Postby Dan-at-Duotone » Tue Aug 28, 2018 7:20 pm
Hahaha. Foilholio's 'facts' are awesome. "Then why do they argue against foil kites so much? Your statement is in contradiction of the facts. If they really care about performance they would have foil kites."
A. We have a foil kite. It's called the Ace.
B. One of our two designers, Ralf Groesel, was involved in the founding of Flysurfer and worked for them as well as a paragliding company designing foils for years before joining Boards and More. Pretty sure he's well versed in the pros and cons of foil kites vs LEI.
Faxie-
I understand your skepticism. Pretty sure that you can write me off as a corporate lackey with that same skepticism, but I've seen the work Ken puts into designing kites. If you don't like his designs I won't try to tell you otherwise, not all kites work for all people, but I guarantee that he tests, sews, retests, tweaks, etc multiple prototypes for each size of each model he works on. When he used to live/design here in the Gorge (he's full-time in Hawaii now) we would have a pile of kites downstairs with zippers, crazily knotted bridles, weird sewing lines etc in the warehouse every year. I'm not as personally familiar with Ralf, but I know they each put a lot of sweat into making the best kites they can.
Windmaker-
You might be right about many bars being backwards compatible, but I can't think of any... most of my non-B&M (NKB/DTK) experience was when I was teaching on Cabrinha kites and working in a shop 2009 and earlier. I know Cab went through several different safety systems (Recon, Recon 2, pulleys on the original Xbow, etc), the bars of which are not compatible with their current kites (also, anyone remember their secondary safety back then, the parachute pin? It wouldn't release under load, and even if you were able to pull the pin, it was connected to the bar so you'd lose your thumb if you were able to get it to release).
Back in '05/'06 SS had their 'wave grenade' and oh-shit-handles, which I don't think they'd recommend for use on current kites.
Actually, I think LF was using the Powerlock bar back then which may have used an outside line safety, and regardless had some issues with the release and I'm pretty sure they'd tell you not to use that bar with their current kites.
We were also the only brand whose safety passed the French norm until around 2012? And even now I think there are several safeties on the market that may not pass. This is just one reason that we say you can use any year NKB/Duotone kite on any year 5th Element bar at least as far back as 2005 (I don't have detailed production records for earlier), a claim that I don't think any other manufacturer who has been in business as long as we have can make.
-Dan