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Review: VODAK Rebel Carbon OFF
Available at: www.vodak-dreva.cz The website is in Czech but if you open it using Google Chrome it will automatically translate the site for you.
Buying experience: I contacted Vodak via their website to ask for advice and was pleased by the quick and helpful response. I asked advice about several of their blades including about potential custom construction. All my queries were answered quickly and thoroughly.
Reviewer profile: I am in my mid-40s and have recently returned to table tennis after more than 25-years away from the sport. I was a national junior champion in my teenage years, and represented the senior mens’ provincial team from the age of 15. Of course, I am nowhere close to the level I once was (I cannot move as fast as a fit teenager anymore!) – nevertheless I have reasonable skills and hope my review will help others thinking of equipment selection.
Blade composition: Koto – Limba – Carbon – Kiri – Carbon – Limba – Koto
Blade construction: The workmanship is of the highest quality. Perfect edges, smoothly sanded and sealed faces, uniform thickness of each ply. Excellence is obvious when you see it – and this is it.
Handle: I selected the ‘Anatomical’ style handle and asked for it to be lengthened from 100mm to 105mm. The handle is very nicely formed, smoothly sanded, and probably the most comfortable I have ever used. Ideally for me it would be a bit wider as I have large hands, but for most people it will fit comfortably.
Tested with: Joola Rhyzm-P (max.) FH & Joola Maxx-P (max.) BH
First impressions: Honestly, my first thought was, “Wow – this is fast! I think I need to choose a slower blade.” After an hour or so of testing a good range of shots with my training partner, a second thought came to me: “But I’m landing almost every shot exactly where I want it – how is this happening with such a powerful blade?”
Speed: Fast! By comparison, it is a little faster than a Xiom Stradivarius and a little slower than a Tibhar Drinkhall Powerspin Carbon.
Feel: Again, by comparison, it has a more ‘definite’ (sharper) feel than the Stradivarius, but is a bit softer and more ‘woody’ than the Drinkhall Powerspin Carbon.
Arc / trajectory: Low and long. I needed to adjust my technique to account for this, but when I did I found it very consistent and predictable.
Loops: Powerloops are fantastic with this blade! Direct, precise, fast, dipping near the end of the table and kicking low off the table with venom. I can still execute slower/opening loops against low or backspin balls and place them accurately and with good spin – but this blade is made for power not delicacy!
Smashing: Because the blade is fairly stiff and reasonably thick (6.5mm) for a 5+2 composite, smashes are super-precise. The speed of a smash is largely about the player’s technique and timing and (to a lesser extent) their physical strength. Suffice to say that if you cannot outright win a point smashing with this blade then the reason is to be found in one of those other factors and not in the blade itself.
Block: It’s a thick blade so blocking is very stable and accurate. If you have good technique and timing, then you can easily turn active/punch blocks into winning shots with this blade.
Push: Takes some time to get used to – this is not a slow blade – but with soft hands and good footwork pushing is no problem.
Chop: There are easier blades to chop with than this one. It’s the one shot I’ve struggled to execute consistently well with this blade, but I think that says more about my current skill level and the amount of time I put into practicing chops than it does about the blade. The blade is very predictable so, with sufficient practice, I’m sure chopping would be mastered. But chopping isn’t fun to practice, and I don’t play competitively any more so I only practice what’s fun for me!
Serve: The placement, speed and height over the net of serves are all reasonably easy to control with this blade. Being a thick and fast blade, though, does mean it’s harder to generate high levels of spin on soft-impact shots like serves, as opposed to hard-impact shots like loops. It would take a very skilled player (ie. beyond my level) to generate outright point-winning serves with this blade, but I think outright point-winning serves are very hard to achieve (against quality opponents) with the new ball anyway.
Control: Very high for a blade of this speed. Control means different things to different people and I’m always a little hesitant to assign a control rating as it has more to do with the skill and experience of the player than it does with any inherent characteristic of the blade. Lewis Hamilton, for example, can control a F1 car perfectly. Almost everyone else in the world cannot.
Overall: Super blade of the highest quality construction. Definitely an all-out attack blade. This is not the blade for allround players, or even for cautious attackers. Attack, attack, attack! If we said an Audi A4 was a ‘basic’ offensive blade (eg. Xiom Offensive S), and the Audi R8 was a ‘hyper’ offensive blade (eg. Butterfly Jun Mizutani Super ZLC), I would match the Vodak Rebel Carbon OFF to the Audi RS 6 Avant. Great fun, and an exciting drive – if you have the skills.
Note: I am currently testing another Vodak blade and will post a review in about a month or so.
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