zfennell wrote:This is a bit off-topic.
Now that Spleene and Flysurfer appear to be competitors instead of collaborators.
Do you have any thoughts on potential 'fallout' between the two companies or between the companies and their distributors?
FS has never had a large number of distributors. Now there appears to be a pattern of those distributors selling Spleene gear as well.
choices are generally a good thing for the consumer, but i sense that i will not understand all the implications for a while.
..just look at what you are doing to Fred's psyche.
-bill
I think it's going to be a good thing for the distributers and I think that it will also help
as far a flysurfer distribution goes.
First of all I think that it will help distributers by increasing their volume of buisness.
LEIs are in a compative market, but they are also more mainstream... the massive marketing
collectively helps sell all LEI kites.
Second I think that it will help distributers sell flysurfes too. I think this will be becasue the distributer will have more contact with stores as a result of their LEI sales so there will be established communication with these stores. This way when the "odd ball" flysurfer kiter comes in it will be simpler for the store owner to get a flysurfer in.
I also think that if Spleene is successfull with the foil models it will also help bring foils in general into the main stream more. Having a LEI manufacturer making water foils will benefit all foil makers in general.
Regarding my psyche it's doing fine thanks to my Psycho 4s and a few doses of Speed 2 here and there... for my cardio vascular health.... well there's the Pulse 2.
The Speed 2 15m gave me a special session this weekend. Most of the kiting crowd was Down at Zuma beach waiting for wind. I was there two.. it was actually nice to hang around and chat for a while. I checked the wind from my cell phone and it was saying 12mph for a beach upwind called Leo Carrillo, but it's closed to kiters on weekends in the summer untill at least 6/7pm and even then it's not guaranteed. Anyway just downwind of Leo Carrillo there is a spot called Nicolas Cayon.
When it's 12mph at Leo Carrillo the wind at the beach at Nicolas is really really low and fluky, but is ridable 30 yards form the shore. Well I went and checked it out... yup wind on the beach was hit and miss, but the surf was comming in at a perfect angle for Nicolas Canyon. Well it was tricky keeping even the Speed 2 15m in the air but once I was out it was clean and steady. I could pick out each and every wave I wanted as I was the only one there. The waves were big... a bit to big to stay in them all the way to the shore, but they were so smooth thanks to the light wind and kelp beds upwind. It was cool to be riding in conditions that the surfers didn't consider "blown out".
Going out the speed, shape and smoothness of the wave faces made perfect ramps of big low wind airs.
Then it started to get a bit late so I was not too happy about riding into dusk by myself (no other kiters) and the wind picked up a tad so I did a fast packdown and headed back home. On the way I saw that Zuma had come up so I grabbed my 15m Psycho and went out.... If I'd had to pump up a 15m kite I would not have gone out again
The day before was great too. About 10 kites out as the forcast was so so. We all rode for a good hour and a half... the the wind dropped. A guy showed up with a Speed 2 19m and I kept going with my Psycho 15.. ( it was a bit of a struggle for me, but the waves made it worth it. Everyone else packed up and left. For a good 40 minutes it was still very light, but I kept on going just for shits and giggles to see how light I could go.... then th wind came back for a good hour and was stronger than it had been all day... also the best waves showed up too.
All in all a great weekend with a bit of help from the right gear.
Looking forward to trying the Q