RichieV

This is for one of the DCESK8 crew's meetups. We are a very active group, many times meeting up for different rides throughout the week; in fact there was a pretty sizeable group ride last night despite the cold weather, though I wasn't able to attend. There's a lively Telegram group (like an online chat room) which most of the members participate in; here's the link. If there's an impromptu ride, it'll show up in the chat so I encourage anyone who's interested to join in the Telegram group. @Neil (yanex), it was nice meeting you on Sunday We definitely need more EUC representation in the crew!

Were you wearing hand/wrist protectors or elbow guards or were you unprotected in those areas? If not, do you think they would have prevented the breaks? If you were wearing protection, I hate to think how bad things would have been if you weren't!

Yes, that's me in the white full-face helmet holding my own in the middle of the pack but not quite keeping pace with the speed demons. The skateboards with the dune buggy wheels, or all- terrain (AT) wheels, are from several makers; some are even DIY builds. A couple of the more prominent makers for high-end ($2.5k plus) skateboards which sport those AT wheels are Lacroix and Kaly.NYC. A number of riders in the video were on one of their offerings. In terms of performance, they can go just as far and just as fast (or faster) as an EUC but portability is an issue and so is maneuverability. Ernesto Clark of Kaly.NYC who is based in Brooklyn came down that weekend with some demo units for people to test ride; he's the one in the video showing amazement at his first encounter with DC's infamous jumbo slice. It seems it was a good move because since then four members of the DCESK8 crew have purchased Kaly skateboards!

The more the merrier. Those scooters are the gateway drug to EUCs. Just make sure to enforce safe riding habits when they join in the fun.

The DCESK8 crew hosted members of the NYC Eboarding Collective here in DC the weekend of November 3. At one point we had 80+ riders on the street at the same time comprised mostly of electric skateboarders but several EUCers were present as well as some escooters and OneWheelers. @Tishawn Fahie, a maniac on his Monster 100v, managed to capture some of the weekend's activities (while at the same time out-riding every single one of us) and produced one of his always-entertaining vids which was just released:

Possibly! There's a Telegram group chat (called DCESK8 I think) and I recall seeing some discussion about Union Station this past weekend. They do a lot of impromptu meetups and Telegram seems to be their primary method of setting those up. The group is primarily electric skateboarders but all riders are welcome.

Just a reminder that tonight at 7pm the DC ESK8 gang will meet up at Cantina Pepita in Arlington (close to Ballston) for a group ride as they've done almost every Wednesday for the past few months. Typical rides go to Georgetown then a stop somewhere in the city for the ESK8ers to charge up and socialize and finally ride back to Arlington where the gang typically hangs out for a bit more. Come join! It's a large friendly group and new people are joining in all the time. Would be nice to have more ewheel representation, so hopefully I'll see you there :-)

I can't say I know too much about the legalities myself. I know that some parts of the trails fall under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service and have different rules (read "no EUCs or anything similar allowed"), but I've never encountered any issues with law enforcement on the trails anywhere in Virginia (or anywhere else) that I've ridden. I look at it like driving a car just above the speed limit. Sure it's technically illegal but it's very unlikely you'll be stopped for it.

Happening tonight...

Just a reminder that if you're amenable to mixed group rides, there's the Northern Virginia ESK8 meetup... ... that has been convening almost every Wednesday evening in Arlington. There's always a decent sized group (10+ people, largest group ride was around 25) and everyone's been very friendly. So far I've been the only EUC rider with all the rest riding eSkateboards. Join up and help me represent our side of things and display the joys of ewheeling!

There's this ESK8 meetup in Arlington that rides at least every other week. Next one is scheduled for tomorrow night. Check out Northern Virginia ESK8 - Electric Skateboard Community http://meetu.ps/c/3Qjt1/tkbNW/d on Meetup

This is not my video; I saw it on Reddit and figured I'd share it here. Wish I knew myself which scooter it was.

Scooter battery exploding. Wow!!!

The choices pertaining to this topic: Completely unscathed Light cuts and bruises only. Nothing that wouldn't heal in a few weeks, and nothing that impedes mobility/range-of-motion. No noticeable impact to quality of life. Minor injury such as a sprain, minor break, or deeper cuts. Takes more than a month to heal and/or impedes mobility/range-of-motion. Quality of life has been noticeably impacted/diminished but not seriously so. Major injury such as concussion or serious fracture or punctured organs or something similarly alarming. Injury was possibly life threatening and required immediate medical attention. Takes several months to heal and with major impact to quality of life but recoverable to relatively normal activity afterward. Major injury which resulted in permanent impairment such as loss of limb, brain damage, loss of vision, etc. No possibility of return to normal activity. **NEW CHOICE** Faith in humanity has been damaged. Soul has suffered booboo requiring numerous views of cute cat videos and/or consumption of ice cream

So my understanding of it is that there are three rotational axes that apply to a body in three dimensional space, in this case an EUC: yaw, roll, and pitch. We riders care about yaw because that determines which direction we're pointing, but it doesn't figure into the wheel's software. Roll is used to determine if the wheel is lying on it's side, and if it is switch off. It is this last one, pitch, that is important to balance and propulsion. At its core, an EUC has only one job: maintain neutral pitch (i.e. stay balanced). When a wheel is at neutral pitch (or what we have calibrated as neutral pitch), no power is applied to the motor. Since gravity is always trying to pitch the wheel forward or backward, power is pretty much constantly applied to maintain neutrality/balance. We riders purposely pitch the wheel forward with our lean, causing it to apply power to the motor to correct the imbalance. So it is with this line of thought that I say balance and propulsion are the same, with propulsion essentially being an effect of the wheel trying to seek balance. Is this not the case?