"Jay Honeck" wrote:

We always see the annoying gas-powered versions of those things at OSH.
I've never yet seen anyone kill themselves on them, yet, but I always watch
anyway...

I regularly do some pretty stupid things on mountain bikes (scars to
show for it) but wouldn't be tempted to actually use one of the
motorized scooters (aka "gopeds") for transportation.

The front wheel is small enough that even a small obstacle can cause
an endo, and the geometry is usually such that there's little or no
trail in the front end geometry (trail is what makes the rear wheels
in a shopping cart and the front wheel on a bike tend toward inherent
stability). Without that, the front wheel will want to take off one
direction or the other at the slightest input.

There's no reason there couldn't be a "safer goped" design, with a
front wheel in the 12-14" range, and inherently stable geometry (draw
a line through the steering axis, and if the wheel's contact point
with the ground is behind the axis, it's stable).

Mark "brave but not stupid" Hickey
Former wife would disagree