Mon 14 Nov 2005
One month on and I’ve worn out my first bearing. It’s starting to bind up a bit and some of the others are starting to get very noisy. I estimate that I’ve ridden about 300km (186 miles) this month. Mostly flat, smooth surface around the Wellington waterfront and the footpaths and roads near home.
I’m not sure how long a skateboard bearing should last. When I skated as a teenager I could get about a year out of a set of bearings. Are there any skaters out there that can recommend what I should look for in a reliable long-life bearing? Or is it more cost effective to just use cheap ones?
Interesting! Imho bearing life has more to do with how clean you keep them than anything else. I mean it’s not like you’re going to be flinging yourself down stairs on a longboard (and I’m an old geezer than never learnt any tricks anyway).
I rode a cheapo shortboard around San Jose for 18 months (beats walking, lovely concrete sidewalks) on one set of crappy non-servicable bearings. They lasted until the second winter and skating through a few puddles destroyed them – mainly because of the fine grit the water flushed into the ‘sealed’ bearings I suspect.
The replacement set of serviceable bearings is still going about 4 years later because I clean them regularly in meths and hit them with some lubricant – or at least I used to until I stopped skating about 18 months ago.
Actually skating in Auckland sucks. Far too many hills, shitty badly patched footpaths and a lot of that awful red volcanic scoria stuff. Fitting a set of fat rubbery long board wheels on my shortboard would make the ride nicer though…
Damn now I want to go for a skate
I suspect that it’s the dust and grit from where I ride that’s killed them. I have been through 1 or 2 puddles too. I didn’t know it was possible to get servicable bearings. Where did you get them?
Any decent skate shop should have them. They’ve got a little rubber shield over the front side that you can pop off with a penknife to reveal the bearings underneath.
The particular brand I have is ‘Swiss Bones’ bearings and those are the ones still languishing in my skateboard. I paid $40US for them in California although I see there’s cheaper deals online (hmmm your spam filter won’t let me post a URL).
The good thing about ‘Swiss Bones’ is they also come with metal spacer rings to go inside the wheel between the bearings which seems to keep everything in place a bit better and makes them roll very nicely. Don’t know if longboard wheels are deeper than shortboard wheels though so the spacers might not be useful for your wheels?
Thanks Stu. I just bought some ‘mini-logos’ which have a rubber seal on one side and metal on the other (NZ$30). The guy in the shop tried to sell me ‘Bones Reds’ for $50. When I asked him what he used he said mini-logos, so I went for them. I think I’ll try the reds next, depending on how the mini-logos go.
The wheels I have are actually narrower than normal. Standard spacers don’t fit. I’m trying to find some because, as you say, it holds it all together better.
Hey that’s a good price. Let us know how they go because I’ll eventually get back on my skateboard and that means I’ll eventually have to replace my current set of bearings…
Oh and that mini-logos link mentions ‘Speed Cream’ which is the bearing lubricant I’m pretty sure I have kicking around in the garage although I suspect a light machine oil would do just as well.
I found a regular cleaning and a light oiling (I’m cheap so I used cooking oil) kept my bearings going for years.
I didn’t touch the original bearings, so that probably explains their wear. I use something called ‘Finishline Century Lube’. I don’t know if they still make it, but there’s probably an equivalent. It’s what I used to use on my mountainbike chain between full degrease-regrease. It’s really good because it’s designed to stick to a moving chain, but not collect dust and mud.
i always skate abec7 speed demon bearings, i think they roll the best and they last for a very very long time. they are only 20 bucks and to be honest i have never spent more than that on bearings, so i can tell you that they are excellent for a 20 dallar set. someday i’d like to try some of the really expensive ones to see if they are any better than the speed demons but i can tell you that my experiences with speed demons have always been smooth rolling and long lasting.