I’m a grown adult bored out of my mind in this pandemic and in somewhat of a midlife crisis. I see young people on these rental electric scooters, and even some kids are riding around with the neighborhood on one their parents bought for them. I thought they’d be fun to try.
Can one just go out and buy a scooter like you can rent on the street or are these over-built for an adult that just wants one as a toy rather than something that needs to take all kinds of abuse and go all over town all day without charging? If it’s relevant I’m around 200 pounds. Anyone have a particular model that they like?
How about an electric bike? My wife wanted one, but she didn’t want to spend a lot of money so she found a brand called HeyBike and got the city cruiser. It goes for $850. I had heard that ebikes under a grand were all junk, but this bike seems pretty well constructed. It’s got 7 gears and 3 levels of pedal assist as well as a fully auto mode where you go up to 19mph without having to pedal at all. I took it for a couple spins— I’m around 200 lbs as well and it moves me around just fine.
I’m thinking of buying the “Mars” fat tire off-road bike version for myself.
I live near a suburban area where golf carts had become the in thing for families to have in their 3rd garage space. Just the thing for zipping down to the shopping area or around the 'hood on a sunny day. And we’ve seen lots of electric bicycles the last 3-4 years.
Starting in the last 2-3 months I now see lots of adults riding electric scooters. None of which are for public rent anywhere near here, so they must be self-owned. In fact the last one I saw was a ~200lb 40-ish woman with 3 empty Target-branded reusable shopping bags flapping off one arm. Yup, Target was about 8 blocks ahead on her route when I passed her. I was doing 25-ish in a 25mph zone and she was topped out at around 20mph.
I’ve seen plenty of electric scooters that were obviously self-owned. Some are quite fast too, scooting in town traffic wearing a motorbike helmet doing 30-40 mph.