For a whule I've kinda wanted a scooter, and recently one presented itself to me! The reason I've wanted a scooter is they're a perfect mix between BMX, which I love, but don't ride enough because when I ride it it just makes me want to ride at the dirt jumps, and skateboards, which I don't ride enough because I'm too scared to learn to drop in and how to flow around the skatepark on them.

The scooter is the middleground. It can hit box jump, and it can do street tricks on the flat and ledges. It's also much easier to 180 on the quarter pipe. I've just never been able to justify buying one that'll fit me. I've picked up a few shitboxes in the last few years, for cheap or out of a bin, but never anything my size or quality enough to be more than an hour of fun until it breaks.

That changed recently when I saw a scooter in the bush at the park while doing some pruning of the MTB trails (I really should write about those, but it's such a mess in my head at this point). I asked a friend and my sister, and both agreed that after a week in the bush it was fair game. It was in a bush that if I were to have a scooter, and want to go into the field behind the park, I'd probably hide my scooter in that bush.

A week went by, and it was still there, so I grabbed it out, just before the kids went back to school. Almost certainly one would end up bush diving through the brambles and get it out. It was a decent size, and seemed in decently good condition. Rattled to fuck, but I scooted it home, and then assessed the damage.

The obvious issue was the rear wheel, bearings were shot and there was a huge wobble. The other issue was the headset. There was a rattling in the bars and the fork was loose. I decided to attack this first because replacing the bearings would be a thing I'd have to buy, and there was no point if the headset was completely shagged and unsafe, or the bars were broken.

So I popped the clamp off, started wiggling the bars, and took a look. At the time I didn't know how scooter compressions worked, except that it should be much like a BMX. Fortunately for me, this compression is HIC, which is most like a BMX headset. A topcap, a starnut (integrated in the fork in my case), and a compression sleeve. The problem? Topcap had come undone, compression sleeve was stuck in the bars. It should have been held onto the fork by the topcap.

By wiggling and poking I was able to figure out that the top cap was still in the bars, and the bolt dropped out. Somehow, by luck, I was able to hammer on a pedal wrench pushed into the slit of the bars to slowly knock the compression sleeve out. It wasn't welded in, luckily (or at least some WD40 unstuck it). The topcap also came free from this. That was the easy part, I greased it back up, reassembled, and all was good (turns out though, you need to overtighten a scooter compression compared to bike headsets, just tight enough isn't enough, so it did take a few goes and maybe I'll have to go back in soon, but it's an easy job since the bars come off easily and leave the compression sleeve behind)

The hard part was the wheels. This is where I have pictures! By this time I'd ordered bearings, and replacement grips. Less than £20 all in for this, plus a fair bit of time which will become apparent soon.

The first port of call was to remove the wheels, which was easier on the front than the rear (this will be important later). On the back wheel the deck (Addict Defender 3.0) has a standard axle nut through the middle, one side a 6mm allen, the other a 13mm nut. On the inside of the deck is a spacer with a diagonal cutout on either side (to match the frame, this is really annoying to get fit in) and the wheel.

Next up, the "simple" task of removing the bearings. I've done it many times on skateboards, and the guides on the Internet all said it was just as easy. I had a plan, I'd simply get my skateboard out and do it the skateboard way with the axle, and if that didn't work I could hit an allen key with a hammer (or large adjustable wrench, as I don't own a spanner apparently.)

This didn't work. I whacked and whacked and whacked, and even hit the damn allen key with a spade to try and break it free. Only one bearing moved by 0.2mm or something tiny. Enough to notice it was no longer flush, but no more. During this, I bent (and then snapped) my 5.5mm allen key. It wasn't a good quality one, and I can't think of any time I've used it (there isn't one on my multitool anyway)

I hit quite a few things with the spade (and yes, I did prop the wheel up against something every time). Fortunately nothing was damaged other than that allen key. The spade wasn't gonna take any damage, and I didn't break any tools I actually might need. But no matter what I did, WD40, freezing them, nothing seemed to help.

While waiting for them in the freezer I searched around for anything that wasn't just "the easy way" and found this video called "How to Remove Bearings From a Scooter Wheel When the Normal Way Doesn't Work"

Now that's the kind of title I was looking for. Most videos are called "the easy way" but the "easy way" never works, and watching the "easy way" was sending me around the bend because it was mostly harder, or the same, as the way I knew (and had now checked I wasn't going mad by removing and installing my skateboard wheels on the axle of my skateboard, and they popped out and in just fine).

This video is banger, for those who don't want to watch (please go give it a thumbs up though) it says: Pick off the rubber shield on one side of the wheel, then remove the bearing aligner. Move all the balls to one side, and wiggle out the inner race. Pick off the other side bearing cover and drop all the balls out. Now you can get something bigger (like the 13mm socket) straight through, and whack the bearing out the other side. There is an issue, the outer race of the first bearing you dismantled is stuck. That part should be easier, as now you can get a better angle to hit it out. I tried, but couldn't.

So I popped the wheels back in the freezer and hunted my tools for a socket, or something, that fit just perfectly, and I found it! A crank puller fits just right!

AND I DID IT LIKE THIS!

So yeah, that was fun! And that got the wheel out. After that it was a fairly simple task to put the new bearings in, they pressed in cleanly, this time with grease. Hopefully they'll come out easier next time, because the destructive way isn't going to be so easy now I've got metal shields on the bearings instead of rubber.

There was one last twist before I can show off the cool pictures though. I had to get the wheels back in. The front one was fine, but the back one... Well, that one started fine. It tightened up, felt good, but after a few drop checks it was wobbling. What the fuck? Okay, there's clearly a spacer missing here. So I decided I'd steal the front washers, they're on the outside of the fork, and I don't need need them there, the head of the bolt and the nut are fine against the bare frame.

They were too much though. I do know that a lot of bearings come with small washers, these didn't, but I do have two skateboads, and crutially, a pair of freeskates (fun things). I stole the bearings washers off a freeskate wheel, checked it still tightened up and span fine (it did) and compared the width to the front wheel outer washers. The front wheel ones were double the size of these.

Okay, time to get them in, but that couldn't be fucking easy either. I tried a bunch of different ways to keep them on the wheels, or on the edge of the large spacers. Gluing them with a touch of grease worked really well, but they still got knocked off as it's super tight. In the end I put them between the spacer and frame, held one side together with the axle partially poked through, and the other with an allen key. This worked, though it was still fiddly. If I get a new deck I'm making damn sure it has straight sides and no funny spacers like this one.

But now, it was all tight and together! The wheels spin well enough (cheap bearings, they're fine), and it makes no rattly noises anywhere. I wiped it down one last time with a rag and bike spray, and put some stickers on it. Now, time to stare at it.

Scooter wheels don't get punctures, but I run this tube sealent in my bike tyres, and not getting puctures is cool

So, what now? Well, it started raining as I was packing away, so I didn't get to ride it that day, but the day after I did. I headed down to the skatepark just with the plan to make sure I could flow around, drop in, and what could I start to do. I quickly was able to drop in normally, then learned to 180 ramps, both things I can easily do on my BMX, and then was surprised when it didn't take much longer to learn to air up onto box, and then air out of the 4ft quarter. Being able to do box without putting a foot down was great. I didn't clear it, but I did get across clean so that's something, especially for a first time at the skatepark in 3 months, and first time on a scooter in like 10 years!

So yeah, the scooter is great. Hopefully I can ride it more, because I do enjoy the skatepark. Not as much as the dirt jumps (the kind of people you get at the skatepark tend not to be there to ride, which is always bad for me), but the scooter should help me be less big and bulky, and in need of an obstacle to myself almost like the BMX takes up.

Anyway, here's a few pics of the skatepark to end on.

Don't Forget To UwU

I was going nowhere near spine, certainly not to kickless it