I think the name “TRAMPA IR” obviously means Trampa wanted to take revenge on Apex for their ninja wheels that are very similar to Trampa superstar hubs.
I can not speak for him but when I saw Apex Air trucks I immediately asked Jens what he thought about that and it seemed to me that he didn’t care a lot…
He’s a true innovator and story is always the same. When he made his chain drive (never pretending he was the First) many vendors started to make similar drives. When he replaced ISO-04B chains by ISO-06B, then the guy who put ISO-06B before him said he was the first to put ISO-06B on electric mountainboards.
Jens was the first to create a belt drive AFAIK. He was the first to put a 12S ESC on a mountainboard ( ROXXY BL CONTROL 9120-12 OPTO).
The guy behind ESK8.DE was the first to create a gear drive for mountainboard, shortly before E-TOXX. At this time there was no debate to decide if E-TOXX copied ESK8.DE. Jens said he didn’t know and it shortly ended like that. E-TOXX version looked way better. There was no competition.
I think it’s weird that Apex complains Trampa copied their truck considering Jens from E-TOXX already created one before all that… The fact he didn’t make it available is not an argument. They’re right to complain about the name that Trampa have chosen, but they know about the ninja hubs.
I would not blame Trampa for that. I blamed them when they prevented E-TOXX from buying their VERTIGO truck. At the time he needed to sell a modified version of the hanger to make it compatible with his gear drive.
Yet, all this stuff are based on old mechanical principles. If Apex you want to get revenge then Apex let’s make your Air truck compatible with Trampa gear drive. It’s a shame it’s not right now.
Stewie for sure was a nice guy but his esc was identical to Trampa VESC6. Now there are many ESCs based on VESC6 and I don’t think Trampa threatens all of them, as long as they don’t use the VESC name.
At the end, I reckon the only recent innovation in our sport is the E-TOXX PSYCHOFRAME. For sure Jens created something that can not be copied easily.
See, the vertigo truck thing is complex one, because we either had customers wanting to buy complete boards, but without one truck, or we had customers wanting split shipment, truck to EU, board to US. Both was not really possible because of extra workload and tax rules. So we decided to add CNC work on the next batches and the problem was then resolved this way.
Another thing about the Truck: I think I wasn’t the only one being irriated that innovation was claimed, although it was crystal clear that this style of trucks was already publicly visible and tried by Jens and NoSno. Getting the inspiration is one thing, but stating “we developed a new style of truck” is a bit funny in this case. I think this was also what upset Nelson. The style simply wasn’t new but around for a loooooong time.
And complaining about being copied is in the same direction. You can’t feel being copied if you copied it yourself. Starting choleric drama shit shows only serves the purpose of creating fog over the fact that these trucks were not a very inventive product in the first place.
Let’s be very clear here, we are not even bothered about the Trampa IR existing. What I am personally bothered about is that we have to endure hissy fits, legal threats and badgering to change words on our website by Frank and yet he thinks that it’s then alright to go about business the way he sees fit.
I almost feel tired of saying this but our choice for low cost rims for our completes is MBS, there are no other options for us. MBS items have been hard to get hold of recently so we bought 60 hubs from sunmate to see us through and that caused mass drama, @Trampa writing slanderous remarks on their website, Frank sending us design registrations and saying we are copying Trampa and Frank doesn’t blame Ted for being angry about it. Vague legal threats too. We made a deal with Frank, which he recinderd later on down the line. All the time this is happening Frank is developing these trucks, it’s just hypocritical and morally bankrupt. We bought 60 hubs from a commercially available source that have been selling to the likes of metro board for a long time. Its a wheel for gods sake. There’s no mechanical speciality about it and we also didn’t design it, it’s our only other option right now and it’s available to buy and we had no choice.
As I have said before, I spoke to Jens and sent him early CAD work of our truck and he wasn’t bothered. The style of truck we developed was not commercially available at the time we released it, it doesn’t matter who makes what in their garage, if it isn’t available to buy it isn’t available. We developed a new style of truck because before our truck there were no PKP trucks that used longboard bushings, not Jens, not Nosno and not anything cobbled together in some workshop anywhere. That is a new style of truck that until recently was not available form anywhere else apart from Apex. If this doesn’t fit some narrative for you then I’m sorry but these are all facts of the situation, no deflection, what about ism or changing the conversation to ignore inconvenient facts.
I’m going to close this by saying good luck with your trucks Frank, there is no animosity from me about copying anything just know you lost all currency with me now so if you have anything to say to Apex further you will do so through a legal representative to our registered company address. No more PM’s.
Me too. And this is the crux of my issue with their behavior; salty hypocrisy.
Also worth pointing out that it’s highly probable that Trampa could get in legal trouble because the Apex Air existed first and their naming is clearly targeted.
Anyway @Trampa, you’re a frustrating liar and this community has seen the curtains pulled back enough times to see your petty machinations. Be better.
The majority of the market couldn’t give two fifths of a fuck about how much of a shitlord Frank may be, they just want shiny shit and they give even less of a fuck where it comes from as long as it’s cheaper.
The fact that Jason Potter is somehow still in business says a lot about how little people care about their fellow skaters. And/or it’s just ignorance and there’s no way to inform everyone.
He & Frank can be proud to know they’ll be top entries in our upcoming Esk8 Hall Of Shame.
One thing I don’t get is NoSno are quite different than Airs or IR’s or etoxx pkp trucks. The board side bushings are on top of the deck rathe than in the truck themselves so while there’s clearly similarities with the two kingpins; there’s so much differences that it seems like a very different design. And afaik there’s no quick solution to mount motors on the nosnos. Though I have not ridden any of these to know more than looks.
So saying jens copied those is not quite right to me (is anyone saying that or implying it?). And Apex came out with Airs after having Etoxx trucks not available on the market to the wider public. Then comes Tramp with a very similar design getting upset when he is called out as a copycat when they themselves are so anal about similar products and shapes.
Well, its basically just reversed, so that the pivot point sits higher. Hanger is baseplate, deck is clamped. The mechanical principle is still the very same. Either you clamp the deck, or the hanger.
Jens trucks, ours and the Apex ones are basically using this very same principle, but the pivot axis is now shifted into the hanger area (hanger clamped). Jens was the first to show such a reversed NoSno style truck.
I bet it won’t take long and we will see more of such trucks in the market. And I highly doubt that the next “copy” will see the same attention, simply because it doesn’t carry our logo, even if it is called Oxygen.
This is a big factor with a large portion of PEV communities. They’re often separated by social media platform, and regional groups, both of which are correlated to their age group.
The people who frequent the FB groups do so in large part because of the age group that’s comfortable with the platform. Same with IG and YouTube.
Forums are the bottom of the social media barrel, and as time goes on, that gets more and more the case. Younger riders and builders who do one-off boards for themselves and a friend don’t generally spend tens of hours scouring for information and history.
I’ve met countless people in local Onewheel groups who have no idea who I am, who Jimmy Chang is, or professional riders. And riders who don’t know who Ernesto is, but just know what Kalys are.
Their worlds don’t intersect because, essentially, they have other things they’re occupied with.
I have no real punchline here…but it’s something I’ve noticed over the years that remains pervasive.
There’s no doubt that diy Esk8 is a niche hobby, and forums definitely tend to have a higher barrier of entry to your average user. Less of a spotlight than other social media for sure.
I think we’re also seeing a bit of a lull in the industry as a whole now that we have Boosted out of the game. There likely won’t be a competitor to them for quite awhile that hits the same cost-performance point too, since evolve seems hellbent on selling “premium” overseas-style -production boards.
LaCroix and Kaly have the Carver market fairly well cornered while Trampa screeches like a senile dinosaur. MBS is a quiet giant that I have the feeling will surprise us all in coming years.
As a personal observation, our local Portland eBoarding crew went from having probably 2 dozen Esk8ers, with half of them some manner of diy, to like… 3-4 Nazares and one Frankenstein’d evolve.
Meanwhile the OneWheelers have multiplied like rabbits; I’ve seen nearly 100 of them show up in a single night.
There’s something to be said about the longevity of pneumatic wheeled devices in general. I think Future Motion will continue to rise in the vacuum Boosted left. Anyway just my 2c as a rider & consumer.
Don’t mind that scratched out psychotiller sticker. I tried burning it off but in a shocking turn of events, he made something that doesn’t catch fire.
I mean, you saw the make up of that PDX Friday Night Ride yeah?
I’ve never seen that many Boosted boards in one location, even just in pictures on the internet. FM is doing some things right, and sadly some things very wrong.
Boosted biggest issue in my opinion is that they were unable to find a way to make them as durable and reliable as they were without spending millions on molds for the myriad of custom tiny plastic parts (mostly in their batteries). Not to blame them, the DIY community just now figured that shit out over the last few years using welding, paper, and tape techniques and we’re driven by passion, not money. Tearing down one of their batteries was a nightmare, i can’t imagine how much those cost, and they were tiny. But they came out in a different time, everyone had small capacity then. Except boosted never grew really, they just kept selling relatively expensive boards for the range, which worked OK for longer than expected because by then their fan base was established and they were lucky enough to become the generic name for any esk8. “hey, is that a boosted?” is a meme to us, but damn… any of us would murder our moms for that kind of brand saturation. Not even Evolve has that.
