Best/peter playing w/ the delta shape?

[stacey]

It sounds like someone has a school girl crush. For the last time, Alex is NOT fired. He spent a few years working hard to develop a company and now he's off enjoying the spoils. Try to move on. You'll find someone else. There's always hope!

When you guys start up your own kite companies, you are more than welcome to put your production into c-kites and cater to this hugely growing wakestyle segment of the market. After you've sustained yourselves and turned a profit , come back and talk about how it makes sense to produce C kites. A good part of the market ... at least the part of the market with the $$$ ... are older people who can't throw themselves around doing technical handlepasses and unhooked stuff. I'm not saying I like it (I'm with the wakestyle segment), but if anything is going more mainstream it's disciplines like waves and racing that everyone can do, and for some reason, most people just like to go out and jump, and the kites that work best for these segments of the markets are bows/SLEs.

Yeah, there's still a need for a c-kite, but it is extremely limited. Look around ... like it or not, c-kites are about 5% of the market. Saying that it's 10% would be pushing it.

[posty]

So...what are the team riders gonna do?

[leomdq]

And in small areas unhooked with C kites are dangerous to other kiters (begginers, young, middle age, old).
Last Saturday a 60 year old friend was hit twice for those unhooked C kiters that don't respect the areas, and C fuels fall like a bomb if they miss the bar.

[AdrenalinDriven]

Maybe your friend should have gotten the darn out of the way haha kiteboarding is an extreme sport, that's what it started off as and whats happening now is just sad. Go for a sail or windsurf if you want something chill and let the people who are good kiting progress the sport in the direction it SHOULD be heading.

[stacey]

So...what are the team riders gonna do?

They will ride Nemis or Waroos ... up to them.


You can't just limit the kookfactor to unhooked C-kite riders ... if anything, in general, those people are the more advanced riders with the better skills. I've seen a lot more kooks on bows than on c-kites ... except for the poor suckers who bought a quiver of 5 c-kites complete with their own bars for $100 on ebay because it was such a great deal for their first kites ...

[sq225917]

Wow, i never realised there was such a strong C-kite contingent. Shame you guys don't buy kites from us...

The Yarga has been dropped because it wasn't an effective use of Peter's time to develop it for 09. We wanted to try out some completely new designs that should have wider rider appeal, and that meant giving Peter some breathing space.

I'm sure the kite that results from this free time in Peter's schedule will be much more popular than the Yarga was. Pure C-kites are like Pickle fork boards, they've had their day, some people love them and that's great but that should not get in the way of progress.

Who knows you guys might like this even more?

[leomdq]

AdrenalinDriven
haha kiteboarding is an extreme sport

A very mature response, if someone is good kiting how the hell can the kite drop like a bomb. And why should they do those tricks near the beach where beginners, intermediate and advanced are launching the kites.
You give me an idea, maybe there should be some gun guys on the beach to blast those kites that fall like fuels when the bar goes away.

[Anabatic.co.nz]

Hi SQ,
Nice to hear your looking at the Delta design direction.
Im sure you guys would get it flying properly. IE, fix the yaw turn I've seen on the bandit. For the most part the design looks good. Simple stupid to fly with chunky low aspect and high lift profile working well together.

But can you confirm that...... your banner advert is advertising a kite that is not going into production?



Regards Lee

[mbigger]

NAB,

When I go to Hatteras, the only riders riding Fuels are mostly Real's employees. That is a freakin small market. Other than that, not that many Fuel around. Great kite but unfortunately a very small market.

Michael

[Anabatic.co.nz]

No centre strut on the kite.

Who owns the license on the Delta, is it F-one or Hansen Aero Sports?
Very similar design path eh. Or is it not patented?

[nab1000]

Naw I've been seeing a lot of sle riders going towards c-kites with the wakestyle movement in Hatteras. More and more people are coming up to me on my campus here at Old Dominion University wanting to build sliders and kickers in the river were on, so i see wake style going way more mainstream than any other aspect. In the mid Atlantic, next to strapless waveriding i see more people switching over from their 127 boosty boards, to wake specific set ups and throwing their tricks with the kite at 45.

I didn't think about buying a best kite in 08 after the yarga that i flew in 07.

I also have seen a couple wake oriented companies make it with their consistently good gear, and a see a few trying to go in that direction. There is also a company in the making that will have a strong fallowing.

Shannon... what was your original vision on what you wanted to push was when you first started the company?

It also sad to see someone that has never kited before get on a quiver of 02 kites because it was $80 complete with board leash and all.

[Anabatic.co.nz]

Nothing wrong with the unhooked wake style of riding.
Not interesting to watch but it's really technically challenging for guys who haven't done all that before in wakeboarding.

The young guys at UNI etc buying C kites is due to them all being sold at give away prices on Ebay etc. And this is being done because nobody values them. I sold a brand new C kite last month for US$50 on a zero reserve auction site.
So more young guys get into the sport, that is great. OK some old fool buys a rig and regrets it but they go get a bow from a shop next season and get on with it.

If BEST put a youth crew model Nemesis out there with Twister Tech for $400 then they would all ride that unhooked I'm sure.
But it's hard to get these guys to even try something new, especially when the price is high and they know they can' afford it. The Nemesis is really everything they want out of a C and so much more.

Understanding that 90% of customers can afford Kites and want a versatile product to begin with makes good business sense for BEST.
Slingshot got it wrong with the Fuel, thinking everyone would keep buying it. Instead everyone shifted brands and to GOOD bow styles.... oh I mean 90% shifted.
Plenty of die hard fuel riders still... but that's nothing compared to riders buying Waroos etc.
Slingy finally knocked off a Waroo and called it a REV and it saved the day for them. Smart move and their probably stunned at their sales spike.

Don't get me wrong I'm not anti Slingy or C kites.
BEST and Slingshot are both hard core boardrider brands that I like. But BEST are more a more progressive company I think.
Slingy were leaders back in 04 and 05, but BEST is head of the charge now.

I don't see companies like NAISH or Cabrinha as progressive, just branded product and very slick hype. But that works well for them and their business model are cranking very well too. Not much of a C kite show from them either.

[Ryan W]

Heaps of people are changing to c-kites, I for 1 have and am still trying 2 make up my mind wetha iv dun the right thing, they are mint in perfect conditions but in cunty conditions they suck. I rekn that delta shape could be really awsum if they get it right.

Waroos are to expensiv here in nz, even second hand, I would buy 1 but cant afford it.

[Danno]

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

SQ, hook me up with a few of those black protos the team has been flying.

[sq225917]

The aim of the 09 Nemesis was to make the kite as user friendly as possible while retaining as much of the performance as possible. adding Twister Tech to the HP has allowed us to do that. the HP is supremely easy to handle and still offers huge performance and power. The Waroo, good as it is, doesn't offer the same power, wind range or hangtime that the HP delivers.

There is no point making a kite so high performance that only a small % of riders can handle it.

The HP is perfect for Freeriding and course racing, having been used to win lots of course racing this season already by Kristin and a number of riders in the US.

it's very unlikely that peter's Delta will be like anything else out on the market. You know how we roll at Best, it has to be different and it has to work better than anything else. So expect it to out turn and outpoint anything else out there, and deliver the same great level of bar feel as you have come to expect from the HP and Waroo.

Just because it's a Delta it doesn't have to be hard on the bar and need legs like trees to point really high upwind.