When it comes to the most consistent high-performance bowling balls on the market, the Storm Hy-Road’s name always pops up. Our Storm Hy-Road review will look at this crowd favorite from all angles, highlighting everything you need to know for a potential investment down the road.
Is this the right bowling ball for you? Are there are any particular weaknesses you need to look out for before making a final purchase decision? Dive into our in-depth Storm Hy-Road bowling ball review to find out!
Overview
The Storm Hy-Road is one of the most versatile high-performance bowling balls on the market today. Unless your facing lane conditions of extreme dryness or extreme oiliness, the Storm Hy-Road can tackle it with both efficacy and ease.
Perhaps the biggest selling point of the Storm Hy-Road is its undeniable mid-lane tracking and control. The Storm Hy-Road updates the already strong mid-lane ability of the Storm T Road series by offering an even more acute reading ability and a powerful kick at the breakpoint.
While the Storm Hy-Road truly shines on medium oil patterns, it more than holds its own on a wide variety of oil densities and complex oil patterns. Its hybrid reactive cover stock makes the most out of what is and what isn’t there oil-wise. The reactivity level is strong but not overbearing, providing a perfect counterbalance between bowler control and the ball’s innate reactivity.
In short, the Storm Hy-Road works best the closer conditions get to average. It flails on extremely dry lanes and lose its lane length, while also getting submerged in extremely heavy oil patterns. Be sure to bag this ball in such conditions as you may damage its intricate cover stock. Other than that, this may be Storm’s most consistent and effective offering to date.
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Features, Specs & Materials
FEATURES:
The Storm Hy-Road’s R2S Hybrid Reactive cover stock is the star of its show. Simply put, the 50% pearl/50% solid cover stock is the most durable and efficacious in the company’s vast catalog. The folks over at Storm worked hard to create a reactive masterpiece, and they’ve done so.
The ball’s symmetrical Inverted Fe2 Technology core converts it into a dream for lower-rev and high-speed bowlers. This ball has some tricks up its sleeve which other balls may not have for bowlers lower down the rev ladder.
Contributing heavily to the Storm Hy-Road’s overall sense of balance is the 1500 Grit Polished box finish which is just rough enough to garner effective friction on medium-dry lanes.
SPECS:
Color: Black, Ultramarine Blue
Core: Inverted Fe2 Technology (Symmetrical)
Coverstock: R2S Hybrid Reactive
Finish: 1500 Grit Polished
RG: 2.57
Differential: 0.046
Flare potential: Minimal
Recommended Lane Condition: Medium
MATERIALS
As we stated before, Storm outdid themselves with a half-pearl, half-solid reactive cover stock on the Hy-Road. Its overall durability is remarkable. Compared to the vast majority of high-performance bowling balls in the marketplace, the Storm Hy-Road can handle much more and a wider variance of different conditions without burning out.
The cool thing about the Inverted Fe2 Technology symmetrical core is that it feels much lighter and more manageable that other cores of its ilk. This makes this an easier pick-up-and-play ball which can do a lot of tricks under a lot of different circumstances.Advantages & Disadvantages
Advantages:
The Storm Hy-Road keeps its effectiveness across a wide variety of different oil patterns and densities. While it truly peaks in medium oil conditions, it can still do some amazing things in every condition except wild extremes.
The thing that pushes the Storm Hy-Road over the top for us is its consistency across the aforementioned wide variety of oil conditions. We’ve never seen a hybrid bowling ball read this effectively and with this level of predictability across such a wide swath of situations. The reactivity of this ball has been fine-tuned to perfection.
This shows itself in the ball’s fantastic mid-lane control. Other balls slip and slide out of the pocket groove before righting themselves. The Storm Hy-Road skips all that, reading the mid-lane consistently and with ease. When you get this ball into a shot groove, it stays there and offers you a score boost potential which may be unmatched.
The ball’s powerful mid-lane ability and acute breakpoint leads to some fiery back-end reactions, too. When you get this ball slotted in perfectly, you’re nearly guaranteed to see increased violence and wildness of pin trajectories. This ball recovers so well on the back end, turning a consistent shot into a powerful shot time and time again.
Disadvantages:
As mentioned before, do not bring the Storm Hy-Road to extremely dry or extremely wet lanes. The closer the oil conditions are to ideal, the better this ball is. The farther you go off into the margins of oil conditions, the worse it performs.
The total hook potential of the Storm Hy-Road isn’t anything to write home about, either. It’s very solid, but advanced bowlers who want a few more angular possibilities to their pin entry points will be disappointed. This ball is too consistent to really allow you to get that creative with your hooks.
Be ware of the freshest oil patterns with the Storm Hy-Road. Unless you are skilled enough to counterbalance, the Hy-Road may be hard to control when oil conditions are that fresh. You may want to wait half a game in medium-heavy conditions before bringing the Hy-Road out.
Our Thoughts
Most high-performance bowling balls struggle at the extreme ends of the oil density margins, so it’s really hard to knock the Storm Hy-Road for that. It’s also especially hard to do so considering just how balanced the Storm Hy-Road is across the board.
Its reactivity is powerful yet predictable. Its versatility outstrips pretty much any high-performance bowling ball we’ve tested. The Storm Hy-Road is a game-changing addition to the arsenal of pretty much any type of bowler outside of true beginners.
We’ll dock it just a little for a lack of overall hook potential, but this is still a nearly flawless bowling ball worth your time and money.
Overall Score: 9.5 out of 10
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