How To Ride an Electric Scooter
Posture: Your arms should be stiff, but your elbows should not be locked. The same goes for your knees; you want to be stiff, but able to absorb bumps along the ride. Make sure your shoulders are down and not raised up next to your ears. Put most of your weight on the rear foot (more info in feet placement)
Turning: The speed you are traveling will dictate your turning style and ability. When going any speed over 5, DO NOT TURN THE WHEEL. You will go flying off the front of the scooter
Wide Turns: Using your Shoulders and Head, lean to the side which you want to turn.
Tight Turns: Keeping your arms stiff but not locked, push the handlebar straight to the side in the direction which you want to turn (almost like you are pushing the handlebar to the ground). The scooter will begin to turn rapidly.
Stopping: The brakes are ok, but not lifesaving. In a quick stopping situation, you will need to use one foot to help slow down your scooter.
Feet Placement: Riding a Scooter is similar to a snowboard. Most of your weight should be on your rear foot; the front foot should be completely on the scooter and slightly rotated so your toes point halfway between your knee direction and chest direction. I like to place my rear foot on the wheel cover as I ride.
Hand Placement: For my brake hand, I wrap 1-2 fingers around the handlebar, while the rest hang over the brake lever. For the throttle hand, I will place a majority of my hand over the lever to prevent my thumb from going numb.
Bell: This is your only defense for cars. Use your thumb to flick down on the bell lever.
HOW TO FALL! Listen, you need to plan for the worst. Rock Climbing has taught me that if you expect the worst, you can try and minimize the damage when the worst does inevitably happen. So how does one fall off a scooter?
The Answer: To the side. Pick a direction and jump off the scooter do not try and split the handlebars with your legs. Your priority is YOUR SAFETY! If you don’t think you can keep the scooter and yourself up, abandon the scooter and get out of its way. Otherwise, keep both hands on the handlebars while running alongside the scooter until you come to a stop.
Now some general tips. Take your first ride slow. Find a place near you that you feel safe riding around. Practice a few moves, breaking, use your foot to break, a low-speed tight turn, figure out where you like your feet (some people ride “Goofy” aka left foot forward), try picking it up, just get generally comfortable with the Bird scooter. Here is a $5 free ride referral
Don’t be afraid to treat this as a regular scooter, in populated areas you can use your foot to push the scooter, with the added benefit of having more stability while your foot is out.