The Best Bearings and Wheels for Street Skating
For street, ride hard 99A–101A wheels in a 52–54mm size — fast, slidey and durable on smooth concrete. Pair them with quality bearings: Bones Reds are the unbeatable value pick, ceramics the premium upgrade. Bearing brand matters more than the ABEC rating, which is mostly marketing.
Wheels and bearings are the parts of your setup that decide how fast you roll and how your slides feel — and for street skating specifically, the right choices make ledges, manuals and flip tricks noticeably better. They're also where a lot of beginners overspend or get confused by jargon. This guide cuts through it: what to buy, what the numbers mean, and why one budget bearing has ruled skating for decades.
Wheel hardness (durometer)
The most important wheel number is durometer — hardness, measured on the A scale. For street skating you want hard wheels, 99A to 101A: they're fast on smooth concrete, they slide predictably for powerslides and they resist flatspotting. Softer wheels (78A–85A) are for cruising rough ground, not street tech. If you skate ledges, parks and flatground, hard is the only answer. Our street skate wheels sit right in this range.
Wheel size
Street wheels are measured in millimeters, and for technical street most skaters ride 52–54mm. Smaller wheels (50–52mm) keep your center of gravity low and are lighter for flip tricks; larger ones (54–56mm) roll faster and carry speed better for bigger terrain. A 53mm wheel is the classic do-everything street size. Whatever you choose, quality urethane like Spitfire's Formula Four resists the flatspots that plague cheap wheels.
Bearings: why Bones Reds win
Here's skating's worst-kept secret: the Bones Reds are the best value in the entire sport. They're smooth, fast, durable and cost a fraction of high-end steel or ceramic bearings — and for the vast majority of skaters they're genuinely all the bearing you'll ever need. Pros ride them. Beginners should buy them and stop thinking about bearings. If you want to spend more, ceramic bearings roll faster and resist corrosion, but the jump in real-world performance is small.
Ignore the ABEC rating
You'll see bearings advertised with 'ABEC' ratings (ABEC 5, 7, 9). For skateboarding, ABEC is mostly marketing — it measures precision tolerances for high-RPM industrial applications, not the low-speed, high-impact abuse of skating. A well-made skate-specific bearing with no ABEC rating (like Bones Reds) outperforms a high-ABEC generic bearing. Buy on brand reputation and skate-specific design, not the ABEC number.
Keep them rolling
Bearings last far longer if you look after them. Keep them out of water and grit — the enemies of smooth rolling — and if they start to slow or grind, a bearing cleaning kit and fresh lube can bring them back to life. Use bearing spacers to keep them aligned and prevent uneven wear. A little maintenance turns a $20 set of Reds into a setup that stays fast for a very long time.
Putting it together
For a bulletproof street setup: hard 99A wheels in 52–54mm, Bones Reds bearings, and the spacers and washers to keep everything aligned. Add riser pads only if you're running larger wheels and need to avoid wheelbite. That combination has kept street skaters rolling for decades, and it won't overspend your budget. Our trucks, wheels & hardware page has all of it in one place.
