ive heard that the covers on the bearings should be taken off, do you agree, or disagree?
a lot of street skaters remove the shields, because they deform and break under the stress of jumping stairsets and stuff. BUT, the shields are there to keep dust and dirt out of the bearing so it rolls smoother, faster, longer, and will hold up for a greater time frame.
At first l keep shields on,then after repeat cleaning & relubing the shields become distorted from removing & reinstalling them.Any distorted shield will prevent the bearing from rolling smooth....
so my older bearings no longer have shields & roll just fine.Its all in the maintiance & if you want to take the time to do it.
I use bones, so in the event my shields ever broke I could just order new ones from the company. Anyway, for long boarding I use 1 shield per bearing- on the outside and I clean my bearings after every maybe 40hrs of use (could deff go longer if I wanted to though)
I'd say unless you enjoy going through the process of cleaning them then keep them on. If the caps do get bent or anything you can just pop them off an old pair and throw them on ones your are using now.
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