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Comment by eyeareque | Hacker News Reader

I have over 200 miles on my Dual+, and I have to say it is still so much fun to ride. As far as quality and design goes, they really do great work. I took the controller apart once to see how it worked. You can see they really put a lot of thought and durability into the feel and use. Also, when the belt loosened up a little on me I assumed I would need to take it apart and retighten everything. Nope, you just loosen one allen screw, and a spring pushes the belt to the proper tightness, and then you re-tighten the screw, so easy and well engineered throughout. My only gripe was that you could only go 5 miles (in the fastest mode) riding the way I do. But I see they've addressed that.

I just pre-ordered the new one and I can't wait to ride longer distances.

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Can you or someone else on here offer your thoughts on the safety of these?

I used to be a big longboarder, and after shattering my collarbone coming off a hill, I had to sell it. (My second big accident on it.)

Obviously, not much can be done about the physics of a big-headed, top heavy primate toppling, but do these boards have a way of governing their speed going down hills?

If so, I'm looking forward to buying one. I miss skateboarding.

I've broken both arms in the first 6 months of riding. First time was from a steel plate on the road that made the board stop dead (didn't notice how high it stuck up). Second time I just fell backwards after getting hung up on a bump.

Still ride it almost every day though :)

Thanks for sharing this. I was beginning to wonder if I should substitute my bike for a boosted board for my daily two-mile commute, but then your comment reminded me that riding this on the awful streets of Baltimore would be suicidal.

(I used to be a skateboarder. I know how much pain a tiny pebble can cause.)

I ride through the absolutely horrible streets of midtown Manhattan and I have gone down a couple times, one time where I was digging dirt out of my palms. But really, I think if you are smart about your speed and keep your eyes on the road, the danger is mitigated somewhat. One thing I always do is keep the motors engaged at all times, which is less energy efficient, but at least lets me know if my remote has lost connection with my board since you can feel the sensation of the motors disengaging power.

Ooh, that's no good :/ the controller loses connection when you're riding - is that a fairly common occurrence?

It's not common at all. I always keep the belt engaged because it also keeps the deceleration constant, and I do not know how to brake normally -- so the brakes are the only thing that will save my ass if a car jets out in front. Never had the remote cut off except the one time I forgot to charge the remote. But the beeping about 10 times before it cut off was ample warning. I have never really fell in love with a product before as much as the boosted board - and this is coming from someone who had zero skateboard/longboard experience. Maybe I'm a natural, or maybe it's just dumb simple to learn. I still can't cut corners very well and have problems figuring out the right tightness for my trucks, but that's my hangups, the board is still a great piece of engineering.

The 75MM In Heat wheels are pretty good about small cracks and pebbles. Totally different than regular skateboard wheels. I use them on a traditional longboard and have to hit something pretty big to snag up.

It's only partially the case. I've taken pretty bad spills before because of unfinished road tar that pretty much "ground me to a halt", like quicksand, and also from curbs that I thought I could brace, but instead sent me forward head over heels. Skateboard accidents can be a lot less forgiving than bike ones if they are the kind where your board stops and you keep going.. Though they also can be a lot more forgiving since you are closer to the ground. It's a mix. I don't wear a helmet -- helmets makes me more clumsy. But at the same time, I don't really go in the street much, mostly a sidewalk skater.

You'd be surprised at how much stuff the bigger wheels on a longboard can roll right over. Maybe see if you can find a friend with a longboard to give it a try :)

Still a problem though because you have to be a lot more vigilant on board versus a bike. A bike can somewhat "hop" an obstacle that the wheels might not be able to roll over. The board on the other hand will most likely send you forward as it abruptly stops.

Yeah, bigger, softer wheels + higher speeds + 2000 watt motors doesn't compare to a regular skateboard with small, hard wheels.

That said, it also doesn't compare to bicycles with ~26" air-filled tires. You definitely have to pay close attention to the road surface.

Me thinking: This looks fun, I might want to get one of these!

> I've broken both arms in the first 6 months of riding.

Me closes the tab, backs away slowly....

Somewhat comically when I went to pick up my boosted board from their shop in Mountain View the guy I met shook my hand with his left hand which I thought was weird, but didn't think much about it.

A bit later I asked if he commuted on his boosted board and he said that he did everyday until recently because he had surgery after shattering his right elbow.

I asked, "Not from the boosted board right?"

He smiled and said he had hit a bit of oil.

Didn't exactly inspire confidence.

I don't really think there's a way to make a skateboard safe at speed. Ultimately if the skateboard stops suddenly, you continue to travel at the speed it was going, and unlike a bicycle, nothing is going to absorb damage except your body.

This is the best/worst product testimonial ever.

Probably appeals to the thrill seekers ("you could break an arm but its so fun you'll want to do it again!").

Yes, it certainly appeals to me. I like the idea of doing things dangerous enough that one must actually focus and pay attention.

I went right back to motorcycle-riding after the bolts in my thumb healed up. :-)

wow! that's heavy duty. I've had about 3 falls over 2k miles or so. The first version was a super product with creat fit and finish. I'm assuming v2 will be even better.

The only semi-practical suggestion I have would be to spend a few months at a dojo that teaches safe falling from a height such as judo or aikido. The kinds of falls I'd expect (fast deceleration of the lower body) seem like good candidates for the kind of reactionary falling that judo and aikido do.

While it might help, you will be falling to much harder and uneven surfaces than the training mats in a dojo.

I've taken hard falls on concrete before. It's not fun per se, but it's way better than reacting by posting an arm and having said arm break. Road rash + bruises > pins in arm.

Eventually they teach you to do a fall from a full body height above the ground (~6 feet) which is ~22 km/h fall. Granted, the angles are diffent and forces are somewhat less. But, 20MPH with good gear and technique is generally not that dangerous.

Closest I have personally experienced was a fall off the back of a large horse onto hard packed dirt / loose gravel at a fast trot ~8 - 10mph + 5 vertical feet. But, with the right technique it was basically painless and I did not end up with a bruise or anything.

I doubt that a judo roll will do any good when falling on tarmac at 20mph...

It would prevent you from falling with locked wrists and breaking your arms.

You'd still get scraped up and hurt, of course, but falling at 20 mph and not running into a brick wall doesn't have to result in broken bones.

I did a little judo when I was young (only 3 years IIRC, from 6 to 9) and it saved my life many many times, falling from horses, bikes, motorbikes, anything really, at reasonable speeds and with almost no protection.

When falling from something that's moving, you will continue to move when you hit the ground; to limit hurting yourself you need to roll and not skid. The way to do that is to put yourself into a ball, and to do it by instinct (as of course you don't have time to think about it).

Actually, it does a whole lot. If you have a jacket on, you will avoid getting scraped. And I've fell actually going 20-30 multiple times on the boosted board, as long as you don't fall stiff armed, and have some torque to "roll off" you will be fine. I'm only about 150 pounds though and 5'8", so different body types might not have such a sane strategy.

Would it help to wear full motorcycle-type gear?

Probably, though I'd guess the additional gear would be at odds with what I suspect is an appreciation of minimalism in the product.

This is exactly what many downhill longboarders do. Typically with suits made by places that do motorcycle racing leathers. It's absolutely not a substitute for fall training, however. See my earlier post in this subthread.

I've received this specific advice from legendary ultra-distance inline skater Eddie Matzger, who said that this very training has saved his hide many, many times.

From my own experience skating and teaching skating (inline, not board), one of the easiest ways to get injured in a fall is the "stick your hand out" reflex. Fall training mitigates this, ingraining habits to allow much larger areas of the body to take the impact, and ideally take it rolling. If you're going forward (doing the "superman") and have wrist guards or palm sliders, arms out can be ok. If you end up going more down than out (esp. many backward/side falls), it's likely a broken wrist or arm, right through any guard you might be wearing. (ask me how I know that one...)

Long time street-skater here (30+ years). Not sure that stuff would help as it's pretty different rolling around in a gym vs. getting thrown off your board at 20mph. It also might actually make you ride over your head because you think you can bail and not get hurt. I also don't think pro skaters (inlines/etc...) are good examples because their skill level is already so high; they are operating on a totally different level. They already know how to fall really well because they've fallen a ton. Also, if you are worried about getting hurt, you probably shouldn't ride a skateboard.

The best preparation is just to get a regular skateboard (not a long board) and skate around on it on the sidewalk. This will help you get the balance and board handling down.

I highly recommend learning how to ollie on the regular board. The falling you do in learning how to ollie will help. Even if you can't ollie a boosted board, the board control you learn will help you manage riding over rough pavement. Also the ollie motion of shifting your weight can be used even on long boards to manage obstacles.

Finally, on the regular skateboard learn how to power slide. This will teach you how to balance your weight if the board is sliding sideways.

I did some adult parkour classes. We learned how to break our landings outside on concrete.

No reason you can't take your gym training outside and start falling on hard surfaces.

You should always wear a helmet when riding one, 22 mph + falling or other cars is no joke! I've had to jump off at full speed before to avoid hitting things that would have made the board stop. Like riding a bike there is a risk, so you just have to be aware, try not to ride close to cars, and know how to fall safely. I think you can rent them at a few places--might want to look into that. Be warned though, once you try one you will want to buy it.

I've fallen hard ~5 times over the course of ~1000 miles, but it's a lot less frequent now that I've learned what to watch out for. You do need to be very vigilant on rough/potholey roads + light rail tracks, and very aware/defensive around other vehicles, of course.

If you're going fast in a straight line it can handle a fairly rough road. The slower you're going the more likely an obstacle is to stop the board and throw you off, but of course the faster you're going the more it will hurt if it does :)

Carving + powered wheels + debris also makes it more likely for the board to slide out from under you.

Basically avoid all potholes/rough patches/sand/etc at first and over time take them on more aggressively as you get comfortable. When in doubt go around or stop and walk across.

And wear a fucking helmet.

It does have brakes (regenerative!), which usually work well, unless you need to stop extremely quickly, or there's RF interference and the remote momentarily loses connection (which is pretty rare and usually in the same location every time), or the battery is fully charged (thus nowhere for the energy to go)

But seriously, the brakes work pretty well. You should still learn to footbrake.

>or there's RF interference and the remote momentarily loses connection (which is pretty rare and usually in the same location every time)

o_O if the remote loses connection it doesn't default to gently applying the brakes?

Considering how everyone raves about how much thought has been put into these boards, that seems like a really big oversight!

Yeah, I'm curious why they don't do that. I guess part of the issue is how gently should "gently" be? If you're not expecting it to start breaking it could throw you off. If it's too gentle then there's no point.

If the remote emitted a warning sound a second before it started braking, then slowly started braking, that could work.

Also in my experience RF interference is extremely localized. Chances are it will reconnect once you travel ~15 feet.

BTW here's a map someone started of "dead zones": https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1BSgoslQB-0i16l...

Exactly right. It's hard to arbitrarily pick the "gentle" braking point, and unexpected braking is not great.

Only if you choose an absolute value. Start gentle and then ramp up over the course of 10-15 seconds. It would be easy to add a slight high frequency oscillation to it as well, to make the board vibrate a little as a prompt to explain what it's doing.

It's kind of ridiculous to present that as an unsolvable problem dude.

I've racked up 3000+ miles riding up and down the hills in SF (530 vertical feet over 3.7 miles). 4 falls, 1 going too fast downhill and overcharging the battery (dislocated shoulder), 1 crossing tracks perpendicular slowly, and twice slipping on wet metal. Except for the first time I only managed to get banged up.

Take safety seriously and remember that things can go bad any time, so go slow (but not too slow) when it's riskier. Knowing how to foot break and fall safely are also musts.

For me, it seems to be safer than biking. I had one fall in two years and ~2500 miles of riding, and usually I find that if you hit something, you start naturally running before you even notice you're off your board. I used to have a bad bike crash about once a year, and have been pleasantly surprised so far on the boosted.

I've actually lost balance a couple times while on my board going around 20 and at those speeds I've been lucky to just kind of sprint off the board still standing. It's definitely an art though, I don't think it's always possible, especially at higher speeds

Were the crashes with cars or obstacles/terrain?

Another anecdote here, no prior boarding experience, I've put over 500 miles on my boosted board and only fallen once. I ride full speed in the street ~90% of the time.

If you learn to "run off" the board, you'll never get hurt. The reason people get hurt while longboarding (electric or not) is not because of poor balance or environmental hazards, but their inexperience with simply continuing to run in the direction they are traveling if the board comes out from under their feet. This is by no means an affront to those who have been injured longboarding, as I myself have been situationally unaware and injured myself.

You can practice running off the board by riding into a garden hose (this will also prevent damage to the board or trucks). You can make the hose more or less taut to make the stopping intensity higher or lower. What you are trying to do is maintain your momentum in the direction you are traveling, and your goal is to make this such a natural reaction that your body will automatically do it when something unexpected knocks the board out from under your feet.

This only works if you're going slowly, otherwise you eat asphalt...or whatever it is you have in front of you.

I used to be a hardcore longboarder. I'd burn down mountain roads. The worst injuries I experienced were the super sudden stops where human reflexes just aren't going to cut it.

"Making it a natural reaction" simply doesn't jive with physics when you're going a certain speed. Sorry, but what you said is dumb hippy logic.

I definitely wasn't writing this to the hardcore longboarders, it's my training strategy for city commuters and it has been quite successful in practice.

If you're burning down mountain roads my advice would shift to suggesting knee and elbow pads.

San Francisco ER doc here. See a lot of older dudes who weren't skateboarders to begin with breaking bones on these and more traditional longboards. I am a former skateboarder, and certainly don't think that longboarding is inherently unsafe but when you add in a motor and make it easy for someone to learn to use a skateboard without putting in the time (and inevitable falls) at lower velocities, and compound that with a hilly city with a lot of unpredictable traffic, badness occurs. Just be careful, wear a helmet, skate defensively and please don't play in the streets until you're ready.

I've done about 700miles on mine in a year. Amazing to drive, only had two spills. No real damage.

One thing I do suggest to everyone is to get a proper full-face helmet. The longboarding kind, not motorbike (lighter). It makes the ride less windy and cars take you more seriously in traffic.

Plus, at 22mph you can do some serious damage to your moneymaker. A $200 helmet will stop that. Totally worth looking like a bit nerdier.

Can't wait to get the new version of the board. With daily riding, it amortized against Uber in 3 months.

Since you seem to ride one of these a lot, I'm curious if you ever used a long board before. How you would feel if you had to use a long board instead of a boosted board for a day?

It seems insane to me to charge a skateboard, but since I've moved to a very hilly area it does make sense, just maybe not at 1500 bucks for me.

Hi - one of the founders here. I'd never skateboarded or longboarded before working on this project. I found I used a Boosted board very differently than I would use a longboard - for me it's replaced many car trips and many Uber/Lyft rides. This made up for the price quite quickly.

It might sound like a lot of money but once you try one you're going to see how much fun they are. They really are well built too. I think the same loaded longboard without a motor or batteries is over 300 dollars. Boosted didn't go cheap any aspects of the board, it very well built and designed.

I have used a longboard and I also grew up skateboarding/surfing/snowboarding/etc. I also have a carver board. I love all types of skateboards, but this one is something else. I would say it most reminds me of snowboarding, especially when carving at high speeds.

It's replaced my car, so $1500 was absolutely worth it for me. Solves the last mile problem perfectly and ALSO is incredibly fun.

I did longboard before - not sure why skateboarders seem to dislike the idea of electric boards so much.

I'll buy your old one once you get the Gen 2

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