[NEXY TT] NEW 4thgeneration blade RuBiCon

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Launching Rubicon

Rubicon follows Nexy’s 4th generation blades — Zealot and Z-blade.

Nexy’s 4th generation set two extra goals in order to meet the demands of the poly ball age. Considering the new ball’s larger size and heavier weight, Nexy has been trying to enhance spin and speed in general.

Nexy’s 3rd generation focused more on the deep impact feeling in order to deliver a “bank impact” more easily and efficiently. To meet those two factors, Nexy made the impact point closer to the surface than 3rd generation and also started searching for a new surface wood that would help create more spin. Running in these two directions, Nexy released Kanaph, Chedech, Higgs, and Zealot with a focus on a sticky surface wood feeling. Later, Olam and Z-blade were released, and they focused on the capacity to generate lots of spin on a comparatively short impact moment. Olam and Z-blade do not feel as if they are driving balls for long moments as previous 4th generation blades did, but they still produce good spin considering their short moment of impact. Nexy tried to find some ways other than a sticky surface character with Olam and Z-blade.

Nexy went in a different direction when designing Rubicon. Passing by those two factors such as (1) new surface wood for a sticky feeling and (2) shorter impact with comparatively good spin, Nexy tried to make a blade with an embracing feeling to help generate greater rotation.

In order to help you better understand, I can once again illustrate two good examples from other brands’ blade design histories. Japanese brands represented by Butterfly have relied more on the sticky feeling on the surface by frequently using Hinoki wood for their blades’. Whereas the European brands represented by Stiga focused more on the embracing feeling as a whole blade. To achieve this, they primarily used Limba wood as a top-ply.

If I simply describe Nexy’s general blade history, I would say that Nexy has been more concerned with the surface’s driving feeling, focusing less on the whole blade’s embracing feeling. Nexy released several blades using Limba on their surfaces, such as Spear and Peterpan, but we cannot find that trend in the 4th generation, and this is the moment Nexy turned back to the other direction with Rubicon. Therefore, Rubicon is located on the border between Stiga and Butterfly’s blade trend, still trying the 4th generation’s general feature of surface’s sticky feeling, but adding more of the embracing feeling of Stiga’s blades.

The surface of Rubicon has vertical lines like Hinoki, and it seems to hold the ball a bit longer like Hinoki, but Rubicon has a hard, thin surface whereby most Hinoki blades have a soft, thick surface. Rubicon’s surface stickiness is not as strong as Zealot and Chedech, but it still produces good spin because it embraces the ball as a whole, not only by the power of the surface. We can conclude that Rubicon is more like Zealot and Olam than standard Hinoki blades. And we can also consider that Rubicon has an embracing feeling, which cannot be applied to Zealot and Olam, though the feeling is not as strong as with Limba surfaces. If Rubicon were thinner, then it would have a greater embracing feeling, but it would not have enough power to match the poly ball’s larger size and heavier weight.

Another important factor that influenced the design of Rubicon is the height of the curve of the ball movement. What matters is the height from the impact on the blade surface to the moment when the ball flies over the net. Until now, most brands took great care about the length of the ball flight, but Nexy has been more concerned with the span between the ball curve than the flying distance. So, when I designed Rubicon, I focused more on looping stability than power. It has to fly high at the right moment over the net because that is when we can judge if the ball is successfully returning or not. So, what matters most for Rubicon is the short time span between the blade striking the ball and it going over the net. Rubicon is designed to spring the ball up faster and fly higher over the net than other blades.

In contrast, Nexy focused more on a long trajectory with Zealot and Chedech, and the springing up power was not the main concern with those blades. But with Rubicon, the main theme remains more on the moment between the ball impacting the blade and flying over the net. In conclusion, we can say that Rubicon has more power to initially launch the ball. It’s not easy to illustrate this with definitive numbers, but many testers agree on this point.

The rubbers mainly tested for Rubicon design are Karis M+ on the forehand side, and Karis M on the backhand side. You will enjoy the character of Rubicon fully with Karis M+ and Karis M.

There is one important thing to note — Rubicon’s surface wood cannot withstand extra strong glue. We suggest that you use a gentle glue and take more care when you remove rubbers from the blade. It’s advisable to remove rubbers from left to right instead of from handle to head. Note: Rubicon contains a factory sealing, but recently, many brands are releasing very strong glues that may damage blades with vertically lined wood surfaces.

Thank you for reading this article.