T-Race - Global electric race challenge

Events/Group Rides
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*** UPDATE April 2022: T-Race now also lives on t-raceglobal.com ***

I took the idea from @Vanarian here: ESK8 Racing needs our help to grow - #228 by Vanarian

And made this:

T-race - the global electric race challenge.

T-Race is a global race challenge for all small electric vehicles.

Setup the track and timing system, and race yourself, your mates or all riders from around the world.

It’s all about pushing the limits. Your own and everyone else’s. Become a better rider while having fun.

The T-race track is a simple short track and can be set up everywhere without too much hazel. All you need is five cones, a measuring device and timing system, if you want to have precise timing.

It will challenge your handling abilities and make you a better and more competent rider.

The track favors your rinding ability and not the power of the board. So every board should be able to compete against each other. There will be categories, but they will be divided by wheel type, and properly by bindings. But let’s see how things evolve.

If you are good enough you can reach 40kmh / 25mph for a split second before you have to slow down to make one of the five turns. Three hair pins and two ninety degrees turns.

You really need to work with your acceleration and deacceleration and your handeling around the turns to be the fastest on this track.

This is for all vehicles, and I challenge all you e-skaters, one wheelers, EUC’s, scooters and all I have forgotten.

I challenge you. Do you take it?

The practical: Set up the track. Use a timing system. Set your best time, and share it with me on the T-race Facebook site or directly to me.

Then I will keep track of the hopefully many attempt to master the track from around the world.

The T-race will live on Facebook T-Race on Facebook and here on The news forum. I hope some of you find this interesting enough to give it a short.

How to set up the track:

Skærmbillede 2021-08-20 kl. 17.49.53
Skærmbillede 2021-08-20 kl. 17.49.531962×1248 87.6 KB

Recommended timing systems:

LapTracker - app for the phone

RaceChrono - app and GPS for the phone

LapMonotor - multi rider system with transponders

Read about the different timing systems here: Three timing systems - an overview

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Very cool, I don’t even know if any of my boards can turn like this haha

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That’s impressively cool and altogether the best form of flattery I could ever hope for this idea. Thank you! Hope to take on your challenge soon :fire::checkered_flag:

Btw your video is very instructive about the throttle and braking points vs trajectory, give some food to strategy!

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YEAh awesome idea!

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nice
hopefully can give it a go at some point

whats the recommended surface to do it on? (or could we make categories for different surfaces?)
just in an empty gravel area?

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You should practice riding with a looser setup. Could be a fun challenge that improves your technique

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Yah every once in a while I go down and loosen my trucks a little bit, I’ve worked down a bit but having fallen from speed wobbles before, it is a hard wall to jump

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Stiff trucks don’t give you a chance to correct for speed wobbles, it’s counter intuitive

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I suppose not, but they do help in instantaneous load reduction (reaction to bumps or pebbles)

I’d be happy to learn to ride with looser trucks, just haven’t had the chance yet

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I’m very excited about setting this up properly to improve my times and compare to others.

I had a little practice go today without proper timing for shits and giggles.

It was fun and I think it will certainly help me improve my track times in my local ERL.

My six year old filmed this for me today on my first run pretty much:

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Looks good. A good first try I think. Did you also do it toe side?

This track really gets us working on the throttle acceleration and breaking. So the constant balancing to keep us on the board makes us better riders. Its a really technical track simple but hard to master :slight_smile:

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Not everyone lives next to a retired airport. :laughing:

I just spent a good hour looking for a promising spot in my area and it seems to be more of a challenge than the challenge itself. :slight_smile: I like the T-Race idea a lot though. Will keep searching.

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:slight_smile: yeah. I have thought about that it might be a challenge. To begin with it was 10 meter longer on each side. But that would be even more difficult to find a place. And the track became too fast, so power meant more.
I have thought about another shape, but a T is very easy.

What’s the challenge width or length?

I hope you find a place. Isn’t there a super market with a big parking lot. Maybe IKEA?

I got an idea this morning that I would take a week long tour around Europe and set up session different places. So if you find a place in Czechia let me know.

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Yes I did and was a very similar time. I’ve raced a few times before and have another one coming up so this should help me a lot!!

I found an empty carpark on a Sunday.

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Sure, there’s a lot of shopping malls with huge parking lots. All of them are pretty busy throughout opening hours though (and they are open pretty much all the time). Also I think if you try riding there, sooner or later you’ll be taken out by the security.

I’m thinking that very early in morning on a weekend could work. Like 5-7am. Adds a getting up early challenge to the challenge. :slight_smile: I may give it a try next Saturday.

Sounds great! There’s this old airfield not too far from Brno:
https://goo.gl/maps/HnRdNGjwZVCjRXgZA

I’ve never been there but I read on a motorcycling forum that people like to use it for practicing. I’ll make a trip there some day.

Also, do you have any tips for setting up the T-track? Do you use GPS or do you somehow measure the cone-to-cone distances?

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I just have a 2 meter ruler that I measure with.

If this gets attention that makes it worth while I will make some kits with cones and a measure string with the different measurements on it, for easy setup.

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I tried the T-Race for the first time today and I really enjoyed it. You can find my post in the FB group. Some pics also here:

A few ideas/suggestions before I forget:

(1) For comparing contestants’ times, I think it would be better to take several (maybe 5) consecutive laps rather than just one fastest. This would be less prone to bias in time measurement. It would also reduce the impact of where exactly you make the start/finish line and how you enter-the-first/leave-the-last lap.

(2) In Race Chrono, you can compare the GPS records of your laps. However (I believe), you can’t compare them with other people’s laps unless they made them on the exact same location. As a software engineer I imagine it wouldn’t be too difficult to transform the GPS coordinates such that the laps on a normalized track can be compared across different locations. It might be worth making a feature request for Chrone.

(3) Should the feature request not work out, we could even do this ourselves. Have a simple website where people can upload their logs and implement the interface for comparing them. I could probably put a crude version of that together over a weekend.

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Thats good suggestions.

  1. This is defiantly something we should do. I wanted into start simple and see if I could get some traction to this idea, before expanding the possibilities. But do multiple laps is a very good idea. Could maybe be a half year challenge, where we get six months to collect a five lap time. And then the next half year a three lap challenge.
    Also we might already start a different length track. Quite a few people have contacted me saying its hard findinga suitable place to set it up. Just like you also said. So I have looked at that. Cutting the track to 15X30m or 35m will make it suit a handball / outdoor fuss ball field. There are many of those around making easier to find a place. So there might be different size tracks. I just hoped Could wait a bit before doing that, to not overcomplicate things. I would really like to keep the 20x40 as that size seems to have the perfect combination for a little speed but not too much.

  2. I fund a way to move your track lines in the map. But I think it is made to only make minor adjustments so the lines fits the roads on the map.
    Iwrote RaceChrono a couple of days ago and asked if there was a way to move our lines or compare them as you suggest. But I havnt heard back from them yet.

3)That would be awesome. Lets have that as a potential furture project.

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I agree simple is good and best not to introduce too many variables. Smaller version of the track makes sense but ideally keep two versions – (1) standard 20x40m, and (2) small 15x30m (or whatever works for people). The same goes for lap count. Single lap is easy to time and the concept is easy to understand for everyone so it’s good. Multiple laps would be less random and a more serious challenge. Best if we could agree on the lap count and again keep the variables at two – (1) single lap and (2) X consecutive laps.

Cool!

I’m already reading up on WGS84 and ways of converting it to plane while preserving distances. :slight_smile: It’s a little more involved than I have hoped but I’m slowly wrapping my head around it.

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I am trying to push T-Race a little this season.

Made this video about it all.

And I am giving away what I call the T-Race starter pack, so everyone interested can get an easy start.

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