News-Letter

Admit it. Ever since the Hop Cops got their shiny new Segways at the beginning of the year, you've been dying to take a ride. You think about those extra five minutes of sleep you could get if only you didn't have to walk so slowly, you weigh your desire to do figure-eights in front of MSE or, like one girl I saw a few weekends ago, drunkenly request a ride home.

While the Hop Cops are unfortunately unwilling to loan out their equipment, there is always another option for the motorized transport enthusiast: Segway tours. Relatively new to Baltimore, there are a number of tours in the Baltimore-D.C. area that allow you to see the city and try your hand at driving a Segway.

This weekend, I signed myself up for the Baltimore Mini Harbor Segway Safari, which promised to provide a complete overview of Baltimore's Inner Harbor and Fell's Point over the course of an hour. I personally know embarrassingly little about the city in which I live, so I was looking forward to a little history with my scootering.

My Segway partner and I showed up for the tour 10 minutes early for our training session, and I was personally excited to see that our Segways would be hot pink and bear the name of the tour company, "Segs and the City," in full-out Sex and the City lettering.

However I was not so excited to learn that Segways are harder to ride than they look. The Segway Web site claims that its machines are "intuitive" and apparently have some gyroscopic technology to make balancing even easier.

But, these engineers apparently did not account for some people's inherent clumsiness. My poor balance causes me numerous accidents and, therefore, spent my entire 10-minute training session (and a good portion of time thereafter) trying hard not to fall flat on my face, spin myself off my Segway, or collide into another person.

Fortunately, after a little practice and a close call with a cyclist, I got the Segway under control and we set out on our tour. We started our tour at Fell's Point, bouncing our wheels over some cute cobblestone streets as our tour guide pointed out the sights, and gave us local history about Fell himself, the Civil War and even real estate prices.

We drove through traffic on Broadway, as the early bar crowds gawked.. While the mode of transportation is beyond fun, it is also beyond nerdy. Segway-ing through crowds downtown will afford you lots of pointing, laughs and weird looks. Do not attempt if you are not completely self-confident.

The tour season ends in a few weeks, and I could see why. It was too dark to see anything of note in the distance except the Domino Sugar sign, and the open air transport made us extremely cold.

When we arrived at the Inner Harbor , we were rewarded with a pretty view of Baltimore at night with the lights on the water. The tour guide gave us more interesting bits about Baltimore history, as he made his Segway pace as he was lecturing. We hung around for a bit, taking touristy pictures, and finally zipped back to the tour office at our top speed of 12.5 mph.

Though freezing, I was satisfied. I got to visit parts of the city I don't regularly see, learn some things and acquire a new, fun skill. If you're looking to get to know your city, or even if you're just looking to do figure-eights, a Segway tour is an entertaining (and quirky) option.

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