Back in January I made an impulse-purchase of a Boostedboard Dual+. And no, I wasn’t inspired to do so from watching Casey Neistat videos (although I discovered Casey’s vlog after searching Youtube for riding tips for my new toy — and now I’m a fan). I attended a Tesla Supercharger ribbon-cutting and got to see this epic electric longboard in action, and I just had to have it.

Of course it was still winter and I live in Dallas, one of the more skateboard averse cities in the lower 48. But I wasn’t letting that stop me, and I proceeded to carve all over my neighborhood and as much of the city as is practical. I was even stopped by a police officer who was interested in the board for his son. I asked him about the legality of the board and he gave me a great tip: in Texas the board is 100% legal so long as you stay on streets with a posted speed limit of 35mph or under, or on streets with marked bike lanes. The sidewalk, as in most municipalities, is a no-go zone for pretty much any motorized vehicle unless it’s a personal assistance device like a wheelchair or 3 and 4-wheel scooter of 1 horsepower or less.

I have enjoyed the Boosted board every day the weather allowed and buzzing around on the new toy, feeling young again, was a blast. About 3 weeks in I even began riding the board to work via DART. That lasted all of two days, because around this time that I had a spectacular wipe-out while narrowly avoiding a car crossing my path on a city street. I managed to break a rib and sprain a wrist in the process because the driver, you see, just didn’t expect someone on a skateboard to be moving at 21 miles-per-hour! I couldn’t blame him, he did stop and after he was sure I was ok the conversation quickly turned to “what the heck is that thing?!”. So bear this in mind when riding around cars in your average city or suburb, even the most careful drivers aren’t going to expect your speed when they see you. Ironically if I lived in over-populated LA or NYC, where there is a lot of cyclist and pedestrian traffic moving around cars, I might have avoided such an accident. Or maybe not: I just don’t see how people like Casey Neistat seem to routinely ride around Manhattan on a Boosted board without coming in contact with a taxi cab or other vehicle. I hope it never happens, but the odds aren’t good!

So I cautiously got back to riding after my accident, but no longer commuting during rush-hour, and I kept the speed much lower (and I now wear wrist guards). Still, the experience is no less fun. Even with a broken rib, the experience of gliding up and down the street on this thing has been addictive for me and I can’t stay off of it. Riding a motorized skateboard isn’t like skateboarding at all: you can carve uphill, slow down and stop on-a-dime, and reverse direction (that one is a little tricky). In the three months of owning it this middle-aged rider has gone outdoors more, seen more of my city outside of a car, and my core-strength has jumped notch. Despite the nasty wreck, I wouldn’t hesitate to buy it again.

The Boosted board is what they call a “Last Mile” vehicle: transportation used in-conjunction with some other transportation system, like my DART communute. It gets you the rest of the way to wherever you are going, once you hop off of the train/bus/etc. It’s a fairly new name with a decades-old concept, as cyclists, roller blades, and skaters in big cities like NYC have been doing this for years. What has changed is the battery technology. We now have smarter batteries that hold more energy, discharge slower, and charge-up faster than your traditional batteries. This has caused an explosion in new and innovative toys as well as serious transportation ideas. It’s also the reason why the FAA recommended a ban of hoverboards on planes. Battery-safety is still coming along, but it isn’t slowing the the last-mile revolution.

Last month I added another last-mile vehicle to my garage, an E-TWOW S2 Booster kick-scooter. It’s a little safer on some streets than the Boosted board, and folds making it just as convenient (if somewhat heavier at 29 pounds) to carry onto DART trains and buses. Like the Boosted board, the E-TWOW has good range and a quick speed of up to 21 miles-per-hour. Unlike the Boosted board, the E-TWOW can go up to 20+ miles on a single charge. More places you can go with that extra juice, and be somewhat safer in the process. Of course, to me the Boosted board is a bit more fun — but due to the safety angle, both of these rides are getting the love.

Last-mile Lessons…

The biggest take-away I gained from daily-use of both of these fun, climate-friendly, rides here in car-centric Dallas is this: the mere act of using a bicycle, scooter, or even skateboard to get from point A to B is an act of civil-disobedience. Basically if you utilize anything that isn’t a car, truck, or motorcycle on our city steets to get to work, congratulations on your personal act of rebellion. You have a target on your back, front, and side and staying extremely vigilant on every crosswalk and intersection is the order of the day. There seems to also be some kind of mental shift towards one of entitlement when someone sitting inside their steel cage must share an area with a cyclist, skater, or other non-car traveller. Sadly in some of our North Texas suburbs it’s the same for pedestrians, too. While this is true of even some New York City drivers when confronted with cyclists and the like, at least there the drivers are already aware and assuming they will be dealing with it. I don’t mean to be down on my city and burbs, because it is wholly doable to safely get around without driving. You just have to know your enemy. And the enemy is (you guessed it) us.

Also after last-mile commuting the last couple months I can unequivocally say, of these two vehicles the electric kick-scooter gets the least attention or bad looks. With an electric skateboard, some people in traffic (usually those over 45 years old) seem to immediately feel or express disdain when they see me ride by on the Boosted board. This isn’t NYC, and I’m not Casey Neistat, so it’s a total cold war between my Boosted and the 2-ton gas-guzzling vehicles buzzing around it. And those vehicles have the added-advantage of not operating in an overcrowded, slow-traffic, road: unlike Casey Neistat’s average traffic, the typical suburban communiter can roll right over me at 50 miles-per-hour!

The really odd irony of riding the E-TWOW, compared to the Boosted board, is that you can pretty much freely jump onto the sidewalk anytime to avoid vehiclular traffic. Try this on the Boosted board, and your near-invisibility vanishes and anybody walking within 100 feet of you stops and stares to see where you’ll be going. On the E-TWOW I have ridden on sidewalks right past the police, business owners, and pedestrians without any hassle or dirty looks — and I just know if I were riding the Boosted board any one of those three groups would likely react differently. Texan suburbanites treat you like a cyclist when you’re on a kick-scooter, yet they regard you as a punk when you’re on an electric skateboard.

At any rate, I just wanted to write about how fun and engaging riding a last-mile vehicle can be. Even in a city like Dallas. You don’t have to live in a big city where unique transporation is the norm, you can do this where you live right now. You just need to adopt the right mentality and point-of-view, coupled with a little bit of defiance and safety. So if you have the means, desire, or already have a bicycle or other last-mile vehicle, go for it. Get out there and be fearless. Be sure. Be cautious. Some fresh air and relatively-safe fun, if you keep alert, awaits.

Book recommendation: The Art of Urban Cycling, by Robert Hurst. Whether you cycle, scoot, or skate this is a great book on this subject (especially the mentality to survive and thrive in a car-centric environment).