Ten Minutes, One Belt: Owning a Board You Can Actually Fix
Every vehicle with moving parts has consumables. Bikes have chains and brake pads. Cars have tyres. An electric longboard has belts, wheels, bushings and — eventually — a battery.
The interesting question is not whether these wear out. It is what happens when they do.
The four things that wear
Belts. A belt-drive board transmits power from the motor to the wheel through a toothed belt. It is a wear part by design, and that is a feature: the belt is the cheapest thing in the drivetrain and it is meant to give before anything expensive does. On a daily commute, expect to change belts occasionally. Two spares and a tool kit come in the box, which tells you how we expect this to go.
Wheels. The 110 mm all-terrain wheels are the part in contact with the worst surface in the system. They wear unevenly if you always turn the same way on the same route — rotate them front to back and they last noticeably longer.
Bushings. The small urethane pieces that let the trucks lean. They soften over time, and the symptom is vague rather than dramatic: the board starts to feel less precise. Replacing them restores the steering feel completely, and it is the cheapest upgrade in skateboarding.
The battery. Every lithium pack ages — by cycles and by calendar, whether you ride or not. The difference between vehicles is whether that ageing ends the vehicle. On Linky 2.0 the pack is designed to be replaced, by the owner or by our service, so the board outlives its first battery.
What you can do yourself
Quite a lot, and deliberately so.
A belt change is a tool-kit job, not a workshop job: remove the cover, slip the old belt, fit the new one, check tension. Our support videos walk through it step by step, along with pulleys, bushings and the electronics bay. Wheel swaps and bushing changes are standard skate maintenance.
Battery replacement can be done by the owner or by us, depending on how comfortable you are.
How to get parts
We send spare parts on request. Write to us, tell us what you need, and we ship it. There is no self-service spares shop yet, which is on our list — for now, an email gets a human.
Repairs that go beyond consumables are handled in Italy, where the boards are assembled and the drawings live.
The five-minute routine that prevents most of this
Once a month, with the board folded on a table:
- Look at the belts. Cracks between the teeth, fraying at the edges, or a shiny glazed surface all mean "order the next set now", not "it has failed".
- Spin each wheel. It should run quietly and stop gradually. Grinding means bearings; a wobble means a loose nut.
- Press the deck at the hinge. It should feel solid. Any play is a thing to tell us about immediately, not next month.
- Check the charge habit. Storing a pack at 100% for weeks is worse for it than riding. If the board is going to sit, leave it part-charged and give it a top-up every couple of months.
Five minutes. It is the difference between a consumable and a breakdown.
Why this matters more than it sounds
A vehicle you cannot maintain is a vehicle with an expiry date. The moment a single worn part means the whole thing is scrap, you are not an owner, you are a subscriber.
Belts, wheels, bushings, battery. Four parts, all replaceable. That is the actual design goal.
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