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Starter wheel for female in NYC


Diana

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Hi all! 

I’ve been haunting this site for a bit after I went on a segway tour around Philly (no laughing) and finally biting the bullet. 

I had been thinking that a KingSong14D is the way to go for me, but let me know if there are others I may not have thought of! 

Female Newbie planning to ride around NYC—5’3 and 150lbs. I’m generally looking for something easy to learn on and feels pretty stable. Fair weather rider here! Hopefully spending under $1,000 and not opposed to second hand. 

Intended Use: To save me that last 15min to/from a subway. This won’t be used for commuting. I play rec leagues on wkends, so really cruising to/around a park is realistically all i’m anticipating and max of 5-6miles one way. 

I am not a speed demon by any means and actually thought the segway’s top speed was great! (12mph). Does that mean maybe I don’t need to one day upgrade to the KS16s? 

As a sidenote, i have terrible ankles/feet from tennis/flag football. I’ve read the posts about developing plantar fasciitis. Maybe there are some starter wheels with less angled pedals? 

Thank you in advance for your advice!

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3 minutes ago, Diana Chiu said:

Hi all! 

I’ve been haunting this site for a bit after I went on a segway tour around Philly (no laughing) and finally biting the bullet. 

I had been thinking that a KingSong14D is the way to go for me, but let me know if there are others I may not have thought of! 

Female Newbie planning to ride around NYC—5’3 and 150lbs. I’m generally looking for something easy to learn on and feels pretty stable. Fair weather rider here! Hopefully spending under $1,000 and not opposed to second hand. 

Intended Use: To save me that last 15min to/from a subway. This won’t be used for commuting. I play rec leagues on wkends, so really cruising to/around a park is realistically all i’m anticipating and max of 5-6miles one way. 

I am not a speed demon by any means and actually thought the segway’s top speed was great! (12mph). Does that mean maybe I don’t need to one day upgrade to the KS16s? 

As a sidenote, i have terrible ankles/feet from tennis/flag football. I’ve read the posts about developing plantar fasciitis. Maybe there are some starter wheels with less angled pedals? 

Thank you in advance for your advice!

Price range? 

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Hey I live in manhattan as well . I’d reccomend the Glide 3 /inmotion V8 . The slightly bigger tire will come in handy on the bumpy nyc streets . Also I like the carrying aspect of this wheel over the 14D . The V8 has a great trolley handle with a handy anti spin button.

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34 minutes ago, Diana Chiu said:

Hi all! 

I’ve been haunting this site for a bit after I went on a segway tour around Philly (no laughing) and finally biting the bullet. 

I had been thinking that a KingSong14D is the way to go for me, but let me know if there are others I may not have thought of! 

Female Newbie planning to ride around NYC—5’3 and 150lbs. I’m generally looking for something easy to learn on and feels pretty stable. Fair weather rider here! Hopefully spending under $1,000 and not opposed to second hand. 

Intended Use: To save me that last 15min to/from a subway. This won’t be used for commuting. I play rec leagues on wkends, so really cruising to/around a park is realistically all i’m anticipating and max of 5-6miles one way. 

I am not a speed demon by any means and actually thought the segway’s top speed was great! (12mph). Does that mean maybe I don’t need to one day upgrade to the KS16s? 

As a sidenote, i have terrible ankles/feet from tennis/flag football. I’ve read the posts about developing plantar fasciitis. Maybe there are some starter wheels with less angled pedals? 

Thank you in advance for your advice!

Hi Diana, Welcome  to the forum, 

I currently own over five euc’s and learned on my Inmotion V5f+, it’s a perfect little euc that goes 16-17mph. It’s my most agile wheel and it doesn’t have a single scratch on it .. it’s a 9.5 out of 10. I changed the board on it to the latest. It’s a perfect learning wheel as it’s extremly light and quite capable. I usuallly use it to blast to Chinatown to pick up my lunch. It has less then 175 miles on on. The tire is also slimed and I put a protective 3m vinyl clear coat on it. She’s one year old..

Send me a private message if you want to come check it out. I’m in TriBeCa. Mark

I’ll even help you learn.. it’s worth $600.

0FCDDBEF-A889-4652-B9EB-659F702FAB3A.jpeg

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8 minutes ago, Mrd777 said:

Hi Diana, Welcome  to the forum, 

I currently own over five euc’s and learned on my Inmotion V5f+, it’s a perfect little euc that goes 16-17mph. It’s my most agile wheel and it doesn’t have a single scratch on it .. it’s a 9.5 out of 10. I changed the board on it to the latest. It’s a perfect learning wheel as it’s extremly light and quite capable. I usuallly use it to blast to Chinatown to pick up my lunch. It has less then 175 miles on on. The tire is also slimed and I put a protective 3m vinyl clear coat on it. She’s one year old..

Send me a private message if you want to come check it out. I’m in TriBeCa. Mark

I’ll even help you learn.. it’s worth $600.

That's the same wheel as in the photo that is a few posts above, in @Paddylaz's signature, right?

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54 minutes ago, Mrd777 said:

I currently own over five euc’s and learned on my Inmotion V5f+, it’s a perfect little euc that goes 16-17mph. It’s my most agile wheel and it doesn’t have a single scratch on it ..

 Nice job on keeping your V5F+ in pristine condition! :thumbup:

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3 hours ago, andrewnyer said:

Hey I live in manhattan as well . I’d reccomend the Glide 3 /inmotion V8 . The slightly bigger tire will come in handy on the bumpy nyc streets . Also I like the carrying aspect of this wheel over the 14D . The V8 has a great trolley handle with a handy anti spin button.

I was going to second that recommendation, but then I thought more about your situation Diana:

 

3 hours ago, Diana Chiu said:

Hi all! 

I’ve been haunting this site for a bit after I went on a segway tour around Philly (no laughing) and finally biting the bullet. 

I had been thinking that a KingSong14D is the way to go for me, but let me know if there are others I may not have thought of! 

Female Newbie planning to ride around NYC—5’3 and 150lbs. I’m generally looking for something easy to learn on and feels pretty stable. Fair weather rider here! Hopefully spending under $1,000 and not opposed to second hand. 

Intended Use: To save me that last 15min to/from a subway. This won’t be used for commuting. I play rec leagues on wkends, so really cruising to/around a park is realistically all i’m anticipating and max of 5-6miles one way. 

I am not a speed demon by any means and actually thought the segway’s top speed was great! (12mph). Does that mean maybe I don’t need to one day upgrade to the KS16s? 

As a sidenote, i have terrible ankles/feet from tennis/flag football. I’ve read the posts about developing plantar fasciitis. Maybe there are some starter wheels with less angled pedals? 

Thank you in advance for your advice!

 Consider this wheel as well. It's about 10 pounds lighter than the KS14D at just 16.5 pounds. 

i5-Oblique-Right-Up.jpg

https://www.ewheels.com/product/new-ips-i5-245wh-feather-weight/

You're going to be lugging your wheel up and down 2-3 stories in and out of the subway. If you buy a wheel that is uncomfortably heavy, you're going to stop taking it with you very shortly, and using it only on the weekends. 

You're also going to find yourself wanting/needing to quickly carry your wheel across crowded intersections. The lighter the wheel the better for your NYC "last mile" purposes. 

Being able to stuff that 16.5 pound wheel in a backpack, to distribute the weight across your body, also means you'll barely feel the weight as you go about your day.

Having this featherweight wheel also means that in the event of a collision with a pedestrian, it will cause much less damage, and thus much less anxiety for you as you navigate the busy NYC streets.

The ultra-slim design of the IPS i5 means it will also take up less room on the crowded subway, and smaller/easier/lighter to hold behind your legs, between your legs, or on your lap. 

Most people recommending you a wheel here don't fully appreciate the daily grind of lugging a wheel on and off the subway every single day, especially as a small female.

Don't buy a wheel that you'll almost immediately resent taking with you everywhere you go, aka a heavy wheel.

If you get very comfortable on your featherweight IPS i5, and you then want a bigger/heavier/sportier wheel for the weekends, cross that bridge when you get there. The IPS i5 will be plenty sporty enough for weekend joy riding for a while, and maybe forever.

If I was still living in NYC and commuting by subway every day, I too would want the lightest/smallest wheel possible, and I'm a strong 190 lb male.

 

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With a slim, featherweight wheel like the IPS i5, you could also slide it into a side bag like this, rather than a backpack:

84a8855926ebe4466259515255eb7059--hipste

Another featherweight wheel to consider, that costs about half as much, is the Gotway Luffy. Somebody above suggested the Gotway MTen3, which is the heavier, more powerful version of the Luffy with the same design.

The only issue with the Luffy and MTen3 is that some consider them to not be beginner wheels, because the small 10" wheel is tricky to learn on. Similarly, a 16" wheel would be easier to learn on than the 14" IPS i5 (or King Song 14D), but with the 16" wheel comes size and weight that is unsuitable for your daily NYC subway purposes.

If I were you I would choose between the IPS i5 ($650?) and the Gotway Luffy ($299)  https://gotwayamerica.com/collections/luffy

The Luffy is even smaller than the IPS i5, though it weighs 1 pound more. It might be slightly harder to learn than a 14" wheel, but it's supposed to be a real joy to ride once you get it.

Here's forum member Marty Backe running errands on his MTen3, which is the same design as the Luffy

Here's somebody navigating the downtown Chicago sidewalks on an MTen. As you can see, the wheel is very twitchy and a very high level of skill is required to pull this kind of sidewalk riding off. 

 

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I initially would have said the KS 14D was a no brainer but the people talking about the IPS i5 have a good point. It doesn't sound like you need much power, speed, or range so for portability, so I would go with that.

I would not recommend the Mten for a new rider. I learned on a Gotway Luffy, which basically has the same form factor as the Mten and it made the learning process needlessly hard. Small wheels are squirrelly and they hurt your shin a lot. You can't really brace it against your leg as well since the wheel is so short.

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i5-Slenders-Beauty.jpg

Advantages:

  • Compact & light: there is no other Wheel that comes remotely close to the profile & weight of the IPS i5. It is probably the only Electric Unicycle being produced today which can be reasonably carried in a backpack without too much back strain 
  • Comfort: with the 2.4″ wide shell, the rider has practically no contact with the sides of the Wheel, also making it one of most comfortable to ride
  • New Motor & Battery technology: the motor for the i5 was specifically created from the ground-up for the i5, high-strength magnesium has been chosen over the traditional steel & aluminium plates in the support structure & protect the interior of the motor. To power the Wheel, IPS have also taken another leap in innovation, by being the first to make use of the new Panasonic 20700 cells. The main benefits of these are more power per cell & better lifespan the current 18650 battery cell options.
  • New Materials: the shell/case has been forged from a magnesium alloy which have the enhanced properties of both higher strength & extreme lightness. It is the first Electric Unicycle that fully makes use of this new material. 

Disadvantages:

  • Limited speed & range: although this is the ‘large capacity’ version of the i5, there are still only 16x 20700 cells, as opposed that 32x cells on the King Song 14D, or 64x cells on the 14S. Consequently, the maximum speed threshold is limited to 14.2mph (through a firmware update), this might be sufficient for cruising around the city, but don’t expect to be keeping pace with cyclists.
    The typical power consumption on an Electric Unicycle is 20Wh/mile, the battery pack’s nominal capacity is 245Wh, which shoul then be usable for about 12 miles on a flat, well-surface road or trail.
    If you are going to require more range/speed, then consider the other two 14″ 14D/14S King Song Wheels.
  • Recommended weight limit to 200lb: as a total package, the i5 was designed for Riders weighing up to 200lb. Heavier users would be better served with a wider tire, a more powerful 800W motor machine.

https://www.ewheels.com/product/new-ips-i5-245wh-feather-weight/

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WOWZA—I obviously came to the right place. Thank you thank you everyone for all your great suggestions! I definitely have not paid any attention to Gotways or the IPSs, so this is super helpful. This featherweight looks beautiful. That sling tote pic is hilarious, Scoutshonor. 

Definitely leaning towards the IPS i5 now. My only reservation, given it’s small size, is it hard to learn on though? And i looked at 14d bc of the smooth ride/stability/less wobbles. 

Because I won’t use this daily, but more on the weekends, I was willing to add weight for increased stability bc of crappy sidewalks. For those that recommend the V8 or the V5f, what else do  you think I gain vs the IPS featherweight?

 

PS—I don’t plan on riding on the street or in crowded sidewalks at all.  I live in the Upper West Side, 2 blocks from Central Park so sidewalks are wider and there are fewer pedestrians. 

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Looks like no trolley handle, but I can carry that in a fancy floral side tote, ScoutsHonor suggested. :D One side question that I have is that people keep comparing the handles of the 14d and the V8. What's different about them?

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23 minutes ago, Diana Chiu said:

Looks like no trolley handle, but I can carry that in a fancy floral side tote, ScoutsHonor suggested. :D One side question that I have is that people keep comparing the handles of the 14d and the V8. What's different about them?

The difference is on the V8 there is a dedicated handle separate from the trolley handle . The 14D the handle is also the Trolley handle so it’s doing double duty . 

Reading everyone’s response above I think the inmotion v5f is actually a great idea as it also has a anti spin button on the handle . This is actually a big deal for us NYers as you will he picking the wheel up and off the ground and once you do without that button the wheel will spin out once it looses contact with the ground . You could turn it on and off every time but that becomes tiresome .

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"Intended Use: To save me that last 15min to/from a subway. This won’t be used for commuting. I play rec leagues on wkends, so really cruising to/around a park is realistically all i’m anticipating and max of 5-6miles one way."

"I won’t use this daily, but more on the weekends"

Yeah the IPS i5 only made sense if that underlined first part was actually true.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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+1 for the used Inmotion V5f+. I own Segway, Gotway and Kingsong and no Inmotion but I would definitely recommend V5f+ for your requirements. Great price to get started in EUC’s too. Although KS14D is a great wheel!

James

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simple: Kingsong 14s

light, fast, good range, small and good quality 

an overall inexpensive wheel that has a lot to offer

and trust me. you will go out driving for fun. and the ks14D can do that too

 

and then there is the gotway mten. another step in the direction of being compact. this wheel is one of the smallest you will find. and it has the same speed as the ks14d and good range too

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7 hours ago, Diana Chiu said:

Hi all! 

I’ve been haunting this site for a bit after I went on a segway tour around Philly (no laughing) and finally biting the bullet. 

I had been thinking that a KingSong14D is the way to go for me, but let me know if there are others I may not have thought of! 

Female Newbie planning to ride around NYC—5’3 and 150lbs. I’m generally looking for something easy to learn on and feels pretty stable. Fair weather rider here! Hopefully spending under $1,000 and not opposed to second hand. 

Intended Use: To save me that last 15min to/from a subway. This won’t be used for commuting. I play rec leagues on wkends, so really cruising to/around a park is realistically all i’m anticipating and max of 5-6miles one way. 

I am not a speed demon by any means and actually thought the segway’s top speed was great! (12mph). Does that mean maybe I don’t need to one day upgrade to the KS16s? 

As a sidenote, i have terrible ankles/feet from tennis/flag football. I’ve read the posts about developing plantar fasciitis. Maybe there are some starter wheels with less angled pedals? 

Thank you in advance for your advice!

The easiest wheel to learn is one with two tires like the Inmotion V3 pro.  Also called Swagtron on Amazon.  Built in trolley handle, bluetooth speakers,around $500.  

Good starter wheel, especially if you don't expect to do long rides.

You can always upgrade later if you want, most people on the forum don't have a high opinion of two wheel euc's, saying that they don't handle side slopes well, but how often does that happen?  Plus, you can keep the wheel vertical by riding on the uphill tire.  slide-V3Pro-2_2048x2048.jpg?11219824973625166648

Here's a good review, kind of long though.

 

 

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@Diana Chiu I would say your lurking has served you well. For your use case, I would pick the 14D as well.

What no one here is really considering: NYC has some of the crappiest sidewalks and pavements ever.

I've owned both Gotway Luffy and iPS i5, but sold them right away because the experience going over the most minor of sidewalk cracks and ramp downs here in NYC was super crappy.

The i5 would be the better of the 2 (bigger 14" wheel), but really a wheel meant for perfect pavement, and for more learned wheel riders that can negotiate the overpower cutout potential on minor bumps, etc.

 

Because of the above fact, for your case, it sounds like you should go for the wheel with the most amount of power and the least amount of total weight.

 

IMHO:

1a. King Song KS14D (800W, 27.5 lbs, $770) 

This wheel is probably the sweet spot for your use case, especially considering the well-below $1k price tag. The diagonally-orientated trolley handle is very sturdy when pushing around, though you'll have to shut off the wheel when going up/down subway stairs, etc.

1b. InMotion V8 aka SoloWheel Glide 3 (800W, 30 lbs, $1K) 

The V8/Glide 3 would be #1 if the use case was a more advanced rider, as it lacks side pads (though you can always attache some, but not ideal). This wheel offers a great combination of features, being the absolute lightest 16" wheel out right now, with decent max speed (18.6 mph, one of the fastest of any wheel mentioned in this thread), a sturdy built-in parallel orientated trolley handle, and a handle motor-disengage button so you don't have to turn the wheel off when carrying up/down stairs.

2. InMotion V5D / V5F aka SoloWheel Glide 2 (550W, 26.5 lbs, $700) 

While lacking a bit of the power of the above wheels, the V5D / V5F / Glide 2 is an excellent lightweight wheel that carries all the great features of the above V8 / Glide 3, minus the 18.6 mph max (15 mph max here). This wheel has one of my favorite optional trolley handles, shaped like a scorpion tail, which will be used on the new and upcoming InMotion V10 / V10F. One of our female rider friends in NYC rides a V5F in the Chinatown area.

Honorable MentionSegway/Ninebot S2 (500W, 27 lbs, $800)

For the right price, this is an excellent wheel as well, more like a less-featured version of the V5 / Glide 2 above. The only minus here is that there is no true trolley handle solution here (carrying around 27 lbs for prolonged stretches is not fun, even for the strongest of riders)

 

Also, regarding the Gotway MTen3, the sloping shape of the body and bad, shifty stock tire, and low height side pads (higher side pads are better/easier for newbies) make it less than ideal for a beginner rider IMHO, tho an excellent wheel for a more learned rider (as I own one myself)

 

If you're looking to try any of these, let me know, as there is likely to be a rider in the city that owns one in our FB group.

 

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I'd go with the KingSong 14S over the 14D or the IPS i5.  The 14D is plenty for your daily commute, and is compact and rides very well with lots of power for someone of your size.  My 13 year old daughter has the 14D and she is 5'4" and weighs 95 lbs and can easily carry it around up and down stairs without problem and it has good performance and power and maintains a good cruising speed.  The only reason I suggest the 14S is because after several months of owning the 14D, range becomes a limiting factor if you decide you'd like to take it around the city for a nice leisurely Saturday stroll, or you forget to charge it overnight one night.  I bought my daughter the 14D for Christmas from @Jason McNeil at Ewheels.com and now I'm seriously thinking of getting her a 14S because of the range issue.  She doesn't need the extra range all the time, but it will be there if she needs it.  The other factor to consider is that once your battery dips below 50%, the wheel starts to limit your speed ... and the slower your top speed becomes ... so the bigger your battery, the more range you have and the further you can go at top speed.  Anyway, I'm a strong advocate for getting a better wheel to begin with, because you'll be surprised how very quickly you out grow it and wish you had bought the more powerful wheel or bigger battery to begin with.  Good luck!

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