I thought I should make my first official post about skate maintenance and basics, since it seems that quite a few girls are afraid to mess with their own equipment. You don’t have to take your skates to a shop or wait around for a skate rep to come to practice to fix most problems! Let’s start with the basics:
Here is the ever-so-popular Wicked Skate (image thanks to riedellroller.com) as a visual. The basic skate consists of the boot, plate, wheels, and toe stop. The plate is usually made of either aluminum or nylon, and the little squishy pieces between each pair of wheels (they are white and have some black writing on them in the pic) are the bushings, which have a nut beneath them that can be altered to adjust the tightness of your trucks. Inside of each wheel are two bearings, which sit between the actual wheel and the axle and allow the wheels to turn fast. If you have some major confusion as to what is going on beneath your boot, this page on skate maintenance with diagrams at www.rollergirl.ca is pretty helpful.
Here are some basic issues I have heard before at practice that you can almost always fix yourself with a little skate love. I’m not guaranteeing that my answer is the only right one, but if you have something similar to the problems listed below going on, it is definitely worth a shot to check out what I have suggested.
My wheels aren’t turning very fast! There is a weird grinding noise coming from them when I skate too!
Try loosening the axle nuts that are holding your wheels in place a nudge. The grinding noise could be your bearings yearning for more room to move, and that is a bad state for them to be in. Even though your wheels should be nice and secure, it’s good for them to be able to wiggle just a very little teeny-tiny bit on the axle, so make sure they aren’t suffocating. In the case of slow-turning wheels, you may also have very cheap bearings or bearings in dire need of a cleaning.
When I try to do toe stop starts or tomahawk stops (I think this is called something else in other leagues but it’s when you turn around, skate backwards and stop quickly on both toe stops) I feel like I am going to fall on my face. What gives??
This is usually a fresh meat or skater-that-hasn’t-used-toe-stops before issue, but just lower your toe stop. When I first started I had jam plugs on my skates, no bueno. While some skaters may never use their toe stops, those that do rely on them a lot for moves like these will find that they help you out much more when they are closer to the ground. Where to put them is really a matter of preference but don’t be afraid to adjust them.
I lowered my toe stops like you said and now they won’t stop falling out in the middle of practice and it is totally embarrassing - now what??
You can wrap a layer of plumber’s tape around the thread of each toe stop where it will be inside of your plate and that should keep it nice and snug, along with majorly tightening the nut that keeps it in place. I think Madam MaimYa taught me the tape trick and it works wonders.
There is a squeeky noise coming from my skates, what the eff?
Or,
I can’t move side-to-side like the agile superstar that I am/I feel like I’m wobbling all over the place!!
The squeeky noise and your agility may both be related to how tight your trucks are. If there is squeeking coming from your trucks, you may need to loosen the nut under your bushings a little bit and give them some room to breathe (just like the suffocating bearings in the first question). If you have reached them too late, your bushings may have cracked and you may need to replace them, but never fear because this is a cheap and easy fix. This seems to be a skate part that is neglected a lot - probably because it is kind of tucked away and forgettable - but it really isn’t a big deal to take care of. Plus, it is one of the cheapest things you can replace.
As far as the agility/wobbliness, I’m in no way going to pretend that tightening or loosening your trucks will suddenly make you a wonder skater if you don’t already have the balance. But it can help you noticeably to play around with your truck until it feels right.
Lastly on this topic, I frequently get a blister beneath my big toe on my right foot, and I found that loosening my trucks has helped this a lot. If you have the same problem, loosening your truck will take away some of the pressure and let the skate move more with your foot as you cross over and push down sideways instead of working against it.
I’m not a huge equipment expert, but some very basic knowledge of your skates can go a very long way. If you’re itching for more info, definitely check out sincityskates.com and for even more details go to the sincityskates.com blog. I linked to some of their pictures in this post and they are always super helpful with any skate-related questions you can dream up. Or if you have a better suggestion than what I have/a question of your own, please reply below.
