Four days… when you set your mind to it, what can accomplish in just four days? If you are the guys at One Drop and CLYW apparently you can construct a complete retail yo-yo from the ground up in just four days. When you think about it, that is not much time to sit down and design the yo-yo in CAD, machine the first proto, test the proto, machine a second proto, test that one, have your teams decide which one they like, have the machinist secretly pick the one that is going to be made while the teams are deciding, anodize the retail run, laser etch the run, assemble the run, and then finally package all in time to sell the first run at Cal. States. Keep in mind; the CAD work alone took Chris, David, Shawn and friends a full day on their own. That whirlwind pace took place this year between PNWR and Cal. States while CLYW was visiting One Drop in Oregon. Now I would be remiss if I did not mention that the key to pulling all of this off was having their team members with them. That allowed for instant and invaluable feed back in all aspects of the design process. The other secret weapon they had was that they pulled in their friends for a true collaboration; from Evan at Toxic strings who anodized the initial run to One Drop’s shop neighbor Nando at Next Step who did the laser etching. I will admit, I am not doing it justice describing the process here. I have linked the Summit documentary at the end of this review… give it a watch. Now the question is “Is the Summit any good?” I will answer that question a little later on but I can say that the people involved loved it with Chris M. from CLYW saying flat out that it is one of his favorite yo-yos that they have ever designed. After watching the documentary and seeing just how many people were actually involved, I did have one question that kept coming to mind “is this a case of too many cooks in the kitchen?” Time to find out.
As always great review Chris!!! I too love this yoyo. I have to say that when people ask me how the Summit plays what I say is “It has enough of each design to mae it it’s own beast all together” which means that it plays nothing like the two throws it was based on… So cool!!!
I said it before and i will say it again, you got nothing but nothing expected when… oh no that is a song. i meant i said it before and i’ll say it again; BRILLIANT REVIEW. I got mine yesterday, and literally was up until 1 am doing one homework assignment (20 pages of reading and a few questions to answer) because i was throwing the summit so much. I agree with you on all accounts.
Though i have a question. Why did you stop making CLYW reviews? I mean, the last you did before the Summit was the Sasquatch, and in yoyo-times, that’s ages ago really.
I couldn’t get my hands on them. I have since fixed that issue. Expect reviews for the following two soon. I just got them in yesterday and had enough time to get these action shots:
Thank you very much for this review. As always it is very nicely and professionally done. Anyone who does not understand the art of the modern yoyo would do well to read your reviews and realize just how much time and effort not only goes into designing these throws but playing and reviewing them as well. Thanks.
Short version of the Cliff review. It is the craziest yo-yo I have played in quite some time in the absolute best ways possible. I am having a blast with it even though the whole thing is bonkers. This thing is going on my grab-n-go list… you know, the short list of yo-yos that you quickly grab from when you are running out of the house.
Yeah, the Cliff is a pretty crazy yoyo- it plays completely opposite of how you think it would play considering its size. I just sold mine (after the month-ish honeymoon period ended I was kinda ‘meh’ about it), but I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending it as a throw to get if you have the cash to drop on it.
