Thirteen years ago, One Drop and Caribou Lodge locked themselves in a factory for a week, designed a yo-yo from scratch, filmed the whole thing, and dropped it at a contest before the week was even over. That yo-yo became the original Summit, and now the two brands are back with Summit 2, a follow-up built on the same reckless timeline (design, manufacture, and release in a single week) but carrying its own character rather than chasing a repeat of the original magic.
The design process started at a coffee shop in Eugene with zero prep work, just the room’s energy and one opening question: responsive or unresponsive? That conversation landed on a Side Effect Chief/Leaf setup, with a Caribou Lodge profile paired to a One Drop cup, a shape that nods to the first Summit while looking and feeling like something entirely new. Once CAD wrapped at the One Drop factory, a raw prototype was in players’ hands that same evening, and after testing surfaced a request for a little extra weight, the team released an initial lighter “First Draft” run of 80 units at Pacific Northwest Regionals in a one-off blue anodized by local shop BT, with box and engraving art once again from Jason Week. The final production version adds 1 gram over that First Draft, the tweak the team agreed nailed the feel they were after.
This is a yo-yo built from collaboration, history, and a genuinely chaotic week of yo-yo making, and it’s only the beginning. Every player who took part in the Summit 2 experience will eventually get their own Player Edition with their own color and Side Effects, so this release marks the first step into a new chapter between One Drop and Caribou Lodge. Grab a piece of yo-yo history while it’s fresh.
