For the uninitiated, Metroboard is a Bay Area-based electric skateboard maker that's built a loyal following among commuters and hobbyists who'd rather not sit in BART traffic or pay $6 a gallon to drive three miles. The brand has earned a reputation for quality boards with serious range and power — the kind of thing that actually makes micro-mobility feel like a viable option rather than a tech bro novelty.

The catch? Getting one has required patience. A lot of patience. Supply chain issues, production timelines, and the general entropy of running a small hardware company mean that order-to-delivery windows haven't exactly been Amazon Prime territory.

But boards are landing now, and the community is buzzing. "I just got mine as well! So hyped," one Bay Area rider shared online — a sentiment echoed across forums where riders have been tracking their orders like hawks.

Not everyone is without reservations though. As one local quipped, "Let's hope we can add some more LEDs before the term of the half century" — a gentle nudge that while the core product delivers, the accessory and customization pipeline could use some acceleration.

Here's the thing: we're always going to root for small companies building actual physical products in the Bay Area. It's easy to launch a SaaS app. It's extraordinarily hard to manufacture and ship hardware, deal with component shortages, and keep a niche customer base happy. Metroboard does that with a scrappy, no-nonsense approach that's refreshing in a region drowning in vaporware and overfunded startups that produce nothing tangible.

If micro-mobility is going to be part of the answer to SF's transit woes — and it should be — it'll be companies like this leading the way, not city commissions spending three years on a feasibility study. Ride on.