How I Choose Safety Gear
In this article I’m going to show you how I chose the best EUC safety gear for when I ride, and the answer may surprise you.
To prevent injury we need to follow the rules of the device and of the road. We also need to wear the right safety gear and to ride with respect.
Keep in mind that safety gear is a highly personalized choice that varies wildly from person to person. Requirements differ based on rider size, age, skill, riding style, and riding conditions so while the gear that I use may not apply to you, the principles I’ll be going over can be applied to most.
Recommended Safety Gear:
Jenson USA is a great site for safety gear. If you don’t have the time to read all the details, here is a list of all the safety gear that I recommend:
Recommended Helmets:
Skate helmet: Triple Eight Gotham MIPS
Mountain bike helmet: Bell Super 3R MIPS
Upper Body Armor:
Elbow pads: G Form Elite
Body Armor: Fox Racing Titan
Armored Hoodie: Lazyrolling
Gloves and Wrist Guards:
Glove/Wrist guard: Flatland3D Fingerless Pro
Gloves: Flatland 3D Original Eskate
Budget Eskate Gloves: 1Protect gloves
Budget Gloves/wrist guard: Hillbilly Half Finger gloves/wrist guard
Knee Pads:
Knee pads: IXS Flow Evo+
Knee and shin guard: Leatt Dual Axis
Budget Knee and shin guards: Fox Titan
Safety Gear Tips
Before we nosedive into the details, here are a few things you need to understand about safety gear:
- Quality safety gear is going to cost a fair amount of money.
- Safety gear should be considered an investment that will more than pay for itself down the road when it saves you from serious injury, a trip to the ER, an orthopedic surgery, a stay in the ICU, and time lost from work.
- It doesn’t matter how expensive or how protective a piece of safety equipment is if you don’t wear it. So pick out gear that you will wear– you will be exponentially more likely to wear safety gear if it is stylish, comfortable, and convenient.
My biggest tip here is to make sure you plan and budget for safety gear along with the purchase of your Onewheel, EUC, or eskate.
The financial burden is decreased if you already own safety gear. Use what you already have and upgrade your safety gear as you get further into the hobby of electric rideables.
Why Wear Safety Gear?
Falling from a Onewheel or EUC can be devastating. While a nosedive from a Onewheel may happen at fairly low speeds compared to riding a bicycle, nosedives happen so suddenly and unexpectedly. To add insult to injury, the physics of a nosedive throws you directly into the ground, drastically increasing the chance of serious injury.
To understand how common and severe Onewheel injuries can be, just head over to the Onewheel Crash Facebook Group which has over 4,000 members and is filled with more bloody gore than a season of the Walking Dead!
EUCs can go much faster than Onewheels. Some high end EUCs can go more than double the speed of a Onewheel. With single wheeled devices you are putting 100% of your faith into the device that it will keep you upright.
If it decides to fail (all electronic and motorized devices can fail) trying to run out or tuck and roll from a fall going over 35 mph is not something the human body was designed to do.
Choosing which body parts to protect with safety gear is an important balance of the probability of injury and the consequences of injury.
Many riders wear helmets even though the likelihood of a head injury may be low. That is because the consequences of traumatic brain injury are astronomically high, possibly resulting in permanent disability or death.
Many riders wear gloves, wrist guards and knee guards not because a fractured wrist or a bruised elbow, or a knee laceration will result in death but because those injuries tend to happen with higher frequency.
For those reasons, we need to consider protecting the body parts that are most important to us, like our brains, and we need to protect body parts that are more likely to be injured in the event of a fall.
The Most Important Factor When Choosing Safety Gear
Earlier I said the biggest factor for me when choosing safety gear may surprise you and it is this: will I wear it?
It doesn’t matter how state of the art or how safe or how expensive a piece of safety equipment is. If I refuse to wear it because it’s not comfortable or convenient, then it will do me no good.
The Safety Gear I Wear
Let’s go over the safety gear I use starting from head and going to the toes.
Helmets:
The helmet is the most essential of safety gear because it protects your brain and some helmets protect your face. Your brain is important because it controls your body, stores your memories, and formulates your thoughts. Unlike other tissues or organs in the body, your brain is not able to recover as well from damage or injury.
My favorite helmet is a simple plastic shell with padding on the inside. Pro-Tec Classic Skate Helmet It’s a good helmet that offers basic protection. It’s a classic. It’s minimalistic. And it’s comfortable and it’s something I already had when I started this whole e-mobility hobby.
I recommend you choose a helmet that you think looks great, is comfortable to wear and comes from a reputable company.
If I were to upgrade my everyday riding helmet right now, I would consider getting something with MIPS like the Triple Eight Gotham Dual Certified MIPS helmet.
MIPS stands for Multidirectional Impact Protection System which is the newest protective tech in helmets and adds a slip plane between the helmet shell and liner to help reduce rotational forces in addition to direct impact forces. In short, it’s pretty cool tech that makes a helmet a little more expensive but could protect you from the devastating shearing forces that cause a lot of neuronal damage during some crashes.
Most of my rides travel at a comfortable cruising speed around 15 mph on my Onewheel and 20 mph on my EUCs. For EUC rides where I intend to ride much faster than I can run, I wear a helmet with a chin bar to help protect my face like this one.
I prefer mountain bike helmets over motorcycle helmets because I like lighter weight and the increased ventilation but some prefer the covered face of a motorcycle helmet to give a more mysterious and futuristic feel.
Going at high speeds such as on an EUC, you need to consider some sort of eye protection. Bugs flying in your eyes going at high speed is no fun. I wear glasses which protects me from this but the occasional gnat in the mouth while riding does happen more than I’d like.
I’m currently looking for a full face helmet.
Shoulder and Elbow Pads:
I own several sets of elbow pads, but many are just too big and bulky for me so I’ve been wearing the Pro-X by G-form which looks great and is pretty minimalistic. The protection however is moderate at best as these pads seem to be focused more on being minimalistic rather than fully protective. Over time, the stitching at the seems won’t hold up with regular use.
My favorite solution now is the Armored Hoodie by Lazyrolling. Think motorcycle jacket but for the e-skate, Onewheel, and EUC crowd. It has thick protective pads at the elbows and shoulders and a backplate to protect your spine.
The thumb holes help to keep all the pads where they belong and the zippered pockets help keep your phone and keys from falling out.
The hoodie is the most comfortable upper body safety gear I’ve ever worn and it looks great. The Lazyrolling Armored Hoodie is what I look for in safety gear. Protective while also being comfortable and convenient to put on. There are better options if you plan on breaking speed records, but for my everyday ride, this is perfect.
The only drawbacks to this hoodie is how warm it gets. In the summer I’ll be looking for something cooler to keep me protected during hot weather rides. Other than a few other trivial things about this hoodie you can read about on my full review article at Oneradwheel.com, I think this hoodie is great.
Gloves and Wrist Guards:
After the helmet, protection for my hands and wrists is the most important safety gear because it is instinct to try to catch our falls so your hands and wrists take a lot of the brunt of an impact during a crash.
Even during slow speed falls: the tender flesh of my hands vs paved concrete, asphalt road, or rocky trail always loses. I value my hands to do my work almost as much as I value my brain.
When looking for gloves, I look for something that will protect my hands from both the impact and abrasion. Many households may already have a set of old wrist guards or gloves so start off wearing those when you ride.
Did you know that ewheels includes a set of wrist guards with every EUC that they sell. It just goes to show their commitment towards safety.
My go to gloves are the Flatland3D Original E-skate gloves which are minimal, stylish, comfortable and have impact and abrasion protection while still giving me free range to use my hands while riding. I’ve been using these gloves for over a year and they are durable and even saved my son’s hands during his worst fall.
For a limited time, get 10% off your Flatland purchase using the code: FreshlyCharged
My new favorite gloves are the 1Protect gloves that come with swappable palm pucks. These gloves are super light, comfortable and stylish and the palm pucks seem like they will do a good job during a fall. The price is also great too. Check out my full review of the 1Protect gloves.
The final two gloves I want to share also come with wrist protection.
For those on a budget, there are the Hillbilly half finger gloves and wrist guard which are the least expensive of all the options I’ll share. The Hillbilly gloves offer great palm and wrist protection, but they are kind of bulky, restrict motion of the hands and wrist and a big plastic plate makes it hard to use your phone or an e-skate remote while wearing them.
Finally, these Flatland3D Fingerless Pro gloves are great if you want wrist protection while maintaining flexibility and motion. These new gloves are a huge upgrade from the previous full fingered version and the unidirectional wrist plate lets you flex your wrist during normal use but prevents hyperextension during falls.
Check out my full review for these gloves that offer flexible wrist protection.
Knee Pads:
Like your elbows, the knees are common points of impact during a fall.
I rarely wore knee protection because I never found a set that I liked. Knee pads may be protective but they are often big, bulky, uncomfortable, and therefore I didn’t wear them.
My attitude toward knee protection changed when I saw some friends fall and those that had knee protection did significantly better than those without.
Now I wear the Leatt Dual Axis Knee/Shin Guards and they are amazing. Check out my full review here.
Shoes:
It goes without saying that shoes are important to cover and protect your feet. I rarely wear flip flops or go barefoot unless I’m on the beach riding my Onewheel. It’s a calculated risk.
During even a moderate speed dismount from a Onewheel or EUC on concrete or asphalt, the ensuing heel strike as your heel comes down hard on the solid ground can cause damage even if you do manage to run out the fall without completely eating it
Shoes protect you from abrasions and lacerations. In addition, because the forces are transmitted directly on to your calcaneus (heel bone), the impact can cause contusion or fracture of the calcaneus which can be very painful and take a long time to heal. So make sure to wear shoes to decrease the risk of this injury.
Final Thoughts
There we go, head to toe the safety gear I wear when I ride. So far, my safety gear setup and responsible riding has kept me from serious injury. That brings me to my final point. There is no substitute for responsible riding when it comes to safety. Make sure to ride within your abilities and make sure to respect those around you as well as local laws.
I know safety gear is not an exciting or sexy topic, but it is an important one. I hope this article helps you find safety gear that you will wear on a regular basis to keep you safe.
Special thanks to all those that submitted their best safety pictures for me to add to the end of my safety gear video! Everyone looks great in their gear!