The Leaf by Caribou Lodge. What's in a name?
The Leaf by Caribou Lodge is finally here. This yoyo literally took years to make, I remember Steve Brown announced a new version of the Chief was due way back in 2020! Fast Forward to 2025, and the Leaf has finally arrived on our shelves and into your hands. It’s been a long and remarkable journey with more than a few bumps along the way.
The story starts in 2011, with the first release of the Chief by CLYW, it’s no exaggeration to say that the Chief is one of the most influential and important yoyos released in the modern era, In many ways the Chief actually ushered in the current era of modern yoyo design, and there are still hints of the Chief in many yoyo designs being released today. The Chief went on to become the CLYW flagship yoyo, and loomed large over the designs of many CLYW yo-yos. Most notably the double rim and the shape that mixes V, H, and Organic shapes. The Chief was truly a yoyo ahead of it’s time.
The last run of Chiefs was in 2016, and since that time we’ve had a few variations, such as the Pickaxe which is an undersized version of the Chief, and the notorious Bear Trap, which was a capped version of the Chief.
Around 2019, there were murmurs of a new run of Chiefs but there were to be a few changes, the shape was going to be updated for modern yoyo standards, and the yoyo would be re-named the Leaf. The changes to the yoyo itself would be a non-issue, legacy yoyos such as the Shutter or Edge have had a number revisions and tweaks over the years, with very few complaints. But there was a bit of online chatter about the name change; with typical complaints that the name Chief wasn’t offensive. One guy in Finland was particularly salty about the name change even though he had never met a member of First Nations or a Native American. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what one’s personal opinion is, Chris and Steve, had grown and matured and learned a few things about the world along the way. They weren’t comfortable with the old name and artwork and thats what’s important.
Once I saw the revised artwork, I thought it was perfect and was a perfect tribute to Caribou Lodge’s Canadian roots, The Leaf feels like the name it should have had all along.
Now that we’ve gotten past that roadblock, there was a big one around the corner. The Leaf was announced in 2020, and of course historical events would disrupt just about everything, including yoyo production. It seems like this yoyo was hit particularly hard for some reason, it was in the middle of the prototyping phase and shipping had ground to a halt. That’s how a yoyo that was suppsed to be released in 2020 or 2021, ended up being released at the very end of 2024.
One silver lining of the lock-dows was that the Leaf was prototyped to death, nearly all of the CL team members had some input, and this has to be one of the world’s most prototyped and tested yoyos ever released. The Leaf’s design is up to today’s standards and with a bit of luck should last the rest of the decade? I mean, we’re already halfway to 2030!
Specs:
Diameter: 56.50 mm
Width: 47.25 mm
Gap Width: 4.50 mm
Weight: 66.2 grams
Bearing Size: Size C (.250 x .500 x .187)
Response: CLYW Snow Tires
Material: 6061 Aluminum
Designed in: Canada
Released: December 2024
