The Kite Mag - the ultimate Test Guide 2020

[TheKiteMagAlex]

Board sounded interesting and well done. But did you win the award for most expensive boards too? Over 1000 euros for a kite board? Wowzers.

Did you start this life 10 minutes ago? Carved Core Duotone Textreme Crazyfly Elite

Exactly! And you see many of them around.
So there is a market.

Free testing is is only good for the ones who never will spend money on advertising.

It’s the same on here, some brands keep using my site for their promotions, and will never support the site with a banner. Guess why this site still exists? Because there are brands who support.
It’s not fair to misuse the work of someone else.
And they are proud to advertise their brand as “we don’t spend money on advertising”. But want all the exposure they can get.
If they use their own channels, fine, but if one uses other channels then pay. It’s only fair business.

[Ice101]

Board sounded interesting and well done. But did you win the award for most expensive boards too? Over 1000 euros for a kite board? Wowzers.

Did you start this life 10 minutes ago? Carved Core Duotone Textreme Crazyfly Elite

No but I started kiting 13 years ago where you could get a great board for less than £400. I changed my board every year until 2013 then brands started cashing in and lining pockets from customers as much as the could yet the gains have been minimal. My 2013 board I still take out when the water is choppy as there still isn’t that much out there better even now and it is still going strong despite a few surface scratches.
There has been some minor improvement in all round abilities and efficiency in some brand boards and I did buy a new board last year, but didn’t pay anywhere near that and it is an awesome board.
I did try a jamie textreme on holiday and have to say it was a lovely board but compared with my new one which is a top brand board the jamie textreme was very slightly faster, very slightly better grip and pop because of it but it was only a little. Was it £500 or more worth of better?? No Brands just pushing people pockets for their own short term gains. Still good luck and I hope that works long term for them all especially after this covid thing when many people won’t have the money they did to live let alone to pay the price of a small car for a single board.

[Exal]

No but I started kiting 13 years ago where you could get a great board for less than £400. I changed my board every year until 2013 then brands started cashing in and lining pockets from customers as much as the could yet the gains have been minimal. My 2013 board I still take out when the water is choppy as there still isn’t that much out there better even now and it is still going strong despite a few surface scratches.
There has been some minor improvement in all round abilities and efficiency in some brand boards and I did buy a new board last year, but didn’t pay anywhere near that and it is an awesome board.
I did try a jamie textreme on holiday and have to say it was a lovely board but compared with my new one which is a top brand board the jamie textreme was very slightly faster, very slightly better grip and pop because of it but it was only a little. Was it £500 or more worth of better?? No Brands just pushing people pockets for their own short term gains. Still good luck and I hope that works long term for them all especially after this covid thing when many people won’t have the money they did to live let alone to pay the price of a small car for a single board.

Why would you argue economics in a kite forum. I'll never understand that. The price is the price, if no one pays it then that's that. You asked the dude, who apparently runs a one man company that is building something high end if he won highest price too and I showed you that there are more expenisve boards in that test. What he does will never be cheap.

[longwhitecloud]

Kiteboarding has become so odd, it used to be all about riding, today it seems to be a bunch of middle aged +men arguing over who has best toys.

Equipment in kiteboarding really isn't as important as people try to make out.. it's like 10 times less important than 20 years ago. Put me on any kite, i'll do pretty much anything.

[HugoMC]

Kiteboarding has become so odd, it used to be all about riding, today it seems to be a bunch of middle aged +men arguing over who has best toys.

Equipment in kiteboarding really isn't as important as people try to make out.. it's like 10 times less important than 20 years ago. Put me on any kite, i'll do pretty much anything.

I really like this attitude..... I kite on smaller brands gear and don't care.... I am not good enough to use the gear to its full potential anyways just get out and have fun.

[nothing2seehere]

I disagree. I live a long way from the beach and have a day job. If I can't do a bit of willy-waving about the fact I can afford the high end stuff then I wouldn't have anything to talk about when I'm at the beach

[PAFF]

Im riding Naish, and have tried all their their kites in the test. (And a few other.)

You did a great job Alex, i could "read and feel" your words i all their kites taht you testet. Job well done.

[Mellowyellow]

Hey guys,

Alex from TheKiteMag here.

Great to read all the comments and - trust me - we take it all on board! Just a couple of quick general points and if anyone wants to message me direct please feel free to at alex@thekitemag.com.

- Yes, we do charge brands to have their gear tested. All brands pay a rate for the number of items they have tested. So if brands don't pay then they don't get their gear tested because...
- Last year's test in Dakhla cost over €25,000. It takes a lot of time and effort to get the gear and team to Morocco and to pay for flights/accomodation/beer/design/layout/write ups. We do not make much of a profit on the test at all but....
- We are very aware of the claim that "magazines never test gear fairly because your advertisers pay your wages". Through doing the Ultimate Test and having a completely independent test team and test criteria this has been our solution. It is not perfect, but testing all of this kit back to back for a decent period of time and having clear quantitative data from a large test team with a broad range of experience and riding style is as good as we think we can realistically get. This year they worked exceptionally hard (!) testing 8 hours a day for 15 days, that is A LOT of riding hours when you consider the size of the test team. Every evening they then go over their experience and submit their stats and everything is recorded.
- YES, there are errors and typos! We're sorry... The guide weighs in at over 60,000 words and pulls together thousands of stats... We try our best (and regularly lose our shit when we are trying to put it together!) but we are not the New York Times with a whole team of proofreaders, and we do make mistakes. We point out any real clangers on social media as soon as we find out about them.
- Everyone likes a 'winner' but it is hard to choose precisely. Within 'freeride' kites for example, riders will expect different performance attributes depending on their riding style. So what is a good freeride kite for one rider won't be for another. We try to make clear in the write ups what kites are better for and we also have 'Standout' kites in each category which may be better for your riding style. As a few people on here have said, if you read all of the tests relevant to you then you should get - as a minimum - a good guide to what will work for you.

As I say thank you for the comments. Of course we are a business and we make our living through publishing magazines, but we are also primarily kiters, and I can assure you that we try our best to give you the best info that we can and spend many, many hours trying to get this right for you!

Cheers.

Thank you for all the work you've put in those Test Guide. Are you planning a release of a V4 version ?

[Mellowyellow]

I'm looking for the Kite Mag Ultimate Test 2. Anyone has the link ?

[Mellowyellow]

i got it https://issuu.com/thekitemag/docs/19122 ... =last-page