Illustration of a bearing
The wheels in your skates (should) turn smoothly because of the bearings: those small metal containers in the middle of the wheel hub. They're a pretty simple, but important, piece of your kit: think of a bearing as two metal rings, one slightly smaller than the other, and between those rings are a set of tiny balls (ball bearings). The larger, outer ring (green in the image) can roll around the smaller one (red in the image) because of those balls (blue in the image), which is what your wheels are doing.
Those small balls are either greased or oiled to help the rings rotate smoothly, and the container reduces the amount of particulates (dirt, if you're like me and prefer simple terms!) that can get between the balls and the rings. The container isn't perfect, allowing small bits and, in particular, water to affect the rotation.
Now, bearing cleaning can help maintain a set of bearings, keeping them spinning smoother for longer, but it's not necessarily something you want to do. There are circumstances where it might not be possible (some bearings are sealed and cannot be opened), not necessary (ceramic bearings don't need anything more than a run under a tap), or you just might view it as a waste of time (you might consider bearings as expendable and buy new ones rather than cleaning).
I choose to clean my (metallic) bearings as, in some ways, I find it therapeutic. I don't spend more than about 40 minutes doing it, and I typically have a couple of months between cleans (depending on what I've done and the weather). This is how I do it:
- Take out all of the bearings from your wheels
- Take off the covers, using a pin, to expose the balls inside
- If they're really dirty inside, or freshly greased, give them a light clean with a toothbrush and warm soapy water
- Stick the bearings inside an ultrasonic jewelry cleaner with a detergent and just cover with warm water
- Run the cleaner a couple of times before emptying the water
- Repeat the last two steps until the water remains clean
- Spin the bearings individually whilst running them under cold water
- Dab dry them with a tea towel or kitchen towel
- Stick them in the oven, on a baking tray, at 150 degrees for about 20 minutes
- Take them out and allow to cool (they'll be hot so be really careful not to burn yourself)
- Put a single drop of speed cream into each bearing and spin them
- Put the covers back on, stick the bearings back into the wheels, and then spin the wheels
The time saving steps are the ultrasonic jewelry cleaner (£20 from Maplin when I bought one) and the oven. The ultrasonic cleaner does a damn good job: I've had bearings that are absolutely seized so they won't turn, but after about 5 or 6 goes through the cleaner they're spinning well. I use the oven to dry the bearings as humidity can cause rusting, which is obviously not good; you could stick them in the airing cupboard, if you have one, to dry out overnight but I tend to be impatient!
Your skates may feel a little slow after the clean but skate on them for a few miles and they'll settle in again. You may also find that some dirt and grime will build up on the outside of the bearing cases (just wipe it off with some kitchen towel); if it is excessive then you have put too much speed cream into the bearing, and that will adversely affect the performance of the bearings.
On the left is the BSB Swiss Lite bearing, on the right the Twincam ILQ-9.
My skates have either Twincam ILQ-9 Classic or BSB Swiss Lite bearings, both of which can be cleaned. I prefer the BSB Swiss bearings because you only have to remove a plastic cover, which is easy; the ILQ-9 bearings have covers held in place by a C-ring, which is more awkward to remove, but I tend to leave one side off permanently (and ensure that it is always facing the interior of the wheel) just because it's one less step to clean them.
You'll notice that the balls in the BSB Swiss bearings appear to be "free floating", whereas the Twincam ILQ-9 has the balls held in place by a metal ring. Not shown in this photo is the plastic cover that not only holds the balls of the BSB Swiss bearings in place, but also acts as a cover for this side of the bearing.
How do I decide to clean my bearings? It's driven by the feel of my skates: if I'm putting noticeably more effort into my skating, cleaning the bearings usually helps; if my skates are covered in caked on dirt, as happens when the ground has been wet or I've skated in the rain a lot, I'll clean them more often; finally, extremely "crunchy" bearings (both from feel as well as sound) will get a clean. Put it this way: I cleaned my bearings a couple of weeks before the Santa Skate and I've only just done it again, even though I've been out in all weathers this winter (about 6 weeks).
Sometimes you might find that your wheels won't spin but, if you put your skates on and kick your wheels (like kicking a football) they'll come unstuck. You then just have to skate on them for a while and they should spin OK, if a little crunchy. I'd probably end up cleaning these bearings pretty soon after doing this, just because skating on them will cause them some level of damage.
You can use grease or speed cream to lubricate the bearings. Grease has the advantage that it tends to repel water for longer but I've found it tends to "gunk up" a little more. Speed cream, for me, makes the bearings spin more freely but water becomes more of an issue. Whatever you do, WD-40 is not the way to lubricate your bearings.
As I've said, whether you choose to do this cleaning is up to you. I find it beneficial, it saves me some money, but I'd prefer fully ceramic bearings that I never needed to do anything more than run under the tap!
That's it for this How To. Next time I'll look at wheel setups: flat, rockered, anti-rockered.
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