I cant help to feel it, but something’s missing. We have new remotes coming out, new boards, @MomentumBoards has his adjustable suspension back trucks, gear drives our becoming more frequent, and overall builds are getting less expensive(depending on who you ask). All of these new products and upgrades in the community, makes it seem like we are advancing and innovating but we are not, and if we are, it is slow. Especially with the rise of budget boards, I cannot help to feel like there is a hole between diy and budget boards. Even now people will choose a ownboard w2 vs @BuildKitBoards single drive. Which is spec to spec crazy to not go for the @BuildKitBoards. But only a small fraction of esk8rs are on this forum and a similar fraction on reddit. It is interesting to see what the people on reddit are willing to give up compared to on here. I just think that what ever it is that is missing needs to be here soon, anybody else feels it?
Is there only so much you can do to a longboard?
What you’re looking for isn’t something that can be manufactured.
Drive, determination, curiosity… General DIY spirit
It’s much easier for a noob in this field to buy a prebuilt than invest time and money and risk failing. I can’t think of a single user here who hasn’t bought a part for their board that just didn’t work out for one reason or another. I think the bkb kit is a great bridge to getting in to diy. People can see that it is just components pieced together and not a magic black zoom box like a meepo appears to be to the untrained eye.
You are blind if you think there isn’t any innovation going on
there are just more people who want to ride only and don´t want to have anything to do with the build process.
how much people into building there own bike/car etc vs. how much cars are driving on our roads?!
there is nothing missing, there is just the question,
do you want to build things or just ride…
Oooh that’s a good analogy Andy. You win.
Yeah, I guess that really what it is. Especially when it comes to trying to fix older cars, people tend to buy a new one to not deal with the hassle of fixing it.
But you will still have the fanatics that love the thrill of riding something they fixed or built themselves.
That’s what it is for me at least
Im not blind I’m deaf 
. I do see innovation just not at the scale i see in other hobbies say fpv drones and the new dji fpv goggles. I feel like with the rise of prebuilts, innovation has died down and is in the hands of the businesses.
As far as I’m aware prebuilts haven’t changed in years
With a few a exceptions
Yes that the exact issue. They won’t innovate unless the have too. Ownboard W2? Wowgo is releasing their own version. And I’m sure meepo will be following too. And its nothing new. Same stuff we had for years(v1 boosted). But that just how I feel. I think I know how to fix it but I can only do so much by myself and with my brother.
There is no issue with it… some people want cheap boards and some people want premium
There’s a board out there for everyone.
I don’t know what you are trying to achieve. But it only takes one person to innovate. Nothing special here just motors on a skateboard
But you gotta realize…you are on a DIY forum, not a boosted owners club.
We generally don’t really care what is happening with the prebuilts, we are making our DIY boards better by leaps and bounds, they just can’t keep up with us.
My thinking is the people who are buying the budget boards are the same people who have never skated before in there life. They see esk8 as a cheap way to get around quickly without doing any sort of physical labor because they are millennial and don’t want to do any sort of hard work and want everything now. There are a few on here that do go against that grain and those of you that do I commend you.
Those people that buy the $200 are the same people who will bitch when the board dies in a month or the hub thane chunks.
The people who do DIY are the people who want something that can match or exceed the performance of the prebuilts but have the quality parts that wont break down in a few months. When I was building my board Teamgee reached out to me and asked about my board and I told them the specs and I said it has 2 focboxes for the vesc and they said “what is a vesc?” REALLY??? A company that is currently making electric boards and they dont know what a vesc is? That is the type of company these budget boards makers are they don’t know the common term and they are just trying to get the cheapest board out there by cutting cost where ever they can.
100%
Like boosted dropping loaded and orangutan wheels. Cutting costs.
I’m one of the few on here that enjoys the original boosteds for what they are. They last a long time, shit doesn’t break as often as other chinesieum made boards.
But now that they dropped those 2, I lost all the small amount of respect I had.
BUT!!! There is a place for everything, the boosted and raptor got me into DIY, and I’m forever grateful for that. Just for me, I want to go faster and longer.
My wife on the other hand, loves her boosted board. She likes to cruise around the neighborhood at 12-15 mph for like 30-45 min. Nothing more than that. And I have confidence that her board isn’t going to catch on fire or break down on her randomly like a riptide or a cheaper chinese board.
Exactly why pay a company that has a good quality parts and good reputations when you have now established your reputation in the industry
Definitely see what your saying. I think part of that is showing the community ways to expand from prebuilts. Thank you for your input I think I know where I should direct my business towards.
I love all the new decks designed with esk8 in mind. Real esk8 decks, not just longboards with enclosures that happen to fit.
I hope to see more of that.
I feel like DIY shows prebuilts what to do next.
We have a bunch of opensource projects that are already getting coppied by bigger companies, just look at the DaveGa…flipsky copied that shit and mass produced it within a month.
Did somebody say innovation ? Good word 