From the February 2015 issue of Car and Driver The idea of powered personal mobility that you can pick up and carry is nothing new. Back in 1982, we tested the 92-pound Honda MotoCompo scooter [August 1982], which folded and packed in the trunk of a car. Now comes RocketSkates from Los Angeles–based Acton Inc., which recently raised 10 times its $50,000 goal on the crowd-sourced funding site Kickstarter.com. It seems that people want RocketSkates.
The name sounds like something ACME Corporation would deliver to Wile E. Coyote, but there’s no actual rocket involved. Each skate has two in-wheel motors, arranged on the sides as on a Segway. Each motor is rated at 50 watts, for a grand total of 0.3 horsepower. You strap the RocketSkates over your shoes, and that’s when the relearning to walk starts. You don’t keep your feet side-by-side but in more of the staggered-foot stance of a board sport like surfing, with your toes pointed forward. The lead skate dictates speed to the trailing skate, and velocity is determined by how much you lean forward. Each skate also has a third wheel on its heel that acts as a friction brake.
Acton claims its R10 skates can hit 12 mph and will go for 90 minutes between charges of their lithium-ion batteries. We didn’t test either claim. First, lapping our office for more than an hour offers way too many distractions. We’re like dogs; we see a new squirrel and off we go. And second, on an early top-speed-run attempt, we caught a toe on the carpet. Underneath that carpet is concrete. That hurt.
The learning curve is near vertical. There’s a good bit of stumbling, followed by some smooth forward motion, then a painful fall, then more forward motion. We never mastered the skates, because we didn’t want the cycle to repeat all the way to what seemed like its natural conclusion: an insurance claim.
The side-wheel design’s inherent lack of a neutral balance point makes controlling speed difficult. Roller skates and ice blades don’t rock back and forth, so your roller-disco skills won’t help you here. RocketSkates require the technique of balance boarding and the lower-body control of telemark skiing. (We’ve done both, but never at the same time.) Or maybe just the fearless determination of youth. But, like hapless Lethal Weapon cop Roger Murtaugh, we’re getting too old for this.
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Appropriate For All Audiences
When we tested the Razor Crazy Cart [“Drift Theory,” June 2014], many staffers were disappointed that they couldn’t fit on the little drift machine. Now, well, many of us still can’t fit. But the new Crazy Cart XL has a 220-pound capacity and a higher top speed (17 mph, up from 11). We put a couple of holes in our walls with the regular Crazy Cart; given its gross vehicle weight of more than 300 pounds, consider the $800 XL strictly an outdoor apparatus.
from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/1Bf41A6
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