ORIGINAL: Pinwheel 12

I think that the realization that speed certainly isn' t everything is finally coming to the forefront. Many of us used to play the speed game back in the late 80' s and early 90' s, and some who were just coming into the sport saw this and simply thought that they too had to have the fastest mousetrap made, and carried the tradition on for another " generation" . Hence we contrinued to see many " rat-trap" designs with nasty cams and low brace heights, etc, etc. This mentality is definately waning(finally) in recent years IMO-- guys now want smooth, easy drawing designs that offer competitive speed. Why the change? I personally think more and more people are realizing that a bow with a decent ATA and brace height, coupled with a forgiving cam design just shoots better for them. And, it is certainly no fun to sit in a tree in cold weather for 3 hrs or more and then try to get your bow back if it has a nasty FDC, THEN try not to creep a 1/32, because if you do the arrow is gone or your shoulder becomes toast, or both...All for what--- an extra 20-40 or even 60 FPS at 20-30 yds? LOL.

Most hunters in the USA hunt whitetails, so huge buckets of KE isn' t necessary either. Even Elk can be taken with comparable equipment. So IMHO all of the speed/energy hype is just that. Fun to watch go thru a chrono, but otherwise pretty much useless unless you are hunting Rhino or other massive game. In which case you will shoot an 80lb bow anyway.

I have noticed that even Bowtech has opted to increase their brace heights slightly and incorporate a little less " nastiness" to their cam designs in the past couple of years. Kevin and the rest of the crew here at " bowtechnet.com" [&:] can certainly tell you more on this but it seems to be the case. This brings their overall actual speeds down to roughly the same level as many other manufacturers, and consequently I see they are now leaning away from the speed hype marketing technique and to the " new" sales gimmick/marketing strategy of lesser vibration/quietness with the introduction of the VFT. Good move IMHO.

Smooth shooting and great handling bows will IMHO be the predominant characteristics of future designs for all manufacturers, this I am sure of. In fact many manufacturers are already there and are selling well! Altho speeds will forever increase with time, IMHO we have pretty much settled into an " acceptable range" for at least a few years until both technology and materials once again can give us room to advance. JMHO, Pinwheel 12