Riding Around on a Segway

I just tried out a Segway (lots of info on Amazon.com's Segway site, too).

It's a cool device (albeit, not $5000 cool, but certainly cool enough to deeply desire trying one when one is in close proximity... but, really, what isn't?). When I first hopped on, it was slightly wobbly. My natural reaction to the slight wobble was to try and compensate. This resulted in increased wobble as I shifted my weight trying to offset the natural wobble. I became a wobble amplifier and ended up looking as if I was doing a little gyrating raver dance -- all I needed was a fast tempo *oonsk* *oonsk* *oonsk* in the background. After mentally forcing myself to stop trying to offset the wobble and hump the control shaft, I began trying to move. My first inclination (as most of the other males' inclination) was to use my arms and push the steering grips away from me. Contrast this to the females' instinctive motion to shift their hips forward or backward to try and persuade the device to move. Both methodologies resulted in choppy movement. However, it took all of 60 seconds to get the hang of just naturally shifting your weight.

It took a mere 90 seconds for me to become completely comfortable and overly confident. Attempts to get the little bugger to accelerate at its max rate involved a self-sacrificial commit to falling over forward. It was difficult because you lean forward, you accelerate, which forces you backward. You really needed to just lunge forward expecting to skid to a stop on your face. The segway will compensate, and you will take off at a brisk pace. Max braking ability is performed in a similar manner -- attain top speed (12mph which feels surprisingly brisk) and commit yourself and the skin of your back to hitting the concrete. Braking is much harder because as you come to the stop, you need to ease off your commital back-flip motion lest you end up accelerating in reverse at its max capacity. This makes for an ungraceful Segway-goer.

I was surprised at how easy I could become comfortable on it. I was not surprised that the demo guy was extremely nervous while I was giggling and trying to get the tires to chirp under sudden acceleration load. He was very unhappy the entire time I was trying it out.

Hey!... Hey!... You might want to... ya know... get yourself more comfortable on it before you... uhhh.... you probably shouldn't be... uhh...

Yea, fuck you guy. Someone needs to check out the performance characteristics of this thing. After all, I need to know how well I can check unsuspecting pedestrians; and the designers wouldn't have given it this acceleration rate had they not wanted people to use it... right? Right!?

Turning is accomplished via the left grip. At a stand still and turning the grip all of the way, it took less than 15 seconds for me to become dizzy. It spins quite quickly with a zero turning radius (the wheels rotate in opposite directions). Having a dizzy spell on a device that responds to your weight-shifting results in a little bit of fun.

Also, it should be noted, that at max speed, and a full crank on the steering shift grip, you will fling yourself off of the Segway and the Segway atop you. I gave the grip about a quarter turn at top speed, and was greeted with quite a level of imbalance. I wanted to do some doughnuts and see if I could get one of the wheels off of the ground, but the demo guy was becoming increasingly agitated. I relented and handed the Segway back over.

Needless to say, if you get the chance, play with one. Lots of fun.

J$