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Which 5 or 6m kite you guys advise from Duotone/North?

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Leon van Bergen
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Which 5 or 6m kite you guys advise from Duotone/North?

Postby Leon van Bergen » Thu Feb 28, 2019 9:51 am

Hi all,

I'm looking for advice because I have no experience with kite behavior in harder winds and do not know if 3 or 5 struts matter a lot same with backstalling like the Rebel sometimes does?
At the moment I fly with a 8m & 11m North Rebel 2018 with full satisfaction. Unfortunately I have never flown other models.
I would like to buy another 5 or 6m from Duotone or 2018 North for the hard wind days but doubt whether I should buy another Rebel or maybe a Evo/Dice/Neo?
If you look at the Duotone website, the Evo seems to be the best in everything, but is that really the case?
I Kite very regularly he last 3 years and do freeride, jumps and beginner tricks on my Twintip, no foil.
Hopefully someone can pull me over the line.

Greetings Leon
Last edited by Leon van Bergen on Thu Feb 28, 2019 4:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Which 5 or 6m kite you guys advise from Duotone/North?

Postby PusherII » Thu Feb 28, 2019 2:04 pm

It really depends on you. For example i own a Core Xr5 (very similar to rebel) and i'm selling cauz i prefear more responsive kite. Will lose some boosting for sure, but i dont think i will have 5 struts kites in the future on my 10m+ kites. It is very possible that in small size every kite is very responsive and funny.

Btw for sure a 5 strut kite is more stable and much better in gusty winds
In your case, i dont know your spot, but 5-6m means really strong winds. Basically i'm not confortable jumping high in strong wind, i would probably go for a evo, but again, that's me.
All 3 kites have similarities and differences:

neo--> freeride/wave. Very good low end, very good jumps, wave oriented
dice--> freeride/freestyle oriented. Very very funny, responsive, good for loops. Tipically this kind of kite has not a great low end, and doesnt pull like a truck as rebels do. Is more a funny joystick
evo-->probably the more all arounder of the duotone kites

Hope this helped
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Re: Which 5 or 6m kite you guys advise from Duotone/North?

Postby Windigo1 » Thu Feb 28, 2019 2:40 pm

From Duotone definitively the Evo lower aspect delta shape kites like the Neo tend to be very stable they want stay in place and won't fly all over the place and that's good in crazy high wind. If you are willing to look at other brands the Ocean Rodeo Prodigy is super stable and you barely feel the gusts. Yes 5 strut kite are generally more stable because they hold their shape better but they are heavier that maybe a drawback if you plan to use for foiling in moderate wind.
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Leon van Bergen (Thu Feb 28, 2019 8:52 pm)
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Leon van Bergen
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Re: Which 5 or 6m kite you guys advise from Duotone/North?

Postby Leon van Bergen » Thu Feb 28, 2019 3:43 pm

PusherII wrote:
Thu Feb 28, 2019 2:04 pm
It really depends on you. For example i own a Core Xr5 (very similar to rebel) and i'm selling cauz i prefear more responsive kite. Will lose some boosting for sure, but i dont think i will have 5 struts kites in the future on my 10m+ kites. It is very possible that in small size every kite is very responsive and funny.

Btw for sure a 5 strut kite is more stable and much better in gusty winds
In your case, i dont know your spot, but 5-6m means really strong winds. Basically i'm not confortable jumping high in strong wind, i would probably go for a evo, but again, that's me.
All 3 kites have similarities and differences:

neo--> freeride/wave. Very good low end, very good jumps, wave oriented
dice--> freeride/freestyle oriented. Very very funny, responsive, good for loops. Tipically this kind of kite has not a great low end, and doesnt pull like a truck as rebels do. Is more a funny joystick
evo-->probably the more all arounder of the duotone kites

Hope this helped
Thank you Pusher!
Im from the Netherlands, we often have very strong winds like this;
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Re: Which 5 or 6m kite you guys advise from Duotone/North?

Postby Sun » Thu Feb 28, 2019 5:41 pm

You already have Rebels. Get another Rebel. The muscle memory / familiarity/ similarity to your other Rebels is worth a lot. I think keeping all kites the same in a quiver is better than needing to re learn a new kite every time you fly in high wind.
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Re: Which 5 or 6m kite you guys advise from Duotone/North?

Postby Dan-at-Duotone » Thu Feb 28, 2019 6:36 pm

I ride in similar conditions pretty regularly and know the lineup pretty good and I would also recommend the Rebel. 5 struts will really help maintain canopy shape and full depower in the increased gustiness you get in really high winds, and Ken (the Rebel designer) famously does a good job of talloring kites by size, so the 5 & 6m Rebels are tuned to decrease the super-fast handling and punchy on/off depower you can get with a really small kite. That model also seems to match your style of riding. You'd be fine with an Evo or even a Neo if you wanted but I tend to think the Rebel, especially as you're already used to the handling, would be the way to go. As always, a demo is the best way to figure it out, but if that's not an option hopefully this helps.

On another note I never thought the 2018 Rebel had an issue with stalling... When it first came out I tested it back-to-back with the 2017, and part of the test was riding straight downwind with the bar sheeted in, and I found it really hard to stall the 2018. That said, Ken mentioned that for 2019 he had designed the Rebel to be even more stall-resistant, so clearly there's something to your claim. Still, I'd recommend checking your line lengths... If your front lines have stretched it could be causing your kites to stall.

If you have further questions feel free to reach out.

-Dan
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Re: Which 5 or 6m kite you guys advise from Duotone/North?

Postby iriejohn » Thu Feb 28, 2019 6:48 pm

Sun wrote:
Thu Feb 28, 2019 5:41 pm
You already have Rebels. Get another Rebel. The muscle memory / familiarity/ similarity to your other Rebels is worth a lot. I think keeping all kites the same in a quiver is better than needing to re learn a new kite every time you fly in high wind.
I agree with that ^^^.

(My 6m is the same as my 8m).
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Leon van Bergen (Thu Feb 28, 2019 8:51 pm)
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Re: Which 5 or 6m kite you guys advise from Duotone/North?

Postby Da Yoda » Thu Feb 28, 2019 8:06 pm

My favorite kite in my quiver for strong wind days is my 6m North Evo.
Note: 2017 was the last season for the 5-strut Evo. If you can find one of those, I can't recommend anything better from North/Duotone.

Personally I've found 3-strut kites in small sizes (sub 7m) and strong winds to be unpredictable and twisty/twitchy. The added weight of 5-struts is moot when it's blowing 30+ and I feel it actually adds more stability and thus control to the kite.

Hopefully this pulls you over the line! :thumb:
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Leon van Bergen (Thu Feb 28, 2019 8:51 pm)
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Leon van Bergen
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Re: Which 5 or 6m kite you guys advise from Duotone/North?

Postby Leon van Bergen » Fri Mar 01, 2019 8:59 am

Thank you all guys for your helpfull tips, I think I will stay with the Rebel.
If there are also experiences about the Evo in larger sizes I like to hear them. Someone once recommended me to use a Evo in larger sizes because of the light weights of the 3 struts but others say again that there is no better windrange than that of the Rebel, am also curious about the opinions about that!

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Re: Which 5 or 6m kite you guys advise from Duotone/North?

Postby Alpa3094 » Wed Jul 29, 2020 7:41 am

Hi Guys , I am writing on this thread since my question is pretty much the same. I own a Duotone Evo 10m of 2020 and a Duotone Neo 7m 2019 . I am thinking of selling the Neo 7m and get an Evo 7m or a Dice 7m (I am trying to build up a new quiver) . Could you believe that would be a wrong choise a Dice in small size in combination with a 10m Evo which is my main kite or would be better to get the same kite with the big one ?

I ride choppy waters trying mainly hooking tricks, jumps and loops. Would be preferable a Dice in a bigger size than a smaller one?


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