Segway!

That my friends, is a Segway.

A promo came up for Segway tours and so Jaye and I (and a couple of our Pinoy friends) got some tickets to try it. We couldn’t care less about the tour itself, we just wanted to ride a Segway.

A Segway is a two-wheeled personal transporter which is self-balancing and has a top speed of around 12 miles per hour. It’s three times faster than your average walking speed. Jaye is curious about the self-balancing part since it has two wheels and is structurally unstable. I’m curious about the top speed.

We were at the Segway tour shop on time and the first thing the guides handed out were accident waivers. It was two pages long and requires a ton of signatures. It had all these complex contract terms but basically it’s saying “If you fall off and get hurt, it’s your own stupid fault, now sign here.”.

Next they’re going to scare you about the 37 dollar fee you need to pay in case your Segway gets a flat tire -- Don’t get it. For starters, that just doesn’t make any sense. Why would I need to pay more if your own equipment breaks down?! If I was a photographer covering a wedding and my camera breaks, why would I charge that to the client? The guide goes on by telling you that “yesterday, we had four incidents of flat tires” and recommends that you get the 3 dollar flat tire insurance. Even so, the tires are a little worn but you’ll be riding along pavement the whole day so I doubt you’ll ever get a flat unless you purposely run over a porcupine.

They fit helmets on you then give you your Segway but before you can ride, there’s an hour-long training session on how to use the Segway. We had two guides: one was a pleasant gentleman who was a nice person to talk to, is taking up theater, loves the art museum and took his guy date to this one place (you get the idea). The other guide was an annoying jerk.

The annoying guide tried to be funny while explaining the basic Segway controls and that just made him a lot more annoying.



We had our Segways lined up on the grass during the orientation. Yup, that's a homeless guy. Welcome to Chicago!




When the good guide was teaching me, he saw that I was wearing a Harvard shirt.

Guide: “Wow, you went to Harvard?”,
Me: “Yup!”
Guide: “What did you do there?”
Me: “I bought this shirt.”
Guide: “Haha! Oh I get it! So you just visited.”
Me: “But I really went to M.I.T.”
Guide: “Oh really? How was it?”
Me: “They didn’t have any M.I.T. shirts.”
Guide: “Hahahahaha!”



Then he paused, smiled and looked at me and all I wanted to do was zoom out of there. In an instant, I already knew how to maneuver a Segway.

Riding a Segway is tricky and scary at first since you don’t turn the handlebars and you need to use your body angle to move or stop. Leaning forwards causes it to go forward and leaning backwards causes it to stop. You need to fight this natural tendency to pull the handles to stop and push the handles to move. It’s not like riding a bike or a scooter so first time riders may be shocked at first especially with the ultra-sensitive controls.

They gave us two things to remember:

One, we should not bend our bodies forward such that our tummies are hitting the handlebars. Tummies should not hit the handlebars. Uhhh, good luck to me.



Second, we should always ignore that circle speedometer thing in the handlebars. No one should look at it since it distracts riders. The good guide comes by and repeats that rule to me:

Guide: “That circle thing, from now on, it’s never there, got it?”
Me: “What circle thing?”
Guide: “THAT circle thing! (points at it) From now on, forget about that ok?”
Me: “What circle?
Guide: “THAT ONE! (taps on it) It’s never there ok?”
Me: “I don’t see a circle thing”
Guide: “THIS CIRC… oooh wait, you smartass!”



The good guide then tells us to follow him as we take a tour around Grant Park. I whirred behind Jaye and tapped her on the shoulder. The other guide suddenly appeared beside me and warns me that I shouldn’t pull Jaye because if I did, she would fall backwards and I would then fall backwards and cause all sorts of mess. I was just tapping Jaye. I didn’t pull her. I think he’s just fighting so many lawsuits from customers who fell off before to the point that he’s becoming over protective. I don’t care, he’s still a jerk.



We went around the museum campus with the good guide describing certain landmarks and the annoying guide barking reminders such as “NO PICTURE TAKING WHILE RIDING THE SEGWAY.” and “NOT TOO FAST! NOT TOO FAST!”. It was still bearable at first but when one of the other riders fell off the Segway (he turned too fast, sending him face first to the pavement and giving him a nasty, bloody gash on the cheek), things just went from bad to worse. The guide was now stricter and we made a beeline back to the shop.

Like when someone gets seriously drunk at a party, the fun factor decreases exponentially. Ride a little too fast, they shout. Run over a small rock, they shout. Check the pictures on your camera, they shout. Lose you place in the line, they shout. Sneeze, they shout. You get the idea.

Good thing the tour was about to end anyway. We skipped a couple areas because of all the delays in the training and that “balentong” incident. Was it worth it? Yeah, riding a Segway is such a unique experience and if you’re new to the city, it’s a pretty decent tour… just make sure you get a good guide (and if you do… tip well).