Posted: August 01, 2009
Colorado Cool Stuff: BaliYo
A spinoff from Golden-based knife maker Spyderco, BaliYo is a butterfly knife without the knife
By Eric PetersonA spinoff from Golden-based knife maker Spyderco, BaliYo is a butterfly knife without the knife. “Up-and-coming CEO” Eric Glesser, son of founder and CEO Sal Glesser, “is a real big fan of high-end pens and balisong, or butterfly-style, knives,” says BaliYo spokeswoman Joyce Laituri. “So he took the concept and combined it with a Fisher Space Pen”— the pressurized pen developed for astronauts.
After the BaliYo’s launch last summer at the 2008 World Yo-Yo Contest in Orlando, “It’s taken off,” Laituri says. “It’s like an action pen for people who are real fidgety.” The market is dominated by males aged 9 to 19, but Laituri notes, “We do have a couple of doctors who BaliYo.” $28 retail for the premium BaliYo (made in Golden); $8 retail for the standard model.
Made for BaliYo by Spyderco Inc., Golden, www.baliyo.com.
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Denver-based writer Eric Peterson is the author of Frommer's Colorado, Frommer's Montana & Wyoming, Frommer's Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Parks and the Ramble series of guidebooks, featuring first-person travelogues covering everything from atomic landmarks in New Mexico to celebrity gone wrong in Hollywood. Peterson has also recently written about backpacking in Yosemite, cross-country skiing in Yellowstone and downhill skiing in Colorado for such publications as Denver's Westword and The New York Daily News. He can be reached at Eptcb126@msn.com