Last night I decided to embrace the decent into (gear) Madness. The only way out is directly through.
A quick recap: I skated a full-sized vert ramp a few weeks ago. It made me want to start skating larger transition in my local area. While skating the vert ramp, it was clear I needed a bigger set-up for that application. So, I set one up (8.75’/159s). However, I then found myself really liking this bigger set-up for a lot of the normal skating I do, too (e.g. curbs, small ledges, mini ramps, etc.). Suddenly, I was no longer sure about anything set-up related; The (equipment) Madness had returned. I tried to fight it a bit, but my mind wasn’t relenting. I soon realized the only way to rid myself of it, was see my way through it. So, that is what I am now embracing, full-force.
Last night I ordered a few other decks. Within a week, I will have basically every conceivable width-to-wheelbase ratio deck that I would reasonably ride. Grouped by wheelbase, they are as follows:
*8.75 / 14.62
*8.5 / 14.5
8.38 / 14.5
*8.25 / 14.38 (my long-time standard set-up deck)
8.63 / 14.25 (a modern shaped deck)
8.4 / 14.25
The asterisked ones I already had. The other three I found on sale, so it wasn’t a total waste of money (or so I say right now). What is interesting about the other three is that they fall into a “No Man’s Land” between truck sizes (e.g. the 8.38” could easily take either 8.25” or 8.5” trucks). This will allow me to play around a bit with stability/turning/etc. between truck sizes as it relates to wheelbase. That’s kind of…exciting. I should note, these are all decks I’ve ridden at some point in the past, and liked something about them, so, there is some history with each of them.
Do I actually think any of this is going to make skate any better/different? No. I do not…well, I can demonstrably do Smith grinds better on the 8.75” than my trusty 8.25” because of the significantly wider trucks. I am under no illusions that switching wheelbase by .25 of an inch is suddenly going to make me skate like I was 22-years-old again. That is a Fool’s Game, and is not the goal of any of this. So what is the goal? I guess it’s two-fold. First, is just to find a set-up that I am comfortable riding (in a variety of terrains) and is also one I’ll have fun on, and (2) as I’ve often said elsewhere, one should occasionally test their assumptions, if only to prove they still hold true (and it became apparent to me that some of mine may no longer be true). Resonance, that is what I am really looking for (in life, and in skateboarding). This time around I have yielded to the notion that, “It’s OK to have more than one skateboard.” For some reason I have mostly subscribed to idea that there should just be “one ring to rule them all.” But honestly, how dumb is that?
I will continue to update about this as I move through this Madness experiment (e.g. how specific set-ups are working/not working), mostly to have some record of the outcomes, should The Madness arise again in the future. Is all of this absurd, crazy, and a waste of time/money? Without question. However, I am not yielding from this path until I have gone all the way through the dark forest.
In the meantime, here is a photo for inspiration.
