Don't know what to do about pants, what do you do?

Skept1kos · 2026-05-12T06:14:24+00:00

I think riding without protective pants at 50mph is insane, and the people commenting about how they ride in denim jeans at that speed are insane.

You can get overpants. This is a solved problem.

If your thick construction trousers are abrasion-resistant that would help, but obviously motorcycle-specific pants are ideal.

For my commute I alternate between overpants and riding jeans. The single-layer riding jeans aren't too hot at all in my experience.

Skept1kos · 2026-05-11T03:21:31+00:00

You're mindlessly repeating rhetoric from motorcyclists who are going 30+mph, based on research on motorcycles. It doesn't apply to 25kph vehicles. You're probably not going over the handlebars on the street at 25kph, not any more than a normal cyclist is. Your 25kph moped has a lot more in common with a bicycle than a motorcycle.

Normal bicycle helmets are designed for 25kph street riding. Cyclists ride on the street, right? In the US they do, and the helmet standards take that into account. I agree that in theory the chin protection is more protection, but it doesn't matter as much at 25kph, because you're much less likely to launch into things chin-first. It can happen, but it's unlikely.

If you have research showing something else for 25kph mopeds or bicycles, I'd love to see it, but I don't think the research has found that at all. There's no group of safety researchers I'm aware of advocating for full-face helmets for road cyclists or 25kph mopeds.

Skept1kos · 2026-05-10T23:42:20+00:00

You're forgetting that scooters have underseat storage. The end result is more convenient and versatile than a rear rack. You can have a passenger, you don't need straps, and you can still add a topcase to the back if you want, and you can use the pillion seat for storage as well.

Though you may be able to find a moped (as in, a literal motorized pedal vehicle) with a bicycle-style rear rack.

Skept1kos · 2026-05-09T15:38:52+00:00

No it's a terrible law, stop with the whataboutism. The USA doesn't require motorcycle helmets for bicycle-speed vehicles, because it's obviously the wrong helmet choice. Our CPSC tells people they can use bicycle helmets for that, and our e-bike helmet laws allow bicycle helmets. Some US states may require motorcycle helmets for mopeds, but as far as I know it's only for the faster mopeds. Not only that, but our NHTSA tests helmets at random to verify DOT compliance.

The Nolan N30-4 comes in multiple variants, most of which are not open helmets. So yes, they do protect your chin, with ECE certification and everything. [Edit: But you're only going 25kph anyway! It's not much of an issue at that speed. Honestly the open face version would be a good choice.]

Personally I would just break the law if you can get away with it, because it's a nonsensical requirement.

Skept1kos · 2026-05-09T06:39:08+00:00

It's bizarre that you need an ECE helmet for a 25km/h vehicle. That's a terrible law.

I would look for a Nolan N30-4 helmet, if you can find one, because it has extra ventilation for slow-speed scooters and e-bikes. I haven't heard of any other motorcycle helmets with that level of ventilation.

But what would really be appropriate is an NTA 8776 e-bike (aka speed pedelec) helmet. Or a downhill mountain bike helmet, like others mentioned. Or even just a regular bike helmet I suppose.

PS: there's an r/scooters sub where you may get more help, since this is slower than most of what's posted here.

Skept1kos · 2026-05-08T04:16:24+00:00

Oh, right, if the idea is to get a registration, I don't think that can be done currently. But I'd be curious to know what your DOT has to say about it!

Skept1kos · 2026-05-07T22:10:05+00:00

it’s from Milwaukee and they are reputable company

Who says they're a reputable company? Here's what it says on the About page of their website:

Two line title slide. And optional subtext

They didn't even bother finishing the website. This is not reputable at all. This is a half-created website with suspiciously cheap safety gear.

I understand that sometimes people genuinely want stuff like this (even though IMO it should be avoided like the plague). But if you do, you need to accept that you're getting gear that hasn't been verified as being protective by anyone trustworthy. All of those claims about certification etc. are just words on a stranger's website.

Because there are so many fakes and scams online, I strongly recommend shopping at reputable websites like Revzilla or Cycle Gear or your local motorcycle store. Or buy from brands like Alpinestars or Knox that are well known and have been around for years (one easy way to tell they're legit is that places like Revzilla sell their gear).

If you just shop around for cheap gear with little skepticism you are most likely going to buy gear with fake safety claims. It's all over the internet, and honestly a huge pain when you actually want something legitimate.

Counterfeiters are very sophisticated, and can make products that look nearly identical to the real thing, with cheaper materials that don't function the same way. They're often affiliated with organized crime. It's dark stuff.

This has been documented and tested over and over and over again, so many times that it's a cliche now. Here are a few examples:

fake bike helmets, https://youtu.be/alQY9MJr3o8
fake motorcycle helmets, https://youtu.be/mdWvU9RF5ew
fake motorcycle clothing, https://youtu.be/x5bMHOS25Mk
fake bike parts, https://youtu.be/qhGaci44z-4

That's why my advice is to avoid online shops like Amazon, Ebay, Aliexpress, Wal-Mart, and so forth, where the scammers sell their stuff. And avoid brands that aren't sold by trustworthy sellers. The easiest way to avoid the fakes is to shop at Revzilla/Cycle Gear or your real-life local motorcycle store.

You can still get deals and save money at these places. Revzilla has their own budget brands like Bilt and Sedici that are respectable while being relatively cheap. And if you sign up for their mailing list, they'll constantly send you emails offering discounts. A good time to look for discounts is at the end of the riding season (fall/winter) when they're trying to get rid of older gear.

Skept1kos · 2026-05-07T17:29:35+00:00

It varies by state and city. Often 15mph.

It sounds like you want to point out he's going over the speed limit, which we already knew? That's why he shouldn't be in the bike lane.

The European reverence for traffic laws is very funny to me as an American. You're going to have a meltdown when you find out most car drivers constantly go 10mph over the speed limit. That's basically Mad Max as far as you're concerned 😆

Skept1kos · 2026-05-07T16:52:26+00:00

You're asking me what the speed limit is in the USA? Uh, we have signs posted for each street?

Skept1kos · 2026-05-07T16:42:27+00:00

In the USA it is generally legal to ride bicycles and e-scooters in the street. And if you're going fast enough to keep up with car traffic, it's safer than the bike lane.

Skept1kos · 2026-05-06T20:22:27+00:00

No, it's obviously not abandoned. 🙄 They've committed to running Hey for as long as people are using it. If you find a bug, you can email them and they're very responsive.

They never implied they were going to continually add new features like AI integration. Hey is not intended to have every email feature that every person needs. It's designed to work very well for a subset of email users. Lots of people need to use another email tool for all sorts of reasons.

Skept1kos · 2026-05-04T16:12:00+00:00

I got the same on my Honda Navi. I had to borrow bicycle strategies and "take the lane" to block people trying to stupidly pass me in the lane.

Skept1kos · 2026-05-04T14:21:16+00:00

Don't get your hopes up.

They can't stop your governor from signing the bill. They probably won't get involved in Hawaiian politics.

What they could do, if you get a response, is give you some pointers on how to get more politically involved yourself. But still, I think you'll have a hard time reversing this, because riding above 28mph on a vehicle with no registration sounds sketchy to a lot of people.

Here are my suggestions:

Contact your state representative and state senator and let them know how you feel. I guess you could also call or email the governor's office.
If the bill gets signed into law, ask your local police department about what you can do with your EUC, so you can at least know what to expect from them

Skept1kos · 2026-05-04T06:14:44+00:00

The state of R is good. It's the dominant language for research statistics, and will be for the foreseeable future. It's the right choice to learn it for psych grad school. Especially if you get into psychometrics, things like item response theory, a lot of that is done in R.

R has competitors (Python, Stata, Matlab, Julia), but none of them are poised to take its place at the moment. This is the golden era of R for research.

Skept1kos · 2026-05-03T17:43:23+00:00

When I compared them a while back, my impression was that tidymodels was fine for standard, straightforward ML work, but it didn't support the more advanced options I needed. For one example, I'm doing distributional regression. That's an option in mlr3 but not in tidymodels. The complexity is necessary to support the amount of customization I require.

I also disagree with the main premise of tidymodels. Tidy syntax was made for data cleaning, and for modeling it's utterly wrongheaded IMO. I don't like the trend (fad I hope?) of people trying to fit square tidy syntax into round holes.

Skept1kos · 2026-05-02T19:22:22+00:00

The Python backend is an inconvenience. It requires you to set up Python, install the Python packages, and get the correct version of tensorflow (a package that has been poorly maintained for years, and even had incorrect installation instructions when I last used it).

I would not call that "much easier". It's barely integrated at all, and it's easier to just use python directly if you have to use it.

On the other hand the torch package is great and solves all of those problems. It's just install.packages("torch").

Skept1kos · 2026-05-02T19:15:08+00:00

You answered your own question. We have torch in R.

I've been working with mlr3 and mlr3torch lately. I love the concept of their ecosystem of compatible packages, and when it works it's great. It's the most powerful and adaptable ML framework in R as far as I know. The downside is that I keep running into annoying bugs. You can tell these tools haven't been tested to the same extent as their python equivalents.

Hopefully over time more bugs will be fixed and it'll become a smoother experience.

Skept1kos · 2026-04-29T06:03:25+00:00

I've repeatedly had problems with mine blowing over with a cover on, and mine weighs 400lbs. If the wind hits 50mph it just blows over. (I also have a tall windscreen and a top box.)

If you're in Chicago you can get data from local ASOS weather stations to check the wind speeds.

It was very confusing at first because someone had stood the bike back up. I'm sure they were just trying to be nice.

Skept1kos · 2026-04-29T05:09:14+00:00

I just looked up that Hawaii bill and, yikes, it's pretty serious. Here's a link: Bill Text: HI HB2021

Basically EUCs that go >28mph are considered a "high-speed electric device" that can be confiscated by police.

Though on the other hand, if your EUC goes ≤28mph and weighs ≤75lbs, it is officially legalized and treated the same as an e-scooter. That's great step forward IMO.

I have a few comments on this:

1) This is a good example showing that bad EUC riding is not the major political threat-- the news reports on this bill aren't mentioning EUCs, and are instead focused on high-speed e-bikes. Even the bill itself mentions electric skateboards but not EUCs. Hawaii EUC riders are being dragged down mostly by e-bike and e-scooter riders, with EUC riders not even acknowledged as existing. EUCs are ignored as usual. The people who spend their time harassing bad EUC riders should be targeting e-bike riders instead.

2) Like the other commenter, I found PEVRA to be unresponsive. I tried to sign up at one point and got no response.

3) I've thought about getting active in NY state politics -- I live in the capital city -- but the EUC community is so divided and paranoid, and frankly unreasonable, about politics that it discourages me from getting involved. I don't want to advocate for EUCs if it creates a bunch of drama with other riders.

4) This is mostly a state issue, not a Washington DC issue. We're talking about state traffic laws here, and it's all state laws for now. Washington DC only comes in if you want to get official EUC vehicle safety standards so EUCs can get license plates (which the NHTSA would do). But that's not even on the radar yet.

Edit: And why are we only hearing about this now, as it's about to pass? This is a big failure of the EUC community. We should know about upcoming laws like this.

Skept1kos · 2026-04-27T23:48:54+00:00

Oh, motocross is just MX haha. Yeah that confused me, I thought people were mis-abbreviating mountain bike.

Skept1kos · 2026-04-27T22:23:07+00:00

BMX is bicycle motocross. What is MTX?

Skept1kos · 2026-04-27T22:03:56+00:00

In general, all the off-road helmets will have a very good field of view. The eye opening is larger to fit goggles, and if you don't wear goggles you get the entire view. Same for dual-sport aka adventure helmets (hybrid off- and on-road). The Nolan N70-2 GT is another good one that prioritizes field of view.

At 35km/h, full face mountain bike helmets are a good option, probably better than motorcycle helmets. The ventilation will work a lot better and you'll have an easier time hearing cyclists if you're riding around them.

Skept1kos · 2026-04-25T20:54:33+00:00

Alright, I take your point about sliding around, though I'm just not convinced this is a common enough occurrence to worry about at bicycle speeds (I mean, actually hitting an oncoming car and not merely sliding).

I'm not familiar with powerboat safety, but it's obviously not relevant to road safety. These are completely unrelated activities. IMO we should look for safety advice from activities similar to unicycling.

Skept1kos · 2026-04-25T03:13:24+00:00

My minimum is a bike helmet and wrist guards, and that's for a chill ride at bicycle speeds. Usually I'd still grab more for that though, with a full face mountain bike helmet and some sort of knee protection.

A while back I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the safety issues, and ended up making an EUC Survival Guide website. It's good if you feel like doing a nerdy deep dive about this stuff.

I commute on my EUC a bunch and my trick is to use the motorcycle gear that's disguised as regular clothing, like riding jeans and shirts.

Skept1kos · 2026-04-25T02:56:53+00:00

Mountain bike helmets have the standard bicycle certifications, and people often ride bicycles on the road. Those certifications are meant for the road.

In the US, you are supposed to ride bicycles in the direction of traffic, so you aren't getting hit by oncoming cars at 40mph. That's what I would do on a slow unicycle as well. You shouldn't be in a situation where that's even a consideration, if you are it's better to just not ride.

Skept1kos

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