Superhero...sure.

This video of an unusual street luger was posted to a mailing list I read recently. I know from firsthand experience how fun this kind of thing can be. I also know from firsthand experience how stupid it is.

I used to go street luging with my friends. Of course, we had none of this fancy newfangled equipment the nancy boys you see street luging on TV use. Back in my day here were the main components of your board:

1. 1 6-foot plank, sawed to a point on the front, and decorated with magic markers.
2. 1 set of skateboard trucks, extra tight with risers to elevate the board so that the wheels wouldn't scrape on hard turns.
3. German or swiss bearings, the faster the better.
4. 4 rollerskate wheels. This is very important. If you're going to be riding fast downhill you want soft wheels to absorb the vibrations without slowing down the board.

Only one piece of equipment for the rider: old shoes. They serve as your brakes. You could use new shoes, but you're going to ruin them pretty quickly.

It was a blast. Even when you're only going 40+ miles per hour it feels like you're going 100 when you're six inches off the ground. The air whips past your face so hard tears are streaming out of your eyes, and every turn feels like you're going to crash into the curb. And there's a reason for that: YOU'RE ABOUT TO CRASH INTO THE CURB.

I'd do it again in a heartbeat if it wasn't for one thing: it was the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life, and I'm lucky I'm not dead. I came pretty damn close though, a few times, and so did everybody else that was luging with us.

I probably had the worst injury at the beginning, back when I was still standing up on the board. I bailed going around 30mph or so downhill. My board got speed wobbles and turned 90 degrees to the left, leaving me sailing through the air. I was used to falling off of my board at that point, and rolled expertly as I hit the ground, scraping up my knees and elbows. What I wasn't used to was traveling that fast, and after rolling about three times I tried to stop myself. The result was sliding on the pavement for about 20 feet with my head bouncing on the asphalt. By the time I came to a stop most of the skin on my left side, left shoulder, and left knee was completely gone. I had a mild concussion, and was too confused to accept help from a lady in a car that offered to give me a ride home.

It took three months of excruciating pain before the scabs finally healed, and to this day I can't lift my left arm up all the way. I have a knee injury that never fully went away. I had many other bad spills, but in a way having the worst one up front made it easier to dismiss things like getting my ankle caught between my board and the curb on a steep turn I took too fast, rubbing off all of the skin and twisting my ankle, or riding down a hill, standing up, and watching a car ride up the lane I just left, knowing that if it had been there a moment earlier there is nothing I could have done to prevent my death.

I was stupid, and I was lucky, and something about having gone through that makes me look at this video and think, "Yeah, superhero my ass. He's not gonna look so super splattered all over the highway." Either I'm getting older, or I'm just becoming more of a jerk.