How To Save Your Longboard Gear After Ridi ng in Rain

Whether you are out skating and get caught in the rain, or just decide to have a rain session, water can do some serious damage to your board. These tips are not 100% effective and I definitely still advise against rain skating, but sometimes you just have to get out and skate regardless of the weather; I understand.

Preventing Rust

The most important thing to do when you get back is to disassemble the board and get all of the pieces separated. A rusted kingpin is a bummer, but only cost a few bucks to replace, but if it is still in the truck, it ruins the whole truck. Rust can make pieces get stuck together and you won’t be able to tighten or loosen your trucks if the kingpin rusts to the nut, so get the nut off the kingpin and it won’t happen.

Don’t worry too much about getting the baseplates off of the board, it takes a long time and you would be better off to spend that time taking care of the rest of the board. If the hardware rusts there are other means of getting it off, and it is cheap to replace.

Taking Care of Bearings

Clean your bearings! I use mineral spirits to clean my Zealous Bearings, but others recommend acetone or other solvents. If you don’t have any type of bearing lubricant don’t clean them, just try to dry them off. Cleaning them and not re-lubing them will destroy the bearing. I highly recommend Eximius Fluid X, which is available here on LegitBoardShop.com. There are plenty of guides on how to clean your bearings and lubing them is a fairly simple process.

Once you clean the bearings make sure you give them time to dry out so all of your cleaning solvents can get out of the bearing before you lube it. Remove at least one shield so the solvents can leave the bearing; it will also make it easier to lube the bearing.

Drying Your Gear

You will also need to dry off the deck. A waterlogged deck may warp, and it will be much more likely to break. First use a towel or rag to get all of the water off. You can use your wheels as a way to keep the deck off of the surface it is laying on. If the board just sits in the water that comes off of the deck it will absorb it, so keep it out of the water. Then go over the deck with a blow dryer to dry out any water that the deck already absorbed. *Heating the deck with a blow dryer may make the griptape peel off and could cause delamination, so work quickly*

Hopefully if you work quickly and get everything dried off, no damage will be done to your board. However, there is always a chance it will mess up your board. Again, this is a just-in-case and I do not recommend rain skating, but at least if you do, now you can do your best to keep your board running smooth.