Back to the Future Part II had Marty McFly floating over the ground on a hover board; levitating on a skateboard without wheels. The magnetic force field like propulsion was featured again in Back to the Future Part III. Marty used his hover board to escape Griffins gang in the future, which as luck would have it, was 2015. See where I'm going with this? Flashback... 1989 and as I typed "Load '*', 8, 1" on my Commodore 64 and waited 45 minutes for games like Dig Dug, River Raid, Summer Games, and Tapper to load, I wondered to myself if I would ever have a Delorean or a hover board.
OK, so the boards I am about to tell you about aren't exactly like the board that's portrayed in the Back to the Future movies by director Robert Zemeckis. But, these really cool boards are taking 2015 pop culture by storm.
Spoiler alert: they don't actually hover but still, they're really cool! You would be hard pressed to use Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat and not see somebody riding around on one of these new contraptions. I bet they will be on a kiosk in a mall near you soon. The big box stores will begin carrying them and there will be plenty of commercials pitching their futuristicness (if that's even a word). Kids, prepare to nag your parents for one of these. Parents, prepare to be nagged because the future is now and you don't need plutonium or gigawatts.
These things are similar to the Segway Scooter but without handle bars. They are two wheeled boards that you steer by shifting your weight. They do not require a space-time continuum so relax yourself! Pop Star and recent addition to Madame Tussauds wax museum, Sam Smith recently posted video of him riding a board from a company called Glyde in Style. I went to their website to research their product but the website was down. I found another company called Hyper Walk where I found specs for their two-wheeled electronic boards which cost $749.99 and are available in four colors (red, white, blue, and black). They list a top speed of 9 MPH and according to their product specs, can cruise for 9-12 miles on a single charge. They also state that their boards can recharge in 1-2 hours.
One thing I noticed early on about these boards is that they didn't seem to have a consistent nomenclature. Each company selling them markets the board using their own individual name. I reached out to Glyde In Style and Hyper Walk but wasn't impressed with their responses to my questions. Both provided inconsistent pricing and inconsistent explanations of their product. However, when I contacted Wavy Boardz they were helpful and responded very quickly. Wavy Boardz's staff explained that the boards are actually called "self balancing scooters" and that there are quite a lot of knockoffs; companies selling cheap imitations of the real thing. To be fair, I am still confused as to what the "real thing" is but I want one. Wavy Boards are the closest I've found although I haven't rode one yet. To use it, you stand on the button like pedals that control speed, steering and direction. Tilt your foot one way and it moves forward, tilt it the other way and it goes backwards; tilt your body a bit and it turns. I have never seen anybody wearing a helmet or other protective equipment while riding one of these but I don't think that would be a bad idea.
I'm sure these will be the hottest item this holiday season. Hopefully I'll have the opportunity to throw on a pair of self tying Nike's, just like Marty McFly did, and hop onto one of these bad boys. I still want to head back to the future but in the meantime, I'm wondering if Marty knew that Sprint would have an iPhone 6 plus with unlimited data and I'd be sitting at the corner diner, without WiFi, watching snippets of Back to The Future on YouTube while I drink a diet coke (they don't have Tab either) and write about his hover board, all from the palm of my hand!