Have Frank sue people / corporations if he feels that strongly about it. Or you could sue them on his behalf if you feel that strongly about it?
My personal opinion is that fully concave is a rather different beast than flat with angled sides, both from a technical (shape is completely different) and philosophical (it’s not intended to strongly center the string) perspective.
I actually support the argument that other very nearly concave bearings (v-shape, pixel, etc) which do strongly center the string would infringe on said patent, for the record!
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Grendel
(The Voice of All Grendel’s world wide.)
122
For a couple years Spirit Bomb kinda represented the fixed axle gauntlet. We had a “No Jive Spirit Bomb Club” lol, of which André was def a member (along w Yuuki, Red, Tyler, BoJack, Adam Brewster, Sebby, Joey Fleshman, a bunch more…) but after TMBR made the original Irving, it was less of a barrier. Spirit Bomb is a great fixed axle trick because it requires a solid (but not crazy) sleeper, some precision, and management of slack. If my yo-yo allows for Spirit Bomb and Shoot the Moon back to back, I know it’s a good setup.
So I feel like I’m missing something. Question for everyone opposed to flat bearings - How exactly are they holding you back? Are there really tricks you can do with a cantering bearing that you can’t do with a flat?
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Grendel
(The Voice of All Grendel’s world wide.)
133
To answer your question, no flat bearings do not hold one back as it were, that’s your hands doing that.
My guess is that spin time suffers due to extra friction from the string pushing against the pads so strongly on a flat bearing. So if you’re working your way through learning a trick and need a lot of spin time to get it right, then a strong centering bearing is the way to go since it maximizes spin time?
Just a hypothesis, @zslane is the one who feels strongly about it in terms of tricks.
No, but flat bearings on a yoyo make it more prone to tilting when not flawlessly executing a trick, and it makes little sense in a yoyo like the VTWO, or any “competition” throw or one designed for maximum performance over feel. Imo you have to be daft not to notice the stability improvements of centering bearings. However I still use flat bearings in a few of my throws since I do like the more “classic” feel sometimes.
To me I notice no loss of spin time with flat bearings. The additional level of tilt seem minor to me overall. Granted I play tilty yoyos in the grand scheme. I am totally fine with a yoyo tilting. Honestly prefer the ability to tilt a yoyo with ease.
Rather than the throw (I can throw a clean breakaway basically anytime im not drunk), it is more the tendency of the throw to tilt while going through a trick. Next you have some free time, swap a flat bearing into one of your KK throws and tell me it isn’t less stable when trying your more tricky tricks. I guess they are a bit more forgiving on the breakaway too, but a bad breakaway doesnt just fix itself.
Otherwise I agree with @Applepooh. Training wheels is actually a good analogy. And the flat bearing in the Life cause life aint easy, LOL
Sometimes you want that training wheels yoyo though, and stuff like performance bimetals and Vs are the kind of yoyo to put them in.
