Getting Around

Stories on the move

by Erica Stratton

Cars aren’t the fun they used to be. With gridlock, gas gouging, road rage and premium-price parking, who wants to drive to work — let alone take the car out for a Sunday spin?

Poweriser

“It took two years to find out what they were called,” says Kyle Bridenstine. The Kent Islander comes to the Annapolis skateboard park at Truxton Park to practice a new sport. Strapped to his feet are a pair of ski boots, only each one ends in what resembles the springy tendons and bones of a kangaroo’s leg refashioned in metal. After seeing them on television, Bridenstine plunked down $500 for his own pair, via the Internet.

The boots — called powerisers, velocity stilts, skyboots or powerbocks — claim that price because they convey superpowers on their wearers. The super-stilts contain springs that add an additional kick to each nine-foot stride. An experienced user can run up to 20mph on them.

“People can jump over cars with them,” Bridenstine says. He will, too, as soon as he has a little more practice. In the meantime, he shows off running, jumping and leaping on one foot.

Bocking is still an underground phenomenon, though you can find many videos of stunts on YouTube. Bridenstein describes meeting other bocking enthusiasts on the website poweriserpages.com. “We talk on blogs and schedule a date” to meet, he says. Then, “100 people come and hop around D.C.” or New York City.

Wearing powerisers is not for the shy. Bridenstine says the reactions have “mostly been positive,” though he went into the Annapolis Mall wearing them and was escorted out by the manager. His intent was not to cause trouble. “I talked to a cop in Kent Island,” he reports, “who said I qualified as a pedestrian.”

See last weeks 'Gettin Around''