Rider: Weight115 kg,Level (intermediate,)
Style: Freeriding,
Weather: 15-20 reaching 25 knots
Build Quality:9 /10
Satisfaction: 9/10
Disclosure: no afilliation with shop or brand(i own several brands of kites and kite boards,not a team rider ,pay for my own ****)
My Comments:First of all I want to thank Jason from Briskites for lending me his brand new toy..
First impressions is that the kite and bag and bar look well made ,and so they should I regard Naish gear as high end stuff you pay a little more but you can tell the gears well R&D and well made.
The kites a piece of piss to pump up with the one pump octopus system all seemed to go well ,flipped it over ........there's the 1st problem with a sigma kite ,and this is is one of my issues with the sigma kites of past years ...holding the thing down on the ground the center of the kites sits up and unlike conventional kites,, the well placed board struggles to hold the leading edge of the kite down ,,hate to see this thing in 30 kts??
Back to the test and this is where it gets better ,,My inital thoughts were I'll struggle to get going on this thing with my weight and a fairly small board (nobile 50/50) and the wind around 15kts ,but after a couple of minutes on the kite I was impressed not only was I powered enough to do some smallish jumps but I was gaining ground upwind!! As the wind increased the kite went better and better by the time the wind got to 20 kts this kite was in it's element ,fairly light on the bar turns well ,and by this time it was starting to boost huge with good hang time.
The wind picked up to 25 kts this thing was insane ,very comfortable and forgiving rockets upwind,, would be good as a coarse race kite the thing goes upwind like a exocet missle.
One thing I didn't like, maybe call it preference but the depower on the side of the chicken loop below the bar ,I DON"T LIKE IT ,very hard to comfortably adjust trim ,,,,lucky I didn't have to trim the kite more the 3-4 times and even in 25kts I only had 2-3 inches of rope coming out the depower cleat ,still flew great .
Overall very impressed with the kite ,In the past I've not been too keen on sigma shaped kites but I was well impressed with this one ,
I would say if your in the market for a new kite ,give one of these things a demo ,Opened my eyes up.
Jay
