Buying replacement wheels can cost almost as much as a completely new pair of roller skis. The objective of this document is to try and find cheaper alternatives, tell you where to find them and show you how to sort out the bits needed to make them fit.

So far I have been unable to discover a replacement unidirectional wheel, so I am afraid that for now the classic rollers will remain expensive. For skate skis however the outlook is much better. In particular the 100mm wheels can be replaced by scooter wheels. Provided you don't feel the need for maker's logos and don't object to a few air bubble inclusions, a set of 4 scooter wheels plus ABEC 5 bearings can be purchased from Skate Asylum for £12 plus post and packing. I doubt that you will be able to find a better deal than this.

I think that you will be able to use these wheels as replacements for most 100mm diameter wheels. They are a murky, brown jelly colour, medium fast and wear quite well.

I am currently investigating the use of inline skate and hockey wheels as replacements for smaller diameter roller skate wheels.

The race wheels for Skiskett Cobras seem particularly prone to heavy wear. A cheap training replacement for these saves a great deal of money. I think they are a little bit too slow to be used in a serious race.

For all wheels, the bearings are mounted on a spacer within the wheel. The Skiskett spacer extends out beyond the bearings. The tapered washers are intended to fit over them. You can see one end of a spacer protruding through the bearing in picture 2. The standard spacer only extends as far as the bearing outer wall (see picture 4). But the Skiskett tapered washers can still be used to locate the new wheel within the ski frame.

Below I show how they are fitted.
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Here the cheap wheels are fitted to Elpex F1s. As with the Skisketts, the Elpex spacer in the wheel extends beyond the bearings but the replacement spacer does not. This is not a problem as it still works and locates the wheel properly within the ski frame.

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Finally I fitted the cheap wheels are fitted to Marwe skis. In this case I opted not to use any part of the old wheel. The standard bearing spacers are used as before. The location washers are made by drilling the thread out of 6mm nuts. You will need two nuts for each wheel. The full B and Q shopping list is:

4 hexagonal bolts 6mm x 1 x 50mm
4 nylon locknuts 1 x 6mm
8 flat washers 6mm
8 hexagonal nuts 1 x 6mm

The original wheels are fitted with large aluminium washers that sit over the bearing, presumably to protect it from dirt and water. The new wheels don't have this protection.

The assembled wheel is shown below

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