I see now why Dean Kamen’s designed the segway with handlebars.  So tonight I finally got the balls confidence to ride the skateboard.  I have to say, is a rather scary thing since if I hurt myself, I’m semi screwed since I lack a roommate in my current apartment.

By using a chair stool, I can keep myself stable enough to slide back and forth.  I haven’t tweaked the PD values enough to really feel safe enough to let go however for more than a split second.  It works though.

One big issue I’m seeing already is the chains in the gearbox dither too much.  What exactly does that mean?  Since there are 2 gear reductions, it has 2 chain belts.  Since there is a very small amount of extra slack in the chain, it causes too much give.  I can feel the extra jerk from the chain drive when moving.

The ironic thing is my dad warned me about this problem.  Good thing he doesn’t read my blog if he doesn’t if there isn’t a Google alert on me.  Bad thing is I think it needs to be solved so I’ll have to give him a jingle.  This has to be a solved problem already.  Hell, bikes have solved this issue if you think about it …

I’ll post a video of me hurting myself shortly.