Quick blog post! I am just finishing off Scipy2019. I will post in more detail later on this but IT WAS AWESOME. I was a bit slack with my hotel booking so I ended up at the Sheraton ~1 mile from the conference center.. I had planned to do a mix of Uber and walking. But something happened since I was last in Austin… There are these scooters EVERYWHERE. So after dropping my bag off at the hotel on the first day and heading to the reception dinner I decided I needed to give it a go. It was all integrated into my Uber app and super easy.. Took me a while to realize the motor does not kick in until you get it up to ~3-4 MPH by scooting.. Here are a few take aways, first the negative:

• They most definitely are a form of visual pollution.
• Finding safe routes were tricky.. If I was on the bike and doing 12-20mph I would be happy to integrate with traffic anywhere. On the Scooter I was doing 6-15mph and there were certain streets my velocity difference was too great to the traffic.
• Took a while to get the hang of braking.

Now the positives:

• They are fun.. honest to goodness fun. Great for mental health.
• Being able to walk out, grab a scooter, ride it, park it anywhere was crazy liberating. This is the way of the future. I could see something interesting and finish my scooter ride.. Check it out, walk a while and pop on another scooter. This, in my opinion, will mean folks will range further and be good for business.
• I replaced all commuting with scooting.. My carbon footprint from this trip will be reduced (albeit small compared to flying from Chicago).
• A big advantage of scooting over share bikes: No sitting on a seat.. No dirty greasy marks on pants etc..
• I got just the right amount of exercise. Scooting off, powering along, occasionally scooting up hills to help the power assist meant heart rate hovered between 90 and 120.. I did sweat, it was 95+ degrees, but it was not a full on work out..

In a nutshell: I am a fan.