But I called it a skateboard in the title because a) not everyone knows what a OneWheel is and b) even if they did, picturing it in any relationship to me might cause cognitive dissonance to the point of distress.
There's an amazing video of Brenden Schurmeier winning the 2020 OneWheel Race for the Rail, which has a mountain trail for a track. When he skids to his triumphant halt, he throws his helmet up about a mile into the air, fueled by whatever the extreme of "stoked" is, jumps around and hugs his buddy Bhodi for a while and then catches the now asteroid-velocity helmet again before jumping around more, with champagne sprayed all over him and everything. It's peak OneWheel badassery. You can watch it here: https://bit.ly/3yr8xSN
I am unlike Brenden.
My husband Steven got a OneWheel for himself after a hot and cold relationship with an electric skateboard which deprived him of surface bits of his knees and ankles enough times, he finally broke it off for good. I thought maybe that would be the end of that, and he'd go back to modes of transportation with protective infrastructure that increased as the speed increased. Walking: shoes! Bike riding: helmet and reflective vests! Anything faster than that: thousands of pounds of steel with crumple zones! But no. He found another electric rolling thing, that goes even faster, and has extra bounciness for floinging you right off and into the path of oncoming cars.
He did look pretty cool on it, I must admit.
But I said, Not For Me Thankyouverymuch. I did agree to an electric scooter - like a Bird, but you own it, and it folds in half, and if you can lug it up the stairs to your day job, you can commute like the cool kids. I actually liked that a lot. You absolutely have to keep both hands on the handlebars at all times, but if you do that, it's pretty stable, and still in or adjacent to the realm of cool.
So we'd zip up and down the boardwalk, him swaying to the reggae in his AirPods, me with ears perked to danger as I followed just behind. It was great! But it was not to last.
I don't know when the rumblings first began...I probably pretended to be sleeping in order to have plausible deniability. "I'm going to get a OneWheel for you," he claimed several times while indisputably in my range of hearing. Eventually I had to respond. I said no. I said, "It's way too scary, and I am afraid I will kill myself, and so I won't use it, and it's way too expensive for something I'll never use. No, please."
Of course he got me one.
Now, we'd been married somewhere around 10 years at that point, and even without having hit such a milestone with anyone else before, I had a strong inkling that when your partner finds something entirely new in his life that brings him joy, and his impulse is to share it with you... well, you'd be churlish not to.
So I strapped my ex-ballerina, never sporty, not-so-young-anymore body, and my brain full of inherited fears of permanent physical pain, anxiety about things I'm bad at, and general semi-paralyzing terror into elbow pads, knee pads, a helmet, and wrist guards, and went down to the parking lot for my first lesson.
I fell off right away. I made noises in the squeak category and in the grunt category. But, by the end of the first lesson, I could...kinda do it. There's a photo. I look...not half bad. I was greatly encouraged. (h/t to Covid for making the parking lots completely empty for a few months so I had an amazing place to learn and fall off really close to home with no cars whizzing by.)
The first few times I fell off I had a gigantic panic response, where I basically lay there motionless and breathless, doing a mental scan of my injuries and how quickly they would get me out of ever doing this again, ever. I was fine, though, except for a few scrapes, and my number one fear of re-twisting the ankle I annihilated at age 21 and which has never been the same, didn't happen.
After scraping my ankle when I fell off in sneakers, I now only ever ride in high tops. After skinning my knee while temporarily parting from sanity and riding in shorts, I now only wear a pair of Steven's old jeans. I call them my Emotional Support Jeans, and I love them. It's usually chilly at the beach, but even when it's not, I ride in long sleeves. No elbow scabs either, thanks. Long everything is also good sunscreen. Blessings abound.
In the beginning, every tiny bit of uneven surface sent me into a panic. "Way too scary," I described graded curbs and driveways. "I'm not having any fun at all. This is too much for me," I said of the flat grassy field. Perfectly smooth pavement is great. Bumpy terrain - not so great. Bumpy, rocky, twisty mountain off-road races at top speed in shorts? Horror. Leave it to the delightful lunatics like Brenden.
But I gradually got better. On Thanksgiving of... one of those Covid years, I hit 300 miles and Steven took a photo of me in triumphant silhouette at sunset. At present, I have over 500 miles. (Steven has over a thousand because he was born without the Fear Module or something. Also he just really loves it.) And I hardly ever fall of any more. I still get the "whoopsy daisy" thing in my stomach on many a ride when I feel a scary wobble or a child runs into the bike path like a video game character, but I've managed to not hit a single one of them, and I haven't been flung off the board on even the most knee-rattling bumps on my route.
I'm even commuting to the studio on it these days, while Steven needs the car every day to drive to his editor's. I'm just tearing through the 500s at this point. I think it'll be time for another triumphant sunset pic when I hit 600.
One day, he and I swooshed down the bike path, past some teenaged boys, who were openly admiring of the aura of cool that surrounds Steven as he surfs the streets. Riding his slipstream / coattails, I heard one of them say "Oh shit, that's a girl."
Even now, pride fills my chest with embarrassing fuzzy warmth when I think of that. I looked cool enough that teenaged boys thought I looked like a dude. Can you say "hashtag goals" when it was you doing it?
Most of the time, though, I'm a pretty nervous rider. Some would say uptight, and I would just remind myself of those teens. But it's true. I'm too...shall we say... sensible of my own mortality to float down Ocean Park during rush hour with anything other than Serious Concentration at all times. I've still never put music into my AirPods - I only wear them so I can hear the warning chime if I hit my designated top speed, or if the board is sending me a warning message. I think that's fine. Next pandemic, when all the cars are stuck at home again, I might do it, though. It looks really groovy.
Today, I had an absolutely lovely ride home via the Eucalyptus Trail, as I call it, in Marina del Rey. Dappled sun, not too many people, the air redolent of that amazing tree. And I realized, this feels like when I was a kid, and I learned to ride my bike with my hands off the handlebars for a few seconds. Oh, the freedom! The surprising triumph at being good at something physical! But this is no-hands all the time. And as one of the least likely purchasers of a OneWheel (my demographic buys them for her sons) I just feel lucky to have been invited to this party, grateful I said yes, and whatever is the middle-aged lady version of - Totally Stoked.
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