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Sometime around 2012, my parents got me a segway tour in a city I was planning to visit one time. Kind of the dorkiest thing ever. My girlfriend and I grudgingl

• reaperducer 6y ago
  I lived in downtown Chicago when Segways came out, and while the tourists ate them up, the locals hated them. Since everyone using them was still also learning how to ride them, they were constantly crashing into cars, people, dogs, gardens, and anything else that wasn't moving out of their way. The complaints to the city were endless, and I think the local alderman managed to get some kind of restrictions on them. I thought they seemed like a good idea, though a little large. I expected they'd eventually take off, but now that I live somewhere that tourists don't venture, I'd actually forgotten that Segways exist.
  • mikepurvis 6y ago
    I think the seeds of that good idea became the much more compact electric scooter (Bird and friends), and for those willing to climb more of a learning curve, eskate and onewheel. The critical thing for all of those, though, is that they can work as last mile devices because you can carry them indoors, onto buses/trains, etc. A segway is strictly worse than a bike in that regard because you still have to park it outside somewhere, but it's an awkward shape that doesn't fit into the usual facilities for doing so (and obviously it wasn't supposed to get wet, either).
    • sooheon 6y ago
      Yes, personal electric transportation is flourishing, the segway was just the not-quite-there prototype.
  • hinkley 6y ago
    Once my younger brother got big enough to want to push the shopping cart at the grocery store, I lived in constant fear for the health of my Achilles tendons. I don't know how many times he crashed into the back of my ankle, and those were only when I wasn't watching him like a hawk. I look at a Segway and wonder where that deck would intersect with my ankles today.
  • throw1234651234 6y ago
    heh, I spent 30 minutes in San Fran trying to learn to ride one of those Scoot moped electric scooter things. Almost fell in the garage several times. Thankfully, it's much easier on the street - more grip, and low-speed turns on an incline are probably the worst. Still, it's scary to think about how dangerous they are and iirc you can ride them without any sort of motorcycle license. Got pulled over for going down a "one way after dark" street. Asked the cop how I was supposed to know. He said "Natives just do." Didn't give me a ticket though. Sorry, random unrelated memories.
• MiroF 6y ago
  Was it DC?
  • rsyring 6y ago
    Most likely Washington DC
• leetrout 6y ago
  I had the same experience. They are so much fun. The tour I did in DC had 3 accidents in 75 minutes with ambulances called for two of them. It was wild.
  • giancarlostoro 6y ago
    > The tour I did in DC had 3 accidents in 75 minutes with ambulances called for two of them. It was wild. Sorry I have to ask but this reads weird to me, but do you mean accidents in DC or accidents with 3 people from your tour?
    • toast0 6y ago
      Leetrout did a segway tour in DC. On that tour, there were 3 accidents in 75 minutes. Presumably with people on the tour.
    • leetrout 6y ago
      Yes, three people on the tour crashed, two of them required an ambulance.
      • giancarlostoro 6y ago
        Wow that is unfortunate, thanks for the clarification, I'm not familiar with the area or Segways, though I do go to DC every few years for the museums.
        • leetrout 6y ago
          The first accident was coming down 15th by the treasury where there are large bollards on the sidewalk- an older gentleman in his sixties was zipping around and he went full speed down the sidewalk and clipped the wheel on the very edge of one and it spun around throwing him off- very much like going over the handlebars on a bike. I assume he broke something between his wrist and collar bone (or both). The next one was going off a sidewalk if memory serves but was minor. The third one was over on the north side of the Capitol- we were idling around while the guide was talking and this older lady in her fifties or sixties was kinda floating through the crowd but didn't seem out of control- she went around this big tree and either lost control or wasn't paying attention as it was getting dark and went full speed around the side of a tree and ran right in to a lamp post. It knocked her out. I was getting nervous riding back feeling like we were all going to experience some mishap.
• systemvoltage 6y ago
  Don't be so judgemental. I could probably find a lot of things in your life which I would find "dorky". There is no universal definition of Dorkiness, it is a condescending term for things that people don't agree with, without any kind of justification. It is a matter of personal taste and opinion. Keep it to yourself please.
  • simias 6y ago
    This was mostly self-deprecating in this case, so it gets a pass from me. And I mean, if anything can ever be qualified as "dorky", this is: https://www.citysegwaytours.com/uploads/3716/Chicago-Two-Hour-Segway_gallery3.png https://www.citysegwaytours.com/uploads/3716/Chicago-Two-Hou... But dorky stuff can be a lot of fun. Maybe it's because I'm not a native English speaker but "dorky" doesn't have a super negative connotation to me, it can be quite endearing actually.
    • rdiddly 6y ago
      The helmets don't help. Without those... still dorky? Not sure. Less so, at least, but does the dorkiness decrease enough to pass under the threshold of ultimate dorkiness? Dorky is such a razor-edge. Basically it means you're doing something culturally unusual that maybe has connotations of being "too technical" at the expense of, I guess aesthetics. Like using technology to get around instead of moving through the world like a graceful gazelle with pure and beautiful movements that approach art, you know like all of us do all the time when we're not on Segways riiiight? (cue 5 seconds of news report on obesity epidemic with the usual footage of random overweight people lumbering down the street) Thing is, even iPhones were dorky at first. So then how did iPhones become cool (except secretly as a Gen-Xer who lived 10 years of life without so much as an Atari, I still think you're all dorks and myself too but anyway) but Segways remained dorky? Ironically the only explanation I come up with is that they (Segways) never became wildly popular. But that's essentially a circular argument. I dunno, I dont expect I'll ever be able to explain the behavior of "the crowd."
      • aswanson 6y ago
• deleted 6y ago
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• thatfrenchguy 6y ago
  To me it always felt like "white americans who can't walk being lazy on a tour to a city in Europe".
  • _AzMoo 6y ago
    I don't think that's fair. I did 73km of walking on the 3 days I spent in Paris. I'm a relatively fit guy and by the end of it I had some pretty severe pain in my feet. I would've been grateful for some way of seeing everything and taking the load off at the same time.
    • justinator 6y ago
      But you coulda done 73km on a bike, and you wouldn't have even thought about the distance.
    • tomcooks 6y ago
      A friendly suggestion: do as the locals do. Walk, take the public bus, take the metro. Skip tuktuks, Segways, quads, organized tours, "sightseeing" private double decker buses. Gentrification is killing the beauty of Europe and other places, tired feet or not.
      • mlyle 6y ago
        The locals aren't trying to maximize the value of their limited vacation time. Yes, do as the locals do is a great way to go about actually knowing a place. But if you want to spend one day of your multi-day trip ticking off things to see in a more efficient fashion-- on a "hop-on, hop-off" bus or Segway or whatever-- go for it. I've been on several trips with my kids (youngest, now 6) where a day of easy sightseeing in the middle has been a lifesaver.
        • tomcooks 6y ago
          Correct, the locals aren't trying to maximize value. That's the job of the companies that provide the "efficient" services you mentioned. Locals just have to pick up the trash, see the prices skyrocket and remember how unique the place uses to be.
• eli 6y ago
  Agree. I did tours twice with them and they’re really fun to ride. I’d sure rather own an ebike though to actually get around (or a bicycle or a moped or most other things)
• grawprog 6y ago
  I've never ridden a segway before, but I can honestly say i've always secretly wanted to. Damn people look silly riding them, but they way they just effortlessly glide along looks fun to try at least once. I think the marketing approach they took was part of the problem. I remember early segway ads and stuff, they always took this elitist 'we're going to change the world' sort of spin with their ads that was trying to appeal to a higher end market more interested in fads than anything else. They hooked the 'stubborn early adoptors' while alienating the larger market. At least in my opinion. This is how their marketing always came across to me and probably helped form my opinions on segways and similar vehicles in general and I doubt I'm alone in my views. The funny thing is, I bet if they'd found a way to appeal to the extreme sports market they may have found a small niche for themselves. Strange vehicles like this seem to keep a strange second life in that market. I still see people occasionally riding those razor scooters that were popular for a while in the early 2000's, but, it's always people that are really good at them have spent lots of money customizing them and use them for trick riding. And of course, the skateboard, which has gone through a ton of designs and incarnations, but has been kept alive for half a century or more by people pushing it do the limits. Despite being fairly impractical for primary transportation and I tried for a while as a teenager. I'm not sure if segways are the best for this, but I bet with some effort, they could have created a small market there that would probably still be popular. On that note though, I do still see a fair amount of people riding devices clearly inspired by the segway, those handle-less varieties and other gyroscope balanced things and such. So, I think they're not dead so much as they've evolved and the concept of 'personal electric vehicle' has grown beyond what the segway originally was. I do feel like the electric vehicle future they marketed is coming, they're just not the leaders they told us they'd be and instead of one strange new thing, we've got a variety of things now and on the horizon.
  • dafoex 6y ago
    I had a chance to ride an off road segway once and it was pretty fun, so I'd recommend it if you get the chance. Never seen a segway advert, so I never really got an elitist vibe from them (although I did see one for a similar product marketed at kids called a dareway - it was this kind of standing Davros chair thing that balanced on two drive wheels and a number of hidden casters).
• emmelaich 6y ago
  My family did segway tours in a few European cities. They were especially great in hilly Rome. We hit all the major spots within a few hours. Cruising around the Circus was pretty cool! But -- we all had minor falls at some point. Cobble-stone streets are not to be messed with!
  • codr7 6y ago
    I spent a couple of days on foot and buses in Rome. It's the last place on earth I would consider getting on a Segway with the speed/mess of traffic I encountered. Even riding a bus felt like a serious gamble.
• mey 6y ago
  Not sure if this was true of the newer Segways, but the first generations of Segways had the performance limits encoded into the key. So you could turn it on with a key to train someone to use it, or if you had access to the tools, program an unlocked key that allowed you to go faster than factory spec.
• beamatronic 6y ago
  I did the one in SF (electric tour company) three times. It was a great experience each time, and I would highly recommend them.
• dafoex 6y ago
  I had a go on an off road one fairly recently (maybe a year or two ago at most?) And it was pretty fun! A comment above says they aren't good for cities because they're too fast for the path and too slow for a cycle lane, but I think they're great for country lanes and open grass.
• Corrado 6y ago
  I've done two Segway tours at Disney World and it was awesome. The first one was at Epcot with my son. We got into the part before it opened and we were the only ones on the tour so we got to see and do some things that bigger groups don't. The second time was a bigger group with more family members at Wilderness Lodge using off-road Segways. This was probably even more fun as we got to see a lot of things that we would never have seen; horse barns, lakes, fields, flowers, bats, etc. All in all, the Segway tours were a really great way to see a lot of things you don't normally see at Disney. I would totally recommend taking the tour if they still offered it.