A few years back; Chris Rhoads used to review all kinds of yoyos on the Highspeedyoyo site.
In one of our many conversations; he told me he was loaned yoyos for reviews.
I asked him about reviewing yoyos for free? He told me it was the most obvious way to expect a fair and impartial review.
Personally I wouldn’t expect free yoyos. But I think if I wanted to add a ‘reviewed’ yoyo to my collection; the Maker should give me a better than retail deal.
Now; I never didn’t believe what Chris had told me. But I sure did find out he really wasn’t kidding me.
Before Steve Buffel at SPYY yoyo retired; he had sent a yo-yo to Chris for review. The yoyo was called the Flying V. Really nice yoyo when it came out… And still ‘is’ a good playing yoyo today😳
I had read The High Speed Yoyo review and I was inspired to buy one.
Anyway; I just happened to get a ‘funny one’. It just had this quirky attitudinal vibe.
I contacted Steve(a good friend) and let him know I got a funny one. Since I was pretty much a known modding machine; way back then; Steve knew I wasn’t dreaming.
So he got back to me and told me ‘he had one out in the field’ and he would have it sent to me. So… here I am; expecting a replacement Flying V from Canada in two or three weeks. Amazingly; I got the replacement Flying V in about a week! And it wasn’t from Canada. <> kinda puzzled me.
I contacted Chris and asked him why ‘he’ sent me a Flying V?
He told me it had been on loan from SPYY; for a yo-yo review. Turned out it was the only spare V Steve was aware of.So he contacted Chris and told him to send the review yo-yo to me.
At first I felt kinda bad. And I related that to Chris. But Chris told me not to sweat it because technically; the yoyo was not his.
… Now back when Chris Allen was doing reviews; when the Makers let him keep the review yoyo; often Chris would have some kind of challenge/puzzling problem contest. And give the review yo-yo to the Winner.
I honestly do watch video yoyo reviews. Not really to learn more about the subject yoyo.
I just like to add up the umms, uhhs those guys can say in just a few minutes of giving a review, lol.