Optimizing Skateboard for Fastest Travel

[AkInfinity]

I am trying to get new wheels for my skateboard and I am trying to make it so that I can travel around the university at the fastest rate and one of my goals it to make it so that from an initial push F it can travel the furthest. So I am trying to reduce the Friction force.
I am no expert in rolling friction but think that for our purpose the factors that are involved that I can change are the width of the tire, the hardness of it, and it's radius.

Something I'm pretty sure of is that the tires should be as wide as possible so that I don't fall on just a small rock getting in the way, and that the wheel should be hardest so that there is less hysteresis.

As far as the radius length I am unsure since having a bigger wheel would give it larger moment of inertia to resist the friction force, although the friction force would have a greater torque on the wheel.

I am wondering if you guys could tell me in physics terms how to optimize my skateboard for travel.

 

[rcgldr]

Tires should be as wide as possible so that I don't fall on just a small rock getting in the way.

That's mostly an issue of tire diameter. The larger the diameter of the tire, the less the slowing resistance of hitting a small rock (assuming same size rock). The small diameter wheels are popular for certain types of board scraping or flipping tricks, but not as efficient as the larger diameter wheels.

A bit off topic, but what seems to be a lost art these days is using tic tacs to propel the skateboard without touching the ground (no ground touching was part of the rules for old school free style contests). You might want to learn how to do this, because small rocks are less of an issue than when trying to push with your foot on the ground (since both feet are always on the skateboard and your center of gravity is behind your front foot, so you won't face plant).



There are also a few "traiing" videos on youtube that don't explain why it works or what's involved. Using that video I posted, you can see how the guy starts off. The skateboard is perpendicular to the desire direction, allowing the rider to lean forwards, then he uses the kick turn to then quckly orient the skateboard into the direction of travel. Then the rider is generating side forces as well as twisting to generate side speed, and using tic tacs to keep reorienting the skate board into the direction of travel.

At slower speeds, it's also possible to do the same thing with the front wheels in the air, never touching the ground, (a continuous wheelie), but I couldn't find any videos. At faster speeds, you don't need to lift the front wheels off the ground, just leaning and twisting with your body with the skate board weaving a bit behind phase, with a slower cycle rate than the tic tacs for the same speed. Theres a type of skate board that is really two connected pieces that operates on the same principle.