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[hit4six]

Belated Happy New Year to everyone!

As we start to creep closer to the pre-season nets starting, I thought I had better start thinking about kit for 2024. My pads and gloves from the last few seasons have been retired after far too much use and while the trusty Keeley bat is still going really well, the impulse to go and buy some new gear got the better of me and I was keen to support one of the forum sponsors and chose Neon.

The Experience

Arguably, one of the most important parts of buying anything these days is the experience you receive from the company. I reached out to Adam via Instagram and quickly kicked off a WhatsApp conversation, discussing the Neon 2024 bat range and what I could expect.

Communication in general was fantastic with WhatsApp messages being responded to quickly and any questions I had being answered in detail.

Once the bat had been shipped, I received an email confirming that it was on its way with a useful link to the tracking details.

The Bat

Having spoken with Adam at some length about what I was after, I placed the order and received the following:

Stickers: Sky
Grade: Performance
Weight: 2lb 9.5oz

Initial impressions of the bat are nothing but positive.

The first thing that hits you is the stickers. Not only are the colours vibrant, but there is a lot of subtle detailing which I really like. That detailing includes the "neon" branding embossed into the stickers and on the back, the toe sticker being very subtly surrounded in a petrol effect border.

Away from the stickers, the bat has 6/7 clean grains so for one of the lower grade models, it looks great. There has been a lot of talk on the forum recently about bat sizes, weights and widths, but this Neon delivers on all of those points. This particular bat comes with 38mm edges, a chunky 28mm toe and a width of 107mm. There is some concaving which helps keep the weight down, but it still feels very forgiving when you don't hit the middle of the blade.

The bat does come with a slightly shorter blade / longer handle setup, which is one I haven't used before, so I'll need to take some time to get used to that, but I am sure a few bowling machine sessions will sort that all out.

I finally managed to get some time to tap up with a used league ball and it feels very responsive with hardly any seam marks appearing on the face. I'll probably spend an hour or so on the edges and the toe to get them ready before hitting the bowling machine, but it doesn't feel it will take too much prep to get it match ready.

The final addition is the neoprene bat cover which I would absolutely recommend for anyone purchasing a Neon. Its a lovely item which seems to offer decent protection to the bat.

Pictures

[Jimbo]

Big fan of the colour scheme, looks lovely. Second what you said about the neoprene sleeves also, I've got a few that I keep on my bats while in my bag and they've saved me so many dings and scratches I used to get.

[LockieEP]

Excellent review .My son bought a Neon last year  when we went down to Bath so we popped over to see Adam. The bat has been awesome and my son scored his first ton with it last summer.
We also all bought gloves and pads which strongly recommend too.