Do higher pedals make you ride slower?

[John Eucist]

I noticed that when I'm riding my Inmotion V8 I end up averaging a significantly lower speed than when I ride on eucs that have the traditional pedal heights.  I'm wondering if anyone experienced this phenomenon?  I don't know what it is.  I don't FEEL like I'm going slower but the GPS tracking apps tell me otherwise.  Could it be that with raised pedals I feel the sensation of things going faster?  This kind of contradicts the phenomenon where mounting a camera near the euc level makes everything look faster though.  Another possibility is that perhaps I feel it's not as stable as traditional pedal heights thus I naturally go slower on them.

[Cloud]

When i rode a KS18 which has higher pedals than the ks14 i was used to, it felt like i was r iding slower than i actually was. 

However now, with msuper, it feels like i am riding pretty fast but the actual speed is not that fast. However the difference between slow and fast is not as noticeable now as it was with a smaller wheel/ lower pedals. I dont quite know the answer to this question. It is possible though, that the perception of speed depends not only on the actual speed and the height but also on the sensations from going over obstacles, overall vibrations and smoothness of ride. So it will depend on which wheel you are comparing to and their respective wheel diameters and smoothness of ride.

[Cerbera]

That's an interesting question. My MS3 pedals are a lot higher than my Airwheel's, but not as high as the V8. It's hard to compare average speeds because the Airwheel won't do more than 14 kph, so it has always felt slow, though more aggressive in response, compared to the MSuper.

What I definitely DO notice however, is how much faster things seem to move when wheeling at night. My average speed after dark is definitely lower than it is in the day. I have ridiculously good lighting with me, so it's not that slowing me down - it's just the feeling that everything is going past faster that must affect my perception.

[z3n]

I guess it is sort of the same as what we are experiencing from driving cars. Better built cars tend to feel "slower" than cheap ones

[Smoother]

@z3n cool Avitar. And scary ?

[z3n]

4 hours ago, Smoother said:

@z3n cool Avitar. And scary ?

Thanks. Please don't be. I don't bite

[houseofjob]

@John Eucist IMHO, I believe, after regular driving my V8 (pedal height ~151mm) against all my other wheels in my sig, the V8 has some of the most resistance against acceleration, particularly, in the latter 26-30+ kph range. As a result, I tend to hit tiltback less frequently unless I am really trying to hit top speed.

This is the opposite of my V5F+ (pedal height ~127 139mm), which feels like very little resistance against acceleration throughout it's entire 0-26 kph range, on which I'm consistently hitting tiltback as a result of this ease in acceleration. I would say the same goes for the MSuper3 series in my brief test run on @logos122's MSuper3S+ 84V (pedal height ~144mm).

ie. I don't believe pedal height is a factor, it's just the response of the wheel

Just my 2 cents.

[nomad]

4 hours ago, houseofjob said:

@John Eucist IMHO, I believe, after regular driving my V8 (pedal height ~151mm) against all my other wheels in my sig, the V8 has some of the most resistance against acceleration, particularly, in the latter 26-30+ kph range. As a result, I tend to hit tiltback less frequently unless I am really trying to hit top speed.

This is the opposite of my V5F+ (pedal height ~127mm), which feels like very little resistance against acceleration throughout it's entire 0-26 kph range, on which I'm consistently hitting tiltback as a result of this ease in acceleration. I would say the same goes for the MSuper3 series in my brief test run on @logos122's MSuper3S+ 84V (pedal height ~144mm).

ie. I don't believe pedal height is a factor, it's just the response of the wheel

Just my 2 cents.

Hmm, I just checked my V5F+ pedals, pressed the pedals down hard, stood the wheel up as perfectly balanced as possible, and measured the middle outside of the pedals. Ground clearance I got was 137mm on one side and 138mm on the other side, not moving the wheel and double checked both sides. But I scraped them a little so it was hard to see exactly. A typo or you have a different V5F+ than me?

[houseofjob]

1 hour ago, nomad said:

Hmm, I just checked my V5F+ pedals, pressed the pedals down hard, stood the wheel up as perfectly balanced as possible, and measured the middle outside of the pedals. Ground clearance I got was 137mm on one side and 138mm on the other side, not moving the wheel and double checked both sides. But I scraped them a little so it was hard to see exactly. A typo or you have a different V5F+ than me?

Ah, you're correct! As the V5 doesn't seem to have any ready spec online for pedal height (unlike the other models), and I didn't have my V5 next to me, I was trying to convert from memory and used the wrong 5 inches, not 5.5 inches. Corrected now, thx.

[zlymex]

I usually ride my Msuper V3 faster than V2 on even road, because I have more confident on V3, probably not for the higher pedal. I also ride my V3 faster off road or uneven road because it has less chance for the pedals to touch might be obstacles.

[Rehab1]

On 11/20/2016 at 11:19 PM, John Eucist said:

I noticed that when I'm riding my Inmotion V8 I end up averaging a significantly lower speed than when I ride on eucs that have the traditional pedal heights.  I'm wondering if anyone experienced this phenomenon?  I don't know what it is.  I don't FEEL like I'm going slower but the GPS tracking apps tell me otherwise.  Could it be that with raised pedals I feel the sensation of things going faster?  This kind of contradicts the phenomenon where mounting a camera near the euc level makes everything look faster though.  Another possibility is that perhaps I feel it's not as stable as traditional pedal heights thus I naturally go slower on them.

You probably are going slower if the V8's pedal tilt angle is set slightly more negative than your smaller wheel. When I transition from the V5F+ to the V8 I find I need to tilt forward more to increase speed. My somatosensory/ muscle memory are more fine tuned to the V5F+  because I ride it more . The pedal tilt angle on the V5F is set at few degrees positive where the V8 set at a few degrees negative.  My body is so accustomed to the V5 and its characteristics that it just natually gravitates to the same position when riding the V8. Just my opinion.

[Mono]

On 21/11/2016 at 5:47 AM, Cerbera said:

What I definitely DO notice however, is how much faster things seem to move when wheeling at night. My average speed after dark is definitely lower than it is in the day. I have ridiculously good lighting with me

compared to the sun I am sure your lighting is ridiculously lousy.

[Cerbera]

30 minutes ago, Mono said:

compared to the sun I am sure your lighting is ridiculously lousy.

No no, I have a Fenix / Cree 'light of the gods' style torch that is roughly equivalent to 4 moderately sized suns.

[rdalcanto]

On 11/23/2016 at 4:14 AM, Rehab1 said:

You probably are going slower if the V8's pedal tilt angle is set slightly more negative than your smaller wheel. When I transition from the V5F+ to the V8 I find I need to tilt forward more to increase speed. My somatosensory/ muscle memory are more fine tuned to the V5F+  because I ride it more . The pedal tilt angle on the V5F is set at few degrees positive where the V8 set at a few degrees negative.  My body is so accustomed to the V5 and its characteristics that it just natually gravitates to the same position when riding the V8. Just my opinion.

Why don't you use the App to match the pedal tilt angle on both Inmotion wheels?  

[Rehab1]

52 minutes ago, rdalcanto said:

Why don't you use the App to match the pedal tilt angle on both Inmotion wheels?  

I did try that approach but it felt uncomfortable. My problem is that I now ride the V5F+ most of the time so jumping on the V8 feels a bit strange until I ride it for awhile.

[steve454]

2 hours ago, Cerbera said:

No no, I have a Fenix / Cree 'light of the gods' style torch that is roughly equivalent to 4 moderately sized suns.

That sounds ridiculously bright, where do I get one?  That would be handy to have at work, too.

[Mono]

46 minutes ago, Rehab1 said:

My problem is that I now ride the V5F+ most of the time so jumping on the V8 feels a bit strange until I ride it for awhile.

I get more and more the impression that there seems to be something slightly odd about riding the V8.

[steve454]

1 hour ago, Rehab1 said:

I did try that approach but it felt uncomfortable. My problem is that I now ride the V5F+ most of the time so jumping on the V8 feels a bit strange until I ride it for awhile.

Can you elaborate?  Why do you prefer the V5F+...  Just from other peoples impressions I kind of like the V5 better, maybe because of the excellent trolley handle design and the lighter weight.  And to me it just looks better without the triple light rings.

[Cerbera]

4 hours ago, steve454 said:

That sounds ridiculously bright, where do I get one?  That would be handy to have at work, too.

It's the Fenix TK75vnQ70 - costs about £150, but it is ludicrously bright and long throw... think I got mine from Amazon.

[HEC]

On ‎21‎/‎11‎/‎2016 at 5:19 AM, John Eucist said:

I noticed that when I'm riding my Inmotion V8 I end up averaging a significantly lower speed than when I ride on eucs that have the traditional pedal heights.  I'm wondering if anyone experienced this phenomenon?

I can't say that I've experienced this particular phenomena while  transiting from KS-16 to V8 (or between any other of my EUCs). But I have another similar "effects" which I've noticed while riding EUC. I always ride with my sport sunglasses (self tinting) to keep flies, wind, rain, snow, eagles etc. out of my eyes but at few rare occasions when I've either forgot the glasses at home and was too lazy to climb the stairs up again to pick them up or had the glasses on top of my head instead I've noticed that:

1. It feels like I stand a bit higher while wearing the glasses (even when they're completely clear / not tinted) - in another words if I don't wear them it looks like I'm standing a bit closer to the ground.

2. The same goes for the speed with and without glasses - it feels (optically, not due for example air hitting my eyes harder) like I'm riding faster while not wearing the sunglasses.

I'm not sure if it's due to "residual" colour even when the glasses are not tinted by sunlight at all or due to a slight (though really minimal) perceivable bending of the light on the curved surface of the glasses but I find it interesting that something such small can make such big difference in perception of both height and speed ...