Which design is best?

Hello my blog. I just wanted to give you a quick update. After writing my last post, I saw the following review on wired.com, putting various electric vehicles to the test. Among them, the FunkyDuck that so many celebrities have been riding recently, an off model of electric skateboard, and an one wheel design.

I don’t want to spoil which one he thinks was best, but I will tell you that I was right ;)

Evolve Battery Woes

So let’s talk about Electric Skateboards again. I went through a dry patch there, where I didn’t have much to talk about. But now I sure do. You’ll note that I’ve recently moved, which *totally* changed my commute. In a way it’s a bit stressful to do that, but in a way it’s fun because I get to learn the optimal way to skate to and from work from a new location. Also note that I’ve moved closer to work, but perhaps along a path where taking the bus is a bit more difficult, as the stop is now easily two or three times farther than it had been.

My new place has a lot of speed bumps in it, and most of them traverse the entire width of the road. Meaning unless you’re on a bicycle, there’s really no way to skip them. Which is a bummer. I also knew from having skated there once before that the sidewalks leading to and from my work are complete garbage. So naturally, I reached for my all terrain Bamboo Series Two from Evolve.

And it didn’t disappoint. It can easily make it over the speed bumps without touching, which is great, although it’s always a bummer to have to slow for the damn bumps. But I understand, because if it weren’t for those, I’d probably have been run over by a car already.

It also handles those garbage surfaces like a boss, so we’re two for two. My new route to work allows me to enter the building by the vallet guys, which is a very nice added bonus. I’ve already heard comments to the effect of “That’s cheating,” and “Sweet board.”

But when I rode home from work, I saw something that troubled me. My remote was giving me the low battery light. What’s up with that? The distance before was three miles. The distance now is more like two and a half *tops*. Five miles on my Bamboo Series should be cake for this board.

Now I’m no battery expert, but I do know that with these new batteries, you don’t want to let them get down below 20% if it can be helped. I wondered if I didn’t charge it incorrectly, or otherwise make some kind of mistake with the charging.

So the next day, I brought my charger with me to work. This isn’t something I do lightly. Because these batteries are also rated for a certain number of charges. If it can be helped, it’s better on the battery to charge it once, not twice a day. So I charged it at work, and rode home that day. Would you believe that before I had gone even a single mile, I looked down and saw that damn low battery light. What gives?

To me, this is a sign. And a bad one. Because the Bamboo Series two is my newest board, with the best battery. It should be the last board of mine to pull a stunt like this.

While I’m trying to sort out what’s going on with the board, I decided to take my Boosted Board to work today. So I did a little testing. Turns out the Boosted can also clear all the speed bumps, without touching. But something about the feel of it going over a speed bump, I found that I much prefer to hop off the board and hop back on.

Today, when I rode it to work, I found several points in the road where I had to hop off, because the surface was so bad. That was to be expected. But when I got to work and did a battery check, would you believe I was only down one and a half lights (out of five). In other words, the Boosted Board reports being not even halfway discharged, while the Bamboo Series two already reports a low battery.

Now part of this issue is the fact that the Boosted Board has an awesome battery life indicator that tells you exactly how much battery it has used, and how much it has left. While the Evolve board simply flashes a red light to tell you you’re getting low on juice.

I checked both manufacturer webpages and this is what I found. I’m sorry, all you battery experts, if this isn’t quite the pertinent information. But the Boosted Board claims a 99 watt hour battery. The Evolve board claims a 350 watt. I’m sure somewhere out there is a person who can shed more light on the subject. But the feeling I get is that when it comes to battery life with the all terrain wheels, all bets are off.

Maybe it’s time I put the orthodox wheels on my Bamboo Series two and skate like that for a while. But man, I really love having those wheels to get me over the real life conditions of sidewalks.

As a matter of fact, as I was skating this morning, I couldn’t help but feel like the device I really want is the One Wheel. I think that almost every time I go over the stupid fucking tactical pavement they put on the curbs here, just to fuck with all the old people in Jazzies who have to roll over them.

I still don’t really wanna drop the cash on yet another electric vehicle. Maybe I can finagle one for Christmas. The Boosted Board is the electric skateboard that would really satisfy an orthodox skateboarder. The Evolve Bamboo Series with the all terrain tires is the board that is best suited to a beginner who needs his board to ride more like a bicycle. But the One Wheel strikes me as the only electric vehicle that is truly designed from the ground up to do what it does specifically, allowing a single person to commute over whatever the terrain has to offer.

One last note. I saw skating the Evolve around a parking lot. I pulled up to the trunk of my car, just as a family with a young boy was passing by. The father said to the boy, “You should get one of *those* boards.”

I turned to them and said, “You won’t be disappointed. They’re awesome.”

“What’s it called?” the mother asked.

“Evolve Skateboards,” I said.

They nodded and walked on. What I wanted to add, but didn’t was “You’re in trouble now, because the board costs more than the car.” But then, as I thought more about it, a better response, that would actually help promote this new favorite pastime of mine, would have been, “Go for the LecDec. It only costs as much as a PlayStation.”

LecDec

Long time, no see, all you electric skateboard enthusiasts. How have you been?

Have I got news for you. the first, most important thing I’ve learned, is that the LecDec is here. What a great name that is. But what makes the LecDec worth typing about is the price. This electric skateboard is only $400. That’s right. We’ve reached price parity with a PlayStation 4. This is the time, my friends, when your average neighborhood kid can afford one of these lovely new toys.

Now I don’t want to act like I have the inside scoop on this board. Because I don’t. But I am a member of the Evolve group on Facebook. If you’re not in that group, run, don’t walk, to like that page, because that is an incredible resource for people like us.

So even though I’ve never even *seen* the LecDec, I think it’s safe to say that the board is going to be two things in addition to cheap: loud and slow. It’s pretty much the only way such a board can maintain that kind of distance, is to go slow. Now there’s nothing wrong with going slow. In fact, I like the idea, because that means the board that most neighborhood kids can afford will be one that I can skate circles around.

Let me link the thing already.

So it looks like it’s available in the UK. If anyone has actually rode the thing, please hit me up @maulakai and let me know what you think.

In other, more personal news, I’ve just moved. Closer to work, in fact. But the kicker is that the skate to work is now actually more difficult. It’s funny how little details like a speed bump that you can’t skate around can really change the vibe of the commute.

But in a way I’m happy for the move. Because in my city, the whole damn place is under construction all at once. They managed to have nearly two of the three miles of my old commute under construction, making it a much less fun skate. At least for the moment.

That considered, you’d think my new route, an even shorter distance, would be ideal for a commute. I mean, it travels along a bike path, for gosh sakes. But it’s not. Because of those damn speed bumps, and because of the way the bike path takes a few very sharp turns, and gets cut by major roads. I still haven't actually done the commute, but I’ll definitely be using my all terrain Bamboo Series Two for it. I’m sure making the commute with my Boosted would only wind up scratching the bottom.

Also, my new bus route will take me right to work. But the walk to the bus is a few blocks, with some up hill. So maybe, if I learn to hit the bumps just right the Boosted, it could be a good way to pop on down. We’ll figure it out. Until then, may you ride more than you carry.

4July2015

So let me start by saying that I learned something *very* valuable last night. The fourth of July, Saint Augustine Beach, and electric skateboards all go together *very* well.

What can I say? Of all the night skates I’ve had, it was easily the best. And it wasn’t only the fireworks. It was the people. It was the beach. I don’t know where to begin and I’m all over the place.

Let me start with the day. Because the fourth during the day was pretty good, and pretty good, considering it didn’t rain. I managed to skate the Bamboo Series Two all the way down to the beach. Where I well all out and jumped into the water, even though I was wearing jeans shorts. Still, I pussed out to skate the thing down the beach.

I skated everywhere. I passed a little girl who said, “It has a controller!” Which was new. I skated by lawn parties, and longboarders.

It was also the first time ever I was stopped by a cop. That is, the first time in Saint Augustine Beach I’ve ever been stopped by a cop. You’ll remember I was previously stopped by the UF Campus police, but I digress.

So I’m skating in the residential area. But the big street to cross to get to the beach, and to get to the ice cream shop, Cone Heads, where I was going, is A1A. When I got to A1A I hit my brakes and came to a near stop as I looked to see what the traffic was like. Well wouldn’t you know, the first car there, the one I was braking to stop for, was a police SUV. So even though I wasn’t technically stopped at that moment, I was going so slow that I put a foot down and anchored myself. Turns out the cop SUV stops and turns in front of me so that he can roll down the window and say, “Hey! You have to carry your board across the street. Unless you want a $167 fine.”

“Yeah, I’ll carry it,” I said. I carried the board across the street to Cone Heads. But, after that I thought about it a little and I’m not sure I have to *carry* the board. I mean, I hope this is just semantics here, but carrying that Bamboo Series two is kinda heavy. I’d much prefer to simply put the board down and roll it. You know, kick it across the street, so that you’re already pointed in the right direction and able to hop onto a rolling start once you’re across. But he said to carry it. I wonder if the same rule applies to bicycles. Do *they* have to carry their bikes across the street, or can they simply roll their vehicles across, too?

So that happened. And I’m not the happiest about having to get cock blocked by those guys. I’m sure they just want everyone to be safe for the holiday, and don’t want to have to deal with some horrible injury. But let’s be honest, I’m looking out for me, and I’m not about to cause an accident. If there’s really something that would help, it’s getting the cars to slow down.

While I rode my @BoostedBoards around for half of the time, the real hero of this weekend was the all terrain, Evolve Bamboo series. What’s great about having these two boards is that they can tag team together perfectly. While one board is charging, you ride the other one. By the time you’re home, your next board is ready to roll.

But I made sure to have the Bamboo ready for the night skate. The fireworks show in Saint Augustine Beach was scheduled for nine thirty. Meaning the sun would be down. I could have taken my backpack with the #loudbicycle horn, but I didn’t. Instead, I took a bright flashlight and a red taillight and skated out.

I want to be clear here that I took the board for the all terrain tires. I really hate night skating with orthodox wheels. This is because the darkness makes it too difficult to see the imperfections and debris in the road that you really do need to be aware of to skate with orthodox wheels. But you take the all terrain tires, and you can skate with relative impunity.

So I started skating around the neighborhood. Turns out the area by the library with the section for seniors and vets was a bust. There wasn’t *anything* going on there. So boo. But then I got to see a family set off their fireworks in their driveway. It’s hard to describe what made this night skate so good. Because there were explosions and fireworks going off all around me. I simply skated around, looking for a good vantage point for whatever was going off at the moment. And with an electric board, it’s really easy to skate over a few blocks and see what’s going on before the show is over.

You saw my Instagram video about the nice little skate run? Well there were some nice fireworks going off behind there. I got a great view of fireworks over the water that I might never have got the chance to see otherwise.

Then I went for the run, and guess what I saw? A deer! Then another! Three! All of them scared like armageddon was happening. And to a deer, I’m sure they felt like it was. My little flashlight was so bright, they froze up in it! Then they ran from my, right through people’s houses here off A1A. I was so surprised to see that family, and to run with them for a half a block or so.

But the real treat was finding out that my neighbors just a block over were lighting off some *serious* fireworks. They had the real deal. You had to be with me on Snapchat to get in on that. But I felt very happy for staying with my local fireworks, and not driving off to some technically bigger displayer somewhere else.

I’m here at the local StarBucks, which is *packed*. But I’d like to say that for the record, I took my backpack so I could carry my laptop over. Which meant I had the @LoudBicycle horn. And sure enough, I had a chance to use it when a car pulled out in front of me. Now don’t get me wrong, an accident wouldn’t have happened. But my *honk honk* got him to stop with enough room for me to glide by on the sidewalk.

If I hadn’t had the @Loudbicycle horn, he probably would have blocked the sidewalk. I would of had to stop and try to skate awkwardly around behind him. He might have waved me on, but still it would have ruined my momentum. Just ruined it! So three cheers to @Loudbicycle for their hard work.

Fourth of July + Electric Skate + Saint Augusinte Beach = Fun times

New Post

I know it’s been forever since I’ve made a post to my electric #skateboarding blog, so I guess today is the day. It’s a fitting day to post to this blog, because today is the third of July. Where I work, it’s a holiday, and more importantly, my city public transportation believes it’s a holiday too. In other words, no bus service. Meaning I couldn’t take the bus to work this morning. Or back home later today, for that matter.

However, they also lifted some of the parking restrictions. In other words, this morning, I had the option to drive to work and park like a respected employee. Or to #skate to work. I looked at the weather report, and saw that there was something like a twenty percent chance of rain around the time I would be going home.

I decided to #skate. This time, I didn’t reach for the usual, @BoostedBoards. Nope, this day, since I’d be skating from door to door, I chose the best board for the job. The big, bulky, Bamboo Series Two with the All terrain tires.

I was happy to find that the roads were mostly clear as I #skated over. No hidden cops or bustling traffic to trip me up. Bravo, Bamboo Series Two.

***

So I want to type a little bit more about my #LoudBicycle horn. The one that I’ve installed into my backpack and been using for a few weeks now. At first, I was skeptical about it’s effectiveness. But now, I’m a believer. I don’t know what it is about this horn. Some days, I’m feeling a little horny (lol) and I honk it nearly every chance I get.

Other days, I don’t even bother. But one things for sure. Having the ability to honk the horn when a car pulls out in front of you is a great safety feature. I say a little prayer of thanks every time that horn allows me to know for certain that a drive will yield the right of way.

I still think it would be great to have the horn built into the #skateboard so that you could honk using the remote.

***

Now let me talk a little about the battery life on my @BoostedBoards. And I want you to take this with a grain of salt. Keep in mind that I’ve been using this board to commute to work and back nearly every day for as long as I’ve had it. When I first got the board, I would come home, check the battery, and see that I had as many as three lights of battery left.

Then I sent in the board for a minor repair. When it came back to me, it was in the new, faster mode where it had three speed settings and could run at approximately twenty two miles an hour.

Even since then, I’ve used the board pretty much exclusively in the fastest gear. Yesterday, when I came home and checked the battery, I had a single, blinking light. Meaning, my little four mile commute took nearly *all* of the battery.

What does this mean? I’m not exactly sure. One the one hand, we have to expect the battery to get worse over time. Certainly my original Evolve Bamboo board suffers from the same issue. Decreased battery life over time. But it feels a little premature for my @BoostedBoards.

But then you also have to figure that I’m using the board in the top gear. I’m going faster, and going faster will always mean using more battery. What I really should do is a run home on the middle gear, and see how much battery I have left over after that. The trouble is, who ever drives slow on purpose?

Nobody, that’s who.

What’s worse is that I’ve *already* tried to go home in the middle speed setting. But I failed. If there’s one drawback to the @BoostedBoards remote, it’s changing between the speed settings. In order to do it, you have to push the button several times.

Now don’t get me wrong here. I was raised on Nintendo. I’m a lifetime, natural, illustrious grandmaster button pusher. But changing the remote between speed settings is fucking impossible. When I couldn’t do it by the time the crosswalk light said go, I said fuck it, and #skated home at top speed.

This is still a relevant question, because people are still always asking me how far the thing can go. My canned answer is still about six miles. But I might have to admit that now, that range is more like four. At least, the way I skate it is. And four miles is a bit limiting.

This whole post also has me wanting to do a distance test with the board. I mean, if I kept my skate slower, how far *could* I go? It’s a good question, and one I’d like to have answered. I’m pretty sure the answer would be pretty far.

Especially since cheaper, crappier boards, like the Yuneec board, claim to have such great ranges. I’m almost certain that if I reduced the speed, my @BoostedBoards would go even farther than that. It should, it has a much better battery. But then you have to factor in that it also has two motors. I’m not a good enough Engineer to say for certain, but I’d guess that means it’ll use more battery regardless, and that if you’re looking for range, you really need a single motor.

***

The other test I’m really dying to do is the beach test. I’m talking about the Bamboo Series Two now. I’ve seen videos of other people using theirs on the beach. And I #skate mine down to the beach all the times. I’m very curious to know if I could skate mine on the right patch of hard sand. I know it would be the shiznit to roll down the beach on it. But I’m so scared that something with the sand would turn it all to shit. And I’m scared that rolling on the sand would take up so much more of the battery that I’d find myself stranded, with that big heavy board, and a very long walk home.

Will I have the balls to try it this weekend? Stay tuned to find out.

First Honk

So today was the day where I did it. My first real honk, using the #loudbicycle horn. So if you haven’t been following me, I have the horn actually *inside* of my backpack. The button to honk it is attached to the backpack strap, so that I can hit it like someone on Star Trek would hit their communicator.

Because the horn is so loud, at first I wondered if I should even use it for my morning ride into work. Reason being, I take the bus most of the way into work, and from then on out it’s mostly backroads and sidewalks, so the chances of me needing to honk the horn on the ride in are slim.

That first day, I didn’t connect the button, but I wished I had. Because while skating the downhill, back road from the bus stop to work, I saw something out of place. A truck. A *big* truck, parked right in my way. I came into sight of it just in time to see a man get into the truck, close the door, and start the engine.

That is more or less a nightmare scenario. Especially because the way the truck was parked, there was no going around it. I’d have to skate in front of the truck, or else use my brakes and lose all my dignity.

In that moment, I wished I’d connected the damn button, because it would have been the perfect situation to honk. But instead, I slowed, made eye contact with the man in the driver seat, and skated on by.

But I vowed to skate with the horn after that little incident.

This morning, I had the horn. I was skating up a small hill, right outside of my work place. At the midpoint of this little hill is a busy four day intersection. Close to that is an also busy threeway with a bus stop. I’ve already had a few close calls in this area.

This morning, I was skating up the hill, and that’s kind of the first red flag. Because people never expect someone to be skating up a hill. And then a pickup truck pulled to the stop in front of me. The way the light is, I couldn’t really see if this guy saw me or not, which is another red flag. He looked like he was making a rolling stop.

Against I was faced with a split second decision. Do I break and lose my uphill momentum? I hit my Star Trek communicator. Honk! As soon as I hit it, his rolling stop became a full on stop, and I skated by, confident that I wouldn’t be run over.

The good thing was that it wasn’t so loud as I was scared it might be. It didn’t make me jump out of my shoes or anything. The bad part was that, because it’s in my backpack and pointed *behind* me, it probably scared a pedestrian behind me. In other words, direction *does* matter and there’s no good way for me to point it forward.

But the car stopped rolling, and the experience gave me some piece of mind, so I’m happy about that. Yay #loudbicycle horn!

#loudbicycle

So yesterday, the second of my kickstarter fantasies became a reality. (the first was my Boosted Board) And don’t quote me on that, because I’m not even certain this one was on kickstarter. I’m talking about the #loudbicycle. It’s basically a car horn for your bicycle. My challenge is to adapt it for #electricskateboard use.

Now that I have the thing in my hands, it’s a lot easier to gauge how to use it. First thing, it’s kinda too big and heavy to hold, or attack to my arm. As a matter of fact, only the Evolve Bamboo Series 2, with its motor sticking out of the back, seems to be large enough to accommodate it. Even that’s a stretch. There’s also the matter of vibrations. Of which a skateboard receives much. I’m not sure how sturdy a product this is, but I’d hate to immediately mount it to the board only to find it doesn’t like being shaken.

The thing came with directions, which said to charge the thing first. They said it might take up to eight hours! But I noticed it uses the same, *Mini* USB port that for some reason is increasingly common to see. And though I kinda hate this port and wish it would die and leave the rest of the world to make *Micro* USB the standard, apparently Mini USB *is* popular because at my charging station, I’m already setup for Mini. It’s the same port that Evolve and Boosted use for their remotes.

So I plug the thing in to charge. Keep in mind, this was just after coming home from work. So there at my charging station, I also have my laptop, the Boosted Board, the Boosted remote, and now this #loudbicycle horn.

The Boosted remote’s light was the first one to turn green. I unplugged it. Then the Boosted Board turned Orange. Remember I have one of the earlier models that turns orange, not green, when it’s charged. I unplugged that. Finally my laptop started flashing orange a blue. I swear, this isn’t because I’m some sort of huge University of Florida Gators fan. That’s just how chromebooks work. My chromebook, at least. And it’s usually the slowest to charge.

But it’s my routine to unplug the whole power strip, once everything is charged. When I did that, I didn’t realize that the #loudbicycle horn was no longer charging, as it was plugged into the power strip. When I was the horn was no longer charging, I was tempted to simply plug the strip back in. But the strip has all of these AC/DC converters plugged into it, and they might draw some power away from the charge, so instead I plugged just the #loudbicycle horn directly into the wall.

And when I did, it’s light turned green. I always kinda wonder about batteries and appliances like this. I bet if I had left it plugged in, it would have taken quite some time to charge. But for some reason, unplug it and plug it back in and it’s all good?

So what was the next step? To honk the horn, of course. It has an external button on a wire that you have to plug in, and I connected it. There was some tension in the air as I braced myself for what should be a loud noise. I hit the button.

The honk was loud enough to make me jump, even though I had braced myself for it and pointed the horn away from me. Also, that single honk caused the charge light to go from green to red again. I let the horn charge.

I have a big pocket on the outside of my backpack that has #loudbicycle written all over it. I cleared out the pocket, and now the horn lives there. To be fair, it was so loud, I’m almost scared to use it. Which might be a good thing.

For my morning commute to work, I take a bus most of the way. So for that short ride, almost entirely over sidewalk, I elected *not* to connect the button and have the horn as an option. I plan to enable it for my ride home. So, yeah, I haven’t actually field tested the thing. More posts to follow. As always, see the horn on my instagram @maulakai.