yoyoZeekio Golem
Reviewed by Chris Rhoads
March 15, 2015

Introduction

I have seen yoyoZeekio talked about online and offered up in the BST sections of quite a few forums for quite some time but I have never had the chance to throw a yoyoZeekio branded product until now. The company itself is owned by the same parent company that owns YoYoSam, Twisted Stringz, and the recently reopened YoYoSkills website, so there is a definite connection to the yo-yo community. Today I am looking at one of their newest releases, the Golem. In folklore the Golem was an amorphous being formed from mud and clay, usually used to protect the people of a city or a faith… pretty heady stuff to lay on a yo-yo but kind of makes sense considering that a yo-yo starts off as an amorphous chunk of aluminum that is formed into the toy we so love today. In quite a few of the old Golem stories, the being ends up turning into a monster, lets hope that is not the case for the yo-yo I am reviewing today.

Specs

• Diameter: 57mm
• Width: 44mm
• Gap: 4.8mm
• Weight: 66 grams
• Bearing: Twisted Trifecta Bearing
• Response: Silicone Pad

Construction

The profile of the Golem is an extremely pronounced H-Shape design with scalloped cuts in the outer rims that give them a little bit of a channel that the string can ride in if hit just right. The catch zone is open with a convex wall that guides the string to the no walled gap. Turning our attention to the cup, we can see that it has an almost flat floor with just the ever so slightest of a point in the center. Under the rims there is an IGR that is quite deep and easy to use in thumb grinds. The finish on the Golem is polished with an acid washed and speckled colorway design to it. There is absolutely no blast that I can feel on this so I know that grinds will suffer on the Golem. All in all the design is decent but I have seen this scalloped rim design on other yo-yos and it has caused a problem before. We can examine this more in the play section.

Weight

The Golem clocks in at 66 grams, which definitely is within my threshold of 64 to 67 grams. That being said, it feels slow on the string. Normally I don’t mind a medium paced yo-yo but this was just a little sluggish to change direction and I ended up having to push it to go faster.

Response and Bearing

The response pads are the excellent and quite grippy white silicone response pads we see in so many yo-yos today. Normally that would be a good thing but on the Golem I received, the response groove is not cut deep enough which allowed the pads to peek up over the edge of the groove. This causes the yo-yo to be snaggy and responsive at times during play. This problem lessened over time as the pads broke in but never completely went away. The solution to this will be, if the groove is deep enough, to gut the pads and pour a recessed flowable silicone response.

The bearing is a Twisted Trifecta grooved, v-cut bearing. I have reviewed them in the past and found the bearing to be decent but not my cup of tea. The groove prevents the string from traveling across the face of the bearing and the v-cut bunches the string in odd ways. The Golem ships with a flat bearing as well and I found that to be my preferred setup for this yo-yo.

Playability

As I stated above, this yo-yo feels slow on the string. I freely admit that my style of play is not at the “professional level” but I was left wanting a little more speed during tricks. The Golem does have long spin times so when you combine them with the slower play it would seem this would be a great yo-yo for intermediate players looking to perfect their combos before moving to something faster… and that would be the case except for those rims. The design of the scalloped rims can occasionally catch the string and cause the Golem to awkwardly tilt. That design element keeps this yo-yo from being one heck of a rock solid yo-yo. When you hit it right this thing is a beast that just does not want to tilt. Hit a rim wrong and you are doing your best to recover. The lack of a blast means that the grinds do suffer. It can grind, but only for short bursts before it shoots off your finger or palm. Thumb grinds, on the other hand, are phenomenal. The deep IGR latches on to your thumb and does not let go. Over all, the play left me wanting more.

Final Thoughts

The Golem retails for around $55 and for that I think at that price there are others that would be a better choice. The weight issue on its own would not be that bad and would have made this a great trainer yo-yo for many intermediate players but coupling it with that rim design and the poorly implemented response groove makes this a definite “try before you buy” sort of yo-yo.