Hi everyone! My name is Craig, and a couple days ago I started riding a Onewheel (Plus). For those unfamiliar, it’s kind of a cross between an electric skateboard and a self-balancing unicycle — in reality it is totally as fun, but not at all as difficult, as that sounds. (Check out their website, or this video, for more.) This blog will be about my experiences learning to Onewheel, and hopefully it will also provide some helpful tips and tricks for other beginning Onewheelers like myself.

A little more about my background. My first skateboard was a Yuneec E-GO2, an electric longboard in the style of a Boosted Board, just more affordable and less powerful. Before my E-GO2, I had no prior experience with any board sports — skateboarding, longboarding, snowboarding, surfing. (In fact, I still haven’t really learned how to properly ride a “regular” non-electric longboard, with the pushing and all that. But I digress.) I rode the E-GO2 quite a lot for about nine months, commuting with it daily, before I upgraded to the Onewheel Plus. So, I come to the Onewheel with some amount of experience longboarding, but not near enough that I consider myself a skilled skateboarder — in the scheme of things, I’m still a beginner learning to be comfortable on my board.

If there’s one phrase that describes my first impressions riding the Onewheel, it is “buttery smooth”. I’ll give three reasons why.

First: accelerating and braking. One of the things I disliked about my E-GO2 was that I found it hard to brake smoothly and naturally. At “high speed” (around the E-GO2’s top speed of 12-13 mph), even feathering the remote slider downward to brake would feel like it “jerked” the board under me just enough that I worried about losing my balance. Luckily, at those speeds you can still jump/run off the board and hopefully not fall, but I still felt instinctively nervous about using the brake at high speed and preferred to let the board coast down naturally to a slower speed before applying the brake. In contrast, on the Onewheel, braking feels easy and natural, just leaning onto your back foot. Even during my first ride, the controls seemed comfortable; the board never felt jerky, and I found both braking and accelerating to be smooth and intuitive.

Another reason the Onewheel feels “buttery smooth” is its ability to handle pavement cracks and other small glitches in the terrain. Riding a more traditional longboard trained me to be wary of these cracks — in the worst case, the board could “catch” on them and come to a screeching halt, sending me flying off the board. I almost always preferred to be cautious, and whenever seeing a bump that looked big enough to potentially cause problems, I would dismount and remount. In contrast, the Onewheel rides over bumps like this with no sweat whatsoever. You can barely feel them, whereas on the E-GO2 I could feel every little bump and pebble right through the board.

The final reason I describe the Onewheel as “buttery smooth” is its sound — or rather, its lack of. Seriously, the Hypercore motor is whisper quiet. There’s more noise from the tire rolling over the pavement than there is from the motor. In comparison, my E-GO2 sounds like a screeching banshee. With the Onewheel, the only sound is you and the ride.

That’s it for my first impressions post. I’m hyped to keep riding and learning on this board, and I’ll be back soon with more accounts of my experiences and hopefully some helpful tips and tricks for other newbies like myself.