A Guide to Choosing Skateboard Bearings
Many people have walked out of our surf and skate shop in Jupiter FL with a brand new board, or at least some parts they need for their board customization.
Choosing the right skateboard bearings will be one of the most important things you do when putting together a skateboard. If you bought your first skateboard already assembled, you may have been curious to start swapping out parts such as the trucks, wheels, and the bearings. All of these parts serve an important function in the look and feel of your board. Let’s take a look at what you should consider when buying new bearings for your board if you are new to all of this!
Is it Worth Getting New Skateboard Bearings?
After choosing a skateboard they like, most beginners tend to ride it until they gain some proficiency or quit—but hopefully you stuck it through!
While fairly cheap boards do a great job of making skateboarding accessible to anyone, they also have their drawbacks at times. One of those times is that it’s possible that cheaper boards may not have the best bearings. Bearings are often one of the first upgrades people make to a relatively accessible and inexpensive board they chose to get into skating with.
Skateboard Bearing ABEC Rating System
Skateboard bearings use the ABEC rating system which will state how accurate those bearings are in movement. ABEC stands for Annual Bearing Engineer’s Committee, who’s purpose was to make set tolerance guidelines for each rating. This is incredibly important for fast spinning machines that will operate all day for several years, for a person skateboarding 10-20 miles per hour, not so much.
A higher rating doesn’t necessarily make bearings better for skating, however, it is true that more expensive bearings are often higher in material quality—which is more important than the ABEC rating itself.
A skateboard bearing is not just one item, but actually several items.
- Rubber seal
- Ball Retainer
- Steel Ball
- Outer Ring
- Inner Ring
- C-Ring
- Bearing Shield
You’ll find all of these inside even your humble ABEC-1 bearings. Whether or not ABEC rating matters for skating and getting top-speed is a heated debate, but what is clear that your money does in fact get you better bearings.
Choosing Steel Bearings vs Ceramic Bearings for Skateboards
Most bearings fall into the steel or ceramic category. Most bearings have steel balls inside of them, and the quality of the steel used for the balls will determine their overall quality. Because of this, steel bearings can be both entry level or premium depending on the quality of steel.
Ceramic bearings have, as you might imagine, ceramic balls inside of them. They benefit from being lighter and stronger than their steel counterparts. They roll faster than steel and tend to stay cleaner than steel due to that fact. Ceramic bearings are generally considered to be premium for these reasons and are a favorite when speed is an important factor, such as downhill skating.
Surf and Skate Shop in Jupiter FL
We hope this article has helped you budding skaters in knowing what some of the factors are for choosing quality bearings for your board.
If you have any questions about our surf or skate gear, contact us today and we’d be happy to answer any questions you have.