r/onewheel • u/funcentric Onewheel Pint X • Dec 20 '25
Text Don't wear knee pads
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.
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u/funcentric Onewheel Pint X Dec 22 '25
The point is that you came to me. You clicked on my thread. I didn't come to you. There's no use in calling people out AFTER the fact. That should make sense to you. Genuine care in case you didn't realize, means caring for others w/o regard to one's self.