While vacationing a few weeks ago, my wife, Bonnie, and I took the 2-hour Segway Tour At Disney World's Epcot.
I've put the picture of Bonnie and I on the Segways down at the bottom of this message - As you'll see, no matter how fun a toy is, I still look like a geek (helmet doesn't help) J.
Bonnie and I have done the Epcot Segway tour before but this most recent tour was on the brand new, recently released
Segway i2. Wow!! The old Segway model was fun but the new Segway i2 is even better. The main improvement in the i2 is the way you steer.
It's pretty common knowledge that the Segway responds to the rider learning forward and back to speed up and slow down. What is not as well know is that on the old model, you turned the Segway right & left by rotating the handle grip on the right-side of the handle bars (rotate the handle-grip forward for left, rotate backwards for right). The old way worked but wasn’t intuitive (lean forward & back but no leaning left/right).
The new Segway i2 steering does it right, no more handle-grip rotation. Steering just like speed-up/slow-down now responds to your body movement: lean left to turn left and lean right to turn right. It makes all the difference in the world.
If you have the chance to do the Epcot Segway Tour I really recommend it. It's a 2-hour program… You spend the first hour in the training center learning how to drive the Segway, handle obstacles, etc.
The second hour is what really makes it worthwhile because you get to drive the Segway through the Countries section of Epcot before the countries open. You get to cruise through the different countries, zig-zag in-and-out of the structures, and more. It's fantastic.
As I said, we had a great time … our cats (who stayed at home during our trip) felt very differently and certainly were not impressed by our photo.
Posted
Nov 30 2006, 06:56 PM
by
jim-wilson