If you are renting skates, you really don’t have to worry about skate maintenance. But if you own skates, you’ll want to keep them in tip-top rolling condition, and here are a few simple maintenance tips that anyone can use.
Stoppers: No matter how much you skate, you have to stop at some point, so always make sure your stoppers are right and tight. After every few times on your skates, grab your stoppers and wiggle them around. If they don’t move, you are good to go. But if they slightly move from side to side, you’ll need to tighten them down. Better to tighten them now then to have them fall off later.- Wheel Nuts: Keep an eye on your wheel nuts and tighten them accordingly. If they get too loose, not only will you wear the wheel bearings out faster, but they may come off when skating! Not a good thing.
- Trucks: Lanham Skate rental skates always have their trucks adjusted to medium tight. That gives a good combination of speed and turning. As a general rule, the tighter your trucks, the faster you’ll go, but the looser they are, the easier it will be to turn. Keep that in mind if you are skating on an indoor rink or outside when you are doing long straight runs.
- Grease Your Bearings: If you are really into it, when your bearings begin to get noisy, takes off the wheel nuts, remove the bearings, then clean and grease them. By doing this, you can greatly extend your bearing life.
When the maintenance is complete, come on over to Lanham Skate Center. Open 7 days per week, check out our weekly skate specials, and we even give skating lessons too!
