‘ZX-Gear’ series is a new fiber blade family launched in 2019 by Victas, which established a new C.I. and mae a completely new start by abolishing the traditional TSP brand. Differently from existing ‘Quartet’ series or ‘FireFall’ series, ‘ZX-Gear’ series is a product line directly produced by Victas. While developing new blades, Victas wanted to use a special material that other companies did not use, and as a result, ‘Zxion’ fiber which is soft and provides sufficient elasticity was selected. (‘Zxion’ is a type of arylate fiber, but it is manufactured by a different company and has slightly different physical properties from ‘Vectran’, which is mainly used by Butterfly.) In addition to using new artificial material, Victas also developed new adhesives and bonding method used in plywood manufacturing, for creating new blades those provide unique feeling and high performance. Victas named these new blades ‘ZX-Gear’ after the name of special material ‘Zxion’. ‘ZX-Gear’ series consists of three models – ‘ZX-Gear Out’, ‘ZX-Gear In’ and ‘ZX-Gear Fiber’. Z Carbon (= Zxion Carbon) which is the mixed woven fiber of Carbon fiber and Zxion fiber is used for ‘ZX-Gear Out’ and ‘ZX-Gear, and pure woven Zxion fiber is used for ‘ZX-Gear Fiber’.

‘ZX-Gear Fiber’ is an inner fiber blade whose artificial material doesn’t include carbon fiber. ‘ZX-Gear Fiber’ is even softer than ‘ZX-Gear In’ whose artificial material includes carbon fiber, and gives the feeling very close to that of pure wood blade. The advantages of ‘ZX-Gear Fiber’ when compared with pure wood blades are its larger sweet spot and higher energy efficiency. ‘ZX-Gear Fiber’ is recommended for the players who lay the biggest importance on the stability and safe of continuous topspin or who want to keep the feeling of pure wood blade while enjoying the larger sweet spot and the higher energy efficiency of fiber blade. ‘ZX-Gear Fiber’ is also suitable for the entry players because it is an affordable fiber blade whose feeling is soft and whose elasticity is moderate.

The new C.I. of Victas has been applied to ‘ZX-Gear’ series. The ‘splitting’ image is printed at the middle of the foreside of head. And, the name of product is printed above that splitting graphic. Below that splitting graphic, elasticity level and the information of construction are printed. The design of handle is based on those of existing ‘Quartet’ series and ‘FireFall’ series, but the color combination is exclusive to ‘ZX-Gear’ series. A very consistent graphic design is the characteristics of Victas blades.

‘ZX-Gear Fiber’ is an inner fiber blade. Woven Z fiber (= Zxion fiber is placed between the middle layer and the center layer. The top layer is Limba. The middle layer and the center layer are Ayous. Overall thickness is around 5.7mm.

The size of head is around 157mm x 150mm.

Same concept of the printing on the foreside of head is common to almost all Victas blades. The consistency is so strong that you can easily tell it’s a Victas blade at first glance. However, to distinguish individual products, you must check the product name. it is difficult to distinguish individual products. To distinguish individual products, you must look at their names.

The name of blade and the plywood construction (5-ply + inner Z Fiber) are printed over and under the left side of the splitting image respectively.

‘Dyna-core’ logo and speed sign is shown under the right side of the splitting image. ‘Dyna-core’ is the name used by Victas to indicate inner fiber construction. (Outer Fiber construction is called as ‘Dyna-shell’.)

Nothing is printed on the backside of head. But, on the backside of handle there is a transparent plastic lens that indicates the name of blade.

The width of FL (flared) handle is around 26mm (at head side) ~ 27mm (at bulge) ~ 26mm (at narrowest point) ~ 34mm (at the end). And, the thickness of FL handle is around 22.0mm (at thumb) ~ 23.5mm (at the end). The FL handle isn’t a wide handle, and it is somewhat thinner than ordinary FL handles. But, the stability of grip is good because the surfaces are relatively flat.

The size of ST (straight) handle is around 28mm (width) x 22mm (thickness). Its surfaces are also relatively flat, but not completely flat as the ST handles of ‘Firefall’ series.

One of the characteristics of Victas blades is that the second lens is applied on the backside of handle. The size of the backside lens is same as that of foreside lens, and the name of the blade – ‘ZX-Gear Fiber’ – is written in the backside lens.

Small aluminum plate that includes engraved Victas logo mark is applied at the end of handle. This logo mark symbolizes the image of splitting V.

‘ZX-Gear Fiber’ is the fiber blade which feels closest to a pure wood blade among the Victas blades. But, ‘ZX-Gear Fiber’ provides higher power than the pure wood blade of similar speed range thanks to the high energy efficiency of Zxion fiber.

Above picture shows two inner fiber models in ‘ZX-Gear’ series. Left is ‘ZX-Gear In’ whose artificial material includes carbon fiber, and right is ‘ZX-Gear Fiber’ whose artificial material is pure Zxion fiber which doesn’t includes carbon fiber. Except for the product name and some notations , there isn’t any difference in graphic design between two blades.

‘ZX-Gear In’ (left) and ‘ZX-Gear Fiber’ (right) share the basic construction of blade except for the kind of artificial material. But, ‘ZX-Gear Fiber’ is a bit thinner than ‘ZX-Gear In’.

The handles of two models looks totally identical. If the rubber is attached, we can’t tell them apart until we look at the backside lens or the edge of the blade. (The one on the front is ‘ZX-Gear Fiber’ and the one on the back is ‘ZX-Gear In’.) This extremely consistent way of design of Victas blades is intended to promote the name of the new ‘Victas’ brand rather than individual products.

The backside of ‘ZX-Gear Fiber’ (left) and ‘ZX-Gear In’ (righr). The names of two models are shown in the backside lenses.

‘ZX-Gear Fiber’ (left) and ‘ZX-Gear In’ (right) are two inner fiber models of ‘ZX-Gear’ series which represents the blade range of Victas.

A characteristic of Victas blades is that lenses are applied to both sides of handle. However, the players who don’t like the feel of the lens on their fingers and therefore use the lens side as the backhand side will not like this design. For those players, Victas should make the lens (or Aluminum plate) much smaller than these ones. Fortunately, very small Aluminum plates are started to be applied for new models such as Koki Niwa ZC.

‘ZX-Gear Fiber’ is a fiber blade which is very soft and whose elasticity is comparable to that of 5-ply pure wood blade. Since ‘ZX-Gear Fiber’ isn’t the type of blade that generates speed in its own, the player need to hit the ball sufficiently strongly for making powerful ball. But, the players who lays importance on soft feeling, good control and high stability will like the characteristics of ‘ZX-Gear Fiber’.

Following are the performance indices of Victas ZX-Gear Fiber (avg.weight = 83.7g) :

– Ep = 1.31

– Ec = 1.17 (Ec/Ep = 0.89)

– Vp = 1.06

– Vl = 1.19 (Vl/Vp = 1.13)

Please note that above are average values and can be updated by further measurement.

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