Monday 16 November 2009

How to make a mountain board go faster? Better Bearings?

Was reading through random google links over the weekend when I came across some fella on yahoo questions asking about which bearings were the best as he wanted to go faster.  Fair enough!

Bearings, a particular talking point in the skating community usually comes down so some bloke with anecdotal data who swears his mega bucks bearings are fantastic, verses those who advise to save their money on good old reliable cheap (but not mega cheap) equivalents.

A lot of the myths and confusions does seem to revolve around bearing standards and Lush Longboards (whos longboards are non coincidently lush!) do a great job of explaining things here.

If we want to transcribe the data above to mountain boarding, then its probably safe to say that we do not speed as fast as downhill longboards, our wheels have larger diameters than downhill longboarders; therefore it should be safe to say that our bearings rotate slower than downhill longboarders.  In this case, the advice above given by Lush about not seeing the benefit of fitting expensive bearings should equally apply to us.

Good bearings can be bought straight from ATBSports from here, £10 for 8.  I've looked previously online for equivalent bearings straight from the manufacturer, best I could do was £2.50 each plus p&p.

So, going back to the original question about making a mountain board go faster, I can think of the following: (feel free to add your own!)
  • Pump up tires - more pump = more umph!
  • Steeper slope - let gravity do its magic!
  • Smoother slope - tarmacs quicker than deep grass!
  • Dryer slope - don't get stuck in the mud!
  • Wear Lycra - you perv!
Edit: thought of a couple more....
  • Fit larger tires - 9 or 10 inch or even larger
  • Make sure your axle nuts aren't too tight - hand tighten and then release by quarter or half a turn or so.
    And by stating the obvious, heading straight down the hill will be quicker than cutting across it.

    Ps the resolved Y! answer was 'Kite buggy bearings'....

    Pps, need more pictures, I can never be arsed to add pictures : (

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