CLYW / One Drop Wooly MarkMont
Reviewed by Chris Rhoads
February 6, 2011
Introduction
It is always fun to see two companies come together and combine their talents for a new yo-yo. In the past I have seen some great playing and unique collaborations come from the likes of SPYY / CLYW, Oxygène / Hspin, and General-Yo / 3YO3. One team up that the community has been asking for is a union between Oregon based One Drop YoYos and Edmonton, Canada based Caribou Lodge. Both companies have a strong, almost cult like following. Some thought this particular collaboration would never happen because of the insane schedules that both companies keep, but inspiration struck from a very unusual place… a contest. Chris at Caribou Lodge decided to run a “Make Your Own Marmot” contest. The rules were simple, entrants needed to take the stock Wooly Marmot logo and use it as a template to design their own custom logo. The winner would receive a custom anodized Wooly Marmot. One entrant, Frank Bradley, came up with a brilliant little riff on the Marmot logo while paying homage to One Drop team member Mark Montgomery. While he was not the contest winner I think he won more than just a custom one-off colorway. Without Bradley’s artwork it is quite possible that this particular collaboration would never have come to be. As with any collaboration you get a serious amount of hype and the detractors as well. When the collaboration was first announced, people had no idea what it was going to be so they hype was maddening. After the collaboration was shown in its raw form on the Caribou Blog and the name was finally revealed, the Wooly MarkMont, there were some that dismissed it as a rehash and said that neither company went far enough in embracing the spirit of collaboration. Personally, I was excited but I tempered my enthusiasm and reserved final judgment until the yo-yo was in hand. Now that I have had this yo-yo for a couple weeks I get to see if the detractors were right or if this is another ingenious meeting of the minds.
Specs
• Diameter: 50.3mm
• Width: 40.6mm
• Gap: 4.06mm
• Weight: 67 grams
• Bearing Size: One Drop 10 Ball Bearing
• Stock Response: Flow Groove
Construction
When it comes to the construction of the Wooly MarkMont I would say that it is 85% CLYW and 15% One Drop in design. Some would say that the 15% from One Drop is not much of an effort but I will tell you that it makes all the difference in the world. When the original CLYW Wooly Marmot came to market I was not the biggest of fans. It was made for Jensen Kimmitt’s play style, which was as far from mine as you could get at the time. I found the original Marmot to be unforgiving during play and would tilt easily. This was not a design flaw but a player flaw, it came out well over a year ago and I just was not that good at the time. This summer I was given a second generation Marmot that had some extra weight added to the design. I found this one to be a bit more stable on the string and forgiving during play, partly because of my increased skill over the year since playing a first gen and partly because of the added weight. My new Marmot became one of my go to yo-yos when leaving the house. All of this leads up to the Wooly MarkMont, or WMM for short. The WMM looks almost identical to the Marmot but with some key differences. Some of these differences are easy to spot and some are quite subtle. Looking at the profile of the WMM next to a Marmot you can see that the catch zone has been opened up ever so slightly. It is still a butterfly shape but the angles into the gap are more pronounced than on the original design. The rims flatten out towards the rounded lip of the WMM. The cup shows the first radical change from the Marmot. The WMM sports the same brass hub that is found in One Drop’s MarkMont Next. This hub gives the WMM a distinct look while also adding center weight to the yo-yo. The floor of the cup has the rippled look found in the Marmot and the IGR from the Marmot also makes its return. The whole yo-yo has been soda blasted and then wrapped in a flawless nickel plating, the same flawless nickel plate that has been gracing One Drop yo-yos since the original MarkMont. The feel of the yo-yo in the hand is where I noticed the greatest difference. The change in the catch zone let the WMM rest a little better in my not so thin hand. Over all, the design changes are very subtle but they make this a unique departure from its sibling.
Weight
This is where the changes between the Marmot and the WMM really happened. Chris handed over the Marmot design to One Drop’s resident machining genius, Shawn, and they worked their magic to refine this well-established yo-yo. One of One Drops biggest secret weapons is their ability to do all the fabrication in house. While most companies have to out source their yo-yos to a third party, One Drop can do the work at home allowing them to rapid prototype a design and make almost instantaneous tweaks. This gives the tighter control over the quality of their products. When Shawn got ahold of the Marmot design he worked “under the hood” so to speak, shifting weight around and changing up angles here and there. These tweaks, along with the addition of the brass hub mention earlier, give the design a greater sense of stability, smoother play, and longer spin times. The WMM is a gram heavier than the second gen Marmot but does not feel any slower or chunkier on the string.
Response and Bearing
The response has changed from CLYW’s flowable silicone to One Drop’s Flow Groove pads. The pads play as well as silicone and are easier to replace. I have always said that for those that do not like applying silicone, these pads are a great alternative. In all honestly, I cannot tell the difference between the pads installed in the WMM and the silicone in my Marmot. They both play dead unresponsive and give tight binds.
The bearing is One Drop’s 10-Ball. The bearing is smooth, long lasting, and quiet. I cannot really comment on the difference in play between it and a stock CLYW bearing. When I received my Marmot this summer the very first thing I did was replace the stock bearing with a spare 10-Ball and I have since traded off that bearing in one of the man deals I have made over the last half of the year.
Playability
Talking about all of these tweaks and changes, the big question is “How do they affect the play?” definitely for the better in my opinion. The catch zone is a little easier to hit during whips and I found that the smoother finish allows the loops to remain wide open during suicides. During the play test for this yo-yo I decided to focus on all the tricks I currently know and throw them all with the Marmot, MarkMont Next, and WMM then I would compare the play between them all. In my MarkMont Next review I said that it is not a floaty yo-yo. The WMM retained a little bit of the float from the Marmot but it moves on the string more like the MarkMont. Here is the best way to describe the play of this yo-yo. Make a chart; put the second gen Marmot on the left and the MarkMont Next on the right. The WMM would fall almost dead center on that chart. It moves like a Marmot on the string but it is smooth, solid, and stable like a MarkMont. I was a little worried about the grinds on this yo-yo due to the nickel finish but I can honestly say that the soda blast allows it to grinds as well as any One Drop or CLYW yo-yo in my collection. There were no issues with arm, finger, palm, or thumb grinds, even when taking it from the cold back yard to my warm house. I would have to say that the true collaboration came in the play of this yo-yo. While it may only be 85/15 in design it is truly a 50% split in play between the two companies.
Final Thoughts
When it comes down to it, I am very happy with this collaboration. I am a huge fan of both of the yo-yos that the WMM is based on so a merging of the two is also right up my alley. Would I have liked a brand new design, yes but that would have been easy for them. I think it was probably a little harder for them take a yo-yo that already has a huge following and mess with the design; one wrong move could potentially anger a very large fan base. Luckily that didn’t happen. I have even gone so far as to say that this is the definitive version of the Wooly Marmot, but I have since realized that it is an insult to the Marmot line. This yo-yo is unique and could not have happened without these two companies coming together. I would love to see these two companies do this again in the future. Maybe dust off the Peak design and give it side effects and a different weight distribution or have them come up with that off the wall design. The WMM has shown that a collaboration between the two is a huge success, selling out of the entire 150 unit run in I think just shy of 24 hours. If you are a fan of only one of these companies pick one up. This could be the gateway yo-yo needed to get you interested in the other. If you are a fan of both companies you will definitely want to add one to your collection.