The problem with conventional skateboards is that they generally only work in one direction — downhill. But the Gnarboard Trail Rider isn’t a conventional skateboard and does very unconventional things — like 0-45km/h in 1.9 seconds.
The Gnarboard Trail Rider is an 39kg, 4WD aluminium skate deck powered by a quartet of electric motors. Each motor outputs 850W (16.5kW combined peak) to help the Trail Rider achieve better acceleration than virtually every car on the road today. What’s more, it offers a 26km range between charges, which themselves only take about two hours to complete from a completely spent battery.
The rider controls all that raw power with a double-ended, wired hand trigger. Squeezing the toggle one direction engages the power, squeezing it in the opposite direction engages the regenerative brakes. Bindings similar those on snowboards keep riders atop the machine while its all-terrain tyres allow the Trail Rider to conquer grassy campus knolls, hiking trails and office parks with ease.
The Trail Rider is the biggest and baddest of Gnarboards offerings at $US6100. The company also makes the slightly smaller 4WD Road Warrior model with 2kW power, 0-45km/h in 2.8, for $US5000, and the $US4800 2WD Commuter with 1.4kW of power. They’re all available on the Gnarboard website. [Gnarboard via Gizmag]