Rotating front/rear lines

[dylan*]

Does anyone rotate their kite lines when they tune them? My last two bars (switch controller 2, LF response) both have lines that seem to stretch (or shrink) very easily, I am having to stretch the rear lines every 2-3 weeks to get them equal again. The difference is usually about 10cm.

I was thinking about swapping my front and rear lines, maybe give the other ones a chance to stretch a bit and see what happens.

Does this make any sense to try? I'm tired of my kites stalling constantly because the lines are always out of whack...

[or6]

So your lines extend 10 cm every 3 weeks? How long are they by now?

I don't see why you couldn't swap them, if you are sure they can handle the same load.

I don't rotate, but my (old) lines no longer stretch.

[jeromeL]

So your lines extend 10 cm every 3 weeks? How long are they by now?

I also have nightmare about my lines between out of tunes

I rarely check them, I have never tuned my Fone bars don't even think it backstall.
My best GP bar I had to tune pretty quickly but now seems pretty stable, might move it 1 inch more I have to check again.

for my bars I don't think I can swap lines though since they are different length. only possible on low V bar? Not sure if they handle same load too...

[Peter_Frank]

One could rotate the lines yes, but I think it makes things a lot more complicated doing this.

Why not just move your lines a knot more so the trim is the same ?

Most bars has knots on the rear lines and/or the frontlines, exactly for this purpose.

If you rotate the lines, you will have an opposite "wrong" trim for starters, that will slowly get even, and end up wrong again the other way eventually, when the lines shrink differently as they all do.

If you just move the lines a knot after a while (quite a long time), it is much easier and your trim will be spot on, all your bars.

Often I am lazy nowadays, and just let them stretch, and then depower all my bars a tad more so trim is perfect - at least I got the same trim on all bars, which is the most important for me, so I can remember the setting easily, as when you ride you just KNOW where it has to be, even if it changes slowly over time.

But I know I oughta move them all one knot out on the rearlines now - maybe I should now we are talking about it, but when the wind blows you want to go out and not mess with lines, and when lines are rolled up, it would take some time to roll all bars out just for this, but would be the best to do of course

Most of my current bars/lines cant be rotated as not equal length (high V), but I would not do it even if they could, or on those that can.

There is one reason to rotate for some though, if you ride a lot with crossed lines and loaded, the frontlines will wear at the crossing point - so to extend their lifetime rotating to distribute the extremely local wear makes sense.
You can actually rotate them upside down also, to distribute wear over 4 cycles thus extending their lifetime 4 times, but would require loop-knot changes.

Peter

[PullStrings]

[lovethepirk]

Does anyone rotate their kite lines when they tune them? My last two bars (switch controller 2, LF response) both have lines that seem to stretch (or shrink) very easily, I am having to stretch the rear lines every 2-3 weeks to get them equal again. The difference is usually about 10cm.

I was thinking about swapping my front and rear lines, maybe give the other ones a chance to stretch a bit and see what happens.

Does this make any sense to try? I'm tired of my kites stalling constantly because the lines are always out of whack...

Dylan,

1st thing is I don't swap my lines b/c my center lines are thicker and stronger for obvious reasons, not to say you can't use the same on both though and do what you are saying.

When I built my bars last year, it was interesting to see how damn difficult it was to get lines dead nuts accurate. Couple that with extreme stretching I saw in my switch lines as a rookie and I built what I think is a simple solution...

I make the center line pigtails much longer than the steering line pigtails. This way I can micro manage the changing center line lengths by just re-knotting the pigtail. Make sense???

[Peter_Frank]

Exactly, this is what I do too lovethepirk, just the opposite - make the rear lines (or leaderlines/pigtails) longer and use the "shorter" knots at first, so I can just "knot" them longer, when they get shorter than the frontlines with time

Peter