I heard a Pop
and Everything Stopped!
The Bow Bridge, Central Park January 2023
A few days after I bought the scooter in the summer of 2019, I decided to take it out for a ride in Central Park. Again, I used to bike in the park all the time and had not spent any quality time in the park since I stopped biking. This was another thing I was looking forward to doing with the scooter.
Just past the Boathouse there is a foot path that I could not remember ever exploring so I hung a left and started up a rather steep incline. I wasn’t sure if the scooter would make it and was thinking this path probably wasn’t a smart choice, when suddenly there was a pop and the scooter went dead. OMG, what just happened? Did I break the brand-new scooter? It was a Saturday afternoon. How was I going to get home?
The Boat House, Central Park
The first thing I did was roll the scooter back down the hill. I’m not sure if I knew where the neutral shift is at this point. There was all kinds of activity going on at the Boathouse, which if you don’t know was a lovely restaurant (as seen in “You’ve Got Mail”) that afternoon. Unfortunately, the Boathouse did not survive COVID and was closed recently. But that day the area was BUSY! One of the wait staff helped me find an outlet where I plugged the scooter in, and then I called Big Apple Mobility (BAM). Thank God they answered the phone.
Back side of the Boathouse and the hill
I had taken the hill at full power.
There was a little giggle on the other end of the phone and then I heard, “Your scooter will be fine. Do you see a button on the battery near the charging port?” “Yes.” “Push that in.” Then I was instructed to turn the scooter on and voila! It lit up and I was in business. But to be safe, I was advised to let it charge for an hour before trying to ride it home. No problem. At that time the Boathouse had a nice lunch menu so killing an hour was easy and delicious. And as Eric (at Big Apple Mobility) said, an hour later the scooter was good to go.
Apparently, I had taken the hill at full power and like a car, I should have dialed it down or walked beside it until we got to the top. Not wanting to test the scooter further I found a less hilly way out of the park and was able to ride all the way home. And that never happened again.
Until . . .