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electricpen

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Looks kinda weird, but carpet underlay foam works really well.  I had a roll lying around, and it's about 3/4 of an inch thick.  I just cut with some scissors two panels and taped them around my generic wheel with packing tape.  It was so cushiony soft that it felt great on the legs.  After a while I removed them and the wheel was still almost as good as new.

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Despite the promised one day shipping, it happened to take an extra business day - of course since the one day would have been Friday I had to wait all weekend! But its finally here and charging happily. Going to go find some carpet padding and bubble wrap tomorrow and try my first ride.

 

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It's too pretty to ride!

This is the minimal padding I have on mine due entirely to the fact I ran out of padding. My experience from crashing other wheels shows the leading edges of the wheel always gets hit.

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<_< Hey!  I heard that!  The carpet underlay I had was a fairly dense but cushy green 3/4" padding with a sturdy bottom layer.  I wasn't too concerned about looks but rather to protect the plastic shell so I just wrapped a bunch of tape around it.  Made it kind of stealth-like as well :ph34r:.  Looked like a foamy green thing with a wheel at the bottom, but it actually helped protect my legs really well and added some grip onto the wheel.

I'm not sure how you would pad the undersides as they likely will rip off pretty easily.  Maybe if you cut a layer for the bottom and edges, then wrapped the tape all around the pedal that might do the trick.  You might need to have the roll of tape around just in case.

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I just returned from my first go at it... It didn't go that well but neither I or the wheel got scratched. I need to find better places to practice but not sure where to look. I walked around a bit and didn't really find any areas that are flat. The street I live on is probably a 15+ degree incline. Even places that look sort of flat are still at an incline. I ended up trying to practice in a park on a wide grassy area that looked flat but actually was subtly bumpy and sloped. My longest distance traveled was probably about a meter. I had a hard time getting the wheel to go forward uphill in the grass before I would lose balance and have to put a foot down. I didn't feel confident going downhill since I don't really know how to stop or turn. I did get both feet on the wheel without leaning on anything though which I suppose is progress. I couldn't help but think while I was struggling that it seems like it would be easier if I was someplace like a basketball or tennis court though.

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Went back out on a walk looking for a better place to practice and ran across a two level parking lot for a local gym. It was mostly empty on the second level so I went back home to get my wheel and did a second practice session. In the flat parking lot, I managed to get about 3 meters or so as my longest ride so far. Of course it was just a slower than usual fall, not particularly stable but still, 3 meters is better than 1. Guess that will be it for practice tonight. Probably a little over 1 hour of practice my first day. At least the wheel is still more or less unscathed it would appear. @Hunka Hunka Burning Love's suggestion looks like it is working. My demon wrist guards, unfortunately, didn't make it back in one piece - the palm plate came off its sticky pad from all my bracing against walls and pillars to catch myself.

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@EricGhost @ir_fuel At the end of that second session I was not using a wall or strap anymore. I'm going slowly enough that the wheel isn't sliding very far when I bail so I got rid of the strap. I was attempting to go from one pillar to another, approximately 6 meters apart. My best attempt was halfway. I thought the strap was getting in the way and thought I might progress faster without having the crutch of the wall to lean against. Going to keep at it today and see how it goes.

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Third session report: I went back to the parking lot and continued practicing. It became somewhat common to be able to go about 4-5 meters although not much control and often making an uncontrollable turn while going along. Longest was about 10m which I achieved twice. One of those 10m runs was pretty smooth without much wobbling. It is very common for me to turn uncontrollably, sometimes as soon as I mount. I did a full circle once on accident because of this. I feel like the length of time I can stay on is increasing but I still have no sense of control and always feel like I'm about to turn unintentionally. I guess I'm not doing too bad for day 2. The padding is still holding up, I think it will probably last until I decide to take it off. I might try to go one more time tonight after dinner.

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If you have enough room, just keep rolling!  Go in circles if you're already doing it.   Practice shifting your centre of gravity to the other side slightly to see how the wheel responds.   Have you ever tried the Wii balance board yoga game?  Pretend that your have a centre of balance point down between your feet.  When you shift that point to one side, the wheel will turn in that direction.

One other way is to just turn your upper body in the direction you want to turn.  Turn at your waist by twisting a little so your shoulders turn in the direction you want.  Always keep a slight forward lean at your ankles to keep the speed going so you don't stall out.

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12 minutes ago, Hunka Hunka Burning Love said:

If you have enough room, just keep rolling!  Go in circles if you're already doing it.   Practice shifting your centre of gravity to the other side slightly to see how the wheel responds.   Have you ever tried the Wii balance board yoga game?  Pretend that your have a centre of balance point down between your feet.  When you shift that point to one side, the wheel will turn in that direction.

One other way is to just turn your upper body in the direction you want to turn.  Turn at your waist by twisting a little so your shoulders turn in the direction you want.  Always keep a slight forward lean at your ankles to keep the speed going so you don't stall out.

Yeah I always stall out eventually (not that long really) when I start to turn. I've only managed to pull out of a turn once - and that time I ended up swerving so hard the other way I crashed soon after anyway. I imagine those movements will get smaller and more controlled eventually lol. My ninebot s2 is coming tomorrow but I think I'll just keep going on the Kingsong now until I've gotten the basics down. I've been told the elevator sometimes is not usable in the mornings due to being so crowded and oftentimes it is faster to take the stairs if you are trying to make it on time. The ninebot may win out over the Kingsong if I have to lug the wheel up 8 stories of stairs after I get to school. Good to have options even though I ended up learning on the kingsong.

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It's a common mistake to lose speed in a turn.  I've mentioned it before,  but imagine from overhead that you are in the centre of a picture frame around you.  Leaning towards one of the two front corners like a human joystick will keep you going in a turn.  If you just lean to the side everything will slow down and not help you as lose speed in the middle of a turn.  I still make that mistake doing tight turns on a narrow pathway as it's not instinctive to keep on leaning forwards to maintain enough balance speed.  I've done over 1200 km,  but there's always room for more practice.

The lighter Ninebot will likely be trickier to learn on, but maybe adding some "sidepads" while learning will help.  Lugging it up stairs will be a godsend compared to heavier wheels for sure.

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I went back tonight because I'm a masochist and since it was after midnight I had the place to myself. It's unfortunate I basically have to do this without the fence stage - there aren't any large fenced flat areas that are available for me to use that I know of. So I'm trying to go from pillar to pillar with no support inside a parking garage. I almost made it all the way across once, I wiped out like half a meter from the target pillar. I definitely have stayed on the wheel longer and have traveled maybe 15 meters or so on it now... but I can't control where I am going. I basically start turning and manage to stay on the wheel longer but am just doing random turns while I struggle to balance and eventually fall over. But the time it takes me to fall over is getting longer but still absolutely no control of direction. There was a stretch where I was definitely going far enough to make it between pillars but I turned so much I ended up going almost in the opposite direction and across to a different row of pillars. Oh well, there is always tomorrow I suppose.

Also since it was after midnight in a private parking garage I had a short visit with the police. A patrol car came up after I'd been practicing about 20 minutes. They rolled up and asked "Are you trying to learn to ride that thing?" I said I was and since I crash pretty much every attempt I was trying to do it when nobody was around so I wouldn't bother anyone. He laughed and told me to be careful and drove off. I guess I should be glad he didn't try to charge me with trespassing.

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Where do you look when riding? You should fix where you want to go with your eyes and never look anywhere else, no matter what that thing is doing underneath you. It will help heaps with stability.

15 hours ago, electricpen said:

@EricGhost @ir_fuel At the end of that second session I was not using a wall or strap anymore. I'm going slowly enough that the wheel isn't sliding very far when I bail so I got rid of the strap.

Problem is that if you fall off the wheel can continue driving in a straight line until it hits something. That can be a pole, or a pedestrian, or a car ... Don't want that to happen.

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7 minutes ago, ir_fuel said:

Where do you look when riding? You should fix where you want to go with your eyes and never look anywhere else, no matter what that thing is doing underneath you. It will help heaps with stability.

Problem is that if you fall off the wheel can continue driving in a straight line until it hits something. That can be a pole, or a pedestrian, or a car ... Don't want that to happen.

Maybe it is a sign of something I am doing wrong but I never fall when it is going in a straight line. As a matter of fact, I am almost never going in a straight line. As I mentioned I have a problem with uncontrollable turning. The wheel is nearly always tilted as I am turning and stalling out and just skids and spins to a stop within a meter or less. I am looking straight ahead at where I intend to go and trying to keep my body straight but I very quickly veer off track and I am still trying to figure out why. I *did* have a very brief moment once in my 4th session where I effortlessly balanced and went straight and everything was relaxed and fun... for about 2 seconds and then I fell over again lol. 

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Did you already try turning into the direction where you fall? This helped me tremendously on the first day. It's something I read on this forum. Once you lose your balance, turn your euc in the direction you are falling. So if you feel you are falling to the left, turn the euc to the left too. Ok, it won't help you go in a straight line, but it will help you keep on riding, and that's very important too. As long as you can stay on, no matter what direction, you will improve your balance. Otherwise you will be stuck in the "get on the damn thing again" cycle.

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2 minutes ago, ir_fuel said:

Did you already try turning into the direction where you fall? This helped me tremendously on the first day. It's something I read on this forum. Once you lose your balance, turn your euc in the direction you are falling. So if you feel you are falling to the left, turn the euc to the left too. Ok, it won't help you go in a straight line, but it will help you keep on riding, and that's very important too. As long as you can stay on, no matter what direction, you will improve your balance. Otherwise you will be stuck in the "get on the damn thing again" cycle.

Yeah, I have been doing that which is why I said I've been going further but never in the direction I want. The problem is I can't really straighten myself out very well once I start turning so I eventually either stall out or my turns get sharper and sharper until I drag a pedal on the ground or fall over (or both).

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I had a lot of problems too in the beginning trying to get going. No matter what I did, I got on the device, it drove at 1mph and I kept on trying to balance it as if I was on some kind of balance ball. It's like trying to cycle and not being able to go faster than 1mph, of course at a certain point you will fall off because it's so hard in the beginning.

No matter what I tried I couldn't get going faster, until it finally clicked, and for me I had to tell myself to push my pelvis forward. This made my entire body follow, moving the center of gravity (which is somewhere around your pelvis, unless you drink lots of beer :D ) also forward and the euc started going faster. This helps a lot in keeping stable. Before I tried going faster by leaning my upper body forward, but that didn't change a thing.

Same story with turning. If you feel as if you are slowing down/stalling in the turn, try pushing your pelvis forward and the euc will not slow down / start going faster. And then especially when turning focus where you want to go and have some confidence.

 

This is all coming from a beginner too, but sometimes this stuff is better explained when it's still fresh in memory compared to riding this thing like it's second nature :) 

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1 minute ago, ir_fuel said:

I had a lot of problems too in the beginning trying to get going. No matter what I did, I got on the device, it drove at 1mph and I kept on trying to balance it as if I was on some kind of balance ball. It's like trying to cycle and not being able to go faster than 1mph, of course at a certain point you will fall off because it's so hard in the beginning.

No matter what I tried I couldn't get going faster, until it finally clicked, and for me I had to tell myself to push my pelvis forward. This made my entire body follow, moving the center of gravity (which is somewhere around your pelvis, unless you drink lots of beer :D ) also forward and the euc started going faster. This helps a lot in keeping stable.

Same story with turning. If you feel as if you are slowing down/stalling in the turn, try pushing your pelvis forward and the euc will not slow down / start going faster. And then especially when turning focus where you want to go and have some confidence.

 

This is all coming from a beginner too, but sometimes this stuff is better explained when it's still fresh in memory compared to riding this thing like it's second nature :) 

Haha, thanks for the tips. I did notice I had a couple good runs where I had pushed the wheel forward by pushing my pelvis forward. Simply leaning forward with my whole body never seems to work as well. I think the fastest I got it going was probably around 12 kph but I was going in a fairly tight circle at the time, maybe 1.5-meter diameter and it was pretty intense. I fell over trying to straighten out. Most of the time I agree, I am not getting enough speed before I start to lose balance.

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I agree with what is being said here.  In the beginning, focusing on where my pelvis was in relation to the wheel was very helpful.  Pelvis as 'center of balance' was most useful.  Experiment with moving that around.  My balance was terrible when I first started, so being actively conscious of 'center of balance' was necessary. 

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@electricpen Sounds like you simply need to go faster.

  • Find a big, smooth, straight path with nothing to the sides you could be afraid of falling on (curbs). Flat or slightly uphills (automatically brakes you down so that's a nice extra control) works.
  • Step on.
  • Go fast! It's more stable and easier than going slow. Forget turns, just step on and accelerate. Gogogo!

Curves are hard, and you can start by doing slight changes of direction when going fast-ish and straight.

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