Extreme Yo-Yoing

Roland Piquepaille writes "Unless you're a dedicated yo-yo fan and a serious competitor, I doubt that you'll hand over $400 for a yo-yo. Even if it's a state-of-the-art hogh-tech yoyo made with a forged-magnesium-alloy and coming with the latest in axle technology. With this one, you can use the freehand style, meaning that your hand is not connected to the yo-yo, but is replaced by a small counterweight. In 'Reinventing the Yo-Yo,' Science News Online says 'its balance is ensured with precision tooling to micrometer tolerances by a computer-controlled lathe.' This long article doesn't solely focus on this luxury item. Instead, it looks at the history and the physics of the yo-yo, and includes many references. A good read for a weekend! This overview contains other details and extra references about the Freehand yo-yo."

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Pricing

[octalc0de]

"The original Freehand yo-yo was the only yo-yo in the world that didn't need to be tied to your hand. With its patented counter-weight system, you can let go of the yo-yo in mid-trick, making the impossible look easy"

No wonder it costs $400! It's got an amazing antigravity device that allows the yo-yo to remain suspended in air after you drop it.

Yomega yoyos rock too, at a much better price

[Grant29]

Wow, that a nice yoyo. I have had good experience with the Yomega's before. It always seemed a lot smoother than a Duncan. I preferred using a bufferfly model at virst to get down the tricks, but the classic model is the way to eventually go. I could do lots of tricks at one time, but I could never do the dual tricks that required using a second yoyo with your left hand. BTW, a nice Yomega will set you back less than $20.

--
Retail Retreat

Re:Yomega yoyos rock too, at a much better price

[Bingo Foo]

As the owner of a Yomega Raider (~$10), a Spintastics (~$14), various Duncans (~$5), a few BC Spitfires (~$4), and a Custom Goldeneye (~$60), I can say that in metal-axle and ball bearing yoyos, you definitely get what you pay for. Duncans are not as good as yomega, for sure, but Yomega is not the top of the heap. I would look into an aluminum Custom, IIWY.

In wood-axle yoyos, you can get an amazing amount of play for cheap. The BC spitfire is still my favorite looper. I also found an unlabeled black wood saber-shape (with wooden transaxle) at a liquidation sale for $5, that rivaled the Spintastics for sleep time.

Cause Yo-Yo-ing is just sooo cool.

[DarkHelmet]

Wow...

An activity OTHER than browsing slashdot that will guarantee I'll never get laid again.

Re:Cause Yo-Yo-ing is just sooo cool.

[boredMDer]

Again?

Lucky bastard.

Evolution is a Cyclical Process

[osewa77]

Modern technology has brought us to the point where, finally, we have better yo-yos .. again!

TK created many innovations in the Yo-Yo industry

[Anonymous Coward]

The article is slightly mistaken, the Silver Bullet II (All metal yo-yo) and a number of other wooden TK Yo-Yos models had steel axles with replaceable ball bearings and a finely adjustable string gap based on a threaded inset that could be adjusted with a coin - this was the real innovation the adjustable string gap and it was the main innovation that they patented.
The ratcheting, telescoping and other means of trying to adjust the string gap were too imprecise and difficult to set and retain on a quickly moving high g-force yo-yo. An amazing amount of work and prototyping (years) went into that yo-yo and even though they patented aspects of it, other yo-yo companies went right ahead and copied the design and innovations. The Silver Bullets came in these cool anodized versions, too.

Interesting facts:

[WegianWarrior]

The yoyo is one of the oldest known toys. It's also not evolved from a weapon, country to popular myth.

All the stuff I know that is useless... I don't need no yoyo to prevent me from getting laid ;)

No one appreciates true geekness anymore

[Graftweed]

Well that's just great! You spend the whole damn year learning elvish and then some annoying kid comes along with a $400 yo-yo and steals the show.

Projected Sales?

[i love pineapples]

I'd be interested in seeing how many of these Duncan expects to sell. After all, professional yo-yoers are a pretty niche market as it is, and I'd expect the number of people willing to spend $400 on one to be even smaller.

Extreme yo-yo-ing, Mr Bond

[AtariAmarok]

"Extreme yo-yoing"? Am I the only one who remembers the guy with the buzz-saw yoyo in the James Bond "Octopussy" movie?

We're banning Yo-yos

[Anonymous Coward]

As a notable public figure, I have to remain anonymous.

Due to some injuries with yo-yo fanatics in our school systems, we have decided as a whole to ban yo-yos in our state in public buildings; schools included.

Recently, a teacher had to have surgery done on her eye to fix a laceration caused by a yo-yo hitting her eye while a student was showing off in show in tell. It cost taxpayers $37,000 to repair the damage caused by an item no more than $4.

Yo-yos being banned here will set a precedent.

Yoyo Baggins

[AtariAmarok]

Yoyo Baggins, is that you?

Tournament music video (13 megs)

[MagPulse]

Highlights from the 2003 Japan National Yo-Yo Contest

Cool video - Japanese National Yo-Yo Contest

[ReKleSS]

http://www.antra.dk/-- get the video here, down the bottom of the page. It's 60mb or so, but it's pretty amazing. Some of those guys have way too much time on their hands. (But here I am reading /., so......) -ReK

A word from the NYYA

[AtariAmarok]

"Then again, it's not the yo-yo that hurts the teacher, it's the student. I got it! Let's ban students from school!"

Remember what the NYYA says: "If yo-yo's are outlawed, only outlaws will have yo-yos".

We must protect the right to bear arms, and the right to arm bears.

The Freehand Isn't 400$

[Anonymous Coward]

The freehand described in the article is a special yo-yo based on a popular yo-yo that is much cheaper. Chillax.

See here.

Re:Ahead of the trend.

[iminplaya]

...to beat off your attackers .......

Uh, you may want to re-phrase that.

Yoyo tricks and Diablo juggling

[Terri416]

The article mentions a form of yoyo trick where the yoyo leaves the string altogether and the tricks involve balancing the yoyo on the sting.

This reminds me of diablo juggling. Think of a whacking great yoyo, about 8 inches diameter, and a 4 foot long string attached to 2 sticks. Loop the string around the diablo and move the string side to side rapidly to spin it up, then unloop the string and the tricks commence. Experienced performers can use a few diablos at once. I found some video here.

The Strings the Thing

[stuffduff]

While having a quality yo-yo is very important, I can't even count the times that I've seen even the best yo-yo with a totally shot string. The damn things have been used so much that it is no longer possible to loosten the string enought to get the yo-yo to sleepat all.

Like ancient guitar strings on collectors guitars people tend to wait until the string breaks. So check out someplace like the yoyostore and by yourself some strings, especially if you've never purchased any strings since getting your yo-yo. You'll be glad you did!