The Wicked The Wash is an interesting tool to clean your inline skate bearings.
A maintenance tool such as the
Turbo Wash we always recommend for cleaning the bearings
wet (with an acidic liquid). You should indeed do this regularly, but sometimes you want to clean your bearings quickly and
dry. (
Wet cleaning takes a little more time).
The Wicked The Wash consists of two bottles. You remove the "shields" from the bearings and put them in the inner bottle. You put the inner bottle into the outer bottle and then you have to shake it well. There are holes in the inner bottle so that the dirt that comes out of the bearings does not fall back into them: the dirt falls through the holes into the outer bottle, which mainly serves as a dirt collection container. The inner bottle is like an internal filter cage that prevents the bearings from absorbing dust and dirt again after you shook it out.
The enclosed tools are very handy. Why are they useful? Doesn't everyone have a rag, pins and used toothbrushes somewhere? Not really:
- the so-called rag has microfibres that have the right length for bearing maintenance. (And today, with all our synthetic clothes, it's a bit harder to find a decent rag between our old clothes than twenty years ago.)
- the "drawing pins" have a needle of the correct thickness and provide a lever to easily remove the shields from the bearings.
Strengths:
- At last a maintenance tool to clean/maintain the ball bearings dry.
- All-in-one for dry cleaning.
Weaknesses:
- The inner and outer bottle cannot withstand the acidity of e.g. this bearing cleaner liquid. That is a pity. That is why the Wicked The Wash can only be used dry. For wet cleaning you have to use the Turbo Wash.
- An instruction manual is missing and even the warning that the bottles cannot withstand acid is not there.
- The outer bottle should be a little firmer, because it breaks easily when it bumps into something.
