Gadgetory

as a native New Yorker I've tried pretty much every method imaginable for navigating the streets of the Big Apple so when my next door neighbor rolled up in an ER B electric scooter I was intrigued I had tried out an early prototype back at CES in 2014 that vehicle was fun but too slow and slide to be taken seriously on rugged streets I decided to take the finished product for a spin trying to navigate through a day of errands and my commute to work I started on Brooklyn where I live the ER B is front-wheel drive so the steering can be a bit jumpy especially if you put your feet on the front pegs but I never fell off while learning to ride my wife had forgot her lunch so I went to pick her up something to eat the ER B was ideal for switching back and forth from the sidewalk to the street and the optional basket made carrying her sandwich a breeze it even held my eyes coffee it was definitely my ultimate hipster Dada moment the ER B has a top speed of 15 miles per hour which feels great when you're accelerating not quite as speedy when you're getting passed by a bicycle on the straightaway still I left my camera crew in the dust by slipping past traffic a lot of the time the ER be even handled well on cobblestone streets although that was a pretty bumpy ride we then made our way into Manhattan I took the Brooklyn Bridge which is always crowded with tourists snapping selfies in the bike lane it can be a nightmare of starts and stops but with the ER B I could start and stop with minimal effort and even weave between pedestrians its agility and flexibility really impressed me on this leg of the trip as I made my way to midtown I spent some time weaving in and out of traffic on the RV you sit far too low to be seen from a large bus or truck even most SUVs wouldn't spot you in their mirror but I actually felt safe if not safer than I do in working my way through similar traffic on a bicycle because the erbia is much nimbler and faster to accelerate the ER B relies on a 36 volt lithium ion battery for power it takes about 4 hours to get to a full charge but you can get a whopping 20 miles on that single charge giving you more than enough juice for a 45-minute commute to work and so this is our last shot of the day and it's a fake one because I beat the video team back to the office by a mile I was really impressed with the maneuverability on the Irby and especially the battery we wrote it for like five hours before it died this is a new one I'm riding now if you have $1,700 to spare and you have an urban commute that doesn't work for a bike or a car this is a really interesting option