It has been a while snce I had put up anything on my blog again :-( I guess we've been too busy with other things that kept us off-line for a while. Anyway, we're back and we've got 'stuff' to blog about! :-)
While out at Johsonville one afternoon, someone approached me; after asking about FrankenSeg and the technology behind Segways, he asked 'what is the silliest question you've every been asked?' And to be honest, the silliest one I've ever had, well, actually, I got it a few times, is 'what is wrong with walking?' It really puzzles me! To be honest, there is 'nothing wrong with walking! Or least as far as I know, maybe someone somewhere knows something I don't about walking! :-)
Another question that gets asked is: “is it true that you can't fall off a Segway?” That, of course, depends on how much you 'want' to fall off! Of course you can fall off a Segway and there are dozens of examples of people doing just that! More often than not they are deliberately putting themselves in danger by doing, what I consider to be, silly and moronic things. To be fair there are also clips of people actually getting into real accidents and falling off. But like a car or a bicycle, you can crash or fall off if you try hard enough! Try it if you don't believe me! :-)
The most difficult question to answer, maybe only because I am a 'tech' at heart and like my 'hard-data', is 'how far can you go?' The short answer is roughly 24km on a full charge around the Wellington area. I feel it is import to specify that because of the unique environment we have here, we have lots of hills! For example, when I go into the Wellington Central Business District, which is about 12.4 km from where I live, it'll 'cost' 2 battery bars to go that distance. However, the way home, same route, except that it is up hill will cost around 6 battey bars. And just to add to the fun, there are days when it 'costs' even less to get home when there is a good tail wind! Like in strong enough to push you and the Segway uphill fast enough of the speed limiter to kick in.
Not with-standing there are the questions as to “how is easy is it to learn?”, “where it can go” , “how steep a hill” and “how does it handle 'off-road'?” These of course, have all been answered here in this blog at some point in time, now in the past or in the future.
In general, people are curious about the technology that makes the Segway 'go'. I always make the time to stop, answer questions or explain how it all works. Others have even thanked me for allowing/letting them see a Segway 'in real life'.
