by Ashley G » 22 Aug 2011, 23:18
Maybe I'm getting too cynical in my old age, or having a bad week or something, but I was totally unimpressed by that Viking publicity. Any interest I might have had would have been wiped-out as soon as I saw that site and its videos.
How important is it that we can "turn on a dime" on a beach ?
That gyroscopic seating didn't seem to be working on their own promo video ! In fact, when it woke up at all, it seemed to be throwing the guy backwards and forwards way too far and way too late. If it could be made to work, and managed to keep you sitting vertically, I wonder what that might do to your C of G, even on some of the terrains they chose to show us !
On the first video, to cross that li'l ditch, the guy had to lean forward well past where his gyroscope hadn't taken him (yet), just to get up the other side ! And his unstoppable power looked about fit to stop against a couple of the obstacles too.
Safety clearly isn't an issue. Check out the ramps they are happy to demonstrate using into the back of that truck ! Forget that wet tyres (we've been on the beach, remember !) will happily slither and slide. There is no way the average rider is standing alongside that chair to drive it up that ramp and, since the ramp is already sagging under the weight of the chair alone, I'm guessing you wouldn't want to ride it up.
Eeeeeh ! Bah gum ! It's not often an advertisement irritates me that badly, but they failed to demonstrate even a passing interest in safety. At the same time, they made outlandish claims about "unstoppable power" and then videoed the chair barely dragging itself over some of the obstacles, while the much vaunted gyroscopic seating appeared unable to keep up, even at those speeds.
Lordy Lordy. You'd think they would at least make it look like it works in their own video ! That is definitely not a company I would want to deal with, over something so important to me.
Oh well. Back to my corner ....
Ashley