Well I managed to pick up a Ozone little Devil 4.5 m w/ handles for a pretty decent price. Since we got our first decent snowfall I figured I'd try it out with the board this past sat. Once finding a place with a bit of wind and nice amount of space I pulled the kite out and up it went. Overall it was relatively easy to get the kite up in the air and keep control over it. However, the wind wasn't steady...we had times of a steady 4mph with occassional gust yesterday. A rather mild day. The pull seemed good enough so I went ahead and hooked into my snowboard.

First thing I noticed was that if I traveled towards the kite it would collapse. I wasn't sure if this was because of the wind or because I should be traveling moreso crosswind as oppose to directly with the flow. A guy from another board said travel crosswind, but I'm curious if that is an "always" or are there exceptions?

Also what do you all prefer..Handles or Bars. I've never used a bar, am wondering how exactly it works. I know on handles you tilt the top portion of the bars towards you lifting the kite and the lower lines are brakes lines. Are bars setup where the brake lines go center and the control lines go to the actual bar?
And do you need to use a harness with a control bar?
I've heard that you get more control over the kite with use of handles, however, I'm not sure I need all of the control that I'm getting. It is nice in my opinion, but a bit over kill for what I'm trying to do. Figure too that if I get a control bar, I could always switch between the two.

Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome...I'm relatively new to all of this and there isn't anyone in the local area doing this.
~code

Quote:

Originally posted by code Well I managed to pick up a Ozone little Devil 4.5 m w/ handles for a pretty decent price. Since we got our first decent snowfall I figured I'd try it out with the board this past sat. Once finding a place with a bit of wind and nice amount of space I pulled the kite out and up it went. Overall it was relatively easy to get the kite up in the air and keep control over it. However, the wind wasn't steady...we had times of a steady 4mph with occassional gust yesterday. A rather mild day. The pull seemed good enough so I went ahead and hooked into my snowboard. First thing I noticed was that if I traveled towards the kite it would collapse. I wasn't sure if this was because of the wind or because I should be traveling moreso crosswind as oppose to directly with the flow. A guy from another board said travel crosswind, but I'm curious if that is an "always" or are there exceptions? Also what do you all prefer..Handles or Bars. I've never used a bar, am wondering how exactly it works. I know on handles you tilt the top portion of the bars towards you lifting the kite and the lower lines are brakes lines. Are bars setup where the brake lines go center and the control lines go to the actual bar? And do you need to use a harness with a control bar? I've heard that you get more control over the kite with use of handles, however, I'm not sure I need all of the control that I'm getting. It is nice in my opinion, but a bit over kill for what I'm trying to do. Figure too that if I get a control bar, I could always switch between the two. Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome...I'm relatively new to all of this and there isn't anyone in the local area doing this. ~code

ummm..okay...

Crosswind or slightly downwind is probably the easiest. If you go directly downwind, you have to make S turns, and keep the kite in a figure 8 in the opposite direction you are turning. (sounds complicated.. it is) Across, slightly down is easiest, and you will soon want to learn slightly upwind so you can keep riding.

As for bar or handles, I like handles because of the control you have. I really dont care for a bar at all unless the kite is de-powerable. I personally hate a fixed bridle on a bar because you loose your brakes.

Scoop

I prefer a bar for skiing, snowboarding and landboarding, but I prefer handles for static flying. You do get better control with handles but they require both hands. The bar is easier if you like to fly one handed, which is often the case on a board, but you lose individual leaft and right brake control.

Handles are usually easier to learn because you have a much better feel for what the kite is doing. If you are powered up and hit a lull, you can feel that and react much quicker with handles vs. having the kite attached to you via a harness.

Another advantage to learning the bar is that all depowerable kites are on a bar. When you switch to depower, and you will if you get serious about the sport, you will already know how to ride with a bar, which will shorten the depower learning curve.

RRC.. Thanks for your input on the differences between the bar and the handles. I'm still considering purchasing a bar, but there are still a few things that I don't quite understand about them. I mentioned something similar to this on another forum and a guy replied that the handles were the way to go. Basically for the same reason everyone seems to agree on, "more control". However, he mentioned that flying a non-depowerable kite on a bar I will be virtually giving up my brakes. Same as mentioned by scoop.

While he had mentioned that, another guy at a kite shop said that I can attach my brake lines to the two lines that come up thru the center of the bar, attach that to a harness and use the bar being pulled in and out to activate the brakes. So I'm either not understanding how to hook up a 4 line non-depowerable kite to a bar, or someone is not telling me the right thing. Slightly confusing. If someone could attempt to explain this to me on here that would be greatly appreciated!!

I did find out that you can hook up the handles to a harness to release some of the stress on your arms. I may try that this weekend while there is no snow and if the winds are relatively calm, it may be a good chance to try something new without worrying about sliding all over trying to figure it out.

Part of me too tends to think that with handles new people tend to over steer the kite since they have so much control. I could be wrong with this assumption though. But the handles seem like that would be less likely to happen. Just a thought.

Thanks again!

Well, you don't give up your brakes with a bar. The Flexifoil bar, for instance, has a single brake/safety line at the center of the bar. This line has a pulley on the end with a brake bridle running through the pulley. Each brake line from the kite attaches to this bridle line. The end of the brake line closest to you attaches to either your wrist or harness so if you release the kite, the brakes are appied and the kite folds up and falls to the ground. Personally, I attach the brake/safety to my harness.

So you do have brake control, but not individual brake control. It's the control over each brake individually that adds that extra level of control you get with handles. On a bar you have control over the brakes by pulling the center brake line, which appies pressure to both brakes equally. This is useful for preventing the kite from overflying, killing it in an emergency, landing and reverse launching. Check out this page...The center line in the photo connects to both brake lines.

http://www.flexifoil.com/products/bullet_bars.php

Sounds like maybe the kite shop you talked to is recommending using a depower bar to control brakes. Not a good idea. Most manufacturers make a bar system for thier kites. If you buy the bar that they sell for your kite, everything will work fine, although you can mix and match bars and kites. When you mix and match, you may have to tweak and tune a bit to get it flying right. For instance, we sell the Flexifoil bars for use on the PKD Buster kite. It works great, but either the brakes need to be lengthened or the flying line need to be shortened.

You can definitely use handles with a harness. A roller spreader bar makes it a little easier. Some folks build thier own pulley/quick release systems, but in a real emergency, you likely would not be able to get to the quick release fast enough. Flying with handles/strop and a harness, to release the kite you would just pull take some tension off the strop letting drop out of the spreader bar hook, let go of the kite and let the kite killers do thier job.

You really need to try both to figure out which one you like, or if you like both, just keep a set of each in your bag so you can swap out for a change of pace. It only takes a few minutes to change from handles to bar.

Ross

Ross..thanks for all of the input on the bar. I was debating getting one, but think it may be just fine to try out. Worse case scenerio is I buy the one for the kite which is $110 standard 4 line 56cm bar made by ozone and find that I don't use it as much as I had thought (then pop it up on ebay or one of these forums). I just wanted to know how it worked, and if it would work. Apparently not many people put bars on the Ozone Little Devil series.

As for the harness thing.. I went out today after reading a bunch of post about if you could use a climbing harness or not in place of an actual kiting harness. I wasn't sure if or how well it would work with handles too.

The winds were only 5-10mph and I still have my rock climbing harness from my rock climbing days, so I figured I'd go ahead and test the theory out. IT WORKED SWEET! I spent a good hour untangling the mess I made packing the kite up after it's first use ( I think I need a lesson in packing a kite). Then spent a good 3hrs. flying with probably a 15min. break for potty:D When all was said and done, I left the field not at all nearly exhausted as I was the last time I flew the kite. I can see why people are a bit leary about putting someone that has no clue about kites or how to control them into the harness. I kept telling myself to brake if I got too freaked. Didn't brake hardly at all though, other then to bring the kite in to pack back up. A few more days like today and having someone show me how to pack the kite up, I'll be all set and ready. Add the bar in there for something new to try..haha.

Thanks for all of your help!!

Quote:

Originally posted by code Ross..thanks for all of the input on the bar. I was debating getting one, but think it may be just fine to try out. Worse case scenerio is I buy the one for the kite which is $110 standard 4 line 56cm bar made by ozone and find that I don't use it as much as I had thought (then pop it up on ebay or one of these forums). I just wanted to know how it worked, and if it would work. Apparently not many people put bars on the Ozone Little Devil series. As for the harness thing.. I went out today after reading a bunch of post about if you could use a climbing harness or not in place of an actual kiting harness. I wasn't sure if or how well it would work with handles too. The winds were only 5-10mph and I still have my rock climbing harness from my rock climbing days, so I figured I'd go ahead and test the theory out. IT WORKED SWEET! I spent a good hour untangling the mess I made packing the kite up after it's first use ( I think I need a lesson in packing a kite). Then spent a good 3hrs. flying with probably a 15min. break for potty:D When all was said and done, I left the field not at all nearly exhausted as I was the last time I flew the kite. I can see why people are a bit leary about putting someone that has no clue about kites or how to control them into the harness. I kept telling myself to brake if I got too freaked. Didn't brake hardly at all though, other then to bring the kite in to pack back up. A few more days like today and having someone show me how to pack the kite up, I'll be all set and ready. Add the bar in there for something new to try..haha. Thanks for all of your help!!

How's the kiting going???

The kiting is going pretty good. I bought a bar for the kite and a mountainboard (since we're lacking snow) to play with too.. Much more of a learning curve getting use to the bar though. I find myself going back to the handles quite a lot, but I've only had a few times where I've actually felt comfortable enough to pull the bar out. I'm sure in due time I'll figure it out better though. Am getting ready for this summer...am going to ca. to visit my brother and his wife whom I think I've talked into taking kiteboarding lessons with me at one of the local beaches. Cant wait! I figure all this prior experience will help me catch on a bit quicker..hopefully..haha.

How are your learning curves going with your new kite?