Met someone the other day who had taken white sail cloth and stuck rings of it on the dark leading edge of his kite around the valves.
He said it was to stop the valves from heating in the sun and unsticking. Has any one else tried this what is the ratio of valve failure dark to light ?????? 
Oh dear - another No Wind question....
I'm thinking the location of the valves would put them permanently in the shade - both in kiting mode and parked on the beach ?
Sometimes I really wonder what sort of gene pool kitesurfing is attracting ?? Oh wait - the Darwin awards will protect us as a community against the dilution of smart genes - Yay :-(
Select to expand quotew8ingforwind said..
Met someone the other day who had taken white sail cloth and stuck rings of it on the dark leading edge of his kite around the valves.
He said it was to stop the valves from heating in the sun and unsticking. Has any one else tried this what is the ratio of valve failure dark to light ??????
Was he riding a bicycle with white lycra?
That would explain his reasoning.
I know this old artist lady who has kept every first morning wee for the last 5 years.
pees into a 600ml coles springwater bottle
And stores them on shelves in a spare room of her house.
She is old and arthritic. Walks around bent in half at the waist, takes twenty minutes to answer the front door.
Says she's saving them for when she gets sick.
I'm impressed she can get it into the bottle
I have a doodle and i make a right mess of it when i try and have a go...
Sorry what Was the question...?
Select to expand quotetheDoctor said...
I know this old artist lady who has kept every first morning wee for the last 5 years.
pees into a 600ml coles springwater bottle
And stores them on shelves in a spare room of her house.
She is old and arthritic. Walks around bent in half at the waist, takes twenty minutes to answer the front door.
Says she's saving them for when she gets sick.
I'm impressed she can get it into the bottle
I have a doodle and i make a right mess of it when i try and have a go...
Sorry what Was the question...?
Who here also buys water from supermarket and what do you use the empty bottles for to help stave off polution.
I think it's a valid question, and I'm sure it makes a difference since dark fabric does get hotter than a light or white fabric.
But there are such big material discrepancies between kite manufacturers that it's hard to tell... I've had leaky valves after owning a kite for 6 months (on multiple sizes) taking very very good care of them, and I've had kites with all black fabric around the valves sit in my trunk on hot summer days for days at a time, plus a full season of kiting with them in the sun, with no problems at all.
I suppose the color of the fabric would make a small difference, but the quality of materials and manufacturing is more important, imo.
Select to expand quotedyyylan said..
I suppose the color of the fabric would make a small difference, but the quality of materials and manufacturing is more important, imo.
in the 70's 80's the colour of the canopy did have a big difference on how much heat it absorbed and wear and tear. dark canopies had something like half the life of light ones. but Advances in canopy manufacturing has negated the difference to nill in the last decade or so.
glue and all adhesives are quite complex and require different methods to form an adequate bond some need to air or slightly cure some need ridiculous amounts of pressure to be applied some even need to cop a heavey blow to create a reactionary change in the compound. factory workers are allways going to be factory workers. doing several proccesses day in day out being moved around to different stations and bays there is always going to be differences from kite to kite valve to valve. this is precisely why i fly what i fly after inspecting and understanding and seeing how there factory is working.
Because u seem to have more brain power then the fist 5 replays what do you fly I am going to be upgrading in the near future and have no clue what I want to get yet?
Select to expand quote
Was he riding a bicycle with white lycra?
That would explain his reasoning.
Did he have Velcro straps instead of shoe laces
and on a 3 wheeler
Yeah
Na
But sorry
But I did actually ! Really did actually laugh out loud when I read that story about the wee bottles
" sorry, what was the question ? "
Too good
You are right that reply deserves a post of its own and it brings up so many questions
What did the spare room smell like???
Did she ever have you over to sleep in the spare room???
How many cats did have ????
What dose a 30 year old piss smell like????
Did she get the cats to pee in bottles as well???
Ect
Hey w8ingforwind
jokes aside, factory glued on kite valves are slowly becoming a thing of the past, at least for major kite manufacturers. Those ''new'' valves are now welded on the bladder material and simply cannot come undone, a major advantage for kiters living in hot environments
Select to expand quotecbulota said..
Hey w8ingforwind
jokes aside, factory glued on kite valves are slowly becoming a thing of the past, at least for major kite manufacturers. Those ''new'' valves are now welded on the bladder material and simply cannot come undone, a major advantage for kiters living in hot environments
Do you know which brands do this? This has been a big problem for me in the past, leaky kites suck.
Select to expand quotew8ingforwind said..
Because u seem to have more brain power then the fist 5 replays what do you fly I am going to be upgrading in the near future and have no clue what I want to get yet?
thank you
general rule of thumb dont buy from a "kite company" you want to buy from a company that has been produceing for greater period of time then just this silly fad kitesurfing. so something like cabrinha (aka neil pryde group) who has been around longer then kitesurfing makeing water sport goods like windsurfers etc or Ozone who also have experience produceing paragliders and other canopys for sport aviation.
the advantage of buying from one of these pre existing companys or ones that create many products is the company itself is allready established and stronger has prominant RnD and most of all originated many of the patents that make up what is a kitesurfing kite.
its the NEW kitesurfing only kite companys who A. dont have dedicated factorys often end up outsourceing all there production to some that often have cruel working conditions B. dont actually hold any patents themselves for the design so are forced to pay to copy or to "innovate" by modifying a existing kite design just to get around the patent which often leads to the kites flight and control characteristics to perform very poorly.
so keeping this in mind you are really only left with the big 3 brands mainly cabrinha ozone north. slinghshot and naish are quite good aswell
as for the specific kite they all make a low cost budget begginer kite labelled under there freeride style of kiteing. these are mainly targeted at schools and new kiters they tend to only have 3 struts so they cost a bit less to make and weigh a little less aswell which comes in handy for travelling if you are a gram counter.
but personally i would only ever buy a 5 strut kite the performance and durability outweighs the marginal cost saving for you on your end.
so yeah 5 struts designed for "freeride" from cab/ozone/north would be the way to go just go to there websites and have a look around download the manuals and have a good read over them. the promo videos are all a bit glitzy but the tech videos are good
gotto go
Select to expand quotew8ingforwind said..
Met someone the other day who had taken white sail cloth and stuck rings of it on the dark leading edge of his kite around the valves.
Believe it or not, back in the day ...
some kite co's actually built kites with pure white leading edges.
lol.
They must have had a ton of white dacron hanging around the loft.
So naturally after some use in a short space of time, the main sock looked like dogsh!t,
rather than whiter than white.
Especially in locales like WA where the carparks and rigging areas are the thornyest and driest in the land.
With a magic-marker, I would draw a black line along the leading edge of the main bladder before re-inserting,
(this is after I had done a rubber repair)
This way I could hold the kite up to the light to check and see if I had twisted the bladder.
