Rattling sound, reduced range

So I’m riding around on my Evolve Snubnose the other day when I hear a kind of a rattling noise. Typing the story now, I guess that sounds kind of scary. Carving around town at speeds of up to 18 miles an hour (I won’t push it faster) and then hearing a rattle coming from the motor. But the sound didn’t seem to affect the board. And you could only hear it at a certain, low speed.

The other day I wrote Evolve about the sound, and they wrote back, asking me to take off the cover plate and check that some screws hadn’t come loose. Turns out I needed a star shaped screwdriver to do that, which I didn’t have. But after I got one and took the board apart a little bit, I thought I’d found the culprit.

I’ll link the pic I took on Instagram: http://instagram.com/p/e6BeQ9vVar/

Problem solved. Right? Wrong. Turns out, my board still makes the sound. Which, according to their email, means I’m going to have to give my board some more love.

Crazy as it sounds, I really liked working on my board. Compare this to my Emad board, where whenever something goes wrong, they have me ship the board back to them. Right now, my Emad board is at the shop. For the third time. I’ve lost all faith that it’ll ever work as advertised.

But with my Evolve, I’m part of the board’s maintenance. I keep the thing running, and I feel good doing it. Like I’m leveling up my Engineering skill (WoW throwback!).

However, one disturbing complication has arisen. I always log all of my rides on my electric boards. The reason why I’ve been sending back my Emad board, is because it doesn’t travel 7-10 miles as advertised. I’ve only ever gotten 3 miles out of it.

Now I’ve been riding around on my evolve board long enough to find that it’s range might be something like 8 miles. Problem is, they advertise 18. So in a way, the Evolve board has the exact same problem as the Emad board. They only get about half their range.

Now in Evolve’s defense, they recommend doing several things that I do not. They recommend kick starting the board, where I usually let the board do the work. So that’s wasted mileage right there. They also recommend flat surfaces, which Gainesville is not, and not using the brakes. But I have to use the brakes. There are stop signs and pedestrians everywhere, demanding I use the brakes.

Now let’s keep in mind that my board is still rattling. So that could affect its performance too. But just like I hounded Emad, I feel Evolve owes us an explanation as well. How do they get their range of 18 miles? Was it in a lab? Did it come from an Engineer’s paperwork? Did get get it on a trail, or in a park, or simply riding around their neighborhood?

I vow to find the answer. For me. For us. For all electric skateboard enthusiasts.