Gday from South Australia

Howdy all,

Just thought I'd post to say gday from Adelaide, South Australia.
I used to skate a bit as a kid, the years have past and now my kids are into skateboards too.
I've got a bamboo GT AT on order from my local distributor which I'm hanging out to get.
I did a fair bit of research and evolve seem to be right up there in credibility so bit the bullet and ordered one.
I'll use it mainly for last mile commute. Luckily we have bike paths into the city so that should keep me a bit safer.

Anyway, I'll try and contribute to the forum, look forward to seeing if there is an evolve community here in Adelaide too.

Cheers!

Dronus

 

Welcome Dronus, good to have more Aussies on the forum. Have fun gliding through your concrete jungle checking out all those churches!!!

Evolve is the only way to go, ride it a lot get used to all the power and it will have you craving for more

 

Cheers. Yeah I'm really looking forward to getting this board and getting stuck into it.
For the last week I've found myself checking out the footpaths and bike paths more and more, as well as the laneways and side streets...

The boulevard along the coast looks like an awesome evening trip also.

Hopefully the board comes in next week, I'll be picking up a new helmet too as I'm pretty keep on keeping the noggin in one piece.

Just checking out the forums, lots of info in there and I'm hooked on watching the evolve YouTube vids too.
I'm into drones too so once I get my feet I'll try and get some follows action too.

Whilst I reakon I'll spend a bit of time in slow mode it would be good if the settings menu had an option to disable reverse. When I do get to eco and fast I would feel safer if I knew I couldn't accidentally select reverse, especially while moving forwards. I'll just make sure I'm stationary when changing modes for the time being.

Anyway, back to YouTube!

-dronus

 

Sounds like your already hooked hope the week goes quick and you will be riding soon.

Don't worry about selecting reverse it is a long press to get there and also you won't ride in slow! its really slow. I was in Eco for about 1 min until i topped out the speed then fast and now more often then not GT it saves changing when i get to hills. The remotes are all good as well just spend time getting used to the feel and the board and muscle memory will take over

 

Gday dronus. I'm in Adelaide too, would be keen to meet up for a ride at some point. If your experience is anything like mine you'll soon want to see what the AT is all about. We are very lucky to have plenty of spots where the AT can be put to amazing use. I've been tackling the downhill mtb tracks here
Shepherds Hill Recreation Park
https://goo.gl/maps/BCfX5yoHbZk with the Carbon GT which eats them for breakfast. Continually amazed at what this thing can do.

 

Heya Spanyardo! Awesome, i didn't know there were MTB tracks suitable for AT boards there, will definitely have to check it out! Thats not far from where i live but i dont think ive ever ventured in there. I have a few large parks around here which have lots of dirt dog walking tracks which might be a bit of fun also. Ive ridden my MTB thru some of it and that was good, would be even better on an AT board.

I guess that is another great thing about taking up these things, you get to see parts of your world that youve never seen before, but are on your doorstep. Much better than sitting at home on the couch

Ive taken the drone to one of the parks and put some footage up on youtube HERE ill take it to a couple of the other parks and get some overhead footage of the other parks that i know of to scope them out. Things look different from the air, ive used this in the past to scope out 4wding trips. If the rain breaks today ill go for a fly. I didnt take that footage with the intention of scoping out the tracks, (I was just going for a fly) ill go back and take some more following the tracks. There is a BMX track in there also but its not really suited for boards. Good fun to watch though.

Would be good to go for a meetup someday, ive seen a few other south aussies on youtube too. Im starting again - and new to longboards but from what im picking up things have changes since the 80's

Cheers

 

Plus the drone came with a steady grip for the camera so that would be cool to take along. Having a gimbled camera can get some great action shots (as long as you don't stack it!)

 

dronus and Spanyardo, I'm from Adelaide too! Stay in touch and let's get some groups rides up and running soon.

I've had my board for about a month. Not having touched a skateboard since my early teenage years (I'm now in my 30s), I've been thrilled with how quickly I've adapted to the Evolve. I now take it at least twice a week to work (from Henley Beach South to the CBD via Linear Park) and often as time allows on weekends to just explore and get out in the sun. It's too much damn fun!

I'm currently running a Gen2 Bamboo (Bustin' Series). Undecided whether or not to throw some upgrades at my Gen2 or just get a GT at some point later this year.

I haven't done any AT yet, don't have the kit - again, early days - these things will come.

Where are all the other South Aussies? I've noticed there's a few on the map.

 

Sounds good! Yep it would be good to organise a Meetup. My board is in at the shop, I just need to go pick it up. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have time so I'll have it for the weekend.

Riding along the linear park would be awesome, heaps quicker than driving and it wouldn't take long to payback the cost of the board compared to paying for parking.

I'm much the same, used to skate as a teenager but that was quite a few moons ago.

 

Hey check this out for a "closer to the ground" comparison at Tangari- not the best footage (and kill the sound) but it shows how amazing the place is on AT. I have some better footage maybe I'll upload.

 

Heya RejectBabylon (nice moniker!) let's do a ride soon for sure. My advice is get on the AT as soon as you can - you won't believe the experience. It's actually a completely different board and activity, and amazing fun. For me it's also safer - even when doing crazy things the only one that can hurt you is you. No cars, no people, no cops to watch out for. An AT CGT would complement your stable nicely - use that for offroad and your gen2 bamboo for carving up the street.

 

Picked up my bamboo GT AT today. It's a piece of art
Pretty heavy to lug around too in the box but soon enough I'll give it a ride...

Ha yeah I wasn't sure how well tangari would be to ride but it looks good, might venture there on the weekend. GoPro might be on the cards too..

 

If it wasn't 11 billion degrees outside ...

 

Took the board for a ride for just on an hour this morning. OMG that is so much fun.
Once I remembered the weight forward on accelerate and back on brake I was going great. Only came off once but that was my fault for waving to some people and braking.

I have tightened the trucks up about half a turn. I guess because I'm 85kg ish and a high centre of gravity it takes less weight shifting to carve. I might go a tad more but will go for a few more runs first.

I spent all of 2 mins max in slow, straight to eco and flick up into fast on the hills. Really have to remember to lean forward to control that kick!

The last time I was on a board was 25 odd years ago. A lot has happened in my life in those years, but about 10 minutes ago while I was carving down the street all of that disappeared and it was like reaching Zen. Nothing else exists apart from you here and now.

I'd forgotten how good that is for the soul and it makes sense why people do it.

Sun is back out, board back on charge for tonight.

 

I tightened the trucks up a bit more but found it a bit too hard to turn. Having to lean more to turn sort of throws me off balance too quickly so I've backed it off again.

I've seen some videos on YouTube about balancing the wheels. I think this is something I definately need to do, just spinning them on the trucks you can see how the valve throws the wheel off balance. I'm looking at some 5, 10 and 15g adhesive weights to see what it needs. You do feel that balance especially when on soft tarmac (yes I know street wheels are more suited to tarmac but I'm loving just cutting corners)!

My legs are trashed, I didn't really think that boarding (especially eboard g) would tax so much. Plus which ever calf is the rear leg is getting a good burn to it!

I'm right handed and seem to feel more comfortable with my right leg forward. Is this normal? Also I see lots of people with their front foot facing forward. I'm guessing they steer with weight on their back leg?

Maybe I'm thinking about it too much

 

Hi Dronus, I'm sort of learning the ropes same as you are. I had about a 15 year gap skating and it was the same for me, good memories to be back on the board again!

I've done the exact same with my trucks, tightened twice, then eased off a little. I did it because I was getting the wobbles a bit, but I've since found it it is more to do with my weight distribution and, well confidence I spose. And I too did not consider that leg strength was a thing. I actually found that a while into my skate, I was less stable at speed as my legs were tired.

Oh and about the way you stand. If you watch a youtube video of a big group of longboarders, you'll notice that about 1 in 5 of them or something stand that way, it's totally normal if that's how you feel most natural. I believe the test is to have someone give you a firm push from behind and whatever foot you use to catch yourself is your leading foot. I know for me, if I stand the wrong way, when I try and turn in one direction (turning right in a goofy stance I think), my balance doesn't feel good. When I stand the right way, turning both ways feels fine. That's maybe just me though.

 

awesome thanks Eric. I think i have loosened them a tad too much now, its all fine tuning i spose.maybe ill make the back slightly tighter than the front.

Re: stance. Yeah i noticed that most people seem to ride regular. I tried the push test and i went left foot forward but when i ride that way i cant seem to turn left, i go right foot forward and im all good. Weird, but as you say its probably just getting some more time up on the board.

I pushed the wife (gently) to see how she went but she didnt appreciate it She actually jumped on the board and went for a spin while i held her hand. She got some video of me doing laps around the block which was cool. Unfortunately her resolution was set so low on her phone it looked like it was shot using a potato.

I went for a 4km ride just before it got dark and had two things happen for the first time.

1. I was approaching a hill when a cyclist came up from behind me and stared as he went past. As we went up the hill i flicked onto fast mode and overtook him. haha his face was priceless. thats about as fast as ive been and i dont think ill get that fast without similar motivation. Maybe 22km/h

2. I was cruising along in eco, coming up to another hill so i flicked into fast, let go of the throttle (this seems to be the only way it actually goes into fast) and reapplied throttle. While the screen said fast, the board was still in eco and slowing fast. I thought maybe i had not pressed the button properly (der! it said FAST on the screen, my mistake) so i pressed it again . Now i was slowing fast and there was a good looking lady walking her dog coming the other way so it was my time to shine.
With my recent conquering the cyclist fresh in my mind i squeezed the trigger...
Now i didn't fall off the board so much as it just wasn't beneath me anymore, it was a few meters in front of me before my brain registered what was going on. I sort of just ran along, stopped and hit the brake so the board wouldn't take out the real reason of my distraction...

Got a sympathetic smile as i jumped back on making sure i was in fast mode

People seem to love the board nearly as much as me. Ive been stopped twice today by people asking about it.

Tomorrow is another day

 

Maybe don't quote me on the foot test thing, perhaps I got it the wrong way around haha. Anyways, sounds like you know your stance

I expect to have lots of fun with cyclists! My experience is so far limited, but I had one apparently slip-stream behind me for a while. I think people have been riding evolve boards around the park near me for some time though and I seem to go relatively unnoticed. I prefer that though, I wouldn't describe my riding as 'graceful' yet haha.

Hmm, sounds like you've experienced one of the remote connectivity related issues. Good stuff on the forums about that. lol! "Now i didn't fall off the board so much as it just wasn't beneath me anymore, it was a few meters in front of me before my brain registered what was going on." This has happened to me twice, but both times because I saw a speed bump too late and my reflexes took over. Comforting to know your body can get itself out of a jam in a split second!

Hope you have as much fun as I'm having, I'm just waiting for the weather to improve to get back out. Wet weekend here

Edit: jsut looked out the window and it's snowing, great

 

Ha i was watching a few vids on youtube about working out which foot forward and they said the same as you, so you are correct! Maybe im just weird and for some reason it feels better the other way.

Im less than graceful too, haha. maybe that will change as i relax more.

I tried a little experiment with the connectivity... i know that the remote doesnt use bluetooth, but i noticed that i only had issues when i had my phone in my right pants pocket, the same side as i hold the remote. Put it in my left pocket and no issues.. Hmm i wonder if others have the same result.. might also be coincidence, ill try with the phone off too and post in the connectivity thread.

Snowing - we have the opposite problem here, its too hot. Although today is looking better.