skyte

We've been watching bar development for a few years now and still don't think anyone has come up with a perfect bar yet (although many have claimed to) There is a different opinion on every feature of every bar, so you can develop a new one and all you know for sure is some will like it and some will hate it. Here are some of my opinions... One thing we have noticed is how ergonomics on bars are so bad... the Flexi bar suits people with lanky arms perfectly... you can sheet them comfortably but you don't need to depower the kite to unhook. You can pretty much not need to touch the depower strap unless the wind is going up and down so much that you should probably be changing kites not trim settings. Many bars have such short chickenloop / safety assemblies that you simply can't ride them sheeted for unhooking (or I can't anyway!) You can mod the flexi bar with 20cm of line so you won't lose your chickenloop. All you do is extend the mini 5th line and tie it to the metal ring on the chickenloop. Whoever said if you need to mod it, it was a bad design has a point, but this is about preference and there's a reason why Flexi have never done this on a production bar - it increases the risk of getting hooked into a powered kite! Despite this safety risk, other brands have this set up on their bars - i.e. if you pulled the safety and it did not kill the kite (e.g. too many line twists etc) then you are now hooked into a powered kite and have to unhook before the secondary release on your leash will do anything. I think this is a small risk I am happy with so I join my mini 5th to the chickenloop and ride a suicide leash. We're looking at new QR designs but there's no way we're rushing to market with some Chinese injection moulded monstrosity that doesn't make anything functionally better. We've found what looks like the perfect QR system and are testing to see if this can be suitable for kitesurfing. Depower below the loop is just retarded. Poor ergonomics, awkward to use and in the way (in my opinion :-) ) QRs that you have to pull to release are also stupid... guaranteed to knock these trying handle passes and they don't work if the lines are slack (kite falling, lines about to go tight, you're stood in the wrong place) Swivels... some work better than others but no matter how elaborate they get, there is not much torque at the point where most people have put swivels so why expect them to swivel? It makes more sense to have one within easy reach that you can twist by hand if you need to rather than a small machine dangling at the top of your depower strap that may or may not work. Grip... if you want a soft grip don't f-ing complain when it wears out and if you want a grip that doesn't wear out then don't f-ing complain when your hands hurt :-) There's a balance I'm sure but everyone's hands are different! The perfect bar is probably a bag of bits where you can build your own! We appreciate that every one is different though so if your stuck in your ways you can easily use any bar on any flexifoil kite by doing one simple check... if all the lines are the same length with the depower strap at full length and the bar pulled towards the chickenloop then it will work on any flexi kite.

Thought I'd posted this here already... Aaron on home turf riding the iD The kite will be available mid - end of October in 8m, 10m and 12m sizes. 6m following the month after. We are seeing a huge demand for these and they are likely to be hard to get for the first few months. [video=youtube;r-DuEwgrqQA]

The ION range is not dead... its next in line for a complete makeover and with the iD covering everything the ION did, it gives us a blank page to do something exciting and new with the ION range. The HADLOW range is more freestyle biased and the FLEXIFOIL range will be more freeride / wave biased.

[video=youtube;r-DuEwgrqQA] Nice little vid of Azza on home turf riding the iD

It will do that if you keep pulling - I've watched Aaron and some others do it that way but I think its way easier to let it go on its back. Just preference and what you're used to I guess but its certainly no issue relaunching the iD. The Fuel relaunch is down to its large wingtips which can create enough reverse lift when its nose down and you pull a back line. Its a balance between the curved sweep on the leading edge and the way the wingtips work when the kite is nose down.

The iD is very different to the RPM and the Park... I've flown both alongside the iD as we developed it with Aaron. I've flown the RPM on a HADLOW bar and given the iD to RPM riders on the Slingshot bar so you can see the difference in the kite and not be distrracted by an unfamiliar bar. The RPM is faster turning but with much less bar pressure - for me, this made it harder to know where the kite was and I often ended up sending or diving the kite during unhooked tricks. The iD has a nice fast turn but you need to apply more pressure to throw it around. For unhooked pop, I found the iD had equal grunt (for pop) as the RPM but the iD goes slack after the pop much better than the RPM... I could back mobe the iD and feel like I was passing a bar with no kite attached but the RPM kept pulling through the trick and was hard to keep low and on track. When I flew a Park it was on the Naish bar which I have real problems using due to my long arms... I find if I trim it for unhooked riding I have to ride with my arms pulled in to my stomach all the time which is really uncomfortable and if I trim it so I can ride with the bar at a comfortable reach then the kite is totally oversheeted when I unhook. That said, I really liked the feel of the Park; nice and fast and good bar pressure. It is totally different to the iD though... when you look at the Park from underneath you can see the LE sweeps back way more than an iD. This gives the Park great depower and relaunch but it feels nothing like a C-Kite to me. If you look at this diagram below it shows how the Centre of Effort across the wing of the iD and HADLOW Pro is lined up on a plane (approximately) that cuts the wingtips at the front toggle points. The diagram shows how the centre of effort is lined up on a HADLOW Pro (in black) and the iD (in red). To me, this is where the iD gets its C-Kite feel from... the bridle is mostly supporting the arc of the LE and the loading comes straight down through the front toggle points. The ION follows a similar design rule making it also very similar to a C-Kite although most people think they are pure hybrids. The lack of sweep on the leading edge means depower is adequate like an ION rather than on/off. It also means you have 2 choices for relaunch... one is pull one or both back lines hard and reverse launch it (I am pretty bad at doing this but I've seen others do it with no issue) or you can do what I do and unhook, let go of the bar onto a suicide leash which has the same effect as swimming towards the kite, and then its an easy relaunch. Its certainly not hard, but if you want the simple "pull one line and it rolls over" relaunch you will have to wait for next year's ION :-) The winner of the Rhossy Park Jam this year used the iD both on a wakeskate and in boots and a wakeboard... his comment was that if you wiped out on the slider, dropping the kite on the mini 5th made it sit patiently at the edge of the window depowered enough to swim back upwind to retrieve the wakeskate or NOT get dragged into the slider and very easy to recover the bar and hook back in. One of Aaron's comments sums this kite up nicely for me... he's stoked to have a kite he can rip on that pretty much every rider out there can also enjoy and progress on. Just like the Freestyle board... its been really satisfying to see so many riders of all levels get on and enjoy the board and we're all looking forward to seeing the same satisfaction from this accessible, performance kite. http://kitescoop.com/forum/download/file.php?id=4472&t=1 The bar does have an easier to reach depower strap this year and a choice of chickenloops so you can tune the ergonomics to your size or preference. If you really prefer a different bar setup, all you have to do to fly the iD on a different bar is make sure all 4 lines are the same length with the depower set to full power and the bar pulled towards the chickenloop as if you were about to unhook. It helps if you have some knowledge of tuning kites if you try this as I found on the RPM bar the iD ended up being slightly undersheeted so needed a bit of tuning. When the demos are available, I would recommend you try the kite on your favourite 4-line bar first so you can get a feel for what the kite is compared to your usual kite before trying the iD bar on the kite but make sure you know how to tune a kite if you are going to do this! I know I'm completely biased, but hand on heart this kite rocks just like the freestyle board!

http://www.flexifoil.com/info/hadlowid_sterling.pdf

Quick reply from Aaron:

Hi Sanjay, Aaron flies his kites quite oversheeted but Aaron rides fast which helps stop them backstalling. Because the kite has large wingtips which help give it that fast precise turn, if you are heading towards the kite then it is quite easy to get the wingtips to collapse inwards and make the kite backstall. You can depower the kite a bit to reduce this, but you will aslo find as you get better, you will ride faster and get the kite hooked back in quicker and back on a tack to get some power back in the kite. Remember this kite was designed to give maximum pop when low and unhooked and to have lighting fast and responsive turn rates. The compromise is you have to be on the ball to deal with the kite and keep it moving. I would suggest checking your lines to make sure you haven't stretched the front lines excessively: Fix all lines to one point by the sleeved loops and with the depower strap set at full powerand the bar pulled towards the chickenloop, make sure all 4 lines are the same length! If the front lines have stretched then the kite will be oversheeted (more so than it should be!) Hope this all helps! Keep pushing it! Martyn

Any kite you want as long as you're riding a skimboard!!! Even if you get going in less than 10mph on some big sluggish monster kite and a big plank of a board, all you're gonna do is cruise up and down trying to stay up wind. Get a skimboard and suddenly riding in light winds is challenging again and you can learn all kinds of new tricks on a skimboard. If you haven't seen these already, check out the following clips... skimboarding with a 12m F-One Mach1 and a 16m Mach2 early last year.... skimboard clips My favourite combo these days is the 13m Strike2 and skimboard in about 10knots. The 15m Firestorm worked from about 6knots. A fast 12m kite works really well because it can move quicker and generate apparent wind. You can buy a good skimboard for about £200 but you can make do with one for about £100. Don't get the tiny kids ones as you need some decent planing area. check out sandskater for different skimboards or CYCLONE for kite specific skimboards

I used to teach with a Wipika NSK (8.5m I think) they have an extremely small wind range that they fly "well" in. I use the word "well" loosely as in general they were a complete dog to fly... They are tough and robust but also heavy which makes them horrible to fly. The narrow wind range can mean your learning is slowed considerably because you will rarely get to fly it in it's favoured wind speed and most of the time you will struggle with it. Take the advice given by others in this thread and get a more up to date kite. I'm biased coz I ride Flexi kites, but an 11m Strike (v1 or v2) is an excellent starter kite that you can progress as far as you want on... they are really easy to fly and excellent build quality. FORGET THE NSK! ! ! ! ! ! !

I've just got an AH board to demo and have tried it once, yesterday on my 9m STrike2 in 25-30+knots... First impressions when you pick the board up is it's wide and heavy but I was pleasantly surprised when I got on it and it held an edge well and rode through the chop nicely. I only noticed the weight on the first couple of jumps but it certainly wasn't stopping me going big and after the initial getting used to period, I didn't notice the board. To me this is always a good sign... when you don't have to think about the board and can just ride. That's all a board needs to do and you can just get on with your session. Landings were nice with the load spread across all 40cm of width and it was always stable when landing fast. The fins were bigger than I was used to and I might swap them for smaller ones as I prefer a more skatey feel. Recently I've gone for more flex in a board and although the AH Pro is stiff, the landings were still soft and controlled so I didn't miss the flex much. The board did seem to have less pop than I thought it would have but this was possibly due to being maxed out at times which can make me just get pulled through the pop and screw up my timing. The jury's still out on this one until I can give it a better test. Despite having a high instep on the footpads (which I hate coz I'm really flat footed) the pads and straps were comfy and easy to adjust. They are quite big tho and people with small feet may have problems. Overall I liked this board and I don't think you would be disappointed by it. (p.s. I am a Turbulence shop rider and ride Flexi Kites so my opinions are totally biased but I've tried to be honest about the board... honest )

Spoke to a North Rhino4 20m rider and he reckoned the 20m Rhino2 was the definitive BIG kite and is still up there with the latest kites despit being 2 years old. It sounds like you may have too much back line tension to begin with and powering up by pulling on the bar is oversheeting the kite. Maybe your front lines have stretched so you need to extend your back line pig tails or replace them for longer ones. Or, save up and buy a 18.5m Firestorm!!!

I'm not sure... I'll look into it, but I think because we're going as a group it'll be OK. Only if you can handle the reverence you will get for being so hardcore.

If you booked with Rick, the price should include any baggage you want... They are used to windsurfers taking up to 75Kg of kit so no need to worry! If in doubt, phone Rick to check.

Glad you like it... the landing looks a bit awkward tho! The wind is less reliable in Nov/Dec coz it's a thermal wind and it's not as hot. Also, apparently, a low pressure in the med kills the wind in the red sea? Check out the moonbeach website for monthly wind stats... http://www.moonbeachretreat.com/start.html http://www.moonbeachretreat.com/images/windsurfing/charts/95_04.jpg

I know what you mean, I've done that to Brazil, Spain, Portugal etc. before and it's cool, but for a week in Egypt, it's a lot of hassel if you just wanna go to one wicked spot and ride. The whole travelling experience thing is better suited to a longer trip where you're going to travel round and explore as part of your holiday. i wish I could take the time off work to go and do that again. If you try and do that around Moonbeach, then your only gonna find desert, sea and unfinished resorts, but I suppose if you wanted to be really hardcore then you could try and befriend the Bedouins and travel up and down the coast on camels. Moonbeach is more about being at a secluded spot rather than trying to find it. I looked into getting my own flights this time (I normally get BA standby tickets from my brother, but he's kicked me off the list and put his girlfriend on it ) but to be honest I would have only saved a few quid and it wouldn't have been direct or included up to 75Kg kit allowance (based on taking windsurf kit) I suppose I could have tried to get in touch with the hotel directly and let's say i got 1/2 board accom for £10 a night, I wouldn't be able to use their lagoons then. Arranging a taxi from the hotel each morning would be easy, but where would I go? You could spend the whole week looking for a good spot that was accessible by car/foot and carrying all your kit. I'm not trying to knock the DIY holiday, I think it's definitely a better travel experience but if you're into that then Moonbeach is not for you. Quite simply, if you want to go ride in an awesome spot with everything taken care of then Moonbeach is perfect.

Bomb proof but a bit on the heavy side with 8fins though if it's the one I'm thinking of. I've only heard good things about them though. I found one in Spain 2 years ago and the missus had a quick go before friends of the injured owner came walking down the beach to retrive it. She liked it.

No sex with the massages... you have to go to Hurghada and find a Russian whore if you want that kind of service. I avoid the need by taking my own mail order Russian whore. And I can post this safe in the knowledge that the missus won't be reading this forum

OH, I was going to say it'll be fine as long as it's not an 03 Fuel coz they pull like trucks and I've watched learners struggle to stop them. The Strikes grunt nicely but are quite easy to stop too. I wouldn't worry though... it'll be great in less powered conditions and you'll get used to it and probably love it. You might find you get overpowered easily on a big board.

yeah, it's expensive, but I'll put money on the food being better at moonbeach than in your £3 a night accomodation! The other Egypt kite resorts are cheaper but they can work on numbers to get the cost down, which means you share the water with those numbers too, whereas moonbeach is a resort at the edge of the desert... there's nothing else there and the hotel won't do big discounts for them. (the hotel is a seperate business to the gybemasters windsurf centre) And I bet your £3 a night accomodation didn't take you to a private lagoon everyday? I've spoken to moonbeach about the price and there's nothing they can do... if you want the private lagoon experience then your options are Dunmore du Sol in Brazil at $200 a night or...? I went to El Gouna 2 years ago for £475 for 14nights and it was good, but got a bit bland after 7 days of wind. I'm going back to moonbeach, need I say more?

I know... I didn't really go to Egypt, it's westshore really. I just photoshopped the camels in, everything else is untouched digital imagery.

yeah, I don't bother squeezin the valves anymore... just put your finger quickly on the top of the valve as you pull the pump nozzle out, then put the plug in quickly as you move your finger out of the way. You only lose 2 gnat's farts if your quick and it's just as easy with cold valves and cold fingers!

You chose wisely padawan! see u at a windy north wales beach someday soon!

Me? camera shy? nah, point a camera at me and I just go bigger!