Let’s not forget how kickback factors in here. And to my under-educated perspective, it factors in on two levels:
You have to exert more energy into the rim-weighted yoyo to get it spinning the same speed as a more center-weighted yoyo, because your energy is translated into getting those rims moving.
If the two yoyos start at the same RPM, the rim-weighted one will spin longer as there is more momentum generated on the spin. But this doesn’t always happen; the center-weighted yoyo is easier to get up to speed, so even though its spin will die more quickly, it had more spin to begin with.
Not saying it equals out or anything like that. Overall, I believe the rim-weighted yoyo will still tend to spin longer. But back to the subjectivity of all this… when a yoyo takes less of a rip to get it moving, it probably translates into a more casual attitude toward the combo you’ve just started.
yoyos (sometimes informed by setup such as new broad pads and thin string) with a lot of kickback just feel weird to throw. You think you’re throwing straight in front of you and the thing goes toward your shin (so in the future, you sort of throw of to the side instead!) On a breakaway, you think you’re throwing out to the throwhand side, but it sort of goes down and then towards your NTH side instead.
I for one am not a huge fan of that level of kickback. And it’s exacerbated by the strength of your throw. You’re imparting a LOT of energy into the gyorscope, and because it’s not fully translating into the spin/unwind, some of it gets translated into lateral movement. Net result: you want to chuck your rim-weighted yoyo hard to get the most benefit out of its improved spintimes, but the throw just starts to feel weird. You either learn to live with it or you end up not playing that yoyo much.
The benefit of this factor if you’re looking for one is that yoyos/setups with some kickback tend to come more gracefully to the end of the string.
The spin benefit of rim weight -far- exceeds the decrease in RPM.
Kickback is a result of starting torque required… larger gaps and higher rim weights require a larger rotational point (bearing in this case) to drop straight down… it’s why C bearings are so very common instead of A.
I’ve looked at my favorite throws in my collection and I’ve noticed they are are all balanced between center weight and rim weight father than mostly rim weighted: JT FiReal, YYO Quash, 2Sick Queen, Yoyojoker Exceed, Zeekio Zenith, YYR Diffusion, YYO Imp…
Kyo: sounds legit. But even using a C bearing, with some yoyos that are incredibly rim-weighted, the kickback is real.
Not trying to exaggerate or anything-- I have plenty of “rim weighted” yoyos that play great. Pulsefire. Queen (interesting Glen that you see it as balanced and I believe it to be rim-weighted!). Valor. I think it takes a particular extreme in order to really get noticed. I remember the Ti Dream proto video where Ben throws and the kickback is fierce (refined the proto in part to reduce it). Draupnir is not without kickback.
What you say about the bearing size definitely resonates, though. The most kickback I’ve ever experienced was a small-bearing (A, not D) Genesis. The small bearing coupled with the Genesis’s famous rim weight and a thin string… kickback central!
I didn’t mean to say kickback doesn’t still exist, just that the C bearing was done to help counter it.
Also, I have that proto that Ben threw, it doesn’t kick back really that’s just kinda how ben throws I think.
The first time kickback really became a thing was when we started modding tigersharks to have beefcake bearings (for the young ones, that’s two bearings side by side) an extra rim weight… shortly thereafter larger bearings came along (yoyojam) and resolved most of the problem.
Still throw my beefcaked tigersharks every once in a wile. They got popular enough that spintastics started selling them as the great white shark.
They almost feel like they take a left turn out of your hand they kick back so much.
Those were the days.
Could someone please describe in detail what kickback is? I don’t know I’ve ever felt it, and I’ve tried a lot of throws. Is it mainly just a problem with A bearing throws? Or are there some good examples of more modern ones that have kickback problems?
“Problems” might be an overstatement. One of the most popular yoyos of the current era is the YYR Draupnir, and even the fans mention there’s some kickback. But it’s manageable.
Ben himself mentioned to me in a chat that that Ti proto indeed had some kickback to it.
H5xChief has some kickback; outside diameter vs. bearing diameter I guess, if I’m understanding Kyo’s description correctly.
I find that kickback is particularly a characteristic of bimetal yoyos. The more rim weighted a yoyo is without a great deal of centre weight, the more kickback it has.
Hspin pyro has a good bit of kickback for a “modern” Yoyo. Though I very much consider late 90’s early00’s modern.
The best way for me to describe kickback would be using a normal front style throw. When you throw a Yoyo down it usually feels like you throw it down straight towards the floor or ever so slightly forward of straight down. Kickback is when with your normal throwing motion the Yoyo does not go straight down towards the floor but it “kicks back” towards your legs.
It is a function of how big a diamiter the string spool around the axel is. The smaller that spool the more kickback.
There are three things that can change this spool size and in turn cause this kickback.
As mentioned before a smaller bearing diamiter causes the spooled up string to also be a smaller diamiter. The larger bearings solved most of the kick back problems of those “earlier” yoyos. (But remember the problem did not happen until gaps started getting bigger)
Thinner string will spool up to a smaller diamiter so will cause some kickback. Thicker string goes the opposite way.
And finally the size of the gap of course changes this diamiter. This is why the smaller bearing yoyos did not have this kickback until we started increasing the gap with 2 bearings. Think of a freehand 1. No kickback because the gap was not super wide. So there are balances between these things.
To anyone that loops these 3 things will sound very familiar. As they change the height of loops. Kickback in the opposite direction equals a higher loop. Less kickback is a lower loop.
I have never known weight to be a factor to this but I could be wrong. It may just be that weight is a much smaller variable to these other things that change the angle of throw so much. Anyway, it has been WAY to many years sense university physics and I just don’t think I could do the math to figure that out at this point.
Hope that all made sense. Sometimes it’s tough to put into words and so much easier to show.
Drove me crazy.