Pomelo
This is something we’ve been working on for months and months, and we’re excited to finally introduce the second project in our line-up. Here is the Pomelo.
SPECS
dia 65.3mm
wid 54.96mm
weight 61.3g
material 7068 AL
I’ve always loved oversized throws. I got into yo-yoing in 2006, a time where Duncan’s Hardcore line was still very much the rage. The first bearing yoyo I ever got was the Duncan Throw Monkey, Duncan’s 5A-centric model, and I absolutely loved it. At 63mm in diameter and around 70g, it was quite a handful, but there was a charm to its physical largesse, both in roundness and bounciness of the shape and material. I remembered going through wads of friction stickers on the Throw Monkey, shredding it through the summer.
In time, I found a new favourite in the Freehand Zero — which was Duncan’s premium choice for “performance” plastics at the time; it excelled in ways the Throw Monkey did not, and its design allowed for nimbler and more precise play.
I never forgot, however, the comfort and satisfaction of the way a large, fat throw felt in the hand, or the fun of hitting tricks on a yoyo of such massive proportions. The tactile signature of these “biggies” were unique; sometimes it felt like you were playing 1A and 4A at once.
The Pomelo is a modern love letter to the oversized throws of bygone eras. It is not made for dense tech, or play that abides by the current meta; the Pomelo is made for risky bangers, creative movement tricks, and excels at regens, binds and whip-style tricks, and more artistic and expressive play. It has soul, and is just really, really fun to throw.
The Pomelo is named after one of the largest citrus fruits, and true to form, it is unapologetically large, sitting at 65.3mm in diameter and 55mm in width. (The word pomelo also feels like a portmanteau of pillow and marshmallow, “pi-mallow”, which represents all the characteristics of it being big, but airy and light… but that’s just us being silly.)
In the Pomelo, we adapted the step-and-schmoove response area from the Cloudberry, which allows it to glide smoothly on the string and to take serious layering without snagging. We also adapted our response gap to keep binds tight and predictable, and it shows; we put the Pomelo through a gauntlet of bind tests — low rpms, ghosts, whip-types — and it missed next to none of them. In other words, uncompromising and dependable in the right places, but forgiving where it needs to be.
The most exciting feature of the Pomelo to me, and what distinguishes it from its oversized counterparts, is its light weight. One downside of old-school oversized throws like the Throw Monkey or Flying Panda were that they were flat-out dense, given their rubber-rims and polycarbonate-shell hybrid construction. At only 61.3g, the Pomelo is incredibly featherweight, especially given its large profile, and is svelte on the string.
We maximised the characteristics of 7068 AL, keeping the walls as thin as the material would allow, and also kept rim weight to a minimum. We put a little raised doughnut around the “halo” on the cup to add just a bit of center weight.
The overall mass and how it is distributed gives it an insanely fun playfeel. It is ridiculously floaty and willowy, and its strange how something this large and fat could move so nimbly. It really does feel like a pillow on a string.
The heart of our project in the Cloudberry was in finding a sweet spot between fun and performance; the soul of the Pomelo is similar. While it aces modern tests of playability, it fundamentally pays homage to its old-school forebears — and joins a lineage that lives on in other throws like the 420, Burm, Overture, and Par Avion.
The Pomelo is a delight to me personally, as it takes its cue from the past, but has a seat at the table of modern throwing. We’re hoping it brings you as much joy as it does us.
Thank you for reading this long post, and for all your support so far. Please let me know if you have any thoughts or responses – I would really love to hear them.
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January 2021
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