Keep It Rolling: How to Take Care of Your Loaded Board

Your board doesn't ask for much. It hauls you to class, slashes the odd bank, and eats curb after curb without complaint. But bearings gum up, bushings pack out, and grip tape slowly turns into a skating rink. A little maintenance keeps a Loaded board riding like new for years, and most of it takes ten minutes and a skate tool. Here's the full rundown, component by component.

First things first: get a tool

Nearly everything below happens with one tool: a 3/8" socket for axle nuts, a 9/16" for kingpins, a 1/2" for mounting hardware, and an Allen or Phillips for the bolts. Keep one in your bag and you can fix wheelbite, a loose truck, or a wandering bushing on the spot instead of limping home.

Tools

Loaded Y-Tool

Every socket and driver your board uses, in one glowing pocket-sized package. Cheap enough to own two (because someone will walk off with the first one).

$7  Shop Y-Tool

Bearings: the spin doctors

Bearings are the most neglected part of any setup and the first to let you know about it. That gritty rasp when you spin a wheel? Dirt and moisture in the races, slowly grinding away your roll speed.

The care routine is simple. Keep them dry above all: water flushes out lubricant and rusts the steel, so if you get caught in the rain, wipe your bearings down and spin them out as soon as you're home. Every few months (or after any dusty, sandy, or damp session), pop the bearings out of the wheels with the axle tip, pry the shields off, soak them in isopropyl alcohol or a citrus solvent, dry them completely, and re-lube with a drop or two of skate-specific lubricant. Not WD-40. That's a solvent in a trench coat, and it'll leave your bearings dry and squealing within a week.

If a bearing still sounds like a coffee grinder after cleaning, or has visible rust or a cracked shield, replace it. Bearings are the cheapest speed upgrade in skateboarding.

Bearings

Loaded Jehu V2 Bearings

Extended inner raceways eliminate spacers and speed rings entirely, so you can crank your axle nuts down and the wheels still spin free. Fewer parts to lose, faster wheel swaps.

$24  Shop Jehu V2

Wheels: rotate your crops

Urethane wears unevenly. Your front wheels carry different loads than your rears, and if you slide, your toeside edges take more abuse than your heelside. Left alone, that turns into coning (wheels wearing into little traffic cones) and a ride that gets squirrelly for no obvious reason.

The fix is rotation. Every month or so, swap the wheels in an X pattern: front-left to rear-right, front-right to rear-left, and flip each wheel so the inner face becomes the outer face. Ten minutes with your skate tool, and your urethane wears evenly across all four wheels.

Retire wheels when they've lost a serious chunk of their diameter, developed flat spots that thump on every revolution, or worn so unevenly that rotation can't save them. And here's the fun part: replacing wheels is the single biggest ride-feel change you can make. Craving buttery slides? Stone-ground Fat Frees. Want to steamroll cracks on your commute? Caguamas.

Wheels · Freeride & Freestyle

Orangatang Fat Free, 65mm

A stone-ground contact patch means predictable, chatter-free slides straight out of the box. Light, lively, and poured in Happy Thane for smooth wear.

From $63  Shop Fat Free

Wheels · Commuting & Distance

Orangatang Caguama, 85mm

85mm of voluptuous urethane for high roll speed, grip, and momentum. Cracks, pebbles, and rough pavement stop being your problem.

From $88  Shop Caguama

Bushings: your trucks' shock absorbers

Bushings are the little urethane donuts in your trucks that make turning feel like turning instead of tipping. They compress thousands of times per session, and eventually they take a set: permanent squish, cracks around the washers, or a mushy, vague lean that no amount of kingpin tightening fixes. (If you're cranking your kingpin to compensate, that's the bushing telling you it's done.)

Give them a look every couple of months. Cracked, torn, or permanently deformed bushings should be swapped, and a fresh set costs less than lunch. It's also the cheapest way to tune your ride: swap in a softer duro for surfy, easygoing lean, or a harder one for stability at speed. Taste the rainbow.

Bushings · Carving & Pumping

Orangatang Nipples Bushings

Big, high-rebound barrels that spring you out of every carve. Orange for soft and surfy, purple for medium, yellow for firm support at speed.

$20  Shop Nipples

Bushings · Quick Turning

Orangatang Knuckles Bushings

Shaped for quick turn initiation and smooth edge-to-edge transitions. The move for surfskates and tight, snappy carving.

$20  Shop Knuckles

Hardware: the bolt check

Once a month, run your tool over all eight mounting bolts, both kingpins, and all four axle nuts. Vibration loosens things over time, and a rattling truck is the kind of surprise you want to discover in your garage, not mid-carve. Snug is the goal: crank mounting bolts hard enough to crush the deck fibers and you've traded a rattle for a pressure crack.

Stripped threads, rounded heads, or bolts that won't stay tight? Replace them. And if you're running bigger wheels or hearing the telltale squeak of urethane on deck, a set of shock pads adds clearance and takes the edge off road vibration while it protects your deck from the trucks.

Hardware

Button Head Hardware

The strongest bolts we've ever built, engineered from real steel research and a whole lot of torque testing. Available in 1", 1.25", and 1.5".

$7  Shop Hardware

Risers & Pads

1/16" Shock Pads

Cushy yet thin. Takes the buzz out of rough pavement and buys a touch more clearance for bigger wheels.

$3.50  Shop Shock Pads

Grip tape: keep it grippy

Grip tape collects dirt, shoe rubber, and mystery grime until your feet start sliding around like it's a hardwood floor in socks. Freshen it up with a soft wire brush or grip gum, brushing along the length of the board. Skip the water: soaking grip tape sends moisture straight into the deck below it.

When the grit is worn smooth in your stance areas (or the edges start peeling and collecting pocket lint), it's time for fresh grip. We cut replacement grip tape to match the exact outline, wheel wells, and grit pattern of each Loaded model, so your board goes back together looking factory-fresh.

Grip Tape

Replacement Grip Tape

Model-specific replacement grip, pre-cut to your board's outline and grit layout. Find the set made for your deck.

From $10  Shop Grip Tape

The deck: treat the wood right

Your deck's layup is engineered to flex millions of times, but two things will age it fast: water and heat. Moisture that gets past the finish swells the plies and weakens the bond between them, so dry your board after wet sessions and never leave it out in the rain. Heat is sneakier. A car trunk in summer can hit temperatures that soften resins and warp camber, so bring the board inside. It wants to live where you live: indoors, dry, and out of direct sun.

Check the deck over every so often, too. Small chips and razor tail are cosmetic; you can smooth rough edges with fine sandpaper and keep riding. Cracks that run across the deck or deep pressure cracks around the truck mounts are structural, and that's when it's time to talk about a new deck (or admit you've earned one).

The 10-minute monthly tune-up

That's the whole program. Once a month: spin the wheels and listen, rotate them if they're wearing uneven, eyeball the bushings, snug every bolt, and brush the grip. A couple times a year: deep-clean the bearings. Your board keeps riding the way it did the day it showed up, and you catch every small problem while it's still a $7 fix instead of a ruined session.

Now go put those fresh bearings to work.