big light wind kite

If you see anyone loop a 19m make sure you get it on video.

Also just stick with your 12m and get a bigger board or even a surf board for the downwinders.

... looping a 19m is easy! I used to loop my 18m 2011 Dyno all the time. Sure,,,, it doesn't catch like a small kite so brace for impact but yes its very do-able!

To the original question, if fast upwind performance isn't part of your criteria then the lower aspect kites are the perfect match, like the Blade Fatlady/Epic Infinity/North Juice. For downwinders I found the Epic Infinity brilliant, especially on a surfboard but to get back upwind it takes longer and you need a bit more patience but riding downwind is lots of fun. They tend to be light on the bar too so you can downwind for hours with loops, drift what ever!

The high aspect kites like the Edge/Dyno's etc like apparent wind so always need to be moving because they always want to be right up at the edge of the window, so when you do a lot of downwinding, these kites aren't the best unless you loop the kite. Different story if your on a race board since you'll be moving so fast so they create this apparent wind and you sort of point high to go downwind. Forget drift but loop 'em and its all good so you can do it, just not as easy as the lower aspect kites.

Good luck and test 'em for yourself.

Cheers,

Robbie

I made this vid over a year ago now, has been on here before but if you're interested it shows my 22.5m PL foil in action at Happy Valley
As you can imagine for such a large kite it is pretty slow to turn and to stop turning. There's 2 loops in the vid but have shortened my lines now and loops a lot better.
Cheers

hey gokid, I have an infinity v2 and i did my first backroll kiteloops on that kite. Big kites are the easiest to learn basic tricks with because everythings in slow mo.
With loops this is not necessarily a good thing but this does a tight loop and drifts good for riding waves. My mate has the OR 17 flite and this kite is faster and drifts better. I never tried loops on it so can't say but it's defo faster. Having said that I demo'd the infinity V3 and that was faster than mine so hard to say which is better, I would guess the V3 has better low end but that's just a guess, it is bigger than the V2 by about 1\2 a meter. Infinity's stay upwind sick. They kill core xr's and contra's, we've tested them same day same rider same board. No comparison infinity wins, but didn't have the flite at this test. never had trx either so can't comment on that but it sounds like a sick kite.

It's worth remembering that speed of kite is worth meters and the flite is fast.
this was borne out in an example of some old kites my m8 and i took out yesterday, same wind, board, rider etc.
One was a fast (relative to the other kite, there are much faster....) pivoty 2011 9m neo and the other a much bigger bit slower 2010 10m cat. Huge sweep running in waves and the 9 held ground where the 10 was losing ground. It was just too slow to work when the waves bogged you down. So apply this too your 16-17's.
The bars on the flite is a broom stick which is awesome and the V3 has a 50cm+ bar which works. Flite is lighter pressure. Nige from ECC is up on the sunnie so you should be able to get a demo easy. I reckon once you ride the OR you won't look back, but if you ride the Trx also i'd love to hear your thoughts.
The 17 edge i rode was not my cup of tea, just a truck and very slow, undoubtedly good at what it does though, which is win races on race boards.
demo days are happy days

The TRX is worth a look at if you want a fast turning kite. But if your looking for bottom end, forget it.

Works well looping down wind but thats about it.

Don't have too much good to say about them at all. I was that dissapointed in the kite I gave it away.

Much better low end kites out there.

Yesterday at Rosebud there were 3 17 meter Ozone Zephyr, one 15.5 Solo Liquid Force kite and other kites on winds from 8 knots to 20 knots. When the wind dropped below 10 knots only the 17 meter and the Solo 1.5 meter were having a great time. All other kites including me (14 meter Ride) were mowing the lawn or waiting for the wind to pick up. I am thinking of buying the Solo after what I saw yesterday.

I was fortunate to spend quite a bit of time on two new 15.5m and 12m Solo kites and rate them highly (1 week in FNQ... 6 hours kiting a day). Demo this kite and decide for yourself, but it really does not feel like a first generation product.

The Solo has amazing bottom end and was as fast off the breeze as my current LF NRG (higher profile). This is no beginner's kite. Others on the trip threw them into effortless loops (jealous of their skills).

My dilema is whether the trade off the NRG's big boost for increased versatility and ease of use of a Envy/Solo...

Am looking forward to trying the new Envy before deciding... bring on the new season!

I have an old zephyr 17 and its the go to kite. It can hold me up until 20knots (i am 90kg).

Love to try the LF Solo 15.5 could be fun. Trying to find a kite that freerides, drifts for wave play and does old skool jumps is hard no one kiet can do it.

Only gripe with the LF would be the bar if they had above the bar depower that would be great. The CPR bar is a good loking bit of kit though.