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Then you have to consider Liability. I doubt many kite companies would say: USE ANY BAR. Does anyone do that now? They might. I don't know.

Well the other side of that is since they did not sell you the bar their liability is less...
1. Less things to break, less liability
Or
2. Kind of like selling an electrical appliance without attaching the plug. (We see this all the time at my work) anything that is not UL or CSA approved usually comes without a plug attached.
Basically I relieves the manufacturer of liability and the expectation is that you will have the product inspected and approved on your own.

Provided they supply specs on line length, throw, trim length a bar can be assembled easily to suit at your own liability.....

i recently spoke to the owner of a windsurf product company that is getting into the kite business. he said developing a bar took more time and money than his kites.

MrChevere wrote:i recently spoke to the owner of a windsurf product company that is getting into the kite business. he said developing a bar took more time and money than his kites.

so there is a good chance to see in the future a kite for 400$ and bar for 1700$?

another good "fog clearing" topic.

kites and bars are different things, and unrelated to each other. one of the only aspects of a control that may or may not be interchangeable with a kite is the leash system, some are universale like single centerline, some may not be like double centerline (or outside line)

it certainly is not necessary to have more than one bar.


another similar topic is boards and bindings. there was no reason for so many years that brands included bindings on their boards. riders with big or small feet or high or low arches just had to deal with what came with the board (unlike in every other board sport), as apposed to brands maintaining a consistent hole spacing and building a selection of bindings for a person to choose from to go on their board. starting to see this trend ending (hopefully) with a number of brands offering a variety of bindings for sale separate from their boards.

Laughingman wrote:

bob10 wrote:simple solution... if you dont want a bar, dont buy a bar, if you want a different bar, buy a different bar and mod as necessary... if you want a cheap bar... make your own

Check
Check and
Check

Now, I'm sharing what I know. Which is I can assemble a better bar using parts of several different kite companies then they can. You can to.

Not everyone wants to tinker. A lot of people just do not have the time...nor the knowledge to tinker and make a solution that is reasonably safe.

Also kite companies have not standardized how we connect to the kite...nor how much throw a kite needs or even how many lines a kite need.

I'd say if you take into consideration the number of hours you have spent on understanding and making a bar buying a complete bar is much cheaper. That said..it is great you have found a bar you like.

Correct Taut. It would be a pain to make my North Rebel bar fit a 4 line kite. I don't want go TINKER. Don't have the time. Plug and play is what I want. As you said the Bridals etc are Not standardized. The third side of Liability is that both the Bar manufac and the Kite manufac would be sued anyway. It won't be less chance of Liability that I can see. I could be wrong. I've. Been wrong once today already!!!

14ToeSide wrote:I doubt many kite companies would say: USE ANY BAR. Does anyone do that now? They might. I don't know.

Boardriding Maui is saying that (if the lines are equal length). They say that even when they develop their own control system it will be OK to use other bars.

i use 3 different brand bars on 3 different brand kites - no problem for me. Also I make up my own bars and lines from my fave components. The difficult to repair, over the top bells and whistle bars with loads of stuff for lines to catch on can be sold to someone else thanks!

kite companies will sell bars, better if they do as safety systems vary, as do line lengths, bar stroke and even kook proof connectors (which should be cleaned up industry-wide, just as safety deployment motion (push out) and red for port coding).

Who's gonna start the kook proof connector standardization? loops on the back lines anybody?