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.

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.

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?

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