Keep your scooter flying
We hope that you have been out there riding your favorite parks, verts, and streets all season doing cool tricks and practicing to improve your skills. Now it's time to give your scooter a good old fashioned check-up.
“After a long season of grinding, jumping and flipping, it’s time to take your scooter apart and clean it. It's also time to check out if you need to replace any parts. It’s important to keep your scooter in shape if you want to keep progressing as a rider”, says Lars Bansmann, product manager at SkatePro.
Check out our guide to make your scooter shine and to perform its best. You might even save some money.
1. WHEELS
The wheels of a scooter live a harsh life - the wear and tear of the constant contact with the asphalt, wood or concrete and the impacts from the countless jumps, flips and grinds. That's why the wheels are one of the parts you’ll need to change after a long season.
A fresh and decent pair of wheels are crucial for your performance as a scooter rider. Cracks in the rubber or a worn down wheel profile means that you are far too deep into the rubber of the wheel. It will not only make it harder to accelerate and to maintain the speed but also reduce the stability of the scooter when you are doing tricks.
Last but not least a worn down profile makes it harder to keep your balance when you land after doing jumps or doing air tricks. We always have a huge selection of wheels from all the strongest brands. Check them out here.
2. BEARINGS
Riding on all sorts of surfaces will expose your bearings to different kinds of materials from sand over gravel to water and dust. The bearings will also be worn down from the impacts on the wheels when slamming or having a harsh landing when you’re jumping from high places.
A damaged bearing will affect your ability to get up to speed and maintain it. There are two ways to go when it comes to bearings. If you have bought a pair of bearings lately or bought high-end bearings, you can probably just use a bearing cleaner and then lubricate them with the proper lubrication.
If your bearings have lasted all season or are not high-end bearings, you should probably look for a pair of replacement bearings. Keep in mind that the higher the ABEC rating the bearings have, the easier it gets to accelerate and maintain speed. But be aware that bearings with lower ABEC bearings don’t get worn out as easy as the ones with a high ABEC rating. New bearings? We got what you'll need.
3. HEADSET
This is where the primary actions goes on when you are doing flips, barspins, and tailwhips. Furthermore, the headset is the connection between the bar and the rest of the scooter, which means that the pressure you put on your bar is transformed through the headset and into the deck, which means you need a solid headset.
Leaving the scooter in damped places will increase the risk of the bearings inside the headset will start to rust due to moisture. Small holes, cracks and leakages also increase the risk of dust and dirt getting into the bearings and affect the headsets ability to turn.
A worn out headset will influence your ability to do a lot of tricks and to handle in general.
Check out our selection of headsets here.