lolll, do you....buy a full new complete every time?!?
Why
I feel like sometimes I could look back on what I had assembled in the same way a junkie looks at the track marks up and down his arms and feels some sort of regret for how things have turned out, or you could think of it as a definitive statement to the state of my mental health, but all that aside, I actually had a lot of different options, mainly being the hardness of the wheels and how worn down most of the completes were, riding 99s in original and Formula Four, plus some in 97, 95, 92, quite a few trucks grinded down to the axle, even half of them that I had kept as is ready to pass on to anyone who needed a decent board, which I can say most have now found better homes.
This was around the same time as 144s came out, so I had set up quite a few new ones on 144 Indys, and left the others with the 139s still on them as I wasn't sure if I like the feel of the wider trucks or not. I think I even reset up quite a few that I had taken apart, just to even out the number of completes there as well, such is the OCD of my skateboarding mind.
I am now 40+ don't have kids, or other addictions and rarely spend much money on anything else in life and being "shop guy" I had access to a lot of product less than RRP, which I bought over time and pretty much have a "set for life" thing going on (as well as running my own shop of sorts for the last twenty years).
Out of that whole lot of almost 20 completes (yes there were more not in the picture), I only have about four remaining as completes now, all the rest given away as completes, or pulled apart and passed on to others who either didn't have a skateboard, or sold at minimal $$$. There are still three I keep at an indoor skatepark I help out at, again for people to ride so they can feel what a good complete should feel like, and it was a much easier way of letting people know what some product was like before they bought a new one off the shelf, or when they asked about softer wheels, they could try some in 99, 95 and 92 duro without having to take their own wheels off and swap them over.
I realise how this might look and am not trying to "flex" and have never been a "look at all my stuff / I have more than you" kind of guy either, so although I got up this morning, after being awake til 4am on a mental health bender, and thought I should not have put that up on here, it would be silly to delete it now too, seeing as there are all the replies with the post still in there.
This was quite the wake up call seeing so many setups that I had at that time, and although I have about half a dozen completes now in the 8.38 variety, it is no where near on the scale that this was at around that time.
I have a purpose built shed (same space as a double garage 6 x 6 m) with a small ramp in it and lined the walls with mostly broken and used boards and other fun stuff which makes it feel more like home and is a lot nicer than blank walls. It is just my happy place, not something I really show off or ever think of as anything other than a story of my life.
So that is about it, I think.
Easy enough.