Best. Skate. Ever. around the lake

Here’s the background story. My daughter, an adorable little eight year old girl, is visiting. In anticipation I bought her a skateboard. The only place to do this is the skate/surf shop in Gainesville, High Tides.

I was pretty sure I would wind up getting her a Penny board, even before I got to the store. But getting there and holding the boards in my hands, I knew the Penny board was the perfect board for a little girl like her. The next closest thing was a Nickel board, a slightly larger model by the same makers.

What really cinched the sale for me, was the way they changed the color on the wheels, and even the screws, to create a certain look that I knew my daughter would love. I’ll put pics on my Instagram @maulakai. But the real trick was getting her to skate.

My first opportunity was in Miami amidst record heat. That was difficult. First I had her play on the board on the rug, to get a feel for it. Then we went outside and simply pushed our boards down the block.

I saw her do something I remember doing, back when I first started skating. She was almost pogo hopping on one leg. Constantly pushing, but never actually hopping on the board for the ride. A little while later we went back inside.

The next day I got her to go out and practice again, but I could tell that she didn’t really want to. Still, that day, we got a much better practice in. She was actually standing up on her board. Once or twice, I showed her how fast I could go on my Boosted, if I used the motor (which I wasn’t for our practice session together).

But then, she changed skateboarding for me, forever, when she asked if she could use my skateboard. I let her, but without the remote. Although it was visibly harder for her to push, it also provided a much larger, more stable platform for her. Clearly it was the wrong size, but she could still ride it halfway decently.

Then she asked me for the remote. That kinda scared me a little. I mean, all this time, weren’t we just building up to me giving her the remote? I couldn’t just say no to her, right? But I knew I had to really show her how it worked, and what she had to do to control the board in a safe manner. Neither of us were wearing helmets.

I had her come off the board, and the first thing I did was put that Boosted Board into the slow setting. I don’t know if you’ve ever used a Boosted Board on slow setting, but it is *slow*. It’s so horribly uselessly slow, that its only real purpose is for people riding a skateboard for the first time. Because you can literally walk faster than that. But with the board on slow, I showed her exactly how much she had to roll the remote wheel to get the motors to engage. I showed her again with me on the board. Finally, I let her get on the board and, with me positioned to catch her in the event of disaster, I gave her the remote to use.

After a predictable first start that had her leaning and screaming, “Woa,” she pretty much got the hang of it. Soon I was walking with her, across the asphalt in front of the house, as she skated in nearly perfect lines. That was the one drawback to her using my board. She doesn’t weigh enough to turn it properly. Fun fact, I weigh ninety nine pounds more than she does.

So as fun as it was for her to ride an electric, it wasn’t quite right because she was still riding my board, a board designed for a much larger, much older rider. We got back onto our own boards, her on the Penny and me on my Boosted. We had the two boards setup parallel to each other. She rides goofy, just like me.

“Get onto your board,” I told her, “and take my hand.” Now, standing together, holding hands, I gently gave my board some throttle. I could feel the moment when that force transferred from our handholding, and into forward momentum for *both* of us. It was a great moment. All my years of skating around on electrics, and the ingenius design of the Boosted remote, allowed us to skate in tandem in a way that I’m sure very few people other than us have done before.

Holding my hand, we finally had that fun, wind in your hair, all play, no work experience that I had wanted to give my daughter for years. We wound up skating around the lake, almost a mile. By my usual standards of skating, it was pretty uneventful. I didn’t see anything exciting or out of the ordinary. The highlights of our skate were swerving to avoid puddles. But that simple skate around the lake, at low speed, holding my daughter’s hand, was easily the Best. Skate. Ever.

Which is kind of a funny thing, because I spent much of last year writing a novella about a college dropout with an electric skateboard, who rescues his SO and saves the internet. The working title for the story is Best. Skate. Ever. The story was pretty much written around the idea of a climax where the hero is skating in a city environment, and everything is trying to get him. Drones, self driving cars, police, traffic lights. It’s the skate of a lifetime to save the internet. Basically, the best, most action packed skate I can imagine. And suddenly, in my RL, I find the Best. Skate. Ever. is simply giving the hobby to my daughter.