A Red Bull-sponsored skateboarder just broke the downhill speed record, exceeding 94 mph. On a skateboard.
I can’t even imagine going that fast on a skateboard. As I noted here, I hit 63 mph on a road bicycle once, and that was terrifying.
I used to skateboard a lot as a teenager, mostly for transportation in lieu of a bicycle. I got pretty good at it, but once inadvertently found myself going down a long, fairly steep hill with no easy way to stop or slow down. (No brakes on a skateboard.) When I realized how fast I was going (probably 20 mph), I started trying to put my foot down to slow down…and promptly took a tumble which caused some nerve damage in my right arm that lasted a few months. I’m lucky I didn’t get a head injury, as this was before routine helmet use. (I didn’t start wearing a helmet for activities like this until I got to college.)
I saw that a few days ago. Insane. Basically no protection other than the helmet and hand pucks. The phrase “meat crayon” comes to mind, but he pulled it off!
I don’t know which aspect of that was more terrifying, apart from the speed. That the road had curves, or that he was being closely followed by a chase car? Presumably the car would have been rigged to brake before running over him in the event of a fall, but still…
Maybe it’s my anti-spam, but I see no video in your second cite to Athletic.
Unrelated to the above …
The vid in the first post shows a crash at 17 seconds in. The car stops a little quicker in time and a lot shorter in distance than the skater does. Assuming the driver is paying attention, this isn’t a hard problem to solve.
Yep, my defenses include blocking absolutely everything on twitter / X. And Facebook. So I saw a bare link to there and skipped right over it. Your cite just above has the heading, intro sentence, the url, and a big empty white box.
That’s all on me; thanks for trying to be helpful.
The long vid in the Red Bull article was pretty darn impressive.