About Picklr

We started Picklr because we could not find a paddle we actually wanted to be seen holding.

Look at what is on offer and there are two piles. The cheap pile is plastic-looking, covered in shouty logos and gradients, and designed as if nobody would ever see it. The expensive pile costs as much as a flight home and mostly looks the same — louder graphics, carbon fibre, a professional's name across the face. Neither pile is aimed at someone who plays three mornings a week because it is good fun and good company.

That gap seemed silly to us. A paddle is the one piece of equipment everyone at the court sees. It should be a decent-looking object at a price that does not make you think twice — not a compromise between ugly-and-affordable and ugly-and-expensive.

So the range is built the other way round. Plain stripes on a cream face, a proper grip, a fibreglass face on a honeycomb core, and a price that puts it within reach of anyone curious enough to try the sport. That is the whole point: pickleball is the most welcoming game we have played, and the equipment should be just as easy to walk up to.

Pickleball arrived in Hua Hin and Pattaya faster than anyone selling equipment noticed. For a while the only options were to bring a paddle with you, borrow one at the courts, or order from overseas and wait a month for it to clear customs. We hold everything ourselves, here in the country, so it reaches you in two days with nothing charged on arrival.

We keep the range deliberately small — four things — because we would rather stock the right four deeply than list forty and have none of them available. One paddle in two colourways, a set for two people, and something to carry it in. It will grow when we are confident we can keep the new thing on the shelf, and not before.