Yeah, yeah, electric skateboard. Big deal. The thing that makes Kickr different, aside from front wheel drive, is the ability to add the drive unit to almost any skateboard, and the fact that you control speed via your foot and a pressure sensitive switch. There’s even a “cruise control” setting which is kind of amazing. Having a foot controller may be nice for streamlining, but could lead to some situations where shifting your balance has unintended consequences. Take your foot off the sensor and you’re rolling unassisted. Parts of it look pretty polished. Others, not so much, mainly the griptape covered friction drive wheel and the dangly cords. They met their original goal on Kickstarter, but it look s like they’ve hit some sort of speed bump (I slay me!) in production. You can’t actually order the Kickr online, you can only ask to be notified when they are accepting payments again. As my 9 year old son said after looking over my shoulder at this: “It’s kind of dumb, but also kind of cool.”

– Thanks to Matthijs for the tip

I wasn’t sure if this Miller beer commercial ever aired on TV, and I can’t remember how I found out about it, but I held off on posting it to see if I could record it off TV for the official S&A archives. I eventually forgot about it when it never showed up in anything I watched. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been looking through draft posts lately and this one got my attention. The original video has been deleted but a quick search turned up a replacement. According to the new and apparently original source, it didn’t air because it was shot on spec circa 2006. Devo and skateboarding in a beer commercial? A beer company would probably balk at even the hint of targeting an underage audience. How dare they assume responsible adults drink beer and skateboard! Still, stranger things have happened in the TV commercial world. This post originally had another commercial for Panasonic (What? I don’t know) that had some high profile names skating a ditch, but I can’t find it anywhere.