Kick scooter… for adults

How far can a person travel by pushing off the ground just once? If it is one step — on average less than a metre. If you build up speed and push harder, you can jump about four or five metres. So imagine our surprise when a modest, no longer young man walked into the editorial office and claimed that from a single push with his foot he could cover 50 m — and with a 30 kg load.

The visitor was holding some strange cart. Naturally, we had doubts. And once we doubted, we demanded proof.

— Very well, here you go,— said the owner of the strange cart.

— Let’s go outside.

Here, on the asphalt, we saw that we were not being fooled. On closer inspection, the “cart” turned out to be a modified children’s scooter. Our guest, engineer Sergei Stanislavovich Lundovsky, had turned it into an unusual means of transport for adults.

How was the scooter “grown up”? What is the essence of the conversion? Above all, in lowering the platform on which the “driver” stands as much as reasonably possible. The ground clearance of the converted scooter when loaded is only 30 mm. But as practice showed, that is quite enough for riding not only on smooth asphalt, but also on country paths. When the bottom scrapes bumps in the road, the scooter simply slides forward. If a larger obstacle appears, the rider can help the machine by jerking the handlebars up and lifting the front wheel this way.

Lowering the platform lowered the vehicle’s centre of gravity, which improved stability and made it easy to reach the ground with the “pushing” leg without bending the supporting knee at all. Because of this, the rider tires much less than on a scooter with a standard (high) platform.

The machine is built on a children’s sports roller “Orlik” (price 14 roubles). As shown in the drawing, the fork blades leading to the rear wheel and the front part of the roller are cut off. A new boot-sized platform is made from a 20×20×5 mm steel angle; on the drawing its length is 320 mm, which works best. The front part of the factory sports roller is joined to the platform with a clamp welded to the pipe and four M8 bolts. A plate about 20 mm thick is placed under the clamp jaws; it can be used to find the platform tilt most comfortable for the rider.

The steering tube should be lengthened so that the rider can steer comfortably without bending.

The rear-wheel fork is made from the same angle as the platform itself.

The wheels should preferably be secured with wing nuts or quick-release nuts (as on racing bicycles), which will make removal easier when needed.

A stamped bicycle luggage rack is used as panniers, best mounted above the front wheel. It is attached to the steering column head and the front axle. The rack cannot be fitted at the rear, because the load would hinder the pushing leg.

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Learning to ride the roller should begin on a flat asphalt surface without slopes. The main focus is on a long, strong but not abrupt push with the foot, and on coasting by inertia. The handlebars must stay completely still; otherwise speed drops quickly (because resistance increases).

Training soon shows which leg works best as the support leg and which as the pushing leg.

«M-K» 8’73, S. LUNDOVSKY, engineer