The Long Road to Two Wheels: How GingerOnWheels Was Born
If there is a common thread that runs through my life it’s wandering around outside, in places that I have no business being, with the wind in my hair and two wheels between skin and pavement. Okay, anywhere from 1 to 4 wheels, but usually two. For as long as I can remember, I have been obsessed with anything that has wheels, and the feeling of freedom that I get from being outside. It didn’t matter if it was a bicycle, a Radio Flyer wagon, or just a skateboard with a refrigerator box on top pointed straight downhill—if it could move, I wanted to be on it.
The Goped Era: 2-Stroke Lessons and Garage Nights
The real obsession started when I was a teenager and got my hands on my first Goped “California Sport”. For anyone who didn’t grow up in that era, Gopeds were the precursor to the modern electric scooter craze, a different beast entirely though to be clear. They were loud, they smelled like 2-stroke oil, and to be honest require a level of mechanical patience that most teenagers simply don’t possess.
I loved riding that Goped. There was a raw, mechanical connection between the throttle, spindle, and the engine that felt visceral. Plus I thought I was the coolest person around blasting through neighborhoods at 13,000rpm. However, I quickly learned to hate the engine work, and honestly the engine noise. Those small Zenoah carburetors were notoriously finicky. It felt like for every hour I spent riding, I spent three hours in the garage. It got worse as the Goped got faster, more parts = more work, and less time outside.
My nights were spent under the glow of a fluorescent garage light, covered in grease, trying to figure out if it were air, spark or fuel that I didn’t have enough of. My homework? Oh I did that on the way to school, copying my friends homework using the case to my trombone as a desk while we walked. I was constantly chasing more speed. I’d spend hours with little screws, pipe upgrades, and gear ratios, trying to squeeze every last bit of performance out of a machine that seemingly wanted to stay broken, or retire as a perfectly competent weed wacker. Those late nights in the garage were my informal education. Introduction to mechanics and troubleshooting— most of which I picked up from watching my dad or neighbor Jon when they would help out if I got stuck. Nonetheless, they were skills that would eventually define my professional life, though I didn’t know it yet.
The Tech Transition & Unfulfilled Grind
As I moved into my college years, I took a step back from the world of small engines. Life got in the way, and the focus shifted to academics, girls, and building a future. After graduation, I did what we were all ‘supposed’ to do: I landed a cushy office job in the tech sector.
Living and working in the greater Seattle area, tech is the air we breathe. I was putting in the work, saving up money, and checking all the boxes of “success.” But something was definitely missing. The fulfillment of building or fixing something tangible wasn’t there. I wanted to build, to create, to break new ground. So much so that I got a certificate in project management just so I could be at the forefront of anything I could get a little fulfillment from. But at the end of the day sitting behind a desk full of monitors felt worlds away from the real hands-on satisfaction of solving a mechanical problem. One that would reward you with hours of riding outside if you got it right. I felt unfulfilled, like I was spinning my wheels without actually going anywhere.
I needed a hobby, or at least an escape. I actually got a Goped again for a very short time as an adult, but 20-25mph just wasn’t doing it for me anymore. I transitioned into motorcycles. I had a few bikes ranging from little cafe racer Honda’s up to an 1100cc Yamaha V-star. They were fun, but still not quite the same as that Goped feeling. Gopod’s just felt a little more… disobedient, and a lot more edgy.
The Dualtron Spark & Hype Machine
That’s when I started hearing about high powered scooters. Dualtron’s particularly, they were the OG electric scooter that you really only saw crazy people riding on the internet. The world of Personal Electric Vehicles (PEVs) was just starting its infancy here, but in places like South Korea it seemed they had perfected these things. I saw videos of these high-performance electric scooters that claimed to reach speeds of 40 MPH, 50 MPH, and beyond. The marketing made them look like the pinnacle of engineering: silent, powerful, and maintenance-free.
I spent months shopping, there were a few brands in The States already. I watched every review on YouTube, read every forum post, and looked at every spec sheet. The “influencers” at the time were painted a picture of engineering and breakneck speeds. I was sold. I ultimately bought a Turbowheel Dart. Let’s just say, it didn’t do much for me. It wasn’t long before I returned that on account of being a complete ‘scam’ compared to the spec sheet and ended up getting a Nanrobot D4+. I rode that scooter pretty hard, until it broke. Life wasn’t the same though, I couldn’t drop my life and spend hours fixing something like that, I had to work like a zombie. Every. Day.
Reality Check: The First “GingerOnWheels” Videos
When the scooter finally arrived, the reality didn’t match the hype. Within the first week, I was seeing issues that the “pro reviewers” never mentioned. The build quality was inconsistent, the folding mechanisms were prone to wobbling (mine ultimately cracked), and the general quality didn’t seem nearly as robust as the price tag, or my YouTube idols had suggested.
I was frustrated. I had spent my hard-earned money based on the advice of people who seemed to be ignoring glaring flaws. Because I had spent so many nights in my garage as a kid, I knew how to spot a mechanical failure waiting to happen. I knew when a bolt wasn’t going to cut it, or when a sharp corner or tire wobble was an accident waiting to happen.
I didn’t start my YouTube channel to be a “content creator.” I started it out of spite and a need for accountability. I began recording videos of the issues I was finding—loose motor wires, poor heat dissipation, and structural weaknesses. Quite honestly making some of the more ‘commercial’ YouTube channels just look dumb. My initial goal was just to send these videos to the manufacturers as a way of saying, “Look, I’m not sure if you know, but this is broken, and here is exactly why it broke and will keep breaking”. They didn’t listen, so I went to the forums, Reddit, Facebook, YouTube, to spread the word. I wasn’t a ‘YouTuber’ I was just a guy with an old cheap Gopro strapped to his chest with shoelaces trying to spread the word. I wasn’t sure if I was trying to hurt sales enough that the manufacturer’s felt it deep enough that they upp’d the quality, or if I was trying to save some other poor sap from spending his hard earned money. I wasn’t sure, but I was definitely doing it.
Building a Community of Truth
To my surprise, people started watching. It turns out I wasn’t the only one frustrated by the lack of transparency in the PEV industry. For every little quirk I pointed out there were 3 people that popped up in the comments saying “Hey YEAH!” My audience grew because I wasn’t there to sell them a dream; I was there to show them the reality, and sometimes how to fix things. I became known as the guy who would tear a scooter down to the frame, point out the flaws, and tell you exactly which P-settings were actually important. Back in these days of 2019, you could watch a scooter review and genuinely not tell that you were watching an extended commercial. Once I got a little bit of an audience I thought, “I should save everyone the grief of having to watch 50 videos to see if the scooter is actually good or not” So I made my own review. The Kaabo Wolf Warrior review that you can click on right here.
I took my background in tech and my interest in going fast, and laser focused them on electric scooters. I went to the hardware store and actually bought my own tools. I setup a pseudo shop in my house I call the Ginger Dome. With more followers came more offers from manufacturers to review their scooters. I also started to monitize the channel, people started knowing me in public before I knew them, I was getting paid to do something I really like. The rest, as well all know is pretty much history.
Today, my YouTube channel, GingerOnWheels, is a reflection of that journey. It’s a place where we prioritize facts over hype. I still use my technical background to manage my businesses on YouTube, and my actual business, PEV Outlet that spawned from my channel. To this day my heart is still in the garage—or on the road testing the latest scooter to see if it actually lives up to the promises. I go through phases where I wonder what on Earth I’m doing with my adult life, wonder if I’m wasting it, if I could be doing something better. But then I get the newest electric scooter. With the wind in my hair and Gopro strapped to my chest on another electric maiden voyage, I think to myself, “So what if I am, this can’t possibly be that big of a waste if I’m having THIS much fun”. It’s true, I’d rather grow old riding around having fun, or writing blog posts on a rainy day for fans to read, than grow rich behind some office desk any day.
I went from a kid trying to get a Goped to start, a tech professional with a budding purpose, to a creator who holds an entire industry accountable. It still blows me away when a CEO or marketing lead of an ENTIRE brand will call me to ask what I think about their newest thing before they launch it. I’m still just a guy riding around with a camera strapped to his body that tinkers with screws and bolts at night. I still love anything with wheels—I just have a much higher standard for them now.