Things I learned in hour #2 of riding a Solowheel

1. Keep plenty of slack in the safety band. You will be tempted to try to pull on it for balance, but this will knock you off the wheel every time. Its purpose is to keep the wheel from falling over and getting scraped up when you step off, and it makes a passable shoulder strap for carrying your Solowheel.
2. Stand up straight. At first, it seemed more natural to try to ride along in a crouch. This makes it really hard to lean forward, and so keeps you going super slow. This might sound like a good idea, but it's actually much harder to balance at low speeds than high. And it's extremely hard to stand still while balanced on a Solowheel. I would say it's impossible, but I'm sure there are people who could pull it off. Just not me.
3. Ditch the shinguards. I know my last post started with how much I thought they were helping, but I think I was wrong. This may be a personal opinion, but while they were saving me a little pain in the shins, they were actually making it harder to ride, by adding a little "mush" between me and the wheel. I'm not saying you have to use a death clench with your legs against the wheel, but keeping your shins and ankles right up against the red pads definitely helps control the twist of the wheel, which is a big part of balancing the Solowheel. Warning: Your calves and inner shins will probably get pretty sore. I might try a thin pad or neoprene wrap tomorrow. And lots of Tiger Balm tonight.
4. To do a 180 degree left turn, drop your left shoulder down and back. Once I realized this, I went from falling off every time I tried to turn around to usually staying up. A little bit of hip twist helps too.

Working on the above for an hour or so made a huge difference. Compare my riding at the beginning vs. end of the video below.

Sorry for the low light, it got pretty late on me. I also didn't have time to look for some music to add, and just decided to post as-is.

It has arrived!

I got my Solowheel today. After topping off the battery, I headed out for a little practice. The pressure on my shins and ankles was pretty painful, but luckily I'd been advised to use a little padding. After strapping on a pair of soccer shinguards, and turning them each 90 degrees toward the insides of my legs, I was much more comfortable!

The padded ankle was a nice extra, as it cushioned the pressure point on the top of my ankle bone. The downside was I had to keep rotating them back into the wheel, as they liked to roll over to the front of my shins as I rode. I think as I get more comfortable, my "death grip" might relax and maybe I can retire the shinguards at some point.

It took me a while to figure out exactly where to put my feet on the platforms. I have relatively small feet (size 41 Vibram Fivefingers, or roughly size 8 1/2 US), and my feet still more than covered the platforms, but eventually I seemed to figure out their placement. I put the balls of my feet on the leading edge of the platform, toes hanging slightly over the front. I can actually flex my toes downward in the shoes I wore today (Vibram EL-X - The best shoes I've ever owned!) so that I could almost grab on to the platforms with them.

The outsides of my feet sat almost right on the outer edges of the platforms, but I think I could move them in a bit if not for the shinguards.

The safety strap is a must for now. I would have dumped the wheel several dozen times already without it. I just have to remember not to pick the wheel up off the ground! (It goes a little nuts if you do.)

I was riding along a fence, and up and down a slight incline. Down was far easier than up. For some reason, I had a lot of trouble leaning forward on the uphills, and the wheel thought I wanted to stop. Possibly a mental/coordination issue, so I'll work on it.

About that fence. Don't try to grab a chain link fence while moving several mph. It hurts. Also, don't grab the posts where the sharp wires hold the fence to said post. That hurts more.

It's easy to start off holding onto a post or pole. It's harder to start off without anything to hold onto, but I managed it a few times.

I recorded myself for a while, to share and remember what that first ride looked like.

Music: Moiteur d'une chaude nuit d'été (Circus Marcus) / CC BY-NC 3.0

Overall, it went better than I expected. After a while, I could leave the fence. Briefly at first, and then for longer and longer rides. My camera battery died after about 30 minutes, but I kept at it for maybe 30 more. By the very end, I was able to stay on the Solowheel for a minute or two if I was lucky. Those brief rides were pure joy. It's hard to describe the feeling: a bit like a good clean glide on ice skates, a bit like soaring, and totally awesome!

Delivery progress, on a map

Just for my own personal amusement, I'm playing with the Google Maps Engine Lite today, and adding pins as the UPS package tracker updates my Solowheel delivery progress. Here's a direct link to the above map, which I will try to keep up-to-date.

The maps engine is pretty cool. It let me drop a bunch of pins, draw lines on the map, adjust the colors and labels, and share my map with either specific people, or with everyone. You can also collaborate with specific other people, or everyone, by giving them the ability to edit your map. And it's free!

One random observation: It's one kind of experience to wait for something without knowing where it is or when more info might become available, as in "we should have more units sometime in the next few weeks". It's another thing entirely to wait for something while fully informed. Even though I was given a delivery window up front, and this window looks like it will be met with a few days to spare, I'm much happier with the process now that UPS is updating me every step of the way!

Shipped!

My wait is nearly over, Inventist shipped my Solowheel today! UPS estimates its arrival at my door on Friday. I know it hasn't even been three full weeks since I placed my order, but waiting for something I'm this excited for has been rough. Hopefully, Inventist will be able to sort out their supply chain so that future customers are spared this pain!

OK, it wasn't that bad. Once upon a time, I hear people had to wait months, or even years, for certain major purchases. Seems almost unthinkable in this age of instant gratification...

Two-camera test video

My Delkin Wingman (A cheaper alternative to a GoPro, with better mounting options included in the base kit) came in today. I'm impressed with how much I got for only $150. Since my Solowheel is still on backorder, I thought I'd give two of my cameras a try on my Rollerblades as a learning experience.

I tucked a keychain camera into the laces, and used my Delkin strap mount to mount the Wingman to the velcro strap of my skate. Here's the (not so good!) result:

I don't think the cameras were to blame for the poor results. Attaching to a Solowheel will be a lot more forgiving, as I'll have an inflated tire and a relatively quiet motor, compared to hard rubber rolling over pavement..

Things I learned:

1. The keychain camera shifted almost right away, and I couldn't get it back to straight-ahead. I need a better mounting option. 
2. In its waterproof case, the sound from the Wingman wasn't useful at all. The camera doesn't look super-rugged, so I'm a little scared to use it without the protection of the case, even though it has a 1/4" tripod mount on the camera itself (in addition to the one on the case).
3. I recorded the Wingman video in 1080p 30 fps. I'm curious to compare this with 720p 60 fps.  Specifically, I want to see if the "jello" wiggle gets any better.
4. When rollerblading, the boots vibrate too much and the wheels are too loud for a boot-mounted setup. I'll try one more idea, but I think I should either use a handheld boom, or mount the camera higher up. Somewhere on myself instead of on my skate.
5. For some reason I couldn't add the Quicktime Wingman video using Add Media in Premiere, but it went in fine if I just dragged the file onto the timeline. No clue what that was about.

Finally, some good news: I got an email from Inventist this morning to let me know that their latest shipment of Solowheels has cleared customs. With any luck, I won't have to wait much longer!

While I wait out the Solowheel backorder...

Hopefully I will hear from Inventist sometime next week that their backordered units have made it over from China, and that my unit has shipped. In the meantime, I'm having some unexpected fun.

I've continued putting together my Solowheel videography kit. In addition to what I've already discussed, I've added an old Flip HD, and a $13 camera from Amazon that looks like a car's keychain remote. The Flip has a standard threaded mount on the bottom, so it'll be easy to attach. I had pretty low expectations for the keychain camera, since it was dirt cheap, but I got a big surprise: it actually works pretty well! The biggest downside so far is the time and date stamp it adds to the lower right of any recorded video or stills, which I can't seem to disable. Instead, I just letterbox the video in Premiere, chopping off the bottom of the video. Now I just have to think about how and where to attach the thing to my Solowheel.

Since the primary motivation for my original order was to keep up with my daughter on her bike rides, I'm also putting in a lot of time running after her, or riding my own bicycle, skateboard, or new rollerblades. It's been about ten years since I did much inline skating, and about 20 since I rode the skateboard, but surprisingly I've remained somewhat competent. Not as good as I remember being, but not hopeless either. And I'm having fun. I'll try grabbing some video footage over the next week or so.

The biggest bummer of the week, however, was seeing this at our local park:

I can't believe The Man still has a thing against skateboarding. Not cool. At least it's not a "No Solowheeling" sign...

Backordered

I was excited to see an order update in my inbox this morning, but it wasn't what I was hoping for. Apparently Inventist is out of Solowheels for the moment, but they're expecting more to arrive sometime next week. Time to take up yoga, or meditation, or maybe just have a good cry...

Seriously though, waiting a couple more weeks isn't that big a deal. Meanwhile, I found a message board!

Update

My license was for Premiere Elements 8. Apparently Premiere goes to 11 now, so I upgraded. Unfortunately, trying to get the camera's AVI files directly into Premiere isn't going so well. I'm getting weird errors about incompatible file types and codecs... And so far, Google isn't helping.

I can, however, import the video into Lightroom first, Then, Lightroom can export an mp4 video, which Premiere can read. Then it's not too complicated to do some basic editing and upload the video to youtube:

I'm not thrilled with the video quality, and wouldn't mind a slightly wider field-of-view, so I'm replacing the camera. The Delkin Wingman  looked like a good deal, given my price/performance requirements. It's about half the price of a GoPro and comes with a 1/4" tripod mount. 1080p video, 8 Mp stills, waterproof, car and wall chargers and an 8 GB microSD card included.

Preparations

I can't stop watching youtube videos of people solowheeling around as I wait for mine to arrive. Having been properly inspired, I'll try making some videos of my own. Here's what I've pulled together so far from the garage:

1 Manfrotto 156BLB: This is a tripod, but a tiny one. With all 3 segments extended, it's about 4 feet long. I can keep the legs folded and use it as a camera boom, or I can fold out the legs and use it as a stationary tripod. Seems like just the ticket. Got mine from B&H (who I love for anything photo-related).

1 step-down adapter: The 3/8" threaded top is too big to mount the camera, but I found just the right adapter in my spare parts drawer. I think it is this part.

1 Casio Exilim EX-FS10 camera. It's a couple of years old, but I like it for shooting video. It also has a really cool slow-motion mode.

I bought Adobe Premiere Elements a few years ago, so I'm off to check if my license is still active.

Prelude

As my 5-yr-old began to ride her bike faster, more often, and over longer distances than I can comfortably run, I started looking at my options. I can ride my bike along with her, but on steep uphills I have to hop on and off the bike every time she needs a push. Inline skates seemed like a good idea, so I started shopping for a new pair online. (I tossed my 10-yr-old Aeroblades a few years ago, since the plastic was starting to fall apart. I rode the heck out of them, and they were worth every cent, but they'd seen too many miles and too much abuse.)

Somehow as I looked for new rollerblades online, I stumbled across the Solowheel. It seemed a little expensive, and I wasn't sure how well it would work, so I hit youtube and searched for some footage. Six hours later, with bleary eyes and tired fingers, I decided that I HAD to have one! Not quite having the cash onhand, I listed my Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8G lens on Craigslist to cover the difference. (I have 24-70 and an 80-200 2.8 lenses now, so this one wasn't seeing all that much use lately, and I was feeling guilty looking at it gathering dust on the shelf.) And then I placed my order.

Now here I sit, waiting for my order status to shift to "Shipped", and searching for more and more youtubers that like to solowheel. I found three people with some excellent videos up:

Solowheela
Nicholas Yu
Pierre Ismail

I thought a blog would be a good way to chronicle my new adventure, so here goes nothing!