Box 41 Tier 2 November 2019

This month’s throw is from Good Life. Riptide is Luke Trautwein’s yoyo. It’s been an honor to see Luke’s progression in yoyo throughout the years and his style come to what it is today. Luke thinks differently, breaking down tricks to their elemental core and reconstructing them in a more minimalist way. Although his tricks are extremely efficient and smart, you’ll always catch Traut having a good time on or off the stage. He lets his skill and practice do the talking, and after taking home titles like 4th in the US and 13th in the world this past year, everybody knows Luke has something unique to bring to the stage and community. When we started talking with Luke about a yoyo his favorites were the Igloo and Breeze, so It wasn’t a huge surprise that he wanted to borrow inspiration from them for the Riptide. With this inspiration in mind we set out to create a mono metal that would be very stable for competition tricks and horizontal play. We wanted Riptide to have the same light nimble feeling as some of his favorite bi metals, but we knew as a mono making it heavier would only add stability. At 65 grams we found it was a perfect balance between an agile and stable throw, making sure it has a unique feel and the weight compliments the shape correctly. The shape is very close to being a “strict” V shape but has a very subtle bubble to it, inspired by our previous designs the Gully and Gulch. Luke used the Riptide to compete and take sixth at Mass States recently, and we can’t wait to see his tricks and freestyles change and evolve as his yoyo continues to evolve with him!