Neighborhood Carbon

It was a good week for electric skateboarding for me. First off, Evolve has emailed me about the status of my broken Carbon series. They’ve taken it in, fixed it, and pending a test run, will be mailing it back to me. That is music to my ears, exactly what I wanted to hear. Those guys at Evolve are great.

But without my Carbon series this weekend, I took my Snubnose back to Miami. It was great to skate that old neighborhood again. Miami, in general, has better surfaces, smoother roads, than Gainesville. It also is completely flat. Which in my case, is an advantage. It means I can carve around without breaking at scary hills. It means I don’t have to worry about using too much battery going up hill. While contrary to how skateboarders may traditionally ride, I find the backstreets of Miami to be perfect for electric skateboards.

Then there’s the kids. After skating all around the neighborhood, I saw a group of kids playing on the street, close to my house. What was different from the last time I had skated there? One of them was skating around on an electric scooter. It looked like a larger scooter, a cheaper scooter. It was very likely the same model that I saw the kids in the Gainesville ghetto riding.

As I rolled past these kids, doing my best to show off, one of the boys looked up at me and his face lit up. “The Electric Longboard!” he shouted.

“Yeah!” I said, and gave him the cowabunga sign. It let me know that he saw me, he remembered, and he googled. If there’s a sad point to this story, it’s that, despite being a rolling advertisement for Evolve, most kids will wind up with the cheaper toys. While this is bad for Evolve, it’s good for me. I remain the coolest kid on the block. And in a few years, when Junior gets a job, I think I know what he’ll be saving his minimum wages for.

I also, for the first time, skated at the neighborhood next to mine. While difficult to get to, it was nice to have a change of scenery. But it turns out, the neighborhood next  to mine is terrible to skate it. There are speed bumps everywhere. It made me long to have my Carbon series back. Because the Carbon series opens doors. The speed bumps that my Snubnose pulls a 180 at, are easy pickings for the Carbon series. So, oh carbon fiber next generation board of mine, come home safe, and come home soon.