A skateshop without spacers!

[dangerdave]

Oy my local skateshop stocks everything under the sun.... Except bearing spacers....

WTF... The sales guy simly says.... I dont use em....

ARGGGGGG>>>>

Went all out and I am having some machined just to calm my nerves. Should be sweet and very precise.

DvE.

[R]

Yeah, shortboarders don't care for them.

[Hintermute]

True, i think. The board shop here in seoul had some though, in fact both board shops did. The big one has two dogtown decks on display though, one looks to be.. well, i dunno, it's short and fat and seems a pool board, the other is one of the dogtown longboards. Although neither stock speedrings. I had the guy in one shop rooting through the junk in the bottom of his toolbox for 15 minutes before he could hand me 8 speedrings.

[bpz]

How many sets are you getting machined? Gonna have any extras ?

[Roodog]

Same here, the guy at the shop that only sells shortboards and a few sector nines said "What do you mean, bearing spacers?"
When I explained, hes said "Well, some high end bearing come with them, but we dont have those."
I guess he meant Builtins.

[dcphotos]

I have been longboarding for less than a year and skating for over 20. I have always used spacers and speedrings in my boards and I care more about it on my skatepark board. I have had the same problem with skateshops. "You don't need spacers dude". It's simple physics, look at how the bearings are built and it should be plain as day that they are meant to have spacers in there. I am a bit unsure about wheter speedrings actually help but I still use them.

[Roodog]

I think speedrings are only an issue if you have some uneven surfaces on the hander or nut.

[nervous ned]

same story; tried to buy spacers this week for some Reds on my bad weather board; the guy behind the desk said nobody's bought spacers since he's worked there, so they stopped carrying them. then he said, "spacers don't really do anything." this store sells a fair amount of longboard stuff (loaded, flexdex, s9, fibreflex), so that kinda surprised me.

are spacers completely necessary? especially since most the wheels i've been using lately have cores...

biltins have spacers 'built-in'; biltins rule.
swiss 6 come with spacers in the pack, and they rule too.

[Sensei]

There only necessary if you: like to go fast, don't like to push every 10 feet, and use your wheels to there upmost performance. Other then that, no, there not necessary

Ned, what shop was this, wouldn't be boards and blades or whatever that chain is in the city is called, would it?

And shoot me a pm and let me know what your doing tomorrow or sunday and if you need any help getting to the park and whatnot.

[Mile_High_Mark]

Hmm...

[*SWEET*]

lol
I always loose them... So I don't use them anymore too...
And it works perfectly fine

[nervous ned]

that's an awesome screenshot mark -- spacers #1. someday maybe you could post the top 500 best-selling items; that'd be an interesting list.

[Mile_High_Mark]

that's an awesome screenshot mark -- spacers #1. someday maybe you could post the top 500 best-selling items; that'd be an interesting list.

Here's some data that you might find interesting:

#1 selling bearings -- RocknRon's Rockets (steel)
#2 selling bearings -- Bones Reds
#3 selling bearings -- Biltin ABEC-7's

#1 selling bushings -- Bones HardCore soft/blue
#2 selling bushings -- Tracker Hourglass
#3 selling bushings -- Tracker Stimulator green/med

#1 selling trucks -- Randal R-II 180's
#2 selling trucks -- Seismic 180 quick/45-deg
#3 selling trucks -- Seismic 180 stable/30-deg

#1 selling wheels -- ABEC11 Flashbacks 78a
#2 selling wheels -- Sh!tfire OG wheels
#3 selling wheels -- Sh!tfire Blackfartz wheels

[drew]

I didn't even know what spacers were until I started longboarding. I'm skeptical about them working because even when I tighten the nut down all the way, the wheels still get tight...I still use them though.

[Hintermute]

I didn't even know what spacers were until I started longboarding. I'm skeptical about them working because even when I tighten the nut down all the way, the wheels still get tight...I still use them though.

Ditto

[Sensei]

I didn't even know what spacers were until I started longboarding. I'm skeptical about them working because even when I tighten the nut down all the way, the wheels still get tight...I still use them though.

Chances are your spacers are off then. Matching spacers to wheels kinda sucks since alot of spacers are off and aren't true to there mesurements. The ones I get from MH are usually spot on, but sometimes its the core of the wheel thats off a little also.

Also your wheels are going to get a little tight, but should still spin consideribly when your nut is tighted all the way. Usually when I know I got the combo all right, I can crank down the nut as tight as possible, then my wheel will spin a ways, stop, and start spinning back a little in the oppisite direction. Then I loosen the nut a teny tiny bit and I'm good.

[Hintermute]

Yeap. Same thing here. I always crank them down and usually they dont spin so great so ill loosen them 1/8turns at a time and testing them till i get an acceptable spin where i cant really percieve the deceleration too well. If i ever get wheel slop after this(never) i guess id tighten just enough to stop the slop. Things sort of settle in after you ride a bit too, so no big worries.

[EBasil]

Yeap. Same thing here. I always crank them down and usually they dont spin so great so ill loosen them 1/8turns at a time and testing them till i get an acceptable spin where i cant really percieve the deceleration too well. If i ever get wheel slop after this(never) i guess id tighten just enough to stop the slop. Things sort of settle in after you ride a bit too, so no big worries.

By definition, this just means both you guys have the wrong-sized spacers, that's all. A spacer that's a millimeter too short DOES do NOTHING (well, other than rattle), because that's about all the race-deflection necessary to bind the bearing up. Many spacers are just junk, and very inaccurate. Some are aluminum, and actually tamp/crush down to become undersized.

Try this: put a back-side bearing in, drop the wheel on the axle (after a speedring), drop in a spacer, then add a speedring on top of the spacer before putting the other bearing in. Then, add another speedring and tighten your nut. Can you now cinch the nut without the wheel binding? If so, problem solved. If not, add another speedring to the spacer stack, and then you'll be able to cinch the wheel with no binding.

Once you can cinch w/o binding the wheel, your spacers are set right. If you can't, they might as well not be in there at all. This is why some of us have fallen in love with the Biltins: I cinch them with a DeWalt set to drive screws, let the clutch engage to finish and then ride. No brains, no effort, no tweaking, no delay, no loss of speed on corners or turns because of binding. The spacere'd bearing will outrun the non-spacered bearing, starting the very instant that sideloads hit them.

I ride fast boards, slowly.

Ask Malakai, NinjitsuMethod, CrazyG or others how my boards roll under someone that wants to go fast.

Mock the Spacerless Shop. They Deserve our Ridicule.

[Hintermute]

Sweet stuff, grats. Time to root around for speedrings, i've got four of them somewhere. It's just wierd, ya know? Every wheel setup i've had has had this problem. Eh, well, i have a fix, for 1 anywa.. nope. Nevermind, i have my DH's on my shelf with my flys, i can unmount those, w00t, speedrings galore... well, 8 more.

[worldwide]

i went to almost every skate store in the greater vancouver area looking for 3 things: speed rings, spacers, and nice bushings. only 1 store had spacers, a few had speed rings but not a full set, and i didnt find any good bushings untill i went to some *fashion skate store in whistler of all places. vancouver is very much a longboarding city with likely over 500 longboarders and no one cares about these aspects of their boards. not even the legendary LBC had spacers. and 434skates gave me spacers for 10mm axels