City Segway Tour - Chicago

You may or may not have heard of a "Segway". Introduced to the world almost 10 years ago, they are a two wheeled electric mode of personal transportation. Two things have hindered their popularity, even though they are a VERY neat mode of transportation.

First, they're very expensive. They cost about $6,000 each. Second, our transportation system had a hard time figuring out where you can drive them. Do they belong on the sidewalk? Or on the road? In fact, the Ministry of Transportation in Ontario, Canada is still working on a study they began in 2008. Typical government program that takes too long to complete. To this day, it takes a special permit to use one on public property in Ontario.

But I'm getting off track. Yesterday evening, we took a Segway tour though http://citysegwaytours.com/chicago/tours/chicago-two-hour-glide .

City Segway tours operates in 10 major cities throughout the world. They were the first company in the world to offer tours.

Ruth, getting outfitted with her helmet.

Segways.

First, we needed about a half hour of instruction and practice.

There were only four of us in our group so we were lucky to have such a small group. But there is a definite knack to using these machines and the other lady on the tour was noticeably nervous about the whole experience and never did get very confident. Unfortunately, that slowed us down a fair bit.

These machines have a maximum speed of 12.5 mph (20 km/h) but you can adjust that and we were set at maximum half speed at the beginning, which was later increased to 10 mph. But, there is no "gas pedal" so to speak. Your movement forwards and backwards, and your speed, are sensed by how you position your weight and balance on the vehicle. Lean slightly forward and you go forward. And it's very sensitive which is why it takes a bit of practice.

Kevin, getting instruction and practice.

I caught on fairly quick, and Ruth wasn't far behind me. She had one nervous moment when we were going up a slight incline and she started going backwards, but other than that we had no problems. They took us out for about an hour and half and toured around most of the areas we had previously walked that day.

Ruth and Kevin and our Segways.

It was a lot of fun and definitely something everyone should try at some point in your life. And it's never too late...they had their oldest customer just the other day when a 94 year old woman went for a tour! They do have some minimum restrictions though which are set at 12 years old and 100 lbs.

This was third installment in today's post. If you missed parts one and two, just click the "Older Post" link below.