If you fell off EUC and got injured in the last few years, how are you all doing now?

[Mono]

On 06/09/2017 at 8:53 PM, Scatcat said:

As I understand it, when you get a clean over-speeding cut-out without any obstacles, the wheel often goes "squishy", for lack of a better term. That is, you get a few eye-blinks where you feel the wheel losing its stability before actually falling. I've heard recollections of Nomad's fall from people who have "discussed" his risk-taking with him, and from what I've heard that was the only warning he got.

I hear a constant and continuous final over-speed for at least 30 8 seconds! The only warning he got? Am I hallucinating this warning? Are you kidding me?

EDIT: he claims that "braking was needed to keep the speed down" when this happened, but that is not believable to me. Looking at 12:05 at 25% playback speed, one can pretty clearly see that the wheel tilts forward right before he starts to wave his arms and shy of a second before he is down. If he would have been on his heels braking when the wheel lost power, he would have been dropped backwards.

Edited September 8, 2017 by Mono

[steve454]

19 minutes ago, Mono said:

I hear a constant and continuous final over-speed for at least 30 seconds! The only warning he got? Am I hallucinating this warning? Are you kidding me?

Oh, yeah the warnings do not matter.

Edited September 8, 2017 by steve454

[Rocky Romero]

1 hour ago, Stan Onymous said:

Was amazed at the conditioning that EUC riding gives aerobically. Really never ran out of breath, and if I had had more than a packet of Hostess donettes for breakfast I may have run with more energy.

 

Finally, a confirmation that there is a physical benefit.

Probably slow twitch muscles being exercised.

Something like Yoga On Wheel(s).

You know, YOW.

➰

Edited September 8, 2017 by Rocky Romero

[Lukas83]

I never had a serious crash with my ks18 (woodknocking) but i have spend ~400 EUR last week for some protective gear - and i had already a standard bicycle helmet, some standard wrist, knee and elbow protectors.

I switched to a Bell Super 3R Mips Helmet, a Fox Titan Sport Protector Jacket and some Thor Sector Knee Protectors. When i read about helmets are useless and all that bullsh*

i dont get it anymore. For all the newbies and self responsible riders out there: go for good protective gear!

[Scatcat]

14 hours ago, Mono said:

I hear a constant and continuous final over-speed for at least 30 8 seconds! The only warning he got? Am I hallucinating this warning? Are you kidding me?

EDIT: he claims that "braking was needed to keep the speed down" when this happened, but that is not believable to me. Looking at 12:05 at 25% playback speed, one can pretty clearly see that the wheel tilts forward right before he starts to wave his arms and shy of a second before he is down. If he would have been on his heels braking when the wheel lost power, he would have been dropped backwards.

I am not kidding you. According to Stefan, my friend here in Gbg who discussed his behaviour with him, his only answer to why he ignored the beeps was "I thought it would do 50kph". So beeps are warnings only if you actually listen to them.

[LanghamP]

15 hours ago, Rehab1 said:

Dear members, have you considered that this whole discussion with Caelus is a ruse. Is there a prize for the most negative reps? 

Don't ban him! I would like to think there's room in this community for even a literate village idiot. 

My present and most serious injury comes from using a tiny hand pump on my euc, some weird yet serious repetitive injury on my left hand. It's been bothering me a lot for the past month so much that I can't turn a doorknob or pick up stuff. Every time it gets better I forget about it and then reinjure it. 

I do like the fact that you guys aren't having these bad injuries we hear from motorcyclist although there's been a few guys in emergency rooms. But they are still of "the walking wounded" variety. 

[Mono]

3 hours ago, Lukas83 said:

i dont get it anymore. For all the newbies and self responsible riders out there: go for good protective gear!

The point remains though:

It is more important to be(come) aware of the risks and avoid them than to buy protective gear.

[Rehab1]

1 hour ago, LanghamP said:

My present and most serious injury comes from using a tiny hand pump on my euc, some weird yet serious repetitive injury on my left hand. It's been bothering me a lot for the past month so much that I can't turn a doorknob or pick up stuff. Every time it gets better I forget about it and then reinjure it. 

Take some anti inflammatory medicine like ibuprofen, ice your wrist and hand and refrain from pumping.

I suggest using compact electric  pump in the future like other members have previously discussed. I purchased one of these pumps from Amazon. Perfect pump for EUCs that allows you to program the exact PSI and stops automatically when the set air pressure has be reached.

 

[Scatcat]

I gave my protection an involuntary test today. Note to self: Respect the overcharge alarm when going downhill... And choose another way to go when you've done a balance charging to 100%.

So I got a beep telling me the battery was saying "no more current please", and ignored it since there was just maybe ten meters left downhill. I did slow down though, then it cut out with maybe three meters left to go.

It was a non-event, luckily, since I was down to maybe 2mph.

It cut out, I fell, my knee-pads, elbow-pads and wrist protection took the fall, and I might as well have landed on a sofa. I didn't know if to laugh or swear, so I did both... 

The only problem, which I didn't know about, was that the GT16 wouldn't turn on again - which worried me a bit. Then I got the idea that maybe connecting it to a charger, just might signal to the EUC that it was safe again. Luckily I had my charger in my back pack and found an outlet less than 50 meters away. And it worked.

Connecting it to the wall reset the cut-off immediately. And everything was well again, I didn't even scratch the shell.

I would like to have a bloody reset-button to press. What if I didn't have the charger with me? What if I were far from any outlet? Carrying 17kg of fully working EUC far, seems not the thing to do.

Then again, not respecting the alarms is most certainly NOT the thing to do. Luckily for me, I got off scot free.

[meepmeepmayer]

Somehow ignoring warning beeps seems to be a sport among the people who have crashes

[Scatcat]

9 minutes ago, meepmeepmayer said:

Somehow ignoring warning beeps seems to be a sport among the people who have crashes

You don't say? 

[Marty Backe]

6 hours ago, Scatcat said:

I gave my protection an involuntary test today. Note to self: Respect the overcharge alarm when going downhill... And choose another way to go when you've done a balance charging to 100%.

So I got a beep telling me the battery was saying "no more current please", and ignored it since there was just maybe ten meters left downhill. I did slow down though, then it cut out with maybe three meters left to go.

It was a non-event, luckily, since I was down to maybe 2mph.

It cut out, I fell, my knee-pads, elbow-pads and wrist protection took the fall, and I might as well have landed on a sofa. I didn't know if to laugh or swear, so I did both... 

The only problem, which I didn't know about, was that the GT16 wouldn't turn on again - which worried me a bit. Then I got the idea that maybe connecting it to a charger, just might signal to the EUC that it was safe again. Luckily I had my charger in my back pack and found an outlet less than 50 meters away. And it worked.

Connecting it to the wall reset the cut-off immediately. And everything was well again, I didn't even scratch the shell.

I would like to have a bloody reset-button to press. What if I didn't have the charger with me? What if I were far from any outlet? Carrying 17kg of fully working EUC far, seems not the thing to do.

Then again, not respecting the alarms is most certainly NOT the thing to do. Luckily for me, I got off scot free.

Very interesting about requiring the use of the charger. And what are the odds that you would be carrying the charger when this happened. 

[jtnkkm]

I got a cut last year, it was nothing too bad. It fully healed in a couple weeks

[Scatcat]

4 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

Very interesting about requiring the use of the charger. And what are the odds that you would be carrying the charger when this happened. 

Yes, I suspect it is the BMCs that cuts the power, and then nothing happens until you get some current into the machine. Rather strange actually.

It turns out I didn't get off totally free, I've strained my pectoralis muscles a bit. Nothing serious, just a bit sore, feels almost like the sort of soreness you can get by exercising without warming up - basically what happened

[Scatcat]

4 hours ago, jtnkkm said:

I got a cut last year, it was nothing too bad. It fully healed in a couple weeks

I'm happy to hear that nothing major happened. I know I will respect the overcharge alarm from now on  

[steve454]

2 hours ago, Scatcat said:

I'm happy to hear that nothing major happened. I know I will respect the overcharge alarm from now on  

If you hear the overpower warning again, someone said you can go back up the hill a short distance and burn off the excess power.  When the wheel cutout you fell forwards?

[Scatcat]

14 hours ago, steve454 said:

If you hear the overpower warning again, someone said you can go back up the hill a short distance and burn off the excess power.  When the wheel cutout you fell forwards?

Yup, I had almost stopped, so my balance was fairly neutral. I expect I would have fallen backwards if it had cut out while I was breaking.

[mezzanine]

On 9/8/2017 at 8:40 AM, Lukas83 said:

I never had a serious crash with my ks18 (woodknocking) but i have spend ~400 EUR last week for some protective gear - and i had already a standard bicycle helmet, some standard wrist, knee and elbow protectors.

I switched to a Bell Super 3R Mips Helmet, a Fox Titan Sport Protector Jacket and some Thor Sector Knee Protectors. When i read about helmets are useless and all that bullsh*

i dont get it anymore. For all the newbies and self responsible riders out there: go for good protective gear!

As a newb, the potential for injury is the biggest thing holding me back on getting my first EUC.  Having to wear all the protective gear makes getting a wheel less practical for my intended uses. 

[Keith]

4 hours ago, mezzanine said:

As a newb, the potential for injury is the biggest thing holding me back on getting my first EUC.  Having to wear all the protective gear makes getting a wheel less practical for my intended uses. 

That, to be honest is a bit of an extreme reaction, it is all a case of speed, and what exactly your intended use is? if you are going slow enough to run off of the wheel I.e. for most people around 10MPH then you will likely be safe enough with no safety gear. Although I would recommend sturdy shoes or boots and a strap when first learning as the peddles are very good at biting ankles whilst learning. Above that wrist guards and a helmet are not a bad idea. Once you get above 30MPH then you really need to be thinking more in terms of the same protection as you would use on a motorbike.

Whether you are on a bicycle, scooter, skateboard or any other form of open transport the protection you are going to need is pretty much set by the speed you are travelling. OK the one extra possibility with any self balancing device is that it might suddenly stop balancing you and throw you off but a wet drain cover, or pothole may do just the same thing on a bike or scooter.

I must confess, that if I'm popping up to the high street for a kebab I'm more likely to use nothing but wrist guards, if I'm going to be doing 15MPH (my wheels max speed) for any length of time I'll wear a helmet as well. I've not found, for me personally at the speeds I go, any need for knee and elbow guards but YMMV.

Edited September 13, 2017 by Keith

[Slaughthammer]

4 hours ago, mezzanine said:

As a newb, the potential for injury is the biggest thing holding me back on getting my first EUC.  Having to wear all the protective gear makes getting a wheel less practical for my intended uses. 

As long as you don't go faster than 30kph/20mph you can get away with a simple helmet and wrist guards. But it's ultimately up to you how much safety gear you use.

Edit: what @Keith says!

Edited September 13, 2017 by Slaughthammer

[Mono]

4 hours ago, mezzanine said:

As a newb, the potential for injury is the biggest thing holding me back on getting my first EUC.  Having to wear all the protective gear makes getting a wheel less practical for my intended uses. 

Your risk of injury depends to a large extend on your mindset. There are plenty of people out there who do not wear any protection gear and haven't been injured. If you are able to run and limit yourself to run off speeds (EDIT: and adjust the speed proportional to the distance to any objects you are passing, i.e. no close passes at speed), you likelihood to get injured is IMHO not much larger than when riding a bicycle.

Edited September 13, 2017 by Mono

[Marty Backe]

4 hours ago, mezzanine said:

As a newb, the potential for injury is the biggest thing holding me back on getting my first EUC.  Having to wear all the protective gear makes getting a wheel less practical for my intended uses. 

As @Keith says, your level of protection depends on how you ride. I gear up when I go on dedicated rides where I'm out for fun, speed, excitement, etc. But when I take my wheel to the grocery store I put on my shoes 

Look at the few videos that I posted in this recent thread. I'm not wearing any protection because I'm not going very fast. Does it still look like you can have fun based on my videos???

 

[LanghamP]

I strongly suggest wearing at least a helmet for speeds above 6-8 mph. Perhaps almost always wear some bicycle helmet.

I almost always wear some sort of helmet as I've had a few sketchy crashes even at 2 mph where I almost hit my helmeted head. An electric unicycle is seriously dangerous no matter what speed you're at. I feel it's just a matter of time before I destroy my helmet in a crash.

[mezzanine]

Thanks for the responses.  I haven't felt the kind of wonder and excitement at becoming aware of a new technology since learning about virtual reality systems like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. 

 

I'm comforted to hear that my initial fears about potential injury aren't as dire as I had previously thought.  I think I'm mostly being a drama queen about the idea of having to wear protective gear; even though I've owned a motorcycle in the past and got used to wearing extra stuff. 

It's difficult as a newb to put the frequency of reported injuries into context from a message board. 

Mono, your observation about bringing the proper mindset is exactly what I needed to hear.  I was a conservative motorcyclist and would be a conservative EUC user (other than maxing out on sweet sweet speed whenever appropriate).   

Marty, I'm all over your videos and am grateful for the legwork folks like you have done, generally.  Without the online community here, no way would I feel comfortable going this route.  It's been a unique experience like that.  

 

 

Edited September 13, 2017 by mezzanine

[Scatcat]

16 hours ago, mezzanine said:

As a newb, the potential for injury is the biggest thing holding me back on getting my first EUC.  Having to wear all the protective gear makes getting a wheel less practical for my intended uses. 

Even without protection, I probably wouldn't have hurt myself badly in the cut-out. I would have come off with some abrasions on my hands, knees and elbows, maybe some light sprain in my wrists. Apart from that idiotic mishap, the two "falls" I've had are both the "run-off" kind, where protection wouldn't have done zip for the consequences.

BUT, I think the trick is to find gear that's simple and comfortable enough, that you don't feel it's a hindrance or annoyance. The only part of my gear that is even remotely annoying to put on are the combo of wrist-guard and jacket, and then mainly because the cuffs of the jacket are hard to close with the wrist-guards on. Getting a jacket for the heavier protection, was an awesome idea if I can say so myself. I found one that looks good and is practical as a jacket, not only as protection. So except for weighing a bit more, I don't even feel like I'm putting on protection, I just put on my jacket.

So adapt your protection to your riding style and try to find stuff that you really like. That is the best I can give you. And even though I would have walked out of that cut-out without serious injury, I'm still happy for the gear I had. If for no other reason, the simple fact I felt no fear - neither when it happened, nor afterwards. I will be able to continue riding without expecting a failure, since I can be fully rational about it, see that it was all my fault, and avoid doing the same mistake again.

That is worth a lot too.