Intercontinental Travel

NotSure

@notsure Now that is a sight to see, you totally have to snap a pic up there with your ride if you manage to do it :)

its a gorgeous area. would be an easier trip for u. that pic is from a google earth street view panorama from the summit if u wanna look around. u can see all the bike trails!

what im wondering is how many ppl globally actively ride a Onewheel??? very curious about that.

Lia

@notsure Just had a look, NyKo_BobZen has rode in the area.
https://app.onewheel.com/rides.html

Looks like they got lots of range on some routes like below even with large elevation changes. No mid-ride charges by the looks of it either.

NotSure

@lia cool thx!

NotSure

@lia this is Isla Mujeres, a smallish barrier island in the Caribbean just north of Cancun, Mexico. north end has a nice tourist industry last time i was there...

it's very flat. a Pint with a VnR kit would be a pretty epic accessory. as u can see, lots of golf carts, n scooters n stuff already. king tides can get u tho. would need a good badgering i suppose. bearing seals n everything. maybe some anodes. but u might need to 'buy' permission to use it in some places. thats why i think it would be nice to simply rent a onewheel in certain instances.

so how does one travel for onewheeling? what places are better? worse? what makes them so? an interesting puzzle i think. such a small market volume too.

perhaps onewheeling is predominantly a staycation activity?

NotSure

COMMENCING LUNCH TIME RANT:

so according to the numbers on that ow rides app, theres approx 200k public rides. my guess is most ppl only post a small number if at all. so i think a conservative estimate would be 100k active units worldwide. there may be more but i think a significant portion try to learn and quit before proficiency.

so if there are 100k units active worldwide, then arguably one could estimate the minimum number of ppl looking to rent one at any given time is at least equal to the number of currently active riders.

so given that value, out of 200k potential Onewheeler's worldwide, statistically speaking, a single outfitter looking to amortize their investment in a rental business would have to wait a long time to fully pay for the investment.

E-scooters, by comparison, have become so incredibly commonplace. They're everywhere! For an equipment outfitter in a place like Megeve, that cost may be easier to manage, but for a renter in Isla, a onewheel makes little financial sense.

the scooter Is easy and cheap and ubiquitous, which means the cheap pev market niche is already populated. so as a piece of rental equipment, the OW is relegated to the specialty rental market for now.

i would imagine this all would have become obvious during the Pint development process. so the question of why there is no stock VnR option or swappable FAA/TSA-approved battery design is quite legitimate. what was the pint designed for exactly? just to be cheaper smaller OW?

if i were a onewheel company, i would want to see if i can resolve that question.

NotSure

commencing quiet morning rant:

[sips tea]

i think a clever bulletproof means of extending the range of a stock onewheel pint by permitting VnR from a standardized DOT TSA-approved battery without modifying anything would be a great OEM accessory product.

i don't think it would necessarily compete with the PX or GT imo bc it would be opening up new venue options accessible by air or other similarly restricted means of travel.

if u also consider the value of peer marketing in those new places, it would probably increase sales of the pint, leaving the PX n GT to garner more locally-restricted attention. the pint becomes a beachhead product. Future Motion is missing out big time.

last night, i had a dream i was a fire truck. it wasn't bad.

Lia

@notsure Honestly the least they could do is have some sort of portable emergency range extension. Like a tiny USB battery bank sized portable charger for when you're in a pinch for an extra 2km of range and nowhere near an outlet.

They could charge a decent chunk of money, market it heavily for those with range anxiety and make a killing on anyone that decides to fill a backpack with them because they distrust DIY.

.

@notsure said in Intercontinental Travel:

last night, i had a dream i was a fire truck. it wasn't bad.

I wish my dreams were as wild as this.

NotSure

@lia said in Intercontinental Travel:

I wish my dreams were as wild as this.

east java is a pretty big island in indonesia. very exotic both culturally and geographically.

let's say im an enterprising young lad in east java. i see some snooty tourist whiz by on a onewheel with a fanny pack full of batteries.

i say to myself "neato! if i buy one of those, i can mine sulfur twice as fast. all the other sulfur miners will be like:"

that's called peer marketing! instead i have to stop n charge it every 6 to 8 ~~minutes~~ miles! no endless adventures.

VnR if anything is mobile marketing! they should embrace it across all platforms. just gotta make it smarter. better integrated.

as a modification, it was the first true innovation of the class and instead of embracing it, FM chose to resist it. even spent money refactoring the hardware to try n prevent it. thats an example of a bad choice compounding upon itself.

as a feature, vnr remains the most popular mod next to fenders. what better proof does one need for a product feature? seriously? very dumb. but what do i know. i just mine sulfur.

Lia

@notsure I watched a video about this place recently about Indonesia and it mentioned the supfur mining they do there.

:)

NotSure

@lia said in Intercontinental Travel:

@notsure I watched a video about this place recently about Indonesia and it mentioned the supfur mining they do there.

:)

weird! i just watched a movie about something similar.