BayAreaKiteboarding.com

First we could wrap corn with them for the BBQ, now we can make cookies on them. Yay!

I was there on friday and got to see the hellfish 13M up close. To be honest, I wasn't impressed. The material looked like it wouldn't last. Being that this kite is not that old, it looked like these kites won't last that long. Seeing them fly, the reflective material is aesthetically cool, but that's just aesthetics.
I was hoping to see guys ripping on these kites. But the fact is they did not go upwind on there 13Ms as well as I was on my 2003 11M slingshot fuel. IMO, it's just another lei kite.
I was hoping for something killer, cause I'm looking for a killer ultra-light wind kite (5 -9 mph). Now I'm waiting to see what flysurfer has to offer for 2005...

The Flysurfer Speed got rave reviews so far. Having said that, Flysurfer is some kind of religion, and I would take everything with a grain of salt until more reviews come out.
I am little pissed that I got the XTC, if I knew about the speed I would have waited. This whole wake style that it is good for is not really what I need.

This is a video of light wind flying with the Speed, you can actually see a wind meter to get the actual wind reading (not sure about the units, but its single digit for sure).
http://www.radicalwaveibiza.com/speed17m.wmv

The video says it's knots. But those umbrellas on the beach are moving pretty good, and you can see people walking with their hands on their hats.

I've seen people kiting on a 20 something Gaastra at SI on days where there's way less wind than in that video (at least on the beach), doing jumps just as high as what those guys were doing. It's not like that Speed is a small kite or anything. Looked pretty huge in the video.

Paul

you guys arent keepingg up to date, the hellfish is old news,

check out the 06 nemesis, a cabrinha crossbow thats shotup cuben fiber and lost its bladders.

We should wait to see all the kites before bashing them. That's for the Best machine to do.

consumer wrote:you guys arent keepingg up to date, the hellfish is old news, check out the 06 nemesis, a cabrinha crossbow thats shotup cuben fiber and lost its bladders.

I thought it is a joke, it isn't. :shock:

Best wrote:Management decided to adopt a semi-transparent / open source research and development program due again to the Cuben exclusivity and to reap the added benefits of rider idea generation and feedback.

I donít remember when is the last time I have seen "Open Source" and "Exclusivity" used together in the same sentence :mrgreen:

Free entertainment:
http://www.bestkiteboarding.com/?it=I&id=27

The part that amazes me is when they first announced the HF and took pre-orders, they acted as if it was already in production. Now a couple of months later, they're calling this period "open source research". Of course, if people are willing to line-up and pay in advance, then why should they turn it down I guess...

While I don't like their marketing at all, I actually think they're products are pretty good. As long as you rely on demos of production kites to make your decisions (and ignore any best-related forum posts :)) you'll be fine.

himmm.....
looks like the crossbow and the new 06 nemesis, look like my rapture.
just cleaned up ....
and when gabe was out at s.i. on the hellfish he was holding down alot of
wind?..... like 10m weather but that might just be mr gabe?

Charlie,

Nope that's the kite that can hold down all that wind. To bad the production kites can't do that. Gabe has a 3rd generation kite. The production kites have a better lowend than Gabes, but they had to sacrifice the topend.

I still don't get the bladderless ting. Can someone explain to me how that will work?

dewey