Aloha, my name is Chris and I’m from Philly and live in Hawaii. I have never built an Esk8 myself, I just like to ride. Two years ago I wanted to upgrade my Backfire G3 plus to something more powerful with more range. I decided that I wanted to buy my forever board, the board that would take me as far and as fast as I would ever want to go. I went with the Kaly XLR, and this is my story.
May 2022- I place my order for the Kaly XLR. I reach out to Sender for a custom deck graphic. I never hear back from Sender this is right after he stopped trading. Not a big deal.
September 2022- Ernesto messages me that my board is ready to ship and he surprised me with a Sender deck that he had at the shop that was commissioned by DJ Chicken Strips. It was a cool deck and I was stoked!
February 2023- The board was so awesome, I put over 1,000 miles on it and then I really wanted to go for it. I rode it around Kaena Point (where west Oahu meets north Oahu) and it was some fun and sloppy riding.
March 2023- Two weeks later I’m out for a ride and my board shuts off while I’m going up a hill, it won’t turn back on. I message Ernesto for help to figure out what was causing the problem. I never hear from him and find out that Kaly is out of business. I join a couple of different Facebook Esk8 groups to try and find help. A member named Ben recommended a person named Sawyer Reynolds. I reached out to Sawyer and he was quite helpful. He was a respected expert that previously did work on behalf of Ernesto for Kaly’s west coast customers. I was really grateful that he was willing to help me. It took two fried spintend 100v to figure out that water (probably from my off road adventure) got into one of the servos that are connected to the electronic stabilization system and fried the Vesc. Ouch!
April 2023- Another XLR fire happens, people are freaking out trying to figure out why these fires are happening and if their boards are safe. We inspect the battery in my board the negative end of a p group cell was rubbing and grounded to the carbon enclosure. I wasn’t comfortable with the battery and agreed it should be rebuilt.
May 2023- At this point I’m pretty bummed, I need another ubox 100v, my battery isn’t safe and I’m constantly worried about the parasitic drain issue. Sawyer announces he’s gonna start rebuilding Kaly batteries for the community and I’m stoked! There is somebody out there that people trust that’s gonna help me get back on my board. A couple weeks later I ship him my enclosure.
August 2023- Sawyer finishes the battery, it looks really well done.
September 2023- While I was waiting for my board to be finished I saw on the forum that a member was selling his Kaly XLR for dirt cheap. The battery fires made him not want to have it in his house. I bought it immediately. Since Kaly was out of business I figured this would be a great opportunity to have spare parts for my forever board. After A couple days of thinking about it I knew what had to be done. Use the gear drives from the backup board to make a 4wd.
Sawyer was excited for the project too, it was gonna be an awesome board. I have the backup xlr shipped directly to him. The battery in the backup board was also suspect, there was a p group corner with the positive nickel tab crushed into the negative edge so much so that the cell corner folded in and this pack also didn’t have insulator rings. The cells themselves were ok, I didn’t need them and didn’t want to ship them to Hawaii. Mario Chacon had an XLR that’s battery bricked from the parasitic drain issue and needed a new pack. I donated the cells to him so he could have the battery rebuilt and sold. Ironically it was sold to a Hawaii Esk8er that I know a couple months later.
November 2023- I ask Sawyer for an update, he tells me sorry he is dealing with a move. I remind myself that I reached out to him for help and he’s doing me a favor and that I need to be patient. In the mean time I had to deal with a different issue. I bought a Davega for the board and was trying to figure out a way to mount it without drilling into my deck. I found a guy named Dillion that printed me a sweet baseplate for the deck. Very nice and smart guy.
January 2024- The holidays come and go, I was so ready for the board to be done. I picked up a sweet enclosure for the second Ubox and some back up motors that Artem SKP had made for Kaly gear drives. Sawyer messages me and apologizes for being MIA. He tells me that he just got out of the hospital and that he is gonna finish and ship all my stuff asap.
February 2024- Another month goes by, I message Sawyer and ask him when he thinks he’ll have my stuff finished and shipped by. He tells me he can’t update me and that he has been struggling with his living situation. I tell him that I am uncomfortable waiting an indefinite amount of time. I tell him that if he can’t finish the project I would happily come to Long Beach to pick up my stuff. From there I would drive it up to Lodi and drop it off at SKP to finally get finished. A couple days later Sawyer posts a public update in a group we are in saying sorry again and that I’ll have my board by Esk8 Con.
At this point I’m starting to get sketched out, around this time the guy Ben that originally recommended Sawyer had a very public falling out. There were a lot of accusations about stealing his stuff, money, and time. I reached out to Artem to make sure he would be willing to finish my build and he said he would. Sawyer refused to ship Ben’s stuff to Artem after Ben posted a bunch of true yet embarrassing information about their interactions.
April 2024- Esk8 Con comes and then goes. About a week after I message him to see how he’s doing and if he found a new apartment. He said he finally got himself a place and was going to ship my stuff right away. A week after his message I saw the beginning of the “Victims of Sawyer Reynolds” group on Facebook and realized what I should have figured out months prior, that Sawyer wasn’t being truthful with me and many other people.
After I have read everyone’s stories I texted Sawyer that I wasn’t mad. I just wanted my stuff and asked him if I can come by to pick it up. He apologized again and explained that he was going through a rough patch. He offered to set up a payment plan to pay me back for the job minus the battery, I declined and told him to just focus on working through his issues. He texted me the storage location where my stuff was and I booked a flight that night round trip from Honolulu to LA. Twenty four hours later I was in Long Beach in a rented van ready to meet Sawyer in person. A lot of people ask me how I was so confident that he still had my stuff? Or how did I know that he wouldn’t just stand me up in Long Beach and waste more of my time? I just had faith it would all work out.
Sawyer tells me to meet him at a breakfast spot in Long Beach. He’s an hour late, at this point I’m sweating a little bit and thinking maybe I just wasted a bunch more of my time and money. He finally shows up, we get in the van, and go to the storage location. I get all my stuff and while we are there I convince Sawyer to let me take Ben’s stuff too since it’s all going up to Lodi to SKP’s shop anyways. Sawyer agreed and we loaded up all the stuff on the van. After everything was loaded up we picked up some weed and skated around Long Beach smoking joints and touring the city all day, it was pretty fun. Long Beach is dope, it has tons of skate paths. At the end of the day he gave me a beer for the road we shook hands and that was that. It is quite apparent that he suffers from some serious mental health issues that he needs to address. It’s not an excuse for his behavior. He was dishonest about silly and very important things that wasted lots of peoples time and money including my own. Don’t get me wrong he probably is doing some shady stuff to get by, dude lives LA without a job steady job. I really do feel sorry for him, mostly for the wasted talent and potential. He had a great reputation that is completely trashed and for me that would hurt much more than losing some money or time. When it’s all said and done I wish him the best.
Later that night I left Long Beach. it was time to hit the road and head to Lodi. I drove about 6 hours and ended up at a state park about 30 minutes away from Artem’s shop. I put up a hammock, cracked the beer Sawyer gave me and took a nice nap. I slept so well knowing that had gotten my stuff and that this was all almost over.
When I woke up, I texted Artem and told him I would be there in an hour. He was waiting for me at the shop and was quite warm and welcoming. He showed me all around ( it’s so freaking cool in there, he’s got the coolest decks, gear drives, tires, motors, bindings etc everywhere I could of spent days there it truly is an esk8 candy shop). We brought Ben and my stuff inside, discussed the crazyness of this whole this whole situation and the goals for the build. After we left the shop we skated to lunch spot and Artem treated, a very kind gesture. The first and most likely last time I’ll ever ride a 4wd esk8 with bindings in flip flops and no helmet lol. After lunch I thanked him again and we parted ways. I started the next 6 hour drive back to LA to hop on a flight back to Honolulu.
May 2024- That brings us to the present. I told Artem that I want this board to be as bad ass as possible and I don’t think he’s gonna let me down. Last time I talked to him he mentioned being able to upgrade the 20s8p to 21s8p. I was like “What!?! I didn’t even know that was on the table! Yes Please!” So that’s in the works. I am just as curious as you to see the final outcome, I told Artem that I might make a build thread and to take some pictures. Hopefully he keeps us updated… to be continued.
Special Thanks- There are some people that have been very helpful with this project
Rob Johnson SRB #27 (@east_oahu) - Esk8er, mr fix it and all around great guy. The first person I went to for help in my local esk8 community we weren’t able to fix the board but we went on a bunch of rides and became good friends. Thanks homie!
Brian Fujioka “The Mad Doc” (@fujio001) - Integral part of the Hawaii esk8 community. Always willing to lend a helping hand to community members. Thanks again for storing my parts in your shop for so long and answering my annoying questions. Mahalo Nui Loa!
Eskate Fatty- Super nice guy, went through some similar stuff with Sawyer trying to get his XLR fixed. Was there to listen to my frustrations and understood what i was going through. He also special made me some radium adapters for my XLR so I can put Lacroix hyper truck bushings on. I can’t wait to test them out thanks again.
Dillon Cornell (@Bayninja) - Dillion was Johnny on the spot when it came to my Davega mounting problem. His design came in clutch, He also makes his own Kaly Barrel bushings if you ever need. He was professional and prompt. Thanks again!
Artem Voloshanovskiy “SKP” (@Skyart)- The last and most special thanks goes to everyone’s favorite Esk8 Uncle, The Skating Duck, Mr. Artem Voloshanovskiy. I honestly don’t know what I would have done or where I would have taken all my stuff if Artem wasn’t doing his thing. In their prime Lacroix and Kaly were the pinnacle of quality when It came to craftsmanship and customer service. It is clear that after they went out of business that torch was handed over to SKP. The American Esk8 community is lucky to have a resource as skilled and as and dedicated as yourself. I wish you luck in all your future endeavors even though people that are as talented and hard working as you usually don’t need it.
Parts List-
21s8p P42A Molicel battery
(2x) Kaly XLR gear drives (12/38)
(2x) Spintend Ubox 100v Escs
Idea top mount Esc enclosure
Purple Davega with custom printed bracket
Senderized XLR deck
Lacroix Hyper Truck bushings with Radium Matrix 2 adapters
Stock XLR hubs and tires
63100 110KV stock rear motors
6485 125KV SKP front motors
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first 4wd Kaly XLR? I don’t know if I’ve ever seen another. As for Sawyer…I really hope more people get their stuff back and he is able to get some help.
