Bearing question

General Yo-Yo
1

Hey!
I just wanted to ask about your expierience,
i just started yoyoing a view months ago, so i´m not a good player by any stretch ( keep that in mind)
i just bought a Duncan Barracuda, and i want to put a better bearing on it since it doesnt seem to be a great bearing… so how are the YYF 10 Ball center track and the OD 10 Ball bearing compared to each other? i like the center track since it helps keep the string centered. But i dont know about the performance of them.

also does someone know what bearing exactly comes with the ricochet? is it 10 ball or 8 ball?

Thanks :wink:

2

If you want to put a CenterTrac in there, that would be fine. I found the stock bearing needed a cleaning, so try that first. After that the bearing was pretty good, but I swapped it for a One Drop 10 Ball instead.

3

The Spec X bearing is really good and doesn’t need cleaned off the bat.

4

I’ve never tried a YYF 10 ball (I think they’re called SPEC X’s), but I do like the CenterTrac and the OD 10 ball. If I had to choose, I would probably go with the ten ball, but it all comes down to preference. Or if you want to try both in one you could by a Buddha bearing for about half the price of either of those bearings. By the way, the Ricochet comes with an 8 ball CenterTrac.

5

If you want a smoother yoyo, the OD 10 ball. I like string centering, but some people dont. I think because it bunches up the string it something.

6

With new users, I really recommend avoiding string centering bearings.

Shaped bearings can bunch, and are more likely to bunch the string. Flat bearings(including CenterTracks) allow more natural string movement.

If it was me, I wouldn’t have started with a Barracuda. A Flipside would be perfect. But it is what it is. My recommendation would be a YoYoJam Speed Bearing or a One Drop 10 Ball, or a Terrapin X Wing Cut.

Since YYE doesn’t carry the Buddha bearings, I can’t recommend a SIMPLE(flat) or a DIMPLE(Centertrac copy), a RIPPLE(Trifecta) or a WHIPPLE(V-shaped).

7

He’s right. You should probably stay away from a string centering bearing. That doesn’t mean you can’t get one, but as a beginner, it won’t help you in the long run.

When I was getting into the advanced section, where you used the breakaway throw a lot, my breakaways were really crooked, and my yoyo came with a “concave bearing” (In quotations because it was a magic yoyo), and all it did was put off getting my throw straighter until later, when I would need it. Because I was able to do some tricks with a crooked throw, I developed a really bad habit, which was very hard to break.

8

Skip the gimmick bearing and throw a One Drop 10-Ball in there.

1 Like
9

Thanks for all the responses! helped a lot!
Do you really think a center trac hurts newer players? in my case i´m not working on stuff like the breakaway^^ just got the spirit bomb down and i m well into the expert tricks on YYE, so would a center trac really still hurt me? cind of shocked by this^^thought it would be more helpful for newer players

10

Not really. It’s like learning to ride a bike with stabilising wheels. Some may say that it’s better just to try and learn without them because you’ll be forced to learn faster, others will advise you to use them so you can get a feel for it. Same end result, two different approaches.

Just try both and go with whatever you prefer. Consistent practice will be what makes the difference in your throwing, not the type of bearing you use.

1 Like
11

I found the exact opposite with my CTX, it came caked full of lube, but now that it’s cleaned it’s very nice, but I feel like I still might have left some lube behind since I kind of cleaned it in a hurry, being a little impatient about wanting to play it.

12

Really?

Mine had a 25 second flick spin on the end of a pencil.

13

Center-Trac come clean, CTX come pre-lubed. If you got a 25-second flick, I wonder if that was new from the factory or if it had a stopover somewhere? :wink:

As for string centering, a lot of people have a lot of strong opinions, but in MY opinion they’re overstating the case. It’s not going to ruin you as much as you think, and it’s not going to help you as much as you think.

People also talk about this “string bunching” because it’s intuitive. It makes sense to imagine that your string’s going to get all bunched up if it’s forced to the middle. But nobody has done a study, and after my own experiences, I don’t think it’s as big a deal as people think. It’s like the opposite of a placebo: people imagine it will hurt, and so every little bit of friction or every snag, they want to blame the bearing. I haven’t done a study either, but I’ve looked carefully and I’ve noticed that profiled bearings still tend to allow the string to move out of the way for new layers. Less effective are the grooved bearings, but the loop can still “pop out” of the middle most of the time. Very effective are the new Whippel bearings (JD’s “signature” bearing).

Think about this, too: with a flat bearing you might avoid “bunching” to a certain extent, but you will also cause your strings to touch the response pads more quickly. That “bunched” feeling can happen when your string is being dragged against the response even moreso than when the string is being dragged against itself. Now, this can be a benefit. I do think that you will get tighter binds on a flat bearing, and your trick binds will have a tendency to work better. So this higher response is not always a bad thing.

Anecdotally: I had one time where I kept getting snags and bunches and thought, “DARNIT! Everyone is RIGHT about this! Forget profiled bearings!” and went to swap out my bearing. Only to discover it was a flat bearing all along.

Suffice it to say, people talk a lot, research very little, and present intuition as fact.

I think my favourite bearings are all flat bearings-- OD 10-ball, Northern Spin CORE, and Gen-Yo AIGR. But I like that new Whippel, enjoy Trifectas a good deal, and one of my best combinations is a Supra with a KK. Very rarely do I attribute either success or failure to the bearing. My technique is much more of a factor.

14

Thanks again! ordered the OD 10 Ball now. just want to try how it is and i own 2 center trac bearings (8ball tho) so i want to see the difference.
thanks for the help! expecially to GregP for writing all that :wink: helped a lot