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Honest review of BRM Cloud kites

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BigSky
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Honest review of BRM Cloud kites

Postby BigSky » Fri Mar 24, 2017 1:48 pm

Greetings:
Perhaps my nearly 2 years experience flying clouds can be helpful to others. I see a lot of comments about the kites, many of which do not jive with my experience. I make no bro brah claims about my abilities. I'm a solid intermediate that mostly rides twin tips. I found the BRM website after I found myself obsessed with kiting. I learned on Best kites. As someone who earned a living in outdoor sports in my prior life as a guide I was sure to be really honest with Greg about my capabilities in my initial inquiry. I said, I'm an intermediate kiter that tends to over-size my kites to make up for my poor kite flying abilities. Greg's response, which was thoughtful and very quick was basically, "I don't think my kites are right for you. Good luck." I saw this as a challenge and immediately bought a C2 12m, 17m, a control bar and a Paipo.

It was definitely a different experience when I took the 12m on it's maiden voyage on a cold February morning in Massachusetts. It was a solo mission before work and even got the attention of the harbor master who asked what the hell I was doing since the air and water were 25 and 35F respectively. It was a little odd to get comfortable but within a very short time from I felt good about how it flew. I realized I was comfortable on a 12m cloud when I would normally fly a 15m Best. Re-launch was not an issue and I was stoked. I've also water launched them from boats without any issue.

I did have a few swims with the 17m but that's when I dropped it in ~10mph winds and was likely due to my abilities. In addition to the 12m and 17m I now have the 5.5, 8.5 and 13.5m and I'm ordering the 10.4 of the latest iteration. The kites are super fast turning and a pleasure to fly. For me, there is less bar pressure but the kite stays well powered. I had tendonitis with the Best kites but that's probably because I was over-sizing. I don't miss de-power, which I used a lot. I spent my first year on the Clouds only riding twin tips from small to large and it was awesome in all forms. A pleasure to fly and ride under. I'm now working hard on foiling (still beginner) and strapless. Also, I'm 48 and have a lot of monthly overhead in my life - I can't get injured. While jumping looks awesome I wasn't looking to pursue it. That said, I do find the clouds jump well for me (I suck) but I'm also not looking for monster air and/or hang time. I don't think they're suitable for someone wanting huge air but if 5,10 to 20 feet is good then the cloud works fine. Lastly, I absolutely love the Paipo. My commitment for this spring is to only use the Paipo, surf board or foil board. We have ~8-10 foot tides in our bay so foiling is only possible near high tide.

Issues: I was initially concerned with tether launching the clouds because they are so light and just want to fly. This was an issue because I mostly kite alone and often in the winter months where there is little margin for error. Another minor issue is the fact you must weight the cloud down once you blow it up. You can't use sand because it can, and did once, fall off the kite since there are no struts allowing it to fly away. To address this I have a small duffle/2 -sided sandbag that's made for weighting camera tripods. I bought it off Amazon for $10 and love it. Lastly, I didn't love the technique for wrapping lines on Greg's bar (loved the bar). It works for him but it was typically tangled for me. I love DIY projects so I built 2 bars using Greg's design that had bar ends that would allow traditional wrapping of the lines. I just made sure they were equal length when full powered. They work awesome. One bar is a core bar that I purchased because of it's weight and the other was an overdrive bar that I bought when I was flying the Best kites. Yes, I spent $550 on a bar and removed all the lines and hardware. The overdrive has 24m lines and the core 22m. I put all new lines and stuck to Greg's design. I also added a small loop of kite line of the O-ring at the bottom that I use for tethered launching since the O-ring is small to clip to. This too is a great mod for me. The .5's do need to be blown up hard. The ends will bend if they are not. It's disconcerting but caused no danger and it's not an issue now that I know I need to really max it out.

I love spending my money on a small company like BRM. Greg is an amazing guy with great service. I sold all my best kites and now only own the clouds. I've done some travel and really loved the light weight and compact nature of the design. It doesn't really matter but they are beautiful in the sky as well. Anyway, I'm honest in my views with the pros and cons. I hope this helps anyone considering the clouds. Cheers. BS

stenner
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Re: Honest review of BRM Cloud kites

Postby stenner » Fri Mar 24, 2017 7:35 pm

How much do you weigh? What twin tips have you used with the Cloud? How wavy or choppy does it get in the seemingly sheltered (never been there but looks like a great spot) Duxbury bay/harbor?

herbert
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Re: Honest review of BRM Cloud kites

Postby herbert » Fri Mar 24, 2017 8:33 pm

A bit of persistence with the line wrapping pays off!
IMG_0350.JPG

BigSky
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Re: Honest review of BRM Cloud kites

Postby BigSky » Fri Mar 24, 2017 8:41 pm

Good questions I should have included. I'm 170 pounds with a wetsuit and board short harness (for me, the no chicken loop thing is a big plus in this system). I'm probably closer to 180 pounds with the Ion drysuit (wetsuit material) and a Dakine seat harness. I ride what I think is a North Xride. It's green and 135cm (super fun board that wants to get air) and a Best Seabreeze which is 158cm (Meh board that has good volume for low wind). I generally ride in a large sound that has a mixture of everything depending on wind direction. We certainly get a lot of chop and slop, especially large in 30 plus mph winds. It can also be very gusty wind and therefore challenging at times. Cheers.

Beautiful work, Herbert. My A.D.D. would never allow such an organization system for winding the lines. I loved the bar (50 to 75 days of use) but wrapping it sucked. I also had a self rescue and really missed the bar ends for winding the line up. I'm glad I paid Greg for it since I stole the idea to build my own later.

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Re: Honest review of BRM Cloud kites

Postby bigtone667 » Fri Mar 24, 2017 11:19 pm

Great review.... i dumped all my strutted kites and foil kites for the Clouds.

At 100kg plus, I have struggled on smaller TT's and Clouds, so I started using TT's at least 48cm wide without huge rocker and I have been smashing it.

Foils and surfboards are were this kite style shines. As a surf kite they are just so much fun, they turn super fast, they drift better than any other kite I have tried and you can turn the power off.

I made some right angle brackets out of plumbing conduit. Just slipped them over end of the CCS bar and wind up your lines retro style.

BreckVT
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Re: Honest review of BRM Cloud kites

Postby BreckVT » Fri Mar 24, 2017 11:24 pm

Nice review, I've been pondering getting a quiver of these for a while. Being that you've used TT for a lot of your riding, how have you done with the upwind aspect? From what I've gathered, and partly why these are heavily marketed towards the foil crowd, they sit deeper in the window so that the strutless design can hold its shape better... downside being upwind ability, which of course isn't an issue for a foil which just wants to travel upwind. I mostly ride TT, working on surfboard skills... but learning how to foil is a ways off, too little time with babies. Thank you.

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Re: Honest review of BRM Cloud kites

Postby bataleon » Sat Mar 25, 2017 7:50 am

Great review! So many questions that I had have been answered.
I have been looking at the Cloud-system for a while now but it's really hard to get them here in Europe (Sweden).
Right now I´m riding LF Solo and I'm very close of buying their new Mission Control bar, for me it's "close enough".

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Style: surf, foiling, jumping, lawn mowing
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Re: Honest review of BRM Cloud kites

Postby bigtone667 » Sat Mar 25, 2017 1:19 pm

I have no issues going upwind on surfboards or the crazyfly doors that I normally ride.

tmcfarla
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Re: Honest review of BRM Cloud kites

Postby tmcfarla » Sat Mar 25, 2017 2:51 pm

I have 9m and 12m c2. I'm advanced on a strapless surfboard and beginner at foiling. I really like them for foiling in flat-ish water. On a surfboard, their upwind is not great (no problem on a foil). They relaunch well in flat water, but relaunch in waves is pretty bad. I probably won't use them again in surf on a bad shoreline. I really like them on a foil, they have great drift, great depower, stay in the air very well, and feel nice in the air. A lot of the concerns that people have about them are total non-issues. Fluttering does not matter in the least bit. Self launching and landing is fine, but I highly recommend a tether. Drift launching in flat water is fine. The probably aren't the best twin tip kites, but they do generate lift and you could jump with them. The only aspect of their flying behavior I don't like is the tendency to stay very low in the window when going fast, requiring a lot of back hand pressure.

They are not fun to ride overpowered. They have a fair amount of depower range, but no more than any other kite. They do cover this range very quickly and with very little bar throw, much faster than other kites. I think the speed with which they shut off power is their best attribute.

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Starsky
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Re: Honest review of BRM Cloud kites

Postby Starsky » Sat Mar 25, 2017 3:03 pm

bataleon wrote:
Sat Mar 25, 2017 7:50 am
Great review! So many questions that I had have been answered.
I have been looking at the Cloud-system for a while now but it's really hard to get them here in Europe (Sweden).
Right now I´m riding LF Solo and I'm very close of buying their new Mission Control bar, for me it's "close enough".
Dude, the mission control bar is nothing like the BRM system! All the main distinguishing aspects are missing. Namely integrated leash, compact/minimal dual release, no trim cleat. The LF bar is pretty much like any other standard chicken loop based bar on the market.

The cloud and solo are also as different as any two kites in the same segment. Shape, strut, profile, bridle etc. They look to fly very differently, with the cloud being much faster turning with less straight line grunt.

Plenty of people can get upwind well on clouds, but they are not a kite that flies super far forward in the window. They are sensitive at the bar and easily overheated to sit even deeper in the window. Once there you need to prompt them forward by sheeting out or edging them. Takes a bit of time to adjust coming from standard kites. The clouds work really well when you are mostly feathering the bar and only backing, working or looping them into the window to produce bits of power. Definitely characteristics that suit foiling and surfboards a bit more than the constant power demand of twin tip riding.

The cloud is definitely a niche kite. Light, agile, and playful. As long as you pump them hard and size down early, they have a dexterity unlike anything else on the market. The only kite I would really say is comparable in how it looks to fly is the Gong strutless.


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