Single rear drive: heelside or toeside motor placement?

Which side of the board do you prefer to mount your motor? Do you feel there is any advantage to driving the rear heelside wheel vs the toeside wheel?

Its personal preference, the main issue with single drive is that when you turn very hard you will loose traction on smooth pavement.

Heelside …

In standing position, the greatest pressure is distributed on the heel (I think). Therefore, it’s better to have the motor on the heelside so you don’t have to lean as hard to keep your board straight

This is really subjective - I would ride and see how you distribute your weight.

When I got my board built I went with heelside. Riding more, I notice I keep my back leg is little bent in the knee when I’m going hard which puts most of my weight in the ball of my foot - not heel. If I’m standing straight up and cruising it goes to the heel.

Really the only time I lose traction is turning hard at on the un-motored side at intersections or if terrain is wet/sandy.

i ride goofy…heelside

Anyone notice any steering or handling being effected by using just one motor?

No, not at all. Only problem is when diving too much the wheel looses traction.

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@Hummie as @chinzw said, I only notice if I’m in a deep lean and hit some sub-optimal conditions; if the powered wheel looses traction I can feel it, but it’s never a problem.

@jmasta I ride goofy and mount my motors toeside. I’ve tried both and never noticed a difference in traction. I like seeing the motors while I’m moving.

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If you are on the board you don’t notice it but if the board doesn’t have you on it it will go in a specific direction depending on the side the motor is

Have mine on my toe-side, I would never recomend this… When turning while starting up, where I lean back (left turns for me…) I just make wheelies, which isnt that nice when crossing a road… So dual or heel side IMO

hell side feels better most of the time, i’ve run toe side and and front wheel drive hell side also…

i honestly can’t tell a difference. I’ve ridden both ways.

My 2 cents after riding both:

Started heelside with the reasoning that during breaking you lean back and have good pressure on your wheel. This was the case. Sadly when accelerating aggressively you lean forward and lose a lot of pressure, causing slipping from time to time (mainly from standstill or near standstill). But hey, breaking is more important I guessed.

After months of riding and analysing my positions more and more, I notice that leaning back during breaking does not only put pressure on heelside of the rear leg but it is spread more evenly between toe- and heelside. This could be very personal.

I recently switched to toeside and I was surprised that it feels a lot nicer! I don’t notice any breaking loss and accelerating goes a lot better. On top of that, in slow situations when turning, I lose traction less often, probably because I don’t lean back as much, as I lean forward.

So for me personally its toeside! But if you have doubts don’t hesitate to switch it up.

I tried to build mine heel side but somehow accidentally build it toe side (I ride goofy but thought i accounted for it). I like toe side, probably doesn’t matter though cause your weight will be centered on the board anyways on normal riding?