Travel Products - Micro Luggage (integrated kickscooter carry-on)

http://www.micro.ms/upload/product/_medium/micro_luggageback36.png

I've been looking to buy it for a long time, but at 459$, it was just hard to justify, so when it came down to 299$ and on Amazon (ie. free shipping for Prime members), I ordered one.

This piece of work is a collaboration between Micro Mobility (the company Razor USA split out from) for the scooter part and Samsonite for the luggage part.

I commute every day about a mile between Boston and Cambridge on a Razor kick scooter so I am very experienced with operating one.
This past weekend, I put the Micro Luggage through the paces: BOS, YYZ, LHR and CDG airports, sidewalks, Tube and Metro in London and Paris...

All in all, I'm very satisfied with this little scooter..er..luggage.
It's built very sturdily (Swiss made) with a hard shell underside and a semi-hard shell top. The scooter parts are very well built, with very well welded steel and aluminium parts. It's built to last for quite a while.

http://i.imgur.com/y4gvg.jpg

It is not extremely large on the inside but still very well organized. It has an internal zipped separation layer to split the volume in two. The front part can either be opened by 30° with the luggage standing or completely folded open with the luggage laying down with a zip.

The scooter operation will probably be a little unusual at first for someone accustomed to bikes or even Razor kick scooters. You do not rotate the handle to turn like you do on a bike and partially like you do on a kick scooter. Rather, you lean the handle left or right, depending on the direction you want to turn to. It's quite similar to operating a Segway (except on laterally slanted surfaces where you don't have vertical compensation but that should never be a problem if you stay on laterally level surfaces).

This design has the benefit (along with having two wheels in the front under the weight of the luggage) to be much more stable. The downside is that you can't do sharp turns: the minimum turning radius is about 10m. If you need to turn sharper (like around a corner), you'll have to step down one foot and rotate it. It's less annoying than it sounds like, but that does restrict crowd slaloming.

On my BOS-YYZ-LHR-CDG-YYZ-BOS trip, it definitely helped me quite a few times to beat the crowd to the immigration lanes (even in YYZ with the high speed people movers). I got asked about 5 times where I bought it.

I look forward to using it in DTW, ATL or ORD between far away gates. I can comfortably reach speeds around 25 km/h, about 3~4 times the speed I walk with a carry-on.

http://www.micro.ms/shop/product/micro_luggage
http://www.amazon.com/Micro-ML0001-Luggage/dp/B004IU0OZY/ 299$

Nice review, thanks.

These are also available from the Lufthansa Worldshop (279 Euro / 69,000 miles). I saw one in the Munich airport shop but it looked a bit too gimmicky.

I might give it another look now.

I just took a look at the dimensions - that means I can strap it to the back of my motor-scooter, park at the airport and zip to check-in (and the lounge) in a matter of minutes. From office to lounge in under 45 minutes!

Ordered. OMG why why you didnt tell me about this before? :) Wandering the endless corridors of Gatwick... I wish I had this before.

Sorry to be a wet blanket but, in the era of weighed carryons, doesn't the scoooter apparatus add a lot of weight?

Sorry to be a wet blanket but, in the era of weighed carryons, doesn't the scoooter apparatus add a lot of weight?

5 kg. The only real airline I ever run into that cares about carry-on weight is LX, and only really loosely.

Count yourself lucky. Virtually all the airlines I fly have a 7 kg weight limit for carry on.

Noone ever weighted my carryon. They threw a fit about sizing but not weight.

Never had a carryon weighed in 3MM+ miles but then I never have flown Ryanair.:rolleyes:

This might save my knees but looks pricey.

Cheers

These are also available from the Lufthansa Worldshop (279 Euro / 69,000 miles). I saw one in the Munich airport shop but it looked a bit too gimmicky.

Same here. As for the €279 price, if you reside outside the EU can can reclaim the VAT at MUC/FRA, that price is very much comparable to Amazon's $299.

I just took a look at the dimensions - that means I can strap it to the back of my motor-scooter, park at the airport and zip to check-in (and the lounge) in a matter of minutes. From office to lounge in under 45 minutes!

I like that idea!

Never had a carryon weighed in 3MM+ miles but then I never have flown Ryanair.:rolleyes:

This might save my knees but looks pricey.

Cheers

Nor Lufthansa, Virgin Australia, Qantas? All of whom have weighed my carryons at one point or another.

Nor Lufthansa, Virgin Australia, Qantas? All of whom have weighed my carryons at one point or another.

Flown Lufthansa a few times TATL (no weighing of my carry-on) but not Qantas or Virgin Australia.

Cheers

Flown Lufthansa a few times TATL (no weighing of my carry-on) but not Qantas or Virgin Australia.

Cheers

They weighed mine on a Manila-Bangkok. I suspect it is pretty random on LH.

Indeed, it is quite random on LH. I have had mine weighted several times, which is why i always use my Air Boss when I fly LH. Even had that weighed a couple times. Even if it's a little over, they have let me through. Then I see people on the same flight with 2 full size expanded rollaboards...apparently the main check is at the check in counter...

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned that but I would wonder if it's such a great idea to have scooters on the concourse, especially some that are not very maneuverable. I mean there is already enough commotion going on as is with people walking, people mover belts, carts, wheel chairs and so forth. Everyone is in a hurry, many people don't know where they are going, people need to suddenly stop because something fell down, they need to shift the shoulder bag to the other shoulder, look something up on the phone or on a screen above. I mean it's already quite a challenge to safely get through an airport as is. If we add another mode of transportation that is faster, not only will the crash frequency increase but also the severity of collisions will be greater because of the added speed. It's one thing to bump into a person while walking. That can already knock both people of their feet. But to scoot into them with perhaps 10mph is yet another thing.

I'd put that invention in the realm of dangerous gadget and predict that its proliferation will be hampered by liability and safety concerns that airports will leverage against it.

Till

I also saw this in our latest LH Worldshop catalogue.

The fact that it is promoted it indicates that LH has done the R&R homework on the product with the airline, security, and airport management.

A fun idea, I would think useful in large airports. I can just see many of you gliding happily by me, one business suited leg in the air, enroute to our boarding gate.

I also smile as you zip silently by me, until I realize you have just run over my toes . . . .

If we add another mode of transportation that is faster, not only will the crash frequency increase but also the severity of collisions will be greater because of the added speed. It's one thing to bump into a person while walking. That can already knock both people of their feet. But to scoot into them with perhaps 10mph is yet another thing.

The scooter has tail brakes that can make it stop within a few meters even at top speed. If all else fails, a kick scooter has the nice failure mode that you can just step off of it and grab it to stop within half a meter.

Bike/rollerblade/scooter experience helps a lot with predicting pedestrian movements. With enough experience, it is not significantly more dangerous than walking really.
You learn for example that if you need to choose between passing near someone walking away from you or towards you in a non-crowded area, you always choose the former. People who don't see you have much more predictable trajectories.

All good and well, Arthur, but as you indicated, one needs to learn. Learning (being connected to intelligence) is not given to many people as witnessed by vehicular traffic on the road. :p And even if the scooter user learns, how will the pedestrian learn? And what will happen until both have learned? There aren't even any rules of engagement so to speak. It's a liability quagmire waiting to happen.

Finally, as I said, the speed and added weight of the thing will make any injuries more severe. It is one thing to stop within half a meter and to stop in mid stride. The usual space between two people not running into one another while walking (speed vs. reaction time) is half a meter. That means this distance won't be enough once the speed is increased. As a "scooterer" myself I also know that any really quick stopping/unmounting maneuver usually has the scooter flying out in front. Frankly, I wouldn't want to be in its trajectory.

We'll see how it plays out. I personally wouldn't use one in an airport and if they were to be used and somebody injured me while using it, I'd make sure to get my money's worth out of it and I am totally against frivolous law suits but IMO these things have no place in an airport.

Till

I agree with Till. People are people and will push the limits of weight and speed with these things.

Since kinetic energy = 1/2MVsquared, we're looking at substantially more damage when a collision occurs. Also, with regard to stopping on a dime, since momentum = MV, while not exponentially higher, comparing stopping on a scooter while wearing shorts and sneakers to stopping wearing wingtips with 10 kg in the "suitcase" is apples and oranges methinks.

I also think it adds to much weight and bulk but that's me.

I think you sacrifice too much packing space for the weight. I couldn't see it being worthwhile in a crowded terminal, but then, my home airport is not Schiphol...

Would it be possible to simply take an ordinary backpack-style carry-on and an ordinary scooter? This way the two are separate without the disadvantages that come from merging the two but with enhanced benefits like more packing space and better scooter performance.

Or would the scooter be deemed unsafe by TSA?

Till

Would it be possible to simply take an ordinary backpack-style carry-on and an ordinary scooter? This way the two are separate without the disadvantages that come from merging the two but with enhanced benefits like more packing space and better scooter performance.

Or would the scooter be deemed unsafe by TSA?

Till

I have transported a Razor several times through TSA in its transport bag. They don't seem to mind.

There's no good way to put a regular backpack on a scooter without making it dangerously unbalanced and unstable. If the backpack turns around the handlebar, the sway is guaranteed to send you in the bushes. You'd need some sort of rigid frame mounted on the base plate to strap the backpack to so that the bag and the base plate form one dynamic mass. That would sort the stability issue, but it's still going to be unbalanced.

The Micro-mobility scooter solves this issue with the lean-steer three-wheeled design.

Thanks, Arthur. That's good to know.

Tbh, I was thinking rather of putting the backpack on my back. After all, that's what it's there for. With a bit of practice even a messenger style back with waist strap might work.

Till

I like the idea (partly just for the sheer lunacy) -- but it seems way too small to be practical. According to this (http://www.thezigzagger.com/2012/01/23/micro-luggage/) it's 1586 ci of capacity (and even that seems awkwardly shaped.) I've got briefcases that have more capacity than that.

Anybody actually tried it?

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I like the idea (partly just for the sheer lunacy) -- but it seems way too small to be practical. According to this (http://www.thezigzagger.com/2012/01/23/micro-luggage/) it's 1586 ci of capacity (and even that seems awkwardly shaped.) I've got briefcases that have more capacity than that.

Anybody actually tried it?

I hadn't thought of it in the terms of positive lunacy, but that is an interesting way to look at it I suppose. ;)