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by AdamMeghji 1262 days ago
Electric Unicycle. For short trips and errands, it's a super fast and effective way to zip around my area. For more recreational trips, off-roading on local trails and ravines is super fun. It feels like snowboarding around the city, and has a learning curve of a few days (like skiing). Initially, I borrowed an old one from a friend and decided to stick with it by getting my own (a fairly good one). Next up was the various safety equipment. You could spend anywhere from $1500-4000 on the unit + safety gear depending on how fancy you want to go. Even a minimal base model that's a few years old would be totally fine.
2 comments

Yeah, I got a powerful escooter and have really enjoyed it. It's fun zipping through town, and it makes it much faster to get to some places since I can go through parks/campuses no problem.

A couple safety tips though, for anyone considering an escooter versus ebike. On an escooter, the wheels have a very small diameter, which means that they are much less stable when you go over bumps. If you're going 15 MPH it's not a huge deal, but if you're going much faster than that things can get dicey.

On an escooter, the thrust that pulls you is coming from your hands (not seat/feet), and that's where the throttle is. As a result, if you hit a bump or divot, your hand will often end up jerking on the accelerator by accident. This can cause problems. As I have ridden more, I've learned to try to only have my hand on the throttle when I'm on obviously clear pavement, and disengage when going over any sort of bump or pavement transition. It makes things much safer.

If I had to do it again, I might get an ebike. They're much more expensive, and I'd feel like it's lazy to choose that instead of my regular bike to go most places. But it might be safer than an escooter (though the latter is more fun IMO!).

A big motivator for going the EUC route was a) the wheel is a huge 18" tire and 3" wide, so small potholes and roots/branches are no problem, thus safer, and b) having a EUC w a suspension means I'm less likely to be bounced off, even less so if you add some "power pads" that support the upper foot area. Check it out!
OneWheel feels more like snowboarding/surfing, EUC feels perhaps closer to skiing?