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Kites
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Okay it's brief, but here's a quick five minute overview of our kites.
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Starting Out
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Single string - Go for something that will fly well and will still fly for sometime to come. SIngle line deltas are cost effective and look good. Sled kites have no spars, but go for a decent one to ensure it will actually fly true. Many of the cheap kites you buy will just not last beyond a few flights. You CAN get a budget kite with decent materials, and we believe the HQ range does just that.
Two line - For the family we find that a 2 line parafoil kite with no spars is the best, the HQ Symphony 1.2 is a great example, it is really strong, easy to fly/ setup and is a fast litlle stunt kite
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Next Steps
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In our shop our biggest sellers by far are the litlle 1.2 symphony 2 lines and the 3.6 quad line Beamer. The latter is a cost effective quality path into traction sports, seeing as traction and power kiting is the area of our biggest number of kite enquiries we have compiled a bried Q and A....
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Q - what is the difference betwen traction and power kiting
There is a grey area, but power kites will feel powerful to fly whereas traction kites are powerful enough to pull you into the air or along the ground on a buugy or ATB
Q- Whats the difference between a 2 line and 4 line power kite?
The 4th lines can allow more control by being able to fly the kite backwards, turn it tighter and/ or for using as a safety and ground parking mechanism. The last feature is great because it makes the kite much easier to fly single handed than a 2 line kite.
Q - should i spend more
With the advent of kites like the HQ Beamer and PKD Buster you don't have to spend massive amounts of money to get into the sport. If you feel you want to move on after a while, resale values are good, but you will find the quality is so good you will probably end up keeping them as an esential part of your quiver. If you have flown before and you know where you want to be heading then you may gain from investing in kites with a more specialised feature set.
Q- Should i go with a bar or handles for my traction kite?
Quad handles give you more kite control and on normal traction kites will allow more jumping opportunities when used standing. A bar limits the amount of detailed flight control BUT does allow you to me much more flexible about how you fly, when used with a harness you can fly one handed which is great for manouvres on a mountain board, it also feels natural on the move. Buggy users tend to use handles as there is less space to manouvre in the seated position. More expensive depower kites are generally on a bar. If you are planning to learn kitesurfing later then a bar setup will help.
Q- Can I upgrade my bar or handles?
Of course, you can get better handles or change over to bar control for most 4 line traction kites.
Q- Do you provide kite lessons?
Not at the moment, but we do have demo kites and can arrange to meet locally to run through the basics
Q - I want to get into kitesurfing, is a traction kite a good way to learnThe cost of an initial kitesurf lesson will buy you the bulk of an entry level traction kite, and the skills learnt will get you to the next stage much quicker, so yes!!.
Q - is there a kite i can use on land, sea and water
Well, maybe.....the nearest sort of thing is the Peter Lynn kitesurfing kites which are not the LEI (pump up inflatable type) and are excellent all round. However there is always a compromise in that a kite for the water needs to be bigger to overcome initial resistance, and have a lower aspect ratio to assist water relaunch and aid flying stability while a land kite could be smaller and have a faster profile. All depowerable kites have a lot of technology built in and will certainly cost a few quid.
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