Two is better than one, The Hammer
I picked Christine up from the airport yesterday. Last night I gave her a surprise I picked up on Friday, a used One Wheel XR. I bought it from a kid in Cape Coral which is nearly an hour away. The only reason I bought it was because he agreed to bring it to me. The kid was about my height, longer hair and looked like he weighed about 130lbs soaking wet. He owned the board since new and had put almost 2800 miles on it. The board looked well used but I did a quick test ride and everything seemed to still be in good working order.
The board had a nearly brand new tire and a good one at that. It also had hub savers, 3rd party foot pads and a set of “fangs” on the front. Fangs are small wheels that are designed to allow the board to be able to drop onto them in certain situations. In some cases if a rider is skilled enough they would allow you to recover from a cut out situation similar to what Christine had.
Christine was surprised and excited. I told her that to me the big advantage is we can both ride One Wheels. With me being on an EUC which can go much faster than a OneWheel I think it inadvertently pushed her to ride faster. With us on PEVs with similar capabilities I am hoping it will help curb the possibilities of going faster than what is safe.
Over this past weekend I put at least 30 miles on the XR making sure it was good to go. It rides great. This board has slightly less power and 5-6 less miles of range than my GT but it should be a non-issue as 15 miles is about as far as I would ever want to go on a OneWheel anyway. I look forward to getting out there for a tandem OW ride soon.
I know I have made reference to this in the past but I feel like bringing it up again. It is the scenario where a person makes a decision, performs an action or says something that they know is not in their best interest and then laments the consequences of it. I can certainly raise my hand as being guilty of this during various times of my life. Well the doing things not in best interest part at least. I think for the most part I am self aware enough to accept full responsibility for what happens as a result and deal with the shrapnel. The best you can hope for is to learn from the situation and not hit yourself in the face with a hammer, again…