The BOARDWORLD Forums ran from 2009 to 2021 and are now closed and viewable here as an archive

   

BajaBoard - Sneak Peek into a motorized snowboard simulator

Avatar

Hi Guys,

My name is George, from Melbourne. I’m proud to lift the veil on a project that a friend and I have been working on since 2010. Presenting the BajaBoard.

Words are cheap, so before I get into any of that, here is what we have actually built:
Prototype Photo

We started with the idea of creating a motorized board that snowboarders can enjoy in the off-season. To date, all motorized boards have been more or less mobility scooters;  we wanted one that can actually FREESTYLE.  I’m not talking about a casual drift or an incidental jump off a mound. I’m talking serious air time, grinds, grabs and flips. Think Crusty Demons, think Nitro Circus.

We designed BajaBoard for the extreme sports enthusiasts, the adrenalin junkies, the dare devils and perhaps a few nut cases. It is designed by board riders (and professional engineers) for board riders. Throw it into the trunk or strap it to your roof rack. Turn your local park into a motocross arena at your whim (with council approval, hopefully:p).

The machine you see in the photo is our Prototype Generation 1. It has not been refined or styled. From playing with this baby, we have learnt many lessons which we are implementing into a Prototype Generation 2 this and next month. It will be lighter, meaner, slightly smaller, and better integrated. Parts are in transit as I write this.

The BajaBoard’s proprietary design will offer:-

- Independent suspension & steering - to land BIG jumps and for responsive handling;
- Dynamic wheel behavior - stable at speed and easy to carve;
- Heaps of low-end torque, and a top speed in the order of 50km/h;
- Optimized engineering - strong enough for stunts, and weighing in sub-15kg (and like a bad strip poker player, we are constantly taking more off).

It will also feature a grind plate.

It is past conceptual, but still relatively early-ish days. We really want to raise Australia’s global profile in off-road board sports with the BajaBoard.

If you are intrigued by what you see, we would greatly appreciate your support. Please LIKE our Facebook page (facebook.com/bajaboard), follow us on Twitter (@BajaBoard) and tell others.

And, of course, please feel free to comment or ask questions.

 
Avatar

Welcome to Boardworld, BajaBoard. punch

Sounds sick, will read into it tomorrow.

 
Avatar

Cheers rider26

 
Avatar

Looks like an extreme bit of gear!! Cant wait to see more shaka

 
Avatar

that looks like a real leg break but im am intrigued and would like to see more.
My personal opinion ‘think crusty demons, think nitro circus’ and the use of ‘adrenalin junkies’ makes it sound like a bogan weapon with a marketing campaign written by someone who has no idea / isnt involved in these type of sports. Thankfully you didnt use the word EXTREME, but that said, i dig it and want to see more, will my wife let me have one though…......doubt it! smile Good luck with it all.

 
Avatar

lol, does sound a bit like that doesn’t it?  Thanks for that feedback smile
The team did speak about wanting to eventually test it out on a motocross track, and do one of those top gear-ish board vs bike vs buggy type thing. Probably won’t win, but you never know.

 
Avatar

First video of the prototype is done smile

Check it out on Youtube here.

Feedback welcome!

 
Avatar

Nice!!!!! shaka

Love the look of the 2ND Generation!!!!!

 
Avatar

Gen 2 is a rocker… typical tongue wink jokes

But seriously, where do I buy one?!

Also, does it have brakes?

Do u have an estimate of retail price?

 
Avatar

Looks awesome, especially Gen 2. And yeah can it stop quickly enough?

 
Avatar
Dan83 - 13 October 2013 07:52 AM

And yeah can it stop quickly enough?

Cheers guys!

The board has electric regenerative braking, and it stops really well on that alone. You should also be able to slide it like normal, we are still to test that.

Since we just finished the Gen 2 board design, we’ve just gotten started on the commercial stuff (not as exciting work :p). We are planning on crowdfunding this in Nov, so really need to get a move on lol.  So the board should be available in the order of months, not years.

 
Avatar

 
Avatar

Out in 2014.

 
Avatar

I was lucky enough to be invited to do some ‘product testing’ for this Saturday afternoon! It’s up there with one of the most fun things I have ever done. Acceleration is super quick and really responsive, the steering is great, it has a really smooth snowboard like feel to it.

It was pretty easy to get the hang of as well. The breaking is very responsive on tarmac, as I found out. It also handles pretty well on wet grass; until you get it a bit too sideways… and fall off, or lose traction on wet, dead leaves… and almost run into a tree (I made it out fine, the board was a little worse off. Sorry again! LOL ) Had an awesome afternoon with the Baja Board team, thanks again!

 
Avatar

I was wondering what that was in your instagram post! Looked a bit too heavy duty for a normal mountain board.

 
Avatar

Hmm maybe the missus will allow me to ride this since normal skateboards are banned LOL