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Some questions that I have in regards to buying my first wheel


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This thing is a blast to ride! It took me about 30 minutes to get the hang of balancing and turning, but then I was off speeding away! I'm almost disappointed at the measly 30km/h speed and the 260 WH battery, but in the end it's all good.

One thing that I wasn't really prepared for was how heavy the wheel is. It's a monster to carry around.

I noticed that the wheel wobbles a bit depending on how I'm standing on it and my feet (size 13US) are a little big for the pedals, but that's okay. I put some packaging foam on the sides, which helps a lot with ankle discomfort. I will take photos later.

One thing that I dislike is the loud high pitched general usage beeps, it would have been nice if those beeps were quieter. The neighbors dog was barking at me because of it. :lol:

With everything considered, I really like it!

I have one question though, I believe that I disabled the first two speed alarms, but when I'm going fast it beeps fairly urgently, what I believe to be at 18MPH, however I do expect there to be a constant beep when the system reached peek performance, so I'm wondering if it can go a little bit faster before this happens, or if I'm already going at the limit. Does anyone know?

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On 4/5/2016 at 0:50 PM, WakefulTraveller said:

Make sure that you also get a good helmet, knee & elbow pads, and gloves with wristsaver splints.  Remember that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."  You are better safe now than sorry later.  

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I'm really not one for safety gear, I simply find it far too encumbering and even a little bit dorky, but I do recognize the importance of playing it safe. I guess that I'm just putting a lot of faith in my ability to recover from a precarious situation. I'm fairly quick on my feet like that, when push comes to shove.

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3 hours ago, WakefulTraveller said:

I'm really not one for safety gear, I simply find it far too encumbering and even a little bit dorky, but I do recognize the importance of playing it safe. I guess that I'm just putting a lot of faith in my ability to recover from a precarious situation. I'm fairly quick on my feet like that, when push comes to shove.

It sounds like you want to ride on the limit, looks at the video's of the people who really hammer these things and also the accidents

If I was going to have only one piece of safety gear it would be gloves with wrist support.  I use fingerless  unicycle ones.

I don't go very fast, but if  Iwas aspiring to  go  30 km/hour,  I would have knee, elbow, helmet and gloves.

Your choice in the end though :-)

Still stay safe

Jer

 

 

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4 hours ago, WakefulTraveller said:

I'm really not one for safety gear, I simply find it far too encumbering and even a little bit dorky, but I do recognize the importance of playing it safe. I guess that I'm just putting a lot of faith in my ability to recover from a precarious situation. I'm fairly quick on my feet like that, when push comes to shove.

I think You Are puting to much faith in your Abilitys...

while my learning Phase i broke 3 rips....i was just thinking "ooh...You Do well...now You can reposition your feet juuust a Little bit"

in nanoseconds i was smashed to The ground...there was NO way to get Safe out of this....and that were just 8-10kmh....

since then kneepads and Hand wristguatds Are my minimum.....Forget The Looks....

and i understand You: i would NEVER wear a helmet on a bike, also!....but EUC Is a real different thing :-)

just a Little bump to much...and You Go flying....

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Yes, I certainly wouldn't want to be moving my feet around when going fast, that sounds like a recipe for disaster when considering how unstable wheels are are high speeds; suddenly shifting the balance can have a big effect.

In a dire situation, I would try to hold onto the wheel as best I could, lean back to kill as much inertia as possible, and then jump off and attempt to stay afoot. If worse came to worst, I'd attempt to dissipate my inertia by rag dolling and rolling on my side rather than catching myself with my wrists / hands. Rolling is always the better option, even when wearing wrist guards / gloves. I learned this lesson the hard way. Plus I have a lot of experience with falling from skiing, so this is bound to give me some advantage.

I really wish that I was riding today, but it's raining buckets outside. Tomorrow is probably no good either. I probably could ride it under the overhang, but I don't want to risk the components being damaged by excessive humidity. So there goes my weekend.

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Wow, you picked it up fast; great work! Do consider safety gear: an injury will have you off your wheel longer than a rainy day! Either way, do list any injuries here so we can all learn. Have fun!

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@Villac I just injured my finger on the thing. I was tightening up the pedal on one of the sides that was loose, and I grazed my finger along some of the scraped up aluminum and now I'm bleeding profusely. Yet my blood sacrifice was not without reward: I have made it so the wheel can now stand up on its pedals as a result of them now being on there tighter. I feel like this makes the whole thing safer in a number of ways.

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So the plastic rubbery cover just comes right off once the edges are lifted up... the white panel is on there pretty good... lots of screws

vY1hDYP.jpg

 

To my dismay, where I thought that I might fit another battery pack, I found the motherboard. I'm wondering if it's possible to move the motherboard into the space above.

vUNsntC.jpg

 

So I'm guessing that my best course of action right now is to use up the current battery pack until it is thrown to the battery graveyard, and afterwards upgrade to a higher capacity battery pack. With all of the breakthroughs that we're making in battery tech, they might be a lot better.

It would have been nice to have 64 cells in here, but it would have added unnecessary weight. Another possibility would to keep an external battery in my backpack hooked up to the charging port, I just wonder how feasible this idea is.

I'm considering covering up the beeper thing so that it's a little quieter. Update: I covered it up with a couple paper stickers that I cut out into circles. I'm not sure that it made a difference.

I'm curious, are those two battery like things batteries or capacitors? If the former, what could they be for exactly?

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Thats what i want to warn You before with this MCM3....It's Not Upgrade able to a Second pack of Batteries....i always thought that because here You Are also only able to buy it As 260wh ...where The selller(1radwerkstatt) here normally given You all wh Version options You Ever want....

in France it is Sold As "MCM4 Urban"...haha...

you can throw out The 260wh when it is defect and change it into a 414/420 wh....but thats it then...

no, You can Not put The Board other way...because The gyro from The Board now Needs to be Vertical and You Are Not able to Place it horizontal....

At least i Know Nobody who was able to Do it....

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8 hours ago, WakefulTraveller said:

To my dismay, where I thought that I might fit another battery pack, I found the motherboard. I'm wondering if it's possible to move the motherboard into the space above.

Watch this assembly video of the MCM2s mainboard.

 

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37 minutes ago, SlowMo said:

Watch this assembly video of the MCM2s mainboard.

 

 

So i presume this means you can place PCB horizontally and calibrate it with app on your phone! :o

That is brilliant :D

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I found the gyroscope calibrations were a little off, causing it to lean forward slightly, but I was able to recalibrate it through the app to make it level.

The charger light on the charger sometimes stays on green even though it's supposed to be charging and red; I'm not sure if it's actually charging or not when green.

The pedals become very uncomfortable to stand on after a while, but I found putting more of my weight on my heels helps to mitigate the discomfort.

After a while of riding, the top speed starts to become lower and lower, limiting how fast it can go. I'm thinking that this is almost certainly a limitation of the single battery pack. This doesn't bother me overmuch.

I would consider modifying the wheel to support two battery packs, but I don't have the tools and it seems like too much trouble for what it's worth.

I did buy one piece of protective equipment: a neoprene ankle brace for my right leg, which helps a lot. The shin on my right leg was really hurting before I got this.

I did get in a bit of a scrape up trying to do a hairpin turn while filming on my phone. I think that my shoe scraped against the ground, making the wheel unstable. My left hand got a few cuts in it and one that is a little bit more severe. The camera lens on my phone got cracked, but it still works alright. I am going to look around for some gloves, and I'm now a little bit more hesitant to wear shorts while riding this.

8iiqlst.jpg

I decided to practice crashing on grass, which I think might have prepared me more for whenever I experience a regular crash again on cement.

It's really hard not to put your hands out there during a fall, but at least I'm not letting them take too much of the impact.

When considering how far away the padding is from the center and how heavy the wheel is, it seems to me like one leg tricks are a little bit too much for either of my legs to support without too much strain.

Speaking of tricks, I'm trying to learn how to ride backward, but no luck yet.

I'm probably not going to use the wheel to commute, but if I find a closer job I might. Yet I think it might be worth it to give riding the distance a try, at least once.

Right now I'm riding the wheel on average a couple times a day, with the time between given to recharging the wheel and resting my feet. That or doing other demanding things.

haSA8TB.jpg


There you have it, everything that I thought to be noteworthy. I'm already looking forward to another adventure!

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On 9 April 2016 at 6:22 PM, WakefulTraveller said:

In a dire situation, I would try to hold onto the wheel as best I could, lean back to kill as much inertia as possible, and then jump off and attempt to stay afoot. If worse came to worst, I'd attempt to dissipate my inertia by rag dolling and rolling on my side rather than catching myself with my wrists / hands. Rolling is always the better option, even when wearing wrist guards / gloves. I learned this lesson the hard way. Plus I have a lot of experience with falling from skiing, so this is bound to give me some advantage.

Now imagine the accident you have just experienced had happened whilst going at speed. I think you might now realise why a fair few of us cringed when you made the above statement. If a wheel does shut down for any reason, you would need superhuman reflexes to not be still thinking about jumping off whilst already eating dirt. Wrist guards and a helmet, as a minimum do make good sense. 

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When you're traveling at more than 10mph you don't have any time to deal with a "dire situation". What you're describing is great if there are a few seconds between you and disaster, but that's not generally what happens. Instead, the wheel goes limp, a pedestrian or bike makes a sudden move into your path, or you suddenly see a huge pothole right in front of you because you were distracted while waving at someone.

Take a look at the start of this video and watch as he whips past a bunch of stores at what is probably 12-15mph. I cringed because I kept thinking, "If any of those doors open while he's going past, he's screwed." Nobody opens the door of the laundromat watching for someone to go by at 15mph. I almost hit someone coming out of a blind corner of a fence, after that I've gone a lot slower when my line of sight is blocked by anything.

I've successfully run off several wipeouts, but only ones where I was going maybe 5mph and was prepared, for example going over grassy areas where I knew there were potholes. When stuff happens without warning it's really hard to think fast enough to do anything. 

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So long as I'm not going over 20 mph, I'm not all that concerned. The thing most likely to really injure a rider under 25 mph is hitting an object (and there's only so much that can be done to really protect against such an impact). At lower speeds, we're left with some mild abrasions and maybe a few fractured / broken bones. There's an off chance that we could hit our head, but that could be fatal.

You're both absolutely correct that there's a very short window of time to react to a crash when going fast, and for the most part muscle memory is all that we have, such as impulsively throwing our arms forward to catch our fall.

Because of my height, my body will build up a lot more kinetic energy from falls than someone shorter, so that's not good. On the up side I have a little bit more time to react as I meet the ground.

I certainly wouldn't advise against protective gear, and in the reverse, I would advise people to be careful with how they ride their wheel. Riding fast by doors is clearly a no no.

I can certainly understand why the both of you cringe at my apparent recklessness, and I'm okay with that, and can respect your precautions. This is simply how I choose to ride my wheel, risks and all.

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If the Gotway can contain this without accident.

I am very impressed with the Gotways management systems !

:-)

Jer

 

2 hours ago, WakefulTraveller said:

So long as I'm not going over 20 mph, I'm not all that concerned. The thing most likely to really injure a rider under 25 mph is hitting an object (and there's only so much that can be done to really protect against such an impact). At lower speeds, we're left with some mild abrasions and maybe a few fractured / broken bones. There's an off chance that we could hit our head, but that could be fatal.

You're both absolutely correct that there's very a very short window of time to react to a crash when going fast, and for the most part muscle memory is all that we have, such as impulsively throwing our arms forward to catch our fall.

Because of my height, my body will build up a lot more kinetic energy from falls than someone shorter, so that's not good. On the up side I have a little bit more time to react as I meet the ground.

I certainly wouldn't advise against protective gear, and in the reverse, I would advise people to be careful with how they ride their wheel. Riding fast by doors is clearly a no no.

I can certainly understand why the both of you cringe at my apparent recklessness, and I'm okay with that. This is simply how I choose to ride my wheel, risks and all.

 

Jer

 

 

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Yeah....

you are right....it's your Choice to Do so!

But one LAST Time:

You Are absolutly overestimating your abilities! Thinking of getting controlled "rolled" down in any Situation like a Shut down or unforeseeable situation? Not Even wear Hand Protection????

hello Superman :-)

nobody wants to Cut down your rights of Choice....We just tried to warn You...

i really Hope You don't learn The hard way :-)

Good luck then!

 

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@KingSong69 Rolling really isn't the tricky part for me, I've already managed it several times. I will be getting gloves so that I don't scrape up my hands again (because I can't help but to put my hands out there). When it comes to gloves, it's best to go with something without much traction, so that it slides on contact, otherwise it could more easily lead to a fractured wrist.

Just as you guys think I put too much faith in my abilities, I think that you put too much faith in your protective equipment. For instance, it's still very much possible to fracture your wrist with wrist guards on.

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32 minutes ago, WakefulTraveller said:

Just as you guys think I put too much faith in my abilities, I think that you put too much faith in your protective equipment. For instance, it's still very much possible to fracture your wrist with wrist guards on.

Yes,,, but it is much better than without it.

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On 4/9/2016 at 4:23 PM, WakefulTraveller said:

@Villac I just injured my finger on the thing. I was tightening up the pedal on one of the sides that was loose, and I grazed my finger along some of the scraped up aluminum and now I'm bleeding profusely. Yet my blood sacrifice was not without reward: I have made it so the wheel can now stand up on its pedals as a result of them now being on there tighter. I feel like this makes the whole thing safer in a number of ways.

Careful you wheel doesn't develop an appetite for your blood! Have fun; we have been wheeling a lot in the warm weather in PA!

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So I just rode 9+ miles from where I work to my house, and although the battery capacity is only 260 Wh, it lasted just long enough for it to take me all the way to my destination! It went practically the entire distance save for when I carried it up a hill toward the end of the ride. Overall the experience of rather enjoyable, except for when it came to gnats flying into my eyes. That part wasn't fun. Throughout the journey, I was concerned that the wheel wouldn't make it the entire distance, but to my pleasant surprise, it did.

The app shows that I have ridden 307 km so far. Hurrah!

I figured out why the charger was sometimes not working. It was because the charging connector itself was chipped, allowing it to fit in incorrectly. To remedy this issue, I will have to be more careful with how I plug it in to charge.

In the process of learning how to ride backwards, I scraped up the shell pretty bad. Also, while I was practicing, I had some fun ghost riding it. No risk of face planting there.

It can sometimes go berserk when it crashes, which is a little scary. Overall I feel the Gotway to be very resilient, save for maybe the silicon padding, which likes to pop off.

This brings me to the foam padding that I received, that arrived yesterday. I placed two strips along the top, one on each side, and now it's noticeably more comfortable on the shins.

I ordered a pair of special LED lights designed to fit into the foot pedals to act as caution lights when it gets dark and hard to see. I'm thinking that these will be nice to have. I also ordered a bicycle pump with a pressure meter that will hopefully have a connector small enough to connect with the valve of the tire. I'm just hoping that it will arrive before I really need it.

One thing that I think many other high end unicycles have over this one is that their pedals are noticeably more comfortable, which can be a real advantage, especially when it comes to long distances.

That's everything that I have to report.

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