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Am I gonna' be that guy? sigh I guess I am.

Hiro doesn't use a skateboard you're thinking of "YT" the courier.

Hiro uses a high-performance pizza-delivery-specific car early on and then later a motorcycle that has wheels that aren't even continuous discs, but made up of many individually coordinated linear actuators with grip-pads on the end.

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And then YT makes a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo in Stephenson's follow-up book, "The Diamond Age."

Woah! I'll have to re-read that.

YT's skateboard introduces the telescopic contact smartwheels pretty early on as a Courier essential.

I don't recall Hiro's motorcycle being much a part of the story, it might also have had the smartwheels but isn't discussed until later...

Yep. His motorcycle is introduced in great detail and then afterwards Stephenson deliberately trolls us with "...after that, it's just a chase scene" and it's never mentioned again. ;)

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