Variflex Wired

This will go down in history as the most ridiculous graphic post ever. The first board I ever had was a department store complete. This was the summer between grade 6 and 7 so 1987. It was black, had a snake and a skull as the graphics and the bearings were terrible. I remember taking it apart and the bearings had built in spacers. The griptape wore out in a matter of months so I went down to Surfside, a windsurfing shop that carried skateboards, and bought some new tape. I peeled off the old crap and put the new stuff on. I didn't know the procedure of slapping the griptape on, scraping along the edges and cutting along with a blade. I went through the tedious task of tracing the general shape of the board onto the tape, cut it out with scissors and trimmed until it fit. Took me forever! Fast forward several months...

A friend of mine had got this Variflex Wired board at the local Canadian Tire. I rode around on his a bit and I had to have one! Went down with my Mom and picked up my own. I was so stoked to have a new board. Some of the stuff on it were pretty bad. All the plastic was this really hard brittle stuff that cracked and broke off. It had decent bearings (NTN) which made for a smoother ride than my first board. For whatever reason, I was really into customizing my boards back then. I ended up regripping this one as well, painted it pink and slapped on a bunch of stickers, which included a Schmitt Stix Joe Lopes Sphere sticker, a Vision Don Brown Pig sticker and a few others I don't remember. I had also bought Rib Bones and a Tail Bone for it.

When I eventually got my first real pro board, I carried over the Rib and Tail Bones as well as the Variflex trucks until I got my set of Tracker Ultralites.