When I posted this pic of our Canberra segway ride on social media earlier this year, I received a flurry of questions in response.
Mostly they were some variation of: Is it hard to ride a segway?!
Let me preface this by saying, I am not the most coordinated person in the universe 😉 . When it comes to dancing, I have two left feet; it took me forever to master the skill of driving a manual car.
The fact that an ambulance was parked beside the kiosk when we arrived might have made me a little extra nervous. It was like they knew I was coming!
It was a bit scary at first, and I wondered if we’d been a bit ambitious choosing to go on a one hour tour. However, I (mostly!) mastered riding a segway, in almost no time.
Riding a segway is all about balance. The speed is not controlled by your hands at all – to accelerate you need to lean forward; to slow down, lean back into your soles. The muscles in my feet were soon complaining – it reminded me a lot of how sore they get ice skating, which makes sense as both activities place a lot of demand on them to keep your balance.
Stopping was another challenge. You can’t stop completely while on a segway – instead, you have to rock gently back and forwards to maintain your position.
Even steering took a bit of getting used to for a novice like me.
After being given a helmet to wear, our segway experience began with a short safety demonstration, before our two instructors spent a couple of minutes with each member of the group to get them started. For some reason they decided to start with the middle aged women in the group … must have known I was going to be a problem student right from the start!
We spent a few minutes practising in front of the segway kiosk, before our guide lead us, single file, on a 60 minute tour around Lake Burley-Griffin. At first I had to concentrate on riding, but before long I was enjoying seeing Canberra from a segway.
We paused a couple of times in strategic spots for photos, which our guide happily snapped for us.
I managed to stumble off my segway when we left the hard footpath to pause on the grass for the photo above – no damage done, except to my pride.
Our only other mishap was when hubster’s segway got a flat tire, necessitating a quick pit stop back at the kiosk to change to a different one.
In hindsight, wearing thongs was a bad idea. It would be much more comfortable in closed, flat-soled shoes, as they give much more support and stability.
People think that riding a segway is a lazy option, however it must still give you a bit of a workout considering how my feet were aching.
A segway tour is a great way to check out a new destination, and I’m hoping to ride one again on future travels (Rome, Paris, San Francisco anyone?).
Where in the world would you like to go sightseeing on a segway?