Crashing, Forged in Fire, Open, Didn’t Open

On Friday after work I met up with Clay at Brookside Market to hang. The place was an absolute zoo because everyone wanted a burger from the burger tent. Evidently this guy recently won the best burger in Naples award and the word is out. The line was at least 50 people long.

I got there before Clay so I went in and grabbed a beer. I was surprised when my neighbor and his wife that live a couple doors down from me said hi. Evidently they are frequent patrons of the place and come a couple times a week. When Clay and his One Wheel buddy Cam got there they hopped right in the burger line. I talked to them as they waited and then threw Clay a couple bucks to grab me a grilled cheese when he finally got to order. I rode the ET Max there and got the customary looks of bewilderment. It makes me laugh.

I both played and watched pickleball on Saturday and Sunday. I played with the woman I am friends with at Talis Park just like I have for almost a year. I’m not quite sure what that is going to look like going forward since she sold her place and is moving out this week. The other residents there we play with all know, like, and enjoy playing with me so I might still show up if invited.

I also rode an EUC over to the US Open both days to watch some of the tournament. It was packed. I grabbed myself some nice pickleball shirts to play in, lunch on Sunday and answered a dozen questions about EUCs while I was there.

On Sunday afternoon I made arrangements to meet up with Jason to do some riding. I suggested he just meet me at my house and we can leave from there. Although I have ridden with him a number of times he never had been to my home yet. As usual Elsa was timid but after awhile allowed Jason to pet her, a little.

Before we headed out I let him try the various wheels I have obtained since I last saw him a couple months ago, the Mten Mini, V13, V8S, and the demo ET Max. He couldn’t ride the Mini but he liked the other three wheels. For the main ride I was on the ET Max and Jason was on his Veteran Patton.

We rode to the beach via the Greenway. I took him on some routes he had not been on before, including a brief stop at the Cabana for a beer. By the time we got back my ET Max was getting low on battery. I encouraged Jason to try the ET Max some more, just inside my development since it is closed off to traffic. He agreed to try it some more.

He did a number of loops up and down the road. I eventually hopped on my V13 to follow him and see how he was liking it. I was about 100 feet behind him when I saw it happen, a speed wobble. Wobbles are a thing while riding EUCs where the wheel can start oscillating back and forth and can amplify. If they are not controlled they can result in a rider coming off the wheel. Well all of a sudden I see Jason wobbling and within a second or two he fell off the wheel backwards, ass first. The wheel tumbled end over end as he came to a stop. Geezus.

I rode up and checked on him. I think he was embarrassed and angry that he fell. He almost immediately got back up and hopped back on the wheel. I think he didn’t want to let the crash deter him. He did a few more slower laps as I waited in the driveway. When he finally stopped riding I could tell he was a bit freaked out. He said that was the worst crash he ever had. I told him I thought he was doing at least 20 when he went down. He said he was doing closer to 30 based on the wheel speedometer.

He said the wheel started to wobble and he just could not bring it under control. The ET Max is 20 pounds heavier than his Veteran Patton and has a much taller profile. Jason is not a big/tall guy and only weighs around 135lbs so I think it was physically difficult for him to control the wobble. When he came back I got to do a quick inspection of the wheel. It seemed at first that it just took some scrapes on the front metal frame which was good news. Jason hung for a little bit and drank a Cayman Jack with me as we talked about the crash and other things.

After he headed home I gave the wheel another once over. This time I realized there was more damage than I initially thought. The rear top frame took a shot that bent the metal in and down, misaligning it with the top cover, ugh. I needed to try to fix that. Demo wheels routinely get beaten up but I typically am not the one that does it. Sunday night I did charge the wheel to full as I intended to do a range test on Monday, the day I took off.

After playing pickleball I stopped and got myself a deadblow hammer on the way home, the tool I hoped to use to fix the bent frame. These type of hammers have no rebound and generate a lot more impact force. It took some patience but after a lot of Forged in Fire style hammering I got the bent metal close to it’s original shape which made me feel better. I didn’t wind up pushing off for my range test until almost 2PM, later than I hoped.

The ride out to my old house was long, totaling over three hours and windy, which is never fun. The cross wind made it difficult at times for me to stay in the bike lane and puts strain on my lower body which has to fight the wind pressure. When I rolled by my old house I didn’t see anything noticeably different other than a pile of mulch in the driveway. It always feels weird when I go by my old place. It’s not so much nostalgia as much as being thankful I am no longer chained to the self imposed constraints that living there placed upon me.

When I stopped and checked my roughly halfway stats I thought I should be in the clear to get home. It turned out to be much more challenging than expected. The wheel started to generate low battery beeps around 49 miles into the ride. The bad news was I had 3-4 miles remaining to get home. Those miles were long and slow as I had to reduce speed greatly to make sure I could get home without pushing the wheel. I was underwhelmed with the range I wound up getting, around 53 miles.

I was beat up and tired after the ride. I spent the remainder of the night working editing the video. I was so tired that I didn’t even to open the three boxes that came for me on Monday. One of those boxes was my new GoPro 12.