Evolve Bamboo GTX Electric Skateboard Announced

So when I upgrade for racestar, can I keep the gold YO ?

 

I hate the gold look but love everything else about it.

 

They also miss the chance to add LED Penny Wheels

 

Great lets use painters tape to cover everything but the white on the walls of the tires, then paint them gold as well. If we're going ghetto, then let's go all in

 

The wheel design is similar to 97 MBS

 

I think you can ask for black motors. Evolve replied to someone on fb

 

More likely Evolve won't sell it separately- they only exchange things.

 

Just a smart business move if you look at it another way. LHB battery upgrade now seems overpriced. Less people buying the abec 97's. More money for evolve. More money hopefully means they spend more on r&d for the next generation boards lol

 

it doesn't go at all lol

 

I've done an unbiased breakdown of the GTX over on my new Faebook Page. I'd be super stoked if you all headed over for a read and dropped some likes! Like my Page for more coming soon! Cheers!


EVOLVE GTX BREAKS COVER!

Evolve launched its new board overnight across the company’s various social media platforms. Dubbed the GTX, this board is essentially the demon love child between a Bamboo GT and a Carbon GT. It’s honestly something the consumer has been crying out for, and now we have it! No longer will Evolve customers have to choose between range (Carbon GT) or “feel” (Bamboo GT). With the GTX they have the best of both worlds!

While there are some impressive little upgrades and improvements, it’s not all peaches and cream. There are still inherent problems with the boards that are still to be addressed. Here I break down the good, the bad and the ugly of the new Evolve GTX.

THE GOOD
Flex – Any rider who uses their board for daily commuting, cruising and carving knows the joys of flex. Not only is it crazy fun to sink into a carve, that feeling of “biting” into the road that you just don’t get from a stiff deck; a flexy deck also absorbs the imperfections of the road. Flex acts as a dampener and a mild form of suspension. The Bamboo GT deck certainly flexes, but not as much as say a Boosted or even the Evolve Gen2 Bustin’ Series Bamboo (which is still an amazing board). The fact that Evolve have put the work in here to produce a flexier deck is going to produce an even more comfortable ride that carves better than any board before it.

The battery/range – This is the one we’ve all been waiting for, a bamboo board with the carbon size battery! The most comfortable commuting set up in the Evolve family is a Bamboo GT on an all-terrain (AT) set up. The only problem with this set up is you’re not getting very far on it! The smaller battery on the Bamboo GT (compared with the Carbon GT) coupled with the decrease in range you inherently get from an AT set up and the dreaded battery sag (ECO drop), meant this set up was only good for a short distance. This was a huge annoyance to many as the best set up for commuting also happened to be the set up that produced the least amount of range. What the?

Evolve have responded. The GTX comes with the same larger battery found on the Carbon GT. This means a 50km range in “ideal conditions”, much like the Carbon GT.

This is by far the best feature of the GTX and has redeemed the release of this model. If it was just a facelift to the Bamboo GT (which it looked like it was going to be for a while), then this would have been a pointless exercise. By adding this feature Evolve now have a suite of boards with different specs, price points and capabilities. Credit where credit is due, this is good business.

Remote firmware – Reverse is gone! This is arguably a good thing. Most (I say most) people don’t use it and many people were slipping into reverse by mistake, which caused a lot of injuries. Reverse has now been replaced by a SAFE mode, which detects any irregularities in remote to board connection and won’t allow any rider adjustments (mode shifts etc.) whilst the remote is in SAFE mode. This too will prevent many of the problems (many leading to injury) that people are having with syncing, drop outs and unexpected board behavior.

The dreaded ECO drop feature has also been further dialed back to 5% on all new remotes. This coupled with the larger battery makes the GTX infinitely more enjoyable to ride for much longer, I’m sure.

The change in font is neither here nor there.

Larger wheels – bigger wheels equals a higher top speed. This was going to come at a cost of range though unless they either improved or upsized the battery, which they indeed did do. If they hadn’t upsized the battery, I would have listed larger wheels as a BAD. If they kept the same Bamboo GT battery and also failed to do anything about the ECO drop situation, larger wheels just would be another hit to the range of the already short-changed Bamboo GT, but alas, they’ve taken care of both the battery and the ECO drop, making larger wheels another plus for the GTX. A higher top speed, more clearance and more urethane between you and the road, again making for a more comfortable ride.

THE BAD
Same motors – The generic motors used across the Evolve range are plagued by issues. The motors on the GTX appear to be exactly the same 2x 1500w (3000w total) motors used by the regular GT’s, just gold instead of black. This means the same failure and replacement rate will apply to the GTX as it has been to the GT’s. Some people are lucky, but for a lot of people their boards spend more time on the shelf waiting for replacement motors than they do on the street.

Same battery cells – Although a bigger battery is a good thing, Evolve batteries are made up of pretty average quality cells (leading to the ECO drop fiasco). If you’ve ever seen ‘MAINTAIN BAT!’ pop up on your LCD screen, this is due to one or more of these average quality cells dying in the arse, requiring your entire board be shipped back to your Evolve distributor. It appears as if the same problems may be destined to plague the GTX.

Wheel quality – When you’ve got the battery power/range to play with a bigger wheel is awesome. For a long time the ABEC11 97mm Flywheels have been the go to wheel for people looking to upgrade in this area. Evolve are trying to get a slice of this pie by offering their own 97mm wheel. However, Evolve’s attempt at developing their own 83mm (stock GT) wheel has been hampered by chipping and flaking issues. This is due to the cheap quality urethane used compared to the tried and proven formulas of Orangatang and ABEC11. Only time will tell if Evolve have fixed their formula in order to produce a better quality wheel, but hopes aren’t high for this one.

Having the wheels stone ground is also an interesting choice. This process is usually done to longboard wheels to make them slide easier, but it is usually done to smaller, harder wheels. Stone grinding big, soft wheels usually designed for grip is a bit unorthodox.

No environment sealing – This is just a missed opportunity. Look at any other premium board released in the last maybe 6-months. All have some level of environment sealing. Evolve need to get on this train fast or be left behind.

Same remote – This is personal preference. I have less of an issue with the Evolve remote than most, but a bulk of the community have been screaming for a redesign. The main issues appear to be with trigger sensitivity and lack of a dead man switch. There appears to be no improvements in the area with the GTX.

No real fix to syncing, drop out and multiple connection issues – The new SAFE mode, while progress and a great initiative, is a break-fix. There is a much larger and very real problem with Evolve’s board to remote syncing and many drop out issues. This tends to affect more later batch boards than earlier batch ones, but as the GTX is obviously a new board, it is likely to be plagued by these problems also.

With no real solution offered here, the problems encountered by many community groups on their group rides will still be present. The “sync circle” process must go on!

Deck length – A faster board needs to be a more stable board. The GTX can also go further in terms of range. You need to be stable, secure and comfortable on a board like this. Bumping the deck up to 40 inches would have been ideal. Not a big deal, just a missed opportunity.

There’s also room here to renege a little on my previous comments regarding flex. While flex is good, you need to know how to handle it high speeds and how to adjust bushings to suit your style and intended use. A high speed board with a highly flexible deck and a community of riders who tend to just “go for it”, well, if people couldn’t handle their speed wobbles before…

Grip tape – Meh. Grip tape is grip tape. Many will say this is an improvement over the grip spray applied to the Bamboo GT, I guess it is. My point is whether its grip tape of grip spray, everything has to be replaced. The grip spray was easy to recoat and/or equally as easy to sand back and replace with your own custom design. The new grip tape design on the GTX is bound to peel pretty quickly with all of the individual pieces, like the Evolve ‘E’ open to abuse. The design itself looks great, don’t get me wrong. But it’s a lot of work gone into something temporary and something many people are going to replace almost just as quickly as they get their board.

THE UGLY
Gold – Why? For me the addition of gold makes the board a poser’s board. It’s unnecessary, adds nothing to the board and honestly just takes what should be a stealth board and turns it into something ostentatious and flamboyant. The gold motors are like beacons. Cops who would otherwise turn a blind eye or not even realise that your board is electric will now be all over you like a fat kid on a cup cake! Then there’s the added appeal to thieves as well as a general drop in street cred. Rolling around on gold motors isn’t going to get you much other than weird looks from people wondering what kind of carrot you’ve got stuck up your arse to think you’re that special.

The motors still being positioned in traditional GT configuration also means they’re going to cop the same amount of abuse and scratching as regular GT motors. That pretty gold finish probably ain’t gonna last too long and what you’ll be left with is something pretty horrid looking.

If Evolve had dropped the gold and just kept the black, this list wouldn’t have even had an UGLY category – that’s how close they were. At the end of the day aesthetics is a matter of opinion and this is just mine. Yours might be different, and that’s okay too.

SUMMARY
All in all you have to consider this the ‘S’ model ala Apple's business model. Hopefully the next full model release (GT2?) will address the BAD items once and for all. In the meantime many riders can finally get their hands on their dream board, a Bamboo GT with Carbon GT range, and for now that’s nothing to sneeze at!

For existing GT riders you can get your hands on the 97mm wheels and upgrade your remote to the latest firmware.

Preorders for the GTX start on 23rd June at 10am on the Evolve Skateboards website.

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If you enjoyed this breakdown please drop this post and my Page a like and stay tuned for more. A full blog dedicated to world of electric skateboards is coming soon!

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Further videos posted online are definitive that the battery enclosure is exactly the same as the original, same length depth etc.....it is also safe to assume the motor controller is the same as is the remote.

So the battery itself is the change - if they wisely offered the battery upgrade option to existing customers they could make some more money too !! I would pay 600-700 Euros for a 50km battery with the sag issue sorted !!

 

Excellent job! I totally agree with all your points.
I'd just add simple solution to make remote touch safer would be the back cover replacement with trigger guard.
Especially if there are plenty of 3d designs out there already. Even if they were selling it as optional accessorie I would definitely buy it. (I don't mean 3d printed version).
Better charging plug - I've replaced mine 3 times now as those cheap contacts were covered in rust.

I'm really hoping they would start listening to their customers feedbacks.

 

Great information!
...But will in blend?

 

how do you think the range will compare between the GTX and the LHB battery mod? I'm seriously considering getting the GTX and would like to know if you guys have any idea if the GTX or the bamboo GT LHB mod will have longer lasting battery