As a good performer in skateboarding, you need to know how to choose a skateboard wheels before you come to buy the best skateboard. The Skateboard wheel is the most important piece of equipment as the wheel keeps your skateboard fast and easy to move.
But if you are a new one in skateboarding, you do not have sufficient knowledge in need of choosing a skateboard wheel. For your benefits, we will assist you to make know the techniques for selecting the right skateboard wheel. Do skip the page.
Let's have a look at the details mentioned below.
How to choose a skateboard wheels?
When you come to choose a skateboard wheel, you should give importance to some of the essential features that make the wheel effective. The features are:
1. Wheel diameter:
Most of the popular skateboard wheels come in diameter measured from 50 to 75 mm. You should remember that wheel diameter gives you an easy opportunity to accelerate and turn tightly. The below-measured skateboard wheel makes a slow ride but it is ideal for technical skating. Even the small measured diameter is ideal for daily transportation.
Skateboard wheel diameter comes to make you fit according to your height and weight.
For easy understanding, just look at the table below.
Diameter of Skateboard Wheel | Description of the wheel |
| This particular type of skateboard wheel is smaller and slower. It is perfect for trick riding. The shorter size riders will have comfort using this type. Even this type is ideal for street skating or skating on the park. |
| The diameter of skateboard wheels is an average. It is good for beginners as well as bigger riders. The diameter based wheels are the best for street skating or skating on the parks. |
| This size of diameter is ideal for longboards. It is the perfect one for the riders who generally like to ride roughly especially in downhill area. |
2. The shape of the skateboard wheel:
The right shape of the skateboard wheels makes you comfortable when you are worried about how to pick the right skateboard wheels.
In need of riders’ benefit, there are different shapes of wheels like narrow type, cruiser wheels shape, or wide lip. The narrow-type wheels are much more responsive for quick movements. It gives the rider comfort with less friction and weight.
Generally, the beginners will have comfort having the shape of this type or the commuters. It comes with the best grip as well rounded outer lips.
3. Wheel Durometer:
Durometer measures the hardness of the skateboard wheel. Durometer is similar to a scale and there are 100 points in the scale. The higher number in the scale provides higher hardness in the wheels.
There are two types of scales like ‘A’ scale and the ‘B’ scale. The ‘A’ scale goes more than 20 points than the scale ‘B’. That means if the ‘A’ scale is 100 then the ‘B’ comes 80. Generally, maximum brands come with one scale either ‘A’ or ‘B’ but some brands come to use a dual durometer.
For dual durometer, the skateboard wheel gets strength of hardness in inner level and out level strongly.
It is good to know that harder wheels become faster but softer wheels are slower having a strong grip. The softer wheels are better for street skating. For better understanding, here a table is given below.
Read Also
Measurement of durometer | Advantage |
78a – 87a | It provides softness for rough surfaces. It can be used in long boards, street boards. It has many grips for easy roll over pebbles and cracks. It is perfect for hills or rough surfaces. |
88a – 95a | It is slightly harder and faster for movement with lesser grip. Undoubtedly, it is an exact for rough surfaces and rough street. |
96a – 99a | It provides nice speed and grip. It is great for skate parks, skating street, pools or smooth surface |
101a and above | It is the hardest and fastest skateboard wheel having least grip. It can be called pro wheels. |
83b – 84b | ‘B’ scale made wheels are hard extremely as the wheels are manufactured with 20 points lesser than scale A. |
4. The Contact Patch:
The contact patch is an important feature that brings the greatest performance of the skateboard wheel. You need to give more importance to the contact patch, the last stage of how to pick the right skateboard wheels. This patch means the area of the wheel that makes a contact between the wheel and the pavement.
The contact patch depends on the size of the board. That means if you have a long skateboard, it needs a long contact patch and a short size patch comes when you have a small skateboard.
Moreover, it keeps the shape of the wheel perfect. In that case, rounded wheels bring less contact with the pavement but square wheels bring maximum contact with the pavement. The perfect wheel performance comes from an exact placement of the contact patch.
Some essential tips during checking the skateboard wheels.
- Concentrate your mind: During checking the features of the skateboard wheels, you need to be cautious. You need to focus your judging power on the features using your sharp eyes and brainpower.
- Measuring equipment: You can have measuring tapes to measure the size of the wheels. Even you can come to use a different type of equipment to check other features of wheels.
- Assistance from an expert: If you are a professional skateboard player, you must have previous experience regarding the checking of wheels. In that case, you may not take any helping hand to select the best skateboard wheels.
But if you are a fresher one, you may face difficulties while checking the features of the wheels. In that case, you need to take help from experienced skateboard players. It would be better if your nearest or dearest one come ahead to assist you.
So, keep all the processes in your mind before you come to know how to choose a skateboard wheels. If you think that the above-mentioned information gives you satisfaction, kindly share this article with your nearest and dearest one. Your little effort will make me inspired to write more articles like this.
I am Sanjit Kumar Sen. I am a sports lover. Sports give me a full phase of entertainment and make me energetic. Though I like all kinds of sports more or less, skating I like and love as the best one. I do skating and most probably skating activity has been running in my life for a couple of days. My personal experience regarding skating I like to share through my written articles for skating lovers and beginners for skating. If my article makes you satisfied, I like your little bit of effort for sharing.