The Photo Thread

[Shabba]

28 minutes ago, HermanTheGerman said:

By God, don't show me things like that, I'm getting itchy feet ...

 

Hahahahaha 

[Dingfelder]

Herman,

Really nice photos!  The ones by the river and along the country road look exactly like Southern Oregon, where I live.  Very pretty!

My brother lived in Austria for a couple of years just recently.  Really loved Vienna.  He said the people were very nice, and he showed us amazing pictures of the playgrounds he took his daughter to.  Fantastic public facilities.  I think he may be moving back there. Sounds like a great place!

 

Edited May 15, 2017 by Dingfelder

[Dingfelder]

36 minutes ago, Shabba said:

Hahahahaha 

Yeah, that's a beautiful picture!  Hard not to get jealous seeing that ...

[meepmeepmayer]

11 hours ago, Shabba said:

...

Nice!

1 hour ago, HermanTheGerman said:

...

Nice! Also, average speed 29.5... not bad at all

[Shabba]

9 minutes ago, Dingfelder said:

Yeah, that's a beautiful picture!  Hard not to get jealous seeing that ...

Thanks

[Shabba]

[Dingfelder]

That's a really fun color with a lot of personality!

[HermanTheGerman]

On 14.5.2017 at 9:40 PM, Dingfelder said:

Herman,

Really nice photos!  The ones by the river and along the country road look exactly like Southern Oregon, where I live.  Very pretty!

My brother lived in Austria for a couple of years just recently.  Really loved Vienna.  He said the people were very nice, and he showed us amazing pictures of the playgrounds he took his daughter too.  Fantastic public facilities.  I think he may be moving back there. Sounds like a great place!

 

Thanks!

Vienna is a nice city for EUC's and bicycles. But I confess, I prefer the countryside and the mountains (although Vienna is just a 50 minute cardrive away from the next mountain).

One of my oldest dreams is to climb Mt. Hood and Mt. Rainier !

I definitely will visit the northwestern pacific states at some time, but until now my multimonth vacations were unfortunately eaten by another very remote mountain:

Sigh, I also fear I need to go THERE again !

There are so many nice places to visit in the world ...

 

 

[Dingfelder]

That's gorgeous, Herman.

Yeah, it's a beautiful world.  

A lot of older Americans love getting a RV and living out as many as they can of their retirement years on the road, going from park to park.  There are lots of gorgeous public and private campgrounds all through California and the Pacific Northwest.

That used to be only for retirees, but now many younger people of all income levels are doing the same thing, with the ability to telecommute.  We used to know some people who worked for Microsoft ... out in the middle of nowhere.  A beautiful spread in Northern Oregon wine country on a gorgeous property.  They had a RV that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, as well as a house there.  It's a perilous economy, but some people can manage their lifestyles in very interesting ways these days ..

[kasenutty]

27 minutes ago, HermanTheGerman said:

Thanks!

Vienna is a nice city for EUC's and bicycles. But I confess, I prefer the countryside and the mountains (although Vienna is just a 50 minute cardrive away from the next mountain).

One of my oldest dreams is to climb Mt. Hood and Mt. Rainier !

I definitely will visit the northwestern pacific states at some time, but until now my multimonth vacations were unfortunately eaten by another very remote mountain:

Sigh, I also fear I need to go THERE again !

There are so many nice places to visit in the world ...

 

 

 

 

Visit me and hopefully I will have a wheel for you to borrow by then!

[HermanTheGerman]

48 minutes ago, kasenutty said:

Visit me and hopefully I will have a wheel for you to borrow by then!

Great !

That means I'll be sleepless in Seattle riding an EUC the whole night before I visit Mt. Rainier !

[kasenutty]

Now, that sounds fun. 

 

First German to summit rainier on euc extreme edition wheel? I think you've got what it takes, Herman

[HermanTheGerman]

1 hour ago, Dingfelder said:

That's gorgeous, Herman.

Yeah, it's a beautiful world.  

A lot of older Americans love getting a RV and living out as many as they can of their retirement years on the road, going from park to park.  There are lots of gorgeous public and private campgrounds all through California and the Pacific Northwest.

That used to be only for retirees, but now many younger people of all income levels are doing the same thing, with the ability to telecommute.  We used to know some people who worked for Microsoft ... out in the middle of nowhere.  A beautiful spread in Northern Oregon wine country on a gorgeous property.  They had a RV that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, as well as a house there.  It's a perilous economy, but some people can manage their lifestyles in very interesting ways these days ..

Sounds great !

Actually I worked once for Cisco (from 1996 to 2001) and visited San Jose several times, and also SFO and Oakland, but unfortunately I never made it to the north.

But I'll change to the better, promise!

[HermanTheGerman]

5 minutes ago, kasenutty said:

Now, that sounds fun. 

 

First German to summit rainier on euc extreme edition wheel? I think you've got what it takes, Herman

For this I'll better take my crampons and the ice axe.  But I could carry my wheel to the summit, great idea, maybe Kingsong pays for such a summit foto !

I believe it's 4pm at your side, here it's 1am, I need to leave the chat.

Good night for now, ladies and gents.

[Chris Westland]

We are living in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province China this summer.  Here's a picture of a local Xi'aner with is Inmotion V5 which he uses to tour around the city

[Trey Lewis]

I have been dying to share our storefront photos! Last month just finished in preparation for our grand opening.

 

(Made sure we didn't have anything with our name, just wanted to share the layout and aesthetic. We tried really hard to renovate this space as first timers.)

[Paddylaz]

44 minutes ago, Trey Lewis said:

I have been dying to share our storefront photos! Last month just finished in preparation for our grand opening.

 

(Made sure we didn't have anything with our name, just wanted to share the layout and aesthetic. We tried really hard to renovate this space as first timers.)

Wow! Where is this, Trey? When did you decide to open one? Looks fantastic.

[Dingfelder]

On 5/15/2017 at 10:32 PM, Chris Westland said:

We are living in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province China this summer. 

Some of the Chinese EUC vids I see are great ... showing a whole lot of people on wheels in big groups.  It would be great if that were more common here in the U.S.  Almost all the US EUC videos I see are solo acts, or occasionally only one friend/partner filming another.

[meepmeepmayer]

9 hours ago, Trey Lewis said:

I have been dying to share our storefront photos! Last month just finished in preparation for our grand opening.

<store photo>

(Made sure we didn't have anything with our name, just wanted to share the layout and aesthetic. We tried really hard to renovate this space as first timers.)

Nice, and quite professional looking, with good color scheme! You're living the dream

If you want some impressions/advice, imho the visible surface area dedicated to the products is too low. What you could do:

• You need some (white) background behind the wheels. At least, put some white sheets (as in a hard rectangle from wood or so, not cloth sheets, maybe even just the white Gotway boxes) behind the wheels. So people see them right away. People's eyes should be drawn to the wheels immediately (the moving screen is already a step in the exact right direction). Right now, the contrast is very low, culminating with the black ACM in front of the black wall. Even if you just paint some pieces of plywood white and lean them behind the wheels, big improvement.
• Same for the clothes (or whatever that is in the shelf on the left), put an example of each on a hanger right next to the shelf so people see each of them right away. How do you buy clothes, do you see something at a glance and think "this could be nice" and check it out/go for your size; or do you rummage through stacks on shelves? If these are just the bags, add one of the colored things to the stand so people see what it is (I have no idea from the picture).
• If you only sell the 3 wheels/or really if only the 3 wheels are on this wall, a kind of "shrine" (again, go for maximum contrast) instead of these random IKEA like shelves (that don't make too much sense because there's nothing in them) the wheels stand on would make it more clear what your shop is about. You're already going for that, just the lower half of it is lacking (nice logo paintings in the top half!). It does not have to be anything special. The 3 white "display gallery"* stands (the shelves) are really good already. Just need some white background behind the wheels for contrast, and you could affix the info slate to it to make it more professional looking (and more inviting, who wants to approach a stand where a leaned part might fall if you touch it/get close; the entire wall could look more approachable). And maybe add a spotlight on top. It's a matter of your creativity and how much you want to do.
  In the simplest case, you could just put white tablecloths (or so) over the 3 shelves (to make them look more like stands) and put white sheets behind the wheels (if you change nothing else, please do that). But honestly, the outer two shelves are a bit too high, putting them horizontal like the middle one might be an idea (but I'm sure you already tried that anyways). You could put them all horizontal, and use higher white background sheets on the two sides to get the same look.

So much for my unsolicited retail psychology comments ( did I mention the words "see" and "contrast"?). Maybe this helps you somehow. You're really good with the black-white, high contrast, clean store design, but with (imho) some obvious small improvements possible to make the actual products stand out more. Not sure how many wheels actually get sold in stores, but it can't hurt.

Good luck!

(* not sure what the right English word is, hope you know what is meant)

Edited May 17, 2017 by meepmeepmayer
you can make paragraphs inside a list item by pressing shift + enter

[Ombre]

On 5/15/2017 at 3:53 PM, Dingfelder said:

That used to be only for retirees, but now many younger people of all income levels are doing the same thing, with the ability to telecommute.

That's us.  We're currently on a five month trip across the USA.  Today's stop is in Littleton Colorado at Chatfield State Park.  I recommend this place for an excellent EUC ride.  There's a paved path around the lake that covers about 16 miles.

[Dingfelder]

15 minutes ago, Ombre said:

That's us.  We're currently on a five month trip across the USA.  Today's stop is in Littleton Colorado at Chatfield State Park.  I recommend this place for an excellent EUC ride.  There's a paved path around the lake that covers about 16 miles.

That sounds wonderful.  I know lots of people would like to live that way ... me too!

That path in Colorado sounds great!

[Dingfelder]

9 hours ago, Trey Lewis said:

I have been dying to share our storefront photos! Last month just finished in preparation for our grand opening.

 

(Made sure we didn't have anything with our name, just wanted to share the layout and aesthetic. We tried really hard to renovate this space as first timers.)

I agree with meep that the wheels blend into the wall because of low contrast.

Minimalism is great at focusing the eye and attention if you add highlights.  You wouldn't need to add much since the contrast can be so stark.  Like a room all in tan that starts to pop once you add coordinated highlights like bright red or aquamarine pillows on a tan couch and such.

You could also make a very customizable color display by providing a backdrop or surround made from artfully arranged strings of small LED lights, the kind that you can dial in an infinite number of colors on from a remote control, make flash rapidly or pulse slowly, make change colors automatically, etc.  They don't cost much and you could make as subtle or as loud a display as you like, add/subtract and rearrange the lights, and use them to just form a soft light around an area or turn them up higher to let a glow spread in a wide area.  A white background is very good for the latter effect, as it reflects the light so well that it looks like whatever color you chose is the white area's true and actual color.

Amazon stocks lots of these and regularly has them on sale.  

Anyway it's an idea, and a very flexible and easily removable one with almost infinite possibilities.  It comes down to you have a nice minimalistic color scheme that could use the punch of a few highlights.

You could even use colored chalk to make things stand out more.  Red chalk for a red wheel, etc, blue for a blue wheel ...

 

 

[Trey Lewis]

3 hours ago, meepmeepmayer said:

Nice, and quite professional looking, with good color scheme! You're living the dream

If you want some impressions/advice, imho the visible surface area dedicated to the products is too low. What you could do:

• You need some (white) background behind the wheels. At least, put some white sheets (as in a hard rectangle from wood or so, not cloth sheets, maybe even just the white Gotway boxes) behind the wheels. So people see them right away. People's eyes should be drawn to the wheels immediately (the moving screen is already a step in the exact right direction). Right now, the contrast is very low, culminating with the black ACM in front of the black wall. Even if you just paint some pieces of plywood white and lean them behind the wheels, big improvement.
• Same for the clothes (or whatever that is in the shelf on the left), put an example of each on a hanger right next to the shelf so people see each of them right away. How do you buy clothes, do you see something at a glance and think "this could be nice" and check it out/go for your size; or do you rummage through stacks on shelves? If these are just the bags, add one of the colored things to the stand so people see what it is (I have no idea from the picture).
• If you only sell the 3 wheels/or really if only the 3 wheels are on this wall, a kind of "shrine" (again, go for maximum contrast) instead of these random IKEA like shelves (that don't make too much sense because there's nothing in them) the wheels stand on would make it more clear what your shop is about. You're already going for that, just the lower half of it is lacking (nice logo paintings in the top half!). It does not have to be anything special. The 3 white "display gallery"* stands (the shelves) are really good already. Just need some white background behind the wheels for contrast, and you could affix the info slate to it to make it more professional looking (and more inviting, who wants to approach a stand where a leaned part might fall if you touch it/get close; the entire wall could look more approachable). And maybe add a spotlight on top. It's a matter of your creativity and how much you want to do.
  In the simplest case, you could just put white tablecloths (or so) over the 3 shelves (to make them look more like stands) and put white sheets behind the wheels (if you change nothing else, please do that). But honestly, the outer two shelves are a bit too high, putting them horizontal like the middle one might be an idea (but I'm sure you already tried that anyways). You could put them all horizontal, and use higher white background sheets on the two sides to get the same look.

So much for my unsolicited retail psychology comments ( did I mention the words "see" and "contrast"?). Maybe this helps you somehow. You're really good with the black-white, high contrast, clean store design, but with (imho) some obvious small improvements possible to make the actual products stand out more. Not sure how many wheels actually get sold in stores, but it can't hurt.

Good luck!

(* not sure what the right English word is, hope you know what is meant)

This was our opening day. We have white backs to go behind the black wheels now. We had them that day but they weren't ready for the spotlight yet! 

The boxes in the "ikea" pieces are actually being filled with either square pieces with our logo, or we are listed the wheel specs there. The black board in the center was time constraint more than anything.

We have a shirt on display now, they have been doing very well, I see them around town and it is so exciting.

I really do appreciate all the feedback. We have implemented most of it by now and will definitely consider those ideas that we haven't. We were working on it all night because there was a big festival in town and we needed to be open by then. So a lot of what we wanted couldn't be finished in time for opening day. I will get some shots of our workshop and stuff too sometime.Again though, we appreciate any and all feedback!

[Trey Lewis]

10 hours ago, Paddylaz said:

Wow! Where is this, Trey? When did you decide to open one? Looks fantastic.

I decided to open one a very long time ago. I started riding and lurking this forum in 2015 and I knew I wanted to open my own store, so I threw every solid business plan I had out the window and opened an EUC store! We are located in a pretty small but very very nice town. Siloam Springs, Arkansas.

[Trey Lewis]

The kettle corn is a nice touch though, right? I didn't even notice that two of the store employees were hiding in the corner.

Also, this photos was taken on a very old phone. The color scheme is way more exciting in person with the amount of natural lighting we have and the floors are much lighter than it looks in the picture.