For previous posts in the series, see the archive.

Last weekend I ventured away from my usual pavement/sidewalk/street riding — aka everywhere that would be safe to ride with my previous (traditional) e-skateboard — and took my Onewheel out to a dirt trail.

This particular trail wasn’t the smoothest. It was kind of a mixture of dirt, gravel, and sand, and it wasn’t always very level. There were small rocks embedded all over the trail, which made for quite a bumpy ride. Parts of the trail were rougher (or steeper) than I felt confident riding, so I just carried my Onewheel through them; but for the parts I could ride, I was fairly successful despite the bumpy and unpredictable ride. For the most part I was able to maintain control of the board, and only had to jump off a few times.

Riding this trail, with its long gradual slopes, helped me realize quite acutely something that’s true in general: I find riding uphill (or slightly uphill) easier than riding downhill (or slightly downhill). Downhill requires conscious braking and always the background worry that you might exceed the motor and nosedive, or lose control and end up rocketing down the slope. Uphill, you don’t have to consciously limit your speed, and even if you do exceed the motor, the failure probably occurs at lower speed and/or is easier to recover. (I haven’t nosedived yet on my Onewheel but I’ve heard stories, and I’d rather not experience that.) I feel completely in control uphill, and free to give it lots of “gas”, whereas downhill I feel a little more on edge the whole time, and restrain my speed more. Of course, all of this could just be in my head as well.

Another thing I found interesting was that a couple segments of the trail had some pretty thick sand. I discovered that sand makes it hard to turn; if you bank too sharply you just start falling over instead of turning. The board continues straight, just tilted to the side. That was an interesting feeling, and resulted in me losing my balance a couple times. I think the lesson is to try to mostly ride straight on sand. Or, maybe I just needed more speed to be able to maneuver well.

Overall, my first attempt at trail riding was an interesting experience. I’ll probably keep trying it, but there’s definitely something appealing about my typical smooth pavement/concrete riding, and there’s plenty of pavement and concrete around, at least where I live.

Now to try to get some of the dirt and dust off my footpads.