Keeping your Onewheel clean is an important part of maintaining your Onewheel. Cleaning your Onewheel keeps it looking sharp and it also restores the gripping quality of your grip tape which is a wonderful feeling. With a clean board and grippy grip tape you will be riding with more confidence and safety.
The Onewheel community reports various ways to clean a Onewheel and the Onewheel Official website recommends the following:
“You can keep your board sparkly clean! We recommend using a damp cloth to wipe down your rails, and for your tire and footpads, we’ve found that using a dry scrub brush gets the job done nicely.”
But I often find that my Onewheel needs a more deeper cleaning than what a damp cloth and a dry scrub brush can provide. In this article I will outline how I clean my Onewheel.
How to Dry Clean Your Onewheel
I prefer a dry cleaning approach to cleaning my Onewheel in 5 simple steps. These steps are for a deep cleaning and for quicker cleaning I will often modify the approach and skip steps as needed:
Step #1:
I used compressed air to blow out any debris in the charge port. You can learn more about compressed air here.
Once clean, I plug the charge port and I cover the power button with the appropriate covers. Learn more about the charge port covers and power button covers here. If you do not have a cover, painter’s tape is a good temporary fix.
Step #2:
Take a scrub brush and remove and loosen any debris and dried mud. Here is an example of the brush I use.
Step #3:
Use compressed air to blow away the loose debris and sand in all the nooks and crannies. Sometimes I stop here. If my board still needs cleaning, I go on to the next steps.
Step #4:
If there is still dried mud in the grip tape then a rubber cleaning stick is a great solution. It’s basically like a big eraser made of natural rubber that will safely remove dried mud stuck on the grip tape without harming the grip tape. It is used quite commonly in for skateboards and longboards. Even though this particular product is for cleaning sand paper, it is the same concept and this cleaning stick is very highly rated by both skateboarders and woodworkers.
I use this particular cleaning stick for my Onewheel, but I use it even more often for my belt sander and orbital sanders to prolong the life of the sandpaper. I highly recommend this cleaning stick and you can check out Amazon for pricing.
Step #5:
Finally I hit the board one more time with the brush and compressed air. Finally, if needed, I’ll use baby wipes to wipe down the rails and fender. Yes, I treat my Onewheel like a baby.
This is an easy way to clean your board without running the risk of water damage. I’m sure there are many people who have hosed down their board multiple times without problems. The problem is, there are also many people whose boards have died because of water damage. Don’t risk your large investment.
Should I Hose Down My Onewheel
It is a common misconception that the Onewheel is waterproof. This is false. The Onewheel is water resistant. From my research it seems that the water resistant abilities of the Onewheel may even vary from the different models.
The definition of water resistance is the ability to resist water to some degree but not completely. For this reason, I try to avoid getting my Onewheel wet. I will go through puddles and wet grass, but if it is a good rainstorm or there is a risk of really getting my Onewheel wet then I would avoid those situations.
Electronics and water do not mix. Water damage will also void your Onewheel warranty. For this reason I will not hose down my Onewheel. There are videos on Youtube and Facebook of people hosing down their Onewheel, but that really gets me nervous. It only takes a little bit of water to get into the wrong place to fry the electronics.
Even if your Onewheel is highly water resistant and you’ve enjoyed dumping water on your Onewheel, over time the sealants used to protect your board will break down. I do not think the convenience of hosing down your Onewheel is worth the risk of bricking it.
Keep it clean. Keep it dry. Keep it going.