Parts

I get a lot of emails, Facebook messages, YouTube comments, as well as kids and parents in person asking me about parts compatibility. Nearly every question revolves around the compatibility of forks, bars, headsets, and clamps/compression systems. This is by far the most difficult part of building a scooter for people who aren't already deep into the sport. Because freestyle scootering is still a very new sport, a lack of industry standards and definitive best practices has led to a wide range of parts and technology implementations. While innovation and variety are great for the progression of scooter parts, it has made the situation difficult for parents and kids who are trying to learn about building scooters.

It seems that Hidden Internal Compression (HIC) systems are becoming more and more popular among freestyle scooter riders. This is because they are simple, cheap, and light compared to SCS systems, which we covered in another tutorial found here: Proto SCS Installation.

The HIC system uses a shim to extend the reach of the fork into the bars and prevent the fork from pulling out of the headtube. The tutorial video in this article uses a Lucky HIC composite shim, Lucky HIC bars, and Lucky HIC oversized clamp, but other HIC systems should work similarly. In terms of true HIC, we've been extremely happy with the Lucky setup.

Installing a Standard Compression System (SCS) clamp can be tricky if no one has shown you how to do it right. Even after you get your SCS installed, it can be challenging to get it locked down just right. When dealing with an SCS, the first and most important precaution you should keep in mind is to not let anyone that you don't trust mess with it. Often times, someone might be trying to help when they think they know what they are doing and they might accidentally wreck your $80 clamp. I don't let anyone else work on my kid's scooters not because I don't trust them, but because if I screw it up, then I have to pay for it. If someone else breaks a part, I don't want to deal with that awkward interaction of who has to pay for it.

It can often be difficult to get a clamp and bars to fit together if the clamp is a tight fit for the bars. You don't want to use grease to make them fit together as it will be difficult to get a secure fit later on after you tighten everything. The best method for expanding your clamp for easily fitting it on to your bars is to use the penny trick.

The method outlined below will work for standard clamps, HIC clamps, SCS clamps, and it might even work with the Phoenix iHIC bars/clamp system, but I haven't had a chance to try it out with those yet.

As always, use T-handle allen key wrenches rather than L-shaped allen keys. You can buy a full set of T-handle metric allen keys for less than $10 at Harbor Freight and I highly recommend that you do so.

Everyone wants metal core wheels because of their superior strength, performance, and durability. However, they have one disadvantage over plastic core wheels: they are much more difficult to get bearings in and out of because they do not flex at all. There are some tricks to removing bearings from metal core wheels and I'm going to show you one method that utilizes the bearing spacer.

If you haven't installed a thousand pairs of scooter grips yet, don't worry...you will.

Grips are usually one of the last things added to a scooter during a built and since they are a relatively minor part, it's really frustrating to scooter kids when they have to wait for grips to dry. Traditional methods for installing grips involve using some kind of relatively quick drying lubricant to allow the grips to slip on to the bars. I have typically used a light mixture of dish washing soap and water, mostly water, to install grips. Windex can also work and I've heard of people using spray paint as well because it dries sticky and acts like glue to a certain extent. I would personally avoid spray paint because of the PAINT aspect of it, which can ruin the finish on your bars and over-spray on to anything around you. It's messy and unnecessarily mars your parts.