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Hard to learn but fun!!!


Clifmeister

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Oh man, this morning my first ever EUC arrived, a V8. And it's really a beauty to look at! I owned a Segway MiniPro and thought it was a bit of the same for balance... well... guess again! Whoa, steep learning, and boy do those sides hurt into your carbs... I hoped for some soft padding over there hope the sleeve I ordered has a bit of padding there. But man, I love this thing, the last 2 hours if been learning to go back and forth with the kitchen on my side, and noticing that you get better at it and your body tries to automatically adjust and keep balance, but sometimes it misjudge and the side of the machine slams into your carbs, that hurts haha!

Enjoying it, and hopefully when I do more and more training I will be braver enough to steer away from my kitchen table so I can touch another wall in my room haha. Maybe I'm going to try the leash method, see how that fits. Currently I'm scavenging google maps for a nice grass field, which has some privacy, so no one will see me acting weird!

Not feeling brave enough yet to leave the house ???

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Pad the wheel up and leave the house. From now on everyone will look at you weird whether you are learning to experienced on the wheel. Ignore them. You are now more evolved than those bipeds. ;)

Unless you find a perfect flat just mown soccer pitch to learn on then just pad the wheel to the max, fit a leash (disable the kill switch) and take it out in an empty parking lot or better still somewhere with a wall or rail to aid you. Stability comes with a speed and your living room won't be big enough to allow you to take advantage of that and a grassy surface will be much harder to get the basics on.

Just pad, pad, pad your wheel......and you!

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12 minutes ago, radial said:

The V8 cover is definitely padded.  I didn't bother to add any extra padding beyond that, and it's very comfortable.  

I brought some thick 3M helicopter tape from eBay (I got 4" but 5" would be better to allow doing it in a single strip) to cover the underside of the pedals so falls didn't mess them up. They are not protected by the cover. The pedal hinge, however, has taken the brunt of my drops and needs some touchup and additional protection.

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That's a pity indeed. The cover protects the entire V8, but the undersides of the pedals are just too nicely finished to scrape them up when learning. Too bad they didn't forsee any protection for those.

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39 minutes ago, Clifmeister said:

Pfff wow this is pretty hard but managed to roll 50 meters or so. After that it starts to wobble is that normal, am i doeing that or is the machine acting weird?!!

I believe the wobbles I see in most of the videos are caused by the rider having virtually no weight on the heels but are erroneously attributed to tired legs and feet. The legs and feet get tired because one is standing on one's toes so riders associate tired muscles with the wobbles. Rather, the poor foot balance causes both tired muscles and the wobbles.

Try this: when the wobbles occur, brake a little bit so your weight settles back on your heels (they were probably only lightly touching the pedals), and then accelerate back to what you were before. See if that uterly cures the wobbles.

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Just now, LanghamP said:

I believe the wobbles I see in most of the videos are caused by the rider having virtually no weight on the heels but are erroneously attributed to tired legs and feet.

Try this: when the wobbles occur, brake a little bit so your weight settles back on your heels (they were probably only lightly touching the pedals), and then accelerate back to what you were before. See if that uterly cures the wobbles.

Awesome tip! That's a good one for tomorrow!

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1 hour ago, Clifmeister said:

Pfff wow this is pretty hard but managed to roll 50 meters or so. After that it starts to wobble is that normal, am i doeing that or is the machine acting weird?!!

Thats a typical starter problem, and is because your muscles are not used to  balancing a wheel..

This will stay a bit and will especially come back once you start to go faster. But its no need to worry, just the typical leraning effects nearly all have to go through...

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1 hour ago, LanghamP said:
2 hours ago, Clifmeister said:

Pfff wow this is pretty hard but managed to roll 50 meters or so. After that it starts to wobble is that normal, am i doeing that or is the machine acting weird?!!

I believe the wobbles I see in most of the videos are caused by the rider having virtually no weight on the heels but are erroneously attributed to tired legs and feet.

So the ideal solution is to put your feet further to the front of the pedals, so that you get a more even pressure distribution between the toes and the heel. Most learners start out with their feet to far back on the pedals (with equal overhang at the front and back), hence the wobbles.

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2 minutes ago, Slaughthammer said:

So the ideal solution is to put your feet further to the front of the pedals, so that you get a more even pressure distribution between the toes and the heel. Most learners start out with their feet to far back on the pedals (with equal overhang at the front and back), hence the wobbles.

Ahhhh! So its beter to have the heel more to the center of the pedal. Great tip also!

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5 minutes ago, Clifmeister said:

Ahhhh! So its beter to have the heel more to the center of the pedal. Great tip also!

Your toes should at least look over the pedals for 5-8 cm....

I personal have the heels at the end of the pedal, while my toe is a lot in front of the pedal end.

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I've messed around a lot with foot placement, just to see how things work, on various wheels with various pedal sizes and I've concluded they all work pretty well. Initially I was pretty frustrated with the tiny pedals and my feet hurting.

The heel forward position is great, works well for most situations, but it has one really big drawback. It can't stop worth a darn. EUC can brake really really well, like within a second or so from full speed to stop. With high leg pads on the EUC this doesn't matter as you can just clamp the wheel between your legs and stop quickly. Being forward is like putting a brick on the accelerator; great for cruise control but might not be appropriate for the cut and parry stuff.

You initial position with front and rear equal overhangs...may not be so bad after all. If you're turning, braking, and accelerating the wheel feels balanced and, apparently, is immune to pedal dipping whereby pedals dip through the turns. Maybe those Chinese designers were on to something, and gave us juuust enough pedal to work with. When you get better try doing slaloms between poles, obstacle courses where you zoom a lot with braking and accelerating. I'd bet you end up with a foot position that's more balanced.

Still, I don't think foot position is all that important so long as the foot lays flat on the pedal, and there isn't too much overhang in either direction. You body makes it work.

 

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32 minutes ago, LanghamP said:

Still, I don't think foot position is all that important so long as the foot lays flat on the pedal, and there isn't too much overhang in either direction. You body makes it work.

Once your body knows how to make it work, yes. But learning that is significantly easier with your feet further to the front, or your ankles closer to the center.

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lt's just like sex!  :w00t2:  It's tricky to get the hang of it on your first try, but with practice it gets better and better.  It's always wise to use protection when you ride plus after a long session you are all sweaty and tired, but you have a nice feeling of satisfaction after you arrive at your destination!  Now don't get me started on recording your rides to watch and share later!  :whistling:  Group rides can even be more fun where you get to swap and try out other people's rides.

One thing for certain, which is a big difference, is at least on my Ninebot the power button is nice and easy to find!  :innocent1:

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Omg dudes... hahaha

Today, went without falling. I can now step on and step off without retries. Also checked my tire pressure, and it was at 1.6 bar... a bit low so I pumped it to 2.8, 2.9 bar. The rides afterwards went much smoother too...

Its seriously a great feeling...

day one was like, fuck this! I throw this device in the river...

day two was, ey... what happened yesterday... I can roll and ride! but still falling left and right...

day three, yes! I managed to drive like 6km without falling, still need to learn the stronger turns, but got compliments of walking people nearby!

im happy!

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3 hours ago, dmethvin said:

Yeah, I never know where to put my feet, there's a constant whining noise, and it always ends too soon.

Brilliant @dmethvin you actually managed to out hunka @Hunka Hunka Burning Love???

@meepmeepmayer said: "just don't die (aka traffic). Enjoy!". Yes @Clifmeister, brilliant progress, but just make sure you practice braking while you are out, do things like try to emergency stop before reaching an object (lamppost etc.) and above all really glad you are enjoying it.

Oh and don't live up to your name either! The owner of Segway died when you drove over a cliff by accident ?

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On 02/08/2017 at 9:24 PM, Slaughthammer said:

So the ideal solution is to put your feet further to the front of the pedals, so that you get a more even pressure distribution between the toes and the heel. Most learners start out with their feet to far back on the pedals (with equal overhang at the front and back), hence the wobbles.

I discovered something about this myself when learning. I also had wobbles once I started rolling. The solution was pretty simple. Just make sure your feet and legs are RELAXED. Since you are new to this and trying to keep your balance you are tightening everything up and this works against the wheel trying to keep itself upright due to the gyroscopic forces. Once I just relaxed my muscles the wobbling stopped.

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