Electric Skateboard for Beginners: 5 Tips and Hacks to Ride Like a Pro

Electric Skateboard for Beginners: 5 Tips and Hacks to Ride Like a Pro

When we learn new things, we are able to react more quickly to things around us, improve our self-esteem and confidence, and of course, find a new way to have fun. In addition to the benefits for our brain, learning new things is a way to get out of your mind and focus on something different. . Check out these electric skateboards tips and hacks for beginners so that you can become a pro in no time. 

• Learn how your e-skate works

The most important step when getting a new electric skateboard is learning how a full brake feels. In the real world, you never know when you will need it, and you want to use it safely. Understanding how the brake feels at different speeds is key. Some boards have regenerative brakes, which means the faster you go, the stronger the brakes will be. Take your time on this; there’s no need to rush. In this first stage, you want to understand how your board feels and reacts. 

Depending on how the acceleration curve of your new board is set up, you’ll need to go easy on the triggers. If your throttle and brake control is jerky, you make standing on the board much harder, let alone riding it smoothly. If you have the most advanced electric skateboard that allows you to adjust the acceleration and braking curves, make sure that you use this feature.

• Practice in open spaces

Start in a quiet place. You don’t want to be dodging cars, pedestrians or dogs on your first ride. Also, the extra space will help when learning to corner at speed. Don’t ride faster than you can run. Anything can happen on the ride and when you don’t have the skills to deal with it, being able to hit the eject button and run it off is a good safety feature. 

When you finally have great board control, master another discipline of eSkate like sliding, longboard dancing, heavy off-roading, or riding transitions or pump tracks…. There is plenty to choose from! Style it up! 

• Find your stance

Stance is super important when riding an electric skateboard. We recommend your back foot be 90 degrees to the board while your front foot should be pointing around 30 degrees forward. Having your knees bent will slightly minimise the bumps you feel and make the ride more fluid. Remember to look ahead. The board follows your eyes, so be spotting your line 10m ahead and trust the board to go where you want it to. 

Like many sports, e-skating requires you to use your body in an abnormal way to balance a moving object. It’s quite common for new riders to experience muscle soreness or numbness, especially in their feet and legs. The remedy to this is a matter of time, just like lifting weights. The more you ride, the more you will get used to it, and less often, you will be sore. A way to make your ride more comfortable is carving back and forth. It will shift the weight distribution and also allows you to alternate the muscle groups used. 

• Find someone who’s better than you to ride with

When you ride with someone better than you, it will drive your progression. Watching a good rider is cool, but watching someone with style is inspiring. Style is unique to each person, but the aim of the game is to make skating look effortless and the board an extension of your body.

There are dozens of local groups on Facebook. If you are in the UK, the two main ones are The Official UK Evolve Skateboards Riders Group and Electric Skateboard Buy and Sell UK. In those groups, people are always happy to answer questions, organise group rides and events. 

• Learn how to maintain your board

One important thing that beginner riders often don’t pay attention to is maintenance. There are two easy tasks that you can always do before hitting the road. Firstly, grease your trucks. E-boards should be nice and quiet, but they can get squeaky or creaky if the trucks aren’t maintained. Secondly, if you have an all-terrain electric skateboard, check your tyre pressure – if it drops, you will lose significant amounts of range.

If you’re ending the year with a mixture of feelings and frustration among them, believe us, you’re not the only one. Those audacious ideas conceived in January spend the entire year in many people’s drawers. The big culprit, in most cases, is fear. If you are looking for a new hobby, an electric skateboard is easy to learn and, let us tell you, it’s heaps of fun! Not sure which e-board to buy, check out the electric skateboards linked at the top.

Guest Article.