Today we had a group ride. I’m sure many of you have been a part of these. I am one if not the fastest rider in our group. So I typically cycle from front to back, to make sure “my sheep” are still intact. During one of these cycles I was Midway through the group skating…A random boosted board rider that saw us and tried to catch up to us. I was lagging behind trying to wait for the uniscoot riders to catch up. We we’re catching up to the rest of the group and found him in the street knocked out twitching. Broken jaw, head trauma, broken shulder and elbow. Not pretty, ambulance there within 7 minutes.
It wasn’t anything good. I had a come to Jesus meeting with our group about full faces, and proper protection.
Needless to say, the only reason I am mentioning this, is there are alot of new people on the road skating. If you see anyone not part of your group, please slow down and stop. Take the time to introduce yourself. These new guys can be over confident and under padded, and trying to catch up to fellow riders they didn’t know existed.
Just… We’re all a community even if we don’t know each other. You stopping to say hello could mean life or death for another rider.
Everyone please be safe… Embrace your fellow skaters.
Any suggestions on full face helmets? I currently use a skate herlmet that is also certified for bike use. I dont want to feel like overdoing it but want to be safe. Im usually going round 18-20 mph
Skateboards are dangerous, DAMHIK
Group rides bring so many added variables.
Some can be dealt with by a simple pre-ride meeting, by going over simple things like meeting areas, breaking groups up into smaller groups, that all may end up at the same place.
Doing proper recognized hand signals is more important than you would think.
When I say proper, I mean that a right turn is signaled with the left hand.
It’s best done ‘robotically’, with a 90° bend in the elbow a few seconds before the turn.
It’s not likely to be confused with a stretch or waving to the girls.
Left arm should always go straight up the moment you plan on pulling over or stopping abruptly.
It goes against the true signal for slowing or stopping which is arm pointing down, but your arm probably always is there anyway, so straight up in the air is best for pulling over.
He had a helmet on. A half cap. Went over a speed bump at somewhere under 22mph(boosted board v2 limit) and ended up in a speed wobble landing on his shoulder and face. Got knocked out from the jaw strike.
He’s awake. Likely will need surgery for the breaks. In his arm/shoulder…
Thank god, he didn’t break his skull.
And last thing we want for this sport is getting reputation of “death”.
As summer comes drivers also getting crazier so carefull evryone. this week alone we had 3 major accident in toronto + psycho van atrack.
Yeah Bro, similar often happens on motorcycle group rides.
We would always slow down (sometimes they ride off), then stop if need be when a random joins our train, say hello, then let them ride off on their own before we continued…
Hopefully your quick call to action for help will mean Mr BB is ok.
I worry about myself…it’s natural. I think about it every time I go down a hill or get on my esk8. The biggest cause for injury is skating outside of your skill level. Most people are well aware of thier own skill level… But alot aren’t.
To everyone else:
The only advice I can give people is. To get on an analog board, if you can’t go that fast on your own with confidence… Don’t try those speeds on your esk8…
It’s a hard lesson to teach, because electric makes any speed an “easy” accomplishment…
We’ll fight the helmet and protective gear battle our whole lives, not even the US government makes people wear helmets on bikes in every state, and other gear is anything but mandatory…
I really feel like Esk8 companies, and YouTubers are to blame for portraying the image of “it’s so easy anyone can learn” and every video has no protective gear… Or very minimal(half cap).
I just don’t know how to fight a loosing battle… The entire skate industry for decades has shown people going fast with minimal gear, now you have extremely large communities of skaters that think, “I don’t look cool if I wear all this gear”.
Well ya don’t look cool? There’s not been a single time anyone has said anything like that to me on any group ride, especially after people see how I ride. For anyone that is thinking about suiting up, I Dare you, that’s right I Dare you to put it on an be an ICON for your fellow skaters.
It might not catch immediately, but trust me your buddies will notice, and one by one you’ll see them showing up with pads. It only takes one man in a group to make a difference.
Hey guys I’m fairly new here but I’ve seen a pretty strong pushing to get people wearing full faces or mountain bike style full faces. While this might sound good in practice as it protects your face during falls, full face helmets have a tendency to break your neck in high speed crashes.
Full face helmets have been banned from ski racing for many years and the downhill mountainbikers all use neck protectors to stop this from happening.
Now I have no idea if we are hitting the speeds required on these eskate’s or if the fall is as likely but I would highly recommend anyone who’s using one to look into a neck protector.
Sure getting your face smashed to shit ain’t fun but your jaw will take the impact and break instead of your neck.
It’s why longboard helmets and DH mtb helmets are under 1000grams
And yes people wear leatt or other neck systems. But have never been proven to help with neck injuries… studies show close to 50/50 with wearing one and not wearing one.
Yes heavy full faces can break your neck. Which is why you don’t wear motorcycle helmets. Most MIPS MTB helmets are 600-700 grams, and most longboard are 700-1020.
20-40mph? You realize most Downhilling you see, excluding pros is in the 25-35mph range and they’re wearing full faces… Please tell me what you think required speed is, because we’re not talking about 60-70mph DOT motorcycle helmets.
Regarding the jaw, most mtb helmets and longboard helmets are MIPs, with a fiber shell, fiber deflects, and the MIPs membrane shifts. The jaws are designed to break. So I think your a little mislead with old helmet technology, or helmet technology designed for power sports.
As far as Im aware it’s not the extra weight that breaks necks but the extra force that a full face applies to your neck. Instead of being absorbed by your jaw crumpling it gets transfered to the back of your neck.
I would love to see these studies. I tried to see if there had been any new recent ones done but google didn’t give me anything.
Are you talking about downhill biking? You definitely exceed speeds of 35 mph even if your not pro.
Full faces are completely banned from all ski racing but slalom. FIS’s internal testing deemed it dangerous at speeds over 40km/h on snow mind you.
MIP doesn’t lessen the impact on your neck it’s a system for stopping concussion and brain injuries and isn’t relevant to neck injuries, yes the helmets now are slightly better at not breaking your neck by trying to minimize leverage it can apply on it.
As far as breakaway Jaws, doesn’t that defeat the point of a full face entirely then, I’ve never heard of or seen any helmets that have gone through a crash like that would you be able to share some examples?
Either way I think it’s just a good idea to be aware of and potentially invest in a neck protector (it’s saved my ass on more than one occasion). And I just want to give people the best information available.
Also I would never recommend half dome helmets either you need the hard sides/ears or they’re pretty darn useless in a lot of falls.
I just want to give my own advice about how to possibly reduce the damage done to a person from a fall. I recent went over a pothole and fell off my board and the front truck of my board cracked off and now the board was in 2. Rewind to before the accident, I saw the pothole and slowed down to try to move away from it and I saw I wasn’t able to and I was still going a little fast. I think you should really pay attention to the terrain just in case u need to brace yourself for impact which is exactly what i did. As soon as I lost balance and, I crouched, put my arms on top of my head and in front of my face and fell off, did a tumblesauce and slid, and I only get a few scratches and a bruised ankle. Compared to what could have happened I feel like I fared pretty well. So my personal recommendation is to not only pay attention to what’s in front of you but at the ground and the terrain in front of you and if u know something isn’t right, embrace yourself in a position that will reduce the damage done by the fall.
Pay attention to everything!!
i also ride downhill mtb and i mostly ride with knee/shinpads and fullface helmet. Protective gear can only do so much so dont overvalue the protection they give. Meaning even if you drive around like a tank you still can get fucked up rly good. There is simply no material light/thin enough to absorb forces beyond 20mph+. But it will protect against cuts ect, but your bones and tendons are still vulnerable. I can remember it well, i was wearing a Leatt Protection Jacket but the impact on my shoulder still destroyed my ligaments.
As has mine with my EVS vest… I’d still rather go down with a vest then not… My shoulder is still healing from going down at 35.
Yea your not bullet proof, but what’s the difference between padded, vs not padded. What would it have been like if you didn’t have the jacket on? I know my shoulder would have been alot worse.
