New Thing #12 - Glide St. Louis

Today I went on a Segway tour and I have three little words: I. Want. One. Oh my gosh, those things are so much fun to ride, and it's really too bad they cost 5 G's... ah well, maybe someday. ;-) Maybe I'll add it to my Christmas list!!

Glide St. Louis Tours is a company that gives tours of downtown St. Louis and Forest Park on Segways. (The Science Center also gives tours, but they require you take a class first...boring!) If you live under a rock, and don't know what a Segway is, it's a mode of personal transport on two wheels that uses your own balance to function. So cool. I've seen these things on tv before, and they looked like they required a great deal of coordination to operate. For those of you who know me, I can be a bit on the clumsy side, so I'll admit I was a bit leary of trying these things out.

My Segway, aka the "Professor"

I went with my friend Betsy, and we took the morning tour of downtown St. Louis. Even though I've lived here for awhile, I knew I'd learn a few things and see a few things I've never seen or paid attention to before. But, I have to admit, the whole reason we did this was just to ride the Segways. The location didn't matter as much.

We started our morning at the Courtyard Marriott down the street from Union Station in downtown StL. We of course, had to start by signing our life away saying that the tour company was in no way responsible if we ran into the side of a building. Then, we watched a short video on do's and dont's of riding a Segway. This is the same video that you would get if you bought one. It made me a little nervous watching the video b/c there seemed to be a few things that could go wrong, and I could see myself committing at least one of them. There's a super cheesy stick figure that shows you all the "don't do this" scenarios...and each one of them ended with the stick man in a pile, limbs all at jacked up angles. "Don't ride over bumps...don't lean back too far, don't rock back and forth when getting on one...don't lean too far forward and override the Speed Limiter and fly off the front of your Segway and land on your head." You know, stuff like that. There was a total of 8 people going on our tour, including the one tour guide. His name was Jeff and he co-owns the company. He was a lot of fun. (If you want to call and make a reservation with him, just ask for the Skipper!)

After the video, we trek out to the parking lot to hop on our Segways. Each one of us got a helmet to wear (safety first!) and then we each took turns getting on and off, and trying out the "controls". Betsy was singled out to be first...I think Jeff thought it would be funny to embarrass the self-proclaimed klutz. She did really well for her first time, and no one was harmed. :) I was up next, and I have to say it only took about 2 minutes for me to get used to it, before I was zooming around the parking lot. We each had one named after a character from Gilligan's Island. Why you ask? Because we were going on a "3 Hour Tour!" I got the Professor. Each came with a bottle holder and a small pack to hold snacks or sunglasses. Mine also came with an assortment of bandages and gauze. Foreshadowing?!

Betsy is getting some one-on-one tips from Jeff, the guide.

Here we are, lookin' good and gearing up for our tour (and trying to stay still)!

St. Louis weather is always crazy and yesterday we were supposed to have sunny skies, up to 80 degrees today. Mother Nature intervened and it was a slightly brisk morning with drizzle on and off. Not enough to slow us down, and it's fortunate that the Segways still work in light rain. So, that's why we're all wearing windbreakers or ponchos in the pictures.

But, back to the Segways. To get on, you have to step onto it fairly carefully, one foot at a time, in order to maintain proper balance. If you want to go forward, you just lean forward...stopping requires leaning back, but if you lean back too far, you start to go backwards. Left and right are self explanatory. You have to come to a complete stop before getting off, and again it's one leg at a time. One thing to keep in mind is that the Segway will continue without you if you're not on it....so we had to make sure we kept a hold of it if we decided to get off. After we practiced those simple moves, Jeff let us tear up the parking lot and get used to how it handled and how we could manuever it. We had to practice starting, stopping, turning and getting on and off. (I think I got an A on that test!) I should also mention at this point that we were set on the beginner mode, or turtle mode, so we couldn't go over 6mph. If we did, the handlebars would automatically move to the slow down/stop position (called the Speed Limiter). Stick man on the video demonstrated what would happen if you ignored this warning. I preferred not to end up in a broken heap on the ground, so I didn't push it past 6mph. But, damn, I have to admit, I wanted to go FAST!! ;-) (Oh yeah, it also makes a growling noise when it's cranky, and you do something wrong. No, I did not learn that first hand. Senor Stick Man taught us.)

There were a few cones we had to manuever around, so we could get used to tight spaces. You'll see on the video below that I did run over one...just the side of it. But, that's the only thing I even came close to hitting all day! And I did that within the 1st 10 minutes of being on the darn thing. After our mini lesson, we took off down the streets of St. Louis for a bit of a history lesson on some of the fine buildings/architecture we have in our great city. It was actually a pretty cool tour, and even though I knew a few things, I didn't know nearly as much about all the history as I thought. We saw Union Station, the old courthouse, the post office, the Kiel center (now the Scottrade Center), Busch Stadium, the arch, the Eads bridge, Washington Avenue loft district and much much more. I can't remember everything, and I couldn't exactly take notes while riding!

My first attempt around the cones...don't worry, I was much better than that all day!

We're like little ducks in a row...

FYI: Our tour guide was a pro at taking pics backwards while he was riding. That takes skillz.

Being dorks at Busch Stadium.

After the first 20 minutes or so of the tour, we were able to switch off turtle mode and go up to 12.5 mph, or the rabbit mode. This was so much more fun. It was also actually easier to handle this way too. We still had to obey the rules of the road, but we didn't really have many people/traffic to deal with. I loved zooming down the sidewalk, whipping around obstacles in my path. If there is ever a Segway race, I so have to enter it!

We got quite a few stares from drivers and pedestrians. We were stopped more than once by people walking that wanted to know more about the tour. That's definitely the best advertising Jeff needs! One of the cool parts about the tour was when we went about 2/3 down the Eads Bridge, and got a nice view of the Arch and the riverfront. (The Eads Bridge goes across the Mississippi River.) Because of all the flooding we've had b/c of Hurricane Ike, we couldn't ride down the riverfront like they usually do. (It was kind of under water.) However, the view from the Bridge was still pretty cool.

A nice view of the arch...and the random guy from our tour.

Flood waters on the riverfront.

The whole group.

We got to cruise around this crazy cris-crossy walking path. It may look like I'm standing still, but I was actually cruising by our guide at a nice pace.

Look at me go! So. Freaking. Fun.

Yep, that jackmo was "hot-rodding" and he totally ran into that low wall and wiped out. He was a bit dazed after that.

3 hours after we began, we headed back to the Marriott. Jeff was nice enough to let us zip around the parking lot a few more times before we turned our Segways back in. I was the last one to get off, and I really didn't want to give it back! My legs were a little sore, but not bad. It was almost like getting off a boat for the first time. After the first 20 or 30 minutes riding, my legs either went numb or got used to the strain, b/c they stopped hurting. I think once I got used to how I needed to stand and move, I took a lot of the stress off my knees. I can't describe how much fun these things are. I highly suggest riding one if you get the chance. I'm totally doing the Forest Park tour sometime though. Any excuse to ride one again! I almost asked Jeff if he needed extra tour guides. ;-)

Thanks to Betsy (and Jeff, our guide) for the awesome tour today. Can't wait to ride one again!! And thanks to Jeff for e-mailing the pics he took. I was coordinated enough to get my camera out of my bag (surprisingly), but it's so big and bulky, it became a pain in the ass pulling it out each time we stopped for pictures.