Esteemed Pals and other Dudes!
First post so here's a bit of background, please bear with me: I stopped skating seriously in 1997 and took it up again this year during lockdown. I still had a set up from back then, a beautiful Tommy Budjanec Enemy deck 8.38 with 8 inch Orion trucks (rode smaller boards before the Budjanec) and 51mm Spitfires. However the deck was already cracked and broke after a few weeks.
So I got me a brand new set up which I have been riding for 6 months now. It's an Real Ishod Victory deck (love it) which was sold as 8.38 but is actually 8.5, with some Indys 144 and 52mm Bones 100's. That's the budget Bones and they felt hella plasticky compared to the Spitfires but I got used to them in the meantime. Got some Bronson G2's in them. I know they get a lot of heat here but I am quite happy with them. Granted they are not hella fast but I am not going hella fast anyway these days.
Here's a picture of the old 90ies deck and my current set up.
I love the Ishod deck but it's slowly getting razor tail and losing a bit of pop so I figured it was time to get a successor and copped the new Ishod 8.38 Peace Tree deck (which acutally
is 8.38). A thing of beauty. Then it was my birthday and I got some vouchers from the best Swiss online shop (I'm Swiss) so I went on a shopping spree. Above all, I got me the 8.5 Shorty's Muska deck, a must for a nostalgic 90ies dude like me. The Muska flip was my signature trick back in the day (don't have them back yet). Now I don't know which of these decks to ride next. They are both so beautiful I almost can't bring myself to setting one up so I need your help to convince me to set one up and to help me choose which one (and should I keep the other one, are they likely to increase in value?). Here they are:
I also figured it would be nice to keep the old Ishod to use it as winter/wet/dirt/crust board. For this purpose I intend to revive (no pun intended) the 23 year old Orions and Spitfires. With my vouchers I copped a plethora of hardware which should allow me to do that. I accept that this will be a magic carpet ride. Here's a list and a photo of the stuff I can work with:
- Decks: Ishod 8.5 (old) / Ishod 8.38 (new) / Muska 8.5 (new)
- Wheels: Bones 100's 50mm (newish) / Spitfires 51mm (23 years old): the Spits are broader.
- Bearings: Bronson G2s (used) / Bones Swiss (brand new): obviously, the G2's will go on the crust set up.
- Trucks: Indys 144 with hard Bones HC Bushings (used) / Orion 8inch (23 years old) with the following choice of bushings: (i) hard Bones HC, (ii) Medium conical Indy Aftermarkets 92a, may be combined with (iii) black OG Orion barrel bushings or orange Indy barrel bushings.
TL; DR: So here I am with a ton of gear to set up one new deck and one crust deck. Please help me compile those set ups. All help is greatly appreciated but my main concern is (i) which new deck to set up and which one to keep, (ii) which bushings to pick for the Orions (I ride the Indys stock loose), (iii) which wheels to go on the new deck. Thanks!