cnski wrote:Mossy- Can you post the prices for those foils? That would be great. Really interesting hearing about the gear progression. I hope we get to see some decent videos of the racing too.
They're about $2k USD for the race foil and their race boards are about $1k...so about the same price for a full setup that I paid 2 years ago for a Sword 2 and carbon board. You can get a product info sheet if you email
pparmeggiani@gmail.com
gmb13 wrote:Mossy 757 wrote:WH Lithuania wrote:
Do you want to name your sources?
Cause A. They don't do hand out hundreds of cheap or free kites to the team and B. The kites don't blow out within a couple of months use. With exception of the test team no one has had the kites long enough to even have flown the kites long enough to make an observation like that.
C. The kites keep their performance a lot longer as the new speed system lines no longer shrink, which is the number one cause of loss of performance in the first few hours. The other brands mixer/speed pulley lines shrink fast under hard use.
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Gunnar
A) No "source" per se, just internet armchair racer speculation, so basically everything I post on here is just for fun and idle conversation. I also didn't say hundreds of kites, but you can't expect me to believe that more than 1/2 the kites on the line at a tour stop were sold at full MSRP. I think it's important for people to realize that a company that can manufacture a product at volume and with better margins will be more likely to have sponsored riders using subsidized gear. That was the main point of what I wrote. Manufacturer sponsored teams have less to do with the outright performance of the kite and more to do with the business model of the company. That being said, the R1V2 is clearly the winning kite right now and Ozone has been at the forefront of kiteracing since the beginning, so I'm not trying to take anything away from them as a brand. I'm glad they hit a home run with this thing in terms of performance, it'll do good things for the sport.
B) My biggest concern with the kite is that the material is 30% lighter than their competitors, there's just a limit to how light you can make a kite before you start making compromises on durability. Given that Diablos have proven to be very delicate and the R1V2 is lighter weight cloth than the F-One, it stands to reason that they'd be just as delicate and likely more so. I've not heard of a blowout or a kite that's gone horribly out of tune due to canopy stress, but for the price of 2 months mortgage payment it's my opinion that a regular consumer is incurring an unreasonable amount of risk buying a kite that is on the extreme end of both the performance and material strength spectrum. I can't afford to pay an extra $600 USD for a kite that will need to be replaced 20% or 30% earlier than its competitor.
C) Any comments I've made about durability have not been meant to imply the speed systems...this is obviously the Achilles Heel for most foil kites, so if they've worked out a way to prevent bridles/speed system from shrinking then more power to them, I hope the other brands catch on. Do you know what they've done to create a control system that doesn't experience shrink? I thought this was just an assumption given the need to use spectra to run across pulleys.
D) The R1V1 was a total nightmare, complete misfire on the brand's part. I know the best riders in the world are doing well on the V2, but I've watched guys that I know to be better kite flyers struggle with the old R1's and it scared me off them. That might explain some of my unreasonable skepticism about the V2's...
I'm honestly not hating on them, I guess my point was to say "Why buy that Lotus Elise when this Mazda Miata will do 95% of the same stuff?"
Gunnar I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on the R1V2 if you wanted to start a separate thread, I think you're one of the only regular posters here that has flown multiple sizes in a race setting.
-Tim