The Last Ten Metres: Why Portability Is the Only Spec That Matters
Every electric board is sold on two numbers: how fast it goes and how far it gets. Both are easy to measure, both look good on a spec sheet, and neither is the reason people stop riding.
People stop riding because of the last ten metres.
The ten metres nobody designs for
Your commute ends before you arrive. The riding part finishes at the edge of the station, the office car park, the lobby. What happens next is the part no one puts in a brochure: a turnstile, half a flight of stairs, a lift with three people already in it, a corridor, and a desk with no space beside it.
That stretch is ten metres long and it is where most electric vehicles quietly become a problem. A scooter has to be wheeled, angled, propped. A full-size board has to be carried under one arm at head height, which means it arrives in the lift before you do. A bike does not come in at all.
Ten metres, five times a day, every working day. It adds up to more inconvenience than the ride ever saved.
A four-part test for the word portable
"Portable" gets used as a synonym for "light". It is not. Here is a test you can run on any vehicle, including ours, in under a minute.
1. Fold time. How many seconds from rolling to carrying? Anything over ten seconds and you will not bother — you will walk the board instead, and then you are pushing a heavy object through a building.
2. Carry format. Can you carry it hands-free? A handle is not hands-free. A shoulder strap is halfway. A backpack is the only format that leaves you able to hold a coffee, a phone and a door.
3. Footprint at rest. Not the folded dimension on the box — the actual volume it occupies next to a chair, under a desk, in a hallway at home, in the boot of a small car.
4. Social cost. Does it hit doorframes? Do you have to apologise to anyone? Does it look like equipment, or like luggage?
Most vehicles pass one or two of these. Very few pass all four.
Where Linky lands
Linky 2.0 was designed backwards from that test, which is why some of its numbers look modest next to boards that never leave the pavement.
It weighs 6.5 kg (14.3 lbs). It folds with a patented hinge in a few seconds, down to roughly 15 inches — small enough for the Made in Italy backpack that comes in the box, and for a standard carry-on. Unfolded it is a full 85 cm / 33 in deck with 110 mm all-terrain wheels, so the folding does not cost you the ride: 34 km/h (21 mph) top speed, up to 22 km (13 miles) of range, twin 750 W belt-drive motors, IP65 against dust and water.
That combination is the whole point. A board that folds but rides like a toy fails on the ride. A board that rides beautifully but cannot be carried fails on the last ten metres. The engineering problem was never one or the other — it was refusing to trade.
What it costs
Honesty is more useful than marketing here, so: a folding board carries a hinge, and a hinge is weight, cost and a part that has to be engineered to a standard the rest of the board is held to. That is why Linky is not the lightest object you can stand on, and not the cheapest.
It is also why, at the end of the last ten metres, the board is on your back and your hands are free.
Try the test
Before you buy anything with a motor and a deck, run the four-part test on it. Time the fold with your phone. Try to carry it up a flight of stairs with a bag on the other shoulder. Put it next to your desk and look at it.
Then decide which number actually matters.
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