Newbies are often seen searching for what is a wheel bite, how to prevent it and what is the actual cause of wheel bite while skating. Well, wheel bite is one of the most common problems that most skateboarders face, and feel annoyed. Wheel bite not only disturbs your balance but also sometimes ends up hurting you a lot. It happens when your wheels come in contact with your skateboard deck during riding. It results in the quick stopping of the skateboard that oftentimes is painful and throws you forward.
Most professional skateboarders know how to tackle the situation but when it comes to newbies, tackling wheel bite and dealing with it is quite difficult. Hereby, I am going to tell you everything about the wheelbite, what it is, the test that you can perform to check the wheel bite, and how you can prevent this situation while skating. The details here tell you the importance of prevention and what steps you can take before you come across a severe outcome of a wheel bite.
What Is A Wheel Bite?
What is a wheel bite, its testing, prevention, and what measures that you can take before riding to avoid the situation are all addressed here so that you can ride safely and securely. We will first look at the cause of wheel bite then will look at the procedure to check and then will jump towards the preventive measures.
Causes Of Wheel Bite
There could be several causes that can result in wheel biting of the skateboard wheels. As described earlier, wheel bite is the touching of the wheels with the skateboard deck. Following is the list of the three most common reasons that result in wheel biting.
Loose Trucks
Loose trucks generally result in wheel biting because they articulate in such a way that makes it easier and quicker for the wheel to touch the deck.
Large Wheels Of The Deck
Large wheels of the deck minimize the wheel clearance. This results in maximum wheel biting. This is because with large wheels even a slight leaning forward can result in touching the wheels with the deck.
No Wheel Wells In Your Skateboard
When there are wheel wells in the skateboard this significantly increases the distance between the wheels and the deck. This ultimately maximizes the clearance of the wheels. The absence of wheel clearance results in easy contact between the wheels and the deck of the skateboard, ultimately making it easier for the wheels to bite.
As we have learned about the causes of wheel bite, we are now going to focus on how to check the wheel bite and then will look at the preventive measures that you can take. Let's go!
How To Check For The Wheel Bite In Your Skateboard?
To check whether your skateboard is causing wheel bite or not, what you have to do is to take your skateboard on the road, put it there, and press it down with your hand. This tells you about the riser height, and whether it is adequate or not. Another thing that you can do is to perform carving on your skateboard. And then as soon as you notice the wheel bite you can stop and easily hop off the skateboard.
Ensure that you are carving as slowly as you can so that you can safely hop off in case of a wheel bite. Moreover, another thing that you can do to check for wheel bite is to push down your trucks with your hands and notice how far they can go without causing your wheel bite. Now if you notice a wheel bite in your skateboard, you have to focus and prevent it to avoid any kind of severe damage. Let us look at the measures that you can take to prevent wheel bite.
Measures Of Prevention From Wheel Bite
Tightening Of Trucks
This is one of the most applicable and logical solutions to avoid wheel biting. What you have to do is to tighten down your trucks to the point where the bushings engage in the tightening but do not deform. Make sure you are not tightening those trucks too much as too much tightening can affect the bushings adversely and can cause wearing and tearing off of them. One thing that you have to keep in mind before tightening the trucks is to see whether there is space for tightening or not.
Downsizing The Wheels
The next preventive measure that you can take to avoid wheel bite is to change your wheels and select new wheels with smaller sizes as compared to the previous one. This downsizing of the wheels is another effective thing that you can do to minimize the wheel bite. This is because smaller wheels very rarely come in contact with the deck. They have fewer contact patches. This makes it not only easy but also very comfortable for you to slide the skateboard in the presence of smaller size wheels.
Addition Of The Riser Pads
The next thing that you can do to avoid and minimize the wheel bite is the addition of the riser pads. If you are okay with the height of the skateboard and can spend some extra dollars for your ease, convenience, and safety then go and buy some riser pads. Fix them and you are good to go without wheel bite.
Adding The Layer Of Wax Under The Wheels
All of the above-mentioned techniques to prevent wheel bite are related to changing your setup. But the addition of a layer of wax under the wheels is something that does not interrupt your skateboard setup. It just does not change anything in your settings and is one of the absolute methods that you can easily do.
What you have to do is to get some wax and make a layer of it under your deck. This is specifically for situations where wheel bite is not really severe and you have hard wheels. On the other hand, if the wheel bite is severe and you do not have hard wheels but instead have soft wheels, then this might not be a good solution for you. Well, it is one of the effortless and easy processes that you can perform.
FAQs
One of the most common and reliable methods to minimize the wheel bite is to add risers to your skateboard setup. Risers come like shock pads and are different in size. You can select the riser pads according to the needs of your skateboard. Or can purchase the skateboard that comes with riser pads in their manufacturing.
Wheel well is the latest addition to the skateboard deck. They allow you to lower the deck to minimize the distance between the ground and the deck, in order to maximize stability and control. Adding the wheel well on the skateboard ensures you can lower the deck, without making a noticeable difference in the deck shape. This makes sure that you can easily push the skateboard forward and can safely and easily apply the foot brake.
Riding the skateboard without coming across wheel-biting issues not only boosts your confidence but also makes you more passionate and confident about skateboarding. You can take turns, you can dive, you can carve and you can cruise just as you want. It ensures you can ride safely and securely, comparatively making it smoother and more balanced while gliding. Additionally to this, no wheel biting also increases the life and durability of the wheels and deck making skateboarding not only affordable but also money-saving for you.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, you have gone through the details mentioned above and now can take steps to prevent the wheel bite. Taking steps to minimize wheel biting is not only necessary for the durability of the skateboards but also is compulsory for your own safety and security. I have explained four of the most common and reliable tips that you can take to block wheel biting. All of these preventive measures are known to provide a noticeable difference in wheel biting. To be honest, wheel biting is something that can ruin your interest and adventure of skateboarding. So it's better to deal with it beforehand.