Customer Reviews

Bones Reds Precision Skate Bearings

5 star:		(97)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I replaced the stock ABEC 5 bearings on my Razor A5 with the Bones Reds I bought on Amazon just to see if it would really make any difference. To make a long story short, they are amazing! There is virtually no rolling resistance. They are so smooth and glide much longer than the stock ABEC 5 bearings. I am replacing the bearings on all the scooters I have with Bones Reds. They are so inexpensive as well.

If you are wondering which Bones bearings to buy, buy the Bones Reds if you have no intention of spending the time to clean your bearings regularly. Cleaning Bearings does take some time, costs money, and it is messy. I think spending 12 bucks a year replacing your bearings is just more reasonable. I will probably change mine every 6 months so that I always have a fresh set. Since my Razor A5 scooter only uses 4 bearings, I will spend only 12 bucks a year. In reality, there is very little difference in performance between the Reds and the Swiss.

But if you don't mind cleaning bearings, spending a lot more money, or you compete, then buy the Bones Swiss or Ceramics. The more expensive Bearings are really for competition where every ounce of speed must be utilized.

I ordered two pairs of these bearings and they work great, I installed one of the sets on my Original Longboard and I now role twice as long than when I had my abec-3 bearings.

I recently got my first really good skateboard. I've been skating since Oct. 2006. I bought my board on a site that lets you pick out everything for the board (deck, wheels, griptape, trucks, hardware, bearings), and then they assemble it for u free and ship it low cost. When I was looking for some good, but still inexpensive bearings to buy, I noticed that the Reds bearings had about 75 reviews, when most others had none. Everyone loved them. Now that I have my board, I love them as well. They make a ride smoother, even, and way way faster.
The price on here is fairly good too. If you need any info you can leave me a post or email me.

I replaced the original bearings in my Razor A5 Lux Scooter with Bones Reds. I wanted to know how much difference they made, so I ran some time trials coasting down a hill with each set of bearings. In my tests, the Bones Reds performed just as well as the original Razor bearings, but no better.

My first runs seemed to show that the A5 was actually slower with the Bones Reds than with the original bearings. Not the immediate improvement I was expecting, based on what I've read in various reviews. Still, I thought maybe the Reds would do better after they had been broken in; so I rode the A5 with them from October to April, then did more testing.

In my latest tests, I made 15 runs with each set of bearings, coasting down a hill over a distance of 710 feet. I averaged the elapsed times recorded for each set of bearings, and both averages were 44 seconds. I obtained maximum speeds and speeds at the finish line for each run from a track log recorded with a GPS. Again, there was no difference in the averages of the maximum speeds or the finishing speeds between the Bones Reds and the original Razor bearings.

The time trials were run during a period of about two and a half hours. I removed the wheels and wiped away any dirt from the bearings before starting the test. The wind was calm, but I still switched the bearings several times during the test to even out any effects that any slight unperceived wind or changing temperature might have.

I know that the Bones Reds were properly installed and in good working order, because my wheels would spin between 5 and 6 times longer with them than with the original bearings. But free-spinning times in an unloaded condition do not correlate to how bearings perform under load. This has been demonstrated by several people in the NYCKickscooters Yahoo group.

Maybe in a skateboard or in skates Bones Reds make more of a difference; but in my Razor A5 scooter, they are no better than the ABEC 5 bearings that it came with.

I bought my 11 year old son a World Industries board for Christmas, no matter what I did I couldnt get the wheels to spin very free. I bought some "Reds" and WOW!!These are freaking amazing, put them in and he hauled a*$! He wiped out right off the bat! I am going to buy another set for when we clean the ones that are on now, so he wont have any down time. Like I said, you cant go wrong. I would recommend buying the Bones Speed Cream also. You cant beat these bearings, they are dirt cheap. I cant wait to take him back to the Mat Hoffman skatepark now!!

buy them, they're awesome. when u first get them they're fast and then when u break them in they're even faster...weirdest thing i've ever seen but i've asked around and apparently this is standard procedure for bones reds. awesome awesome buy...i'll only buy bones bearings from now on.

oh by the way... get the bones speed cream too. i also have the cleaning unit. get both if u have the extra money... protect your investment they'll last longer.

dude, if i had 5 skateboards, id load em up with these bearings, at under 20 bucks, man your getting your money worth, dont kid yourself, get these bearings, great bearings, built to perform

These bearings are probably the best you can get for the price. I bought these for my longboard because the stock ones were awful. Obviously there are better ones out there but these are the best deal. Great for the low budget skater, they roll very smoothly, and they are durable for those rough sliding days. I give them a five just because of what you get for the price

I decided to get new wheels for my kids boards, and saw these listed at this great price and with shining reviews, so I figured, go all the way and get them. I did, and they are a nice improvement over what we had, which wasn't cheap stuff in the first place. Skateboard stores will sell you expensive stuff that isn't as good as these, so just buy them yourself and put them in, it is easy, if I could figure it out and do it, so can you.

I ordered these bearings approximately a month ago and two have already died. I usually skate 3-4 times a week (roughly 6-10 hours), but it's been even less lately since I've been sick. I'd say I skated on these bearings for a total of 10 hours before I started hearing an awful noise from one wheel. Against my better judgement I put another ten hours or so on them. I took the bearings out (with a bearing puller so as not to damage them) and couldn't see anything visually wrong with them. I decided to go ahead and pull them apart and clean them when I discovered several of the balls are completely stuck in place and won't move. Aside from that little frustration I wasn't that impressed with the way they rolled. They felt very slow to me compared to the ABEC rated (1,3, and 5) bearings I've used in the past. I was kind of bummed because these bearings are so highly rated on Amazon reviews. I have since looked elsewhere on the web and found that these bearings do not usually garner such glowing reviews.

March 25, 2010 UPDATE: The day after I posted my initial review I had another bearing go bad. I am not abusing these bearings in any way so I can't understand why this is happening. I definitely won't be buying these bearings again, regardless of how inexpensive they are.