6 foot 1 and 141 lbs - looking for fun, multi terrain, 20+ mile range

[weave_spectrum]

EUCs have been simmering in the back of my mind for a few years now. I've been riding an ebike for about a year and I'm curious to try something a bit more adventurous.

The speedy feet YouTube channel has a video called "Guide For Choosing An Electric Unicycle" so I thought answering those questions would be a good start. Hopefully that's enough to narrow things down.

Are there any brands/models you could recommend based on my answers below? Or even just general principles you'd suggest? Thanks in advance.

 

Range: at least 20 miles / 32 km (i.e. my longest round trip would be 10 miles out and another 10 miles back)

Terrain: my rough guess would be: 40% bike paths / 20% off-road / 20% roads and sidewalks

Rider weight: 64 kg / 141lbs / 10 stone 1 lbs (if it helps to know, I'm 6 foot 1 inch / 185 cm)

Purpose: mostly for fun, but the occasional commute. No need to go up stairs, but I'd sometimes lift it into a car. I might want to very occasionally take it on trains/trams/buses.

Cut off handle: I don't think I'd need to regularly carry the wheel up stairs or in crowded areas. But having a cut off handle would be nice.

Pushing the EUC: I'd very occasionally need to push it a significant way (maybe 6 times a year).

Going fast: at the moment, I'm not interested in going faster than I can sprint. However it would be nice to have a taste of speed to decide if I like it and want to upgrade.

Budget: £1,000 to £1,500 / $1,300 to $2,000 / €1,200 to €1,800

Riding all year round: I live in Scotland and I'd ride in the winter and maybe in the rain. I probably won't ride at night or when it's icy or snowing.

Experience with EUCs: total novice

Experience with other PEVs: I ride an ebike (conversion kit) with a 1000 watt motor and 750kwh battery. This works really well for me, both in terms of range and power.

Other personal preferences, in priority order:

1. safety is top priority (both while riding and charging)
2. reliability (it may not be possible to get a ride home, at least not immediately)
3. I'm interested in trying seated riding at some point
4. build quality
5. ideally, no mobile apps or at least no intrusive beeps that can't be disabled

[UniVehje]

There haven't been many new wheels announced recently for that price range. For that price you can fit something like KS 16X, KS 18L, KS S18 and maybe KS S16. But all these are just at the 1800-2000 € range, slightly above or just at the top of your budget. If you want suspension, go for S18. If you don't need it, Inmotion V10F or KS 16XS will fit you budget comfortably. 

Your best option is to look for used wheels. But your budget is enough if you skip suspension. For that range you only need a roughly 1000 Wh battery. So V10F, 16XS, 18L are all fine. As you are a bit taller, maybe 18L with bigger tire would suit you well. None of these are good for seated riding. If you go for used, you could get suspension and better wheel for seated riding. 

[weave_spectrum]

11 minutes ago, UniVehje said:

There haven't been many new wheels announced recently for that price range. For that price you can fit something like KS 16X, KS 18L, KS S18 and maybe KS S16. But all these are just at the 1800-2000 € range, slightly above or just at the top of your budget. If you want suspension, go for S18. If you don't need it, Inmotion V10F or KS 16XS will fit you budget comfortably. 

Your best option is to look for used wheels. But your budget is enough if you skip suspension. For that range you only need a roughly 1000 Wh battery. So V10F, 16XS, 18L are all fine. As you are a bit taller, maybe 18L with bigger tire would suit you well. None of these are good for seated riding. If you go for used, you could get suspension and better wheel for seated riding. 

Great! I'll take a look at those. On suspension, I think I'm happy without suspension for now, for a couple reasons: to get a better feel for the wheel itself and build muscle memory, but also because I've heard suspension requires more maintenance. With most things, I prefer simplicity and fewer moving parts, so there's less to go wrong.

Would you say suspension is necessary for seated riding? I don't mind missing out on seated if it means I can get something simpler and more affordable to start with. I spoke with a rider in real life recently who told me that seated riding is a more advance skill anyway, so I don't mind waiting until I potentially upgrade.

[weave_spectrum]

Maybe this should be in a different thread, but is there a guide to KingSong model numbers? I'm finding it tricky to tell what the letters mean. Here are my current guesses: S = 'sport', X = 'extreme', L = 'long range', A/B/C/D = version numbers, so the later letters are more recent, M = ?

[meepmeepmayer]

The King Song letters mean nothing consistent.

[meepmeepmayer]

I guess some explanation of the King Song models can't hurt (don't focus only on them though, or get confused, or remember them):

The 16S has 16 inch tire. The 16B/16C/16D are older versions of it. The S indeed stands for sport, not that it matters for any other model designation. (Similarly there were the 14 inch 14B/14C/14D, with the final 14M following.)

The 18L has an 18 inch tire. Everybody except King Song knew right away its battery was too small, so they then hastily released a version with a bigger battery that everyone bought instead, the 18XL. The L means nothing.

Then came the 16X, which has a "16 inch" tire (called so because it has same rim size as the actual 16 inch tires), but the tire is 3 inches wide (the standard nowadays that everyone uses) so real diameter is closer to 18 inches. The X means nothing.

All those are really old wheels by now.

The more recent King Song models are the S18 (first model with suspension) with an "18 inch tire" (more like 20 in reality due to 3 inch width). Then came the S22 (same tire size, higher range/performance), S19 (still same tire size, kind of an S18 successor, neat but too expensive for what it is) and S16 (smaller tire size like that of the 16X, fantastic first wheel for any beginner). The F22 (same tire size as S18/S22/S19) is announced as a more performant/range-y thing, which I guess the F stands for (at least this once).

-

It's hard to make a recommendation for your budget. It's not enough for an S16/S16 Pro (it's got everything and is just such a nice recommendation for a beginner who doesn't want crazy performance or pay A LOT), but older models sold at around €1500 are overpriced in my opinion (like a 16S or Inmotion V10F or who knows, not sure what current prices are, but they used to be overpriced imho). A used wheel may be great if you can find the right one. Maybe just ask for something under 1500 in the UK on the Private Sales forum here.

I think it's best if you look for some options and post them with their price, then we can tell you whether it's a good buy or not, and hopefully approach a good choice for you.

If you can wait a bit (you probably don't want to, we all know how waiting feels after you learned EUCs exist!), the upcoming Inmotion E25 just had the tiniest bit of info released, and might very well be a modern "budget" model (aka closer to 1000 than 2000) that isn't old-ass non-suspension possibly-overpriced.

edit: I just googled for some UK dealers, and many are strange (barely any models). Not sure what is going on there.

Edited September 2 by meepmeepmayer