Big Air/Kiteloop Progression Kites

[Exal]

Honest question, what’s wrong with learning kiteloops using the Neo? That was my plan. I have neos too. Seems to be a pretty quick kite.

Nothing, look at this guy having a blast looping his 8:

[Leon van Bergen]

Have tried all kites from North/Duotone and Core XR5 from the kites you have mentioned.

First of all, all of kites can jump and can loop these days. There are differences between them and you are spot on them in your analysis. It comes down to what kind of feel you like. Dice and Evo feel completely different. Dice is like driving a stiffer suspension car (Porsche) - it is agile and precise and most important for me is fun to fly.
Evo is mellow. It doesn’t give you as much feedback as Dice. It is super solid in the air though and it will not jerk you on every gust. If you live in are with very gusty winds then that should be a big factor to consider.
Both of these kites will feel more reactive compared to your current Neos.
Core kites have a different overall feeling to all of them compared to North. Their canopy is super stiff and that is what you feel on the bar. XR is like a rebel in terms of jumping - get speed, redirect kite and sheet in. Not so engaging to loop it..
I would suggest to read wetestkites reviews on all of these kites that you mentioned - they are quite spot on on their reviews.

Interesting! and what do you think about the Rebel?

[deniska]

Regarding kite size/combination my thinking was something like the following. Just adding one 8 meter kite is also something I am considering but I definitely want a 12 since I hated missing/not enjoying those nice 15ish knot days.

• 8 dice 12 evo/rebel
  8 dice 12 dice
  8 evo 12 evo/rebel
  8 gts 12 xr

If someone with some spare time and experience could share his thoughts, I'd appreciate it.

Considering where you are in your jumping career, you may want to checkout following advice:
- 8 and 12 is too much of a gap in sizes (especially if you jump from 8C to 12 flat, like in some of your examples) - you will need to be properly powered to progress with your jumps, imho.
- you will progress faster with the same kite shape.. 8GTS and 12XR have different timings and dynamics.. Jumping from one to another takes some time to adjust.. so it may hold you back
- you will have to do many thousands of jumps before you dial it the level of going 8-10 meters consistently. So if that's your goal, you may want to go with flat high AR kites, like Edge, XR, Apollo. They are more forgiving to pilot errors and will land you much softer in general than anything "C". Your knees will thank you for that. Once you are at 10m level you will have enough kiteflying skills to boost/loop well with most kites.. Megaloops - I'd still pick "C".. Check out loop tutorials from Anton Chernyshov he does a good job explaining why "C" is safer for big loops.

[Exal]

How the hell did I miss the denis response here! I don't always agree with what you post but since you are one of the guys jumping higher I respect your opinion and advice mate, thanks!

The gap between 8 and 12 is not ideal, yeah but I think you missed that I have a 6, 8 and 10m kite already that I am not going to sell and use for my waveriding progression. Jumping isn't all I want to do but I want kites just for that purpose since I share the other kites with my brother. Therefore the bigger size (12m) would be my lightish wind kite and oldschool trick machine, while the smaller size would be my kite to go big when the wind is on. I am not really sure if I should go for an 8m or 9m but the reason there is that I am not sure if I can hold down a 9m in 33 to 35 knots. I don't want to go out when it is close to or over 40 knots since that still scares the sht out of me. I was in almost 40 knot gusts with 28 to 31 knots constant wind last weekend and got reminded of that again. For wind that strong I think the right choice would be an 8m. Hoping to get a demo session on the 8 and 9m evo in.

Softer landings is why I went with a biggish board in 139x42. The rebel and xr kites just didn't sound too inviting since I would really like to learn a couple basic unhooked tricks aswell when riding regular and landing on my good knee.

I bought the 12m evo (2019) and had a session on it yesterday. Man that is an awesome kite! I am still getting used to the new board and riding in cold weather with neoprene shoes and all that. The wind was pretty fluky, sometimes 13-14 knots and then 2 minutes of 22ish knots and a very busy spot. I only tried to work on my riding and was not confident in trying to jump since the water was really flat and hardcore choppy 600 m further out. But I am really happy picking the evo. The 12m feels faster than my 10m neo, is very responsive with low bar pressure on the middle setting (had no chance to test the other settings yet) and I always knew where the kite was, is very stable in the sky, goes upwind like a truck (not used to that), heavy gusts or sudden increase in wind is soooooooo easy to take into the harness and the bar pressure is pretty light compared to the neo.

I am not sure but I have the feeling that a 9m and 12m evo combination would set me up for all conditions from 13 to 35 knots. Is anyone riding that setup of the 2019 versions? I tried gaining some weight to hopefully get my legs stronger, mainly to protect my left knee which is a bit fked and am rocking 85kegs now but for my big progression vacation in november I'll probably go back down towards 81-82.

[BillyGoatGruff]

Big Air & Kitelooping = Naish Torch

[mmeyers12]

Cabrinha FX would be my choice, absolutley solid kite with good comfortable bar and lines.

I'm now into looping and big air and love how the FX flies.
I also use the Enduro V2 which is nice and loops beautifully.

Previous kite was a bandit X .

How does the FX handle gusts compared to the Bandit?

[Barryg101]

Fx is good in gusty winds havent noticed a huge difference from the bandit with gusts. But for loops and jumping I love the fx sense you up like a rocket but takes anhit more technique to land smoothly.

I ride 9m FX

[CALencioni]

Honest question, what’s wrong with learning kiteloops using the Neo? That was my plan. I have neos too. Seems to be a pretty quick kite.

So nearly one year later, I’ve started doing boosted kite loops and boosted backroll transition kite loops learning and continuing to learn on my Neos. It’s been great. I love these Kites.

I can confirm the Neos are a great kite to learn boosted loops

[Blackened]

My thoughts on the choices

• Evo: good hangtime and is also good for looping
  Dice: probably makes the progression harder but might be more fun than the Evo
  Rebel: good for jumping/big air but would most likely kill myself trying to learn powered loops on that
  Core GTS: for some reason I really like this kite, never flown it but it looks really interesting. Maybe the worst choice!?
  Core XR: same as Rebel

If someone with some spare time and experience could share his thoughts, I'd appreciate it.

Not sure why when someone asks about a specific brand, the woodwork chips in with their favourite kites..

Rebel - best jumping/hangtime kite, amazing low end, loops fine without a huge yank - downside it doesn't always recover to catch you and I've had some hard falls from 10-12m
Dice - best looping kite, thrilling yank from initial jump and loop - downside it will spank you hard
Evo - great for jumping, looping, tolerable in waves, and great progression. The best part about the Evo is how predictable and forgiving it is. There isn't a better kite in the Duotone range to learn how to loop
Neo - compared to the Evo, average jumping, similar looping, much better in waves, and decent progression.

XR - similar to a Rebel
GTS - similar to a Dice
Nexus - similar to a Neo

However, to put these in perspective, all of the above kites were used in KOTA (I don't think an XR was used on the day, but a 7m was pumped on the beach). So as someone said previously, you can use any kite to loop. It just depends on what other qualities you want. I learnt to loop on the 3-strut Evos and very happy I did. It's just so much more forgiving than everything else I've tried since.

For learning loops, if you're only doing 2-3m jumps, you have a long way to go. Make sure you're getting at least 7-8m height on every jump and you're super comfortable down/heli looping. Your 12m Evo is perfect for this period. Your existing Neos should be fine for the heavier wind days as well.

[Teabageppo]

I concur above with the duotone line up characteristics and I’ve ridden them all.