It all started with nachos
I have today off from work, so what do I do? Ride my OneWheel to get my wife from work and get some lunch together. One of my friend's had posted pictures from a nacho food truck last night and I had to go try them out.
See how awesome these look? Well they were pretty delicious. The food truck is a few miles away from my home and I have never ridden my OneWheel there in the historic part of our city, so I decided that I was going to ride home while my wife drove back to work.
That was a bad idea.
Once I got out of the historic district, there is a stretch of road about three miles long that is nothing but construction. It wasn't bad riding in the gravel and dirt where they were doing construction, but then there was no area for me to ride except for in the road and there was no shoulder, so I had to ride in the traffic lane.
Everything was going good, except for when a car turned in behind me. The speed limit was only 35 mph, but I didn't want to hold up traffic so I started going faster.
Another bad idea.
The OneWheel has a top speed of 20 mph and if you go above that, you run the risk of nosediving and crashing. Well that is exactly what happened.
My OneWheel slammed forward into the road and I went flying off of it. I am sure it looked pretty funny. Most people break their collar bones when they nosedive, but with my years of skating and snowboarding, I have learned the tuck and roll technique.
The tuck and roll saved my collar bone from breaking, but I hit my side on the ground and ripped up the side of my pants and then rolled to my back and slid on the asphalt for probably about 20 feet. At least I got to look up at the sky as I was sliding down the road going over 20 mph.
When I got up, the car behind me had stopped and the lady was asking if I was ok. Luckily my AirPods hadn't fallen out, but I couldn't hear what she was asking because I was jamming to Eazy Mac.
I grabbed my board, and then hobbled off to the side of the road. I could barely walk because it felt like I twisted my knee all the way around. I ended up walking with my OneWheel for a few hundred feet, but knew it was going to take forever to get home at that pace, so hopped back on and rode the rest of the way. I made sure not to go over 10 mph because I didn't feel like taking another spill.
When I got home I finally was able to check to see how bad everything was. My shirt and pants are ruined, but at least I had some sort of protection because my back could have been a whole lot worse than it is now. The thing that sucks is that it will be a while before I can get back massages again.
My back doesn't hurt, but feels more like a burn. My leg is killing me though. I think I may have torn my ACL because when the board nosedived, I tried to run it out, but I can't run 23.5 mph. So when my right foot hit the ground it slammed down pretty hard, spraining my ankle and twisting my leg around before I started flying through the air.
Too bad I didn't have my GoPro on and recording it because I am sure it looked pretty awesome. Well, I am gonna go to the store and get some cream for my back. Hopefully the pain in my leg stops soon so I won't need to go to the hospital.
Thanks for stopping by and checking out my story of nachos and crashing. One thing I learned from this is to just take my time and not try and always go full speed on my OneWheel. I will just need to get a boosted board if I want to go fast. Oh and some better protective gear to wear while riding.