I hadn't paid much attention to this industry and saw a kid on a small electric scooter moving up a pretty steep hill I was curious so I did a little research....and holy shit!....there are some wild toys on the market. Especially the e-scooters that can go 50MPH or more. Could you even survive a crash at that speed? I was especially interested in off-road e-scooters for use in eastern Oregon on 4x4 roads. But any of those that have the power to have range and negotiate hills are intimidatingly powerful does anybody have one of these things?
I have the iSinWheel 9Pro Electric Scooter (standup). Goes up to like 17-18 mph (at my weight of 225 - slightly more if you’re lighter) and 15 mile distance on one charge. It’s all fun and games…. …until you get clipped by an SUV coming up behind you and you face plant…. I’ll spare you the details and list of injuries. I was on it a week later because I knew if I didn’t, I’d never ride again. I still love it. Badass. Good deal, too. Mine was like $350 or so (on sale). Kids ride it around the neighborhood and love it.
yeah, I wasn't really interested in a bike that much. At least not at first what I was looking at was an off-road scooter more than a bike because of the durability of the tires. I was looking at something I could use when I go camping in eastern Oregon/northern Nevada/western Idaho. We almost always camp at elevation and it used to be I could hike for miles. But I'm 70 now with occasional plantar faciitis so 10 mile hikes aren't my cup of tea anymore. I used to have 4 or 5 favorite hikes that start at 6000-6500 feet and climb to 7500-8500. That's rough country and the degraded 4x4 roads have rocks that will too often puncture a bike tire, even a fat tire but the scooters that have a strong enough chassis and a battery with a range of 50 miles (30 with a lot of incline) are really expensive...as in $2000-3500. Yikes!
There's gangs of electric unicycle riders flying around in Portland. Met one guy snowboarding who broke his collarbone on his brand new one. F-that.
Just beware if a area is closed to motorized vehicles it is closed to electric bikes. There is a big fight here in Central Oregon by some guys who want to ride the electric bikes on the trail systems and they are losing because of the no motors allowed in the areas.
sure...that will usually be the case unless you get an exception permit the irony is if it's closed to motorized traffic it's very often open to horses and they will have a bigger environmental impact than an E-Bike or E-Scooter
