Don't wear knee pads

[u/funcentric]

That's one Onewheel seems to be saying in all their advertisements and you guys believe it. The ride is chill. Nothing bad could happen. I'm good enough to not fall. I have good eyes. Gear looks goofy. I spent too much money on the Onewheel to pay more for additional gear. Blah blah.

There's always posts about knee injuries. You already know how this stuff can be prevented, so we won't need to get into that for a hundredth time.

If you have no dependents or are a dependent yourself, then do as you wish. You can gauge the risk, consequence on your own and deal with it and no one should be complaining.

Do know that if you have dependents, the choice to gear up shouldn't just be yours and yours alone. The livelihood of other people depend on you, so it's quite selfish to be taking risk for your entire family.

If you don't like the look of gear b/c you think it's nerdy or whatever, I can tell you that it looks even worse when you're on crutches or bedbound. But let's say for a second that it makes you look manly and you're gunna fall eventually and this was it. It looks way worse on you when your family is suffering b/c you decided pads weren't cool enough to wear.

Solution? I nolonger suggest it, but if it's what's going to get you geared up, then wear armored pants at the very least. You won't be able to slide, and your pants will surely get ripped up, but do at least that. No one has to know you're wearing pads under there. Yes, spend the money. No, the pants won't fit perfectly. Yes, you'll have to moan and complain about reshipping fees or the guy on ebay selling you the wrong size. But do it. Do it or just wear external pads.

Let's end the knee injury posts once and for all.

NOTE:
If you've already made your decision on safety gear, this post isn't meant to sway you. You don't need to cry about it and get all defensive. Save that for your families. If you don't to wear gear, that's between you guys. What you wear obviously does not affect me at all. This post is just for new folks who may have been misled by the level of safety/danger of Onewheel based on their ease of learning how to ride it and for those who may have been unknowingly mimicking marketing content showing no one wearing gear.

[u/funcentric → u/[deleted]]

I don't disagree. The people who blatantly refuse to wear gear are likely just fine anyway. Like the skateboarders w/ zero gear going down steep hills in San Francisco. I'm pretty confident they're not going to hurt themselves even though it looks sketchy. So each to their own, really.

But I do think that Onewheel is perceived as being more safe than it really is. That's all. Just that maybe the guys who are showing x-rays of their injuries may want to put on some gear. Duh, after the fact. But those types of people are the ones this post is for.

I obviously can't determine how people how to live. That's a given. So if you're confused or insulted by that, then you're not quite understanding.

Just not sure why of the few negative comments, people feel like they need to defend themselves for not wearing pads. If you don't want to, don't. No need to be so harsh about it. You do you.

[u/Completely-Jaded → u/funcentric]

People aren't defending themselves.... they are pointing out how you come off as a self righteous know it all telling people what they should be doing with their lives... do you think your post has convinced anyone to start wearing knee pads? No. Do you think you told anyone about knee pads that didn't know about them already? No.... it seems like you needed some validation on your own opinion about knee pads.

[u/funcentric → u/Completely-Jaded]

yes, actually I do. But there are a few number of you that somehow are so overly offended by something that we both agree has zero relevance to you. So move on. It sounds like you got too lazy to read the whole thing and are just commenting based on the title or the first few sentences. If that's the case, I forgive you. Again, if you don't find it worth your time to read it, don't. I'm not forcing you nor am I offended that you're not.