It's Cool Because It Is

Electric transportation is changing the American commute, replacing cars, trains, busesevenUber! We wanted to see . .. just how far it could go.

- James Lynch

I’M IN CROYDON, PENNSYLVANIA, where I would never be if I weren’t doing what I’m doing. It’s a sleepy Pennsylvania burb, hard by I-95, unremarkable, nice. The traffic thins and I have this winding back road to myself. I zoom over a quiet two-lane bridge, and I’m gazing down at the small creek passing beneath it.

I lift my head up again, but it’s too late. Fifteen feet in front of me is a crack in the bridge deck that could swallow a Miata. I can’t stop, can’t swerve. A few miles back, the skateboard I’m riding handled a railroad crossing no problem. This is much worse.

Also, it’s not really a skateboard. Or it is, but it’s one of the new motorized kind—the Boosted Stealth, one of the highest-end electric boards you can buy, at a cost of $1,600. I’m riding one from New York to Philadelphia, for the ostensible reason of consuming a cheesesteak at the place where my parents used to go before I was born, but also for other reasons I’ll try to explain if I survive this bridge.

I jump, trying to make myself light enough for the board to clear the other side. It doesn’t work. The front wheels bury themselves and the board stops dead and I keep going, my body retaining the approximately 12-mph velocity at which the board was carrying me until a nanosecond ago. One step, two, three, but my feet can’t keep up. My torso pendulums until my shoulder and hip connect with the pavement. My backpack twists underneath me and I slide for a good ten feet. The board shoots across the street, thankfully stopped from meeting the creek by a low concrete barrier. I hop up and look around, brushing myself off. All good, I was just trying to get a closer look at the road! A woman in an Oldsmobile with mismatched door panels pulls up.

“You all right?”