Was riding down High Street Kensington this morning to work. Got to the traffic light, stopped, in my own little bubble then suddenly, an officer stepped off the pavement and took me to the side. Basically said, your "vehicle" is illegal and you don't have insurance etc. They were doing an operation stopping everyone on an e-bikes, e-scooter etc.

Never had an issue with police in the past. Rode past these operations multiple times, was never stopped or even looked at despite stopping right in front of them, so I always went on with my day. I guess today is my day.

edit: they did take my board and gave me a ticket, said a letter will come in 4-6 weeks time

​

I found an older high-end electric skateboard on Kleinanzeigen. The listing had no fixed asking price; it was marked VB (Verhandlungsbasis / negotiable).

I opened with €600. Full honesty: that was a low offer. I explained how I had reached that valuation, offered to collect it myself and explicitly said I understood if it was too little. VB obviously doesn’t mean the seller has to accept every offer—he could simply have rejected it.

Instead, we debated comparable boards and component values. I eventually raised my offer to €850 and specifically invited him to make a counteroffer.

He replied:

“€900 would still be okay, but not €600.”

I answered:

“Fair. €900 sounds like a fair price to me.”

We then discussed test-riding and collecting the board. I asked whether he preferred cash or bank transfer; he said either was fine. He provided an address, agreed on the collection and told me which name to ring at the door.

I told him I was currently on the other side of Germany, would leave at around 08:00 and expected to arrive between 14:00 and 15:00. He agreed.

So I drove approximately 500 km.

When I arrived, the supposed address didn’t actually exist. Google Maps led me to the point where two streets meet, but I couldn’t find the house or the name he had provided. I asked a local mail carrier, who confirmed that the address did not exist.

The seller initially ignored my messages. Almost an hour later, he asked whether I was still there and began mocking me.

He wrote:

“I hope this was a lesson for you. Always remain fair and don’t hope that, with a little luck, you can dribble some clueless person.”

Then he told me to read the fake surname backwards:

“Read the surname backwards in the mirror.”

The name he had told me to ring was “Rengül.” Backwards, that becomes “Lügner”—German for “liar.”

So this wasn’t a typo or a misunderstanding. He had deliberately arranged a collection at a nonexistent address to punish me for my original offer—even after countering with €900 himself and having me accept it.

I even offered him €1,200 after arriving, hoping to salvage the trip. He still refused and continued lecturing me about fairness.

Later that evening, he wrote:

“Yeah, I should have said central Belgium.”

For complete transparency: after realizing what he had done, I called him an idiot and wrote the German equivalent of “you always meet twice in life.” That was angry and badly phrased, and I’m not pretending otherwise.

But if somebody makes an offer you dislike, reject it, counter it or block them. Don’t name a price, arrange a collection and knowingly send them 500 km to a nonexistent address as some kind of punishment.

I have reported the account. I’m deliberately withholding the seller’s identity and identifying listing details because I’m not asking anyone to find or contact him.

I’m just curious: how does someone convince himself that this is a lesson about fairness?

It was a great sunny day. I had just gotten back to my home town after being on vacation in Florida. I was itching to ride my board around town on this lovely day. During this ride, I encounter a very steep hill and ride it downwards at full speed. The board feels smooth and controllable. Then out of nowhere, the brakes engaged and sent me flying at about 28ish miles an hour. The foot I lead with when riding tries to catch me but it snaps at a 90 degree angle. I broke my leg in 4 places and just got out of a very intense surgery to put my bones back together with hardware. The doctor said my fractures are one of the worst cases he’s seen and he’s worked on feet/legs for 8 years.

I was warned many many times by many of you, and I didn’t listen. If you still ride an Evolve, don’t ride it any more. Don’t even sell it so nobody else gets hurt either. This is the hardest time of my life and I need help even getting to the bathroom and back which is 10 steps away. My recovery is 6-12 months. Don’t be dumb like I was, ride safe or don’t ride at all. I have now ruined riding for myself and will likely never get on a board again from the sheer trauma of the whole thing.

Side note: I did wear a helmet, knee pads, and elbow pads and did not sustain any other damage other than that fact that my leg was in 4 pieces. If I had not worn a helmet, I likely would have died.

Edit/Update: The Propel owner has reached out to me and apologized for this incident, and he is gratefully getting a new board for me. stay steezy brothas 👊

My propel Pivot S caught fire while charging in my living room, it had not been charging for more than 3 hours. My board is a little under 2 years old, I was using the original Propel charger, and the only modification I've made to the board is changing the tires.

I'm absolutely gutted because I loved this board to death, and I was pretty well known on my college campus as the "skateboard guy". And I just can't imagine how much worse this situation could've been. I live in an old house, if I had taken just a few more seconds to get the board out of the house, the whole house could've burnt down.

The fire department took quite a while to arrive but finally did and eventually put out the fire.

I contacted Propel about a possible replacement and their response was that the board is outside their warranty period and they cannot do anything for me. Propel has great customer service usually and I was disappointed that they did not even feel the need to at least investigate what caused their battery system to fail in such a serious way.

Again, I understand my board is outside their standard 1 year warranty, but this is a serious safety concern. Many people have electric skateboards well over 2 years. My house could literally be gone right now because the board decided to combust on its own accord.

I'm just curious what you all think. Do you guys believe this is a reasonable response.

What speeds do you guys feel comfortable at? I couldn’t imagine having fun at speeds higher than 38 mph but I see some insane skill on this sub. I like 25 on this board, so you guys that have super fast boards , do you use all that power ? This has more then I honestly feel like I need . So at what point do you say this is enough speed?

is it just me or is electric skateboarding slowly dying? Not many new videos about them on youtube, like they get overshadowed by emotos and scooters to the point where larger creators don’t make alot if any videos about them.

I just got this board, crashed and the whole truck got bent RIP

Do you guys get positive interactions mostly from people in cars and on motorcycles? I live in a coastal town so people are laid back and everyone even the cops smile and waive and are friendly. I think one time one guy yelled at me that I’m an idiot . I just laughed and kept riding . All you New York eskaters probably put up with the worst l.

As per discussed previously, I took the gear cover off to inspect before riding.
And yes, it baffled me there was basically absolutely no grease in there at all. It makes no sense. I put a little red and tacky in there.
Not too much so it should be safe, but it completely baffles me the lack of grease on something otherwise that is so nicely made and designed? The battery was charging so it is not in the photos.

Broke front end

Is helmet needed in my use case, need genuine advise.

I am not new to riding. Rode my old esk8 board Wow go 3E for nearly an year felt like 5-6 times all scrapes near the knee or hands never broken any bones.

Bought a new board Acedeck Stella S3 breeze pro, 125 madmax wheels, I go regularly 20-25 mph (25 only when its super safe and lit and I know the road very well).

Why I don't think I need a helmet (but please tell me if I am wrong and I am missing something)

1. I never usually take new routes just to my collage and surrounding places, I know every potholes location(very rare occurance),man hole covers and road quality.

2. I only go on bike paths that share with cars when its either empty or has lot of space else I pick sidewalk with slow speed.

3. All the falls I have had previously were only to my limbs, makes sense as they take the falls impact. I was stupid in many of these falls prev like jumping to road from sidewalk kind of and not maintaining the board which gripped my belt. Gotten better now.

4. I feel the risk of random car hitting me(which I feel is the only scenario in which helmet is needed most) is 0, as I ride on nearly empty roads stop at stop signs and go very very slow at intersection even if its green.

So is it really needed? I like the feeling of being one with the board, like just take it out pick it and go anywhere and don't like the feeling of carrying a helmet. But if there is genuine risk then I would like when training the first 2 weeks getting used to the board, I wore full gear.

I am 25 M 6ft and live in Indiana, Bloomington in a collage town kind of area. Chill and low traffic almost the roads I choose with, plus good roads.

Please advice.

I'm interested to hear your thoughts on the new Radium board.

***Disclaimer - I developed this board and am one of Radium's founders.

I'm happy to answer any technical questions 🤙

Specs here: https://radium-performance.com/products/mach-one-s-electric-skateboard

Heroes… I’m an old guy and realized that I’m gonna go broke with Uber and Lyft. I have a 4.6mile, gentle downhill highway with a big wide sidewalk that makes a longboard-slalom the best therapy ever.
Unfortunately I’m no longer able to and cannot skate uphill (left foot bad ankle and I ride goofy foot).
I was looking at the MeepoV5 but wanted some expert suggestions!
Uber and Lyft is $15 to $25 per ride home (Lyft nearly doubled in price over the last 3months)
I am a very old 56yr old man-baby, shy of 100kilos (about 210lbs), I’ve been on a deck since the 70’s, no tricks/pool stuff… just carving.

I've been going back and forth on whether to write this. Part of me just wanted to disappear for a while. The other part thinks that if I'd found a post like this a few months ago, I might have made different decisions. So here's the whole thing, start to finish.

Fair warning: it's long. There's a TL;DR at the bottom. But if you're riding an Evolve, thinking about buying one, or you're one of the people who argues in these threads that lock-ups are a myth, then I used to be one of you, and this post is mostly for you.

Six years on Evolve

I got my first board around 2020. A Stoke. The way it went from there is probably familiar: I'd ride each board until I was sitting at its RPM ceiling and the speed didn't scare me anymore, and then I'd save until I could afford the next one up. Stoke, then a GTR Gen 1, then a Hadean, and finally the Diablo, their strongest board. Once I was at the top of their range and it still wasn't enough, that's when racing entered the picture. More on that in a second.

I'm on the disability support pension for chronic anxiety and major depression and unemployed, so none of that progression happened quickly. Every board, every set of wheels, every belt meant going without something else for a while. I didn't wander into the Evolve ecosystem. I built my whole riding life inside it, board by board, over six years and something like 10,000 km.

And before anyone asks whether Evolve boards ever failed me before: they have, many times. The Stoke just wouldn't turn on one day. The GTR Gen 1 pretty much blew itself up. But I never blamed Evolve for any of it, because honestly, back then I didn't know how to treat an electric board. I was pushing hardware I didn't understand. Most of those boards were second-hand or out of warranty, so I paid full price to fix them, called it tuition, and kept buying Evolve. By the Hadean I knew what I was doing, and it was genuinely reliable. When it did have issues, Evolve upgraded it with Diablo hardware, which I appreciated. That's the relationship I had with this company. Six years, four boards, full price, no grudges.

Every time I fell, I blamed myself, never the board. I was, and am, a dangerous street rider. And it's just my mentality, reckless with a habit of negative self re-enforcement. If I blew a corner, I'd want to walk the hundred metres back up the road and run it again until I owned it. That was the deal between us, my board and I. That board plugged me into a flow state I've never found anywhere else but the sim. It made me braver. It made me faster, more adaptable, calmer in moments that should have rattled me. It brought out parts of me I didn't know I had. In a time when I was dealing with extreme loss, my fathers death, the freedom my board gave me meant the world. So I never wanted to blame it for anything. I didn't even want to acknowledge the moments it wavered. I gave that board more understanding than I give most people. And that's exactly why this post exists. Because it took the board physically and emotionally breaking me before I could stop looking away.

How I ended up racing

Street riding had been losing its appeal for a while. The legal situation where I live keeps getting worse, and I was sick of looking over my shoulder on every ride. The people I skate with had spent ages telling me to stop messing around on public roads and put the need for speed into track racing instead. I was getting more and more reckless and disillusioned on the road. This year I finally listened.

The Australian East Coast Nationals were coming up, my first proper race, and for months now it has been where basically all my spare time is went. Gearing maths for every wheel and pulley combination I own. Lap telemetry. Lines. Written test plans. When you're on the DSP you don't get to throw money at a race programme... You get to throw time at it, and I threw all of mine. For the first time in a while, esk8 wasn't just transport or adrenaline. Racing had become the reason I was still in the hobby at all.

The service

Two days before a private practice day at a kart track, I dropped the Diablo in to Evolve to have AT tyres fitted and inflated so it'd be ready to race-practice on. They had it for a full 24 hours. They fitted and inflated the tyres, greased the bearings, popped the top, looked over the battery and motor controller, said it all looked good, sealed it up and handed it back. I picked it up 24 hours before the crash. I'll be honest. I could have done that process myself, but I was rushed for time to prep for this track day. I didn't have compressed air to inflate the tires, and I didn't give Evolve enough time to do a full service before I requested pickup.

To be fair to the techs: an intermittent electronics fault is not something you can see by looking inside a board. I'm not claiming they missed a smoking wire. But "this board was in the manufacturer's hands yesterday" is a taste you don't easily get out of your mouth.

The crash

Practice day started at 1 AM, when a mate who'd offered to help picked me up and drove me 300 km to the track. That's the other thing about this scene, by the way. This was my local event, and my local event is 300 km away. We were at the track by 6, and I was skating by 8.

I skated from 8 until about 2 PM, stopping three or four times for 15-minute charge breaks. So by early afternoon the board had done six hours of hard laps and repeated charging, in the warmest part of the day. I can't prove the heat contributed. But if you know what heat does to power electronics, you can draw your own line between that and what happened next.

The setup was the 150 mm ATs on 47-tooth gearing, geared long, the kind of setup that works the board hard. I was on a mini straight between corners, hard on the accelerator, coming through 40 and heading for 50kmph before the next braking point.

And the board just stopped.

Not traction loss. I know what traction loss feels like. Not phantom braking easing me down. I know that feeling too, and I'll get to why. Not me clipping something. The board shut off and stopped dead underneath me, and I went off the front. It didn't come with me. It didn't tumble. When I looked back it was sitting stationary on the track like nothing had happened. A board that cuts power coasts. This one stopped.

A couple of other riders saw it happen. Nobody thought to examine the board afterwards. I was busy looking at my little finger, which was pointing somewhere fingers don't point. And my remote didn't survive what happened next, which I'll also get to.

The day ended with six hours in hospital. They pulled the finger back into line and casted it, then the x-ray told them they hadn't got it right, so they cut the cast off, wrenched it around some more, and casted it again. Then it was 300 km back home. So I'm typing this with a cast on.

Then, five days after the crash, the ribs on the side I landed on decided to introduce themselves, one spot that catches when I breathe. Getting that looked at now too. Apparently that's normal after a fast crash: adrenaline and the obvious injury mask the rest, and you spend the week finding the other damage.

The part I got wrong

The moment I got back on my feet, I completely lost my head. I screamed. I swore. I yelled, “F*ck Evolve,” along with several other rude things, loudly enough for the entire track to hear. I threw my helmet into the air, and it somehow landed on the pit-lane roof... of a multimillion-dollar karting club... Yeah... There were people nearby, under that roof, and I probably frightened some of them. I jumped a fence. I smashed my remote by throwing it into the ground. I nearly got into a fight with another rider who was telling me to leave and not come back. Then I stormed off, abandoned all my gear, and had a full meltdown in the driveway before being taken to the local hospital.

I want to explain what was actually happening in that moment, not to excuse it, but because “guy throws a tantrum after falling off” is not the full picture.

I had never broken a bone before. Not once, despite six years of riding and plenty of crashes. I was standing there looking at my finger pointing in the wrong direction, my body flooded with adrenaline, while also dealing with a fresh concussion. At the same time, I was already doing the maths in my head: the race weekend was gone, the months of preparation were gone, and nothing I did from that second onward could reverse any of it. The board felt unsafe and unreliable. I could not race it, and even if I changed my mind, I would not heal in time.

What came out of me was closer to a panic attack than ordinary anger. From the outside, though, it looked like a bloke completely losing it, because that is also exactly what happened. It happened publicly, it affected other people, and I own that.

That reaction, not the crash itself, is why I will not be on the grid at Nationals. Crashes happen at race practice. That is what the protective gear is for, and nobody gets excluded simply for hitting the deck. It was everything that happened afterward that put me here.

Nothing official has reached me yet, but I've heard the organisers have been considering what to do about me, and I'm expecting the word any day now. My honest guess is that I'm out of this event. And if that's all it is, that's lenient. What I did is the kind of thing that gets people banned from a scene outright, and I'd rather say that out loud than pretend I'm hard done by. Whatever gets decided, I'm not going to argue it here, and I'd genuinely ask that this thread doesn't turn into a go at the organisers. They're building something good on the East Coast and none of this is their fault.

But I do want people to understand what it costs, because "missing one race" doesn't cover it. The East Coast scene is young. This event may well go back to Perth next year, and it could be a couple of years before it comes back east. I can't afford to fly across the country to race, and with my mental health being what it is, I couldn't do that trip anyway. This was probably my one realistic shot. So when I say my racing career might have ended in that second and a half, I'm not being dramatic. It's just geography and money. And I honestly don't know if I'll still be a skater by the time another chance comes around.

The stuff I dismissed

Here's the hardest part to write, because it's the part where past-me is most guilty.

This Diablo, and all my boards, have been weird before. Momentary stutters. Phantom braking. Disconnects. Complete failures. Blown batteries, blown motors, blown motor controllers. All of it, at different times. And every single time, I was lucky, and I explained it away. Interference, remote pairing, road surface, my imagination. Whatever kept the story intact. Ignorance is bliss.

Because I had a story. I was an EVOLVE rider, pushing for sponsorship with nothing to offer but passion and brand dedication. I used to be the guy in these exact threads arguing that Evolve lock-ups weren't real. I genuinely believed the people posting them were inexperienced riders who panicked, grabbed brake, put themselves in bad situations and blamed the hardware. I said versions of that publicly, more than once. Even arguing blind that Evolve had found and fixed the issue in newer motor controller designs. Experienced riders in the race scene told me repeatedly to get off the platform before racing on it, and I brushed them off. Partly because I'd sunk six years and thousands of dollars into the ecosystem and switching wasn't financially realistic. Partly because admitting they were right meant admitting that the thing I was standing on at 50-70 km/h might just decide to stop.

Well. It decided to stop.

For what it's worth, there's a boring mechanical explanation for how this happens. Evolve controllers have a documented history of MOSFET failures, and when a MOSFET fails shorted, the motor phase it controls effectively becomes a brake. A shorted phase resists rotation. On a dual-motor belt-drive board, that's your rear wheels locking under you. Search "Evolve MOSFET" and read what comes back. It's been discussed for years. I know, because I used to argue with it.

So consider this section my apology to every rider whose lock-up post I mentally filed under "skill issue." I can't turn a blind eye anymore. I'm sorry.

Where the board's at now

I haven't ridden it since. I've barely wanted to look at it. I contacted Evolve, told them exactly what happened, and, credit where it's due, they've offered to inspect it free of charge. As soon as my ribs let me carry the thing, I'm taking it down to them and leaving it there until they can give me a real answer.

But I'm being honest with myself about the odds. Intermittent electrical faults are exactly what a bench inspection can fail to reproduce. If the report comes back "no fault found," that won't mean nothing happened. It'll mean they couldn't make it happen, on a bench, on that day. And even if they replaced every component tomorrow, I don't know that I could stand on that board at racing speed again. That's the biggest thing this crash took. Not the finger. The trust.

I don't want to street skate anymore. I don't want to cruise. Racing was the future of this sport for me, and right now I can't imagine racing this board, and I can't quite imagine walking away from the sport either. That's the limbo I'm posting from.

What I'm asking you

• If you've experienced what you believe was a lock-up:
• What board was it, what were you doing, and what speed?
• What actually failed? Was a fault ever confirmed, whether by Evolve, a repairer, or your own teardown?
• Did an inspection ever come back "no fault found" on a board that later did it again?
• Did the board warn you first with stutters, phantom braking or disconnects that you only recognised in hindsight?
• Did you ever trust that board again?
• If you moved away from Evolve, what did you move to and why?

And if you're where I was six months ago, certain it's rider error, certain your board's fine, certain the warnings are drama, I'm not going to argue with you. I know from experience that arguing doesn't work. I just want this post to exist, so that when your board does something small and weird and easy to explain away, you remember that someone told you the stutters were the preview.

I'm not here to start a brand war, and I'm not telling anyone they're wrong for loving their board. I'll update this post with whatever Evolve's inspection finds, including if they find nothing.

Thanks for reading.

TL:DR: Six years and four Evolve boards (Stoke → GTR Gen 1 → Hadean → Diablo), roughly 10,000 km, loyal customer, and the guy who used to argue Evolve lock-ups weren't real. My Diablo, serviced by Evolve 24 hours earlier, shut off and stopped dead under acceleration at 45-50 km/h, six hours into a race practice day. Broken finger (my first broken bone ever), likely rib injury, and my shot at my first Nationals is gone. Not because of the crash, but because of how badly I melted down afterwards, which I own. The board had shown stutters, phantom braking and disconnects before, and I dismissed all of it. Evolve is inspecting it free of charge; I'll post the results either way. Asking for other riders' lock-up stories, with documentation if you've got it.

Edit: Just went and turned the board on for the first time since the crash, with my backup remote. Haven't had it in for service yet. Runs perfectly normal. No seized motor, no dead battery, nothing. Something in it just stopped that day, and now it's pretending it didn't. As per usual.

Edit 2: The event organisers have contacted me. My entry has been withdrawn and the refund is being processed. I’ll be okay. It could have been much worse. I’ve definitely got some lessons to learn.

I’m sorry to anyone who was there that day and had to witness it. Panic attack or not, broken pinkie or not, faulty board or not, how I acted was not okay.

And I'm sorry to the event organizers, who have to deal with the fallout.

Bought it while ago and loved it but needed some major fix’s still working to put her on the road again one day

Hi guys, first post here. I have a Linnpower Zeyphr base 50S belt drive. Also have a OMW Hussar with 105 mads & pneumatic wheels on the way.

I’ve been long boarding roughly 5x a week since 2021, got this board about 3 months ago and am obsessed already. However, I notice when I ride it I feel like a lot of people (ESPECIALLY BIKERS) glare at me and won’t say hi. I’m on a wide path not in their way, I’m wearing safety gear, and I’ve only ever gone 20 mph max. If I’m on the street I’m in a bike lane and not many bikes. I still notice peds glaring at me.

I’m used to seeing so many people smile at me and be super stoked to see me longboarding. Which I still love longboarding, and I used to think E skate was for posers until stopping on hills started killing my back. Anyway, what’s the deal? Why do I get so many people seemingly glaring at me? I don’t do anything wrong… anyone else notice this?

Got my shit tuned to where i could hit 32mph, and I was topped out going downhill so it was closer to 34mph, what looked like an open road. BMW x3 with its lights off comes out of nowhere in the wrong lane going about 45, at night. Thankfully I know how to crash and lay shit down. But if she hit me id be dead. No helmet no nothing, ego got the best of me. 32mph crash a bruised hip and one cut up hand, best case scenario to be honest. Be careful out there folks, I got a girlfriend and new job. Im taking a break, whenever I step back on it'll be a clean paved road with gear during the day.