Rider: 100kg, Experienced
Style: Freeriding, Surf, Freestyle
Weather: 15-30 knots
Build Quality: 8/10
Satisfaction: 10/10
Disclosure: Friend of the designer
My Comments:
Preamble
I've had a long on and off relationship with Griffin kites, I first flew their kites when they were "Monkeykites" back in 2003 before moving onto North kites, then I had one of the first Griffins in 2006 but didn't really get along with it, in fact I didn't like any bridled kites of that period. Since then I've been flying Slingshot Fuels and, although I've tried other kites, never really found a reason to swap.
When I moved back to Australia from the UK, I was looking for a lighter wind kite since my biggest Fuel is 13m and I'm a heavy guy. Chris at Griffin suggested I try one of his and my old contacts in Sydney all extolled the virtues of the newer Griffins.
Chris suggested a 10.5m but I laughed in his face and picked up a 12m instead as I used to fly a 16m C kite mostly in Sydney. I'm starting to wish I'd listened to him! It's a machine.
First Impressions
Build quality is good, nothing special but nothing bad either. I like the scuff pads over the bridle connectors with the molded Griffins on them, very cool. The colour and design is simple but very nice in my opinion, I went for red as I reckoned everyone else would go for black.
The bag is well designed and has some handy pockets on the inside. It's nice to have a dedicated pocket for my bar and lines as the Slingshot bag has the lines on the outside and I've always been paranoid about them being damaged.
Pumping up the kite was simple enough, the one pump system is similar to the Slingshot external one-pump idea. I was a bit skeptical about the "hose connectors" as they looked flimsy, but 6 weeks later they're still fine and work well. The one-pump has clips on each hose to seperate each strut from the leading edge once it's pumped up, and they also have a simple neoprene cover over them. I'm not sure if this cover is to stop line snags or them potentially damaging the kite, but they are there.
In the air
Chris suggested I try the "light bar pressue"/"fast turning"/"less depower" setting and that sounded good to me. The kite came as standard like this anyway so I didn't need to change anything. My motto for kites has always been "faster turning, more lift" so this tied in quite nicely.
The first thing I noticed was how direct the steering felt and how much throw the bar had before the kite totally depowered. In fact, by simply moving the stopper down the chicken I immediately felt at home after so many years on c kites. The lift on the kite is amazing and the power generated is awesome.
I'm trying not to be cliche by stating how much hang time and height I was getting, but it was the best I've experienced for sure.
The turning speed and response took me by surprise, I found myself over cranking my first few jumps and simple lofty front rolls turned into front roll-downloops by accident. A quick mental adjustment later and I was back into the swing of things, but still getting used to the extra height on my various tricks.
I don't unhook so I can't comment on this but I believe you can change the settings to suit the wakestylers out there.
Relaunch was easy enough, no problems there.
Conclusion
This is a fun kite, there are no distracting issues or things that riders need to compensate for. It works and it works well.
I'm going to pick up a 9m soon enough to compliment it.
