nope. I'm talking Speed4 in Standard fabric, not DLX and I'm talking good things which came on that kite and then put back to a drawer until Sonic and Speed5. I'm not sure why Lotus would have any performance leap - it was to a millimeter same kite as S3 and my S3DLX was awesome wing - I had it. More airtight/ligter fabric is hardly a design revolution,Adventure Logs wrote: ↑Fri Nov 09, 2018 10:05 pmCompletely different kites there and I know you’re talking about the S4 DLXs not the lotus. There was a huge leap in performance after the Speed 4 lotus. That Soul 10m will easily cover 2 of your inflatable kites.grigorib wrote: ↑Fri Nov 09, 2018 7:49 pmSo let’s say I buy new 10m Soul for $1300 and it’s about twice the price I pay of a new 10m Rally. And speaking of Rally I get more grunt, turning speed, and loop power (and depower too) out of my 9m Rally than from my 10m Speed4 and I know how to fly both.sabraxas wrote: ↑Fri Nov 09, 2018 7:21 pm...
Did you consider the price?
All that features of a foil Kite and the handling and relaunchability of an inflatable at the price of an inflatable...
For me, all the combo is a gamechanger. Freeride Inflatable Kite guys demoing the Soul are being spelled, reconsidering changing their kites for Souls.
To be fair - 6 years of development between Speed4 and Soul is probably as much as changes in Rally 2012-2018 but 10m Rally 2012 I had is par to 9m Rally 2017 I ride
But still I and people like me won’t be able to enjoy a foil kite in conditions I described above. And wait until they need a repair to be done and bridles equalized - that would be a major WTF moment for them.
Time will show who is right here. I don’t forget, so let’s check it again in fall 2019
I'm a bit behind on foils - last ones I rode were R1 and Sonic and they were cool, great lightwindability, excellent upwind but they're not made for looping and figure eight-ing downwind. So speaking of how many LEI sizes a foil kite covers is a neverending story and I call it a BS because I've ridden both foils and LEIs and I love both and there are lots of lies about foils which don't serve foils well and this one is one I've heard a lot.
I can reduce my 5/7/9/11 quiver of LEIs eliminating the 11m as large sizes are kind of boring, 9m is my main wing covering 9-26 knot winds from foiling to boosting and I sill need 7 and 5 for riding in 30 and 45 knots respectively. I know I can foil with 5m in 16 knots - I did, but that's kind of not so much fun.
I admire Flysurfer and Ozone and I hope they make more cool wing though but next November - and I'm saying that here and now - there'll be just another iteration, just next versions of foil/LEI kites but same misconceptions will remain and market share of foils will go down for water freeride.
Soul is just a replacement of Speed5, that's it. There's no game changer on the market besides foiling and once efoils become affordable we'll lose bunch of kiters.