My Esk8s. A journal of sorts

[rafaelinmissouri]

Welp…
I had to pause work on the Flux.
I need to just wait until the Matrix III show up.

The bearing spacing on the Hubbas is different than the new MBS wheels.
So they stick too far out from the Gears…

I am not going to move the gears just to do it again here when the new trucks arrive.
And I am not going to run them with the space there…

The MBS wheels look killer.

The way the 8 inch tire sits on the inner lip is interesting.

I wonder what the that is supposed to do?
More cushion?!?

I really love the look.

The only that bums me out is that I’m not gonna be able to lay my board on the side.

Hard having nice things.

So anyways.
Bummer I could not just go out.
Soon enough.

So I went and took the Demonseed DKP out for 6.6 miles and it felt great. That set up is awesome.

[ShutterShock]

Doesn’t this mean you just need a new spacer?

[rafaelinmissouri]

I could add some spacers between the plate and the hub I suppose.
But less than ideal.

But the proper way to do it would be to move the drive further out.

The Matrix III have shipped. So it was just meant to be.

[rafaelinmissouri]

I really liked the set up of the NewBee that you put the wheels in place and stand up the axle to push the drive down to set it in position.

[ShutterShock]

Oh you’re at the end of your axle. Okay. Yeah, when I set mine in place I used a spacer on there, and the narrowest hub I had, so I wouldn’t have to adjust. Now I can just use spacers to adjust without redoing the drives

[rafaelinmissouri]

That is really clever. Kinda try to do that with my belt set ups to accommodate different wheels.
But sure did not think of it setting these up.

[rafaelinmissouri]

All right.

Time to decompose the Flux to get the Matrix III installed.

[AlexB]

Smart, I like that idea

[b264]

@rafaelinmissouri

The way the 8 inch tire sits on the inner lip is interesting.

I wonder what the that is supposed to do?
More cushion?!?

I could be wrong, but that seems like it’s to also fit bigger tires on the same rims, if needed.

[rafaelinmissouri]

A little bit of catching up.
I had stolen the Hubbas from the Khymera to use on the Flux.

Friday I put them back.

It was fun doing the dance finding 10 of the right length standoffs…

But I got it back together.

And then I took the Khymera out a bunch this weekend!
But on short increments.

It’s amazing how little range I am getting these days.

This is a 12s4p 40t pack.
It looks healthy looking at the BMS.

But I was getting like 8 good miles… 9 with crawling at the end.
The combination of the pack being a couple years old, me being around 230, and 36 degrees weather is all pretty taxing right.

Long story short I enjoy the Khymera a whole lot.

Off course it was way better with the riptide bushings.
I am running them here now.
But I can’t ride without thinking of a bigger pack…

Oh another little, but nice upgrade was adding Josh’s fancy nuts! @monsterbuilder

More threads got me hoping I don’t need to double nut my Matrix IIs…

But again… I am really enjoying the ride.
The 7 inch evolves on the Hubbas run very smoothly.
It’s light weight and snappy.
The riptide bushings are magic so I can turn and carve hard and I can hold it at speed…

[rafaelinmissouri]

I am pretty stoked because I have been managing to get out a pretty decent amount.

This weekend the Gravel Flux and the GT also got a bunch of action.

[rafaelinmissouri]

I am loosing my mind because it’s 22 degrees out… You know -6 Celsius to give better perspective.

But I still went out at lunch and did 12 miles to see if the Flux would run ok on 5.1

[Africaans]

I have to upgrade mine also

[rafaelinmissouri]

It’s really nice today and it’s going to be winter the rest of the week.

I got out quite a bit and did 57.7 miles.

Rode across town on the Flux.

Then rode around the school playground on the GT while the kids played.

Right after that I took the Demonseed out, which is always super fun.

And a bit later I took the Gravel Flux on a bodega run.

[Fulcrum_esk8]

1235

[b264]

@rafaelinmissouri

I got out quite a bit and did 57.7 miles.

Wow, that’s a lot. (92.8km) That sounds really fun

[rafaelinmissouri]

Ok.
Let’s get back to getting the Matrix III on the Flux.

I think for the most part it went ok.
They are working.

And here is the end of an era… Kinda…

The sketchy part about trying the M3s is that I was really liking the M2s with the Riptide Bushings.
Like seriously super good and fun to ride and loose but still stable at speed.

But I really wanted to try the new trucks and this was the board to do it on.

I drilled out the threads on my rear baseplate and will use regular nuts. This is because I’m using the Paris 8 degrees wedge riser. So the threads are a no go.

I had a really hard time with the installation of the drives this time around…
Third time was not the charm for me.
I kept getting weird resistance.

I had totally forgotten that Ethan told me I needed to file the hanger a little bit. I actually figured that out on my own and then remembered he had told me.
So that was a pain in my ass.

Once I figured that out it went on smoothly…

And at a much better angle than what I had going with the M2s

[rafaelinmissouri]

So the next day without even let the Loctite cure for 24 hours I went and took the Flux out on the M3s

I like them on the Flux and will be keeping them on here.

This was a gamble because the Matrix II with riptide bushings on here really felt great.

I am 230, my Flux is at 22 and 30 degrees. 8 inch tires.
I was running riptide green and white.

When I first went out I had orange outer / white outer.
That did not work me.
Just standing and trying to turn felt really weird and restricted.
Carving at speed felt good and stable and I could go fast and it was totally stable.
Turning radius was totally shot…
I could not do a u turn across 4 lanes…

So after 5 miles I went and changed the front to orange inner.
Took 4:30 minutes was all.

Changing bushings on these is way better than on matrix II…

I did not do any preload.
It felt too loose and sketchy.

Then did a bit more preload in the back and some in the front.
And it felt too tight.

So I took a bit of preload off and it got just right.

The formula on these bushings is very buttery and turning the lean felt really consistent.

So yeah.
Obviously you can tune the crap out of these.

I was tripping on how a bit of preload changed behavior for me In a desirable way.
I could never really achieve that with Matrix II.

I hit 33 mph on them yesterday which is really fast for me.
And I was rolling around close to 30 pretty comfortably.

Stoked.

[rafaelinmissouri]

So I have good things and bad things happening with the Flux.

The Trucks are a good thing.
The wheels are really nice and are running super smoothly on the old worn pit Kendas.

But man.
I hosed up the electronics.
What is on here was not bought on purpose, or in the best sequence.

The Drives were supposed to go on the Gravel Boi, and ended up here And then I got motors that I thought would work ok to make up for the gearing…

And no.

It’s kinda lame.
The 12s 151kv 38/11 on 8 inch tires has no punch.

It gets going. It goes up hills. It gets going over 30.

But it is too dang smooth.

I had the Unity on 23.64 maxed out at 100 amps.

So then I decided I want to get back to Vesc tool.

And that was a whole fiasco…
I could not get Vesc tool 6 to update via Bluetooth.
Not a shocker.
Then I opened up the board and found the little hole in my Unitry to plug a cable in.

I had not heard wired into a ESC in years.

And it did not work…

Luckily I had 2.6 or 3.6 on my PC still and was able to upload 5.1 to the Unity and it works fine.

[rafaelinmissouri]

So the next day o went out to see if 5.1 worked ok and it did.
This was the but ass cold day I just mentioned.

And the board worked fine.

But the fucked up gearing is still there right.

To really get me stoked I got probably the worst consumption I have ever gotten at 51wh per mile.