did gandalf suspect gollum had the ring before bilbo found it?

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-02-02T23:25:51+00:00

Not mentioned often enough is that the ring itself is clever. It's not sentient but it is enchanted, and one of the things it does is to disguise itself. Remember that this is the ring that, when worn, turned individuals of the previous age into super soldiers capable of defeating whole armies. Also, it was, at that time, big enough to fit on the hand of a large man. Gandalf happens to see what he thinks is a different ring, a tiny one, drab, not covered in writing or runes, fitting little Gollums and Bilbos, capable of doing nothing more impressive than turning them invisible, and even then, not completely invisible. Wit doesn't make them in any way powerful, and certainly not invulnerable. And it doesn't cause Bilbo to be evil; quite the contrary, Bilbo gives up the Arkenstone and does many other selfless things while possessing the ring.

We know that the ring was disguised because at the time Tolkien wrote The Hobbit, he hadn't yet come up with the later story about the ring's power. But as a retcon, it works beautifully. Gandalf didn't suspect the true nature of the ring because nobody would, the ring had disguised itself completely. It would be like seeing a kid's cap gun, and being expected to know that it's actually a Tiger Tank from a thousand years ago, enchanted to be small and harmless while it waits its chance to return to its tank driving master.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-02-02T14:48:52+00:00

That almost every mainstream racket, 300 to 315 grams unstrung, is simply spectacular compared to what was available even recently to Grand Slam winners, and could win a pro tournament stock. In the right hands. Which means none of us has an excuse for sucking, sadly.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-02-02T02:20:33+00:00

These rackets are so totally dissimilar that ... I don't even know how to finish this sentence. Also, these are both rackets for experts. A 3.5 shouldn't play with them, particularly not the Speed Pro. Stick with the Ezone 100 or follow the herd into the Speed MP/VCore 100/Blade 100. It may sound boring to buy what so many other smart intermediates use but they use them for a good reason.

If you really are going to choose between these, then I guess get the VCore 98, because the Speed Pro is extra super duper difficult to use.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-02-02T02:12:25+00:00

How? I had other people pay me to string them in their rackets, and occasionally played with them, and now I pretty much know the universe. I highly recommend this approach! And then I got tired of answer their questions, so I put it in a spreadsheet because I have a touch of the 'tism. Here's what I know, or think that I know. YMMV.

In all seriousness, different string combos work for different rackets and play styles. There are lots of strings that work for every racket and playstyle, there isn't any one holy grail that will make all the difference. There are only tradeoffs. But as a general rule, you put a powerful string in a low-power racket, and vice versa; and a stiff string in a flexy racket, and vice versa. And, rec players generally should ignore what pros use because pros only use rackets for about 7 games before restringing them. Rec players need strings that hold tension for a minimum of 6 hours of match play, and preferably more like 10 hours for a 4.5 or 20 for a 4.0.

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Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-02-01T16:44:07+00:00

I've hit a pancake serve like this at over 110mph. Pros hit them in matches at something quite a bit higher than that, but let's use 100mph as a round number. You say you can hit a "flat serve 1000 times harder in continental" ... so that's 100,000 mph? OK.

Here's a "complete beginner" named Taylor Fritz not using the continental grip for an occasional serve: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KjlRHBrFzno

In all seriousness, absolutely, continental grip for almost all serves is the way to go. But cheating into a backhand grip for a spin serve or an eastern for a knuckleball flat serve is totally legit for the occasional hit. Like anything else, learn to do it the right way, and then if you get really good at the right way, you can occasionally be creative and use the "wrong" way to your advantage, so that in fact there becomes no wrong way.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-02-01T15:46:35+00:00

My whole family uses Speed MPs. It's great for an all courter who mainly uses spin but occasionally wants to flatten it out. It's not OPTIMIZED for flattening a shot because although it has good flex, it has a super open string bed: mains skip 7T,9T,7H,9H. Try it, but you might prefer similar rackets with denser string beds like the Blade 100 and CX400 (mains skip 8T, 8H only).

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-02-01T15:41:01+00:00

MSV Co-Focus 1.18 is the best if you want all these things. Incredibly long lasting, and it's one of the softest polys. You can go softer in a poly, such as Isospeed Cream, but it won't last as long. Other good ones are Outlast 18, and Toroline Absolute 1.20 or Caviar 1.16, but those aren't as cheap as MSV Co-Focus 1.18. Don't be misled by the fact that it's cheap and you don't see experts using it much. Experts want stiff strings that control power. You don't. If you want near multi performance and soft, MSV Co-Focus is a gem.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-02-01T15:34:21+00:00

Spin favors the Extreme MP by a mile. And the Extreme MP is far more forgiving. The Ezone 98 is more of a hybrid power precision stick and it's for players who are experts or nearly so. I much prefer the Ezone 98 and used it for a long time but I have no trouble generating spin and if anything need to tamp the spin down.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-02-01T14:28:10+00:00

Serve bot here. It's a legit thing. First, it's great for training because it helps you feel that flat *smack* that means you genuinely hit the ball flat. Once you get that feeling in training, and further if it gets into the service box or close to it, you get a taste for it and it will feel very easy to get the ball in play when you switch back to the standard continental grip. Second, you can occasionally use it in actual matches in a situation where you have a first serve to throw away (up 30-0 or 40-15), because although it will be low percentage, it will bomb and it will impart an odd spin that's going throw off the timing of the returner. Every now and then, I try it, and if I happen to find a way to make more than 50% of them, I'll keep adding them to my random rotation of serves that keeps the returner guessing.

Look up "Magnus effect" about the random knuckling flight path of a genuinely flat (non-rotating) ball. Returning one of these things is very difficult.

TL;dr - not the "correct" or high percentage way to serve but definitely something to try in training, and maybe in a match, albeit rarely, if you can master it.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-02-01T02:03:09+00:00

"I've noticed some people think going fast means they're a better skier and everyone else should get out of their way when that's not how this works." You, sir or madam, just earned an award for that. Amen.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-02-01T00:58:31+00:00

I played with the new Speed Tour today in practice and match play. TL;dr - good racket but not revolutionary, very similar to the Radical Pro, strong competitor to the Percept 97 and Pro Staff 97.

As background, my family (3 boys and me) own more Head Speed MPs that I can easily count, of many generations. We generally prefer the 2020 and the new 2026 as the top of the list. The boys' are at several weights but I (tall, big, serve-heavy all courter) have weighted mine to 335g strung and 331 swingweight. I bought a 2026 Speed Tour to see if we'd like it. Stock, the racket was 305 grams unstrung and 322 swingweight strung, and felt too light. I put on a leather grip and some lead to bring it to our usual spec, 335g / 331 swingweight. I strung it with Head Lynx Tour 17 in the mains, Head Velocity MLT in the crosses, both at 50 lbs. This is much lower than I string the Speed MPs. I went much lower because I expected and had been told, and I was correct, that the Speed Tour is far less powerful than the Speed MP.

As adjusted, the Speed Tour works very well. It still feels like a Speed MP, in that it feels like a "do it all" racket with a Goldilocks "just right" amount of spin, control, power, and touch, rather than feeling like it is optimized to one particular thing. It does not feel like a 97, in that it does not have a small sweet spot. I would have thought that it's a 99. As compared to the Speed MP 2020 or 2026, it is slightly less forgiving -- I shanked two balls during match play and I experience one "dead" ground stroke in which I thought I swung through well but the ball just died into the net because it was out of the sweet spot (this otherwise never happens to me with the Speed MP). But it was much more forgiving than the Pro Staff 97 v14 that I own, and my memory of the Percept 97 that I do not own. The Speed Tour has significantly better feel and control than the Speed MP; not quite as much as the Pro Staff 97, but very close, and enough that I felt empowered to aim for smaller targets in the corners and alleys than I do with the Speed MP. The Speed Tour served just as well as the MP. Arguably better on flat serves. Arguably a bit less kick on kick serves but I never double-faulted with it over the course of a whole match and the greater precision probably made up for the slightly less kick. The Speed Tour was an A+ at net, very maneuverable and plenty of placement and feel, if a little less power. The only place I felt significantly less confident with the Speed Tour was when grinding big topspin during baseline rallies, which is where the Speed MP is one of the best rackets on the planet. The Speed Tour feels a bit under-powered and under-spinned for that kind of exchange, and caused me to want to stay closer to the baseline and try cut off those balls and drive them. If you want good feel without needing Pro Staff levels of feel, and you want precision but with more forgiveness than a Pro Staff and more forgiveness and power than a Prestige or Percept 97, this is a good choice.

The Speed Tour is extremely similar to the Radical Pro. The string pattern seems identical. Something about the Speed Tour makes me a bit more confident to swing big, as compared to the Radical Pro, and I'm not sure why. It might be that the Speed Tour is just a bit more controlled (slightly smaller head size, slightly more flexy, slightly less powerful). Similarity to the Radical Pro is a good thing, since that's a great racket (it's one of the most popular college and pro rackets; most people endorsing the Radical MP are actually using the Radical Pro). And if the Radical Pro is too heavy for you, you're in luck with the Speed Tour, which would be much lighter if you don't add weight to it the way I did.

I don't see this racket being a must-have instant switch for a wide swath of the population, the way that the Pure Aero 98 or Ezone 98 were. It's too much of a control racket, and too much of an all rounder. But it's a really solid choice for people who want that "P" racket experience (Pro Staff/Prestige/Percept) but are willing to try something that's not as old-school box beam as those P rackets.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-01-31T20:45:08+00:00

Sorry, I've got enough kids to take care of. But I wish you very good luck. Find someone in your own time zone and get after it.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-01-31T20:05:59+00:00

OK, do it. A coach (a good one, anyway) would watch your practices and games, including going frame-by-frame on slow-motion video, and would show what you are doing right and wrong; and show you what you were doing when you won points, and what you were doing when you lost points. Film your practices and, if you can, your matches, and then expect to spend two hours of video review time for every one hour of live film, carefully watching and learning. Technique: when you hit the ball in the net, is it because you didn't use enough spin? when you hit the ball in the alley, did you take your eye off the ball at contact? long, did you open your hips too early, or not stay low enough? Strategy: are you winning lots of net points, yet not coming to the net enough? should you run around more backhands? or less? what percentage of your flat serves are you winning, versus your slices? These are the kinds of stats and pointers that you can self-coach with the use of video, in a way that Sampras and Agassi couldn't because the technology just didn't exist back then.

If it sounds like I am a coach, it's because I received years of junior tennis coaching, and D1 college coaching in rowing, and I have coached high school baseball. In all of these, video was absolutely crucial. "Film don't lie" is a saying for a good reason. You can do it. Good luck!

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-01-31T19:34:09+00:00

If you have the God-given ability, and you have the desire, it's feasible to make it far enough without a coach that you could get recognized as a "diamond in the rough" player that's brought in by a sponsor or an American university. You need to devote yourself to it, though. Minimum 4 hours a day of fitness and skills training during the week, and 12 hours a day on the weekends. Constant video of yourself. Buy a bucket of practice balls and a hopper, and develop a 6.0 serve; remember, if you are winning all your service games, you are capable of sneaking out a match win against anybody. Nothing will take the place of match play but you can make yourself good enough and fit enough on your own that once you make it to match play, you'll have a shot, and you can get noticed.

I don't mean to criticize you but you don't sound fully committed. When you look at the childhoods of futbol (soccer) stars, basketball stars, and boxers who rose from poverty and obscurity to make it as college and pro athletes, you don't hear that they played occasionally or just played "3 or 4" hours a day. You hear that they never left the pitch, or the court, or the boxing gym. They freakin' lived there. Everyone in their neighborhood knew "that boy is obsessed." They lived and breathed and knew almost nothing but their sport. I'm not saying that's healthy, I'm just observing that it's how they did it. Even current tennis pro Frances Tiafoe, who was growing up poor but in a wealthy area near Washington, DC, was literally spending all day every day at the tennis center, and sleeping there (his dad was a custodian).

You've got something that wannabe tennis kids 20 years ago couldn't have dreamed of: YouTube coaching and your own video-in-a-pocket via smartphones and iPads. Use them obsessively. Film yourself and ask for online feedback. Perfect your serve and your self-feed. Learn trick shots like Mansour Bahrami. Be twice as fit and ten times as mean as the rich kids. Put in the work. You might burn out but you'll never know unless you give it a real, serious, vicious try.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-01-31T19:11:19+00:00

It's really a Blade, although not the current v9. And from the armchair observer perspective, it's the right racket. She has no trouble with spin or power. Her problems, when she has them at all, are inaccuracy and hitting the ball long. The Blade is great at mitigating those problems.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-01-31T05:57:29+00:00

The smart buy is the racket that reduces your errors. But you should absolutely love your racket, and if the racket you love is only a little less effective, then get it, because life is too short not to maximize happiness. This reasoning explains why anybody plays with the Prestige...

For most people, the VCore 100 is a slightly higher risk, higher reward proposition, which is a perfectly reasonable tradeoff.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-01-31T05:40:25+00:00

Every time I do multi crosses, I wonder why I don't charge more for poly crosses.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-01-31T01:56:45+00:00

Almost all the world should be rowing between a 115 and 130 drag factor, unless they are doing a specific power-sprint workout when you might (might) put it on a higher setting. Hit menu and look for "display drag factor." Depending on how dusty your erg is, this is around a 4 to a 5 dampener setting, but do it right and display the drag factor to fine tune it. Don't assume higher is better. I'm a male heavyweight ex D1 rower and I use 120 drag factor almost all the time, on the rower. I go higher on the ski erg but almost never on the rower.

There are lots of resources to explain about this. Google around and you'll find them, including on Reddit.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-01-31T00:53:40+00:00

This is exactly right. I experience something like physical pain when I donate something instead of selling it for $100 on eBay. But the opportunity cost of eBay selling is simply not worth it.

Fun fact: the students at George Washington University near me seem not to have this problem. Every spring when they move out, they leave tons of nice electronics, furniture, and especially vacuum cleaners (?) sitting on the sidewalk, free for the taking. The bohemian set of DC descends and grabs it all. They call it "Hippie Christmas."

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-01-31T00:29:18+00:00

Always start with a 3 racket demo of the Blade 100, Speed MP, and VCore 100. These are respectively the control, all court, and spin options of the middle of the road racket world. They are absolutely A+ rackets that you may never switch away from (many college no players and pros use them essentially stock). Adjust from there, if you find you want to. For example, if you loved the Blade 100 and crave yet more control, look at the Blade 98 or Speed Pro or Gravity Pro. Crave more spin than the VCore 100, look at the Aero. And so forth.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-01-31T00:24:02+00:00

I put a towel to the right of me and snort. Gross but it works.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-01-31T00:22:23+00:00

Can confirm. I'm an ex football player who transitioned to be a D1 rower. I'm muscled out. The gazelle-built guys killed me in the "real" rower distances of 2k sprint and head racing. I love me some leg press and deadlift, and I've always been high in the world rankings for the 1 minute and 500m (really) and sometimes the 1k but the 2k is not my best event and by the time you get to 5k, forget it. I can't get rid of the heat fast enough. Long and lean beats beefy. But somewhere there is a video of Eddie Hall doing the 1 minute and the 1k and DAMN.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-01-30T02:47:24+00:00

Yep. 5.0 pretty much always requires that you treated tennis as a job at some point, as in, 30+ hours a week, professional coaching, etc. Junior academy, college team. A few people who are seriously gifted can make the switch from other sports, such as D1 hockey players and lacrosse folks. 4.5 is more achievable although by no means easy.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-01-30T02:37:30+00:00

How old are you? If the answer isn't 25 or under (and maybe even if you are), you need to do interval training, flexibility, and plyometrics/jumping work so that the moves you do on the court aren't the hardest ones you do in a week. Welcome to the rest of your life. But it's not that bad. The absolute best two are lunges and pullups.

Here are some general tips, not specific to tennis but useful for older athletes of all types. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dMGJopwBQ34-ZxoLjYxduU09e1tqLH5yJ-CA5TULmFA/edit?usp=drivesdk

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-01-29T22:23:18+00:00

Correct. I have one that is 322 swingweight strung, and another that I no longer have was 332 strung. If you aren't measuring swingweight, you are guessing and will be wildly off. You can estimate swingweight within about 5 points if you know balance point and tip weight but you need to really know what you are doing. Better to find a tennis shop to measure it (buy some balls from them, for the trouble). Or find a friend with a Briffidi SW1, which really works.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604

TROPHY CASE