I've been kiting a few years now, but have recently taken up riding at my local cable park due to lack of wind plus the fact I have recently moved a stones throw from a cable park. Kiteboardings always gonna take 1st place for me but I am really enjoying the cable park at the moment, especially as I'm guaranteed time on the water regardless of weather.
I'm mainly after advice on whether to buy a wakeboard as a seperate piece of equipment or to go for one of these hybrid boards that claim to do both well (i.e hadlow wakestyle, Naish Arcade, North Gambler). I know my best bet is to demo the boards in both sports, but I'm struggling to do this at the moment.
I currently use the Hadlow Freestyle board for kiting which I love and will never get rid of, but it's not suitable for boots, and on the cable it slides and skips out a lot especially on the corners. The wakeboards I've hired grip very well and are more controllable, and I've come to like the locked in feel of the boots, (i'm yet to try boots with a kite though!). But wakeboards are gonna be no good with a kite due to them being power hungry and trickie getting upwind performance out of them.
I like the idea of having a board for both sports as this could be beneficial when transferring tricks/skills from one sport to another. Or am I gonna benefit more from keeping kit separate designed for it's specific sport?
A hybrid will always suffer. The rocker on a wakeboard isn't suitable for kiting and visa versa. Its best to have them separate. if you worried about the cost of bindings, switch bindings between boards or consider something like the new hyperlite system that allow you to leave a base on the board and switch the boots across.
Buy a wakeboard so you don't have to worry about the bottom of your Kiteboard. Then go smash some sliders. Changing boots over takes mins
Cheers for the advice. I'm gonna start demoing some of the wakeboards and boots at the cable this week, and try and work out what shape/size will be best for me.
I ride a LF watson hybrid wakeboard, its the best wake board ive ridden by far. Sic on cable. I now ride it 100% behind the kite too, was riding cab customs but find the watson better on the kite too.
^^^ This guy is onto it.
I have the 2010 Watson Hybrid and it has less rocker than the Cab Custom... It's a perfect crossover board. (ridden in my last vid).
You should also check out the new Tona board called the "pop" that's just been released. THe guys have been working on it really hard for a few years now and the board is actually produced by Ronix. It's got a got a good crossover rocker line and stuffness.
Cheers for the board tips, the LF Watson Hybrid and the Tona 'pop' have been added to my read up list. Very good to hear you get on well with the Watson behind a kite.
I'm still working out what's what in the wakeboard world, so lots to read up on.
check the best profanity out as well, i've recently gotten one, rode my watson hybrid 143 behind kite all last summer and most of this summer and went onto the profanity because i wanted a board that's faster through the lulls and didn't need as much power to get going well (i was 85kg most of summer)..
when the profanity 138 rocked up at first i was very skeptical because of the rocker being just as much if not a touch more than the watson hybrid but it's continuous which made it a lot faster, the bottom channels arent as abrupt so it doesn't suck as much power out either, its heaps faster, load and pops way higher than the watson on kite. for cable it would be a good go to as well, it's the stiffest of kiteboards i've seen, perfect for a flex wakeboard for cable, continuous rocker works best out of the corners as it's most consistent for generating good pop and speed. large rocker for a kiteboard makes it easier to manage speed by getting more weight on the tail. see if you can at the very least demo one and try cut a couple of laps at cable on it.
the pop also looks like a wicked board but haven't seen it up close. gambler is way to flat for cable and not really stiff enough, hadlow looks pretty good saw a dude at TWP using one and it didn't go too bad at cable.
