Cleaning Wheels And Bearings

Disclaimer: This is how I clean MY wheels and bearings. This is not the only way, it's just what I do. If you do something different, you are not wrong.


With that out of the way, I'd like to talk about something really important for all skaters. When you maintain your equipment properly, it lasts a lot longer and improves your skating performance.

My magical elixir is simply Isopropyl Alcohol. Some girls prefer to use vinegar on their wheels because alcohol will break down the polyurethane. I personally believe that I will have worn out the wheels long enough any breakdown occurs.

I clean my wheels pretty regularly. I usually do not even remove them from my skates. I take a rag, soak a corner in alcohol, and rub until the dirt is gone. With light-colored wheels, it's easy to tell. I used to have black wheels and it was way harder to see the dirt globs.

Some people swear by cleaning wheels with soap and water. I just had the opportunity to do that. I had the water left over from washing my pads. I dunked the wheels, agitated, and then rinsed. Since the bearings were already out for cleaning, this was really helpful. It got the dust out of the hubs that I usually spend 20 minutes with a q-tip scrubbing. But this isn't something I'll do that often since it does require removing the bearings. And it didn't do much for the dirt on the skating surface of the wheels.

Now my bearings I do not clean as often. These bearings were purchased in December, so they're not super dirty, but I thought I'd give 'em a cleaning before the next bout. I skate on Mini Logos bearings. They have one plastic shield and the other side is sealed metal.

So the first step is removing the bearings from the wheel hubs. You can do this with a bearing tool or carefully using the axle of the skate. Once that's done, it's time to remove the plastic shield. I had a safety pin laying around, so I used that. All it takes is a gentle pry.

So now you've got 16 bearings and 16 shields. Some skaters throw away the shields, but that makes cleanings necessary more often and I'm too lazy for that, so I soak them in hot water, dry them, and put them back on the bearings. To clean the actual bearings, I put them in a tupperware container. I pour in some alcohol and agitate. I put the lid on the container and shake it, stir it, and otherwise encourage the dirt out. After a bit, I drain the alcohol, spin the excess liquid out of the bearings and leave them on a towel to dry. I put the shields onto a paper towel.

It's necessary to lubricate your bearings after cleaning. Just because they roll fine un-lubricated does not mean you should leave them that way. I use Tri-Flow brand lubricant. It was on sale for $3.97 at Dick's. Most any sort of lubricant will do, a lot of people recommend sewing machine oil. A couple drops will do. Then spin a few times to spread it. Replace the shields and you're good to go.

I promise to update this post with pictures when I next clean my bearings.

Firstly

Congrats to Bets On Bruises for passing assessments earlier this eve!

Secondly, I made roster and am out of my mind with excitement. But also one of my teammates will be moving soon. She will have the chance to skate with the Carolina Rollergirls, so that's excellent for her.

Practice was interesting. It always is when CalQ leads. The first thing she had us do was skate an enormous figure 8 on the track. That was awesome, because it forced us to transition from derby direction to non-derby direction in quick succession.

Also, let me mention that I was skating on different wheels. I finally decided to try out some harder wheels. I am comfortable with my Poisons, but apparently I started out on roughly a 95a durometer. So tonight, I skated on Rollerbones Snake wheels. They are a 96a. It was really interesting. They are the same width as Poisons, so it was less of a harrowing transition than the Speed Rays AND they are also plastic hubs. It was a bit like driving without shocks. I definitely felt more of the floor beneath my feet.

Back to the drills. I thought CalQ gave us a varied and interesting practice. There was skating in packs, which was unfamiliar to some of the newer skaters. They rose to the challenge well. There was a bit of endurance for the grannies. There were some skills and plenty of opportunity to work on awareness.

On a slightly less related note, I will have Antiks before the year is up. I found a customizer thing where you can see all the different colors. I desire them much!

And good luck to Tasty Murder on her redos!

Blech

Today was long. My manager kindly scheduled me at 1, so I was able to go to practice. I woke up and did not want to. But I knew that my derby wife would tell me to (even though she was asleep at that time, because it was like 5:30 where she was). So I got up and put on my leggings on.

Well then, I never got back to this blog post yesterday. Allow me to recall.

We did endurance practice, but it wasn't endurance like, "Ugh." It was endurance like, "This is endurance? Ok." K. Rye did it in a fun, self-guided way. The first drill we did was a sprint/core drill. We had whistles at every minute mark and we sprinted until the minute mark and then did either 10 push-ups or 20 sit-ups. This particular drill had my feet screaming. My arches were cramping so bad, I was nearly in tears. But I kept skating. After the drill, I was able to grab my insoles from my bag and that made all the difference. Some days, I need the insoles, some days I can't do it. Such is derby.

After that, we did the school bus/carpool drill. Thank you Rye for doing it in a fair way. She has the first person to get on the bus be the first person off. This means that the first person doesn't have to do all the laps. One of my dear teammates has been having a lot of leg pain, and has been getting treatments to help. They didn't seem to be helping her, so I tried to encourage her through the drill. It made me feel better about my own pain.

Then Rye had us stop, turn around, and do it non-derby direction. It took me a long time to adjust to crossovers with the 187 knee pads reverse-derby direction. In fact, that was the only thing that took any adjustment with them. I didn't know if I'd ever get the ability back. But I did, yay! Also I learned that I lace my left boot a little looser, which is fine for derby direction, but when that leg starts being the one picked up to cross over, it was a little wiggly.

Afterward Rye had us do 25 laps any way we wanted. The idea was clearly to sprint, but she opened up to us doing is backwards or reverse derby direction or whatever. Afterward, we were to do core and then go back out and do more laps. I did 25 staying as low as I could, like a jammer, but still keeping eyes forward so I could "map the pack." I collapsed for a second. Then after doing my core, I skated 25 laps backwards. After that, my poor newbie was leaving practice after a bad fall on her tush, so I went and hugged her. Hope your butt heals, Sonja!

I am glad I went to practice yesterday, but I hope that the next two nights of practice (scrimmage tonight) will not kill me. I think I will go foam roll and drink coffee.

TODAY!

I met Bonnie D. Stroir! Omigod!

More to come later. When I process it all.

Ok, so after several hours of obsessing over derby including:
1. Assessing my next gear purchase.
2. Getting excited about any wheel Atom has ever produced.
3. Shopping for skates I don't need.
4. Reading the blog of one of my new idols, Elektra-Q-Tion
and 5. Being upset that none of the blogs I follow have updated lately.

So, I've decided to stop being a jackass and post for all of you.

I will try to condense the amazingness that Bonnie shared with us. She has a lot of great metaphors, firstly. I love her sharks and seals theory. Basically the inside and outside lines are deep water where sharks (blockers) thrive. Seals (jammers) do best in shallow water, or the middle lane of the track.

She gave us a lot of good advice about energy too. There are a lot of personalities in derby and instead of trying to fit into the mold of what traditional strategy says we need to do, we should complement each other. If you're the anchor in a wall, it's your job to be the calm one.

She gave us lots of little strategies and then let us go on the track and play with them. In short bursts, we got to try them out. I felt like I had a lot of success implementing her ideas. I can't wait to put them into practice at scrimmage or in scrills.

Bonnie has a lot of ideas that are in direct contradiction with what we've all been taught. She maintains that being low has its time, but derby position is not always appropriate. She gave us a lot of help with juking which is totally awesome, because it's something I desire strongly to work on.

She also spent some time talking about the derby mental game. She talked us through the game From the Bench, On the Track, and From the Box. She had some great tips for calming down if it starts to get overwhelming. Her tips are to regulate your breathing and give yourself simple mental command.


After all this, I came home and read derby blogs and am now looking at gear. I found some used Antik MG-2s in my size. I am seriously considering Revenge plates. I would like to try the Atom Snap wheels.

Anyway, this is all a whole lot of derby and I've got practice in the morning, so I'm going to bed.

Good night, hope dreams of skates come to you!