Event: Thunder in the Mountains Electric Skateboard Festival (12th-16th June)

Skaters will begin making their way across the country over the coming days to Colorado for the 1st Annual Thunder in the Mountains Electric Skateboard Festival. The five-day festival is an open to electric skateboarders of any skill level and includes various off-road, street course, city, mountain, trail and night-time rides in the Denver area spanning from Wednesday, June 12th – Sunday, June 16th.

Participants will also have the opportunity to submerge themselves in local food, local beer, and local music during the Thunder in the Mountains Electric Skateboard Festival; while taking in some of the most unbelievably beautiful landscapes of Colorado.

Registration fees for the five-day Esk8 event are $100 per person with the option to receive a swag bag for an additional $25. For those who are interested in becoming a sponsor, fee’s range from $400 to $5000 depending on the level of sponsorship desired. Both registration and sponsorship fees can be submitted here.

Itinerary:

Day One: City Cruise and Meet & Greet
The Thunder in the Mountains Electric Skateboard Festival will kick off on Wednesday, June 12th at the Denver Skatepark located at 2205 19th St, Denver, CO 80202. The Denver Skatepark is one of the largest skateparks in the United States with over 60,000 square feet of skateable, concrete terrain. The skatepark lies in the heart of downtown Denver, overlooking Coors Field and the Denver Skyline. The group will through Denver for lunch at Adelita’s Cocina located at 1294 S Broadway, Denver, CO 80210, before returning to the Denver Skatepark for a night ride and Scavenger hunt.

Day One: Schedule
11:00am – Meet and Greet at Denver Skatepark
1:00pm – Group ride from the skatepark to Adelita’s Cocina
2:00pm – Lunch at Adelita’s and time to charge boards
4:00pm – Group ride back to Denver Skatepark
5:00pm – Break and charge up until 8:00pm
8:00pm – Meet at Denver Skatepark for the Scavenger hunt and night ride

Day Two: Street Course Race Day
The IMI Motorsports Complex located at 5074 Summit Blvd, Dacono, CO 80514 will be the event hub for days two and three of the Thunder in the Mountains Electric Skateboard Festival.
IMI Motorsports Complex prides themselves as an extreme sports complex consisting of six different tracks. While off the tracks, riders can visit various sponsor booths, grab a bite to eat, enjoy music or just hangout, relax and charge their rides as they prepare for the next race.

Day Two: Schedule
8:00am – Track and Sponsor booth set-up and early bird warm-ups on the tracks
10:00am – Start of Race Day (race schedule provided on the day of events)
5:00pm – Races end, open use of track, music, hanging for the camp out.
10:00pm – The night time lonely road ride, departs from IMI Motorsports Complex.
12:00am – The Campout at IMI Motorsports Complex! Sleep under the stars, in your cars or in your tents and hang out until the second race day on the off-road course!

Day Three: Off-Road Track Race Day
The racing fun continues at the IMI Motorsports Complex located at 5074 Summit Blvd, Dacono, CO 80514. After wrapping up the second day of racing at the IMI Motorsports Complex, Thunder in the Mountains Electric Skateboard Festival skaters will take to the streets of Denver to embrace the food, bars, clubs and night riding scenes across the city. Participants are urged to join the Telegram Group Chat, for real time correspondence with your fellow skaters, while they are out and about in the city here.

Day Three: Schedule
8:00am – Track and Sponsor booth set-up and early bird warm-ups on the tracks
10:00am – Start of Race Day (race schedule provided on the day of events)
5:00pm – End of Race Day

Day Four: Mountain Side Rides
Participants in the Thunder in the Mountains Electric Skateboard Festival will be gathering at the Golden City Brewery, the second largest brewery in the city of Golden, Colorado. The Brewery is located at 920 12th St, Golden, CO 80401. Skaters will then migrate to Lookout Mountain which overlooks beautiful Golden, Colorado and even houses the famous gravesite of the most colorful figures of the American Old West; William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody. After an afternoon of exploring, the group will enjoy lunch at Woody’s Wood Fired Pizza located at 1305 Washington Ave, Golden, CO 80401 before returning to Denver for a night ride at the Denver Skatepark

Day Four: Schedule
10:30am – Meet at Golden City Brewery
12:00pm – Short carpool up to the base of Lookout Mountain, ride up Lookout Mountain.
2:30pm – Head back to Golden City Brewery to park again.
3:00pm – Late lunch at Woody’s Wood Fired Pizza, opportunity to charge boards
5:00pm – Ride out from Woody’s and hit some of the park trails around Golden.
7:00pm – Take a break and head back to the city, rest for a few hours
10:00pm – Meet at Denver Skatepark for the night ride

Day Five: Exploration for the Bold
The Thunder in the Mountains Electric Skateboard Festival will meet up on Sunday, June 16th at the Denver Skatepark. While there, riders are encouraged to share any suggestions that they may have for breweries, dispensaries, food, parks and any other places of interest for the group to explore. Be sure that you have joined the Telegram Group Chat, for real time correspondence with your fellow skaters, in case you are separated from the group while exploring about in the city here.

Day Five: Schedule
11:30am – Meet up at Denver Skate Park
12:15pm – Ride out and Explore the city for the day

For additional event details please visit the official Thunder in the Mountains Electric Skateboard Festival website: http://www.theelectricboarder.com/

Meepo Release Meepo Mini 2

Following the announcement of Meepo City Rider, Meepo NLS Pro, Meepo V3, MeepoBoard announced another new product – Meepo Mini 2 on the 31st May.

The new Mini 2 saw a refresh in design. The short-board deck obviously took inspiration from the Boosted Mini, using a short deck with a “Deep Dish” concave. Judging from how well the Boosted Mini was received, Meepo fans probably would be very happy with the new deck choice.

As compared to the previous gen Mini, Mini 2 has a longer wheelbase, allowing more stability. It is also broader to eliminate wheel bites by shoes.

A very important thing to note is that Mini 2 is no longer just a shortboard variant of their regular longboard (v2/v3). Though most of the parts are shared, the Mini 2 uses MEEPO FOC ESC (Hobbywing ESC) while V3 uses customized LingYi ESC.

On paper, I expect Mini 2 to have a much smoother acceleration and braking as compared to the V3, which focuses on power and torque.

Meepo Mini 2 comes in two variants, the standard variant and the variant with an extended battery. The standard Mini 2 will cost $429 (including shipping) and the Extended Range variant will cost $629.
(They probably should just call them Meepo Mini S and Meepo Mini X, or is that going too far?)

Mini 2 will come with the Night Ride remote. There is a remote with a screen (N2 remote) in development and will be open for purchase when it is available.

The board will start shipping from China on 9th June.

Interested but on the fence? Stay tune for our full review!

Click here to visit MeepoBoard.

FÄBOARD release FÄBOARD Black Carve.

On 26th May, FÄBOARD, the brand by Youtuber Fabian Doerig announced it’s the second line of product, the FÄBOARD Black Carve.

FÄBOARD Black Carve was designed following the blueprint of Evolve Bamboo GT. It has a very similar double drop deck, and it too uses double kingpin trucks.

However, this is where the similarity ends; the Black Carve uses smaller battery pack 360wh but manages to get more range out of it (26miles/42km) by opting to use the more efficient and quieter direct drive set-up. Using direct drive also allows the Black Carve to switch between standard street wheels or 100mm airless “Mini-AT” wheels. However, the bulky direct drive also means that the drive has little to no ground clearance. That also limits the use of wheel size lower than 100mm.

Direct drive with almost no ground clearance

Control should be smooth with what looks like an Hobbywing ESC. Riding experience should be pretty good too.

To summarize, I think FÄBOARD Black Carve is a very interesting product with good value! The remaining question would be, can Faboard prove itself as a reliable company and deliver on it’s promise? What do you think?

Link to Faboard Black Carve here.

Meepo releases NLS Pro

Update: Check out our NLS Pro full review by clicking here.

The Meepo NLS is already well known for being one of the most comfortable rides among electric skateboards. However, the crew at Meepo has just outdone themselves with the newly released Meepo NLS Pro. The new board has several notable upgrades to it including an increased power by 30%, added range up to 20 miles, and some atheistic improvements for a relatively small $100 increase to the price tag.

old NLS
new NLS PRO

To build upon the well-loved Meepo NLS, the Meepo NLS Pro deck uses the same deck, which is a combination of three layers of bamboo and two layers of fiberglass. What Meepo adds on the new PRO, however, is a thick, shock-absorbing layer of grip tape, providing an additional layer of comfort for the rider. The added grip tape also helps to conceal the wire running along the top of the deck, which though doesn’t impact the ride, is an absolute eyesore.

With looks aside, the three speed Meepo NLS Pro doesn’t require a turbo mode for a temporary increased torque to allow the board to reach its marketed top speed of up to 32 mph(51kmh). The switch to a better Samsung 40T battery also means that NLS Pro now has an increased range of 20miles(32.2km).

Significant performance upgrades aside, the most anticipated change still has to be the switch to customized Hobbywing ESC. A less than perfect control has been the Achilles heel of the original NLS, and switching over to Hobbywing ESC will promise a perfectly smooth acceleration and braking.

It’s worth noting that NLS Pro will come with some pretty useful accessory including a free-standing skateboard rack and extra macaroons bushings (83A White, 96A Blue).

Meepo currently has the Meepo NLS Pro in stock and advertises shipping from their China base warehouse within three business days.

Expect a full performance review of the Meepo NLS Pro by us in the coming weeks.

Update: Check out our NLS Pro review by clicking here.

Click here to check out Meepo NLS Pro.

MEEPO releases Meepo V3

Update: Click here to read our full review.

On 14th May, Meepo released the newest iteration of their budget line-up Meepo V3. Ever since the first original Meepo Board, this $400 line-up has been their best selling line-up and likely the best selling budget Eskate product, period. The new iteration V3, is looking to continue that trend by building on what the previous gen was known for, torque and acceleration.

The claim of being “the no.1 powerful hub motor electric skateboards on the market for the budget board market.”, is backed by some impressive numbers. Comparing to V2, V3 halves the time it takes to go from 0 to 19mph(30kmh), (4.5seconds from 8seconds). V3 also boasted better uphill ability to be able to reach 9mph(20kmh) on a 15% incline.

I’m sure that we will be seeing a lot of reviewers putting those claims to test; we know we would.

Other upgrades include a new version of Meepo ESC 3.0 (LingYi ESC), stronger hub motors (2 X 540 Watts) -30% increase from V2, complete sealing with glue for water resistant, moisture & dustproof, and the remote now has a screen on it.

Standard 
Extended Range (ER)

Meepo is guaranteeing that, once the order is placed, it will be shipped from their warehouse in China within 3 days. As usual, free shipping to selected countries.

There is no doubt that V3, with all the upgrades, is going to pick up the torch of V2 and continues to be one of, if not the most popular budget board on the market.

Stay tuned for our full review as we put the torque and smoothness claim to the test.

Update: Our full review is ready, Click here to read our full review