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