How to make EUC looks cooler and easier to learn?

[winterwheel]

5 hours ago, GothamMike said:

The coolest look is making it look easy. 

Agreed.

[Robse]

1 minute ago, winterwheel said:

Be happy to debate all that in a different thread if you really want to have it out.

in my opinion it's a very important part of riding a EUC, to send out the good vibrations, show responsibility and that you have things under control.  Something that can bring along a lot of trouble is whenever people behave carelessly.   In Denmark the direct result of people who rode around on e-scooters without any safety equipment, and many were injured, that the state had to intervene with "foolish" legislation.  So here we are:  PEV's in Denmark:  Max 25 KG, max speed 20 kmph (capable of), must use bikerlanes, riding forbidden where cars may exced 50 kmph limit.  Very nice   And to ever again change this ....  hard work..

[winterwheel]

BTW, this isn't just theory for me. We have a modest sized city that started from basically zero six years ago. The picture is from last Friday night's group ride. Some riders of other things such as scooters and ebikes but the majority are wheelers and many of them have evolved from OneWheels particularly to become EUC riders. The driver for this group is community rides really. They need faster and more agile devices to keep up with the group. So more of this is definitely helpful.

But this is just the (mostly) guys who like to hang out on Friday nights.

Five years into my training school I'm closing in 200 people taught, the vast majority of whom just want to do their own thing.

We have three small plane pilots carry wheels in their planes to get from the landing strip to the nearest town.

We have one sailboat couple who live in the Carribean six months per year and keep a wheel for getting into town when they land at different ports.

We have many people who commute.

We have whole families who ride together in their only little group on nice days in the summer.

EUC use is taking hold here. We recently did a major group ride with a local politician and bicycle groups to meet up with the mayor at the end, who did a couple of amusing photo-ops.

It is a rare thing in out town these days to meet someone who has not seen a wheel, and a common thing for people to say they see riders quite regularly.

We're ready to rock and roll on EUC use here, it's just a little more gradual than we'd like because there is no one at all here marketing wheeling in any deliberate way. The only thing public knows about wheels is that they see people rolling by now and then. Riders who these days, are rolling by too fast to engage in any meaningful interaction.

 

Edited October 24, 2022 by winterwheel

[Tawpie]

On the matter of looking cool or not, and how much the aggressive look of gear makes riding unappealing to the general public I see a bit of a pickle.

When I was learning, I got tangled up in the wheel at 0 mph, fell on my hip, sprained my ankle and was off the wheel for 3 days... that was about how long it took a bunch of CE2 padded moto gear to arrive. I was taught an early lesson: falling on the pavement will hurt, and even if you're a black belt and world class parkour athlete (I am neither) you can still have an "accident". Gear, and lots of it, is what balances the risk-reward equation well enough to allow me to enjoy my riding. And I don't ride fast and while I do ride off-road, it's not anything like wattssingletrack or shibby_time. I ride like Marty.

My gear absolutely positively makes me look dorky (someone here commented that my nighttime kit makes me look like a christmas tree on its way to the hospital), and the full-face does send an aura of potential extreme danger but the only time I lighten up (which means: no chin bar on the helmet) is when I'm on the MTen3 picking up trash. Granted, all my armor is hidden inside moto gear so I don't look like a gladiator, but I'm undeniably dressed for disaster so the carefree fun loving super free aspect of riding is tempered.

Personally, I'm not willing to accept the consequences of an inadequate gear fall, so even though it doesn't help encourage others to take up the activity, I don't feel like there's much choice for me.

Flip side of it is I do get comments along the lines of: "That looks really dangerous, good thing you've got all that gear on". So in some respects the gear helps calm the tongue wagging nannies.

Edited October 24, 2022 by Tawpie

[winterwheel]

2 minutes ago, Tawpie said:

My gear absolutely positively makes me look dorky (someone here commented that my nighttime kit makes me look like a christmas tree on its way to the hospital), and the full-face does send an aura of potential extreme danger but the only time I lighten up (which means: no chin bar on the helmet) is when I'm on the MTen3 picking up trash. Granted, all my armor is hidden inside moto gear so I don't look like a gladiator, but I'm undeniably dressed for disaster so the carefree fun loving super free aspect of riding is tempered.

Exactly. 

 

[GothamMike]

3 hours ago, Robse said:

in my opinion it's a very important part of riding a EUC, to send out the good vibrations, show responsibility and that you have things under control.  Something that can bring along a lot of trouble is whenever people behave carelessly.   In Denmark the direct result of people who rode around on e-scooters without any safety equipment, and many were injured, that the state had to intervene with "foolish" legislation.  So here we are:  PEV's in Denmark:  Max 25 KG, max speed 20 kmph (capable of), must use bikerlanes, riding forbidden where cars may exced 50 kmph limit.  Very nice   And to ever again change this ....  hard work..

We got the laws changed in my town, thanks to Lime Scooters (a rent by the hour scooter company) I wrote a thoughtful letter in support to the mayor, mentioned battery safety and helmets for minors.

Most of the police did not know there was a ban on small motorized vehicles, a law going back to the 1970s and 50cc engines or less. By getting ahead of the curve, there is now no specific rules on speeds or PEV weights.  I sent a photo of me wearing gear and complimenting the bike friendly strategy of the city.

The best way to sell PEVs is to work with urban planners. PEVs can make "transit focused" zoning easier to implement. PEV rental companies are throwing money around city halls to get their service in first.

[Bob Yan]

18 hours ago, Vanturion said:

 

IMO a better question is though, do you think EUCs today are ready for increased scrutiny that comes along with significantly expanding your market share/presence?

 No, I don't think EUC is ready to get to the majority, as we all know the average quality is still not qualified yet.    That's being said, we're not going to make anything that intend to go to mass public in any time soon, but we need to think about it, which will be a long term thing. 

 

Quote

Then there’s the question that are EUCs yet even ready for the general public? V11 shocks often fail, replacements are hard to get, suspension rails wear out after a few thousand km on a heavier rider, V12 issues are still well remembered, V10 overheated and the pedals cracked, and other manufacturers have barely gotten a single model out in the last few years that doesn’t require a huge amount of work done before you can even ride it. In some sense it would be best to get a fleet of well functioning and durable wheels into the markets before we even try to lure in others than just brave EUC enthusiasts.

Yes, you're right, we need to fix the basic ones before going to bigger audience. 

 

 

[The Brahan Seer]

I must confess before the S18, I quickly skimmed over EUC's and thought they looked stupid (sorry guys). Then the S18 came out I thought whoa this is one cool wheel! and that helped get me more interested in them, plus an unrelated vlog by a sailboat cruising channel (Sailing off duty) that emphasised why EUC's are so much better than everything else. Before that I was very keen to get a onewheel. The biggest hurdle I experience trying to get people to try is 1) Perceived Danger, 2) Too hard to learn- people always say they have bad balance, 3) Illegal, and for the younger folks/adults 4) Too expensive, they can buy a car for the equivalent price. 

I have very few experiences of people thinking they look (or should I say us riding on them) look dorky and mostly its by people I know already just trying to be funny. The overwhelming majority of people think it looks great fun and is really cool. I used to get filmed constantly when I first went out in my town and people would ask to take photo's/videos etc.

To me the fact its hard to learn makes them cool and everyone else appreciates that too. If say they developed an all self balancing wheel that would be like the modern F1 cars in motor racing, the purity of the sport would be diminished. 

Its not often these days we can find something that is so rewarding and a challenge. Take that away and we would lose so much; especially the sense of achievement.

[MetricUSA]

First you need a light weight 80 km wheel, and one that never goes past 43 km/h, to keep it legal... and have many colors available and add those disco lights again and ground effect lighting... Plus a dedicated heads up display for your wrist or eyeglasses, and a key fob with car horn... 

I forgot .... dash cam for front and rear... 

Edited October 25, 2022 by MetricUSA

[winterwheel]

Local politician is integrating our wheeling group into his efforts promote more bike paths in the city, our Mayor appears at the end.

[Mango]

Riders dressed up in full body plastic armour, full face helmets, helmet mirrors, capes, light-sticks, blinking backpacks, etc don't advance the cause for general mass adoption of EUCs, unfortunately. It's not really about the EUC design per se, but how the rider dresses for the type of EUC they ride.

I personally do not wear any gear when riding my V8S, just everyday stylish clothes (dark jeans, leather boots or white sneakers, suede bomber, etc) and I get quite a few positive comments, like saying I'm an "ambassador" for EUC, or asking how they can start learning to ride themselves. Of course, to get to the point of riding like I do, I had to have fallen numerous times, hurt myself, and know the risks.

I wear full gear, but hidden under casual clothing when riding my higher powered wheels, but I do make it a point to dress stylish and appropriately. Again, I'm not wearing full body hi-viz MC suits, or heavy helmets. That perception to the general public is disadvantageous to wider adoption. 
 

Older wheels are already proven safe. Perhaps have an EUC that can self-balance side to side -- to make learning easier for new riders, but can be switched off for experienced riders?

[yoos]

1 hour ago, Mango said:

Perhaps have an EUC that can self-balance side to side

This is incredibly difficult to design and quite distinct from the EUC concept of today. To have side-to-side balancing you need to replace the wheel with a ball that can be rotated by internal wheels (remember how computer mice with balls worked? Just reverse the process and control ball rotation to move the vehicle). Alternatively, if you wish to have a wheeled vehicle, you must build robotic arms and weights (or gyroscopic appendages) to do the balancing for the human (you know how beginners flail their arms to balance? You would have to give the EUC heavy robotic arms to produce a similar balancing effort)

P.S. come to think of it, another implementation would be to add a yaw-steering degree of freedom so that the EUC would help steer on its own. However, such balancing only works well at speed (where people have the least problems balancing anyway) and additional moving parts would make the EUC much heavier (some 6-10kg?), more fragile and less tolerant to assembly error. The ingenuity of the supersimple mechanical design (just one body, one wheel, nothing else moves) of the EUC would be lost.

Edited October 27, 2022 by yoos
edited for clarity

[Glock43x]

most people that have asked me about my 16x thought I was crazy for riding something that could potentially put my in the hospital real fast.  They know what a unicycle is and how difficult it is to ride one, so they made the same judgement toward the EUC. I tried getting my wife into it (bought her a 16S) and she doesn't seem interested. She practiced it a few times and managed to go like 20 ft, busted her @ss and she stopped.. lol.  The funny thing is, she wants me to teach her how to ride a crotch rocket. Told her if she can master the 16S and learned how to drive a manual car, I may teach her how to ride a crotch rocket one day ..lol Don't know what she was thinking. Learning how to ride a motorcycle is far more difficult and 100x more dangerous.

Edited October 29, 2022 by Glock43x

[winterwheel]

Pro tip -- (super sexist maybe, but reflects my actual experience) most ladies like white wheels vastly more than black ones. If you want a reluctant female in your life to become a rider your best chance of doing that is to get her a white S-18. I ride white wheels whenever possible these days specifically to promote wheeling to womenfolk. 

[Cerbera]

11 hours ago, Glock43x said:

I tried getting my wife into it (bought her a 16S) and she doesn't seem interested. She practiced it a few times and managed to go like 20 ft, busted her @ss and she stopped.. lol. 

That's the best way to get 'authorised' for a second wheel that I've ever heard  Now just gotta buy your small child a V13 or a Master Pro.

Edited October 29, 2022 by Cerbera

[techyiam]

6 minutes ago, Cerbera said:

Now just gotta buy your small child a V13 or a Master Pro.

Sounds like you are going to have a big family. 🙂

[Cerbera]

1 minute ago, techyiam said:

Sounds like you are going to have a big family. 🙂

Lols - no need here - my family is an angry cat that would prefer it, on the whole, if I was out wheeling.

[samzed]

I would love to see personal transport safety events start springing up around. Have some courses and vendors, food, training, obstacle courses and stuff like that. If you want to talk about coordinating one with me and bird, we are getting them in Wyoming, I’d like to be part of it.

[Paul A]

On 10/28/2022 at 12:04 AM, Mango said:

Perhaps have an EUC that can self-balance side to side

 

 

[rcgldr]

On 10/27/2022 at 6:04 AM, Mango said:

Perhaps have an EUC that can self-balance side to side

At sufficient speed (6 to 8 mph on my V8F), an EUC is mostly self-balancing side to side, due to camber effect steering response to tilt|lean, if a rider is riding in a straight line with no relative foot movement so the EUC tilts as much as the rider leans due to small imbalance.

I started off at slow speed 3 to 5 mph, using arm flailing | yaw steering (flail right to steer left and vice versa), able to do laps around a tennis court on my first attempt, but it required constant correction. I moved to a long straight and found my V8F became stable at 6 to 8 mph, and I no longer had to make any balance corrections if riding straight. I still had to learn how to turn via tilt steering (inner foot down, outer foot up), and coordinating how much to tilt the EUC and how much to lean depending on speed and turning radius. In Kuji's how to ride EUC video, the girl he's teaching uses extended arms at first, but Kuji emphasizes on her reaching a stable speed rather than learning to ride slow. Eventually she goes fast enough on the V8 for it to become stable, and she's able to relax and lower her arms, and she's tilt steering to maneuver.

[winterwheel]

The learning issue with euc isn't the riding, it's the mounting and dismounting. 

[Paul A]

3 hours ago, rcgldr said:

At sufficient speed (6 to 8 mph on my V8F), an EUC is mostly self-balancing side to side

 

Angular momentum.

 

[mrelwood]

On 10/30/2022 at 3:25 PM, Paul A said:

 

Angular momentum.

 

Not the case here though. Gyroscopic forces at 6-8mph are very low, and even if they were high, they don’t have the ability to self balance. They only resist changing the angle, and they resist also when trying to upright the wheel after a turn.

 It’s the self balancing tendency of the cone effect on a tubular tire.