Safety Announcement Concerning Gotway

Important Safety Announcement

Reports from some overseas riders about cut outs of their machines are surfacing on the Gotway Facebook page. Now we have some clarity after questioning Gotway.

Until yesterday we have had zero issues from the stock we have sold replicating the 'Wobble' and immediate shut off these riders have been experiencing when riding on a smooth straight flat road / and or over a slight bump.

Gotway confirmed none of the units we have purchased had this issue. But yesterday we had a customer write in with symptoms that SEEM to replicate it so hence the safety announcement to make sure everyone is aware and keep you safe!

What do I do?

Our advice is to stop riding any Gotway unit in this model range: ACM, ACMs+, Msuper 3 and Msuper 3s+ IF you received it from us between 9th June & 21st June 2017. (From this point forward we will not send out and Gotways until we have replaced confirmed working boards, which Gotway are sending to us next week. Any unit from today onwards sold will have had the replacement work already done).

Only shipments we received between these dates from us may be affected with this fault.

If you received one between these dates and need more information or advice then please get in touch.

Further Help and information

If you purchased elsewhere the seller will need to do a check to see when they received the units and see if they fall into a potential problem batch or not.

1. As always with ANY electric unicycle, please ride at a speed you can run out of, this will ensure there are no serious injuries if something should happen.

2. Ride with wrist, knee and elbow guards as well as a helmet as a minimum.

3. Ignore point 1 and 2 if you want, but do so at entirely your own risk, knowing that you more than likely will cause yourself serious injury in the event of a failure / miscalculation.

4. Always listen to the beeps and tilt back, feel the machine, listen to the machine when riding (dont stick headphones in and be oblivious to it all). Don't mute or modify the speaker, its there for a reason - to keep you safe.

5. If something sounds odd it just might be an indication to something odd. So just like any other machine, enquire and check it out before continuing to ride. If you do get a unexplained cut out then its likely to cut out again, there are no reasons to suggest it wont.

 "Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results".

6. Dont get drunk and go for a ride, might be funny to onlookers or to yourself, but it rarely ends well.

7. Be wary (as most of you know) of advice given on forums; you have no indication really who is offering advice nor their background, motives or experience nor their actual factual understanding of the matter in hand, so always check with the manufacturer or reseller (and give them decent time to respond) before making modifications to your ride. If you get no response from the manufacturer / reseller via email, call them, perhaps it went to spam.

Finally, and this is not to detract from the failure mentioned above, but to offer advice for all riders for all machines in general:

ALL electric unicycles have their issues; from large scale manufacturers like Ninebot down to the smaller companies like Gotway.

Where it goes very wrong for Gotway is they make some of the fastest machines available, and so rather than riding at a speed you can run at, we tend to ride too fast, the end result of this is some serious injuries, especially if no protection is worn in the event of a malfunction / rider error.

We have consistently found most manufacturers overstate the units potential in terms of range and top speed. Just because it states it will do 30mph doesn't mean you should, again refer to rule 1 and the fall should become a run or maybe a run and a roll, better than a broken bone! I find the additional power very useful for going 15-18mph on the flat AND uphill where the real use of the power takes over, rather than constantly utilising its top speed and pushing it to the max.

PS - I personally ride having the thought that 'this could cut out at any time, am I in a good position if it does?' that keeps me sober and keeping a check on myself. I still enjoy it immensely, but if I am a silly boy I know whats coming and cant be excused from it (See rule 1.)

PSS - Hope this helps! You lot are an amazing community of riders, we are at the forefront of this new technology, lets keep reinforcing to newcomers that despite the videos and promotion of these amazing devices we also need to educate on best riding practices to keep us safe, and also encourage openness regarding faults on any machine on the market (once all the actual facts are gathered we can be sure information that is spread out there is of a true nature and based on facts).

 

*Disclaimer. All the dates and failures mentioned are from Gotway directly. The statement made relating to this failure is provided based on the information they have provided to us. At the end of the day we can only go on 2 things, 1. What Gotway confirm and 2. Customer feedback to gather an idea of any issues. (In this issue we took just 1 failure our side and linked it with other reports and confirmed the 2 with communication with Gotway to verify)