Jyoder wrote: ↑Thu Jan 18, 2018 6:35 pm
Like many things in kiting, lighter weight gear is usually better, but is this really true with the control bar? Anyone have experience comparing heavy vs light bars and have an opinion? Now that I think about it, I do really like the feel of my tiny ultra light no frills Flysurfer Peak 1 bar for landboarding. I also am not a fan of the large bar ends and floats that are currently in fashion.
Difference is huge between the standard aluminium bars and carbon racebars, every other bar feels really clumsy now that I am used to ultra light bars.
You can make faster adjustments without straining your wrists in unwanted ways, big 60cm+ bars feel a lot smaller and unspinning your lines after a loop lets the bar automatically stop when the lines are untwisted instead of over rotating when given too much momentum. Overall a much more precise and direct experience.
And don't underestimate the strength of those carbon tubes, here I stopped at 170kg because I was convinced my center-hole construction was strong enough for me at the time, the bar even flexed totally back and was useable again. Will do a fully destructive test on the production run!
About the strength for foiling: any bar that fully supports 2x your weight should be more then enough. When building a bar, try to design it so that when it fails it does so at the centerhole. When failing at the part where you put your hands there is much more chance of injury. Like this nasty Naish-bar failure (note the glassfiber, instead of carbon they fit visable next to the centerhole
)