I have to admit, my skating background was not with skateboards, but aggressive inline skates. Anyone remember Oxygen Argon 2.0? “Street” was my forte with some “vert” thrown in. In the mid to late 90s, I was sending 540 heel grabs from flat, 22 stair gaps, and 17 stair rails.
Never wanting to feel left out, I also learned to skateboard okay-ish. Ollies, kickflips, pop shove-its, the occasional nose-slide on a curb … nothing crazy. Nothing like my inline antics.
Skip forward into adulthood, and I learned to snowboard. I mean, snowboarding is an adult activity, right? That was probably the steepest learning curve of them all. That first day was pretty rough, but I’m a pretty determined kinda guy.
Eventually, one day, I found zen while carving out of bounds in a few feet of fresh pow. As I got better, the recurrence of zen came more and more often. If you’ve ever experienced flow-state from doing something that would otherwise seem the opposite of a zen-like activity, you know what I mean, where absolutely nothing else in the universe exists except that moment. Something as seemingly chaotic as trees flying by you with the perils of hidden rocks and cliffs … but it’s calm, it’s quiet, it’s pure … it’s a beautiful feeling.
JS @ New Atlas
So what’s the next natural progression when you live in a land of no snow? Just heat, humidity, and beaches? An all-terrain, electric mountainboard, of course.
I’ve always wanted a “mountainboard,” as they were called when I was younger. It was a totally new concept at the time – and prohibitively expensive – but oh-so-cool.
I’m no spring chicken anymore. I’m old, I’m hobbled, and falling down would most likely result in an ambulance ride rather than popping to my feet, laughing about what a dummy I am. In my mind, I still think I’m a 15-year-old extreme athlete, but my body reminds me otherwise. And so in my newfound (perhaps disillusioned) wisdom, I started off pretty slow on the Meepo Rover.
The Rover has four speed settings from level 1 to level “do you want to die?”. I have to admit, the board is punchy. I have no other boards to compare it to, so I can’t quantify how punchy, in AT-board-sense exactly, but I do have a ton of experience in electric motors, big and small, propelling me to my eventual meeting with the Sausage Creature.
That being said, it’s easy to ride. Scary, at first, sure. But easy. Dare I say fun?
JS @ New Atlas
We’ll start at the top and work our way down:
The Rover is a 37-in (actual usable stance space is more like 29 inches) by 10.25-in, 1-ply bamboo, 10-ply maple deck. That’s 94 cm long (but really more like 74 cm) and 26 cm wide, for the metric folk. For a long board, that’d be considered pretty short. Even for an all-terrain electric board, it’s still towards the short side. But that doesn’t make it feel at all twitchy. It is pretty stiff, though. There’s very little flex in the concave board, which is to be expected when the battery below is housed in aluminum.
JS @ New Atlas
Even so, the Rover is surprisingly stable, which all makes sense considering its traditional kingpin truck setup.
It has 155-mm pneumatic wheels with what I’d call a “mixed-tread pattern.” Good enough for some off-road adventures, but also comfy on the street. Definitely slightly smaller than big-boy, $1,000+, 7-inch AT setups. That means a little trade-off of clearance and top speed, but it also means a little more perceived torque during standing starts or going up steep hills with the dual 1,800-watt motors.
JS @ New Atlas
Meepo chucked in a bash guard for the motors too, which was a nice touch. Ground clearance isn’t super great, so protecting the goodies that get you going is the way to go. It also makes a great handle for rolling the board around like a suitcase instead of slugging it.
Powering those two little powerhouses at a 3.67:1 gear reduction (did I mention it’s torquey?) is a sealed 432-Wh, 10-Ah battery. Meepo says it’s good for 20 miles (30 km) of range, but real-world says it’s more like 12-13 miles (19–21 km) depending on rider weight, terrain, temp, etc. The best bit is that it only takes about two hours to charge, which is pretty rad.
JS @ New Atlas
Under the hood, so to speak, the ESC (electronic speed controller) is a JK FOC. I didn’t know what any of that meant at first, either, but after some research, field-oriented control (FOC) is the good-good for motor controllers that makes it perform quieter and more efficient than old-school BLDC (brushless DC control). Score.
All of which is IP65 rated, which means you should be fine in the rain. Just steer clear of fully submerging your board, else you’ll likely let the smoke out of the electronics.
A J6S pistol-grip remote dictates how much fun or suffering you’ll get out of the Rover. Roll your thumb all the way forward on the accelerator for maximum punishment. Roll it back and it’ll regen slow-you-down-ish, but not quickly, so keep your stopping distances in mind. Gone are the days of Kinect-gesturing or “mind control” to control your board.
JS @ New Atlas
The remote tells you all the info you need to know, like mode, current speed, and state of charge (SoC) … but be forewarned, it’s all in fine print on the most basic of LCD screens, so I wouldn’t spend too much time squinting at it while at speed.
All in all, the board weighs in at a modest 26 lb (12 kg), which is handy if you’re shredding some trails at top-speed-28-mph (45 km/h) and launch it/yourself off a cliff and need to hike it out … but it’s not something you’re going to want to carry for long if you don’t have to.
JS @ New Atlas
Specs-wise, for a sub-US$700 board, I’d say it’s actually punching up towards the $800+ category for AT boards. It’s absolutely solid for an affordable – maybe the most affordable – entry-level AT board that even a seasoned shredder would still have a blast on.
I will say one thing: the location of the power button is pretty suspect. It’s recessed on top of the deck, right below your back foot. You shouldn’t make contact with it … but if, for whatever reason, a little pebble happens to end up in there and you do step on it … well, you remember what happens when you run over pebbles on old-school skateboards.
I haven’t quite reached zen on the Meepo yet, but I have a feeling I’m going to get there.
Product page: Meepo Rover & Amazon
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JS @ New Atlas
