OMW Cavalry Electric Skateboard
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This is one of the most feature-packed electric skateboards with some truly special unique features not available on anything else out there. I am extremely excited about the OMW Cavalry. Let me tell you why.
OMW is a brand new company with only 1 product. The Cavalry. This is their first iteration of a premium level electric longboard and I think they have done a phenomenal job. It’s not perfect with some small issues here and there, but for the most part, it’s an amazing board with some really unique innovative features.
Outstanding Unique Features:
Flexible deck with hard enclosure
The first thing that stood out to me was the deck and the battery enclosure. Normally, the enclosure is bolted onto the deck and the type of the enclosure determines how flexible the board is. If you bolt on flexible enclosures to a deck, that will allow your deck to bend and flex. However, if you attach a solid enclosure that does not bend, it will make your board extremely stiff with no room to flex. The Cavalry here did something really interesting here, they put together a very flexible deck with a stiff battery enclosure with no room to flex. But, instead of bolting both pieces together, they left a gap about half an inch tall in between the stiff battery enclosure and the flexible deck. This gap is sealed by thick foam tape. This ingenious setup allows the deck to be flexible, giving the rider great carving response and road vibration dampening while keeping the battery enclosure rigid with as little moving pieces as possible. This design allows the battery compartment to be built with the utmost safety in mind with a rigid alloy metal enclosure which seals batteries into individual metal compartments. This design mitigates impact damage as well as fire risks. But all in all. This gap design is unique and it works great. However, the deck is not as flexible as a board using a true flexible enclosure but it’s also not as stiff as carbon fiber boards. It’s kind of in between the 2 extremes. It provides the stability a rider would need to reach high speeds while able to provide a responsive carving experience. It’s a compromise between the best of both worlds and a well executed one at that. If you are ever in between choosing a stiff vs flexible deck, OMW Cavalry here is the compromising solution that might just fit your needs. This is only the first iteration of this design and I would love to see how this would improve in the future.
OMW Cavalry Electric Skateboard with 7 Inch Wheels
3000 miles tires
The rated mileage on the 7 inch AT tires are 5000 KM or about 3100 Miles. This type of lifespan for eskate tires is simply unheard of. I normally need to change out my Evolve 7 inch tires every 500 miles but now OMW is claiming their special tires will go more than 6 times the distance than Evolve tires. If this is true, then that could potentially be huge. My OMW Rep did say they tested on normal road conditions and got that result. Personally with the way that I ride electric skateboards I don’t think they will last 3000 miles, but I do think the claims will be directionally true. These OMW tires are made out of hard rubber compound that are much stiffer than Evolve’s standard 7 inch tires. Personally I think that’s the reason why it’s rated to go much longer. I was concerned about the tires being too stiff. But after putting some miles on this board, I can confidently tell you that how tires feel to the touch of the hand has almost no bearing on how it feels on the road. I filled the tires up to 35 psi and they ran extremely well. It feels a little bit stiffer as compared to the softer tires, but not enough for me to switch them back as the difference is really minimal. 3000 miles from one set of tires would be amazing. It will save you hundreds of dollars from getting new tires alone. Which is why I’m going to test these out. I plan putting 3000 miles on these tires and see if they truly last as long as they claim. Oh and because these tires are a bit harder, they are a lot more puncture resistant, which is an amazing feature if you live in areas with less than ideal road conditions.
A380 Metal Alloy Hubs
Lifetime deck warranty (how long is lifetime)
How many times have you seen broken electric skateboard decks on Facebook and other social media platforms” Omw is so confident with the quality of their deck that they are offering a lifetime warranty on it. Usually, in the United States, the marketing term “lifetime” warranty means the lifetime of the product, not the lifetime of the purchaser. So as an example, if you buy a Samsung cellphone with a “lifetime” warranty, that lifetime warranty would only work for 5 years, because that is the “lifetime” of the product. However, when I contacted OMW, they explained that anytime if your deck is broken, you are eligible for replacement. Which really sounded like the lifetime warranty of the user. This is amazing value and reassurance and confidence in their own product.
Lifetime Deck Warranty
Ride Characteristics and Performance
With standard 7 inch wheels
Acceleration and Top Speed.
With the 7 inch wheels, the maximum acceleration of the board feels a bit tame for a 14S board, especially at the lower end of the acceleration. This is because the OMW Cavalry is geared for top speed with a pair of 55 teeth AT pulleys which are noticeably smaller than the traditional 66T gears that comes standard on other boards. For those of you who are new to gears. The higher your gear ratio the more acceleration you have but at a reduction of top speed. The lower the gear ratio the less acceleration but with an increase in top speed. As you can see here, this is a low gear ratio setup which helps OMW get up to higher speeds but at the cost of a slower acceleration. So the motor output and power is there, this board has an extremely capable drive train system, but it’s simply geared for higher speeds. Hopefully OMW will offer higher teeth AT gears for their customers like the 66T pulleys for people like me, who like to zip around and do a lot of stop and go’s without cruising at a high speed.
OMW Cavalry Electric Skateboard with 7 Inch Wheels rated for 3100 miles
Once the board hits mid range to high speeds, that is when the board comes alive and feels extremely powerful without being jerky. It can hit a speed of 37 mph on stock setup, which not many stock factory boards can do right out of the box. The OMW Cavalry has a 70 AMP ESC, 2X 35AMP to be exact. That’s plenty of current to power the power. However I do think for their next iteration of the OWM Cavalry, they can up the current ESC and can handle and increase the size and power of other motors. For now at the price they are charging, it’s perfectly reasonable and perfectly powerful for anyone seeking a thrilling, fast and stable ride.
I list this as a quirk, because I got used to the riding difference in just minutes but I felt it’s worth mentioning. There is also a noticeable rolling resistance on my board. It’s not too aggressive but I can feel the board slow down slightly as soon as I let go of the accelerator and then ever so slightly push up the accelerator again. When I do this on other Hobbywing boards, I would continue to coast forward at the current speed. Other board wouldn’t accelerate until I pushed the nob past the current cruising speed. But for the Calvary, when I let go of the accelerator, I need to ever so slightly activate my leg muscles so that I don’t fall off the board. Because it seems like it’s actively slowing down even though I’m pushing the accelerator but just not as hard as the current speed. I double checked the drive train and the pulleys for possible points of friction and resistance, but they all seemed fine. The front wheels free rolls a bit short but it shouldn’t cause a noticeable decrease in coasting speed. The front wheels free rolls for about 11 seconds. I do think the rolling resistance is coming from the motors and the ESC.
Braking
Break is pretty smooth for the most part. I was able to do some hard braking and the entire breaking curve felt smooth… Until right up to before the board completely stops, it locks into position and suddenly applies full braking strength. If you are not expecting this behavior, You might be slightly surprised and need to jump off the board. Because you know, momentum. This happens at like 1 mph so I don’t think it’s a big issue at all. Took me about 1 ride to get used to it. Aside from that everything with the braking is very well tuned. Another thing about the brakes. If your Cavalry is completely stopped and you push the board forward, it will spring back to where it was before. This is super interesting to me. Because if you are stopped at the end of a sidewalk and accidentally push your board into traffic, it will just come back to you. Neat.
Ride Smoothness
The ride is overall extremely smooth. It’s extremely powerful but the way it’s tuned gives the rider a lot of room for error and to ramp up speed. So it’s quite a forgiving ride but packs a punch at high speeds when needed. There’s virtually no jerkiness or sudden motions whatsoever.
Turning and carving
What’s super interesting about turning on this board is the design of the DKP trucks. The structure for the double kingpin truck on this board is a lot longer than the typical DKP truck. My guess is that this new form factor has enabled more leverage because of their length for better turning and harder turns. The bushing installed is currently using 106A equivalent bushings but they feel like 90A bushing which feel extremely soft. My only explanation is that the new elongated structure is very responsive to turns and requires much harder bushings. If 106A bushing are this soft, I definitely don’t want to use the other set of softer bushings that came with the board. If you want a better carving experience at the cost of stability at higher speeds, feel free to try out the softer bushings.
Overall, I am very impressed with how well it’s able to turn and at the same time hold steady on fast rides. If you want great carving experience, I recommend you to change to SHR bushing for some high rebounding action on this board. If you are looking for extreme high speeds switch to HPF double barrel bushings for stability. But if you want the best of both worlds, the stock bushings are actually pretty good and lean slightly towards the softer carving side of things.
Top speed
The board is geared for top speed with a 40T Gear. It comfortably reached 30 miles per hour and could keep climbing. But I don’t go past 30 mph on eboards as it gets too dangerous. But I can tell you the board was still steady climbing speed at 30mph with seemingly a lot of room left to keep pushing.
Changing to 6 inch wheels
Acceleration and Top Speed.
The acceleration is slightly improved with the smaller 6 inch diameter wheels. It’s not a night and day difference but big enough to feel it, if you are looking for that slight increase in acceleration. The ride is still extremely smooth on these wheels, no jerkiness and no rough motions. Carving is more fun on these nimble tires as the board becomes more responsive with these smaller wheels on. These 6 inch wheels have a flat profile. This means a whole lot more contact patch and surface area for the tires to grip the road with. Giving the rider more confidence when making hard turns.
The downside of these 6 inch tires is a noticeable decrease in comfort. Because these wheels are more rigid and have more surface area with the ground, you feel a lot more vibrations and a lot less dampening from the wheels. Like all things in life, there are trade offs, pros and cons for everything we choose. And here when it comes to wheels, if you want a 3000 mile rated, more comfortable, safer ride, you go with the 7 inch tires. If you want something more aggressive in acceleration, more grip, but a slower top speed, you go with the smaller 6 inch tires.
6 Inch Tires
Compared to PU wheels
Street wheels are included for the OMW Calvary. These OMW wheels are slightly narrower than what you see on other electric skateboards. These are about the same width, contact patch wise, as compared to a MAD105 boost wheel. These wheels feel rubbery and extremely soft like many of the standard offerings from other electric skateboard manufacturers. They provide a much more responsive ride and much faster acceleration due to the small size wheels. However the ride does naturally get a lot more bumpy. If you like the traditional skateboard and longboard feel while getting the most range you possibly can, then these street wheels are for you.
I do have to emphasize just how much more aggressive the OMW cavalry gets once you put these street wheels on. The accelerations get noticeably more monstrous. On par with other 14S boards I’ve tried before. If you are particularly looking for acceleration, going to street wheels is your best bet. This board also becomes extremely responsive when turning and carving on these street wheels. One weird thing is that the pulleys are not removable. So you are stuck with these default pulleys if you want to continue using these street wheels. You can’t switch pulleys to change the ride dynamics on these wheels because none of my spare pulleys fit on the truck.
The other thing with PU wheels with this new deck design is that the board sounds like a hollow drum when going over dips on the sidewalk. Remember when I said that the battery enclosure and the deck has this space in between them? This space now acts like a drum when you are going over bumps and amplifies impact noises. It’s not a big issue at all, just slightly louder than what I’m typically used to and it does not affect performance.
97mm Cavalry PU Wheels
Other Highlights:
Crap-ton of freebies
You get a bunch of high value freebies when you purchase the board worth hundreds of dollars.
Metal Wheel hubs.
The OMW Calvary comes with 4 premium metal wheel hubs. It doesn’t say on their website, but these are A380 aluminum alloy wheels. They are a bit heavier and cheaper to make than the standard 6061 and 7075 alumnium wheels we see on the market today. Despite being heavy, they are extremely well balanced than traditional plastic wheels and need no extra steps to be balanced. These alloy wheels also include all the bearings on the same piece of the wheel hub. This design increases the stability and decreases the likelihood of wobbles while going fast. The bearing spacers are pretty cool. They go on the outside of the bearings and wheels. Which removes the need for washers to be placed on the outside of the bearings and removes the need to align the annoying spacer inside of the wheel every time you need to mount it. Pretty neat this is the first time I’ve seen this particular design. The down side of the design is that these spaces tend to fall out and get lost easily.
One thing they can improve on the wheel hub design is a locking mechanism, all the metal wheels I’ve seen before include a design that allows the both halves of the wheels to lock together. Another improvement OMW can make to their wheel design are the hardwares on their wheels. All other wheels require only 1 screw to lock the wheel into place, but OMW’s implementation requires a screw and a nut, which is just annoying when taking on and off. The wheel also does not lock with the pulley, it’s just loosely connected.
Lastly, these wheels are the standard narrow design. It would be great if OMW can offer a wide rim design in the future, the wide rims can accommodate a wider variety of tire shapes.
Free handlebar
The cavalry also comes with a free handle bar, which is pretty cool. This way you can easily pick up, carry, or just drag your board along when you are not riding it. But I actually skipped it because I feel it wasn’t needed.
Free LED Lights
The front LED lights are purchased separately, but for a limited time you can get it for free included in your purchase. These cost more than $150 individually. These lights are all metal and well built. They are quite hefty in hand and extremely bright at night. To install these, it would require the disassembly of the front truck and part of the LED lights.
However, I found a cheat way to install these without any disassembly using two screws right down the middle of the LED light. Works just as well.
OMW Cavalry with Stock Setup and Stock Grip Tape
The OMW Cavalry is equipped with samsung 50S cells, the best in the industry when it comes to voltage sag resistance and high output throughout the entire discharge cycle. These 50S cell together make up 864Wh of battery capacity, which will get you plenty of range. I got roughly 23 miles out of the board using the 7 inch AT wheels. Your mileage may vary depending on your weight, outside temperature, and average speed. The ESC bridging the motors and the battery pack is a Hobbywing 9028 ESC packing a total of 35A to each of the motors for a total of 70A. This ESC is also packed with new features. Particularly app connections. So you can customize your ride in the app and make your ride more aggressive or more relaxed. Which is pretty cool. Also the ESC allows for stand by mode, which lets you remotely turn on the board. The standby mode doesn’t last forever. I left the Cavalry alone for 3 days. By the time I came back, the standby mode was turned off and I had to turn on the board manually. Just an FYI incase you think standby mode will last forever, which I don't see a lot of people mentioning. Finally the motors connected to the board are 6374 - 165Kv motors. These are respectable motors with a high Kv focused for high speed. Remember, the higher the Kv the higher the top speed but slower the acceleration. The lower the Kv, the lower the top speed but more aggressive acceleration.
The Deck is composed of carbon fiber and fiberglass composite material. This is one of the thinnest eskate I’ve seen in a while and it flexes well. The deck concaves upwards slightly towards the edges so get extra control of the board without feeling discomfort. Also a reminder that OMW has a lifetime warranty on these decks. So go nuts?
The Cavalry are made with Forged DKP trucks. DPK trucks in general are more impact resistant and more reliable, and they are nowadays standard features on almost all mid to higher range electric skateboards. The truck is 9.5 inches wide. Just wide enough to be stable when you are going at high speed but responsive when you need to make those tight turns. And of course, strong enough when you need to hop off a building for something.
The board comes with a standard Hobbywing OLED remote that shows your standard telemetry data such as odometer, current speed, gear, and battery percentage as turning the lights on and off. It’s made of the same great quality you would expect from Hobbywing. It’s slim, not too bulky and fits great in gloved hands.
The standard charger looks exactly the same as the generic chargers used by other boards in the industry. It charges the board from 0 to 100 in about 4.5 hours. Slow charging is good for your batteries but OMW should offer a fast charging option in the future for customers who may need to rapidly charge their boards.
The board is well crafted and sealed with an IP56 rating. Meaning it’s dust and water resistant. But I would recommend riders to actively avoid rain and wet environments.
The Cavalry is 38.5 pounds, not too heavy for a board this size. I find it moderately easy to pick up and move around. But won’t be fun if you have to carry it around you for an extended period of time. The ground clearance of the bottom of the board is 4.5 inches. Which is plenty of room. Even when I switched to the 97MM street wheels, I still found the clearance to be plenty high. So far the bottom hasn’t been scratched yet even on small wheels. The deck length is 38 inches, which is still pretty standard in the the AT category.
If you are worried about trying out a brand new company for the first time, don’t because OMW offers a free no hassle no risk 7 day return period. This is a great sign that the company is confident about their products that riders will fall in love with their boards. After the first 7 days, you get a 1 year warrant on everything plus lifetime warranty on the deck itself. That’s a whole lot of warranties comparable to Evolve’s Hadean Carbon Fiber AT boards, but that skateboard costs $2400 bucks while the OMW is only $1599 with free shipping and no Tax.
And finally the deck grip tape is hideous. And some of you may have noticed that I already changed the grip tape. I just bought a sheet of black griptape, traced the current shape and cut it out myself. Even a blank black grip tape is a massive improvement over the default option. OMW is running a contest on their website for the grip tape design. There are multiple prices and the top 2 winners get free electric skateboards! Besure to try it out!
This board is great for someone who is new to electric boards, wants something powerful to start with and grow into, instead of buying and outgrowing skateboards. It’s also designed with safety in mind to protect the battery enclosure from impacts and fire. And it was made with longevity in mind with tires that would allow you to go thousands of miles without the need to get new tires. OMW Cavalry came into the fold swinging and landed in high places. There are still small issues to be worked out but for a first iteration board, it’s simply amazing. And I highly recommend this board if you can overlook the small issues I mentioned the in video.
Use Promocode "EVTECH" to save even more on OMW Boards!
