Hey all, I’m in general what I feel is a large human. I’m over six feet tall and can grip a basketball in one hand - but are yo-yos just getting too big.
My preference are around the 56mm x 45mm range.
What’s your thoughts???
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I think you are right but it’s ok, there is a good variety in yoyos.
Those big ones are done for contest settings, the way of play in a contest it moved a lot on body, arm, horizontal, whip and similar trick and much less string tricks or tech, so it was a natural solution to make the yoyo bigger to help the player to catch it, some of those can be easily used also in tech with a bit of technique.
I would say that my favourites are until 48mm width, I think is a good compromise between contest and tech
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Too wide
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At one point 54mm was considered as over-sized and 52mm is full-size yoyo.
It all comes down to how yoyo competition has changed and yoyo specs must also change to accommodate it.
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Variety is the spice of life. I wouldn’t want all my yoyos to be +52mm but I still love the Wilderness. My comfort zone for width rn is about 47mm (though even a year ago I would have said 45mm).
Diameter I don’t think has meaningfully changed on average since the very early 2010s tbh. Maybe the band for full sized has shifted from >54-56mm up to >55-57mm I guess. Most of the shift in diameter happened around 2007-12 or so imo and it’s been pretty steady since.
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Lol no
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When i first got my wilderness i thought it was crazy wide but now im used to it i love it.
But for some tricks it can be a challenge when things get tight then i realize hey, I’m just not that good yet
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Nah. I think we can still go bigger and smaller. 
I mean the orange is perfect
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Companies need to innovate, so we keep seeing boundaries being pushed. It’s a great thing!
There’s enough out there that there’s something for everyone.
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Hard to say, i thought the outlier + was too big (50mm) cuz i couldnt do chopsticks at all but was fine doing it with the outlier 3. But now i can do them no problem and dont usually struggle doing tech with it either. And ive got tiny hands, im literally 5’3. That being said tho i like the outlier 3 and other smaller yoyos because theyre much faster
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the 50mm wide range has quickly become the meta for comp yoyos, so there is a market and a need for them. for me personally though i think 50mm is too wide for my hands, i prefer 46-47mm
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Most of my biggest and especially widest yo-yos aren’t really new, though there is a recent proliferation of designs that are focused on competition instead of fun or straight-up novelty.
I think the market is just accommodating the type of tricks that are currently trending.
As far as the kind of tricks these designs are intended for, product descriptions for the 2012 C3 Master Galaxy could have been written for the 2024 C3/W1LD Dinosaur in the Wild.
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Yoyos have been getting wider and wider every year it seems. I don’t care for anything beyond 46mm because I have hands on the slightly smaller side and I don’t compete or try to keep up with the competition meta.
So in terms of my own preferences, yeah, I find the market flooded with too many wide yoyos. Also, too many organics, and a puzzling number of heavy (> 66g) yoyos. Obviously there is a market for all of these, but I’m not a part of it.
Honestly though, it doesn’t really bother me much because I already have too many yoyos and don’t need yet another 55x44x65g high performance bi-metal. So seeing what seems like a gazillion yoyos that I don’t care for hit the market just saves me a bunch of money and pushes me to play the ones I already have (and which deserve more play time anyway).
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I feel like this is a common idea I’ve seen before and some yoyos focused on competition are the most fun yoyos I’ve tried. I’m just not sure it’s right to set these against each other like either / or style.
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Fair enough. Any yo-yo can be fun. There are some characteristics that are associated with competitive yo-yoing and others that are not, and that is the distinction I was getting at.
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I find for example organic yoyos (which usually are considered fun) the most frustrating experience in the yoyo world: spin time is weak, balance is weak, is hard as hell to close my combos and is even harder to make combos with them.
For example for me competitive yoyos are fun cause I dont need to concentrate on the yoyo but on the trick itself.
I believe to everyone its own but is annoying when people label competition oriented yoyos “not fun”
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Yes, <= 56 W, <=45 W. That is my sweet spot.
Preferably organic.
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Some tricks just work better with higher walls, binds feel different, the catch is more comfortable, and the weight distribution creates a satisfying play feeling.
My favorite type of yoyo is somewhere in the middle, like the Otter or Cabal Gen 2.
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Not really, just more folks are open to playing with bigger and heavier (or even lighter) yo-yos.
Although styles of play change, designers are also seeking to be unique and constantly push the boundaries. OP had ran a proto set of 583’s (58 x 58mm) a few years back and it was really fun.
As long as the design plays well, the specs can be kinda whatever. I’ve played plenty of stuff which was outside of my preference and loved it.
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They are only too big if you prefer them smaller.
Nowadays, there is usually a reasonable number of products representing the various sizes and widths.
Let’s say for example, that 55mm dia… 43mm width… 66grams weight… 4.5mm gap width were the specs considered ‘perfect’.
But yo-yo tricks and players are constantly evolving. Players are searching out yo-yos with: diameters, widths, weights, materials, bearing shapes and string types for the perfect ‘one’.
Obviously, some yo-yo sizes have distinct advantages. Often medium diameters are ‘ideal’.
Sometimes, nothing beats the smaller sizes for getting into smaller areas.
The Makers seem compelled to ‘keep it fresh’ by feeling out the limits of various diameters.
If people in the majority, decide that larger yo-yos aren’t worth buying, that all they need to do.
Don’t buy yo-yos that spec out on the ‘large chart’ and those yo-yos will fade away.
I think most serious players are trying to find the ideal specs for a yo-yo. And most serious players want to try yo-yos that may spec out outside what they consider their normal range. One thing they’re looking for is yo-yo they can compete with effectively.
And the other type of yo-yo may be searching for could be much larger than their competition choice or for that matter much smaller, wider, narrower, heavier, different types of bearings, different weight distributions Or anything else outside their comfort range or competition. By competition, I mean the yo-yos that the guys have on the trays when they go up on stage.
On stage a competitor has a very simple and straightforward mindset. Mainly business and try to have some fun in the process and win something.
When a player is not on the stage, his mindset is much different. Mainly have fun while practicing and staying sharp at the same time and messing with yo-yo’s that they mainly wouldn’t take up on the stage, but are still a kick in the pants to play with.
Back to what I said at the beginning of my oratory… The yo-yo is too big if you feel it’s too big for you.
Personally, I don’t care for very large yoyos. I certainly don’t compete so it doesn’t matter there. But some of the larger yo-yos I thrown like the chameleon, for example, is not only bigger than a car tire, but it weighs more than one of my cats.
On the other hand, I have one of a larger Sasquatch which is about 70 something millimeters I don’t remember at the moment, but that thing is a blast to play with. I can’t explain why? But my guess would be that it just plays so well, but in the hand before you put it into the air it doesn’t seem like it’s gonna do anything, but make a clunk at the bottom of the string. On the contrary, the large Sasquatch is an amazingly well designed yo-yo and plays beyond what you would think by looking at it.
I noticed there seems to be somewhat of resurgence of the wide yo-yos Like the yo-yo factory, monster, and the scintillator. Those suckers are wide! But they play enough to keep you engaged and shake your head and wonder why they play much better than you thought they would and they probably play much better than most of your yo-yos and you won’t ever figure out why?
If somebody voted and passed the law, making me the royal nationwide yo-yo procurement wish maker, I would say one thing. Announcement to all you manufacturers. Just keep making those yo-yos. Make them bigger make them small smaller make them wider… Just keep making them and we’ll keep trying them And will let you know Down the road by voting with our wallets.
We are so lucky. We get to try yo-yos. We get to buy yo-yos. We get to trade yo-yos. We get to love them or hate them.
A few years ago, Steve Brown said, it’s a great time to be a yo-yo player. It’s all around us put a string on your finger and have some fun.
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