Do you need good balance to ride a Segway PT?

Without a doubt, you’ve seen a Segway PT in the street at least once. With its 2 parallel wheels, it’s impossible to miss. 🙂 When you’ve never ridden one, you might be a bit nervous at first… Yet nothing could be easier! In just a few minutes, anyone can learn to move forwards, backwards, and even turn in place. All this without needing to have good balance.

The Segway PT keeps its balance for you

The secret? The PT is entirely self-stabilized. In a sense, the PT calculates your balance for you. Its gyroscopes are even faster and better performing than your own body when you stand upright. There’s absolutely no need to have good balance, just stand up and relax!

This might seep unusual but it’s true: there’s no accelerator or brake pedal. Just lean your body forward and the PT will start to move forward. Stand back upright to stop. To turn, just push the steering wheel on its side and the PT will take you exactly where you want to go.

Riding a PT is easier than riding a bike

When I speak with someone who’s trying it for the first time, I always see the same smile after a few seconds or minutes. A smile accompanied by: “I didn’t think it would be easy; I wanted to try it for myself, and I found out that it really is that simple!”

In the end, the PT is even more stable than a bicycle. I don’t know if you remember learning to ride a bike, but it’s not that easy at first! The bike is only balanced when you pedal, and you need to use your feet when stopped. And it takes several days, weeks or even months to learn, at the cost of a few falls and several Band-Aids on your knees 🙂

In comparison, with the PT, you’ll be riding along in just a few minutes. All in complete safety under the watchful eye of your guide or instructor.

Riding a PT is perfectly intuitive

Contrary to any misinformation you may have read here or there, there is absolutely no need to “keep your balance.” In fact, the more you act exactly like you do when you walk, that is to say, without thinking about your balance, the more fluidly and easily your PT will move. This becomes totally intuitive when you’ve ridden your new electric vehicle for a few hours.

Braking is extremely easy: the PT is the means of transportation that has the shortest braking distance. All you have to do is lean back into an upright position, placing the weight of your body on your heels, and in an instant, your vehicle will stop.

So, do you want to go for a ride?

A review from Gisèle, 78, who took a ride on a PT with her 84-year-old husband at the Mobilboard agency in Luchon (Pyrenees):

“It was a pleasant surprise. I was a little hesitant, but my husband encouraged me to “scout it out”! He was afraid because of his knee operation. After a first ride that I absolutely adored, we went back together: I’m more at ease now, your body does all the work very naturally. The best part was seeing the looks on the faces of people we passed in the street.”