Anybody out there using the Dakine Maniac Sliding spreader bar, or any other sliding spreader bar?
Need to upgrade/renew my well worn harness. I'm pretty settled on the Dakine Reflex, (always preferred light and low profile seat).
Out of all these years, my favorite harness has been the Wild Wind's Seat Harness with the double hook spreader bar (who remember's that one?).
I really like to rotate my hips forward, specially to point high. I've often considered cutting up two bars, and fabricating one, but these look really good.
I can only find review's in Kiting Forum's.
Any feedback, (good or bad), would help.
Cheer's Darren.
DaKine makes a slider conversion kit, but it's not on their website, but most shops that carry DaKine harnesses do carry those.
It's just a piece of belt webbing with metal rectangle rings on each end that hooks into the spreader bar clamps. You thread it thru the spreader bar, then hook it up. The shorter spreader bar you have, to more slide you can get out of it.
Sound's like the Maniac one is a bit better than that, in that it would have more travel.
I have to buy a whole harness, so I guess they would swap spreader bar assembly's and I'd just pay the difference.
Has anyone out there used one. I really want to know - Does the hook ride up much.
I'm aware that you have to re-tension the webbing after some use, but this doesn't worry me.
Guess I'll just have to go into a shop and hang off of one.
That hook looks like it's more for Kites rather than windsurfing. Not sure how easy it would be to hook out of
I recently bought a Flying Objects harness and the hook does not have that much curve and slipped out a couple of times under load. I replaced the spreader bar with one from my 1980's Neil Pride harness and it worked perfectly.
Adam, it is, it's called a "knucklehead" here in the U.S. anyway, and it's for kiting, not really recommended for w'surfing for the very reason you stated.
Yeah, good point. Now I'm thinking that does look like it might be a problem. A bad catapult could be nasty, not that I do that much, but it only take's one. Also like Agrid said, if the hook does ride up a bit, then it would have to have more curve in it. Maybe not a good idea for windsurfing.
Thank's for the input guy's.
