Four points on electric skateboarding

Many changes in the electric skateboarding world.

1 - Underlighting fail. You’ll know from my previous posts that I’ve installed green track under lighting on my Evolve board. Well, after going home yesterday, I noticed it had failed. The battery case finally snapped off, and now there’s a gaping hole where it used to be. It happened while skating, and I’m pretty sure I know where. The problem is, it’s just so easy to ride over some plastic garbage on the road and not have a second thought about it. But yesterday, when I heard that tell-tale sound of riding over plastic garbage --- well I now know it was my own. You can find a pic of the damage on my Instagram @maulakai

At first, I was going to take off the underlighting and diss Nite FX for their cheap ass product. But then I realized, if I really like the lights, a single piece of tape would fix it back to complete functionality. But I must caution anyone who is considering buying their product. Perhaps on a scooter, there’s a suitable place for the battery compartment. But the underside of a skateboard is not such a place.

2 - Still no word on the Carbon Series board I was promised in February. No update email. As a matter of fact, the Evolve web page still has a long outdated message about parts arriving in a week. I won’t hold my breath. But there is a ray of hope. Because on their Facebook, they posted a picture of a room filled with Carbon Series longboards. I sure hope mine is somewhere in that room.

3 - Boosted Boards webpage update. And it is a beautiful update. Finally, they’ve ditched the “sexy” picture of a skateboard, and replaced it with an updated model. Know what? It still looks sexy.

I got the chance to read through their new page, and I must say, I like what I see. According to them, since I placed a pre-order months … make that years ago, I will eventually hear a follow up from them. Who knows? If I still don’t have my Carbon Series by then, I just might order one.

They also have a section that seems devoted to many of the questions that skateboard virgins would have before getting their first electric board. About the importance of learning how to kick push, and break, and not depending on their brakes. And wearing a helmet. The usual stuff.

But I think their asking this new generation of electric skateboarders to learn to push and break is a bit naive. It’s like giving a new driver a car with an automatic transmission, but telling him he should really learn to drive a manual. I have learned to kick push my board, for the start of a run anyway. But it took me months to master. And I still can’t kick my board around for any good distance. I tried that one morning my old board broke. I found it to be very difficult. In all but the most ideal circumstances, I preferred to simply pick up my board and walk. Breaking is another issue. I would love to be able to wear skate gloves, the kind with the hockey pucks on the palms, and use those to break. But because I’m riding an electric skateboard, my hands aren’t free for such maneuvers. Which leads me to the next point.

4 What’s the next step? What’s the next, Evolution? There are two features that our electric skateboards are lacking. First, we need remotes that can be used in tandem with skating gloves. I’m no inventor, but I have a basic idea about how to make such a remote.

Boosted, Evolve, if you’re reading, please take this idea and run with it: Make the hockey puck the potentiometer. In other words, you could adjust the speed of the motor by spinning the hockey puck on the palm of your hand. If for any reason, you needed to put your hand down to break, there should be a pressure sensitive kill switch, so that you could slide and stop yourself without the motor working against you.

Look around the skating world. Anybody who's anybody uses the gloves. I see the pros making incredible runs without even knee pads. And their secret is the amazing level of control having skate gloves gives the rider. We need that with our electrics.

The second step, as I’ve mentioned before, is the car horn. I took a new way home yesterday, and sure enough, nearly got run over. You can wave your hands, you can wear LED lights, but the bottom line is that car drivers simply aren’t trained to look for skateboarders. Especially when approaching from, what I’ve come to call, *The forbidden angle* (down the sidewalk side approaching traffic, where a car pulls perpendicular to you to make a turn).

But car drivers do react to sound. We have the battery, we have the electrics, we even have the space. Board makers, please give us the horn we need to let cars know, we’re here!