"I've had an 81-year-old lady ride one of these," Eugene Simmons assures me gently, as I gingerly step on-board one of the Segway personal transporters which began taking tourists around St. George's this week.

Eugene, 28, is the manager of the new St. George Segway operation — located behind the Town Hall in the old Belco building — and it'd be hard to imagine a more attentive, well-informed or all-round charming tour guide.

But still, I'm a little nervous about riding the odd-looking electric two-wheeler — even after swapping my stilettos for flip-flops, donning a helmet and hearing tales of octogenarians cruising the streets at five miles an hour.

Segways arrived on the Island several years ago and have been available to visitors at Dockyard since 2006, where they've proved a big hit, according to American entrepreneur Robert Territo, who spent much of his childhood on the Island.

Now he wants to translate that success to St. George's — and I've offered to play guinea pig and test ride the route around the historic landmarks of the east end, with Eugene and Robert making sure I keep my balance. Actually, seconds after I step onto the Segway — and after watching the obligatory safety video — I realise it's really not that difficult to control.

The ingenious machine — which can cover 20 miles on about 20 cents worth of electricity — contains gyroscopic sensors which mean that if you lean forward you go forward, if you lean to the side you go left or right and if you lean backwards... you guessed it, you reverse.

And that's it — apart from a reminder from Robert to "stick out your butt".

I do and we head slowly off the old town square and past Somers Garden. Any worries I had about getting snarled up in traffic are soon abated — it's a sleepy, sunny Thursday afternoon and there's barely a vehicle on the roads.

I feel a bit like a Dalek from Dr. Who, though, and can't quite grasp immediately why anyone would choose one of these over an old-fashioned walk, apart from out of decrepitude or sheer laziness.

Robert, a fast-talking New York Italian with the gift of the gab, has the answer. "It's the experience of riding an electrical vehicle," he insists. "The idea of showing Americans — or anyone — that there's an alternative to gasoline is a good thing.

"It's an opportunity for them to try out something different. The future is not gasoline. This is the future. They are very much environmentally friendly."

As we glide up the hill towards the Unfinished Church, he adds that the machines allow tourists to pack an enormous amount of sightseeing into a short space of time and to see far more than they would riding a scooter or in the back of a taxi.

He's right too. Eugene leads us on a whistle-stop version of the one-and-a-half hour tour given to visitors and we see Tobacco Bay, Fort St. Catherine, Alexandra Battery and Gates Fort in about 30 minutes.

Uneven roads and bumpy tracks pose no problem to the Segway: as Robert says: "It can go over anything."

The device can reach a speed of 12.5 mph but tourists — who must weigh under 250 lbs to be suitable for the machine — are kept on a 'turtle setting' which means they can't go over seven mph.

Eugene tells me he's taken my transporter off the turtle setting — and, non-adventurer that I am, I long to ask him to put it back on. But pretty soon I forget my, frankly pathetic, fear and just enjoy the ride, learning all sorts of things I never knew about Bermuda from Eugene, a commercial fisherman and nature lover from Somerset.

He is full of fascinating facts about the Island's wildlife and history. Did you know, for example, that Bermudians used to use sage to clean their teeth and cactus to grease their hair?

If you're a non-Bermudian like me, I'm almost certain you didn't know that there is a particular grass growing here that can be turned into a lasso for catching lizards — well, now you do.

The tour takes in parts of Bermuda that'd I'd never seen in three years here — including Almeida's Farm, where vast numbers of cows sit munching grass contentedly as we skim past.

Eugene has a story about pretty much every property and plant we pass — and that local knowledge, according to Robert, is what makes the tour so great.

The 42-year is clearly passionate about Segways but even more so about Bermuda — the country he returned to with wife Myra after realising he didn't want to bring up his daughter Shea, now seven, in the Big Apple. The couple, who live in Somerset, have since had son Chase, two.

He lets Eugene do the talking on the tour but says afterwards that the thing he remembers most about his childhood here is the friendships forged with black Bermudians and their involvement in their own tourism industry.

That, he feels, is what's lacking now in the tourism product and he wants to be part of bringing it back. "Bermuda was an island where Bermudians were the ones running the tourism," he says.

"They were your guides, your waiters, your waitresses. That's what made Bermuda amazing. When I came back I was shocked to see how Bermuda had changed."

Robert, whose varied career has taken in fashion photography, interior design and teaching in a Manhattan school, now employs half-a-dozen young Bermudians for the business he runs with partner Ben Fairn.

"We are about giving these young Bermudians the opportunity to embrace their island and tell what they know — their vibrant history" he says, adding earnestly: "This is a very important historical and cultural thing going on. This is not just a Segway tour and the tourists feel that."

He says Eugene did some test tours last summer and the feedback from visitors was excellent. "I got some great e-mails," says Robert. "They loved Eugene."

And Eugene loves his work. "I get to meet a lot of nice people," he says. "It's a very relaxing job. When I want to work hard, I go fishing."

Rolling back into the square, I feel totally serene and stress-free after our tour. Now I think I get the appeal of the Segway.

On a hot and humid August day, would I rather sweat my way to Tobacco Bay on foot or arrive utterly unruffled on this modern-day chariot? It's a no brainer.

Eugene leaves me with one final remark that convinces me Segways are suitable for anyone who can stand on two feet.

YouTube shows a monkey riding one," he chuckles. "It's pretty funny. I tell tourists: 'I've seen a monkey do it; anyone can do it.'"

• An hour-and-a-half long Segway tour of St. George's costs $80 per person. Call 504-2581 for more information or visit the Segway office behind St. George's Town Hall.