I was waiting for his foot to grad and street his face
@Photorph wow that is insane I didn’t think footbraking was possible at those speeds. No matter how skilled someone is, I still think it’s insane to do runs like that without full gear. If a stone in the road shows up unexpectedly, it’ll mean 6 months in the hospital if you’re lucky!
@Spek I agree with @Michaelinvegas that up to 20ish MPH is comfortable. I ride on medium-traffic suburban streets. I hit 22 MPH six times a week, and I’ve adapted my setup to be stable at and up to that speed while still being carvy enough to be fun at slower speeds. Most of my riding time is at 12-15 MPH as I negotiate over many different terrains, sidewalks, and intersections. I wear an open-faced helmet w elbow and kneepads. My daily build is geared for 28MPH and I use ERPM in VESC to cap speed at around 22 MPH.
TLDR: Up to 22MPH feels fun and manageable with regular safety gear and beyond that the scales tip to being too dangerous for me to enjoy it. The environment you ride in plays a huge role here; if you have smooth paved trails with no cars I’m sure that higher speeds becomes more fun.
For me, I feel safer at high speeds. Some of the roads I commute on at in perfect condition and cars pass like crazy. If I can do 35 mph, I would be able to keep up with them. At 25 mph, they still pass. It all depends on your setup really. If you use wide trucks, and have a wide wheel base, you feel more stable at high speeds.
“speed never killed anyone. suddenly become stationary… that’s what gets you” -Jeremy Clarkson
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Uphill-I can go as fast as I want 30ish that way when I want to stop gravity helps me slow down.
Downhill- 20-23ish I have learned my lesson about speeding downhill
From this thread I’ve taken a few things away for my first build. I will be starting with a gear ratio that produces a slower top speed, giving myself the option to easily switch a gear and take that up a bit, if I want to. Secondly, I can program the ESC to keep things a little below their maximum capabilities. I sure this has the added bonus of keeping the stress on parts down.
I’ve also developed a new fear and worry over remote failure. Being trapped on a board that has decided to go full throttle against your will sounds like a pretty terrible worst case scenario.
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Also a remote that isn’t responding to brakes when you’re flying downhill 
YES!!! uphill seems so less scary than downhill. I swear I don’t go faster than 15 mph downhills in case my remote fails (which has never happened luckily). Uphill or flat though, bring on the speed 
I agree! Uphill is fine but downhill is scary I am scared to brake going downhill lol I took a big fall one time going downhill
I think this is a good strategy @Spek - it also has the added benefit of producing more torque for good acceleration and hill-climbing.
I’m always disappointed when “top speed” is used as measure of how desirable an esk8 is. I think people want to hear that a board is “the best and fastest,” not realizing that top speed is only useful if it can be safely applied in the right environment. It’s rare that someone has the combination of skill and environment to safely ride at 30MPH+ Not hating on those that do it, just recognizing that the potential for serious, life-altering injury increases greatly at those speeds and they should be taken seriously.
@Spek get yourself a Flysky GT2B (with an enclosure mod if you like) and you’ll eliminate almost all risk of controller dropout. It’s the bluetooth and nunchuk users that have these issues generally. Although, we should always ride with the recognition that a board failure could happen.
From my research I agree. But I have one caveat. If you use a VESC, be sure that your downhill use of brake isn’t long enough to stress the VESC or battery regen. My first real test hit the regen/voltage cutoff about 2/3 down a hill. Of course it had a stop sign at the bottom. Fortunately I was able to ride it out okay. That gave me a healthy dose of fear with my VESC settings… 
Of course, she still calls me back… 
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long consistent, but light, braking force down hill is how I get a nice amount of charge back from my rides. Never overheated my components. Boosted recommends longer braking sessions for better regen as well, but they use a different ESC so it may vary.
For the most reliable connection i still feel the GT2b is the best. Not always the smallest and takes some fiddling to make it pocketable (badwolf, mad monkey, baby buffalo, master cho - enclosures for it). A fun project and rock solid regardless of interference (that i’ve found at least).
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@spek @sl33py [quote=“sl33py, post:34, topic:7885”] For the most reliable connection i still feel the GT2b is the best. [/quote]
I agree, this is what I was suggesting as well.
Thanks for the reccomendation, I’ll be going with this and looking into modding it after I’m up and riding.
I share your sentiments. I really like the idea of board brake or brake board or any of those external braking solutions (the ones with disc brakes and/or the ones with the road brake, not the ones where they want you to just carve into your wheels, which is poor design IMO).
I keep toying around with the idea of putting a “brake button” on my board like the opposite of lowguido’s perpetual steez button. I am just getting into this though and learning how to manipulate the vesc. I like the idea of not having a remote at all.
While still on the brake button idea… I think this could also work nicely for not so good esc’s… like the car ones 
There just needs to be some sort of specific resistance to each button (if there are more than one) which act as different levels of signal…
ok i sound maybe a bit blurred… but im still sketching out on how it might work and it just connected with what you said about ‘‘brake button’’
Maybe not a button, a pressure plate perhaps? Maybe something like a guitar wah pedal? Lol. I liked the idea of the zboard, but not the price tag. https://www.zboardshop.com/products/zboard-2-blue
I want to get my hands (feet?) on some of those footpads. Now that I think about it, that’s exactly what I want, with cruise control. Also, some type of e-brake when I’m flying down a hill in case something shorts out.
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hes right losing your brakes when you need em is heart stopping but he is wrong about the sliding , I have no problem sliding my dual motor monster comfortably at 25+