Wheel Cleaning

Oh, look, consecutive day posts...

I just wanted to talk a bit about cleaning your wheels.

Wheel rotation is one of the more important maintenance aspects of inline skating, but it's something most people only do when the asymmetrical wear is visibly obvious (which is already going too far).

I'm not saying you should rotate your wheels every day, or even every skate (if you don't skate every day), but it's important to periodically take your wheels out and wipe them off. Especially for street skaters. There's a lot of dust and grime out on the roads, in the open air where there is no air conditioning (or heating system) to filter out all the contaminants that you roll over.

These contaminants inevitably get inside your wheels, and thusly your bearings, degrading the tolerance of their innards and slowing you down.

Frequently removing your wheels means you have more ample opportunities to give your bearings a quick outer wipedown without having to go to the trouble of prying out your bearings. The grime that you wipe away is grime that isn't penetrating your metal.

Since starting slalom skating, I've had to frequently swap my bearings between different sets of wheels, and I've noticed that all 8 of my wheels still spin very freely even though I have been riding the same set of bearings for four months without washing them. They're all very quiet and smooth, with minimal hissing as I roll around.

I'm attributing this to the frequency with which I simply take a dry rag and scrub the areas around the wheel hub and skate frame.

And now it's time to roll. I'm running late as it is!