Send Message
Weather | Buy&Sell | Forums |  |
Weather | Buy & Sell | Gallery | Forums | |
Maybe someone should organise a retro kiting event. The catch is you need to enter with a kite that is more than 10yrs old. Extra points for also having a board 10years old.
2008 SOFX 10m "glider" 7 strut. Put it into a turn and that's how it stayed.
Would survive a nuke but flew like crap. Where are they now?
Core GT 7m
Flappy, surged all over the place, and had a tendency to refuse to respond to bar inputs during turns unless you sheeted right in - like trying to place a car driver computer game with digital buttons. Not the best when you're trying to boost in 30+ knots.
Killed itself in a piss-weak nose dive and I replaced of with a Crossbow 7m - fabulous... in comparison.
Airush Lift 16m was very fond of hindenburging in a lull too. But that was just very annoying.
Blade Trigger! 2010 i think it was. got rid of at as soon as i knew better!
poor quality (bar control line end ripped out once, only held in with pot rivet!) and like someone said before about another kite... it was just crazy, flew like a ADHD kid on red jelly beans and fanta! made me think of the blade instantly!
Slingshot Turbo Diesel mark 1 12m.
On first launch I sheeted out and it nose dive and inverted. It spent probably 50% of its time inside out after that!! Huge range though if you didn't let it fly inside out.
Airush 2004 Flow. Fixed 6 plus bladders and it would fly over your head and just keep going until the lines went slack.
Boxer was alright really if you compare it to kites of the day. I mean Cabrinha Blacktip (01-02) was absolutely horrendous... I learnt on a 21m, shop said it would be good for me (50kg kid), nearly died a few times.There's tons of bad kites, Naish have made a lot, Cabrinha have made tons since they stopped making C kites, F-one makes them all the time, Best constantly makes them, Slinghots made a few, Ozones made a few in the past... what am I getting at? I'm pointing out that it's far easier to highlight the kites that are good vs the ones that aren't, the list isn't exactly long 
.
Probably need to consider them against the other kites of the time.
In the running for Widowmaker of all time:
Wipika Wip - relentless pull, no steering
Naish X4 - Satan's own kite
But I think the early "toenail" kite are the overall worst kite category winners: anything with 2:1 bar and bow shape. I know they might have changed the course of kiting for the better, but the first ones were universally ****. And yes, the Slingshot diesel 1 looked like the worst of the worst - and I didn't even own one.
. I still haven't flown a "good" one.
The problem with the 2005-2007 years was that while bows were first coming out and were absolute shyt, all of the C kites had gone 5 line and were f**king sick! Bow frothers were extra annoying at that time. I remember guys on the first Crossbow trying to tell me how good they were compared to my wonderful Torches. EADC. Bridled kites have come a long way now and I don't mind riding them at all. Actually learning to love bridled C's!
.
hmmm, maybe. Although most pros actually want something that should be the easiest for intermediate to advanced riders of any level to use. The only rider I can think of that want's something that wouldn't be great for learning tricks is Youri Zoon.
