Episode 89 | Are Pickleballs Too Fast, Neonic NEOGRIT, Gearbox Pressure X, Prototype Testing

[00:00:05] What is up, nerds? Welcome back to Episode 89 of the The Pickleball Pursuit Podcast. We've got a cheater here. He's asked for forgiveness. Everything's fine. I let him back in the house. We're good. He's not even sleeping on the couch. But I'm your host, Lewis, here with my co-host, Justin, from Pickleball, etc. For anybody who doesn't get the joke, he was on the John Q podcast last week, which was great, man.

[00:00:29] I threw my chair in the corner and just watched from the corner, and it was a great watch. Just two handsome men talking about nerdy stuff. But in all seriousness, hope you had fun, dude. John's a great dude. I know y'all are two like-minded people in terms of just wanting to know all the nitty-gritty details. So I bet people really love that, and it seemed like a pretty fun episode.

[00:00:55] Yeah, it was cool. We were both at the UPAA lab tour, and John said, do you want to do a podcast while you're here? And I was like, yeah, why not? Hell yeah. Dude, my man comes prepared. There's nothing like this podcast. No. Trust me. We got everybody left, and then we were going to stay at the lab and record and interview a couple of the engineers who were there.

[00:01:17] He opens up his duffel, three cameras, mics, three tripods, and dude, he traveled to Florida, so he flew with all this stuff. Jeez, three cameras? Hard cases, like hard Pelican cases. Yeah, there were three angles on this impromptu podcast. We had the SM7Bs, even handles for them and everything, so he comes prepared. He's serious. Damn, John Q, he's not playing around, big dog.

[00:01:44] We turned on the cameras, and then it didn't get too crazy nerdy, but we did end up talking for two and a half hours, so it was long. He even commented on the potential lack of penis jokes. Oh, yeah, that was the best. In full quotes. Yeah, yeah, that was the best. He got me. I didn't expect him to say anything about it, but, you know, of course, we all know Lewis and his predilection for dick jokes,

[00:02:10] and then Eddie, John's co-host, has been known to make some balls-on-the-face jokes. Yeah, quite a few innuendos. Yeah, so John opens the podcast, and he's like, I'm here with Justin, and he's like, I don't know what we're going to do without all the penis jokes. Like, maybe crack up. So, that's a good start. John is so funny, man. So funny. There were no penis jokes the rest of the podcast. None? Not a single one. I thought of multiple.

[00:02:36] Like, I was thinking in my head, oh, you would have teed off on this, but no. I just let it roll. I just let it ride in the, you know, we kept it technical and nerdy, and yeah, he let me shill for a while, so it's all good. Nice, nice. It wouldn't be a podcast with Justin without a little shilling, you know? A little light shilling. Well, we got an action-packed episode. We got a lot of stuff to talk about. We have some items that I've got in the mail. I just want to go over real quickly.

[00:03:05] Go over a couple of paddles that I'm pretty excited about. I want to talk more about some interesting findings with the Pacl fuse. It just keeps getting more and more interesting. And then we're going to talk about favorite paddles of the past. Are pickleball... Are pickleballs too fast now? Well, and then we'll talk some UPA testing because you were there for a while. Maybe do a net gains. Who knows? New week, new main.

[00:03:32] And then Justin's going to talk about a little bit of how he tests paddles for his, you know, paddle development in Nerdtown. So, man, we got a lot of stuff. But first I want to touch on the Breotti glasses that I got in about two, maybe three weeks ago. So, and these are quite different in terms of the style from the original ones. So, they're just the frames on the top. So, they don't have... What do they call that when the bottom is not... Like rimless?

[00:04:02] Rimless, yes. Thank you. Yeah. And then they also have a very cool little way that you can unhook the glasses, which I thought was really cool. But now that I'm on camera, I can't do it. I'm getting performance anxiety. What? You unhook the lenses and take them out? Yeah, you unhook the lenses to take them out and then you just put them back in. Same thing. Slide it in there. And I assume there are interchangeable lenses with different colors or things. There are, yeah.

[00:04:30] And, you know, Breotti has been known to have, like, very high quality stuff. So, just wanted to touch on these. I'm not a huge, you know, glasses fan. I legitimately, like, when I wear these, it takes me two to three games minimum before I'm, like, acclimated to them. But, with that being said, I thought these were some of the better glasses that I've used. Felt like the clarity was up there.

[00:04:57] Not my favorite style, but also very on brand for... No, very on brand for, like, most pickleball, racquetball sports. And I think people will enjoy these more than the original ones because of the rimless or the frameless design. Which gives you a little bit better, I guess, optics, basically. You can see a little bit better without having any obstruction. But, yeah, it does come with other lenses. And I got two sets.

[00:05:26] So, one was the clear one and the other one was... I can't remember the name of it. But, I do think, like, the shining feature of this paddle is... Or paddle. Of these glasses, how easy it is to just take the lenses out and, you know, interchange them. That is pretty cool. So, wanted to show these off. If you're a big eyewear fan, these might be ones to check out. I do have a discount code, which is CodePursuit. And these are a little bit pricey, but they're no Pila, you know. They ain't gonna be... Yeah. They ain't gonna run you a cool grand.

[00:05:56] But, really like Tanner from Breotti. He's a super nice guy. And, I think, is worthy of support. Like, he really is. Yeah, yeah. He puts a lot of time and effort. Yeah, I was gonna say, just sometimes, not always. And with glasses, maybe this isn't the case. But, with these pickleball products, a lot of times it's just a product from a different industry. Labeled pickleball. Yeah. But, like, Breotti, he's a pickleball guy. So, he's, like, developing this specifically for pickleball.

[00:06:24] So, it has all the correct protection and things like that you would need in pickleball. Not to mention, I'm sure, some of his colored lenses. I don't know, because since I wear prescription glasses, I don't get to try them. But, I'm sure they're geared towards making ball colors pop. Yes. Yeah. I mean, it definitely does. Like, it enhances the, you know, the yellows and greens in the ball to be a little bit more, I guess, easy to track. But, yeah, it's nothing that's, like, you put them on and you're, like, oh, my God.

[00:06:53] It's in HD. You know, like those old infomercials back in the day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're, you know, older than 30, you probably remember that. Yeah, probably. Yeah, that's what they were. They were, like, just yellow tinted glasses. All the ones that you can buy at truck stops now. Those used to be, yeah, sold next to the ShamWow. Those, dude, God, those TV ads used to get me because, you know, when I started editing video,

[00:07:17] I'd be, like, oh, they literally just decrease the saturation and then add the saturation back in for those lenses. Like, God, this is such, marketing is so, so bad. Yeah. All right. Well, those are the Breotti glasses. I got some stickers from the Pickle Bros. They sent us these butt cap stickers. And, as you guys can see, it has Justin's logo, pickleball, et cetera. And then one of the custom ones says Mayor of Nerdtown. Choo-choo.

[00:07:45] And then mine is the Pickleball Pursuit logo. And the custom one is Micro PP Influencer. So, man, this guy knows ball. He knows PP ball for sure. Definitely a user. Go ahead. I was going to say, this dude, he reached out on Discord and was like, hey, you know, can I send you guys some of these? You know.

[00:08:15] And he was basically saying that his sons, who are young, run this, like, their little business. And they're really excited. And they're, like, running it out of the garage with his help, of course. Yeah. But I'm pretty sure his son's, like, 10. And they're, like, making a little business of custom stickers. And, yeah, going to the courts and selling them to people. And to me, that resonated with me. Because, like, that was me as a kid. I was always, like, trying to find a way to, like, run a secret business. Whether it was, like, mowing lawns or whatever. I was like.

[00:08:43] So you would have been all about this. Yeah. So I was like, heck, yeah. You know, that'd be cool to send us some. And then, of course, the custom designs are cool. But, yeah. So shout out, Pickle Bros. Is that what it says on there, right? Pickle Bros. Yeah. At Pickle Bros. No E in pickle. Pickle. P-I-C-K-L. Period. Bros. So, yeah. We thank you all so much for being supporters.

[00:09:10] Man, I got a really, really big kick out of these whenever I open these up. They were pretty funny. You didn't know. I really appreciate that, guys. Say that again? Yeah. You didn't know they were coming. No, I had no clue. I need to give you yours whenever we get a world. But, yeah. They're pretty good, man. Just to have as a little, you know, memory, if you will. It's a little butt cap sticker for when you find the main. That's right. You've got to put your PP Micro and phones around there. Put it on the Spitfire right now. I've been maining that so long.

[00:09:40] All right. Well, new engages. These are the Pursuit Pro 2s. I don't really know anything about these just yet. I literally got them in the mail yesterday. Haven't even looked up. But I just wanted to show you guys. These are coming out soon, which, I mean, is it going to be a Gen 1 battle? Who knows? Is it a Gen 3? I'm not sure. Well, it's got your name on it, so hopefully you like it. Yeah, Pursuit. That is true. Yeah. Hopefully they don't sue me. Area Cyclones.

[00:10:08] Got a couple new colorways right here. This is, what is that? The artist collab, right? Yeah. This one is Nash Desert, maybe? For the collab. And then this one is just the Levi. Well, I can never remember his name. I can't read his signature. But there's another signature paddle for their sponsored pro. But look cool. Feel exactly the same. So great job, Area.

[00:10:37] All right. And the last thing for the mailbag is the new Spitfire Widebody Zen. Or technically standard, which I prefer. I prefer standard. But yeah, this is in. Haven't played with it just yet, as you can see. The plastic's still on it. But looks good. Shapes solid. Not the longest handle in the world. But most people don't care about that if they're playing with widebodies. A few do.

[00:11:04] But if you do care about it, still plenty of room for two-handed backhands. But it's not going to be like the Scorpius. Unless you have Nosferatu hands. Big old hands. Yeah. But yeah, Sparta Spitfire, baby. Got another shape. Ready for that hybrid. All right. Let's get on to the actual real paddles that we're going to talk about. Very quickly talked about the Pressure X paddles from Gearbox last time.

[00:11:33] I played a lot with them. We got it. I played a bunch with the 8E and quite a bit with the 8M. And to be honest, there's really not much of a big difference in them. Like it is so minimal.

[00:11:52] I would legitimately have to play with these back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back for like two or three sessions to really figure out what is the main feel difference. Maybe the main performance difference. And just overall difference between these paddles. But for anybody who doesn't know, 8E is EPP. The 8M is MPP. It has the SST core.

[00:12:18] These paddles are really fucking good, dude. Like they're legitimately good. I gave one of these to my boy Trell to play with. And he had the Pro 4 and it was breaking. And I was like, hey, dude, why don't you just use one of these paddles so you don't have to play with a broken paddle right now. And he played with that. He's like, damn, this paddles is really good. And I was like, yeah, I like these paddles a lot.

[00:12:42] But I think what really makes these paddles special is not only the very unique core design that Gearbox has been known for and just implementing on and improving on over time. But the feel is fantastic. I mean, it is such a good feeling paddle. I'm not sure if that's due to the carbon reinforced foam in there or just how they weight this paddle and how they add the layup to it.

[00:13:11] But it feels fantastic. Both models. It's almost to the point. I was talking to Chris about this the other day. I was like, I can't really tell much of a difference. I'd probably just tell people right now, just get the one that you think looks better. Because the MPP. Yeah, you're supposed to tell me because I haven't preordered yet. You're supposed to tell me which one has a softer feel. I got to go to a real reviewer to ask or what? It's so minimal, bro. I mean, it's like to me, I honestly felt like the 8E had a tiny bit more dwell.

[00:13:40] And I'm pretty sure this is the one that's supposed to be less dwelly and more reactive. But you can't go wrong either way. I think they are fantastic paddles. They're pretty expensive. They're going to be $252 after code when they release. There's a lot that goes into them. Yes. I feel a little bit better about that paddle being expensive because I understand from a manufacturing perspective how much more work they're doing than most other paddles that cost $250 plus. Yeah.

[00:14:10] Let me tell you, Rafa, he ain't going to China and saying, hey, what you got? That's not what he's doing. He's not saying, what's the best thing you got available? He's making it all from the dome. When I was in Florida, I actually played a game with Rafa. Yeah. I played with John Q against him and he said at the beginning of the game, all right, if I win, then it's a good review for the pressure X.

[00:14:39] And I told him, if you send me one. Yeah. You know, so, but I said just kidding. But he did, he did win. Yeah. So I got to give him his props. Although I can't give the paddle a good review. I did tell him I was going to preorder one. I need to decide which one. I can't remember. I think he was playing with a yellow one. Yeah. But yeah, he's got definitely got some crazy racquetball shots. Dude, I can imagine. Racquetball history.

[00:15:04] He had this insane one-handed backhand laser winner from like, it was like a mid-court drive, but it was just like, he was just, there was no windup. The ball bounced and then he was just like, all wrists, like racquetball style. And then John and I stood there and it just flew right between us and then went in. We were like, what the hell? Where the hell is that? Yeah. That was like a sick shot, but not something that you can read. No, no. Because of the racquetball style. Yeah, that's a. We actually had a pretty good game out there.

[00:15:33] We were like the last ones on the court, grinding it out. That's awesome. I played with this guy who played a bunch of racquetball and he has all kinds of crazy shots. I'm like, dude, what the hell is all this stuff you're doing? Impressive though. But yeah. Before we go to the next paddle. Yeah, go ahead. Oh, you finish this paddle and then I have something before the next paddle. Yeah, I just wanted to say that the grit is holding up very well. I don't really notice any change in the grit texture.

[00:16:00] If I'm not mistaken, I think it scored pretty well on most people's durability tests. But in my. Both of them. Cues and friends. Yeah, that's that's solid. In my. In my testing, it's held up extremely well. The spin generation is fantastic. It's not elite in my opinion, but I think it's really good and zero people will complain about it at all. A little smoother feel. But grabs the ball really well. And you can kind of see on the face.

[00:16:30] If I turn it the right way, you might be able to see kind of the SST core from the ball dust, which is pretty cool to see when you're playing with these. This one. Oh, yeah, this is a better. Better side right there. But yeah, really like these paddles going to play with these more. And it will be very likely that I have a full review for these paddles. I think they are. OK. A special a special paddle in a crowded market. All right. Well, you want to move on to the Neonics?

[00:17:01] Yeah. All right. Let's do it. All right. It's all you got the new FLX with the Neo grit surface in. There's gonna be some small changes that they need to make to the handle, but everything else should be exactly as is. For the next batch that will go to reviewers. But with that being said, the owner, Vin, has sent them over to reviewers to test and to see how the grit is holding up.

[00:17:26] It is an infused grit, but it is more similar to hex grit. It's kind of like a blend between hex grit and crystal blue endurance grit. If I could kind of describe it to you guys. But spin is really good. The feel is vastly different. The older. Than the old FLX? Yeah. The FLX. Yeah. It is a lot more thonky.

[00:17:55] And like I said, Spitfire-esque to the owner. I was like, it definitely feels way different. Oh, OK. So softer. Because the old one was pretty stiff. But not hard. Just stiff. It's hard to explain this paddle because, and this is something I wanted to talk about in a little bit. But we'll talk about it right now because the grit texture on this paddle and the J6 CR, in my opinion, kind of gives a rubbery feel.

[00:18:25] Rubbery and bouncier feel on ball contact. Whereas, let's say, hex grit or, you know, Spartus' PermaGrit Nano feels more, not plasticky, but I guess carbon fibery. You know, you can feel that. It's a little crisper. Yeah. It's not quite as, you know, pliable almost on ball contact. Which some people will really like, and some people may prefer carbon fiber.

[00:18:54] You know, more traditional carbon fiber feel. Not a bad thing at all. I think it's a very unique feeling paddle and plays very well. I felt like I was shaping the ball extremely well with this paddle. I was going back and forth between this and the Spitfire. And, man, I mean, this is up there with one of the better paddles on the market right now. You know, I don't want to speak too soon because there's only been one, like, heavy drill session.

[00:19:23] But first impressions were pretty, pretty good. I mean, this is about as good of a first impression as you can get paired with the fact that grit feels brand new. Like, brand new. Almost no difference. And, I mean, I'm probably hit a two-hour drill session. Like, a lot of play on this.

[00:19:50] Which probably would be equivalent to 10, 12 games. You know, if you really counted them out. At least, yeah. So, zero signs of wear on the grit so far. Spin generation, fantastic. I would say it's up there with some of the best stuff on the market right now. Feels great. Super maneuverable. Mine was, in the Swift FLX, was 110 swing weight, 6.1 twist weight. So, really awesome stock stats.

[00:20:17] Then the Frost was 108 swing weight, 6.3 twist weight. So, another great stock stat. All you need to do is just add a little perimeter weight to this one. And then, same thing with the elongated Swift. And you're good to go. So, I think these paddles will probably benefit most from adding weight higher up on the face. But that could change slightly when they modify the handles for the production unit.

[00:20:45] You may not need to go quite as high because, you know, it could change just slightly how heavy they are in terms of swing weight, twist weight. Probably not twist weight, but, you know, swing weight could be affected slightly. Overall, sweet spot's really good. Feel, awesome. Let me do the sound test real quick just so everybody can hear the difference between the original and the new one. Yeah. I always love to see what Neonic's cooking up.

[00:21:12] You know, I feel like they're thoughtful and they, like, definitely are performance first brand. And, I'd say if performance is first, then value is second. So, it's, like, going to be a really good price. Oh, $99 after cook. Just so everybody knows. All right, here we go. That's another $99 durable grit paddle. We're going to go the original first and then we'll switch back to the new one. Here we go, original.

[00:21:40] All right, new one coming up. Oh, wow. Quite a bit of difference. Yeah, pretty low. That's interesting. Now, this, I'm not sure if I can share why that is, but I won't just in case. But, doesn't really affect the playability of the paddle in a negative way. In fact, I think it positively affects it.

[00:22:10] But, yeah, good paddle. Plays really damn good. Need to put some more time on this. And, it is USAP approved. So, could be very interesting for a lot of people. All right, that's all I got on the Neonic. You got anything on that? No, I don't have them yet. I'll get some one way or another. Whether I have to beg Vin to send me one or if I was just buy one. Because that's a paddle I'm excited for and to test. Hell yeah, dude.

[00:22:40] Look forward to it. It's sick. All right. Loco 2 pre-orders are going to be October 26th. Editor Lewis here just made a little mistake on this. It is actually October 1st of 2026. And, according to the website, it will be $200 after code. So, one to look out for 2025 paddle of the year.

[00:23:05] Getting a durable grit option, which they are claiming so far right now, tier one. And, I don't doubt that it won't receive that grade. Selkirk, bread and butter teamed up. I feel like they're not going to make something that's not exactly. The Doug's not going to say that publicly unless he knows. No. Yeah. Right. Yeah, they're not going to. That's not a publicity stunt they want to pull and then fail. So, that is very exciting. A lot of people still play with the Loco.

[00:23:34] I still see them at the courts all the time. Getting a durable grit texture is awesome. So, it's like a month from now just for the pre-order though. So, it's still a ways out. Yeah, we got some time. I don't know anything about it. So, I'm going to ask you questions more than anything else. Do you know if anything besides the durable grit has changed? Not that I know of, no. Okay. The grit I saw on Jace's Instagram story. I don't know if you saw it.

[00:24:04] It looks a lot like, and this is not a bad thing. This is a good thing. It looks like the Honolulu grit but without the blue. So, gotcha. You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which wouldn't surprise me. No. If so, that means it's going to perform well. I'm sure. Yes. Yeah. So, but okay. So, to follow up on that, here's my question. We just said 2025 paddle of the year. And then you said pre-order end of October. So, people aren't getting this paddle until, let's say, the holidays. November. November. So, almost 2027.

[00:24:33] If you take the 2025 paddle of the year and then a year and a half later, you know, just put a good grit. We'll assume it's good. A good durable grit on it. Is that enough? Or not? Or has paddle technology moved quite a bit in the past year and a half? Do we expect more? I don't know if they've changed anything or not. Yeah. I don't know if they've changed anything either. I kind of hope that they did. Even if it's small, as long as it's meaningful.

[00:25:01] For me, I'm like, I love those guys. All of them. But you got to do more than that. That feels a bit lazy. I think the. And resting on your laurels just to put grit on it. You know what I mean? Yeah. If it's been that long, you had all the time in the world. But, let me be devil's advocate. How many tier one paddles are in the market right now? I don't know. Five? Four. Four. Right? So, only four people have successfully.

[00:25:31] Well, technically three. Successfully had a tier one grit paddle. And if they do that, that's a huge win. There's four or five, right? Okay, there's four. Yeah, yeah. There's four, not five. There was five. So there's. And then that got debunked pretty quick. Which was the Vattic. Six, zero. Eleven, six, twenty-four. Shit, dude. There is five. Yeah. I keep forgetting about the P1, dude. My God.

[00:26:01] Yeah, which is difficult because, like, you know, we're not seeing true permacrit. Maybe we will in the future, but right now we aren't. Probably because it's expensive and harder to apply than. Yeah. And heavier. Something that can be done overseas. Yeah. Yeah. So there's five right now. So with that being said. Five brands. And then there are multiple models within those brands. Mm-hmm. I think. I do think that it's a legitimate improvement. And it's enough of an improvement to have tier one grit.

[00:26:31] Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. A hundred percent. But. Okay. We'll see how it plays. I mean, the thing is. It might have changed something. I wouldn't sleep on them. You know. Let's ask this. Do you think that if you put hex grit on the Loco that it would be a better paddle than the Power 2 series from Lodzx 24? Hmm. No. I would say yes. I think it would be equal. Just a different feel. I think it feels better. I think it has more overall output in terms of firepower.

[00:27:02] And the shapes are better. For sure. That can go either way. That's preference. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean. I'm just. Look. I'm just over here. No. I have some questions. That is a good conversation. The reason why I'm asking that is because I'm going to. I'm guessing this is what people are going to say. Mm-hmm. And I don't. When I say people, I really mean the people who are like tuned in the enthusiast, which we know is a very small portion of the market. The large portion of the market, the Selkirk customers, the fact that the Loco made it

[00:27:31] out into the larger portion of the market is awesome. And they're going to just super appreciate. Oh, man. I've been maintaining this paddle for a year and now I get a durable grit version. So, it's a win in that regard. I'm just playing devil's advocate also. Do you think if they change nothing but just that grit that a lot of the enthusiasts are going to be like, that's so lazy. Man, bread and butter's dead. They were constantly innovating and doing something different every paddle. Now, they get bought by Selkirk and they just take the Selkirk approach where they just upgrade one baby thing in a year and a half.

[00:28:01] Baby. You know what I mean? I know. If that's the case, then Yola would never sell a single paddle. Well, Yola doesn't sell that many to the enthusiast market. That's what I'm getting at. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. The larger part of the market doesn't care about that. Like the iPhone model, if you want to call it like the small iterations clearly works if you've built a brand, which bread and butter has, Loco has, Selkirk has. Right. So it makes sense. But do you think they might lose some of the enthusiast market, which is kind of where

[00:28:31] they were, bread and butter was smashing before? I don't think so. Because I think grit is still such a hot topic and a desired trait in a paddle. When you blend that with a paddle that somebody already likes and they don't have to be like, oh, I got to play with this paddle that plays different and feels different and I don't enjoy it as much. If they're like, oh yeah, I love the Loco and it feels exactly the same or, you know, 98% the same, that's a big win.

[00:28:58] Like if someone said, hey, Lewis, here's a Sparta Spitfire with tier one grit. And it barely feels any different. I'd be like, fuck yeah, dude. Let's go. Yeah, but that paddle just can't. I'm staying on that forever. It's not a year and a half. True. Well, okay. We'll go back. We'll go back further. If someone was like. Maybe I'm being unfair. It's like a year ago now, but it was 2025 pedal of the year. Okay, look. Here's a perfect example. Okay. J2NF. No, no, no, no, no. Even better.

[00:29:28] Holbrook Fuse. They're coming out with the Vantigrit. But I am legitimately, I have not said this publicly to anybody apart from maybe you. That is probably the paddle that I am the most excited about. Because the prototype that they sent me, I played insane with. Felt fantastic. The spin, amazing. The only thing that they supposedly changed was the grit. So, I mean, to me, that's a big upgrade.

[00:29:58] From a paddle that spun okay. You know? That was like the one main thing. I don't know. That's a good topic. Let us know what y'all think. I see both sides. That was an interesting conversation. Yeah, no, it is. It's got me thinking a lot. And I usually don't think. I just go. Don't let us know what y'all think. Like, we'd be interested to hear what y'all have to say. But I think it's fine, dude. Especially right now. It's not like the arms race is grit right now.

[00:30:27] It's not who's going to make the most unique core construction. Right. The reason why I said the NF as the J2 NF as the example is because at the time, some people actually did give pedal of the year 2025 to the NF. Yeah. And it was honestly between the Loco and the NF for most people. Yeah. And what Honolulu did, they didn't just come out with the blue grip version of the NF. No, they went a step further. They actually went to the CR and improved other things also. Right.

[00:30:57] So that's the other side of the argument. It's like you might as well, if you had the time and the resources, make it a little bit better. Surely there's room to improve, right? Well, I mean, you could just change nothing and call it the Loco too and keep selling it. You know? I'm sure they're going to sell it. We've seen companies do that. They are going to sell them. All right. Anything else on the Loco 2 topic? No, no. I'm interested. I'm curious for it. I'm sure they're going to crush it. You know? Just knowing the people behind it. Yeah. No doubt. I'm very confident.

[00:31:27] All right. Let's talk Pacl Fuse. Justin and I were talking about this pedal a bunch a couple weeks ago. And you were talking about how yours feels so different than mine. Yours feels like soft. Right. Right. Yeah. I was like, what are you talking about, bro? Every single Pacl Fuse that I've gotten feels exactly the same until just now. I got the new batch. It's got the grit that's very similar to the Spitfire like Justin's. Very similar.

[00:31:57] And his is soft. Very hollow. Softer. Yeah. Guess what? Bro. It's a completely different battle in terms of feel. Like totally different. So I'm going to do another sound check. We got. And I've hit your elongated, which is the, I think the Pacl Fuse feel that most people know, which is like really stiff, really poppy. Extremely stiff. And moderately hollow. Right. And then the hybrid W, which is the one I own and now you have, is I think even more

[00:32:27] hollow, but way less stiff and much less poppy also. Yeah. With a different grit again. Let me see. Let me see how the new elongated feels in terms of these real quick. Okay. All right. So we're going to go. This is the first Dura Spin, which feels identical to the original Pacl Fuse. I'll just bounce that real quick. Original Pacl Fuse. That's that stiff point. We know. Yeah. First Dura Spin. Same exact sound.

[00:32:57] And then this is an unplayed new batch of the Dura Spin. That's, you know, the same batch as the hybrid W. Sounds different. Sounds pretty similar to me, but the feel is softer for sure. For sure. It sounded a little bit lower and more hollow. And so, and you're saying the words Dura Spin, but is the grit different? Okay. It is. It is a little deeper. You notice that immediately. All right.

[00:33:25] The, the, so say that one more time. So you're saying the words Dura Spin because that's what it says on the face, but correct. Is it two different grits? Yes. Two different grits, baby. Yeah. I shared that on the. That's what I'm saying. The last part. All right. Now, let's go original Dura Spin that I got, which is this one with the white specs in it, versus the new Dura Spin hybrid W that's been played 15 games. Okay. All right. We're going to start with the original Dura Spin.

[00:33:58] Back to this. Oh my God. Yeah. It's very different. People are getting to see some leg in this episode. I know my, shit. My pants be riding up, boys. You're welcome. I'm going to keep some thigh in this one. So, needless to say, Jesus Christ, is that a massively different sounding and feeling paddle?

[00:34:26] It went from like, it went from Aerocyclone feel to Sparta Spitfire feel. Like, that's how drastic the difference is for anybody who's not, you know, wondering or who, you know, who has not played with these. It is a wild, drastic difference, which begs the question. How the fuck is this legal? Oh, is that our new segment? Yeah, again. Yeah. Well, and they changed the grit, too. Yeah.

[00:34:55] But if you look on the USAP site, there's only one certification. It's not like, oh, here's the first batch certification. Here's the second batch, different certification. How are you changing the grit and clearly the core or the layup or something that's going to change the sound that much? How are you going to change it that much yet still be, you know, under the same one certification? I don't know, bro. I don't know. But just, this is more of just like a buyer beware.

[00:35:20] You may have, you know, if you bought the first pack of fuse and you're like, oh, my spin's starting to wear out, but I want to get another one. Just be aware. It could be different. Not saying this is everyone. This is just my experience. And then, obviously, Justin's years matches very similarly to what I have. So, two use cases. Not saying this is across the board. That's been the story on Discord as well. Like, seems very likely. People who have the old batch versus the new hybrid batch, they're saying the same thing.

[00:35:50] So, what you're saying isn't surprising or new, but a lot of people probably don't know about it unless they're in deep cuts, you know? Deep cuts, baby. All right. That's really all I got on the pack of fuse. Makes me a little hesitant to recommend it, even though I actually like the newer one more, if I'm being honest. It's pretty good, actually. I kind of like it, too. I think it's better. Yeah, I think it's better. Yeah. A little more easy to control, just slightly.

[00:36:19] Still unbelievably powerful. It is pretty close to the Spitfire in a way. Yeah. But hotter. Yeah. It's hot. It's hot. All right. We're going to talk about, and I want you guys to also comment down below. We're going to do our three, we'll call them favorite or most memorable pickleball paddles that you have played with in the past. You know, us reviewers, most of the time, we play with more paddles, so we're very fortunate in that respect.

[00:36:49] But love to hear what you guys have in terms of just your three favorite or most memorable paddles that you played with. We'll go one at a time. Justin, let's start with you, man. It doesn't have to be in any specific order. It doesn't have to be the most memorable. Just what you got. I'm about to actually change my answer here. Oh, I like it. Two of these are pre-podcast, so the first one that's super memorable for me is the original Carbon 2, which is a Gen 1 paddle.

[00:37:17] But it was one of the first popularized raw carbon face. Electrum was around and doing it, but then Carbon was shortly after. They made it a big thing. It was rough, dude. That was Gritgate at the time, so I had one of the ones that was illegal. I say it's rough. It's honestly probably less rough than the new stuff we have. Oh, yeah. I can imagine. But at the time, compared to the Ben Johns Franklin fiberglass paddle just wears smooth instantly, a bunch of smooth paddles. Uh-huh.

[00:37:48] Dude. Game changer. It blew my mind. First off, it was a wide body or standard shape, and it was well-made, and it was super gritty. And I came from sort of a, I guess, beginner paddle or cheaper paddle, and I was like, holy shit. This is so much better. It was such a huge jump in performance and mainly in spin. And I was like, dude, this feels like a different game now. I bet. So that one sticks in my mind.

[00:38:18] And I kind of picked these based on things that broadened my horizons, and the reason why I sort of stuck with them. So that was number one. Number two, I actually just changed this answer, but for the same reason. I had on here the bread and butter filth, and I had it on here because it was one of the first, if not the first, thermoformed paddle that I bought and played with. But I'm actually about to change this to the Mark Kinetic. Ooh. Because. That was a fun one, dude. Because for the same reason. I love that paddle. Yeah, I got this paddle.

[00:38:47] It was one of the first thermoformed paddles I played with. And then on top of that, it was core crushed as shit, but no one knew what core crushing meant. So it fucking ripped. And it wasn't just mine. It wasn't just mine. It was like a problem in the industry at the time, if you remember all the Legacy Pros. Mine never core crushed, by the way. I'm not saying all of them, but there were a lot because people didn't know at the time.

[00:39:11] This paddle is actually what started my journey as a paddle engineer because of this paddle and people having inconsistent experiences with it. And then me helping Mark and kind of working with Mark for a bit. I learned what core crushing was. And at the time, I didn't know of anyone else who knew what that was. I only learned about it from them sending me multiple paddles. I'm like, this one's different than this one. This one sounds different than this one. This one crackles. Why is that?

[00:39:37] And then literally taking them to my woodshop, cutting them open, and then trying to talk to the factories about it. Oh, I figured it out. You guys are smashing this. Smash that shit. And then teaching the factory not to do that. And it was basically because mold tolerances. Had to make new molds, everything. And then if you remember, the next Mark paddles that came out, it was going to be a re-release of the Mark Kinetic. But it played so differently because it wasn't pre-crushed that it had to change the name. It became the Mark I. Yeah. But so two things there.

[00:40:05] Number one, it kind of started my paddle engineering journey, which is amazing. I feel super grateful for. Just the curious part of me chasing down what core crushing was. But number two, it was one of the first Thermoform paddles I played with. And in the same way that the Carbon 2 from the fiberglass paddle was such a huge upgrade, now playing with Thermoform paddles. And I played with multiple at around the same time. The Filth, the Kinetic, the Vatic Flash. I tried somebody's Double Light Diamond. I was like, these sweet spots are amazing.

[00:40:31] You know, Thermoforming obviously is like the basis for every paddle technology now in a way. It's a foundational thing. But at the time, it was like incredible. You got more power and a better sweet spot and more consistent across the face. Yeah. And then the third one, you guys will know because this was deep in the podcast days. But the J2 FC Plus. This one sticks with me. I can't believe. There's probably a couple of reasons. Cannot believe. You left the Flare Prime X out? I did, yeah.

[00:41:02] Dude. I'm out. I quit. I cannot believe that. That's unbelievable. All right, go ahead. The Flare Prime X was great, but it wasn't any of these specific like aha moments. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah. The FC Plus was the first foam paddle that I was like, oh shit. You know, and I mained it for a while. It was the first foam paddle I played with for a while. And I was like, oh, foam's the future.

[00:41:30] And it did, I mean, a lot of these foam paddles in the beginning did not nail the feel, including the FC Plus. The feel was not amazing. You know, the, I mean, in a way, the True Foam Genesis probably had the best feel, but it didn't have the best performance. But the performance level of the FC Plus, and around the same time, they came out with a long handle hybrid, which was still super rare at that time. And I was loving that. And I was like, oh, this is it. Like, this is the future. Long handle hybrids, full foam cores. This is the best performance. And it was a very clear jump.

[00:42:00] So for me, that's why, that's why these are on here. You know, realizing how important spin is, and then realizing how important thermoforming is, and then realizing, oh, full foam is like, it's legit. There's a lot there. So those are the three, I guess I said four, but they kind of stick with me. Yeah. And I can't wait till there's another one that does something so, you know, new that it kind of breaks the mold. And I'm like, oh, shit. Like, this is going to be the future. Damn.

[00:42:27] Well, that's a, my, my last one's going to be very similar to that. But, interestingly enough, my first most memorable paddle is actually the Spartus Gladius. I don't know if you ever remember that paddle. I played that paddle, too. I had that paddle. And it's not for good paddles. Any reason other than, that was the first legitimate paddle that I got. For anybody who doesn't know, how I started reviewing paddles was very interesting.

[00:42:55] I started playing pickleball, bought a little new peepo paddle from Amazon, and I was like, oh, yeah, this is my new, this is my personality now. I'm a pickleball guy. Yeah. After my wife talked me into trying instead of tennis. And then I was like, okay, all right, Tabitha, my wife, I was like, Tabitha, I'm going to go buy a hundred dollar paddle. And she was like, a hundred dollar paddle? And I was like, yeah. And she's like, that's kind of expensive for a paddle.

[00:43:23] And I was like, yeah, but I mean, like some of them were like $200. She was like, yeah, that's still like a lot of money. You've played pickleball twice. Like calm down. And I was like, okay, okay. That's a good, good point. Valid point. So I messaged Spartus on Instagram. I was like, hey, I will make a free video for you if you send me one of your paddles. And they're like, hell yeah. So they sent me a paddle. Sure enough, made a video. And then the rest is history.

[00:43:50] I just kept, I did that like three or four times with the Mavericks Havik Power. And then I think I did one with Carbon. And those are like the first three paddles I got. And I was like, shit, we're off to the races. I was like, I'll do this a couple more times. You know, if like I see a paddle that I like. And then I was like playing with my friend Jordan, who was like, hey, why don't you instead of, why don't you like make a review channel?

[00:44:17] Well, after I was like, you know, kind of said that, I was like, maybe I should. He was like, yeah, you should definitely do it. But that kind of like is the, I guess, the thing that got me started. So Spartus Gladius, that was cool. Second on my list is the Gearbox PPE, Power Prairie Elongated. Not that I enjoyed playing with it or liked anything about it.

[00:44:41] But that was a paddle that stuck in my memory as something that completely changed the paddle landscape. Yeah, that was a moment. That was a moment for sure. That I hated playing against that paddle and hated playing with it too. Honestly, I played with one of my friends. I was like this sweet spot is so small on this paddle. But if you hit it there. It's a rocket like it is a literal rocket launcher. I didn't like those paddles, but those are ones that stuck into my memory pretty firmly.

[00:45:12] And the last one, and very similar to you with the FC Plus, the J2 NF. Whenever I got that paddle, I was like, holy shit. Foam is good. And this was like very, very shortly after we did that, you know, is foam overrated? And I was like, yes. Yes. Like almost like a week later, I got that. I was like, holy shit. This is insane. Like this is the future. That was one of those paddles where I was like, damn, things are changing.

[00:45:42] Yeah, because up to that point, foam hadn't been that good. I mean, the true foam was all right. But then the 008 was garbage. The blue core was garbage. Terrible. And then the NF came out. And then the FC Plus shortly after. And you're like, wait a minute. Oh, wait a minute. Hang on a second. We might be on to something. Yeah. Yeah, that was fun, man. That was good. That was good times. But yeah, those are my three. Let's do this. Let's do let's add one more.

[00:46:09] What do you think is the one paddle that, in your opinion, influenced the overall paddle landscape the most? That's kind of a put you on the spot here. But what do you think? Hmm. And I kind of did this because the introduction of raw carbon faces, introduction to thermoforming, the introduction of full foam course, not introduction, but who made it best first? I mean, I think the answer has to be thermoforming.

[00:46:40] Yeah. But yeah, it's so hard to point to one specific paddle because realistically, I think the first to publicly release was the Vatic Flash. Mm hmm. Was it? I don't know. I think the first thermoform paddle was... There's a 6-0 double black diamond at the same time. Yeah. There is... The Legacy Pro was right after. The Legacy Pro, the Carbon 1X, and multiple others. Even like all the way... If you look at like X-Pack. Yeah. Uh-huh.

[00:47:08] Like all these around the same time are like flood the market. And a lot of them were very similar. Maybe. I wonder how that is. Exactly alike. I wonder how that is. With different graphics. How do they all flood the market with the same piece of technology? Yeah. Interesting. Hmm. But yeah, I mean, I feel like the advent of thermoformed paddles, Gen 2 paddles, it's the foundation of everything we build on now. So it's the thing that changed paddles the most, in my opinion. Both from a manufacturing perspective, but also from a performance perspective. Yeah. Yeah, I would say...

[00:47:38] I was going to say that are raw carbon fiber. Gearbox and anyone else who made an edgeless paddle was thermoforming long before that. But we're talking about like your typical Gen 2 edgeguard thermoformed paddle. So let me give some credit to Gearbox. They were thermoforming with a floating core all the way back in 2016. We get it. It just wasn't, you know, popularized and then didn't change the market. Yeah. Yeah. I would say that if I had to pick one, it would have been either, you know, electrum, carbon,

[00:48:06] you know, doing the raw carbon fiber faces. That was a... That, yeah, I mean, from that moment on, almost nothing has changed with a, you know, a layup in a paddle. It's been... Yeah, basically until now. Yeah. And people have tried various different composites, such as Kevlar or fiberglass, but it's really not any different from a process standpoint. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Until people start introducing durable grits and things like that. Yep. All right. Well, let us know what y'all's...

[00:48:36] What y'all's three most memorable paddles. And then if you want to add what you think is the most influential paddle, either technology or just paddle itself in the market. All right. Justin, you want to go over the UPA testing that you got to sit through for a couple hours in Florida? I'll just say a quick part. Mm-hmm. Up to this point, you know, I've said multiple times on record that I think UPA's testing

[00:49:03] and communication is far more predictable and reliable than what I've experienced with USAP, having worked with both, you know, through clients. However, there was one part of UPA's testing procedure that I was like, this is kind of not sketchy, but not ideal. Right? Mm-hmm. And it was simultaneously the best and worst thing they were doing, and it's the break-in process. So they actually do an ABI advanced break-in on paddles, and then they test them before and after break-in.

[00:49:32] So that weeds out paddles that core crush or change otherwise and then get too powerful, which is great because you're actually enforcing how paddles are going to play in the field. Mm-hmm. So that's why I'm saying it's simultaneously the best and the worst. That's the best part about it. The worst part about it was up to this point, the way that they had figured out how to do it, and I get that they had to put a solution in place quickly, so this is why they just went to this, but it was very human-heavy. They were basically putting paddles in a vice, clamping the paddle, and doing various clamping

[00:50:02] and unclamping and moving of the paddle, but it's all a person doing it. So there was like a ton of human error and variance, and they would admit this too. I'm not saying anything that they wouldn't say themselves. However, what we saw on the lab tour is they have finally moved to and implemented as of October 1st, so in a couple days, a new mechanical ABI machine. So they have a machine that's going to break paddles in consistently the same way every single

[00:50:27] time, repeatedly, and they have way more control over the actual percent of the paddle that the rollers are being pushed into and all this different stuff. So it's just finally going to become a more lab-appropriate controlled process. It is important to test paddle break-in, so I'm happy it's being done, and I get why they had to do it with the vice for a while. And the vice did work, but I just feel like there's too much human variance going on there to feel super reliable. So that was the best part.

[00:50:57] Other than that, the testing that they showed and the stuff they talked about was things that I kind of already knew, and then there's a lot of talk about balls, but nothing official happening yet. But of course, that's a big conversation. So your eyes lit right up when they started talking about balls, huh? Something like that. I'm used to it, you know, at this point. A lot of ball talk, but there was little to no penis jokes, honestly, surprisingly. What does the P stand for in UPA, if it's not that?

[00:51:27] Well, speaking of balls, I've played with two new balls lately, you know, along with a lifetime. A lot of time. And... These have holes in them. Counter, you know, opposite of what you... But anyway, the... Did you have... Never mind.

[00:51:51] Two balls that I'm playing with are the Selkirk S2 Pro and the X44 from Franklin. And these are like balls that are supposed to compete with the Lifetime, which in my opinion is slightly, just slightly, too fast.

[00:52:10] Um, and in my opinion, I think these both bounced equivalently higher or slightly higher in new form compared to a new Lifetime. And the reason why I'm bringing this up is because the other day I was practicing for MLP and we were using an older Yola ball, which, uh, not a bad ball.

[00:52:35] It stays roundish, uh, bounces okay, but it's very soft, way softer, way less fast than these newer balls that we're seeing. Yeah. X40 speed. The LA C40, yeah. Maybe slightly faster, but probably not much. I don't think so. You know, in terms of noticeable effect, but, uh, when we were playing with that at first, I was like, oh God, these balls are so soft and huge caveat.

[00:53:04] I only play indoor. Uh, so it's not as big of a factor for me as it is for people who play outside in the heat. But I was thinking to myself after about five or six games, I was like, this has been the most fun pickleball I've played in a while because the rallies were longer. I could swing freer. Like I could rip my serve almost as hard as I wanted to. And it was going to be almost like you should just play with a all court paddle.

[00:53:34] No, sorry, bro. That ain't it. Nope, nope, nope. You shut your mouth. But, uh, with that being said, my question is to you, are pickleballs too fast now? Because the Lifetime set a, a, you know, what's the word I'm looking for? A benchmark. A benchmark in these other two balls seem to equal it or slightly go above that benchmark.

[00:54:03] In my opinion, that is, it's the tiptoe of too much in my opinion. What do you think? Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Um, even as a person who plays outside, I played outside this morning and we use the Selkirk S2 Pro, which here's the color comparison. Uh, this Selkirk is actually used in the Franklin's new. So they're pretty close when new, but you can see the Selkirk's a little bit lighter. Yeah.

[00:54:26] Um, and yeah, I mean, basically everyone in my group was like, yeah, good ball. I'd play with it, but I'd prefer to not play with it brand new. But it's the same thing we say about Lifetime. No one wants to play with a brand new Lifetime either. Literally, if someone in our group, which we all have Lifetimes now, if someone in our group's like, I got this one, but it's a brand new, we're like, anyone else got one? And then we'll be like, okay, yeah, I got one that's broken in. We'll play with that.

[00:54:54] You got to play with the new ones in the, in the PPA. If you play in a PPA tournament. Only for like the first match for amateurs though. They just keep putting the same balls in the basket. I just did this. I was at PPA Mesa. Really? So only the first match did we play brand new ones. It seemed like all of ours in Dallas were fairly new when we played. I could be wrong. They may have been rotating more in. There's more cords, more people. I don't know, but more and more people were stealing them. But yeah, throughout the day, literally only the first match had a brand new ball in it.

[00:55:23] And then the last match had a used ball and a new ball in it, I guess, because they lost a ball somewhere. But it didn't matter because we all chose to play with a used one. Right. You know? So everyone want to. Literally every single match, we'd go over to the basket before starting. All four players. And we'd be like, oh, but here's the two balls. And then we'd be like, oh, that one looks a little more used. Everyone wanted the used one. Yeah. And in the first match, they get you on the court a little bit early.

[00:55:48] And we specifically, we were joking with the other team, we're like, a good thing we have an extra 10 minutes so we can try to break this ball in. And we were just ripping drives and serves and returns as much as we could. Yeah. To try to break it in. So, at least in the amateur division and, you know, in the dry Arizona, that was the story around Lifetime. Anyway, all that to say is, yeah, with the Selkirk, everyone was like, it's great. I can see it better. The color is better. Bounces high. It's pretty fast.

[00:56:19] Plays just like a new Lifetime when it's new. And also, we were all very much like, let's see how it is next session. That's what we'll probably like it more because we all hit a few returns long that we wouldn't normally hit long, things like that. The Franklin, I think, bounces the highest of the bunch when it's new. I think so, too. Like, man, it doesn't particularly feel faster like when someone's hitting it, but the bounce is crazy high. Like, even higher than a new Lifetime when it's brand new. And the S2, in my opinion, is the opposite.

[00:56:48] It's like, it may bounce slightly lower, but it feels like it jumps off the face faster. Yeah, you can hit it harder. Exactly. Yeah. I think I talked about this. Well, I know I talked about it in the Discord. I don't know if I talked about it in the podcast, but I tested multiple versions of these S2s. And the thing that was striking to me and the people I played with is that it was almost like an exponential power curve to a ball. The bounce on slow shots and dinks felt like pretty normal.

[00:57:16] Small, maybe a touch less than a Lifetime, but we're talking like a touch. It's close. But then if you got a hold of one, like an overhead, I swear you can hit harder than a Lifetime. Probably. Like on hard drives and surfs. It was like, we were all saying that day, like these are the hardest overheads I've ever hit. Mm-hmm. But you didn't feel that in the soft game. It didn't feel like it was always fast. It only felt like it was fast whenever you like really cranked one. So. Yeah. Something interesting there.

[00:57:42] But yeah, John Q did some testing on these balls and you know, the conversation was, I said, do you think like these new Franklin and Selkirk are like cousins to the Lifetime? And then he's like cousins, more like siblings. He's like, they're like so similar on all the data. Yeah. So, and that's where they're at, which is not a bad thing because if it's similar performance,

[00:58:06] but a better color and probably better distribution by a long shot. Yeah. Then that's pretty interesting. And a shout out to Webster Miller. He's the, this dude on the discord. He's from Dallas. He's like done the most ball testing of anyone I know. And he always takes her always like right on. So he's been calling this type of ball an injection molded two piece ball, a Gen 2 ball, basically these two in a lifetime.

[00:58:34] And there's, there's other small brands doing it, but yeah, but these aren't roto molded with drilled holes. They're injection molded and then seam welded as two pieces. So you can use, not you can use different materials. You have to use different materials because it's a different manufacturing process. The other thing I guess it's worth mentioning is right now the USAP disallows any ball with more than 40 holes and they disallow any ball that bounces higher than 34 inches. When you drop it, you drop it from 78 and if it bounces higher than 34, then it's not legal.

[00:59:05] All these two and the lifetime. So all three of the Gen 2 balls from the popular brands, when I call them that, um, break those rules. But Franklin, I mean, they're in tight with USAP. They're the official ball of the APP, which is like USAP's tour. So how long? What's your bets? What's your over under? How long till we see a rule change that allows these balls? When do they go in on sale? Soon.

[00:59:34] Like within a couple months. That day. Buy that day. The day that goes on sale, I bet you it's changed. Um, cause this is just like things that have happened with paddles in the past where all of a sudden rules have changed. Like holes in the face weren't allowed, but then all of a sudden the rule got changed and Selkirk released a bunch of paddles that clearly they had been working on. I'm not saying that's anybody's fault. No. But do you think there are going to be any other brands who are going to be pissed? Who are like, man, I had the opportunity to work on an injection molded, you know,

[01:00:03] two piece ball that was really good, but I had to give up on the project because it wouldn't have been legal. Yeah. That's a good point. And now the legality just changes. Anyway, we'll see. That's a really good question. But balls don't really go through. Can they dial this back? Balls don't go through for any type of certification unless they're being used in those professional games, correct? Or USAP sanctioned tournaments. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. I mean. Which is why you don't see any lifetimes.

[01:00:33] But if it's a private tournament organizer, which so many are these days, they can say whatever they want. We're using lifetime ball. UPA and USAP paddles are allowed. Whatever. Which oftentimes is like my favorite type of tournaments. That's like you have the most attentive organizers and they're like, yeah, this makes sense. Everyone likes a lifetime. We're using lifetime. I get the USAP and UPA are both approval bodies. You can use either, you know? Right. Right. But yeah. Well, it is nice to know.

[01:01:03] I do wish one of these is a little bit slower and then that would become like the new main ball. But unfortunately, I feel like they're kind of equal to the lifetime. And so far, the durability looks pretty damn good too. Although I will say I only have, I have a Franklin with four like two-ish hour sessions on it and it's still looking pretty good. And then the oldest Selkirk I have is only three sessions deep. So, but they're still looking good.

[01:01:29] I mean, X40, they do lose speed, but it becomes like a lifetime where it just flattens off. Yeah. And they lose to a point and then they're great, by the way, because they're just like a better lifetime to me at that point because you can see them better. Everything else is pretty close to equal. The feel is slightly different. Lifetime feel more rubbery on impact. These feel more plasticky. Yes. But the visibility alone for me with my shitty eyes, that's enough. I'm like, yes, I'll take that bright yellow one. Thank you. Nice.

[01:01:57] And playing outdoors, you know, with the variant lighting. It is nice to know that there are more balls available that bounce true for us to play with. Like that is the one, the one shining, you know, I guess silver lining for this. It's like, okay, it bounced a little high. I'm going to hit returns a little long. But guess what, dude? I ain't going to get some dumb ass bounce or have the ball turn into a fucking egg.

[01:02:26] Like, yeah, that for me is I get at that. You see, you see me in terms of playing with the Vulcan. It's instant till. What is this ball? I'm just mad. I'm mad immediately. Immediately. Yeah. And what's funny is almost every time we've ever played a tournament where we've been using the Vulcan ball, you've been playing on the right and you have received the first serve. And the first serve has had a crazy bounce almost every time. Yeah. Game over. We already lost. We're done. Yeah.

[01:02:56] Holy shit. That's funny. Well, that's really all I got on balls. I do think they are a little too fast, just slightly. And to respond to you, why don't you just play with an all court battle? I think the slower balls actually get better spin. That's my response to that. Could be just, you know, totally. They just aren't flying as fast. So they have more time to dip down. But yeah, you can. I feel like you can shape them better.

[01:03:22] All right, let's move on to everyone's favorite segment. New week, new main sponsored by Bode Performance. If you need over grips, tungsten tape, sleeves, apparel, backpacks, all kinds of other pickleball related accessories, you can use code pursuit to save 15% at checkout when purchasing anything on Bode Performance dot com. Thank you, Bode, for sponsoring this week's segment of new week, new main. All right, dude.

[01:03:52] What you got? Command. Of course, the Valera Command. I mean, it's. Of course. It's too perfect for me. And a little Bode story of the day. I wanted a brown overgrip. So I went to. I just thought it looked good at this colorway. It's like kind of like classic weather, you know. And so I went to the Bode side. I was like, does he even have brown? Because I never got one. Uh-huh. And he does. And it's, it's called fucking, it's called doo-doo. Doo-doo? Are you serious? It's called doo-doo. I died laughing. I had to text him.

[01:04:21] I was like, bro, this is called doo-doo. And, uh, but yeah. So this is the doo-doo colored overgrip, which I think goes through. That's so fucking funny. Oh my God. Um, so yeah. Uh, yeah. I mean, I, I'm super biased, but. Yeah. We got a shill over. Shill! I got it. Hey. It's a really good paddle. I got new main shoes. Like officially. Oh yeah? Yeah. I have, I have so many pairs of CG2s back here. I'll make them through eventually.

[01:04:51] But these Head Revolt Pro 5.0s, they're so dirty from Arizona. It's crazy how, like, dusty everything gets. They are so good. And. You've been loving it. Maybe it's a little bit of my. Yep. I do. It's a fact. It's a fact. But maybe it's a little bit due to, I don't want to call it like superstition, but you know, I had Achilles problems for so long. And then the timing worked out that when I started wearing those, and I don't think it's the shoes necessarily, but it could be.

[01:05:21] I have been like 100%. 0% soreness, 0% pain. Achilles is perfect. I'm like, I'm back, baby. You know what I mean? He's back, baby. It happened the same timing I started wearing those. And I was like, now every time I go to grab a different pair of shoes, I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And I just traveled. I played PPA in them. And yeah, man, the durability is holding up really well so far. I'll report back on that after. How much are they? But, uh, uh, I don't know that you regularly get them on sale for like 80 bucks and they

[01:05:51] have a warranty. I'm gonna buy one. Buy a pair. Yeah. Try to find them. I know Chris has been talking about them forever. And then for the bag, still the ADB backpack V2. And this is even more strengthened because when I travel, I don't take it because it doesn't fit under the seat very well. It does fit, but it's like gets in my way. So then I just been traveling. I didn't have it. And I, and I was traveling with the other bag and I got back and I was like, man, fuck that bag. I need my ADB backpack bag. It's, it's, it's so good. It's like, it just does everything perfect for me.

[01:06:19] So, um, and it fits a lot of paddles or whatever you need, but yeah. Hell yeah. All right. Uh, no surprise here. Actually, I don't even know where it is. Um, are we going on at one another streak where we just have no new mains for months and people are like, this is no dude. The Volair commands my new. Uh, main. Yeah. Right. Yeah. No sparse spitfire is still the main, um, got a couple of exciting paddles that I'm looking forward to.

[01:06:47] Obviously I want to play with more with this Neonic, um, to be fair, not going to lie. I was flirting with that command for a minute there. Uh, maybe when the elongated comes out. Yeah. I've been flirting with the gearbox pressure X, uh, and I will be flirting heavily with the, uh, Holbrook fuse Vantigrit. If it feels like the prototype did, um, might be cheating. Um, but you know, I was thinking about this the other day.

[01:07:14] I was like, man, maybe this might be, this might be the time where I'm just like, you know what? Fuck it. I'm just going to play with the spitfire until it literally breaks. Just stay with, stay with one. Marry one. Um, all right. New week, new main, uh, Sparta spitfire, same shoes, Coco golf, GDG CG twos. Gosh. And then, uh, Silkirk bag.

[01:07:38] Um, but the mesh ball holder, I got caught on my little hook of my fence and, uh, ripped it open a little bit. So that is the, that's the, that's the, um, what's the, what's the word for it? The point of, uh, or what? No, that's just like point of failure. Yes. That is the point of failure in that bag. Everything else is very, very durable and very high quality. But, uh, that happened.

[01:08:06] I was like, shit, it made me mad, but it didn't, didn't poke a hole big enough to where the ball would fall out. But yeah, that was like, dang, you know, now that I did that, this might be good feedback for them. Um, so that's it for new week, new main, man. I don't, I don't really have anything else. Everything's exactly the same. I'm gonna be a boring, boring dude for the foreseeable future. I mean, too, it's going to honestly, it's going to be hard to get me off this command. And I mean, to be real, I've kind of been made in it for months already.

[01:08:35] Cause I was playing with the prototype for so long. Did you make it for yourself, Justin? Well, no, but it's hard to eliminate my own preferences. You know what I mean? That's what I'm saying, dude. But yeah, I'll test other paddles of course. And then when I, it's just like, when I go back to it, it's not like, Oh, this is way superior. It's so much better, but it just like, it feels right. It feels like home. I just don't think about it. I'm like, Oh yeah. All the reviewers have said their thoughts about the paddle.

[01:09:04] Tell us if you think it's soft or stiff, hollow or dense. And then if it's in the power category. Okay. Um, I think that it flirts with the line of soft and stiff, but it's probably just on the soft side compared to the market. And it is probably if you're at the center of the field graph between dense and hollow, I think it's maybe like 15 or 20% towards hollow. Yep.

[01:09:31] Um, so it's technically soft and hollow, but not too far off the center, which was on purpose. The feel is supposed to be something that most people would get along with, but also like a more modern foam paddle feel, which we're seeing more of the foam paddles try to find that soft and hollow range, but without getting too weird, you don't want your paddle to feel weird. Um, and the power is the response that I've seen is exactly what I was hoping for.

[01:09:57] I was hoping it'd be a paddle that would confuse people between all court and power. So you, you can get me sometimes. I think the raw numbers say it's a low end power paddle, but the feel on the court, it feels like an all court paddle, which is exactly what I was hoping for because I think that softer feel, um, makes the like resets and soft stuff feel easy. You're like, this is an awkward battle. It's not that, it's not that poppy, right?

[01:10:27] Like it's so easy to control because you feel the ball more in the face. However, if you look at the numbers or if you catch a counter clean and then it comes back hot and you're like, Oh wait, is this a power paddle? So that was the ideal range for me. And that's why I didn't sell that before, because I was really curious what people were going to say. And that's what people have been saying. I think like either top of all court, low end power, or I think more people have said power paddle than all court paddle, but there's a few who have said all court or all court plus or whatever. And just got off the spin as well.

[01:10:58] Um, yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's, maybe it's the feel, but it's, I would say gotta be up there. Like top two spinning paddles I've ever played with for me. It's, it is elite spin, elite spin. Yeah. Um, just a spoiler. It's in my top five paddles for September of 2026. So, um, even, even though it's only available in one shape, it's in my top five. Shapes are coming. Yeah.

[01:11:26] Um, you know, fingers crossed, but everything goes well. The other shapes will be coming, you know, shortly behind the hybrid and then it will, uh, you know, appeal to more people. So we'll see. Uh, it all goes well because I think that the, I think that the Valera elongated shape is actually like really fucking good. Like I might actually even play with it. However, it didn't get much love because the only time we've seen it so far is in the shift and the shift was pretty heavy.

[01:11:55] So we turned people off. They were like 121 swing weight. I'm out, you know, but now we'll get to see it. Um, and elongated probably around like 114 swing weight, super customizable. So I think, uh, more people will be interested. So I'm curious. Yeah. I'm looking, looking forward to that one. Um, I was impressed, you know, definitely your best paddle you've made so far by a, hopefully I can keep that pretty clear, pretty clear margin. All right. Uh, nerd town. You ready? Big dog. Take us there.

[01:12:25] Let's do it. All right. Didn't even get the dogs to bark. Um, that was such an unenthusiastic one. I know. Just we're ready, bro. Yeah. Let's get, let's get it. It's the bullet train today. Uh huh. Um, so this isn't even that nerdy and it's, I'm not even going to like reveal a bunch of new information. It's more like I wanted to answer a lot of the questions that I've gotten in the comments. I've gotten the same question. I don't know, maybe 15 times over the course of the podcast.

[01:12:55] And it's really relevant right now because it's something I'm going through. And the question is, I've talked before about whenever I'm developing a paddle, it starts with a huge group of prototypes and then that gets narrowed down, narrowed down, and then you iterate off those. And then you start with, you know, you have a bigger group again, narrowed down, narrowed down. Very obvious, right? That's like the R and D path. But if you're like, how do you do that? And so right now I just came back from this trip to a box of 32 prototypes.

[01:13:22] So I'm like, and it's a lot of work for the first couple of weeks. It's tough. Um, but I have a system and I think my system is pretty good. So I'll explain and I'll kind of show something here in a second. So for these 32, let's just eight of them are substantially different than the other 24. So those eight kind of go off to the side already. They're going to be dealt with kind of independently. So, but I still have 24 paddles that I need to narrow down. And, uh, there's a lot of similarities.

[01:13:52] There's a lot of overlap. So that can be really difficult. So here's what I do. I take my paddles and they have different, let's call it makeups from the layout, the core density, the core foam, um, and a few other things. Right. So there are differences between each of them, but there are also similarities that overlap between each of them. So I'll take this 24. And the first thing I'm going to do is like label them with Sharpie, just with a number, just a sample number, which I have everything, all this in a spreadsheet.

[01:14:19] The reason being is when I'm on the court, I don't want to be like, Oh, give me the, uh, 90 kilogram density EPP one with the fiberglass. That's too much. You know what I mean? Give me number 12. Yeah, exactly. So there's a simplicity factor there, but there's also a little bit of a faux blind testing thing going on there because it's too many to keep up with exactly what's in each one. And I don't want to, I want to just play them, um, and feel where they are and then say, take my notes based on number, number 12, this, this, this.

[01:14:48] Not EPP 100 with fiberglass. This is this, at least not this early in the process. And I'll tell you why. Um, so I have my spreadsheet with all that, get sample numbers, label them all. And then the first thing I do is I will subgroup them into, for this case, I had eight subgroups with similarities and I'll take my little sheet out there. You bring a sheet and take notes. That's so cute. I take most of my notes like by voice actually, or by typing.

[01:15:14] But yeah, having a physical sheet when you have this many stacks of paddles is easier. So I'm stacking these paddles into subgroups. They are, the groups are from two to four paddles, each group. I'll rubber band them all together. I take the huge duffel bag full of paddles. So shout out Selkirk duffel bag. If you were curious, it fits 20 paddles in it and can close. Damn. Which is pretty crazy. Um, yeah. And so I'll go out there with the subgroups. And the reason why is, is you get, I said this before, but you get too lost in the sauce when you're playing with paddles.

[01:15:44] If you haven't, if you're switching too much, you can only really accurately compare to the ones that you just previously played with within the last five or 10 minutes. You can't be like, oh, this reminds me of a J2CR or this, this. You can't do that accurately at least once you're deep in it. It's too much. So I have my eight little subgroups and I have my ball machine that I'll take out to a private indoor court. So it's climate controlled. It's always the same every time I'm testing them. So there isn't any variable there.

[01:16:13] And I have drills that I've created specifically for testing paddles. I've talked about this before, but one of them is kind of like a return sequence. So it serves to me, I return and then it hits a really hard drive. I have to block that. And then there's a couple like roll shots at the net. One of them, I hit a drop shot on purpose. And then there's like a high put away. And the reason for this is you get a baseline ground stroke in there. You get blocking of a 70 mile an hour shot, which tests stability.

[01:16:41] You get to test like kind of the maneuverability and the spin on when you hit flicks and rolls. You get to test the feel when you have to hit a drop shot. And then, of course, you get to test like just flat out power when you hit like a put away overhead. So that one drill right there, it runs through the sequence. I'm at the net and then I like jog back and have to do it again. That's one of the drills. And I have my stack of paddles and I'll rotate through the paddles for that drill. It's 90 balls. And I can accurately test maybe three paddles in that 90 balls. So like 30 each paddle, basically.

[01:17:11] Do this sequence multiple times. And then I'll come back and give them a rating within their group. Like this one felt the best or performed the best, worse. And then also sometimes there's just specific notes that I'm like, this is terrible. Sweet spot was bad. It's flimsy. It feels too stiff. Whatever. Just quick notes like this. So I'm going to do that with every paddle. There's two other drills that I have set up for paddle testing. One of them is more of a like dinking soft shot centric one. And then one of them is basically hitting really difficult drops.

[01:17:40] Like hitting drops off really difficult balls. Which is one of the hardest things for a paddle to do well. If you can hit good drops off really difficult balls hit at you, it's probably a pretty good paddle. You're probably pretty talented. It's very testing for a paddle. Put it that way. And I have cones. So like good drop means it lands in the, you know, at least close to my target range. All I have to say is I will rank these within their subgroup with little notes, come back, put all that in my spreadsheet.

[01:18:07] And then the next step is actually to divide into eight different subgroups. So these are put in these subgroups based on similarities. And they got ranked and they got their notes in a different column. And then now I'm going to make eight different subgroups based on different similarities. Right. And I'll go back to the court and do the exact same thing. And then I'm going to rate them within their subgroups. And also, you know, say these different notes about them. Now I have all this information.

[01:18:35] This is probably like a week and a half, two weeks worth of information, by the way. It takes a lot. That's a lot. Yeah. This is multiple sessions. Come back. All that goes into the spreadsheet. And then I'm able to see, oh, let's just say paddle four. It scored in first place in its first group with all of its other NPP core paddles, for instance. But it also scored in first place in its second group with all of its CFC cohorts. Right. So they're grouped differently. So we're like, oh, that one's pretty damn good because it's standing out. In different circumstances.

[01:19:05] Same thing is true if paddle scored last in different groupings. Or sometimes there's just flat out things about a paddle that you just rule it out right away. You're just like maybe three or four of them. You're just like, this is garbage. This is out. So it doesn't make it to the second round. But that actually tells you a lot because you kind of blind test pseudo blind test these cross reference them against different cohorts. And then you end up with like a top maybe six. You're like, oh, these are good. Every single time.

[01:19:34] And then you end up with like a bottom. However many they're like, these are garbage. They were scoring last or near last in every one of them. So then now you can narrow down. Then it's gameplay time. So then now it's time to weight these up to preference and start playing with them in game because it reveals different stuff. It truly does. And then that six will get narrowed to three. And then by that point, you know the paddles pretty well. You know what their strengths and weaknesses are. And then you need to start comparing to the market competitors. So that's the next step.

[01:20:03] So now I'm going to bring out just for instance, a boomstick, a J6 CR, et cetera, et cetera. Like all the best paddles on the market, the Ultra Power 2, the Coral Pro. And say, how does this compare in the market? And what does it need to compete? Where is it lacking? Where is it shining? And from there, that's going to inform your next round of prototypes. You end up with like a top two maybe. You're like, all right, these compete well. These have something unique. They were the best out of the 24.

[01:20:30] However, if we could make this one a little bit more powerful or a little bit more dwelly or fix the weight distribution in this way, then it'd be great. So then that one paddle becomes maybe six to eight different versions of you trying to fix those problems or make the shines shinier. And then the second paddle becomes eight different ones. So now your second round has 16 paddles. And this can even be more difficult. You kind of have to start the process over. And usually all 16 of these are pretty damn good. Damn, bro. Because these start with good.

[01:20:59] At this point, though, you need to incorporate other people. It can't be all me. So this is when you incorporate sponsored pros, good players, local friends, testing, like dedicated testing people for the brand. So then you incorporate them. You're going to get feedback from a lot of people at this point. And then this is also the point in which you're going to do more objective testing, whether that be, you know, PP core style stuff, RPM stuff, all this. And this is just to consider a regular paddle, not anything that has any special, like a brand new durable grid or whatever.

[01:21:29] Yeah. And then it gets narrowed down. It's usually pretty obvious. You usually have like two or three candidates towards the end. And you're like, OK, cool. We got to plan A, B and C. Like this one was the people's favorite. Mostly this one was a little bit less powerful. This one, whatever. And it's like, all right, we're going to go with plan A. And if it fails testing, we strategically have a backup that's a little less powerful. You know, that's plan B or whatever. And then so that's the process.

[01:21:53] And it's a shitload of hours and a lot of kind of a lot of data analysis because all these paddles, of course, I'm testing all the metrics, all the deflection, everything, keeping notes on all of them. And then, you know, I like will review my spreadsheet and you kind of figure out the personality of the paddle by the end. But that's why I'm confident with the paddles by the end, because I'm like, this just went through the gauntlet. Yeah. You know, but you know, it's funny. I'm not confident. Lost in the sauce. Who knows?

[01:22:21] What's funny is my how I review paddles. Almost exactly the same. I couldn't even get that out. No, no, it's way different. I mean, I'll play with, you know, two or three paddles at a time for a session. Try to keep it to two if I can. But if there's a bunch that I need to test, I'll usually run through a couple. But I mean, when you're dealing with a finished product, it's way easier to to like immediately be like, oh, yeah, this is good.

[01:22:50] This is bad. You know, it's just. Yeah. Way easier. And pick out the personality, the unique person. I did offer you the custom Titan drill. That one I described. I know. I need to get it. Really good for reviewing paddles, because like I said, really quickly, you get a sense of the paddle at the baseline, the paddle at the net, the stability, the power. All this different stuff, the spin. It's like I designed that drill and I've dialed it in. So I want to say something, too.

[01:23:16] I think one of the best shots to hit to determine how stable and forgiving a paddle is, is dinks out the air. If you ever want to add that to your that's one. I have rolls and I have a drop volley out of the air. OK. Yeah. Yeah. But also drive at 70 miles an hour. Yep. While you're while you're coming in. I don't tell you. Test it. I don't test it real good. Because it's nothing. Sometimes I have to dial in because I missed the sweet spot.

[01:23:44] But even some paddles, you feel like you hit the sweet spot on that and you're like, yeah, like this doesn't it doesn't have it. It's not there. It's not stable enough. It flexes weird or there's various things that can make it not good. Yeah. At handling pace, which is actually super important for today's paddle. They have to be good at handling pace. Yep. Yeah, I agree. Wow, bro. That's a lot. I don't envy your job. That's why they pay me the big bucks or the little bucks. Yeah. They pay me the all seven bucks, baby.

[01:24:13] They pay me all the bucks that I get. It might be just a buck. The last thing I'll say is, man, what a job. I'm super grateful. I'm just living the dream. I feel super grateful every day. We're so grateful. Look at you. What about you? Dude, I'm incredibly grateful. People don't know this about me, but I'm a bit of a softie.

[01:24:40] If I think about stuff that is very important to me, I will start crying. If I think about my daughter getting older, oh boy, it's bad news. But yeah, I'm pretty sentimental. And I joke a lot on here, but God, dude, so lucky to be where I am. I mean, I'm got to be one of the most lucky guys in the world.

[01:25:05] I mean, I have a great wife, great kid, a great other wife, a great job. Life is pretty fantastic. And I hope I can, at the very least, bring any joy or value to y'all's life. So appreciate y'all. Appreciate you, Justin. I'm about to start crying, by the way. I appreciate you, big guy. Yeah. We've got to turn these cameras off. I haven't cried in maybe 15 years. I don't know. I did have a real bad health scare, actually, a couple years ago. Thought I'm about to die.

[01:25:35] That one got me. Outside of that, I'm not a crier. Hey, we're yin and yang, baby. We've got to balance each other out. All right. Well, anything else for your paddle testing or paddle process? There's more, but nothing that's what it was. Yeah, that's a lot. I mean, there's also a dissection element in here and a lot of communication back and forth with the factory. So, yeah.

[01:26:04] That's just the playtesting part, basically. Yeah. I love it. All right. Well, if y'all want to hear even more of the dissection part, let us know. We'll do Nerdtown round two. Part two for Nerdtown. I guess so, yeah. All right. With some shill and tell. With some shill and tell, you said? Yeah. Basically. I'll strategically dissect the command just so I can show it all. Yeah. All right. I think that's all I got if that's all you got. Yeah.

[01:26:34] All right. About to go kick my dog. Ladies, gentlemen. Yeah. We appreciate y'all. As always, very fortunate to be in this position. And if y'all have any topics, anything that y'all like to cover in future episodes, always drop those in the comment section below. Until the next one, I'm your host, Lewis, here with my co-host, my pickleball wife, Justin. We'll see you guys soon. Peace. Peace. Peace.