I bowled on CERTIFIED STRINGPINS?! 

I just pretended it was an intro to a dubbed Kung Fu movie

it was strange early in the video as well. No problem. Watched it anyway.

What audio?

At the end

I bowled when there were actually human pinsetters. I was one. I've only seen a pin slide over 2 spots and still stand up 1 time in a hundred thousand games. There is also clear video evidence that the strings affect the pins and your score. Weird that it happened 3 times in one outing. Also, bowling has priced itself out. 5, 6, 7 bucks a game? It's become an expensive sport, but then so is golf. A simple family of 4 outing is an easy $100 at the bowling center. If string pin bowling is going to become the norm, I guess free-fall bowling will go the same was as pinsetters... just a "remember when" we used to do that? Gosh, I sure do miss wooden lanes where no one had a 200 average and the entire bowling alley may only see one 300 game in a season.

Bowling has been transformed from one of the most challenging sports to master to the farce that it has become today. Just follow the money & the real story will be told.

Just get rid of the machines and make people set their own pins if it's really that expensive

Will do, next time! 😄

You're famous🤔😶

👀

Thanks for killing bowling

Don't give anyone any ideas 👀💀

Bro is onto something

Hmmm, not bad but, I have a better one. A holographic set of pins and depending where your ball rolls over imbedded sensors , they fall down!

holographic pins would be awesome if they can accurately simulate the physics, would be more accurate than string pins for sure

@@LyIaKing yeah i was thinking the same thing

I coach HS in Louisiana and I think high school bowling IS one of the most important paths. We have been attacking program improvement partially by sheer volume but I am at one of the largest high schools in the state and I have a faculty sponsor and a total of three non-faculty volunteer coaches. In the last three seasons we have run JV teams because the larger schools have wanted it to be more competitive. We had 41 kids tryout this season between the boys and girls teams and we don't cut. We just lay down the reality of what it takes to play. We lose a few every year once they realize it isn't "bowling club" and that it will take effort to start JV and a MUCH greater effort to bowl varsity. I am carrying 18 boys. 2/3 of my starters and 3/4 of my team never bowled youth leagues before trying out for the HS team. We add kids to the future adult league bowler pool every year. The problem is, it is an exhausting path for the coaches who are typically volunteer AND require jobs willing to tolerate the time commitment. You also have to have proprietor support and in some parts of Louisiana that simply isn't there. That said, we have absolutely seen growth, specifically with the top end teams who are running large volumes of new youth through their programs. --- If we are relying on traditional youth programs we are missing a big component. If we are relying on sport leagues, Junior Gold and high $$$ paths, it is even worse. If every school in our region both participated and ran our concept we would double or triple league participation overnight. --- I am OK with string pins provided they are certified and remain separately sanctioned and maybe play with a mixed concept at the HS level. They seem to introduce an aspect of luck I am uncomfortable with at the highest levels of competition. That said, I would love to see 8-16 lane houses in small towns again and if this is how we fill that gap then so be it. Yes, cheaper freefall pinsetters would be ideal --- but we need places for people to bowl in the gaps. The BIGGEST deterrent to HS bowling in Louisiana is a lack of houses outside the 5 largest cities to cover our large rural schools.

Your so lucky to have high school bowling. My high school was maybe 2 blocks from a nice 24 lane bowling alley back in the 70-80s and no bowling program for us.@@weunice

Back in high school, I was on a weekend youth league, and I noticed how few people were coming in the season, we even had to reduce the number of members per team. I took the liberty to make a flyer for the head coach to pass around and for the bowling alley to have at the front desk. Parents start to light up when they find out that their kids can win scholarship money when bowling.

Kinda obvious but I HATE string pin machines. Could possibly ruin my career in the future. Already has screwed me out of service work and good extra money.

Very expensive is a key note in your point - Circling back to cost again 😂 but yeah I mean I still refuse to believe that we can’t make a free fall pinsetter that is easier to maintain

​@@220avgFair enough. My point of view is very biased lol. Threatening my source of income.

Not sure if you can make a cheaper free fall pin machine. With so much mechanics involved in those machines they take a lot of beating with gears and bearings and metal moving around. Those bunch of weighted pins need heavy duty machines. Can't expect all that movement to be done with plastic gears, plastic motors, plastic pin setters. Much easier and now cheaper to just transition to strings where any kid who can come off the street and operate a computer to run a string pin operation. Can't imagine a line of folks learning the mechanics of free fall pin machines even if they could invent a cheaper free fall pin machine which would still need a learned mechanic to fix when needed.

LOL!

Part of the problem is all the rules changes in the last few years. Bowling was definitely seeing an uptick after the pandemic ended, but anyone that got into the game semi-seriously has been met with nothing but constant changes the last few years.

I’ve actually seen a bowling alley with an old ball return system where the balls returned through a third gutter in the center, and just kinda went up into the rack at the end on their own momentum. That place was so old that there was a person in the back operating the pinsetters.

Yes most have seen it , but we have had these string pins for a year and I can tell you absolutely the strings have on many occasion kept a pin from falling. They provide stability. The entire alley is down about 10 pins in average and it marks the first year no one complained about how the lanes were oiled LOL

basically what i said in the last video, i don't agree with them being in competitions but have no problem with bowling alleys using them to keep cost down. the bowling alley near me has both with the string pins being $1 a game and the normal lanes being $5 a game. to me they are close enough for casual games and for the cost difference it is really a no brainer

You are not wrong

Lol... ok

I doubt strings were the problem there. Those pin decks were way too slick

@@wingracer1614 when is the last time you’ve ever left back to back pocket solid 3 pins????? I guarantee never. And if the pin decks were slick don’t you think that would’ve helped them actually fall off the deck than? Cmon use youre head it’s obvious the strings had and have an effect on pin fall and pin carry. There is no logical reason for string pins in bowling other than recreational use.

@@petefreezybowling Yes never, because my house does a pretty good job on the pin decks but did have it happen twice to me in one 3 game set and once to a team mate just two weeks ago. That's what happens when they don't get cleaned for a while and covered in carrydown. The pins slide instead of falling over. As for the rest of your comment, I made no comments on those points so I don't know why you're yelling at me about it.

That was a pin deck issue, it slid

Stripping the pin decks, especially the phenolic coated pin decks, on a weekly, if not daily basis, is simply sensible routine maintenance. However, some pins will still slide laterally if struck precisely at or near the center of gravity of the pin. Strings interfere with the dynamics of free falling pins. This has been demonstrated time & time again! Strings will ruin what miniscule integrity remains in bowling. The sport will be no more & become a recreational arcade game in family fun centers with no sport value whatsoever! This appears to be what the powers want it to be. Fine, just count me out!

Are modern pinsetters that hard to upkeep? They can’t be THAT hard

Bowlero only pays $17 an hour for mechanics, in areas where 1 bedrooms are $2800 a month.@@Nick_J_ Not that this is bowlero but mechanics should get a living wage and not make the same rate as the kid at the front desk.

Look up on the Brunswick GS-NXT, that free fall pinsetter has been recently out since 2022

Bowlero continues to purchase bowling centers and they don't like competitive bowling because the margins are less than open play. I just wonder when the equipment manufacturers are going to make themselves heard because they are the ones who lose when competitive bowling disappears.

​@@AverageLeagueHack League has historically been more profitable than open play because leagues purchase more beer on average, and beer is where the money is. But league play demands conditions not be objectively ridiculous so you have to keep the place up instead of letting it degrade. If you're Bowlero and are just trying to juice the next quarter's stock price then it's better to forego the maint requirements even though you lose long term.

Been a pinsetter mechanic for 12 years now. AMF 82-70s. They are very complicated and very temperamental. Its not that its impossible, its just becoming less and less economically viable to keep up with them. Particularly on older machines, which many centers have, is constant upkeep. People tend to think of machine maintenance in terms of a single lane or a pair. Keeping a pair of lanes running well isnt all that difficult. Keeping 40, like our center has, running well is another task entirely. Its very possible to upgrade machines to make them run smoother/more reliably, but generally by the time you get through the labor and parts cost, you might as well go to strings. Bowling is, at the end of the day, a business and if a business doesnt turn a profit, it closes its doors. Thats where strings are very appealing to businesses, theyre very cheap and reliable compared to free fall. Not only in the initial cost and the maintenance cost, but even the amount of power to run them is significantly less. On top of all that, open play is generally more profitable than league play, and quite frankly, league bowlers are a pain in the ass. So theres huge incentive to go toward string pins and favor open play from a business perspective. In my opinion I would love to see a middle ground of more efficient and reliable free fall pinsetter designs with newer tech, but the incentive for development is just not there. Short version: Its not that it isnt possible, its just the economics of strings vs free fall heavily favors strings.

@@KJ4VGAWhy didn't the financial motives make many centers switch to strings well before COVID?

@@coopergates9680 they were not certified until recently. Even if a centers focus was shifting toward open play most centers would not be willing to adopt something that isnt usbc certified.

@@KJ4VGAQuite a few places have been implementing non-certified strings, though. Also, without much of a push for strings in the first place, I doubt USBC would have bothered to certify them.

@@coopergates9680 well yeah, but it wasnt going to be widely adopted without certification.

Apparently a random back pin will just slide to the 10 pins spot nowadays

You said the key though “there were some spares that would not have happened”. That’s the controversy right now is that number shouldn’t be “some” it should be *zero*

@@StephensAmazingRU-vidHandle I understand that and agree. However there were no pile ups, pin setting malfunctions, or ball return issues either. Technology will improve over time like everything else in this world. If opposed then bring back human pin setters like at the Holler House. I watched a high end competition recently between the US and the World and that pinboy was better than any machine.

@@DavidRodriguez-mp9nh it’s not improvement to knock pins over that shouldn’t be getting knocked over. It’s not an improvement for bowling for splits to be easier to convert. Packy and Brent made the 7-10 almost at will on strings. It’s also not an improvement for strings to prevent a spare being made. Strings are a step back, not forward for the game

@@StephensAmazingRU-vidHandle Go play a few games on a string set if you have not yet. As I stated prior I have and I'm not a fan of them. I prefer free fall. However if this is what the bowling industry is moving toward it won't keep me from playing the game I love. Have fun!

YES

Material, durability, repeatability, and reducing tangles. If you haven't, take the time and read the full study by the USBC. There's some crazy stuff in there to get to a product that makes it fair as possible for certification.

Necessary experiment

​@@220avgCompletely agree. It was necessary to go back to a certified string pin center.

Ah hello. Didn't you hear in beginning that 220Avg bowler needed to go to a certified string pin center to get reaction of ball on certified string center. Get a grip.

@@220avg Thank you for coming to Napa Bowl to give it a try.

Ah maybe that’s where all those angry nerds came from lol

Luke can say whatever he wants. Fact is, nothing 220 did in the previous video is some type of fake news propaganda. I practice on un-certified strings, and nothing 220 showed was out of the norm. That's the truth. Luke is the type of arrogant personality that chooses to remain ignorant - and that's the worst kind. I have yet to bowl on certified strings so I can't comment, but even in this video there is some weirdness going on.

Yes, most unfortunately, bowling has come to this & it's sickening, to say the least!

@@timanders3151 I even argued with Luke a few times. He said that the pinsetters he bowled on were GS-X Free Fall Pinsetters and they were crap. This guy pretty much never worked as a pinsetter mechanic in his entire life, learn to fix the problem its not like the end of the world. I’ve been in and out of pinsetters and its fun to fix them and he doesn’t know that every Bowling Center has different state conditions where one center is more maintained than the other. My local center had AMF 82-90XL Pinspotters and they were breaking everyday due to poor maintenance but when I went on a vacation to somewhere else and bowled at 4 Bowling Centers (2 centers with AMF 82-70’s and 2 more centers with Brunswick GS-X), I find that those centers are more maintained than the one in my hometown

And also Tangled Pins smh

Sanctioned or not, this shit is a joke. All because it's cheaper to maintain, it's taking over centers

No quartermania or "all you can bowl" special? Even the quartermania offered near here keeps upping its cover charge