Maintenance

This page covers maintenance. The main items that you need to check are wheels, bearings and spacers. Note that if you only skate indoors (on a polished wooden floor) then your skates will need very little attention.

Components

This picture shows the components that keep your wheels on your skates. From left to right they are the axle, spacer, bearing, inner spacer, bearing, spacer and screw. The end of the axle is threaded to take the screw. The spacers fit on to the axle, the bearings on the the spacers. There is one bearing each side of the wheel. The two outer spacers keep the wheel from rubbing against the frame. Note that the two outer spacers are identical; this picture shows them opposite ways up.

Tasks

Wheel Switching

If you skate outdoors then you will find that you need to switch your wheels regularly. By 'switch' I mean change their position on the skates. This image shows fours wheels side by side. The middle two ended their life as front wheels. You can clearly see that they no longer have a round profile. The outer wheels were the second (from the front) wheel. In all cases the right side of the wheels in this picture was to the inside of the skate.

Wheel rotation helps to prolong the life of your wheel by ensuring that they wear evenly. Assuming that your wheels are all of the same size then the rotation pattern can involve all of the wheels. Wheel one (front) on the right skate and wheel three on the left skate exchange places. Wheel two on the right swaps place with wheel four on the left. The same is done with the left skate. The wheels should just swap skates; don't turn them round. If the text on the wheels was to the outside of the skate, it will now be to the inside.

Bearings

I find that hairs get wound round the axles between the bearings and the spacers, as illustrated here. The large version of this image also shows other debris sticking to the spacer. This is quite easy to clean away by removing the wheels from the skates, pulling off the outer spacers and cleaning with a dry cloth.

From time to time you might also want to clean and lubricate the bearings. My skates were about a year old before I had the bearing covers off. Whilst there is some muck I can't say that I noticed my skates being any slower/noisier. I had been skating every week indoors and extensively outside, including the 38 kilometer trip around Berlin. So if you only ever skate indoors then you can probably skip this depth of cleaning.

In order to clean the bearings you need to remove the shields from the sides of the bearings. I learned, whilst taking these pictures, that this is an inside job. I was sat on the bench out in the garden to get better light, but one of the C rings pinged out into the undergrowth. The term "needle in a haystack" springs to mind :-/ Anyway, here's how (click on the images for larger versions):

1. The first image shows the bearing after I removed the wheel from the skate. You can see that there is a good deal of dust and debris stuck to the bearing. This needs to be cleaned off before you open the bearing - we are trying to get muck out, not put it back in.
2. The shields are held in place by a C ring. This is a sprung split ring that sits in a groove around the inside of the bearing. The second of these images shows where in insert a pin to remove the C ring. You need to poke the pin into the groove and ease one end out.
3. Image three shows the C ring partially out. You can see that the end of the C ring (indicated) is cut diagonally. The other end, that is still in the groove, is cut along the same diagonal. So you can imagine that one end of the ring is easy to poke out as you can get your pin behind it. Once the C ring is out this far it easily slides out. Use the pin to remove the shield.
4. The last of these images shows the bearing with the the shield removed. You can now see the bearing cage and ball bearings. The arrow indicates the build up of muck on the inside race. This can be removed with the pin you used to open up the bearing. You can now lubricate the bearings too. This is done with either oil or grease, available from skate suppliers and sometimes also supplied with new bearings. You can see that these bearings have grease around them, perhaps that's why they are still pretty clean?

Re-assembly is the reverse procedure. Place the shield back on and slip the C ring back into place, starting with one end and working around to the other. It will click back into the groove once aligned.

Note that these pictures show the bearings still in the wheel. This makes it easier to photograph and also I'm lazy when it comes to cleaning. Don't forget that bearings have two sides. To do a proper job you would remove the bearing from the wheel and have both sides off. Infact, to do a proper job, you'd probably strip the bearings down and soak them in methylated spirits.