EUC Crash @ 40 MPH (Was: Please wear safety gear)

[Smoother]

1 hour ago, who_the said:

Agreed, and yes for sure, I like my ankles intact and upright.  But I've seen no evidence high-top shoes or boots offer additional protection for sprains or breaks, and have instead read several studies that determined they don't offer any additional protection compared to low-tops.

Having said all that, I also have a high-top version of the Timberlands, which are waterproof and also very comfortable.

Granted. I was thinking more about abrasion and cuts and gouges, as one tumbles down the road with an angry EUC flailing around in the same vicinity, and possibly a curb or other edge to complicate things.  I should have been more clear.  Maybe it just doesn't happen at EUC speeds.  What I do know, is a whack to the ankle bone is bloody painful.  I have a pair of really light ankle boots that don't reduce my foot mobility at all.  And then some days I ride in steel toed work boots.  Both seem to work ok for me.

[Marty Backe]

24 minutes ago, Smoother said:

Granted. I was thinking more about abrasion and cuts and gouges, as one tumbles down the road with an angry EUC flailing around in the same vicinity, and possibly a curb or other edge to complicate things.  I should have been more clear.  Maybe it just doesn't happen at EUC speeds.  What I do know, is a whack to the ankle bone is bloody painful.  I have a pair of really light ankle boots that don't reduce my foot mobility at all.  And then some days I ride in steel toed work boots.  Both seem to work ok for me.

I dealt with bruised ankle bones for months when I started (awful). Thankfully I haven't whacked my ankles in a couple of years now. Maybe it's only a newbie phenomenon? 

[Unventor]

7 hours ago, Rehab1 said:

 



I thought the point were to wear the armor🤔, not to dress up your wheel😉

[Darrell Wesh]

@Rehab1 you cut the mudguard in half !?

[Jerome]

When you take tilt-back off Gotways you are totally dependent on your ability to stay within operational limits. The final warning beeps can't be used as an effective guide to prevent face planting. When the system receives a spike that exceeds operating parameters it will initiate the "final warning beeps" and after a series of readings after the warning if no reduction of speed is detected, cutoff. The problem is without tilt-back forcing an immediate reduction of speed one can be on the ground before the brain can process the beeps, no matter how loud they are made. 

Some people will crash with little to no protection and walk away with minor injuries, while others will be geared up and require 911. You have nothing to lose by wearing protection, but the focus on avoiding crashes (staying well within wheel operating parameters, riding skill, road attentiveness, avoiding risky maneuvers, etc.) rather than surviving them would probably be better served. 

I love watching the videos of the west coast and east coast rider's pushing the limits (eucs, eska8, scooters, ONEWHEEL), but doing .. not so much. Bless them and I hope they continued to have fun with few problems.

[Rehab1]

10 hours ago, Unventor said:

I thought the point were to wear the armor🤔, not to dress up your wheel😉

Isn’t it cute?

2 hours ago, Darrell Wesh said:

@Rehab1 you cut the mudguard in half !?

Yes I sliced and diced the guard the first week I owned it. I like the looks and profile of the tire so why hide it. 

Edited March 20, 2019 by Rehab1

[Duf]

I agree it's great the rider was wearing good gear to protect him from the crash.  However unless I missed it, why is nobody talking about avoiding the crash in the first place by riding more responsibly?  Holy shit, cars on the left, pedestrians on the right and in a group ride in close proximity of other riders.... and the rider is pushing an MSX to cut out speeds.  I must just be the crazy one that thinks about these things.

[Smoother]

11 minutes ago, Duf said:

I agree it's great the rider was wearing good gear to protect him from the crash.  However unless I missed it, why is nobody talking about avoiding the crash in the first place by riding more responsibly?  Holy shit, cars on the left, pedestrians on the right and in a group ride in close proximity of other riders.... and the rider is pushing an MSX to cut out speeds.  I must just be the crazy one that thinks about these things.

No, you're not crazy. Honestly, I was thinking it, but never put it into words.  @Jerome touches on it three posts up.  But yes, killing all the warnings and tilt back and THEN racing (a very fast eboard) is the horse that should be going in front of this cart that everyone is talking about.

ESL?(putting the horse before the cart: to do things in the wrong order:)

Edited March 20, 2019 by Smoother

[kasenutty]

No one wins when people race on Electric Unicycles  

[Marty Backe]

2 hours ago, Duf said:

I agree it's great the rider was wearing good gear to protect him from the crash.  However unless I missed it, why is nobody talking about avoiding the crash in the first place by riding more responsibly?  Holy shit, cars on the left, pedestrians on the right and in a group ride in close proximity of other riders.... and the rider is pushing an MSX to cut out speeds.  I must just be the crazy one that thinks about these things.

I've learned to not judge too harshly because when you're in the moment (actually there participating), things are not quite so black & white as they can seem when viewed from afar (sitting in front of a computer screen).  What you see here is a typical EUC group ride amongst high energy enthusiasts. At least it's been my experience with the vast number of California group rides that I've participated in.  I've seen first hand similar group behavior with E-boarders and Onewheeler's.

Maybe other places they are more sedate 

I have ridden with these exact guys and everyone is responsible, caring, etc. Yes, some people have a higher risk tolerance than others (me) and sometimes suffer the consequences. But they have big passions for EUCs and are living the EUC life to its fullest, IMHO.

Edited March 20, 2019 by Marty Backe

[Smoother]

3 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

I've learned to not judge too harshly because when you're in the moment (actually there participating), things are not quite so black & white as they can seem when viewed from afar (sitting in front of computer screen).  What you see here is a typical EUC group ride amongst high energy enthusiasts. At least it's been my experience with the vast number of California group rides that I've participated in.  I've seen first hand similar group behavior with E-boarders and Onewheeler's.

Maybe other places they are more sedate 

I have ridden with these exact guys and everyone is responsible, caring, etc. Yes, some people have a higher risk tolerance than others (me) and sometimes suffer the consequences. But they have big passions for EUCs and are living the EUC life to its fullest, IMHO.

It easy to get caught up in the competitive speed thingy, we are men (mostly) after all!, racing is what we do.  I have been induced into two contests of speed while EUCing, one against an eboarder I ran into from time to time.  That was the first time I heard "please decelerate".  Another time was against a shirtless guy on inline skates.  He smoked me, but I was wary of a violent tilt back, and there were a lot of people about so I didn't push it.  I didn't know one could go that fast on inline skates.  Both times King Songs un-removable safety features (or the fear of them) prevented me from smearing myself across the road Smoother-spread; no seeds.

Edited March 21, 2019 by Smoother

[Darrell Wesh]

2 hours ago, Smoother said:

No, you're not crazy. Honestly, I was thinking it, but never put it into words.  @Jerome touches on it three posts up.  But yes, killing all the warnings and tilt back and THEN racing (a very fast eboard) is the horse that should be going in front of this cart that everyone is talking about.

ESL?(putting the horse before the cart: to do things in the wrong order:)

What eboard was that?

[Smoother]

29 minutes ago, Darrell Wesh said:

What eboard was that?

That's a good question, those little wheels must have been absolutely whizzing around. 

[Unventor]

23 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

I could buy a nice wheel for what I've been spending on safety gear. But we both know it's actually cheap in the long run. And it's like lenses for nice cameras - you keep your lenses while moving to new cameras.

That is how I recommend customers to do when asking on adwise on ces vs lens budget...working for a msjor brand starting with C....

Just in this case the decission is wheather to buy extra wheels or spend it on YOUR body. 

I am thinking real hard getting that xion long jacket despite having a POC DH jacket already. 

Main reason(s):

1) Both are fairly fast to put on and you have a lot of zones protected by 3DO pads. 

2) On the POC you can only remove cheast and back plate and not designed for machine washing. On th Xion you can remove any pads to your liking.

3) Both goes under any jacked, weather it is rain coat, mc outer jacket or t-shirt in summer heat.

Down side is the mesh fabric making the jacket do not handle road rash that well on either Xion and POC.

[Marty Backe]

@Rehab1, I was hoping you'd answer my questions on those shoulder pads - I'm itching to pull the trigger 

[LanghamP]

3 hours ago, Duf said:

I agree it's great the rider was wearing good gear to protect him from the crash.  However unless I missed it, why is nobody talking about avoiding the crash in the first place by riding more responsibly?  Holy shit, cars on the left, pedestrians on the right and in a group ride in close proximity of other riders.... and the rider is pushing an MSX to cut out speeds.  I must just be the crazy one that thinks about these things.

EUCs are not really raceable, because the top speed then becomes the crash speed. 

However, those riders were dressed to crash, so they were riding in such a way that they expected to crash. That's not a bad thing because you do want to see your limits, and crashes on skateboards and EUC are low enough that neither body nor vehicle is particularly injured. In comparison, motorcycle group rides with crashes are gruesome, expensive, and always have people standing around for hours.

 

[Duf]

47 minutes ago, Marty Backe said:

I've learned to not judge too harshly because when you're in the moment (actually there participating), things are not quite so black & white as they can seem when viewed from afar (sitting in front of computer screen).  What you see here is a typical EUC group ride amongst high energy enthusiasts. At least it's been my experience with the vast number of California group rides that I've participated in.  I've seen first hand similar group behavior with E-boarders and Onewheeler's.

Maybe other places they are more sedate 

I have ridden with these exact guys and everyone is responsible, caring, etc. Yes, some people have a higher risk tolerance than others (me) and sometimes suffer the consequences. But they have big passions for EUCs and are living the EUC life to its fullest, IMHO.

Marty I appreciate and respect your opinion and I am sure knowing them personally makes it harder to call out was clearly irresponsible riding.  I don't question their passion, I question knowingly riding in this manner in an environment that was clearly not safe for doing so.  This wasn't an accident. He didn't hit a rock, a pothole, or have an animal dart out in front of him, he just dropped the hammer.  He is far from alone in this type of behavior, we see it more and more with the growth of EUC/PEV ownership.  This behavior is reinforced when the individuals receive tons of thumbs up, congratulations, and praise for riding at the machine limits.  

I know this sort of stuff goes on constantly in group rides, that doesn't make it ok in my book.   

If you want to ride in an isolated environment at machine limits and you go down, that's fine, that is your risk tolerance.  But, when you do that in an environment where you could easily harm others that didn't sign up for your risk, I'm not ok with that and never will be.

Hey it would be a lot easier for me to just shut up and roll my eyes when I see yet another example of this sort of stuff going on and not point it out.  But I continue to do so because it needs to be said, even if it only gives pause to a handful of individuals or two to think more about responsible riding, it's worth it.

I'm sure this will be talked about a lot on Sunday night. 

 

[Marty Backe]

4 minutes ago, Duf said:

Marty I appreciate and respect your opinion and I am sure knowing them personally makes it harder to call out was clearly irresponsible riding.  I don't question their passion, I question knowingly riding in this manner in an environment that was clearly not safe for doing so.  This wasn't an accident. He didn't hit a rock, a pothole, or have an animal dart out in front of him, he just dropped the hammer.  He is far from alone in this type of behavior, we see it more and more with the growth of EUC/PEV ownership.  This behavior is reinforced when the individuals receive tons of thumbs up, congratulations, and praise for riding at the machine limits.  

I know this sort of stuff goes on constantly in group rides, that doesn't make it ok in my book.   

If you want to ride in an isolated environment at machine limits and you go down, that's fine, that is your risk tolerance.  But, when you do that in an environment where you could easily harm others that didn't sign up for your risk, I'm not ok with that and never will be.

Hey it would be a lot easier for me to just shut up and roll my eyes when I see yet another example of this sort of stuff going on and not point it out.  But I continue to do so because it needs to be said, even if it only gives pause to a handful of individuals or two to think more about responsible riding, it's worth it.

I'm sure this will be talked about a lot on Sunday night. 

 

I guess we can agree to disagree 

I just don't see where they were putting anyone else at risk. There were people on a sidewalk, probably 10+ feel away to the side. How's that any different from a car accident that could occur in the street? It would be a freakish accident that would send a car into the sidewalk. Likewise, it would be freakish for a modern wheel to veer off the street and up onto the sidewalk.

I would agree with you if they were riding on the sidewalk, but they were in the street.

Hey, nobody has to shut up  If you want to be a safety Nazi, you're welcome to it (juuuust kidding )  It's good to have different opinions expressed and I'm always willing to change my mind. As of this moment you haven't won me over though.

Maybe I shouldn't express an opinion regarding riders that I personally know - too biased 

[Smoother]

On 3/21/2019 at 12:43 AM, Marty Backe said:

Hey, nobody has to shut up  If you want to be a safety Nazi, you're welcome to it (juuuust kidding )  It's good to have different opinions expressed and I'm always willing to change my mind. As of this moment you haven't won me over though.

Maybe I shouldn't express an opinion regarding riders that I personally know - too biased 

It's a delicate balancing act, voicing one's opinion, while not offending someone, etc. We don't want people to hold back from sharing an experience from fear of being ridiculed, or told what idiots they were.  And the continual effort to try and convey the desired speaking tone while writing is not easy either.  Things get misunderstood, tempers flair, feelings get hurt.

This is why I chose not to voice my opinion on this crash (exactly what @Duf said) and because sometimes I feel like one of the resident safety Nazis too.  "Wear your pads" "watch out for tilt back" "be careful around pedestrians" blah, blah, blah. I thought I would give this one a wide birth and let others (@duff, @jacob) take it on. 

This is overall, a hugely positive forum.  Even when we "fight" we rarely resort to the down vote, and usually make up (quietly, after a period of time).  I would like it to stay that way, and continue to be a place where people can feel safe to report stuff that they know someone will take issue with.

I hope that we, myself included can take issue while still conveying a tone that is none judgmental. A tall order, I know.

Having said all that, I was a bit surprised that it took almost two full pages before someone mentioned (what to me was clearly) the elephant in the room.

 

 

Edited March 23, 2019 by Smoother

[Marty Backe]

10 minutes ago, Smoother said:

It's a delicate balancing act, voicing one's opinion, while not offending someone, etc. We don't want people to hold back from sharing an experience from fear of being ridiculed, or told what idiots they were.  And the continual effort to try and convey the desired speaking tone while writing is not easy either.  Things get misunderstood, tempers flair, feelings get hurt.

This is why I chose not to voice my opinion on this crash (exactly what @Duf said) and because sometimes I feel like one of the resident safety Nazis too.  "Wear your pads" "watch out for tilt back" "be careful around pedestrians" etc, etc, etc. I thought I would give this one a wide birth and let others (@duff, @jacob) take it on. 

This is overall, a hugely positive forum.  Even when we "fight" we rarely resort to the down vote, and usually make up (quietly, after a period of time).  I would like it to stay that way, and continue to be a place where people can feel safe to report stuff that they know someone will take issue with.

I hope that we, myself included can take issue while still conveying a tone that is none judgmental. A tall order, I know.

Having said all that, I was a bit surprised that it took almost two full pages before someone mentioned (what to me was clearly) the elephant in the room.

Well said regarding the communications. I'm open to being criticized or disagreed with. My feelings won't be hurt (if they were, brokeback mountain would have done me in a long time ago )

Looks like I disagree with you too on this particular incident, but I can overlook this since you're right on most other topics.

[Smoother]

18 minutes ago, Marty Backe said:

Looks like I disagree with you too on this particular incident, but I can overlook this since you're right on most other topics.

To be clear, What shocked me about this thread was that everyone was saying "wow, so good he was wearing protection" and no one was saying "why did he turn off all the wheel's safety features and then race as fast as he could? presumably knowing that eventually the wheel will just give out" I guess that's not exactly what Duf said.

But....to elaborate on what Duf was saying, once you come off a 35-40lb wheel at speed you have lost control of that wheel.  Motor vehicle operators can get ticked for failure to maintain control of their vehicle.  I would say this is similar.  The fact that the pedestrians were 10 feet away, is spurious, because once a wheel goes airborne at speed, ten feet can be crossed in an instant, this time it wasn't; the wheel just seemed to stop but no one could guarantee that outcome. Mr "respect the beep" from miami, his 30mph Tesla crash tumbled all over the place, narrowly missing an expensive looking Porsche 911. As for Dufs other concern about others being injured, I think I saw other riders having to perform avoidance procedures.  If  a following rider (obviously at high speed too) needed to swerve or impact at those speeds, it would not be pleasant for him either, despite possible riding his wheel safely.

Lastly Duf mentions the cars on the left (coming the other way) if that wheel had bounced over there, into the path of a moving car (and no one could disagree that it could happen), who is to say what carnage would happen then?  Up to and including swerving ( a natural reaction to seeing something flying at your car) and possible running down an innocent pedestrian/cyclist/motorcycle rider, another vehicle, possible travelling in the opposition direction, or ironically, running over the fallen EUC rider.  Death could easily have been the result of this incident

Having said all that,  I'm still wondering what you are disagreeing with  <- trying to keep the mood light

And about BrokeBacky mountain, you knew that was in jest, so not a good example of" not being offended" 

And now you know why I wanted to give this one a wide birth.

[Jerome]

4 hours ago, Darrell Wesh said:

What eboard was that?

Haha, funny I was wondering the same thing. I know most PEVs, it might have been DIY. It wasn't a Kaly, Trampa. Lacroix,  Baja which are 30+ mph board, but use all terrain wheels. It wasn't a Raptor 2 or 2.1 which uses street wheels like the board in question. Perhaps a custom Longhairboy?? Anyone know .. Alien Rides??

[Marty Backe]

1 hour ago, Smoother said:

To be clear, What shocked me about this thread was that everyone was saying "wow, so good he was wearing protection" and no one was saying "why did he turn off all the wheel's safety features and then race as fast as he could? presumably knowing that eventually the wheel will just give out" I guess that's not exactly what Duf said.

But....to elaborate on what Duf was saying, once you come off a 35-40lb wheel at speed you have lost control of that wheel.  Motor vehicle operators can get ticked for failure to maintain control of their vehicle.  I would say this is similar.  The fact that the pedestrians were 10 feet away, is spurious, because once a wheel goes airborne at speed, ten feet can be crossed in an instant, this time it wasn't; the wheel just seemed to stop but no one could guarantee that outcome. Mr "respect the beep" from miami, his 30mph Tesla crash tumbled all over the place, narrowly missing an expensive looking Porsche 911. As for Dufs other concern about others being injured, I think I saw other riders having to perform avoidance procedures.  If  a following rider (obviously at high speed too) needed to swerve or impact at those speeds, it would not be pleasant for him either, despite possible riding his wheel safely.

Lastly Duf mentions the cars on the left (coming the other way) if that wheel had bounced over there, into the path of a moving car (and no one could disagree that it could happen), who is to say what carnage would happen then?  Up to and including swerving ( a natural reaction to seeing something flying at your car) and possible running down an innocent pedestrian/cyclist/motorcycle rider, another vehicle, possible travelling in the opposition direction, or ironically, running over the fallen EUC rider.  Death could easily have been the result of this incident

Having said all that,  I'm still wondering what you are disagreeing with  <- trying to keep the mood light

And about BrokeBacky mountain, you knew that was in jest, so not a good example of" not being offended" 

And now you know why I wanted to give this one a wide birth.

Is there really that much difference between riding 20-mph and 40-mph, in terms of an out-of-control wheel? Probably not. Yet I'm riding at those speeds all the time, along with many other people (including Duf). If my wheel fails it could roll into oncoming traffic or into pedestrians. So we can only ride on cleared roads with no people?

Hell, what about everyone who rides close to people at 5-mph. Our 50-pound wheels could still hurt people. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy. Now I just about never see Duf among anybody else, so it's hard to say whether he's a hypocrite  I suspect he cuts out all video that contains other people, for reasons I don't know. Or there are no pedestrians in Florida.

Regarding your first paragraph, I suspect Vano didn't think that he was near his cutoff speed. I doubt that he wanted to risk crashing or breaking his wheel. He misjudged the situation.

Edited March 21, 2019 by Marty Backe

[who_the]

4 hours ago, Darrell Wesh said:

What eboard was that?

DIY. Custom build.

Carbon fiber drop down deck, 12s5p. Don't know all the specs but it's a legit 35-40 mph board.

 

[Darrell Wesh]

This was clearly an accident, for it to not be an accident would be to ridiculously assume the rider wanted to cut out and fall. He underestimated the top speed of the eboard (hence his quote “I’m not racing you again” to the Eboarder).

I agree with @Marty Backe, no harm done in racing little EUC’s at what was likely the actual speed limit on that road that cars would be going at. We say this word racing so much but you cannot compare this to cars and motorcycles weighing hundreds to thousands of pounds racing on a public street completely disrespecting the speed limit. 

I think a group ride is the next best thing for racing then an actual private area. Why? You have a bunch of awareness from this large group and so cars are extra cautious and you don’t have to worry about getting run over by a car if you fall. Also have a bunch of caring/understanding individuals who will be there for you if you do wipe out.  

If you want to see completely irresponsible and NOT an accident but an individual who WANTED to cut out, see the video of the guy on the rockwheel who cut out at 50kph that was all over the news and these forums a while ago.