 hours ago, Scottie said:

@BongoFlip I think you did make a good choice with the V12 and will enjoy it for years. It's features and capabilities are attractive to advanced riders. You will get used to the weight quickly. It is an individual choice if you want to start with a small learner wheel or not. Many factors come into play. Some people are not sure if they will enjoy the hobby or not and choose to dip their toes in with a smaller wheel to save expense if they don't become addicted, or at least enjoy the wheel. Others, like you,  are more certain they will enjoy the hobby and just go "all in".

But its a funny thing. There are advanced riders that enjoy the smaller wheels anyway. The smallest - the Mten3 - is desired for it's crazy nature and small handiness. It is a great one to ride down a long driveway to get the mail, or just waste time on the driveway. But can I call that wasting time? Probably not. If it is fun, it is not wasting time. People also find the smaller wheels better for last mile commuting, and so on.

It is good that you accept that it will get scuffs and scratches. Once you knock "the new" off it, you will be free to enjoy. But you can also minimize damages by wrapping the wheel with cardboard, carpeting, yoga mat ... whatever you have during the early learning time.

And while you are at it, wrap your ankles with some protection. Many of us have had our ankles bitten by those unforgiving pedals while learning. That pedal/ankle drama fades away quickly and becomes a non-issue after you are up and riding reliably.  

Funny thing, a week after I ordered my V11 the V12 popped up for sale on smartwheels where I bought my wheel. I was kinda bummed and wondered if I should have changed my order. But I ultimately did want the suspension and the V11 is the wheel that really captured my eye from the start. Plus the wait was longer and I was excited to get my grubby little mitts on one as soon as possible. 

Day 6- went back to the school yard, they’re doing construction there and just finished laying down a bunch of asphalt...... smooooooth as silk. Not much of a workout for the suspension, but I did do a bunch of turning in circles. Which I REALLY need the practice on. I also got a bunch of free mounting in too. I don’t feel like I progressed much, but more like I practiced more of the things that definitely needed work. My go back later tonight. It’s starting to get cold here. Need more practice before winter. ⛄️❄️⛄️❄️

[Hellkitten]

Day 6.5- did my first “real” ride. I went about six blocks on a loop. Did a bunch of ungraceful free mounts and wobbly cornering with some long straight stretches. I did do a low speed fall, glad I had all my pads on. New scratches on my wrist guards. Note to self I need hip pads.......

[OldFartRides]

Sub-freezing middle of the night ride. Good on ya.

[Tawpie]

9 hours ago, Hellkitten said:

Note to self I need hip pads.......

Indeed. Consider butt pads for your tailbone too. You'll rarely come off backwards but if you do... I got the Demon United belt affair with hip and tailbone, been very glad I did.

https://demon-united.com/products/hip-belt-x-d3o

Edited November 3, 2021 by Tawpie
add url for hip belt