North Rebel 2018

[sabraxas]

That was not the meaning of my post, James.

Been kiting North for twelve years, i have enough experience to know what im talking about.
I do not collect old kites, i prefer to still own them before selling them for cents. Some of them are in perfect conditions, and if you know them, you can kite with. They are good to practice new movements and not breaking newers kites.

North is pointing new customers with the new Rebel. With this new model, they enter in a coflictive contradiction. Old Rebels owners do know what im talking about.

[PullStrings]

You are wasting your breath with all those kooks.....i've been on Rebels for 8 years....this new kite is not a Rebel

[PullStrings]

[sabraxas]

i've been on Rebels for 8 years....this new kite is not a Rebel

Thats what Im talking about. This new kite will not ever be a Rebel.

Its like when Best change the Waroo in 2010. That thing was not a Waroo.

Do not understand why North discontinues a kite like this. They could have done an alternative 4 lines Rebel with another name, or even the Rebel could come in two versions one with optional 4 lines Bridle and one with active 5th line.

Question: ¿Does anybody know the security of the 4 lines north bar? ¿Suicide in two lines? ¿One front line flagging?

[sabraxas]

Sabraxas

Wow started in 2005 and have a collection of old kites, real OG!!

Seriously who pulls the " I started before you bullshit"

With your kite purchase history your hardly the target customer are you?

I said i still own all of those North kites, but in my life i have owned Cabrinhas, Wipikas, Ocean Rodeos, Liquid Force, EH, Best. If i could count them all, I guess 25-30 kites. I sold lot of them to support the change to newers models.
I do own a couple of foil kites too, one Flysurfer S4.

One of my first kites Wipika.

[jeromeL]

i've been on Rebels for 8 years....this new kite is not a Rebel

Thats what Im talking about. This new kite will not ever be a Rebel.

Its like when Best change the Waroo in 2010. That thing was not a Waroo.

Do not understand why North discontinues a kite like this. They could have done an alternative 4 lines Rebel with another name, or even the Rebel could come in two versions one with optional 4 lines Bridle and one with active 5th line.

Question: ¿Does anybody know the security of the 4 lines north bar? ¿Suicide in two lines? ¿One front line flagging?

looks like from 2015 bar it's single line safety. The quad bar prior to that used to be 2 line safety. Apparently in the old days some design didn't flag that well on 1 line, the bridle and aspect ratio would make some kite "death spiral" (kite tumbling around bridle axis, in a slow no power rotation...)

I have been on fifth line C kite for a year, crashed a bunch with inversion and such. I never cut my kite in half.. A few month back some local did cut his switchblade in half though when it got stuck in bridle/line. I have had a few instance on bridle kite where bridle got caught in canopy too..

Looks like Rebel is dedicated boosting kite in North line up, perhaps they wanted to increase boost potential with more depower range (+bridle though fifth line should have given enough?) and hangtime with more open shape. Maybe Lewis wanted more height and hangtime for KOTA?

Though I understand that if you like the "feel" of the kite on loaded fifth line/no bridle, you wouldn't want to trade that for height...

[Dan-at-Duotone]

TL;DR: It's a Rebel. Don't judge it till you try it...

For those who want a little more info on how this design came about...

North as a brand (and I personally) have for 10+ years pushed the 5th line as the only reliable safety. We've also pushed the performance advantages of the loaded 5th line (while admitting it's shortcomings) and touted the positive bar feedback 'feel' of a loaded 5th line (though this is inherently subjective). We literally own the patent on 5-lines.

During that time period we've seen countless claims of "as good as a 5th line" (Recon anyone? How about Recon 2?) come and go. Early on we saw death spirals from single front- or back-line safeties. Which is why we started with a double-front-line safety, which we claimed was as good as any 4-line safety but still not as good as a 5th. Bridles/designs improved to account for single-point loading and we (along with other brands) developed perfectly adequate single-front-line safety systems that actually do rival the 5th line for safety/ease of use.

As we've seen 4-line safeties improve we started trying to make a performance freeride kite that would be 4-line compatible. I think we started the Fuse project in 2009 with this goal specifically in mind. The problem was simply that we couldn't get a kite to work as well as the Rebel. Ken can certainly shine more light on this, but from what I can tell, we based the shape of the Fuse on the shape of the Rebel, and though the Fuse was a cult classic, there were a lot of drawbacks to that shape that certainly did not fit the classic Rebel "performance freeride" bill.

When the Fuse project was abandoned, it was not the end of the work on a 4-line compatible Rebel. Ken has been working for the last 4 years as a side project on a 4/5 line freeride kite. Rather than basing his shape on the shape of the existing Rebel and forcing bridles onto it, he took what he learned from the Rebel and from the Neo and basically set out to create a kite that fit the classic Rebel 'performance freeride' category that would work on 4 lines. Last Fall he announced that he had a winning (sorry) design and he invited a very skeptical team out to test it. The entire team (myself included at a later date) had to admit that flying what has become the 2018 Rebel back-to-back with the 2017 Rebel (which was a very good vintage), the 2018 Rebel simply performed better in just about every way. It jumped bigger, was faster through the window, went upwind better, had better sheet-and-go power, turned faster, turned WAY better (more natural/roundly), is more stall-resistant, more stable, etc.

If we want to continue to make the best possible performance freeride kite, we couldn't very well take this gem that could fly on both 4 and 5 lines and reject it for a kite with lower performance characteristics that could only fly on 5 lines.

Does it have the classic 'feel' of a loaded 5th line kite? Not quite. Is that a sacrifice? Depending on your personal preference, possibly. But is it still a Rebel? Definitely. Will it fly on 5 lines? Yup. There are additional knots on the front pigtail to make it work with older 5th Elements so older Rebel riders can use their same bar.
The 2018 Rebel is simply the highest performing freeride kite that we've ever flown. It is a progression of the now 12-year-old Rebel project, and it is aimed squarely at the Rebel-loving crowd.

If you decide to ditch the Rebel because its 5th line is not loaded this year I'm not going to blame you or think less of you. But before you write it off as a mistake do me (and yourself) the favor of trying the 2018 Rebel. It's totally possible that you hate the feel (in which case act fast... You can probably get a good deal on older Rebels right now). But it's also totally possible that you'll agree that the design is a big step forward. The feel may take a session or 2 to get used to, but if a 2 session acclimatization is what it takes to start riding a kite that jumps bigger, turns more quickly/nicely, and is all-around a higher-performing kite, I'd say it's worth it.

Again, we are short on real-world reviews. If you get a chance to ride the kite and you want to chime in here please feel free. See your local NKB dealer for demos.

-Dan

[iriejohn]

That ^^^ is a very informative and fair write-up, thanks.

[iksrazal]

TL;DR: It's a Rebel. Don't judge it till you try it...

If you decide to ditch the Rebel because its 5th line is not loaded this year I'm not going to blame you or think less of you. But before you write it off as a mistake do me (and yourself) the favor of trying the 2018 Rebel.

I can say that I just tracked down a 2017 Rebel 12m today for an upcoming trip to Maui, instead of the 2018 model. My wife, daughter and I are using around 6 rebels from 2015 / 2016 (we live part time in Brazil and our gear is scattered) and are not ready to switch to 4 lines. We could of course but are in no hurry.

Its a lot of money for a new kite to take a chance like that, at least for me. I'll talk to people on the beach with the 2018 rebel, and may be look at 2019 as the dust clears. I can say however I will be also looking at my friends riding Cabrinha and Core etc, not as much of a difference anymore.

I remember The "new Coke" thing , definitely seems like the same thing to me ymmv. I wouldn't be surprised to see the 4th line option for the Rebel disappear by 2020, though I suspect some people will move on by then.

[pikovsg]

Been following this thread for a while and really curious what more people think after time on the water with the new '18. Our local shop in Massachusetts just got them, will be testing a 12m and 9m soon.

On a side note – please don't take anything @pullstrings says seriously. His responses are aimed to derail conversations, no substance in them. Not sure why he keeps doing it...