One ride, fourteen months, scroll to roll
Start
On July 1, 2025 a $699 electric skateboard showed up at the door. On September 5, 2026 it rolled past 600 miles. Eleven of the rides were recorded with GPS. I've stitched them end to end into one line, so you can ride the whole thing top to bottom. The odometer in the corner counts every mile, recorded or not.
Leg 1 · Belle Isle
Ten days in. Belle Isle, the loop road, six miles at lunch. The board is brand new, the wheels are still the color of wheat, and the remote is upside down in my hand.
Leg 2 · Lake Michigan
Muskegon, mid August. A short one on the far coast, the only recorded ride that leaves the east side of the state. Sand in the bearings.
Leg 3 · The long one
Saturday evening, September 6. Down through the neighborhoods, across to the island and back with the sun going. Top speed for the whole year: 46 mph on the GPS, which is either a downhill or a glitch and I'm keeping it.
Leg 4 · Lake St. Clair
Lunch break, five days later. North along the lake through the Pointes to St. Clair Shores and back. Nine miles, thirteen miles an hour, no hills because there are no hills.
Legs 5 to 8 · October
Four rides in four weeks. Morning laps of the island before work, jeans instead of shorts, the leaves turning. The October 17 ride is the last line of the year.
Intermission
October 17 to March. This is Michigan. The board goes in the garage, the battery gets a top-up once a month, and the line on the map goes grey. Nothing recorded because nothing happened.
March 2026
First warm day and the whole house is out on wheels. This is where the family clips go: the kids on their boards, Grace out front. Most of these miles never touched Strava, and that's the point.
Leg 9 · Summer
First recorded ride of 2026 on June 18. Then a July spent arguing with the remote: forward became reverse, reverse became forward, and Meepo support asked for a video.
Leg 10 · The International Jaunt
August 11. Down the river to the Gordie Howe bridge and over to Canada on a skateboard. Ten and a half miles, an hour and a half of moving time, and the slowest average of the year because you stop for the view.
Leg 10 · continued
The Jaunt is also the most photographed day of the whole 600. Thirteen clips on the phone. Here's the board catching its breath under a table.
Leg 11 · September 5, 2026
Skating home from my parents' house after we chopped up a branch the storms dropped in their yard. Fifteen and a half miles up the Shores and back. Somewhere on that stretch the count rolled over.
Strava saw 97.8 of the 600 miles: eleven rides with a GPS track. The other 502 are estimated between them, spread across the days the board was rideable, which in Michigan means not from mid October to March. The odometer above is that estimate, honest about being one.
The stitched line. Each ride starts where the last one ended. Dashed ring: where winter happened. Red: the ride that crossed 600. Streets removed on purpose.