Mellow eboard review – Five stars is not enough for this urban cruiser

Mellow eboard reviewMELLOW

Mellow eboard review

The Mellow Drive is superb, German, ‘reasuringly expensive’ but superb.  

Whilst we write this review we have a jar next to us, every time we use a cliche about German engineering in goes £1. This could get expensive. 

Remember that German phrase ‘vorsprung durch technik’, ever wondered what it means? 

Roughly ‘advancement through technology’ and that is exactly what Mellow have brought to the eboard market. 

We matched the Mellow drive to two boards a unique deck by German Root skateboards which is a stiff 36-inch deck for speed and a 34-inch Loaded Poke, perfect for carving around the urban commute thanks to the flex and kicktail.  

Any eboard is only as good as the software and controller. 

The ride the Mellow gives is smooth as butter or blisteringly fast with all options catered to from the learning mode of Rookie, Eco for an efficient and fun ride or the speed of Pro.  

For us the Mellow software is the best on the eboard market.

Mellow eboard reviewMELLOW

Mellow eboard review

For example their App doesn’t just track location, power levels of drive and controller it also provides a local map showing the battery range. The App is integrated into the very DNA of the drive. 

If you suffer a problem you contact the team at Mellow via the App allowing them to run diagnostics to solve the problem, simple and clever. 

We tested this process and the support team could not have been more helpful or efficient.  

The Mellow Board complete is £1,800 or for the drive £1,533. 

It has a top speed of 24 mph and a single battery has a range of 9.5 miles but it is the options choice of deck, the quality of the product, the support and software that sets this eboard head and shoulders above the competition. 

Eboards come in all shapes and sizes with different price points to match.  

They allow users to commute around towns and cities being green without being so reliant on public transport or cars. 

Mellow eboard reviewMELLOW

Mellow eboard review

For the urban commuter Mellow Drive is the best money can buy.  

If you want an all terrain eboard cabable of blitzing off road then stop reading and buy yourself a £1460 Evolve GT. 

 Many pretenders claim to offer the best value, top speed, best range for their eboard and many users lap it up like a geek version of top trumps. At the top of the pile for commuter eboard market was Boosted. 

 Boosted and Mellow both have their origins within Kickstarter, they crowdfunded to raise money move their eboards from design to production.  This process is fraught with difficulty, many potential companies have failed to deliver indeed Mellow’s own strapline of the ‘Endless ride’ became the ‘Endless wait’. 

 But that wait is worth it. 

 Boosted and Mellow took a very different approaches to their design.  To understand why the Mellow is worth 5 stars it needs to be considered against the Californian built Boosted. 

Mellow eboard reviewMELLOW

For the urban commuter Mellow Drive is the best money can buy

Mellow eboard reviewMELLOW

The Mellow Board complete is £1,800 or for the drive £1,533

Boosted is built into a 38-inch Loaded Vanguard deck with dual brush belt driven motors, 22 mph with a current range of 7 miles or 12 miles with the ‘extended range battery’ available in Q4 2017.

This package is approximately £1700.  Coming from the US there are customs charges and delivery.

If you need to return the board for repairs then costs quickly add up. Buying a Boosted it is like buying an American car, you get the product but no optional extras.  Mellow took a different path.

The clever German boffins are not just tech experts but outdoor enthusiasts, they skate and surf. They pooled that experience to produce a design which beautiful yet simple. The frame houses a swappable battery, it simply clicks in and out.  

The elegant hub motors are contained within the wheels so no noisy or exposed external motors. In fact the Mellow drive is water resistant perfect for the UK weather. 

Not all hub motors are equal. Mellows’ motors are German designed, built and powerful. Precision and quality are plainly the company’s watch words and their award winning design gives the rider freedom to choose rather than being locked into the manfuctors’ vision.

Our German cliche jar is starting to fill up. 

Mellow eboard reviewMELLOW

The Mellow drive is the best option money can buy

The remote is a solid sliding design which is both IP65 water-proof and bluetooth encrypted to keep connection constant.

The frame is cast magnesium whilst the battery is a Tesla-type lithium-ion cell. The build quality is superb and if you opt of the front trucks they are produced by Atlas a well respected manufacture.

We swapped the front truck road side bushing for a 78a cone which turned the Loaded Poke into an urban carving machine. 

The wheels are 80a mm giving a soft ride and colour coded to match the Mellow drive light blue theme.  

We would like to see other colour options and a lower duro option for the front wheels down to maybe 76a to give a very soft ride in the urban environment. 

Our only gripe was the lanyard, it is light blue to match the Mellow theme but stands out on your wrist. This quibble over the colour of the lanyard is our only issue.

Mellow eboard reviewMELLOW

For us the Mellow software is the best on the eboard market

But Mellow also has new tricks up their sleeve. In a Facebook live chat on 24 August 2017 co-founder and head of tech Kilian Green gave some insights into future developments.

With a longer range version of the battery in the works that should significantly increase the range he said ‘we have already ordered the first sample with 50% higher capacity… Time line [they should be availabe] mid next year extended 50% more than now.’

This would give the battery a range of 15 miles. With updates to the App, off-road wheels, 4×4 functionality and a lighter version of the Mellow all in the pipeline. 

This all means that current owners won’t have to buy a new drive rather just a new battery which currently costs £220, meaning next year riders who buy that extra battery could get up getting a combined range of 25 miles. 

In short if you want an eboard that you can change, develop with, commute, ride and skate like a regular board with first class customer support then the Mellow drive is the best option money can buy.