General Yo KLR
Reviewed by Chris Rhoads
June 23, 2012

Introduction

It is funny how yoyo companies put so much undo stress on themselves. Over the years I have had the pleasure to meet to quite a few owners and the ones I have talked to place extremely high demands on themselves and their products, so much so that they end up with “Not Quite Production” ready products… B-Grades. The crazy thing is that most of these NQP products end up playing flawlessly. My personal favorite NQP was a yoyo that had anodizing flaws in the pad recess. You read that correctly, it was sold at a drastically reduced rate because there was an ano flaw on a part of the yo-yo what would never see the light of day under normal use. The reason why I am talking about this is because the initial, limited run of General Yo’s newest, the KLR, is considered “Competition Grade”. Ernie explained to me that “Competition Grade” is the new term he will be using for his yo-yos that he feels are not up to his standards and is killing off the “B” and “Plus” Grades. His reasoning for giving the first run of KLRs this grade is that some of them might have a slight vibe but he still wanted to get them into his team members’ hands. Personally I take his talking about vibe with a grain of salt, Ernie’s litmus test for vibe is the original Torrent… the yo-yo that basically defined smooth several years back and is still used as the bar by which all others are compared to this day. Well, enough talking about vibe and the various grades of products. It is time to dig into the KLR designed by Ernie Kaiser with input from General Yo team members Alex Lee and James Reed.

Specs

• Diameter: 54.6 mm
• Width: 42.93 mm
• Gap: 4.4 mm
• Weight: 66.5 grams
• Bearing: General Yo C-Sized AIGR bearing
• Response: General Yo Smooth HatPads

Construction

The first thing you will notice about the KLR is its aggressive modified V-Shape profile. The large rims curve elegantly towards the catch zone and stop at a step about a third of the way into the catch zone. After that step it is a diagonal drop straight to the ultra low walled response gap. Turning to the face of the yo-yo, the floor is completely flat with a wide spiked hub in the center. While reminiscent of the hubs in past General Yo designs I found it to be a little sharper, allowing for ripcord starts. Under the rim is a functional IGR, something I was happy to see. Many competition yo-yos eschew the IGR because grind tricks are just not as popular as they once were. In that same vain, the finish is not blasted like past General Yo products. It feels almost like the Candodized finish used by ILOVEYOYO owner and General Yo team member Frank O. While it does not feel as velvety smooth as a normal bead blast the finish gives the KLR does give an eye-popping gorgeous emerald green color. I am a fan of the overall design of the KLR, not surprising considering I am a sucker for a well-designed V-Shaped yo-yo. This one hits all the right notes including being very comfortable in the hand.

Weight

The KLR has most of the weight pushed out to the large rims with very little center weight. That being said, the KLR is stable as can be on the string and is quick to respond. The feel is floaty and fast during play. At 66.5 grams it does hit hard at the end of the string on the initial throw but never feels clunky or slow to respond during play.

Response and Bearing

The KLR ships with a set of full height smooth HatPads. The HatPad response has been around since the release of the Hatrick and has given the end users quite a bit of freedom in how they set up their yo-yo. If you want something with a little more grip you can easily change to a set of textured HatPads or if you want less response you can go with the grey half height HatPads. If none of those suit your needs then you can pour your own flowable silicone into the response groove.

The bearing is the standard AIGR bearing that has shipped with every General Yo product. I have found them to be quite reliable and reasonably quiet. I have said it before and I will say it again. If it is good enough to use in the instruments our flyboys use during combat then it is good enough for my yo-yos.

Playability

I was impressive from the first throw. Usually when I get a new yo-yo I take the time to swap out the shipped string with a BG-1, my current string of choice from Toxic. Everyone has a preference that is just mine. In some cases, like the KLR, I get ahead of myself and just start throwing as soon as I rip it out of the packaging. Even on the generic string that was a tad to short for my tastes I was impressed. Once I set it up to my liking I began to throw everything I could at it. Right off the bat the KLR is amazing for suicide play. I know I have said it before but this one is a cut above the rest. I am not the best at suicides but I found that the loop was staying open long enough to pull off every suicide I know, ranging from standard and green triangle suicides to my personal favorite a trapeze and his brother suicide where I catch the loop on my throw hand pinky finger. The almost total lack of a wall in the gap is a major factor for this level of performance; there is just nothing past the response pads that hinder the loops. The open nature of the V-Shape make for smooth hops and whips, even sloppy whips hit the catch zone more often than not. Grinds are a little bit of a mixed bag. Thumb grinds are easy enough to perform due to the above-mentioned, well-implemented IGR. Other grinds are not as straight forward. As I said, the KLR has a Candodized like finish to it. There is no blast to aid in grinds. As it was explained to me, this is a competition yo-yo and most players are moving away from grind tricks for their freestyles. While this does diminish grind times, especially in sticky summer weather, it isn’t quite as bad as I had expected. The large rims gave the extra power needed to sustain spins even with the smooth finish. The only thing I really had to compensate for was adjusting to keep it from shooting off my arm, hand, or finger. If a smooth, almost polished KLR is giving grinds like this I would love to see what a follow up run could do with a 5-Star v2 level bead blast. It was mentioned earlier that “Competition Grade” is the new General Yo way of saying not quite production level, so I guess I should talk about it. Does this yo-yo have a vibe? Yes. But you probably will not notice it. It is not visible or felt during string play. The ONLY time I felt vibe was during thumb grinds, and even then is was a fraction of the dreaded CLYW vibe that everyone seems to remember. In my opinion this is not an NQP, B-Grade, or what ever you want to call it, the KLR is A-Grade all the way. All said and done, this yo-yo gives tremendous levels of play, which leads me to my final thoughts.

Final Thoughts

I hate saying this in a review because it gets bantered about way too much whenever a new yo-yo comes out but I have to admit, this is my hands down favorite General Yo yo-yo. That says a lot considering I love grind tricks. It has dethroned my past favorite, the 5-star v2. I also hate to say it because the KLR is such a limited run so you will need to keep your eyes peeled in order to get it. I hope the first run sells out in record time, if for no other reason than for General Yo to see the demand and rectify the scarcity with a second run.