Does any one here have experience with an eskate road trip? This is something I have been thinking about for over a year now, and I’m trying to figure out how feasible a long range trip on an eskate would be. If I were to follow through with this, It would be from San Diego, all the way up to Portland along the west coast. I haven’t done any route planning, all I know is that I would be staying at campgrounds along the way in a hammock/a small collapsible tent. I think it would be super awesome if this were a trip made with multiple people, but I also know that not many people would be down for something that spans such a distance. Just trying to throw some ideas out there in case any of you have ideas or advice for an undertaking of this type.
I also found this video, which is somewhat similar to what I’m looking to accomplish.
“West Wheel” was an EUC event this year doing exactly this, you should look it up. I’m sure they would be happy to have another member for next year (assuming you can keep up with their absolutely insane pace 
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Oh sweet, that does look like fun! Though from what I just read it seems more like a series of group rides and events in San Francisco. I did find an awesome forum thread by someone doing a road trip in Europe though(on euc’s.) It actually seems fairly doable as long as everything is planned out ahead of time. Tour de West Coast Finland - 1000+ km road trip on EUCs. Tour blog. - General Discussion - Electric Unicycle Forum (euc community)
I think any trip of this type will be way harder to plan and have work in the US compared to over in Europe. Although I’m not super familiar with how dense the west coast is so it might be able to work there.
I’d bring at least one back up charging option, like a solar panel, along that could work anywhere just in case you get stuck between cities and can’t find an outlet. You’d probably still be stuck waiting a day or two depending on how sunny it is, but at least you could still complete the trip without needing to hitchhike or pay for a ride to the nearest town.
You could also carry a second battery but that would depend on how much extra weight you’d be willing to have on you.
I just found this online, though it seems like the battery is pretty small. The solar panel also seems quite large, so I would need to figure out how to carry something like that on my board. I think that with enough planning I could probably figure out enough charging intervals along the route, but again there might be a couple stretches where I would struggle to do so. I think the main thing would be having enough range in my board to begin with.
I think something like a top mount battery in addition to an under-deck battery would give me enough range, but it would also make the board super heavy. There’s probably better ways to get that kind of range also haha.
Once i get my 4wd build done, i want to do a small offroad trip on the north east texas trail (nett). Its a decommissioned rail road path that has been repurposed into a hiking and biking route. Its 133 miles long and mostly offroad. And there’s a small town every 5-10 miles. I did a small ride on it and explored it a bit.
Oh dude, that looks like so much fun! The fact that there are so many charging stops and places to stay along the way makes it so perfect for a long distance trip.
I’ve seen a ton of different portable solar panel options from various different companies over the last few years. Haven’t used any myself to be able to tell you which is best, but there are at least plenty to choose from these days.
Using two batteries would help with range, or even just adding more cells to an existing battery, but that doesn’t really help with any worst case scenarios. I’d still want some form of backup method to charge if I were to do the trip as well as at least two days worth of food and water at the absolute minimum. Some form of food you could pack tightly and keep in your pack during the entire trip for an emergency. If you were near a place to get food then you WOULD NEVER eat the emergency food though. So you’d probably want space to pack some snacks too.
The water would be fine to drink throughout the trip since it is easy to just refill whatever container you use during any charging stops, or even just during a bathroom stop.
I think you could be better off adding an enclosure under the deck and then use it to store some extra tubes, tools, etc… that you’d need for any maintenance. Since you can’t really just stop into any local stores and buy new tires like you can for a car or bike.
I think strapping a pack like this to the top of the deck would work well also, with all my tools and extra tires/tubes etc. That way I could dedicate my backpack to carrying water and food, as well as my camping gear. I think I would have to use one of those big hiking backpacks to have enough storage space.
You can get solar panel ‘blankets’ that fold up really small.
I have put quite a lot of thought into the esk8 road trip concept and i feel like towing a bike trailer would be the best way to do it.
I wonder how many batteries could be fitted into a bike trailer without slowing down the board a ton? Though that would pose a cost issue as well. I really like the solar panel blanket idea though, something that I could fit into my backpack and lay out on a field in the sun when there aren’t any charging options near me. Amazon.com This one seems like it would be small enough to fit into a large backpack when folded, though it would take forever to charge the board a decent amount even with a ton of sunlight.
Yeah i reckon you’d need to use a few if you wanted any sort of decent charge rate.
I reckon i’d try rig one up permanently on the trailer and then have like another 2 in the trailer that can be set up when stopped.
I’d also definitely have a power bank in the trailer, possibly in the form of a straight replica of the battery that is in the board, in case the unthinkable were to happen and the board battery died.
I’ve thought about this as well, but I think you’d need SAG that had two extra boards (assuming 20mi per board) on charge and the camping gear. It would be a lot more civilized but does require a willing driver. If you had a group a different person could drive SAG each day, as well as shuttle from the stop to the campsite and from the campsite to the start.
I also think trying to ride up the coast highway, while stunningly beautiful, would get old quickly because of the high speed automotive traffic. I much prefer the idea of doing old reclaimed RR trails.
There’s a mostly paved trail out here called the Olympic Discovery Trail that goes all the way across the tip of the Olympic Peninsula and there’s a lot of camping along the way.
I’ve ridden the Port Townsend section, some of the trail outside Sequim and the Port Angeles section and would love to do it end to end in one trip. I have a couple of friends with Bicycles that I might try to work out a plan with this summer.
Yeah a support vehicle would be ideal, but I feel like there would be a much larger sense of achievement if you could do without.
Agreed. I’d love to see someone try it, but I’d also love to see a YT documentary of it, which requires of additional gear and charge capability.
San Diego to Portland is approx1500 miles along the coast highway, so let’s say you make a distance (pneumie) board that can go 40 miles. Since you’ve got solar you can charge mid-day which could give you an extra 10 miles. So 50 miles a day.
But you’ve got to get to and from your campsite too, so that’s extra mileage, average 5 each way? So back to 40 miles a day. Probably you’d get charging capability at almost every campsite, even if it meant buddying up with the RV in the next site, so assume full charge every morning
Then we can probably assume that every 3rd day you’d be able to find a mid-day outlet and charge all the way up, so some days could be 60 mile days.
40 miles a day for 2 days and 60 miles a day for 1 day. On average. Every 3 days you went 140 miles. so that’s 33 days of riding, right?
Line up some angels along the way to rescue you should your battery run out and it might be a pleasant way to spend August and a bit of September.
Haha I like the way you split up the distance. I agree, I think that it would be more of an accomplishment without a support vehicle, but at the same time it might not even be possible without one so 
I think 50-60 miles per day would be possible, with one or two breaks in between. I’ve personally ridden about 50 miles in one day with no issues, but granted there were two or three charge breaks tossed in there where I could rest my legs.
Does anyone have updates on long distance adventures from 2023?
I was thinking of driving to ESK8CON from Toronto, stopping along the way there and back to ride local trails. Then realized I prefer to ride the local road trip routes and trails than watching other people race for 3 days in a parking lot.