I recently embarked on a new area for me in the esk8 world: eMTB. Just to ground us I’m defining eMTB as the typical no-bottom battery, foot-binding, air tire, channel trucks, and a deck with kicks builds. Focused mainly on the purpose of trail or offroad riding.
So I have a few questions on the top of my head as I’ve never ridden a proper MTB before. Figured some others interested in this style of board would have these Q’s as well.
Mod’s - if all this is covered on another topic my b, please delete and lmk where to find that info.
Those who know - please provide your answers/opinions
Those who want to know - please provide your questions
My initial Q’s:
This is an obvious but big one - What do you find is the best way to bail on an eMTB? On the streets we don’t tend to prefer bindings, because if you get hit by a car or need to jump off your board and can’t it’ll generally result in a massive leg injury. What do the eMTBer’s do? Just not crash? There’s gotta be a best practice no?
Pads - what do you wear and why? Please describe your typical usage as well, I assume back roads bombers on hard packed trails don’t heavy up as much as some of you who are getting after it in the woods. Does my TSG pass cover it helmet-wise?
Bindings - what is your preferred binding? FB opens? simple over the foot strap? foot+heel strap? why?
Whats your favorite 8" tire? Why?
Whats your favorite 9" tire? Why?
What are your favorite trucks? Why?
Is 4wd worth the weight? - what are the major benefits for eMTB? assuming traction and more predictable power slides?
Finally - what are the eMTB riders most excited for in the 2020 market place?
We crash. A lot. Speeds are slower than street.
Think of yourself as a captain, you go down with the ship.
What I wear on the street plus padded shorts.
The Pass is fine on an MTB
MBS F5 + heelstraps.
Always heelstraps off road. If one foot slips out of the binding and the other stays on say goodbye to your knee.
ALWAYS heelstraps off road.
Have only tried Trampa tyres so can’t help you there.
No personal experience but I feel a 4wd with 6355s should be the best compromise between performance and weight.
Straps - without a doubt full feet and heel MBS F5 bindings. Do not go with just the foot straps, you wont have the control without the heel straps. If something does go wrong it’s best to be fully strapped to the board. You do not want a situation where one foot comes out the bindings and one stays in with a 20KG board attached to it. Full straps needed, MBS F5 deffo, best on the market.
If you do have an incident (which is actually less likely with straps, they will allow you to get out of all kinds of situations) then get low as fast as you can, just get low and the fall isnt that bad. The board will stop you from going too far.
Full pads, knees, gloves and some kind of motocross vest is preferable. Deffo a full face helmet, motocross style preferable for ultra wide visibility.
Favorite 8 in tyre - primo striker
Favorite 9 in tyre - Trampa mud plugger
Other tips would be if you ride the board correctly you are not likely to come off whilst in motion (in general) Ask anyone that eMTB’s most of your falls will be whilst you are stationary! Keep your weight biased to the rear foot, keep the front nice and light and use the front binding to hop it over stuff. You can catch an edge if you carve too aggressively off road, it will slide out- you can use the sliding to your advantage.
This is what I was thinking. I just started my eMTB build - its running under its own power but just because I had a shit load of spare parts/batteries/etc. I got it running with some 6355’s I had laying around. While I was riding around on it I had that exact thought - 4 of these little guys would probably be perfect. I have some big street carvers for straight up tq. So figured a mix of traction and lightness would be best for eMTB.
also - noted on heel straps, I’ll pick some up, I have the MBS f5’s already.
Bailing is no option.
If you have your bindings that loose that you could bail then they make no sense and it’s better riding without bindings. But then you can ride snake speed only which is also no offroad fun.
The only visible skin with my gear is between socks and shim protector. The rest ist padded. The funny thing with protective gear is that usually the better the rider the more gear… before I started MTB I thought it’s the other way.
I like hard plastic shells because I can slide on gravel or stones after a crash without hurting myself or the gear.
F5 no doubt. I rode the first year without heelstraps because with heelstraps I felt like an idiot and often crashed or lose balance. But after some days with them and learning how to jump before losing balance I can’t ride without anymore. Also they prevent many falls when you learned how to use them.
MBS T1
The rubber blend is awesome, feels like riding on clouds but don’t know about longelivity yet with the soft rubber. I dislike Aliexpress tires because they are hard as rocks and are premium uncomfortable. Trampa Treads and Mudplugger/MBS Vine are also not bad.
Only tried the MBS T2, Trampa is too expensive I won’t pay that much for tires which are gone within weeks.
Can’t give you an answer, all trucks have their pros and cons.
I would slightly prefer Trampa over MBS if you use elastomere dampers (barrels).
Speaking of bindings, does anyone rose with snowboard boots/bindings? I know my old comp board had compatible mountings.
I’m thinking about adding that to my new trampa build.
whats holding me back on the MBS T2 (other than that they’re outta stock currently) is that I need tubes and tires and if I buy from MBS all of that is $139.6 + shipping and from Trampa with the mud pluggers its $142.18 + shipping so its not that different when you need to buy tubes as well. And had just heard so many good things about the mud pluggers before I started this thread.
That makes sense, also I would love to try the 9" mudpluggers which look great. For me they are almost double the price compared to MBS T2 in EU .
I would always recommend buying 6 tires and not 4. From my experience the lifetime of the rear tires is exactly 50% of the front tires. Usually I change the rear tires the first time and the second time when all 4 tires are done.
whats the best hub for the 9" tires? Factoring in cost the cheapest off the shelf solution is MBS 5-Star. Other than that I guess that just leaves the mega stars and widened superstars?
any other options that works with an MBS or Trampa pulley?
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