Practice Safe Bouncing
Don’t worry, you won’t just get on the Vurtego pogo stick and accidentally fly into some power lines. It takes practice and skill to be able to bounce more than a couple feet off the ground. Take your time and build up to bouncing high once you’re comfortable with bouncing low.
Our pogo sticks are high-powered personal flight vehicles, but that doesn’t mean they’re inherently dangerous. Most people will only use them to jump a few feet high, and for those people, they are actually quite safe. In contrast to other extreme sports, we aren’t dealing with bone crushing speeds. The fastest you can move around on our pogo stick is equivalent to a light jog, so whenever you’re off balance there is always the potential of throwing the pogo stick to the side and landing on your feet.
We’ve put a LOT of effort into creating a safe pogo stick design. We’ve been at this for over ten years now, and in that time we’ve learned how to optimize pogo stick safety through our own personal experience. Once upon a time, we had pogo sticks without a rubberized protective SofTop on them. Instead, there was an aluminum top cap. A few missing teeth later, our pogo sticks now come equipped with the protective SofTop. The same thing goes with our handlebars. They were originally designed to hold up to all kinds of crazy abuse with their solid steel design. They could stand up to just about anything without bending. Great, right? WRONG! Your chin definitely does not enjoy making contact with steel, so we changed the handlebar design to a thin-walled aluminum. These days, the aluminum handlebars succumb to extreme force and won’t do damage to your face as the old steel bars did. It might be annoying that they bend from time to time, but it’s better to spend a few bucks on new handlebars than on a new face!
Our best design is in the small details that most people would never even notice. But for us, it’s all about providing the safest possible ride on one of the potentially craziest contraptions. Follow the rules in our pogo stick safety guide below, and you’ll be good to go.
Pogo Stick Safety Gear – Absolute Must!
Never, ever get onto a Vurtego pogo stick (or any pogo stick, for that matter) without your helmet. This is rule numero uno! While injuries tend to be pretty rare, hitting your head is always a possibility – and it only takes one fall to crack your noggin open.
Stick Inspection
Before gearing up for a bounce session, go through a quick checklist to make sure that your stick is completely tightened up and ready to perform. Make sure the bolts are completely screwed into the cylinder, check to make sure the handlebar is secure, and see if the bounce pad is securely fastened. If you hear some rattling and clanking noises while 6 feet up in the air, you might have some issues.
Flat & Solid Ground
Only bounce on flat, even surfaces. If you find yourself bouncing on a steep incline or decline, you may very well find yourself on your back…staring up at the clouds, wondering how you got there. And make sure that the surface you’re bouncing on is sturdy. With a high bounce, you can be apply 100s of pounds of pressure per square inch on that bounce pad. If the ground isn’t solid enough, you’ll punch a hole right through it…possibly even tearing a hole through the fabric of the universe.
Open Areas
It’s possible to cover a significant amount of ground between bounces on a Vurtego. Don’t bounce next to people, cars or other objects that you might accidentally land on. You can pretty seriously hurt someone else by landing on them…and replacing a hood on a 2010 Mercedes C class is not cheap…we know…
Slick Surfaces
We shouldn’t even have to state this one. It’s just common sense, people. Don’t bounce on slick surfaces. You ever try to go ice skating with tennis shoes? That’s what bouncing on on slippery surfaces feels like on a pogo stick. On the other hand, if you want to end up on your butt, go right ahead.
Overhead Objects
Be wary of any overhead objects that you might bounce up into. You can pretty easily get your head 10 feet or higher on a Vurtego. It’s no fun smacking your head on the ground…and even less fun smacking your head on the sky…especially when you fall and smack your head on the ground right afterward.
Ditch The Stick
Your Vurtego was designed to take abuse, and lots of it. Your body…not so much. If you lose your balance in the air, ditch the stick and land safely on your feet; walk over to the pogo stick, talk to it like a baby and tell it you’re sorry, then get back on it.
Stick Maintenance
Don’t ever take your stick apart with pressure in it. Seriously, don’t do it. Always let the air pressure out of it and collapse the slide shaft completely before doing any work on it!
