Well shiiiiiiitttt… About 1 mile into a peaceful evening street ride I heard a sound I hadn’t heard before. To my dismay, my back left wheel was missing! I can’t believe I didn’t eat it or crash… nope, just noticed it was gone. Found it about 50 yards back… Thought at first it might be a delamination issue I’ve read about with these wheels or maybe the lock nut came loose… But nope. Seems like the bearings just disintegrated in some way… It’s night time so I didn’t try to search the area for the missing pieces but it just seems like it blew apart. I wasn’t pushing it, flat sidewalk riding at 10 mph… Anyone had bearing issues like this or something similar? These weren’t cheap, every bit of $90 and ceramic… I’m at a loss for what happened…
Ceramic bearings are notorious for this in the downhill community, even with the performance they add I don’t suggest putting these on a board that you plan on riding at high speed. If they take too much force the ceramic can crack or chip or even blow apart, they usually stay together and stall you when they go. Riding at high speeds with big wheels (especially narrow ones like these) and ceramic bearings is a recipe for a very painful disaster. They were intended for cruising not ripping, and not designed for sideways stress. Get a good set of steel bearings and take care of them, and replace them often to avoid heat buildup (I’ve melted cores with old bearings downhilling)
Most people at this point I think have converted to your standard sub 30 dollar bearings sets. My brother uses redz bearings, and they are really good. I think as long as you get sealed bearings that are prelubricated unless you want to lube then up yourself, that is all you really need… the 100 dollar ceramic bearing sets are a waste of your money unless you have excess to spend on a product that gives you minimal preformance increases.
Ceramics are only good for speed. You will destroy them on an Esk8. I have been a consistent street skater all my life. I prefer stairs and gaps, as well as going fast as balls! I have to give up some of my speed for the strength in steel ball bearings though. I have tried a couple ceramics and shelled out the cost, I was highly disappointed each time.With gaps and stairs I break king pins as well…so just imagine how the bearings feel. Ceramics shatter into oblivion. Lol
Once while I was cruising at around 20-30Km / h I noticed with the corner of my eye a small black object that passed me on the left. It was the left rear wheel whose ceramic bearing had suddenly exploded without any warnings.
The wheel impacted violently against a wall and as I landed awkwardly with my butt I tried to imagine if a child’s head had been in place of the wall.
After some reading on here I had a second accident but with steel bearings: the bearing began to make an increasingly strange noise and gave me 8 minutes to manage it: I reduced the speed, I went in a straight line as much as possible and I could recognize a few seconds before the moment when it would have given up: it happened near my house at about 3km/h.
No spacers. These bearings have a longer inner diameter shell which I assumed acts like a built in spacer, but there was still a small gap between them when inserted.
Thanks for the replies. I really wasn’t pushing the board too hard so it’s disappointing that bearings made for skating would fail like this over such a short time period. But I guess compared to a regular skateboard the Esk8 is faster and much longer sustained stresses… these are 10 mm inner diameter so I guess I’ll try and find some steel bearings with the larger diameter. Not very common.
Almost never. Steel balls don’t break. The gradually wear, along with the race. You can almost always detect when they are going bad by sound and feel, spinning them freely in your hand. (not while riding)
Ceramics are so hard, thus brittle they crack and break easily. Not only are ceramic bearings a waste of $, I think they are dangerous
I’ve used Tektons for years on an LDP setup, steel ball version though. They’re great bearings and the standard version is reasonably priced. The inner flanges on the half spacer are designed to butt up to each other thereby locking together. If there was space between the flanges then they weren’t able to work as intended and would introduce higher axial load. Tektons should run freely when the axle nut is tightened all the way down.
This is a probe I use to find coordinates on a cnc mill. Notice the small white shaft towards the bottom. It is ceramic so that if you crash it into your workpiece it breaks preventing further damage to the probe. (I’ve personally tested this a few times )
That spacer does nothing, whether it’s built in to the bearing or a separate piece, if it isn’t in contact with both bearings when you tighten the wheel down.
I was wondering about that. I’m using the 110mm urethane wheels from Torque Boards which they don’t make any more. I may be able to find a spacer that will fit in-between. But I’m going to change out all of the bearings to steel so don’t know if I’ll go with Seismic again or not.
If you have a set of calipers, you can get an exact measurement. There is probably 10mm between bearings in the wheel though, but don’t quote me on that.
There are many good bearing brands to choose from, NTN and SKF to name a couple. These are a bit more pricey than most want, but high quality long lasting nonetheless.
I’ve been thinking about putting together a sort of bearing guide to contribute something to the forums. I haven’t searched to see if it’s something that already exists though…
The Tekton built-Ins are great bearings. If you get the chance to pick them up cheap, the standard light blue version is excellent, usually around €30-35.
I have red six-balls too.
I can’t believe I didn’t eat it or crash… nope, just noticed it was gone. Found it about 50 yards back… Thought at first it might be a delamination issue I’ve read about with these wheels or maybe the lock nut came loose… But nope. Seems like the bearings just disintegrated in some way… It’s night time so I didn’t try to search the area for the missing pieces but it just seems like it blew apart. I wasn’t pushing it, flat sidewalk riding at 10 mph… Anyone had bearing issues like this or something similar? These weren’t cheap, every bit of $90 and ceramic… I’m at a loss for what happened… 
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