I love this ESK8 forum. I find myself helplessly addicted, always coming back for more. As my contribution, I’d like to bring back the Iron Foot Challenge for 2026 with my own twists! I’m looking to create a fun space for all to enjoy.
As a full disclosure I will be participating and won’t be holding back, hoping we have some other high milers to compete with, absolutely not trying to sandbag my own challenge!
Additional disclosure, participate in these challenges at your own risk. I can’t take responsibility for your safely or choices if you choose to participate (or deprive sleep for the 24-hour challenge).
Challenges:
Iron Foot Award
Longest continuous ride by distance
Maximum stop time of 10 minutes per stop
Hot swapping batteries, changing boards, and charging allowed.
Tungsten Foot Award - 24-hour distance challenge (thank you @jack.luis)
Longest distance ride in 24 hours
No Hot swapping batteries
No changing boards
Charging allowed.
Lead Thumb Award - Fastest average speed over 15 or more miles
Ride must be longer than 15 miles
Maximum stop time 10 minutes per stop
Ride safe and within your abilities. Don’t get hurt for this challenge!
Furthest distance riding board backwards
Riding boards backwards is … interesting depending on your angles, sometimes nearly impossible. Let’s see how many miles someone can put down riding board backwards?
Furthest distance riding switch stance
Simple rules here, no cheating, riding opposite stance than normal, leg burn incoming!
Furthest distance seated riding
The new era of go kart inspired sit down Esk8. Whether you have the Rev Phantom X kart kit, or doing traditional sit down esk8 lets see those sit down miles!
Prizes:
I will be contacting many esk8 vendors to try and get tangible prizes. Depending on support would like to do prizes for top 3 from each category but will be entirely dependent on how much we get to work with. I will keep a separate post in this thread updated with Iron Foot 26’ vendor sponsors. If no vendors join, then we’ll do a designed CNC or printed award.
Entries:
This is a ESK8 ONLY CHALLENGE. Integrity is crucial, you should have accurate basic parameters (wheel size, gearing info at minimum) set inside Vesc tool or remote if using production boards. The excuse “someone else set it up for me” simply won’t cut it, were looking for accurate data and will prefer gps for lead thumb. Any discoveries of tampering or altering logs will be grounds for disqualification. All entries must be posted in this thread and include a log with both GPS data and ESC data with which challenge you’re entering. Tracking options include but are not limited to:
Metr
Racebox
Vesc app
Yours Truely
Rules & Notes:
For Lead Thumb, I will not be recalculating average speeds for you if stop times are involved. You are afforded 10 minutes stop time, but it will be inadvertently lower your average speed.
Iron Foot stops are no longer than 10 mins should reflect in logs or from the time one log stops to the time the next log starts is 10 mins.
For Tungsten Foot only time restraints are 24 hours, no limits on amount of time stopped.
I’m not requiring video footage as proof of ride unnecessarily as I see filming rides can take away from the quality of the ride. It could help to prove completion of switch, backwards, or seated. But not a requirement.
It should be pretty easy to tell if logs are legit or not ridden on esk8. Keep it legit, this is a esk8 forum… CHALLENGE FOR ESK8 ONLY.
Entries will be accepted 1/1/2026 through 12/31/2026. Please no sandbagging, I don’t care about the huge mile trip you did 5 years ago in college. This is the here and now. Challenge yourself and do something fun.
Lead Thumb Award - Fastest average speed over 15 or more miles
Ride must be longer than 15 miles
Maximum stop time 10 minutes per stop
Ride safe and within your abilities. Don’t get hurt for this challenge!
User
Total miles
Total km
Total Time
Average mph
Average km/h
Verification
Furthest distance riding board backwards
Riding boards backwards is … interesting depending on your angles, sometimes nearly impossible. Let’s see how many miles someone can put down riding board backwards?
User
Total miles
Total km
Total Time
Average mph
Average km/h
Verification
Furthest distance riding switch stance
Simple rules here, no cheating, riding opposite stance than normal, leg burn incoming!
User
Total miles
Total km
Total Time
Average mph
Average km/h
Verification
Furthest distance seated riding
The new era of go kart inspired sit down Esk8. Whether you have the Rev Phantom X kart kit, or doing traditional sit down esk8 lets see those sit down miles!
Changes updated, we will hold two 24 hour challenges Aluminum and Tungsten. Hopefully we have a few entries per challenge to keep things spicy. I’ll be going for Aluminum myself.
Thought I had things pretty situated. But got to have an Iron Foot challenge in the “Iron Foot challenge” thread. So we will run the original Iron Foot challenge for furthest distance with stops limited to 10 mins. Removing Aluminum Foot and replacing with Tungsten Foot. If someone wants to swap boards and hot swap batteries they can use the Iron Foot. Otherwise we’ll use the Tungsten for one board and charging allowed.
Any thoughts on the 4 hour stops they used for aluminum challenge previously? @jack.luis your challenge creation, any preference? I kind of like 24 hour time limit no restrictions on stop times for Tungsten?
Long miles are torturous enough, and I don’t want to introduce too many rules. I did too many miles on thane previously, very much enjoying pneumatics currently.
Same. The goal is to push a single board and rider as hard as possible. Showcases battery tech by having charging be a factor. The open ended-ness allows for different strats
Awesome job so far!
I’ll be using the ice and frost as an excuse to myself for why I can’t compete, rather than physical and mental skill.
Now this seems like something I could temporarily hold a position with
Is backwards only using smart reverse or can it be torque based throttle too? Because it would be like normal riding for the talented ppl who can ride switch.
And for all of them, is someone allowed to use a large bike track or something and go round and round in circles? Does the boredom earn them back the difficulty from finding charging stops and traffic?
Thank you so much! Appreciate the kind words. I thought a lot about doing this through some of last year. I figured if it was fun to me, maybe someone else would get enjoyment out of it.
As far as reverse goes, I’m not sure what torque based throttle is. My Ownboard Zeus I always just double clicked the button to get reverse. And now that I’m on vesc I use bi-directional current mode. What ever floats your boat, rear trucks facing forward for that challenge .
The normal more you push forwards = harder esk8 pushes forwards. For me using smart reverse it works when I hold on full brake for 2 seconds after stopping, then it goes back using ramping duty cycle. Much harder to use than throttle forwards and it happens when I brake hard and am still sliding forwards.
Wait is that just if you hold on some brake and keep holding after you come to a stop it gives that much current in reverse? And then if you push forwards it acts as reverse braking and then accel? That actually makes a lot of sense. I was thinking of FPV where bidirectional means 50% throttle becomes 0.
With bidirectional current braking becomes reverse with a seamless transition when the motor hits 0 speed, and it has no speed limit or power limit in reverse. You pull the throttle back and it’s braking (while rolling forward) or accelerating while rolling in reverse. You push the throttle forward and it’s accelerating while rolling forward or braking while rolling in reverse. You retain full torque control for reverse as well.
I think it’s the most convenient and easiest to use reverse once you get used to it and I use it on all of my boards. Does take a bit of getting used to because if in the normal mode you’d lock the brakes, in this mode you’d spin the tires backwards at max speed. That can be a bit scary the first few times but you get used to it quickly. I feel like this mode is almost a necessity while riding strapped in.
.
