Thrive Ignite First Impressions

Youtube Video Link: https://youtu.be/It7x88HeeOE

Hey guys today we’re doing some first hits with the Ignite paddle from Thrive.

This is a hybrid paddle that’s basically the foam version of their Gen 3 Fury paddle but with some small changes. Like the Fury it’s 15.5mm in core thickness in the same hybrid shape with the curved top and it has additional foam in the bottom corners and a layer going around the top in the diving board style similar to the Joola Pro IVs. And like all Thrive paddles, with the Ignite you can specify your swingweight preferences at checkout, for the one I got it has a swingweight of 113 and a twistweight of 6.55. The main difference is that instead of a polypropylene core, the Ignite uses an EPP foam core and one other small change is that while the Fury has a CFC layup, the Ignite has 4 surface layers so it adds in one more layer of carbon fiber. But let’s take a look at how it plays.

Like most floating EPP paddles, the Thrive Ignite is a power paddle but it feels stiffer off the face. The feel reminds me a bit of an in between of the Thrive Fury and Surge paddles. It’s stiff like the Surge but it does have a little more of a dense and solid feel of a Gen 3. I’d say it’s closer to feeling like a Gen 2 than it is the Fury though because the Fury in comparison has more of a hollow feedback that the Ignite doesn’t have. Firepower wise, the Ignite is similar to the Fury but the latter has more pop off the face and a little more juice on drives as well. You really feel the fiberglass more in the Fury because it has less surface layers while in the Ignite you can’t really tell that the paddle uses fiberglass. One last thing is that the Ignite uses what they call a Clear Fusion Grit which is their form of a durable grit texture. Now since this series only covers initial impressions, I can’t speak to how true this claim is but I will say that like all Thrive paddles I have, the Ignite is a very gritty paddle and I’m able to produce top tier spin on my shots. Overall a solid foam power paddle from Thrive for people looking for a stiffer and solid ball feel rather than the hollow feedback most floating EPP cores have. 

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