A Word on ABEC Ratings
Has anyone ever told you the ABEC rating of their bearings or asked what yours was? Well, no matter how high the rating may be, your response should always be, "Who gives a s--t." One of the biggest myths surrounding skateboard bearings is that a high ABEC rating is some kind of measure of quality or speed.
The reality is that the ABEC rating is more often used to rate bearings involved in applications in heavy machinery. In those industries, the important qualities of a bearing are things like the accuracy of the dimensions of the bearing, or the amount of noise it makes. For example, in skateboarding, our bearings are 8mm x 22mm x 7mm. Bearings with a low ABEC rating could be 8.003mm x 22.001 x 7.002mm, while bearings with a higher ABEC rating would demand something more like 8.0000001mm x 22.00mm x 7.0000001mm. In skateboarding, how important is a millionth of a millimeter on your bearings to you?
We demand a whole different set of qualities from our bearings. Much more important are things like radial load, thrust load, type of ball, and type of lubrication--none of which are taken in to account in the ABEC rating! The fact is that you'd have to be skating at over 200 MPH before the ABEC rating even begins to be relevant. So unless you're holding on to the back of France's newfangled bullet-train, ABEC ratings just don't matter.
Companies like Bones have known about this since the beginning, and so you won't find an ABEC rating on any of their products. One of the reasons they're the leading skateboard bearing manufacturer is that they've integrated their own rating system to make bearings better for skateboarding. In fact, if you see a set of bearings with an advertised ABEC rating, that should be an immediate red flag that the bearings are not high quality. More often than not, you'll end up with a 10 cent bearing from China with a colored shield and some cheesy sticker in the box. Don't fall for the hype.