Postby kitekook77 » Wed Aug 16, 2017 11:19 am
Huge,
The 3 front bridle position settings (freestyle, kiteloop, freeride) for the FX is new this year. This years FX still has the rear/steering line A and B settings like before, which primarily affect the bar pressure, I personally like flying the current and previous years FX on the B setting most of the time as I like a more direct feel. The default/stock setting on the new FX is the kiteloop setting, which is the middle briddle point on the leading edge. With the new FX set on the kiteloop setting it will feel very similiar to the previous years FX kites, about the same amount of power, and same steering response as the previous years. With the new FX front briddle set to the freestyle setting, the kite will actually fly slightly more forward in the wind window than in comparison to the default kiteloop setting, thus it will be slightly less grunty on this setting, but with the FX being a nimble kite with light bar pressure, you can just sine it a few times and build up your board speed and then park it, the FX is not a sheath in and go kite like the switchblade is anyways. With the FX front briddle set to the freeride setting, the kite will fly slightly back or deeper in the wind window, and in return will make the new FX a little more grunty on this setting than the other settings and from the previous years FX kites. The new FX out of the box on the default setting is pretty much the same kite as the previous years, with a little more refinement, as it does loop with a little more forward pull and flys back to 12/overhead quicker when looping it. These new front briddle tuning options are really nice as it makes the FX a little more versitile of a kite for various conditions and riding styles. If you get a chance to demo the new FX and the conditions permit, I would definitely recommend flying the FX on the various front briddle settings. Overall, I am pretty stoked with this kite.
As far as for what size would be best at 185lbs, it would be dependent on what wind range you typically ride in at your location, and what board/s combo you are riding with it. If you rode the previous years FX, and you were happy with it (power, grunt, speed, bar pressure, etc.), I would just go with the same size as you rode in the previous years FX. Myself at 195lbs, I run a 14m and 10m FX, I did the 12m also along with the 14m and 10m in previous years and found myself rarely riding the 12m, as the 14m and 10m overlap the 12m quite a bit for wind range. The 14m and 10m do just fine for most of the wind conditions I typically ride in, in stronger wind I ride the older 2015 9m and 7m Chaos.