Gearbox squash rackets are made by Gearbox Sports, an American racquet sports company that has been making products for racquetball, pickleball, paddleball, and now squash. I’ve posted their googles in the past.
There are three squash rackets in their range currently. They all have a slightly fan-shaped stringing pattern and come with a built-in string vibration dampener.
Here’s an unboxing video of two of the rackets, the GBX 125 and 135:
And here’s a review of those two rackets after having a chance to hit with them:
Review: Gearbox Squash Rackets Transcript
I have a review today of gearbox squash rackets I have two rackets here at the gbx1 35 and the 125 model and they have a third model is the 145 a big thanks to squash galaxy and to gearbox for sending me these rackets to test out and review I’ve been playing with these for a couple of weeks and so I have some feedback for you on how they felt on core gearbox as a company is based in the US and California and they’ve been in the pickleball racket ball they’ve been making rackets for other sports for years and they’ve now entered the squash market they have made what feels like high quality rackets and so even though they’re new to squash they they already know what they’re doing from their years of experience in other in other markets so these rackets when you pick them up they feel very light that’s the first thing I notice out of the box
I did an unboxing video which you can check out for a little more up maybe on the cosmetics and such when I got a piece on court I was trying I was struggling to figure out why they weren’t they weren’t feeling right at first and I I realized what it was is that they’re actually quite head heavy you pick them up they’re very light and you think they’re gonna be these light flicky rackets whether actually actually got a bit of weight in the head which which in my view gives you extra cut on your ball almost it helps you guide your swing through the shot so even though you have a light racket you aren’t prone to being kind of whippy and trying to flick the ball more than you should it helps you swing fully through the ball which I personally find is is helpful helpful to my game so the both rackets had a balance point of 37 centimeters which is one of the heaviest balance points of measured in in squash source history the 125 gram racket on the my scale had all in weight of 140 point 5 grams and the 135 had an all in weight of 150 2.5 grams so they’re still relatively light for for their in their class you know amongst 125 and 135 gram racquets they appear to be very sturdy designs like I said and they have a concave frame that gives them additional sturdiness
I feel when the grommets in there you can see here kind of inset into that concave frame that to me gives the frame additional sort of rigidity and feeling of sturdiness which I personally enjoy the racquets come with a vibration dampener attached and I didn’t realize this at first but it’s actually permanently attached or at least you would have to cut out the strings in order to take it off so that is embedded in there that’s an integral part of the racket and it does make a difference in terms of the vibration on these rackets very very dead feeling that they’re not they do not have much vibration and I asked for testing these I then went back to my usual racquet and I thought wow that my usual racket has a lot more vibration than I realized and it was only from switching to the to these gearbox rackets and then and then going back did I realized that both of these have a slight fan-shaped stringy pattern which I enjoyed I find a fan shape gives you a little more power and moves the sweet spot up a little bit but this was more only moderately fan-shaped some are more gentle more dramatically spread out and so this was only kind of a it wasn’t as strong of a difference from a traditional shape racket which I actually thought it was nice because sometimes I have a difficulty adjusting to those to those fan shapes this just gives you a little more power what else can I say
I noticed that it’s a little detail but the gearbox logo is the same on both sides so if you spin this racket you won’t be able to tell if it’s up or down so you have to put a little piece of tape or a white dot on there or something like that to tell them apart the gearbox rackets are retailing for 199 dollars in the US so they are on the on the pricey side and what we will have to see is is the is the quality of the build and the longevity of these rackets going to be commensurate with that with that price point and and we shall see again they have a lot of experience making rackets for for other sports so it’ll be definitely interesting to see how this company develops and it’s pushing to squash the owner of gearbox I’ve heard is traveling around promoting squash at the grassroots level driving around in a van in around North America kind of going to different clubs and showing off his wear so maybe he will stop by your club one of these days to show off maybe he’ll show up in Philadelphia I don’t know of the two my favorite usually I go for a hundred and thirty-five grand racket over a 125
I usually like that little extra heft in the racket but because they’re both head heavy I actually preferred the 125 I was able to have that feeling of getting a full swing on my shot it didn’t feel so light that it wasn’t there and that I was kind of just flicking at everything it allowed me to have a light racket but still feel like I was coming through nicely on my shots so it’s that was my my personal favorite of the two was that one because that that like I said because of the head the head heaviness made it feel like it was a nice solid shot but it’s still light enough to be quite maneuverable getting around the court so hopefully that was helpful again these are gear box squash rackets thanks a lot
Gearbox GBX 125
The GBX 125 is the lightest racket in the bunch, with an advertised weight of 125 grams.
Gearbox GBX 135
Next up is the GBX 135, the blue one. This one is used by Canada’s Danielle LeTourneau.
Gearbox GBX 145
And finally we have the 145-gram GBX 145:
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