So the other day,
the absolute worst thing that can happen to me, happened. A nightmare for any
electric skateboard owner. And yes, I’m exaggerating a great deal here.
I was skating home
from work. My complex has many speed bumps that you really can’t skate around.
After living here for a few months, I’ve really refined my technique for
clearing those speed bumps. Although my Boosted Board can simply roll right
over them, I don’t like the way it *feels* to do that. Instead, I prefer to
step off the board just before it hits the bump, and then hop back on.
So I was going up
a hill, doing just that. When I hopped back on the board and gave it some
throttle, something didn’t feel right. The board was accelerating a bit slower
than I had expected it to. What was that all about?
When I began to hit
the brake to walk the board over the next speed bump, I heard a sound that
absolutely *terrified* me. It was a clicking sound. Which always reminds me of
the dreaded ‘click of death’ that computers will suffer from time to time.
I looked at the
bottom of the board, to see if maybe I had got a small stick, or some debris in
any of the mechanics. But at a cursory glance, everything looked fine. Luckily,
I was already at the top of the hill, and my house was on the bottom of the
other side of the hill. So I was able to roll back home without much difficult.
But I do rely on the brakes to slow me for the speed bump at the bottom of the
hill. With this new clicking shit going on, I wasn’t going slow enough to walk
the board over the bump. Instead I rolled over it, a little faster than I would
have wanted to. But it was no biggie.
When I got inside
my home, I stood my board up by the chargers and gave the motor some juice.
What I saw shocked me. Only *one* of the two motors was spinning. Holy shit. My
Boosted Board was broken. I was crushed.
I mean, on the one
hand, I have a bicycle, and my Evolve Boards, so it’s not like it’s the end of
the world. But I really love my Boosted Board, and it is definitely the best
and safest of all the boards I own. So yeah, I was sad.
Not knowing what
else to do, I plugged the board in for a charge, and figured I’d let time take
a crack at the problem.
The next day looked
kinda wet, and I decided it would be a fine day to bike to work. I’d just got
my bike back in working order – precisely because we’ve been having so much rain
lately. But before I rode out on the bike, I turned on the Boosted Board and
gave it some motor.
Lo and behold, *both*
of the wheels started spinning. I was so happy to see that whatever problem had
plagued me the previous day, had disappeared just as quickly as it had come.
But I still didn’t want to ride the Boosted to work. What if the problem
returned? I certainly didn’t want to be halfway to work, just to find that the
board really was broken.
So I biked to
work. Which really turned out to be a good experience. For the first time, I
got an appreciation of the various grades of hills that the sidewalks I use
have. On an electric board, it can be very tough to feel if you’re going
slightly uphill or not.
But when I got
back home yesterday, I knew I’d have to take the Boosted out for a test run.
Just to make sure that she really was back to working order. I took her up a
hill. Then back down again. I skated to the nearby complex, going around and
around a place that is filled mostly with college students.
It was actually
one of the best joy rides I’ve had in a really long time. But the best part of
all was that, as far as I could tell, the Boosted Board works.
The major
difference now, is that I’ve really changed how I walk my board over those
nasty speed bumps. Before, I would almost race. As if the goal were to see how
quickly I could get the board over the bump, and then jump back on it again.
In doing so, I definitely
felt something that the board didn’t like. Something about going from braking
to neutral to accelerate in the space of a second or two. During that test run,
and probably from here on out, I’ve been taking things a lot slower.
No more of this
quick direction change on the motors. Now I ease up to the speed bumps. I make
sure that the board doesn’t get any bumps that are *too* big when trying to go
over. I jump onto the board with a bit more finesse, and even give it an extra
little kick start to help the motors along.
But I am happy to
say that I rode my Boosted to work today, and I can’t wait for the ride home.
