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Comment by Sephr | Hacker News Reader

Am I the only one who wants to see more seated scooter innovation? I would much prefer riding one of these self-balancing scooters/microcycles to the standing scooters that everyone is using.

1. http://rynomotors.com (launches April 16, 2019)

2. https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/newest-fat-tyre-elect...

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcZk9zn82-g

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Why not just rent/ride an ebike? Once you put a seat on a normal 2-wheeled scooter it's not much smaller than a bike.

I'm not sure I'd trust the balancing capabilities of the unicycles you've linked to, especially in the face of shitty roads. Have you tried one?

These are much safer than small-wheeled scooters as their larger wheels allows them to more gracefully handle bumps in the road.

Also, unlike most ebikes I can actually sit stationary on these without falling over. I'm very short and most ebikes are not designed for short people.

Yeah rental ebikes don't scale down very well. You should be able to buy a bike that fits you well, and add ebike capabilities via a kit (yourself or have someone do it).

I haven't used a balancing unicycle, but based on experience with other balancing vehicles, I doubt I'd feel safe going as fast as on a scooter. Sounds like you might own one?

Ebikes start to feel unsafe over 50kmh. Mopeds can do 70kmh (see Niu) and more.

Brand and marketing is important. Scooters have successfully been marketed and branded to look cool.

Even on their landing pages, those products look ridiculous. Convincing people in mass to ride around on those things is going to be hard.

I think there is some aversion to building a product that is too motorcycle-like; regulators may start to get ideas if the scooters look too much like a Vespa.

One wheel is just too unstable. Forget ever hitting any speed on one.

Scooters and ebikes have the advantage of all energy going into propulsion instead of stabilization.

I might prefer these as well, but I think the standing ones fit more use cases than the sitting ones. For example, what if a woman was wearing a pencil skirt?

As you can see from the product in the second link, most skirts should work fine: https://sc01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB11XeAgwaTBuNjSszfq6xgfpXaD/new... (temporary CDN link may expire)

If a pencil skirt is too constricting it could be a problem, but the same can be said for most seated mobile cycle-based transportation methods.

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