We’re guessing you’ve heard of Ride1Up’s products, but have never set foot on one (or seen one in person for that matter). The company made waves earlier this year when it debuted a surprisingly broad and promising line of affordable electric skateboards, but following a lukewarm critical reception, the hype rapidly quieted down. And we think that’s a shame. We’re accustomed to seeing small-time budget vendors pop up with the usual ensemble of uninspired products and plagiarized branding (seen this anywhere else?), but Ride1UP’s launch presented an unusual number of bespoke components and interesting ideas.

The “Bamboo Classic”

Most notably, Ride1Up offers a drop-through style esk8, which unlike its very limited rivals, is equipped with a custom, adequately low-profile battery enclosure suitable for the low ride height. This is doubly impressive considering the 10s3p (30-cell) battery pack housed within. Most budget electric skateboards are powered by 10s2p (20-cell) packs, which naturally provide less range, more voltage sag, and lower peak power. We’d expect that smaller batteries would at least occupy less space under the board, but due to most enclosures’ wasteful use of volume (a natural consequence of generic parts), this isn’t necessarily the case. Take the Meepo Classic, for example, which has less than an inch of ground clearance, in spite of its smaller battery.

So, Ride1Up offers a board with a unique style that’s well realized thanks to thoughtful engineering. There are just two problems: Ride1UP fitted it with the wrong ESC, and they didn’t send us one. Rather, they sent us their much less interesting “Bamboo Classic” model, which is the same as the drop-mounted “Slopestyle” board, but with a more flexible top-mounted, kick-tail deck. Ok, to be clear, the classic was the board we agreed to review, but even their media rep agreed that the Slopestyle is really the company’s premier product… Which leaves us to write a somewhat speculative review of the board we’re about 95% sure you ought to buy if you’re shopping through Ride1UP’s lineup.

The drop-mounted “Slopstyle” board.

But first, a quick analysis of the board we actually tested. The Bamboo Classic offers an excellent battery that managed to provide an impressive 14 miles of range in our tests, without bloating the enclosures; solid (albeit unbranded) trucks; and a surprisingly flexible deck with a kicktail (if you’re into that). The problem is that Ride1UP fitted it with the dreaded YingLi/binary/meep-style/whatever-you-want-to-call it ESC, and while their implementation features a deceitfully Hobbywing-esque thumbwheel remote with an integrated speedometer, it’s still no rival for a legitimate Hobbywing drivetrain. It remains either temperamental/twitchy in higher ride modes, or languid/latent in lower ones.



And that’s about all there is to say about the Bamboo Classic. It’s a very solid (perhaps slightly idiosyncratic) board with a mediocre ESC. If you’re into the kicktail or looking for a solid battery, you might consider picking one up, but it’s not our first choice at its price point.



The Slopestyle, however, is really a lot more interesting, and might be the toy you didn’t realize you wanted. Drop-mounted electric skateboards have a number of advantages over conventional top-mounted setups. They’re easier to kick, easier to slide, better looking, and refreshingly novel among esk8s. In our experience, most esk8ers tend to prefer the feel of these boards over conventional top-mounts, even for standard carving (though they’re not typically regarded as ‘carvy’). So as far as skate setup goes, we speculate that the Slopestyle will align well with most esk8ers’ preferences.(Daniel Kwan can confirm).



So on the SkateMetric scale of 1-10, we give this board a 7.

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