I'm still having a lot of fun on it. I have ridden it every day. The leg pain is becoming less and less of an issue every day. Probably a combination of my leg muscles adapting and having a looser stance on the wheel as I get more comfortable.

I've crashed a few times over the last couple of days. It's sort of on purpose in a way. I'm testing the limits of turning, bumpy terrain, dropping off curbs etc.

It was raining pretty much all day today so I thought it was going to be my first day not riding, but I decided to give it a shot anyway when it was only misting a bit. The ride went well. I got muddy and had to clean my gear and my wheel when I got home.

To be honest though, I have been wondering if a scooter would have been a better idea. I'm getting more and more confident in my balance but I'm starting to wonder if I will ever feel confident enough that it feels like a reasonable mode of transportation. The balance still just feels sketchy. I get a lot of speed wobbles when accelerating or hitting bad patches of road.

I did ride the wheel to work one morning. I work about 9 miles away and I go to work in the very early morning so it's still dark out for the entire ride there. It's like a 50% urban and 50% rural ride. The rural part of the ride is nerve wracking. The road has a 45mph (72km/h) speed limit but people are often driving 55mph (88km/h) or more. There are sections that have no bike lane. Where there is a bike lane there is usually a ton of gravel and other debris in the lane. My ebike chewed through that gravel no problem with it's big fat tires but even that was still a slightly scary ride.

When I used to commute by ebike the ride was like 35 to 45 minutes depending on how hard I pushed. It took me like 55 minutes on the EUC.

To be fair I did not by the EUC primarily to be my mode of transportation. I bought an old used Nissan Leaf for $2000 a little over a year ago, and the battery is still in good enough shape for all my basic transportation around my city.

I got the EUC because I wanted a secondary way of getting around that's more fun and keeps me more in contact with the world around me.

It does do that. I rode to get dinner from a nearby teriyaki place yesterday and someone in the parking lot complimented the wheel and we talked for a bit. He said he'd seen them online and was interested. I gave him my honest opinions and he thanked me for answering his questions.

I've had several conversations with people about the wheel. That was just the most recent one.

I don't regret it but I can't help but think about the tradeoffs, if I had gotten a scooter or like a folding ebike or something.

Yes! and I made a second post about it. It's going well for me. My legs are starting to get used to the stresses of riding.

I love it! It's a beautiful combination of many things I am interested in. Open source software, micromobility, cooperative ownership.

Last mile delivery is becoming more and more important with more people choosing to have groceries and food delivered since the pandemic. There seems to be a push to handle it with robots but I doubt that's going to be widespread soon if ever. The real world is difficult to handle and humans are good at handling complex tasks.

I clicked through to their map which shows active collectives. There's a ton of them in Europe but I live in the US, so I wanted to see what's going on in North America. Unfortunately there is just one in Quebec, one in British Columbia, and two down in Mexico City.

Since I live in the Pacific Northwest I clicked on the one in Vancouver, BC, Canada. I watched their promotional video and was impressed. It would be great to get something started in my area. Unfortunately the US is very antagonistic to these types of organizations.

It's an inmotion v9... Yeah the gear is a bit annoying. It really detracts from the vision I had in my mind of a handy little tool to hop on and just go with. I'm wearing Leatt knee and shin guards, some cheap (Killer 187) wrist guards over leather half finger gloves, and a Bell Servo mountain bike helmet. Right now I'm still just wearing my sneakers, but I am looking to buy some boots.

2 more days riding and I'm not really getting soreness in my knees any more, but still plenty in the calves and feet. I've been riding a ton, and I've got some skin wearing/tearing in the side of my calves where the EUC is pushing the straps from the pads against my legs.

Braking came really naturally to me for some reason. I was able to lean back to brake like right away. I don't ever feel like I'm not braking fast enough. I'm sure I could work on technique to get better still though.

I'm mostly interested in getting a lot of control over the wheel right now rather than pushing speed. The total max speed of my wheel should be 28mph (45 km/h) but I'm leaving the speed cap well under that.

I'm working on the quick twists of the wheel at low speeds right now and trying to balance at the lowest possible speeds.

I REALLY want to be able to ride backward. As someone who used to roller blade that's a big deal to me. The coolest stuff I could do on blades was turn around and keep going backward, and to spin in circles. I'm trying to bring back that kind of vibe.

Another thing I want to learn is seated riding but on this wheel, at my height (6ft 2in) (188cm) it's gonna be a bit silly. I'm considering in the LONG term MAYBE buying another wheel with a lot more range. In that case I would definitely want to be able to sit.

I'm a little unsure what the settings do. I watched a video about it a while ago but I think the different companies have different names for settings. I have experimented a bit with balance angle and pedal sensitivity.

At first I put balance angle a bit forward, which made the wheel want to lean forward so it was easier to accelerate which made my feet feel like they didn't need to work as hard. Eventually I turned that off.

Now I slid pedal sensitivity way down from 100% to 15% which changed the way it feels but I'm really not exactly sure how. The best way I can describe it is it feels like there's lag from the time the wheel starts going before the pedal straightens out. I'm not totally sure if I like it but I'm leaving it that way for now.

There is also a setting for "ride assist" that I can turn on which gives me options for acceleration assist and brake assist but I haven't messed with that yet. I will change those settings next I think.

Yeah I need to get some riding boots. I wore some work boots for one of my rides and the heavy leather gave me confidence but the heeled sole is not great feeling.

Ouch! what were you riding when you broke your femur?

I work at a golf course. The season has come to an end so the course will be slowing down. Some people's hours will be cut. We have some autonomous mowers on the course. First it was one to cut some rough grass, then another. Now there are two for cutting fairways as well. I do more of the grunt work that is less likely to be automated. I'm not that concerned whether my job gets automated though. I can find some other asshole to underpay me if I lose my shitty job.

Honestly you make good points. I think there are some nuances to it and I've never rode either an EUC or an electric kick scooter so I'm not the most informed.

But I'll give you some of the things that went through my head, because I have actually been considering a scooter for a while but never decided to buy one. The reason I was considering a scooter is to replace my ebike. The problem with the ebike is it doesn't fit in a car and it just barely fits in my apartment. Getting the bike in and out of my apartment is a big chore.

The EUC is extremely portable while also having big wheel and suspension which makes it seem like it probably has a nice comfortable ride.

The way it rides seems like it will be similar to rollerblading which I really enjoyed a lot until I outgrew my skates. Something about only using your lower body to move makes it feel special, it's like an extension of your body rather than a vehicle.

The way I see it the only downsides are that it's going to take time to learn, and if the battery dies it's a useless heavy piece of baggage. There are probably other things about it that are worse too but I'm not sure.

When I was looking at scooters it seemed like the smaller scooters tended to sacrifice in ride quality.

I guess what it comes down to for me is I never ended up buying a scooter because I didn't want one that bad. The EUC changed that.

They basically don't exist as far as my local laws are concerned which makes them not illegal but also not legal. Luckily I believe that police around here aren't inclined to bother people who are being safe and respectful of other people.

I bought the Inmotion V9. It claims a range of 60km (37 miles) but from the range tests I've seen that's absurd, and even 25 miles (40km) is a stretch.

The mountain bike helmet I bought has a chin guard.

They ARE controlled by just balance, like a segway. There are no brakes, the motors functions as the brakes using regenerative braking.

I'm also curious how physically demanding it will be. I'm sure I will be toning muscles I don't normally use much. I think it will be less exercise than I get on my ebike though which is actually a downside in my opinion.