Electric Alternative

[kenwshmt2]

As my current bike is nearly unridable, and my usual travel is 1/3 a mile each way most days, I use an electric scooter.

I went with a razor E100, weighs 29 pounds and has 5 1/3 mile range.
this gets me from one end of downtown dallas to the other and back on a full charge, but not by much.
The scooter is large, though not as large as razor makes, and weighs to much to carry it into anyplace, so I wind up bike chaining it most places I might go into.


This cost $130 at a big chain toy store, If I break it, I can easily replace it.
The big inflated wheel hasn't gone wrong yet.

I have been looking for another smaller electric scooter that would fill the same niche that the a-bike does, and these two are they:

http://www.electric-bikes.com/scooters/go-motorboard.html



The Go-motorboard, 19 pounds. 3-4 times the price of an a-bike, and as fragile in the weather apparently.. but it looks nice.


The other one i've found weighs 16 pounds, and is cheap.

http://urbanscooters.com/cgi-bin/urbanscooters/X-10.html



though I'm thinking of getting the 5 pound heavier x-140, It has larger wheels.

http://urbanscooters.com/cgi-bin/urbanscooters/X-140.html?SSAID=142034#topper




Any suggestions?

[weaklinguest]

they are cheaper than a kicked Xootr? I have looked at Xootr
many times and wondered if that one would work for my needs.
light and small enough to be practical but cost a lot?

they used to sell them some 5 years ago. the last time I saw one
available to buy I decided against it cause the wheels seems to
be slippery on leaves on a wet asphalt street.

so I bought a big double kickbike instead. four wheels instead of two.
Very heavy but works good in snow and on ice in winter.

At summer I use a small bike an old Microbike. I wish a-bike change
their attitude and make a strong slightly bigger and heavier A-bike Mark II
which could handle us who are tall and heavy. 6'4" and some 215lb or so.

Love your bikes, thanks for sharing. I would also buy one if the batteries was not so short lived.

If they had NiMH then maybe me would buy but these are Lion? Such only last at most three years and then loose much of their power. Even Lead cells seems to be sensitive to quality.

My neighbor bought a battery to his boat and he was lazy taking care of it and it lost all power within some three years.

NiMH though seems to be better but they are expensive at such high amps needed to drive a scooter?

[weaklinguest]

Crazy naive question.

Theone you bough. Does it allow you to unlock the drive so you could kick it
when the battery are low or does the drive to the motor make it heavy to
kick? If one only needed to use the motor when the need arise, the road
slanting upwards so kicking is too demanding then one need motor while
when street is leveled or going downwards then no motor is needed.

[kenwshmt2]

Theone you bough. Does it allow you to unlock the drive so you could kick it
when the battery are low or does the drive to the motor make it heavy to
kick?

its not to bad.. at 30 pounds it has some inertia, which both make it kinda sluggish to get going from a standing start but also keep it going furthur than a lighter kick scooter would otherwise.

at the end of its push charge, it still has nearly enough power to maintain speed once its going. at 5 1/3 miles it still has power for assisted scootering for at least a mile.

There are several others that have longer range, and / or lower power modes, that double the range.

Going down a hill its fine to use the motor to get to speed, and gravity will nearly maintain the speed with a 2% grade, from what Ive seen.

MY opinion about what it costs and how long it lasts is, I'm not in traffic every day, so people arnt trying to crash into me.
So far I have saved twice what the scooter cost in what I was spending in gas to get to work and back.

If I get a year from it, and its range deminishes to only 1 mile from 5, I can still use it to get to work and back.

What I would like a smaller scooter for is so I can do what the A-bike can do, fold it and put it into a back pack and go into someplace with it.

I may get an x-10 as an auxillary and see how well it does.

[Weakling]

Here in Sweden, not sure about other EU countries these small scooters
are only allowed to used within a closed property so they are only used by
children about age 8 to 10 for kidding around the house and fenced areas.
like parking lots schoolyards

Retired persons like me use three or fourwheel versions that weight tons.

How one of my elder neighbors manage to get on board a bus I don't know.
I guess they have a ramp and the driver help him mount it and unmount it
after. Most likely he take a Taxi if going longer trips than a few miles.

[kenwshmt2]

I ordered a x-10, I'll have that in a week.

This looks strange and dangerous-

http://www.shop4-scooters.com/rocker-xtreme-scooter.htm

[weakling_guest]

The big Malls sold similar ones which couldn't be folded but very few bought them. They stopped importing them.

I had hoped Xootr scooter would be a good alternative but appearant?ly
they are too expensive for our market. Xootr are small enough to use in crowded buses. But they are not allowed on the platforms and in subway due to Skaters causing accidents.

Two Xootrs welded together would make a stable platform for us older folks but the tyre they use is blank so it slips too easily in winter.

[kenwshmt2]

http://www.largoscooters.com/go1500x.html

The more I look at the go-motorboard, the more I'm thinking its the one to get.

[Weakling]

When they say that the batteries are military grade, does that refer to the batteries for the 1500 model or the new one with suspension and litium?

Suppose the lion batteries have same quality as those for the mobile cell phones then they last only some three years before they lose so much power that it halves the range? Or me could be wrong but that is how my mobile phone behave.

So I really hope they are military grade cause such last most likely 5 or 10 years.

Wow you have money. Very expensive. I would buy it if it was less expensive.

I gladly buy the Viza Kikit Air push scooter which cost only 75USD.

http://www.largoscooters.com/kikitairpush.html

Good for 350lbs in rider weight. and pneumatic same size as A-bike. Would work well for my needs but maybe the law forbid me to use them in Subway due to abuse by youngsters.
but I understand your thinking, you have such longer way to ride so it is reasonable to have a help motor. It is more demanding to kick or push compared to pedaling which I tested many times. One get higher pulse and get more tired if one try to keep same speed.

But it is much better and faster than to walk the same way.

If the Viza Kikit was sold in Europe me would buy one. I will try to build a three wheel version of it using 8" 200mm wheels that are solid, not pneumatic. I have a cheap Rollator, Walker that I will use as source for it.

the good thing if I succeed is that it get viewed as an ability certified thing so hopefully they accept it even in the most strict situations like theaters and if security personal at big malls look at it which a regular push scooter will not. they are seen as toys.

[kenwshmt2]

personal at big malls look at it which a regular push scooter will not. they are seen as toys.

Thats what back packs are for.. doesn't matter so much if they think it to be a toy if its in a closed bag.

[Weakling]

Yes I agree, your 2000 model is small enough to to fit into such.

But usually I have my backpack filled with cloth, food, books, mp-player, pump and other bike tools and a lot of small things.

So then I need two backpacks one for the scooter and another for the rest. That is ok too. I could have the least heavy in hand and between leg in the packed bus and the other one on my back.

will be interesting to find out for how long time they guarantee they promise the military grade batteries will have full capacity. Try to treat it as they prescribe so you get max out of it. Try to test ride first so you know it is acceptable on your streets.

Tells us here what it feels like to ride the thing. How noisy the motors are.