stevesainty

I have seen these electric two wheeled vehicles/scooters around, occasionally, for a few years now. Most recently in Germany where they are used for guided city tours. I also seem to remember seeing them in Spain used by the police along the promenade.

I wonder if they are a viable transport option or just a gimmick.

At around £5,500 to buy new or £2k cheaper for reconditioned they can also be rented from €164 per month (ex IVA), in Spain they can do about 40Km between charges.

They are available in several models including an all terrain choice.

Are they a solution for all the 'cardiac hills' in Spain?
Pop down to the shops for a few groceries, greener than using the car.

Has anyone had a go on one?, I haven't, are they easy to handle?

Just a thought!

dorishaslop

I have a friend in Surrey who has one, he used it for a little while but kept falling off, he says they are a nightmare to handle, although he is very large, and not so young, ( he also drinks a lot), he has now relinquished it to the garage never to be ridden again, he says he feels safer in his Ferrari...I think he was just another rich boy with a new toy.. I was offered a go on it but declined.. I saw quite a few of his friends come to grief in the car park on it... not for me thanks

jo-ann

Hi, I tried one once at the golf club, couldn't get my balance at all, so I didn't find it easy. Also take note that the man who designed the sedgeway managed to kill himself on one by going over a cliff when he lent the wrong way.

dorishaslop

how ironic... didn't know that...

JLFS

He did it..Ssseggg waaayyy.........

Tune of "my way" in background..........

stevesainty

Yes he lived about 2 miles away from us and the accident happened on a river bank, he overturned whilst trying to avoid a tree root. He fell around 80 feet through undergrowth into the river Wharfe and drowned.

Excert from Daily Telegraph
Mr Heselden, a former miner who made a fortune developing a blast wall to protect troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, bought the Segway company in December last year.
The firm was started by US inventor Dean Kamen in 1999 and the upright machines, which the user powered by leaning forwards, became popular around the world.
Worth an estimated £166 million, Mr Heselden was well known for his philanthropy in his native Leeds and just last week donated £10 million to a charity foundation he launched in 2008.
The Leeds Community Foundation was set up to help disadvantaged youngsters and vulnerable elderly people in the city and has received more than £23 million from Mr Heselden over the past two years.
Mr Heselden, began his working life as a miner at the Temple Newsam and Lofthouse pits in the Yorkshire coalfields, but lost his job in the wave of redundancies that followed the miner’s strike of 1984.
Using his redundancy money he set up his own business, HESCO Bastion, manufacturing portable wire cages that can be filled with earth and sand.
They were initially used to shore up canal banks, but the business really took off when it received orders from the military which used the cages as replacement sandbags to stop bullets, missiles and suicide bombers in combat zones.
In the late 1990s the Pentagon alone bought more than £53 million worth of the flat pack walls for use in Iraq and later in Afghanistan.