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Comment by zolbrek | Hacker News Reader

I had a good laugh with a co-worker a few weeks back when we saw a chick wearing sunglasses with her hands deep in her hoody pockets riding a similar single-wheeled vehicle at an intersection. Looking cool trumps common sense for certain personality types.

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These sort of snide remarks are so closed minded, maybe she spent a lot of time honing her craft. I can probably ride my brakeless track bike in SF traffic with a higher safety margin than most people on a normal road bike. Don't underestimate human skill.

I know a handful of people that are absolute zealots when it comes to One Wheel and electric unicycles, riding all kinds of crazy contraptions, and doing so with incredible skill. They all still wear helmets and pads, all it takes is some wet leaves and you’re going to have a really bad day.

You sound like the people who explain that they're good drivers while using instagram on a phone because they have a lot of experience driving cars and using phones.

Which is unfortunate because one of these things has an energy of 1MJ and the other has an energy of 50kJ, claiming some sort of equivalency is totally unrealistic.

You’re right, they’re not equivalent at all. When you’re in a car you have all manner of protection around you to shelter you from injury if you crash. The other, uh

It's not about you, it's about hurting others, you're welcome to set your risk tolerance wherever you like, the problem is how your actions effect others.

Competence is a larger factor in safety than equipment in many cases, yes, which is why the girl is probably still alive and uninjured. Even so, I wouldn't mind having some safety equipment as a backup.

Competence is a large factor in not getting into unsafe operating conditions. Once outside the envelope, it's only a matter of time before you're unlucky.

Experience doesn’t matter. Riding one of those things with your hands in your pockets is 100% downside, 0% upside.

It’s like riding by bike in traffic without touching the handlebars: sure, as an experience cyclist I can. But why on earth would I?

So you can reply to text messages, obvs!

The tiktoks look better when you can lean back and get the empty handlebars in the shot, it gives a framing device to make the shot look authentic.

(i don't actually do tiktok, but here's an insta reel: https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cv5UZvpMhSt/?igshid=MWZjMTM2O... )

Until you drop a chain with clipless shoes with clipless shoes on, so you can't even shoe brake very well like BMX riders do. I had that happen with MTB shoes on, and I completely wore down one of the lugs. I've also accidentally unclipped, before I switched to running my Time ATAC cleats reversed which I think is an old messenger trick.

And that is why I only ride my NJS frame on country roads, not in the city anymore :)

I'm a strong advocate for front brakes, but to me it seems damn near impossible to drop a chain on a fixed gear transmission. Some foreign object would need to be overlapping the chain plane somehow, which sounds like you're already crashing anyway. I think it's far more likely for the chain to outright break.

I've had it happen a few times, and on a few different bikes. Usually the cause is a chain that is too loose, and especially if the wheel is cocked to the left due to the drive side of the wheel being pulled forward from hard pedaling.

One chain tensioner on the drive side is a good preventative measure, I prefer both sides since it makes things easy.

So you intentionally increase the danger of the situation (by not fitting brakes) to look cool.

Got it.

That's not why, I ride without brakes because it fundamentally changes the space I am operating in. If I want to ride with a reasonable safety margin (I do) I have to think about the world in a completely different way. I enjoy that.

Think of it akin to driving a little car with skinny tires on twisty roads. You're shrinking your envelope so you can spend more time near the edges where it's fun.

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