James storm had a session on his new 11 rebel at stkilda. Thumbs up loves the feel of the bar and the kite seems even more powerful
what a fantastic review . Based on the details given i'll run out and buy a north straight away
Looks nice!
Release date?
''The ultimate all rounder, the Evo from North Kiteboarding is the kite to own if you change your riding style as often as you change your clothes! Jaime Herraiz needs no introduction as a rider, he excels at freestyle, freeride and wave kiting, and the Evo is his choice. Tom Hebert competed at the top level of the sport in freestyle, is also known for boosting huge old school moves and shredding the waves, naturally the Evo is his choice too. The kite has a smooth, predictable feel that riders fall in love with, the power delivery is progressive and the kite feels more like a C kite than the delta hybrid that it is. This year the Evo incorporates the new adaptive tips and also our streamline strut system, these new struts allow us to control the flow of air over the kite much better. This means we can improve the kites turning speed and responsiveness and reward the rider with a much more lively feeling kite. The larger sizes have a fuller profile and this gives them a much better low end range. The Evo can be flown with 4 lines or 5 giving the rider the choice to ride the kite however they desire. Depower is excellent, while the turning is direct and responsive allowing the rider to instinctively feel where the kite is in the window. The Evo soon ceases to be a kite and instead becomes an extension of your own arms!
Hooked in, unhooked, freeride, freestyle, small waves, monster swells, strapped or unstrapped the Evo is your ticket to ride!''
^^ Thats the biggest load of sh!t i have ever read about a kite^^
I bet most kiters wouldnt know what a c-kite felt like to fly.
We will be placing orders for the EVO in mid September and should have them airfreighted in by the end of September, if all goes to plan.
We should receive a Demo 9m Evo, if anyone is keen, next week.
And may i add. i think winning the 18 and unders wave sailing at mambo last year.4th at the 2010 national wave titles while 10 years old . Plus all the other stuff he has won freestyle and big airs ect gives him the RIGHT to comment. He is sponsored by north and is on the underground international team. Does that give him a little bit of cred. Let us all know your results so we can see where your right to bag a 12 year old
Grommy.
No idea he had achieved this nor his age. Amazing. Doesn't change my point but yes would have been a little more tactful if I had known this. Winning a competition although in this case very impressive doesn't mean you should post something like that in a gear review because it is not a gear review.
Right Eppo. It's an advertisement. It's just reinforcing that brandname in our heads. We don't go to the trouble of following the gear reviews to see an advert! We want something useful.
Col
Dear pgc.
Mate congrats young fella on your recent success. You have a bright future in the sport it seems.
How about letting us know what you like about the new north kites from last year. Be good to get a young bucks opinion and why.
thanks eppo i will get him to comment after hes spent some time on the rebel and vegas. one point is that we straight away had to move the back lines forward on the kite to give the bar some feel. Made a huge difference to the power of the kite. Keep an eye out for us at kitestock or mamabo if you are going sean
oh we had a 2 hr session on an 11m rebel in 10-20 kn flat water.
we alter the length of the back lines by resetting to the shortest not on the new bar ends. It seems that north always sets their kites to a very soft setting.eg little bar pressure.Maybe to protect newbies.we did the same last year.
Any way kite was great heaps of power fast in turns and lots of boost.
i think you will want to use the dual end settings on the back lines at the kite. the lighter wind u need to use the forward setting and in stronger winds u need to use the back setting.
The kite itself looks bigger but its just the one colour of the kite that makes it look bigger.
It has better protection on the leading edge for those of use who like to launch our selves on sand or shell ect. Pisses my dad of no end!!!!
Getting 4 vegas and 5 more rebels tomorrow. more wind t/w/t/ so il let you know
getting a new race board too.
Keep an eye out for axis kite boards launch in sept. Its the boss from underground jumped ship and i hear they are made in the cabrinha factory. Adrian always makes a good twin tip
Also check out smook for surf boards 1.8kg super high density foam and 15 mm foot pads.I ve ridden the same board for 12 months and no dings or foot pad dings. but i am only 55kg.
hope this is good for u guys
Thanks to all James storm Tribe carew.com
He did say this in his post about the Vegas!
Cheers for that. yeh the rebel is bloody nice kite isn't it. By bro is loving it. He also flies the Vegas 2012, and digs that kite as well. Ta for the info.
O.K so i decided to go with 2013 Rebels again this year even after some issues that i have had with 2012 models.
Had the 9 out yesterday at Rosebud in around 20-28 knots and was immediately surprised by the different feel of the kite this year.
It seems to almost shoot forward to the edge of the window and in the gusts seems to keep moving further and further forward.
I found it seemed to point higher up wind which should make it a great race kite .
Overall power felt much the same , still awesome boosting and hang time and i think it feels quicker to turn.Have to admit the quality looks super good and the fact that my dealer addressed my previous problems and fixed it under warranty lead me to give North another try......
I agree with James that the kite looks bigger and think it is the colour thing.
Was using new 2012 bar and lines so keen to see if there is any diff with 2013's and will try moving factory defaults as per James' suggestion above.
I also got a new rebel courtesy of Luke at ocean addicts marochydore
I thought the power was the same as last year, same jumping and float.
Big difference this year is the new bar. So much more comfortable with the new center piece, it feels thicker where the lines go through the bar and after a couple of hours on the water my hands are gratefully. The cleat that holds the depower rope looks a bit sketchy being plastic but it grips and holds way tighter than last year's.'
The colours might not be everyone's cup of tea but the new bar is worth every cent.
Had a session in 30-40 kn at inverlock on sat. My 5 rebel kept bouncing and then inverting. By bouncing i mean it would compress and fly to the edge of the window on its own and then pop open and create a bounce effect then invert and crash. Dad any i tried to work out why?? Dad had a go on my 5 and had the same problem.
Turns out we use a compressor linked to a new but not calibrated gauge. The kite was pumped to 5.6 not the recommended 6.
This could be a really dangerous event for some one new!!! So from now on i will check my kites are pumped up so that they cant bend at the leading edge whist on the beach. Awesome kite lots of pop James Storm
OK this is my first gear review so be gentle. The plus side is I have no interest in pimping anything.
My background – I've mainly flown Slingshots over the past 6 years – been on the Rallys for the last couple of years and really enjoyed them. Never flown a rebel before
Tried 2013 Rebel 12m on Saturday in Melbourne – Hampton Beach for ~2 hours. Wind was up and down alot – I would say it was around 14 knots when I launched, then a squall came through which registered gusts up to 37 knots on BOM at Fawkners Beacon – but most of the session was probably around a solid 20 knots.
First impressions – wow that is a very ORANGE kite – looks like you are flying a High viz vest.
Very well made with heavy duty non-stick reinforcements in all the usual places.
Weird design with dump valve near the wingtip – which meant that my early pumping efforts just created a wind tunnel in the leading edge until I realised the dump valve was open, but I suppose you get used to that pretty quick.
Set the kite up to a more aggressive turning configuration by changing the knots on the leader line attachments and putting the bar ends on the wide setting in line with instructions.
Bar is really well engineered. Love the ironheart release and the fact you can move the above-the-bar trim cleat closer for short armers. Trim cleat works much better than the Slingshot below-the-bar cleat.
Quite a faff to set up due to 5 lines and the fact that the barend floats detach to change the length of the bar. Upside is that there are a lot of ways to quickly tweak the lines to set up the kite just how you like.
Self-launching in relatively light wind was a pain compared to a Rally. The Rebel takes alot more mucking about to get the kite to rotate onto its wingtip. I suspect this is due to the loaded 5th line and there is probably a trick to it which I don't yet know (my first 5 line self launch).
Once up in the air, the kite was incredibly stable, with really smooth power. Very positive feel so I always knew where the kite was, but also quite light bar pressure. The bar felt really good, especially after the rough Slingshot grip. Once up the kite just sits where you put it, even in quite light wind.
The wind picked up to high teens/low twenties and the kite started to come alive. I don't think it was quite as grunty as the Rally in a reasonable wind, but hard to tell as that might just be down to the smooth power and me not dialled into the nuances of this kite yet.
Boosting is where the kite excels – longer hang time than the 2011 Rally (which I thought was no slouch in that dept anyway). Even quite small jumps seemed to go on forever. Kite was very forgiving for mistakes in the air – seems capable of very low speeds without stalling.
Turning was slower than I am used to, and I found that I was mistiming jump transitions badly and flopping back in the water still waiting for the kite to make the trek across the wind window.
I didn't try any loops as just then a pretty big squall came through. Lasted 15 mins and gave a couple of other kiters a bit of scare, to judge by the kites parked in the bushes. Started bucketing down which deserted the beach and I stayed a safe distance out rather than trying to self land in a squall, and was really pleased how the Rebel handled the strong winds. Super stable and never made me feel out of control even with sudden gusts and direction changes.
All in all I'm quite pleased with the Rebel. The stability and smooth power will give a lot of confidence particularly in sketchy conditions and situations which I think is really important for my progression.
Not sure I like the turning speed, and I think I will need to adapt my style a bit to make the most of the kite. The difficulty self launching was a surprise as that has become second nature on the Rally. Pack up is a pain compared to the Rally, but I haven't found any kite that rolls up as quickly and easily as the Rally.
I'm confused to who's posting father or son? Segregate your accounts I just want to hear what James has to say. No doubt James can deal with a bit of flack from these old forum trolls.
Lol, had to have a laugh as well. Isn't kiteplosh just a separate dude altogether? Maybe he has 3 personalities.
Anyhow nice review. Yeh the first thing that struck me when I rode the 2012 rebels was the smooth power, that's the north feel I was talking about in another post.
I also have pumped for a while to realize I hadn't closed the valve. It is there because you need to roll the entire kite up from one length to the other due to the battens. What you do is, roll the kite to the second last strut, then roll back the last strut from the other way, tuck the smaller section under the big rolled section, then fold in the middle, one fold that's it. Somehow it avoids battens sticking out. That's what I found anyhow.
Agree on the turning, I flew the 11m 2012 and it was just that tad too slow for me, but the hang time and boost can't be denied. Can't have everything. Gals to see it is still there. Good to here from pgc it looks for the edge of the window, I always wanted more of that in the 2012.
Looping will be fun on a 12m rebel, good luck with that. Get it wrong and it will punish you. I found that out the hard way many a time, there re more forgiving kites. That being said the big air loops are fine, it is just the tight transition roll downloops that made my anus bleed.
Yeh undeniably a great kite for what it is.
