Preventative Maintenance
The key to keeping your skates rolling and performing like the day you bought them is preventative maintenance. Preventative maintenance is nothing more than a few simple decisions on your part.
First, make sure you choose the right surfaces to skate on for the type of skate you own. Avoid skating through water, sand, mud, or any other type of material that can cause severe damage to your skates. The fewer opportunities your skates have to get dirty and collect debris, the longer they will continue to perform like the day you took them out of the box.
Second, if you want to avoid Stinky Skate Syndrome, make sure you select the appropriate sock to wear while skating. This should be a thin athletic sock. If you wear thicker socks, the more moisture builds up and the more your skates will stink. Once Stinky Skate Syndrome sets in, there is not a lot you can do about it.
Restorative Maintenance
If you have slacked on the preventative maintenance but you want to get an old pair of under-performing skates back in top shape, you will need to conduct some restorative maintenance.
Restorative maintenance will require that you focus on 3 areas of your skates: Wheels, Bearings, and Brakes.
Wheels: Rotating inline skate wheels is an essential part of keeping skates performing well. Analyze the wheels of the skates you are looking to restore. If they are in good enough shape to keep, analyze them for a rotation.
Bearings: Likely the key area to look when skates are under-performing. Bearings that are properly cleaned and lubricated will perform best. It is highly recommended that you remove the wheels from the frame and inspect the bearings for debris. Conduct a cleaning and lubrication before inserting them back into the wheel hub. Keep in mind that when servicing your bearings, there are two types of bearings you are likely to encounter. For a more thorough discussion on how to service and maintain your bearings, please review our article on skate bearing maintenance.
Brakes: Checking your brake is a very important part of the inline skate restoration process as well. If you spend the time to make the skates go faster, you may just want to spend a bit of time making sure you can stop as well. Many brakes will have a recommended ‘wear-line’ that will help you determine how low you should allow your brake to wear down. We recommend that you do not wait until your brake gets to this line, but rather keep an eye on it and change it when you feel it becoming ineffective.
Tags: Articles, Inline Skates, Skate Maintenance
I have a pair of rollerblades from 15 years ago and one of the straps that cinch up with grooves and
are made out of plastic has broken…..are there replacement parts such as this? Also I have another
pair that are in perfect shape (old too) that the plastic around the bottom and sides of the boot have
deteriorated….any replacement for this part? Thank you for your attention to this inquiry……
N. Slattery
Nora,
Given the age of your skates and the current design of most inline skates, you are going to be hard-pressed to find a replacement part for either of skates you’ve mentioned. Nearly all inline skates on today’s market utilize a combination closure of a lace, Velcro and ratchet buckle. The buckle typically isn’t made of plastic like the skates you’ve described in the first part of your question. Additionally the boots are not made of plastic like they were many years ago.
For both sets of skates you’ve described, you may be able to track down a pair of old skates that have been used that someone is attempting to sell and try to salvage it for the parts you need, but otherwise you probably won’t be able to find just those single pieces for purchase. This is because of the design characteristics of today’s skates.
I hope this answers your question.
Thanks!
I have a pair of K2 Velocity skates that I love. I “googled” them recently and found that they were referred to as “roller durby” style. I’m not sure what this means, except that I recently purchased a new pair of skates, not knowing the various types that are out there, and realized that my Velocity skates are much easier to maneuver than the new skats and have two different sized wheels (and seem to soom along just as quickly). I really dislike the feel of this new pair, and am worried about my old skates wearing out on me. Are there new models of skates out there that would be similar to the K2 Velocity?
Let me add that I purchased the K2 Velocity skates somewhere between 1999 to 2000 (I think).
Jennifer,
Your K2 Velocity was made back in 2000. What was unique about them was they had a Hi-Lo frame. That means that the front 2 wheel were smaller (72mm) and the back 2 were bigger (76mm). The theory was that is brought you lower to the ground since like a shoe the front of your foot is lower that the heel of you foot. As far as the “Roller Derby” style, I have been the inline skate buyer for 20 years and I haven’t heard that term used for Inline Skates only for Roller Skates so I do not know what it is referring to. Another reason why you feel that your velocity skates are easier to maneuver is that they have much smaller wheels that today’s skates which typically have 80mm to 100mm wheels. Nowaday Hi-Lo frames are mostly found on roller hockey skates because they need to be very maneuverable and also Race skates that have very large wheels (100mm – 110mm). The reason that skates now use much larger wheels is that they will go much faster because one rotation of a larger wheel will go farther that a smaller wheel.
If you don’t want to give up the maneuverability for some extra speed then my recommendation is to look at skates that are in the Urban Skate category. This is a newer kind of inline skate that is very popular in Europe and is just starting to catch on here in the US. They have smaller wheels than the Fitness Skate but you can still get a higher quality of boot and bearing. A few models to consider would be the K2 Dirty Rat (Mens) or the K2 Vincenza (Womens) at $159.95. One other option would be the K2 Moto 100 at $249.95. This is the only Fitness Skate that currently has a high low frame but the wheels are 90mm and 100mm so you still have the issue with big wheels.
I hope this helps.
- Steve
I just purchased a barely used pair of skates online and I have been skating for about 10 years. These skates are k2 radical 100s from 2008. I cannot figure out how to release the ratchet buckle that goes across the foot and covers the laces and zipper. I have used other skates with ratchet buckles and had no problems What is the secret to these little devils?
Steve,
I’ve had people have this issue before and it can be difficult to undo. You take the latch at both points and either push in towards the center or down at the same time, without the skates in front of me I cannot remember exactly which it is. After you get it once you will never have an issue again, it’s just the first time and getting the motion down.
Thanks,
Chris Gorski
Since I read your article I have learned the importance of rotating my wheels sooner. MUCH better performance!!! Thank you!