Contact   Imprint   Advertising   Guidelines

Monkeykites 2005, 11m2 medium aspect

Find reviews of kites, boards and accessories
theviking
Rare Poster
Posts: 34
Joined: Fri Feb 04, 2005 5:26 am
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Monkeykites 2005, 11m2 medium aspect

Postby theviking » Mon Apr 04, 2005 8:30 pm

I have now ridden the Monkeykites 2005 11m2 kite for about 6 months. First off, I'm about 75 kg, and the kite has been used with a skimboard, a 119x35 and a 132x34 custom board. It's been used in a variety of conditions, from 12 to 28 knots (allthough 28 knots was on 14 meter lines). So the range on this thing is pretty sick.

The reason for me to buy a Monkeykite this year, was a risky thing for me to do. I am poor, and the fact that I moved to Australia for 12 months did not help this fact. So my choices for "cheap" kites where Best, Windwing and Monkeykites. I thought I should go for the Monkey, since they had the best price for me at the time.

2004 was a pretty average year for Monkeykites I think, they had some troubles with the 11's and all-around the kites where pretty average I understand. Everywhere I went people adviced me NOT to buy them, so 2004 was not to good.

I was pretty surprised, since my expectations was pretty low for the 2005 kites. They are pretty good kites, and do not fly like the 2004 kites.

I found the 11 to be very stable in the air, and it's an allaround work horse. The pull it generates is amazing, perfect for wakestyle riding (now, I have to say that my skill level is pretty average, and I only started this year going for the wakestyle moves). I'm not very happy about the bar (but then again I am very into bars, and preferr my homemade pulley). And I like the kite best on my pulley. Also it turns a little slow. I found the best performance to be on my pulley, cause of the unhook issue. When I use the depowerable bar the kite tends to oversheet easily (this can be adjusted on the line lenghts and trimstrap). I still think it's a hassle to have to use the trimstrap before I unhook.

The kites does not have a centre strut, and this maybee the cause for the power boost.

It has a hangtime like most other kites, it's alittle slower than most other kites (maybee best compared to a slingshoot of similar sice). But as I said, it's on the wakestyle side of kiteboarding this kite has it's powers. The pull is awesome, and it generates lots of it!

The upwind ability is sick, and no one belives me when I say this, but you can acctually see how much more it goes upwind when you put it on the water with lots of other kites out there. It has to be tried to belive it.

The downside is the slow turning, the bar, also the leash does not have a safety-release (but as I understand it, this is a problem they are working on). The safety on the bar is also on the frontlines, so if you do multiple rotations in one direction this can result in twisted frontlines and leash might not deploy (it's the same as the 2003 Wipika system).

If you put shorter lines on the kite, it will not change the turning speed (I find this strange, because on most kites turning speed increases as you shorten the lines). It's designed for beginners, so that might be the reason f or the slow turning.

I have also flyed it with a 5.line, this adds (very very) easy relaunch (the kite is easy enought to relaunch without due to the medium aspect), also it adds great depower possibilities. This is a great feature if you are doing leassons, stand behind the student with the 5.line, and if the student does something wrong, pull in the 5.line and the kite gives alot of depower.

Well, that was my 2 cent :)

Return to “Reviews”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 63 guests