Segway

So yes, I finally purchased a beautiful brand new black Segway i2.

This machine is absolutely fascinating. I think one of the things that hooks you is that it is so intuitive, responsive, and stable, that you get a natural feedback loop when you glide on it, it becomes an extension of you.

Among other regular displacements like taking my daughter to school, I have 10 km of commuting in Barcelona, from the Camp Nou to Plaça Universitat and back, and have done it twice since I received the machine on Wednesday. I get there earlier than with public transportation, bike, or car. I don't sweat and can wear whatever I want because it is clean. And of course if you are the kind of guy that like riding things, you have a great lot of fun. Barcelona is very good for this kind of transportation because corners have inclines for pedestrians to cross streets.

The machine is so precise in the entire range of speed from 0 km/h to 20 km/h that you can move much much slower than a person walking. For instance you can go to a supermarket and move as you move in a supermarket. Stop, forward a bit, go back a little, turn towards the products, etc. I am testing the reactions and acceptance of people in several places and so far, I just receive positive, curious, and affective comments, if nothing at all because curiously you can move so much slow that some people just don't notice it, or does not get their attention. Those are interesting reactions so far because the main point is that they do not perceive a machine, they do not perceive something strange, mechanical, aggressive, out of place, if you use the Segway in a respectful way and try to integrate with the environment in my trials you are accepted naturally. Of course I won't take the Segway to go to the super or to buy bread, but I am testing it in a few places as an experiment, to discover the practical limitations and social acceptance.

The engines are so powerful that they take my 93 kg up in very inclined streets without any performance loss. And in those streets you can equally stop, turn, etc. with total control. You can approach inclines in any angle and stay vertically, I've ridden it in several kind of terrains and you feel secure, stable, no matter how irregular the way. You can jump over curbs without any special hability, the Segway takes care of it. The Segway can go downstairs (it inherits technology from the iBOT), and some people do it just fine, but the user manual does not recommend it.

Of course my colleagues have tested it, my father has ridden it, my wife takes it already, and I demo the machine to a lot of curious people in the street, the Segway is not as popular here as it is in USA. Most people have seen it in TV or movies but it is not very normal that you see a guy in a Segway here or in Hospitalet (I've just seen a couple of personal Segways in my life here, not counting the tourist tours), so a lot of people approach you in the street and ask about it.

I could finance it as a vehicle for my professional transportation and that gives a somewhat cheaper price in practice because you can discount it for taxes.

Well, I am really excited about it, it promises years of fun.