Off-road electric skateboard: riding it like a pro
One of the greatest things about the Evolve boards is the ability to convert to an all-terrain setup. This basically opens up a much wider range of areas and places where you can ride, so anything from riding around people on a path through grass and gravel to get around them, to finding a dirt or bush track where you can go and ride, even including dirt and gravel BMX tracks. It's just a great way to find areas where you just otherwise wouldn't normally be able to skate to.
If you are a beginner and want to see what the off-road electric skateboards are capable of, you can binge-watching our Youtube channel the all-terrain race in Evolve Riders World Cup. So this not only showcases what the riders can do, but what the boards can do in those situations.
If you are looking to get better one on eskating, here we outline what you need to know to ride your off-road electric skateboard like a pro:
Board setup
The all-terrain board is going to come with the standard all-terrain tire. It's pretty much like a slick tire, pretty good all-arounder. It does all right in grass, gravel and dirt, but predominantly you're looking at road and hard surfaces. Doesn't have quite as much traction as some of our other options, but it is a great all-rounder and it does wear really well. Our other electric skateboard wheels options are off-road knobbies, as they've got a lot more tread on them, a bit better grip in grass, dirt. They do wear out a little bit quicker, but you do notice the extra grip when you're poking around in dirt and grass. On the road, they might feel a bit more slippery just because you have less contact patch, but off-road situations if that's where you're riding, grass, dirt, gravel, we'd recommend going towards these.
Depending on where and how you're riding, it's going to affect how you want to set up the bushings. If you're riding on a long straight or hard pack trails, so dirt, gravel, grass, if it's fairly hard pack, no big turns or anything like that, probably want a stiffer bushing set up. It's going to give you better control of the board and eliminate a lot of those fishtails that you don't want.
If you're riding on a BMX track, don't need the bushings as tight, you still want to be able to lean around those bends, but you don't want them super loose, it's going to turn in too quickly and you're going to wind up sliding off. If you're going out just for a pure bit of fun through grass, gravel, and you want to do those slides and you want to have a bit of fun, that's when your back your bushings right off.
Safety Gear
As with standard riding, we always recommend using safety gear. Helmet at a very minimum, recommending elbow pads and knee guards. Riding off-road, obviously you have less stability, less traction, the chances of coming off are higher, especially if you're riding in those BMX tracks. Keep yourselves in one piece, you don't want to lose any skin, we want to see you out riding 😉
Technique
As with anytime riding a board, your center of gravity plays a massive part in how comfortable you feel on it and how stable you are. So, if you're getting down a little bit lower, keeping your knees bent, with that you're going to be able to absorb the bumps. Then, it's going to be a little bit easier to control your body weight over the board and to control it.
One of the biggest things e-skaters want to do is take the boards at the BMX tracks. It's a fun way to blow a bit of steam, test out the board's capabilities on different surfaces, and the good thing is that you don't have to worry about cars or kids or anything like that running around in front of you. Biggest thing though that people don't get used to is the berms, and the hills, and pretty much everything that goes on with the BMX track. A common mistake with the berm is that people probably tend to do first up is turn to sharply. So you find that when you come up to a berm, because it's banked, you don't actually have to turn, lean, that much to get through it. The banking of the berm carries you through so you don't need to lean as much as you would normally on flat ground. Also, you don't want to change your speed too much, keeping it fairly constant, not breaking nor accelerating, just trying to flow through, look where you're going, don't look at the ground, and it's going to help you get through those tracks without issues.
Another difference you're going to find riding off-road to road is obviously traction. The biggest thing traction is going to be noticeable in situation is on hills. So you'll find normally when you're accelerating, you want to get your weight over the front of the board, keep your balance and your stability. If you do this on a hill, you take your weight off the rear, you lose traction and don't go anywhere. Said that, you kind of need to find that nice balance of where you're not going to fall over the back of the board when it accelerates, but you need enough weight on the rear of the board that keeps traction on the ground and actually gets you up that hill.
🔋 🛹 Extra tip!
When getting out on the BMX, it’s a good idea to walk around the track and just check out the track. A good thing, just roll your board over a few of the jumps and humps, just to make sure that you've got clearance, you don't want to go flying over it and bottom out on some of the jumps. Also, if you're going around some off-road tracks, it's just a good idea to take it easy to start with and just see what the terrain is like in front of you, there's no logs, or sticks, or potholes for the water. Anything like that, it can do damage to yourself or your board.
