I am sick of paying out for new pulleys, bridle lines and patching leading edges after a few months of use. My last kite has worn out within 6 months and I am looking for a new quiver. I mostly ride in waves so I do not crash my kite very often, and I am in isolated areas so need to self launch/land regularly.

What is the toughest kite?

Flysurfer kites are very durable, and they don't employ bladders!! Closed cell foils are their specialty.

You still will have to replace pulleys and bridle lines but their kites do last a long time.

Their newest edition is the Unity and is probably their toughest kite yet, barring their Viron, but the Unity is by far the better of the two. Really ease to relaunch. http://www.flysurfer-usa.com/fly/index.php?page=shop.product_details&category_id=13&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=58&vmcchk=1&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=89

Great for beginners and folks who would like to learn new tricks and not have to worry about flying their kite as much.

I have never had to replace a bladder, although have had to have one minor repair. This is usually easier than repairing the canopy as no sewing is required.

What kind of kites do you have??? I've been kiting for 3 years and only have had to do one bladder repair and pinhole canopy repair (and replace my depower line twice, but that doesnt count ). The pinhole repair was due to letting my kite go a mile out in the ocean and swimming back in due to a leaking bladder (learned on this kite so it took lots of abuse). My other kites are as good as new

Cabrinha Switchblades. After a few months I need to replace bridle lines (no biggie), then the pulleys. But more recently I have encountered a problem with the seams on the leading edge wearing the stitching. The only solution is to sew patches at the contact points. A lot of other manufacturers place protection in the places that wear, but my kites come from the factory unprotected.

I have had JN Primadonna kites for the last few years, the 2nd gen and now the PD, and an older JN Wild Thing 2, of the 6 JN kites I have owned not a single one has ever had any failure of stitching valves, bladders etc - only time I ever needed to repair it was a razor sharp slice to the canopy which would have happened to any kite. Great build quaity.

kites are like blue jeans. If you wear a pair of blue jeans every day it doesn't matter if you have carhartt or levi or wrangler it will wear out in a year. If you only wear your jeans once a week or special occasions it will last forever. So hearing which kite lasts the longest means nothing, it's how often you ride that wears out the kite.

I don't think there is such a thing as a super durable kite. I would love it, but unfortunately there is a trade off. When you use thicker fabric on the canopy leading edge, bridles, and such, it adds so much weight to the kite that it turns slow and this makes a super durable kite unmarketable. I would trade having a slow kite for being able to ride it like carhartt pants. But even carhartt's wear out. All you can do is get good at sewing, patching, splicing, and when you are putting a patch on a patch, that's when you have to think about getting a new kite, like it or not.

There is only one thing I wish more kites did and that is eliminate the pulleys from the bridles. You sacrifice some depower and cause the load of the kite on the bridle to be uneven, but that is well worth not having the bridle wear and the more direct feel that a kite without pulleys like for instance the Ozone kites have. Another thing I like about Ozone is their megatron bar, they sheath their depower loop in plastic and have above the bar depower cleat this means that your depower chicken loop will last as long as your bar does. The tradeoff here is that you do not get a working adjustable stopper.

You can always go with a C kite those do not have bridles, a slingshot fuel seems to be pretty durable, no bridle, less lines to break good reinforcement points. I can't think of a more solidly built kite especially since so few C kites without bridles are made now.

I would not consider a flysurfer to be that durable, and I love those kites, but if you have ever accidentally put a flysurfer into a tree, you'll immediately notice how easily it tears.

For LEI's go with something that has minimal or no bridle and pulleys... North Vegas, Rebel, etc. are very good. Ozones are generally good quality...the Edge has a bridle but does not have pulleys. I like the simplicity of the Ocean Rodeo kites...they're worth a look. It is not a hard and fast rule but imho simplicity = durability in most cases though there are exceptions. The Flysurfers are complex but they are also durable too (good design / quality control). They're not what everyone wants in a kite though....

I have used Ozone for the last 6 years & Never had a bladder or strut problem !!
I leave one of my two Ozone's in the car while i'm kiting and it gets 110 in the shade
at Mohave ; Never had a valve delam !!!!

Some of the threads on this forum about valves that delaminate , tend to make
me glad i chose Ozone ; there's some rather ticked off people who paid Good
money for their kites, just to see them break from heat.
Bille

I don't have enough experience with enough brands to give input on which are the most durable, but I believe that how you treat your kite is far, far more important than which kite you use. First off, I think that the vast majority of kite wear occurs on the beach. This mostly occurs during self-launching/landing and from leaving the kite inflated and fluttering on the beach.

1.) If you are self-launching and self-landing a lot, use a tether as your kite will never roll around. Yes, it makes you look like you don't know how to launch a kite, but the non-tethered self-launches cause wear and can occasionally go very wrong (especially in strong, gusty, or swirling winds). I think this is the single best thing you can do to prevent premature wear (if you self-launch and self-land a lot).

2.) Leaving kites inflated on the beach causes lots of wear and exposes them to lots of extra UV. If you aren't within five minutes of launching or landing, your kite should not be inflated. Period. No exceptions. Mostly because it is an inconsiderate thing to do on a public beach but also because it causes a lot of excess wear.

3.) If you want your kites to last, you'll have to repair them sometimes. Invest in some sair repair tape, patches of dacron with adhesive on one side (often is included with the kite), and some good quality sail repair thread (it costs about $3, don't use your girlfriends thin sewing thread). If you get any hole or rip of any kind, repair it immediately as they just get worse. If this is on the canopy, just put some sail repair tape on either side. If it is on the leading edge, you have to sew the patch down because of the pressure of the bladder. I've gotten plenty of leading edge rips (from kiting near lava rock) that I have successfully patched with adhesive sail repair tape (a layer on each side) that is sewed along the edge of the patch AND across the tear with sail repair thread. These repairs are holding up quite wel

4.) Avoid leaving kites in hot cars as this causes valve delamination (curse the industry for not using a glue that works in hot weather). This is often unavoidable, so consider multi-pump kites for the easiest repairs.

5.) If you really want durable kites, it seems that foils last longer than inflatables (from what I've heard, not from personal experience), whether or not the trade-offs are worth it to you is up to you.

My current kites are from 2006-2007 (flexifoil) and they are still going. All of the problems I have had with them have been either valve de-lamination (flexifoil's fault because valves shouldn't delaminate and because if they are going to, flexifoil shouldn't have put in a one-pump system) or rips in the kite from using them on a lava rock beach (my fault because lava rock will rip absolutely anything it touches).

Excluding valve de-lamination and kites that I've carried over lava rock, the only kite I've used that was damaged before it should have been was my dad's Best Kahoona (V2, I think) that got several rips in the leading edge bladder after using it exclusively on a sandy beach (and after only a few sessions of use). I did notice that the leading edge material cloth was really thin, but I don't know whether this caused the rips or not. When I took the bladder out there were several tears in it in different places. The replacement bladder has not ripped yet, but we started being far more careful with it (deflating bladder by squeezing in arms instead of pushing down on the ground, as I've done with every other kite). I don't know whether this was a fluke (managed to pump over a shard of glass on an otherwise clean sandy beach?), a lemon (just that kite got a bad bladder at the factory?), or if the Kahoona V2 was just not very durable. So don't let that report turn you off of Best kites unless you hear similar things from other people with more experience with them (for what its worth, the kite flew brilliantly).