https://evrace.town is the home of the future site. I started on a Google doc and setup a Discord server for discussion. As I mentioned, I’m in the middle of packing for a office/workshop move but if we can come up with a good set of requirements I should be able to start work implementing something in a few weeks.
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dear friends,
I have a general question about BRAKES and racing.
As most people know, cars and motorcycles have brakes on all wheels.
When braking, they have up to 80% brake power at frontwheels and 20% rearwheels.
This is because the weight moves to the front when braking, so grip in front increases → more possible break power.
(source: Brake Bias And Performance | Brakes-shop.com)
Now Im asking myself, why most current racing boards have only 2wd, so can only brake on the backwheels…
Does that mean we are missing most possible brake power because we do not have front breaks?
Or is braking not so important in esk8 race?
thx for a clarification.
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yes, we are missing out on a substantial amount of performance by only having control over the rear wheels. I constantly go on rants about why the current standard is extremely suboptimal, especially for how it isn’t even hard to add motors to the front wheels. We have an advantage over cars in that our bodies typically weigh 300% of our board’s weight so combining the fact that we can shift the weight extremely rearward and that we do not get brake dive since our boards are static (no suspension to make weight transfer nearly as noticeable). It is not nearly as bad as what it would be if we were a car with only rears but it is suboptimal.
We use motors as drive and break so you need 4wd for 4wb which I think race boards should move to anyways since those rear tires obviously can’t handle the hundreds of amps people throw at them without sliding all over the place and minimal to no slip is almost always faster around the track than larping as Mr. Fujiwara.
thank you for those insights.
that is good point. I wonder if it could be mesured, how the distribution really is… (maybe some sensors in the baseplates and arduino, hehe)
For riding 4wd in race mode, maybe it could be vital to use 2 remotes. one for front and one for rear?
This could be challanging at the beginning but there may be advatages in controlling the board.
For example:
- Having slight drift in the corner:
–brake front, accelerare rear - rescue a uncontrolled drift:
– accelerate more on front
btw: I have large respect for @MoeStooge’s work. so I’m pretty sure they have reasons to go 2wd… 
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Moe’s stated reason for 2wd is not based on performance it’s just that twice the stuff means twice the opportunity for failure, he’s admitted that 4wd would be faster.
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my new board is a 4wd.
did not ride it yet, its just too snowy and rainy here currently.
But i’m heavily curious about how riding with two remotes will be 
and if it makes sense at all.
Two remotes would be so tricky. Take ages to master. I’m too old to re-learn haha.
As for 4wd, my current race board is 4wd but I’ve still not done faster lap times on T-Race or indoor track yet even though it’s a menace off the line. I’m hoping to get a handle of it but my point is that handling the ridiculous power seems to be something else that will take time to master. Smooth lines, good throttle control and maintaining traction = fast times for me. Something I’m yet to achieve on my 4wd beast!
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hehe… yes I absolutely agree.
My home-track is a indoor car park that I can use every sunday.
And mostly I struggle to get all power with perfectly smooth lines. as you already said.
Mastering a perfect curve after high speed is still hard for me. so I still train the moves:
heavy brake → heavy lean → heavy accelerate
and that was with a 2wd ly evo …
a friend of mine does semi-professional cart racing.
a week ago I met a technician of their team.
It was funny, because he was talking only about grip and tyers all the time.
In the end he said that all their efforts boil down to the 4 contact patches. (heard that many time since then)
He said that they spend most of their budget on tyre research and custom production.
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Yes grip is a crucial element to go fast through bends!!
Edit: i realise this sounds obvious but any form of sliding, you’re losing time. Think F1. As soon as a car loses traction, the car behind has an opportunity to pass. But yes, sliding is fun!!
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Damn I need to ré read many things here. I forgot the gold mine of informations learnt and spread !
I am interested in is why RWD is so popular compared to FWD in 2WD. Conceivably, you’d get better braking and earlier acceleration as it’s pulling the board rather than pushing, and with the way trucks work compared to Ackermann steering you don’t lose that much on steering force when the tires are loaded. With the available weight transfer I don’t even think lockup will be a problem. Don’t have a board to test it out though.
Because under accelerating you shift all the weight to the rear, it’s the exact opposite thing of braking, if you only have power going to the front wheels your going to skid/hop, especially up a hill you will really struggle for traction.
When you come out of a corner accelerating you will be transferring weight to the rear giving you more grip on the rear wheels, if you do that on an FWD board you will still transfer the weight to the rear because your accelerating but the rear isn’t your driven axel anymore, your taking action away from your driven front wheels, and you won’t be able to put down power since your unpowered wheels will be the ones with grip so the front end will just skid since there is no weight on them. It will be better for braking but worse for everything else.
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See I was thinking of that, but wouldn’t your weight be up front anyways for a typical skating stance/tuck? There’s rarely much weight in the rear, and it feels like the need to add weight currently is an effect of RWD rather than a cause.
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Where you position your weight doesn’t really matter all that much, your board will “overpower” where you put your weight, an object at rest will want to stay at rest, and even if you lean forwards you will still be thrown back by the board accelerating. Moving your weight to your front at high speeds is easy, being able to move all your weight to the front under hard acceleration is literally impossible.
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Ok I couldn’t get this image out of my head so here you go DallE best tries @ARCTIC
Takumi Fujiwara drifting on an Esk8
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Dude someone last year did this, it was nuts.
4wd boosted board with one remote per hand
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https://www.instagram.com/p/CnXS-zmjltG/?hl=en
@MetroLinkX4 is living your dream with 4wd vesc based stooge v5. as well as 4wd vesc based 3link redember44
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I would firmly disagree with this. In every racing series there is, a slight amount of sliding is crucial to unlock ultimate lap time. It’s called Slip Angle. If you aren’t doing it, you are WAY behind on pace compared to someone who is using a slight slide to maintain a higher minimum apex speed, and get some rotation through the corner for free.
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I just want to add some writing about this topic:
As i understand there is a difference between “slip angle” and “slide angle”.
The “slip angle” occurs on every vehicle even without sliding.
The “slide angle” describes an excessive “slip angle” that ends up in sliding.
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