What is wheelbite? Well, wheelbite is a longboarder’s worst enemy! Wheelbite causes bad crashes, scars, and even broken bones. However, if you know what wheelbite is and how to correct it, you will have no worries.
When a longboarder experiences wheelbite, this means that the wheels rub against the bottom of the deck in turns, causing the longboard to stop suddenly. When the board stops suddenly, guess what? The longboarder keeps moving! This can cause some major injuries.
How can you correct wheelbite? This is the simple part. Most of the time, wheelbite is caused by too little distance between your wheels and deck. So you can add risers to your trucks to give more clearance. You can also adjust the tightness in the wingnut of your trucks with a skate tool so that when you turn, your deck does not turn into the wheels. Another option is to buy smaller longboard wheels.
Before you get out there on your new longboard setup, just remember to test for wheelbite. Stand on the board and rock from left to right as if you are making a turn and have a friend look to see if the wheels are rubbing or not. Next, test the longboard setup in action at a slow speed, making sharp turns from left to right. If you come to an abrupt stop when making a turn, chances are you have wheelbite!
Now that you know how to spot wheelbite, get out there and have fun skating!