Veymax was kind enough to send me out the Veymax Cejour for review, which you can watch here.
So, while I obviously have bias because they sent it to me for free in exchange for a review, I genuinely like this board after giving it a good solid test run. And at its current low price, it's almost a steal (affiliate link, FYI) if you're a beginner looking to get into electric skateboarding.
I won't get into a lot of the same points I covered during my initial review, but I definitely have some expanded thoughts on the board (and hub motor builds in general) that seemed like a good place to start the new Mike in the Woods 'Thoughts & Ramblings' blog.
As a recap, this is the Veymax Cejour base model:
- 43.2v 216 wh battery
- 2x 550w hub motors
- 38" deck
- 90mm x 60mm 83A wheels, with the option to upgrade to 105mm 78a treaded wheels
From my initial assessment & test run, the board is really well put together. It's solid, nothing rattles or is loose, or looks/feels cheap. Now, quite obviously, we need to do an extended period of testing to see the longevity of the board over time, so make sure you stick around on my channel! I do periodic updates of all my electric rideables and how they're doing. Hub motors are usually pretty reliable; as they are brushless and don't have much in the way of moving parts that can fatigue. Which means no constant replacing of parts, something that frustrates newcomers to the hobby--hub motors are definitely the way to go for your first eskate.
As mentioned in the specs recap, you can upgrade the wheels. Though it's a hub motor board, the PU sleeves are removable and replaceable, something that really old hub motor electric skateboards lacked (if the urethane cracked & became unusable, you had to replace the entire motor).
But with these ones, you just pop off the hex screws bolting the outer wheel sleeve to the motor:
So in the event that the wheels get damaged with age, you can simply replace the sleeve.
However, something seemingly unique to Veymax, you can opt to instead replace them/upgrade them to the larger 105mm x 65mm wheels, which are more of a hybrid treaded design that sit somewhere between a street wheel and an all-terrain wheel:
I'm ~240 lbs, a lot heavier than the riders these eskate companies typically test ranges with (around 165 lbs is the average I see), so I never get the range as advertised. Whatever the range is listed in miles, I expect to get in kilometers. So with 13 miles listed for this particular model, I was hoping to get 13 km; but during my range test I only manged 11.5 km after doing a bunch of hills, speed tests, and the like. So while not quite 13 km, it falls in line with my expectations given my weight. If you're closer to the lower end of the weight scale, you should get closer to the advertised 21 km on flat ground.
What really stood out to me is just how silent these hub motors are.
I've ridden hub motors before; like I mentioned, my very first electric skateboard was a hub motor build just like this one. However, even that original board I owned had the telltale electric hum of a motor when running.
That is very noticeably absent with the Veymax hub motors. The only time I hear the whine of the motor is when braking. Even when going full acceleration I don't hear them. All I hear is road noise. Maybe I'd hear them on buttery smooth asphalt, but that would be me really trying.
Being so quiet, and having no noticeable outboard motors, is a really good thing if you're trying to run a stealthy build (such as if you live in an area where you technically shouldn't be riding an electric skateboard...) Defnitely MUCH quiter than a belt-drive board, which absolutely screams when you give it the beans. Just watch any of my eskate adventure videos where I have to yell above the noise of the motors!
In regards to hub motors in general, as time goes on I am preferring them more and more. While my first electric skateboard (one of the original Meepo boards) was a hub drive board, ever since I built my touring electric skateboard I've been primarily riding belt-drive boards.
And after shredding many, many belts, I am absolutely sick of having to replace them and am just about done with belt-drive boards entirely. If you are familiar at all with my channel, you know I do a lot of electric skateboard backpacking, usually on gravel rail trails or -- at the very least -- at the side of roads where there's lots of gravel and other debris; and that absolutely PUMMELS the belts. It has turned into quite the limiting factor on my adventures, so for future adventure builds, I am going with a different drive train system.
Here's where this Veymax Cejour comes in. Now that I've done my review for it, I have a plan for this board.
I've talked about it before, but I have a bunch of wackadoodle DIY projects I want to build, such as the world's longest range electric skateboard I currently have a fundraiser for, which will be powered by a 48v 100ah 5 kwh LFP battery.
The relevant DIY project as it relates to the Cejour is a hub-motor NiMH powered trail rider build. I'll upgrade the Veymax wheels to these 105mm 'jelly wheels', swap to a slightly longer deck, add a top-mounted battery case, and build a custom NiMH battery pack. 36 10-ah D-cell batteries wired in series, for a 43.2v 432wh pack that should easily serve as a drop-in replacement for the lithium ion battery currently wired up under the deck. Funnily enough, the voltage range of a NiMH battery is the same as a lithium ion battery, so I don't need to worry too much about top-end or bottom-end cutoff like I did with my Sodium Ion build.
The goal is to build a trail rider that can do gravel rail trails better than a normal street board; while also serving as the test bed for a NiMH battery pack to see how it performs as a PEV power source. I am eager to have a trail-capable eskate that doesn't use belts... hub drives definitely have a higher reliability factor.
I'll be starting the build process for this soon, so make sure you stick around!
In any case, the Veymax Cejour definitely seems like a really solid beginner-level budget eskate for newbies just getting into the hobby. It's also good for short commutes, such as to/from the train station or bus stop, with the handle making it easy to maneuver indoors and on public transit (though at just under 20lbs, it takes some getting used to).
The 43.2v drivetrain with the base model config was also an interesting (and welcome) choice. Normally the drivetrain for these hub motor boards is 36v, such as the extended-range version of this board; but the higher voltage should translate into a slightly higher top-end speed and faster charging at the same amp rate on a per-mile basis. This board with just the default charger goes from 0% to 100% in just 2.5 hours.
I didn't touch on it in my review video, but I think it would also be a great little addition to your car for exploring towns and cities on road trips, as it fits in your trunk pretty easily. I own a Tesla Model 3, and the thought occurred to me to take my Cejour with me to go explore and run errands for the 15-30 mins my Model 3 is on the charger if I'm on a road trip. Something to consider.
Thanks to Veymax for sending me this board out! And make sure you follow the blog for all sorts of extraneous thoughts & additions to my mainline videos, and some things more on the backpacking & general outdoors adventuring side of things!
