How far would you ride an EUC for errands before you would use a car instead?

[360rumors]

If you have a car / truck / other vehicle, how far are you willing to ride your EUC for an errand before you would use your car instead?

[koppanyh]

For me, it'd be based more on time than distance. So for 30 minutes or more travel time (one way) I think I'd just use a car instead. Or if I was in a hurry then a car would be better. But for a nice little 20 minute ride to the store, it would be fine to use the uni.

[360rumors]

17 minutes ago, koppanyh said:

For me, it'd be based more on time than distance.

Makes sense. The farthest I’ve gone is 20 mins away. Since that is 40 mins round trip, vs 15-20 mins round trip by car, I think that’s as much extra time I’m willing to travel for an errand.

[UtahRider]

I ride mine to get a haircut about 10 mins from home only because it’s in a low traffic area but since most stores are in heavily trafficked areas, sadly I just use my EUCs for a daily 20 mile back roads loop rec ride. It’s a great stress release for me but that’s about all it is, just too much traffic to chance it.

[Rawnei]

I don't own a car since many years back, use my wheel for everything, usually faster than car as well (not to mention more fun).

In Sweden we have different infrastructure than USA though, Stockholm in particular has very good bike paths, for bigger things like going to Ikea for furniture you can get same day home delivery pretty cheap.

Only time I would rent a car would be going on vacation somewhere far away or a truck for moving.

[Robse]

Living in a "small" town in Denmark.  But its a key point for traffic (highway crossings) , so around 1500-1700 you have three choices if you have to go 8 km in / out town city;  Start your car and spend 45 - 60 minutes for this travel , or use your bike , that's 25 minutes, or ride the wheel, that's 15 minutes or less ... i know my choice  as long as it's not raining...

[360rumors]

3 hours ago, Rawnei said:

I don't own a car since many years back, use my wheel for everything, usually faster than car as well (not to mention more fun

I’ve heard people say it is faster than a car in some cases although I don’t understand how. Is the traffic so bad that cars get stuck? Or do you have to ride aggressively, ignoring stoplights etc. ?

[360rumors]

2 hours ago, Robse said:

Living in a "small" town in Denmark.  But its a key point for traffic (highway crossings) , so around 1500-1700 you have three choices if you have to go 8 km in / out town city; 

I see! Wow 45-60 mins for 8km sounds like crazy congestion! So in that case when you ride EUC do you have to ride between cars and past stoplights etc. ? Or is this normal riding on bike paths?

[360rumors]

9 hours ago, UtahRider said:

I ride mine to get a haircut about 10 mins from home only because it’s in a low traffic area but since most stores are in heavily trafficked areas, sadly I just use my EUCs for a daily 20 mile back roads loop rec ride.

Wow 20 miles every day 😮 how long does that take if I may ask?

[Tasku]

I would consider the cargo when making errend runs. (Edit3: And the weather.. if it rains, use car)

If the cargo fits in comfortable backpack, you can travel longer distance.

But if you have to carry something with plastic bag or even worse in both hands, it better be as short as possible. Prefer avoiding such runs.

I often prep meal on the go and clothes, as I go for longer trips. Carrying some weight just feels good exercise.

With good gear that balances weight well, I can go as far as I want. (edit2: Good hiking backpacks has more straps, like for chest and hip making it easier to move stuff.)

Edit1: Also good thing to keep in mind eucs have max load, usually 120kg. The motor can move you but too heavy cargo might damage pedal rods, axle and so forth. Falling with heavy cargo would suck even more than usual, so that is good thing to consider.

Edited May 26, 2022 by Tasku
edit1 edit2 edit3

[Tawpie]

1 hour ago, 360rumors said:

I’ve heard people say it is faster than a car in some cases although I don’t understand how. Is the traffic so bad that cars get stuck? Or do you have to ride aggressively, ignoring stoplights etc. ?

Where I live, it's pretty normal for traffic on the urban arterials to be stop-and-go during rush hours (plural because there are hours and hours of it). In this case the 'speed' advantage comes from being able to cruise past the cars that are waiting for whatever they're waiting for. I'm either in the bike lane, a path, or the sidewalk (slowly of course) and you get to the front of the line at lights. It's pretty effective.

I have ridden my wheel "explicitly to run an errand" exactly 3 times in over 3000 miles. I'm a lot like @UtahRider, I ride to de-stress and lollygag and don't really want to turn it into a "transportation tool". That said, I am trying to commute on the wheel these days but it adds 2-3 hours to my work day so it's not very time efficient at all... running errands doesn't seem like it'd save time, but it would be an opportunity to ride!

[Rawnei]

1 hour ago, 360rumors said:

I’ve heard people say it is faster than a car in some cases although I don’t understand how. Is the traffic so bad that cars get stuck? Or do you have to ride aggressively, ignoring stoplights etc. ?

Traffic + more straight paths to your destination, I mean in some scenarios a car would be faster sure, middle of the night low traffic and on the highway but that's not the usual scenario, not to mention parking.

But again I guess it depends on the infrastructure where one lives, I can imagine a less bike-friendly place car is much faster.

[360rumors]

1 hour ago, Tawpie said:

I have ridden my wheel "explicitly to run an errand" exactly 3 times in over 3000 miles.

I got my EUC for leisure too but these days, with the high cost of gas, I've been trying to use my EUC as much as possible.

[VikB]

On 5/25/2022 at 9:57 AM, 360rumors said:

If you have a car / truck / other vehicle, how far are you willing to ride your EUC for an errand before you would use your car instead?

My truck barely moves like ~2000-3000kms/year of driving. I tend to use my EUC for shorter range errands where I need to grab something quickly from a store. Not having to lock it up and being able to trolley it inside are advantages. I use my bicycle a lot more and I'll ride up to about 20kms on way to do an errand so 40kms round trip. 

I'll mostly drive when the distance gets long and/or it's raining pretty solidly. I'll also drive when I need to haul a bunch of cargo. I like to move my truck once a week so I'll try and find something I need doing each week where I can give the engine and moving parts an opportunity to warm up and get lube flowing.

[dwagelaar]

In Belgium (Flanders), I would do up to 15 km on my Inmotion V8, provided I can fully charge it (4 hrs) at the destination (i.e. commute). On my V11, I'd do up to 20 km each way, or 40 km in total, without the need to charge. Most errands are less than 5 km away for me, though, so any wheel works.

[Robse]

4 hours ago, 360rumors said:

I see! Wow 45-60 mins for 8km sounds like crazy congestion! So in that case when you ride EUC do you have to ride between cars and past stoplights etc. ? Or is this normal riding on bike paths?

The traffic in my town is totally crazy, to many cars and trucks, schools and business are cramped together.  Roads are to small - however, there are a lots of bike paths, and they are empty because the lazy people prefer to sit around and wait in their cars.  Therefore riding in the bike lanes is "Volles Roar"  (Werner) - no riding between cars, i dont like that game....

[.....]

My nearest buisness is a gas station and its about a 20minute ride. After that, its a town that is NOT possible to ride to. Once out of my neighborhood, its 2 lane highways with little/no shoulder. I brave the gas station run on the 18xl, but its a bit slow, even in my hood. The Sherm is faster/safer, but it still aint doing the deed on the highway. Mostly my main errand is the mailbox at 50' away on the mten....

Edited May 26, 2022 by ShanesPlanet

[winterwheel]

I once used my RS-HT to carry a 20' extension ladder 2kms from home to the recycling depot. Wind was a b**** when I got out onto the open road but I made it there without any hiccups.

Edited May 26, 2022 by winterwheel
typo

[Whalesmash]

Due to inefficient city layout for cars, I can pretty much get anywhere within my city just as fast if not faster on my EUC than I can on my car up to about 10-15 mile radius of where I live. Beyond that, it's better to drive. For the most part, I use my EUC for everything except doing bulk grocery runs at costco or going out for bulky items from home depot or something along those lines.

[mhpr262]

Depends on how much I have to carry. Some groceries, a bottle of juice or buttermilk, three cartons of milk... the liquids especially get heavy quickly. I have no problems schlepping home a grocery bag weighing six or seven kilograms from the nearest ALDI, which is 2.6 kilometers away from my home, but more than that and it gets difficult. Plus with all my gear I am already 10 kg over the offical weight limits of my V10F and my V11 without carrying anything at all.

Edited May 27, 2022 by mhpr262
kilograms, not kilometers...

[360rumors]

1 hour ago, Whalesmash said:

Due to inefficient city layout for cars, I can pretty much get anywhere within my city just as fast if not faster on my EUC than I can on my car up to about 10-15 mile radius of where I live. 

Wow I thought that kind of EUC advantage was only possible for towns in Europe but 10-15 miles in Socal? :O  Does that require aggressive riding, like ignoring stoplights, cutting in between cars, etc.?

[LanghamP]

If I'm in St Louis, anywhere up to about 7 miles but most often to catch public transportation. If I'm in Alabama (where I now live), very short around 1/4 of a mile from my car to work, eat, or shop around downtown.

Since most US downtowns were created before cars, most of downtown infrastructure is oriented somewhat towards walking and slow speeds. Now in the South there is a very strong effort to make cars fit everywhere, but vestiges of pre-auto infrastructure still exists.

[Whalesmash]

1 hour ago, 360rumors said:

Wow I thought that kind of EUC advantage was only possible for towns in Europe but 10-15 miles in Socal? :O  Does that require aggressive riding, like ignoring stoplights, cutting in between cars, etc.?

It's a little bit complicated, but as a short summary, the city I live in is old and is very poorly laid out.

Now for the long answer: The signal lights are horribly out of sync so when you're driving, you pretty much always hit every single red light for several sections of the city. If you want to get on the freeway, there's onramps that only allow access to the southbound side but not the northbound (and vice versa) which means going some directions require you to drive all the way down to the next street (hitting every red light along the way). Without having to ride dangerously (IE blow lights and stop signs) it's really easy for an EUC to get around mostly because there's bike paths that let you cut through sections you otherwise have to make a big loop around. For the lights, the way they are synced up, it just so happens that cruising along at 30-35mph on an EUC lets you hit all the green lights instead of stopping at every single red one. The last nail in the coffin for driving is that there's a reasonably regularly trafficked railroad that runs through the city, and if you get stuck behind it on a car, you're sitting there for a while. EUC lets you take a pedestrian overpass and totally skip that. I'll add the caviat here that if you're driving in the dead of night, the city runs the lights differently and at that point, it's way more efficient to drive beyond the 5 mile mark, but for some reason they switch the signals to probably the dumbest logic ever during the day. 

[Paul A]

16 hours ago, Rawnei said:

for bigger things like going to Ikea for furniture you can get same day home delivery pretty cheap.

 

Don't need home delivery if you have an EUC......

 

 

[360rumors]

@Paul A.  Wow I was having doubts about whether winterwheel was kidding with the 20' ladder but I can see from this photo that riders do carry big loads on EUC! :O

 

1 hour ago, Paul A said:

 

Don't need home delivery if you have an EUC......