Using 2017 North Evo 11m and 8m with one bar?

[BrianMaiden]

Can someone recommend one North bar that i can use on both my 11m and 8m North Evos? Ideally i'd like to be able to adjust the bar width and the line length .

Would a 2017 trust bar (small/medium) be ok? Does it come with line extensions to reduce the 24mm lies (for the 11m) to 22mm (for the 8m)?

I'm riding with 4 not 5 lines if that helps? Trying to keep the costs down by not buying two bars unless i need to. Dont really need the click system to power up and down.

Many thanks for recomendations

[Da Yoda]

Get the North Quad with the 22m lines. The bar adjusts from 42-49cm. It will be a bit less responsive on the 11m kite (vs. using a bar set at 53cm), but it will work just fine. If you want the ability to adjust your line lengths, get some aftermarket 3-4m line extensions since North doesn't offer this option (or make your own). 22m lines are nice for the surf and freestyle. 24m lines are better for all-around and/or lighter wind.
Hopefully North gets their act together in the future and introduces a single size bar that's adjustable, works perfectly on all of their kites and all sizes, and comes with line extensions to allow one to dial it in even more precisely. The two bar, two line sizes per bar option they have right now is f'ing stupid!

[Dan-at-North]

I agree with what Da Yoda says (mostly). But we do offer 2m extensions, so if you buy the S/M bar and want 24m lines, just get the 2m extensions. Tell your retailer you want item 44800-8136. They are listed as being for the Click bar, but I'm 95% sure they work just fine on 2017 and 2018 Trust bars as well (earlier bars did not have the removable pigtails so making and then installing extensions was WAY more complicated, which is why we didn't do it earlier).

You can use any of our bars (of any year) with all of your kites. Restricting ourselves to 2018, your options are the Click bar (effectively 49cm wide), the Quad 19 or 22m (the bar width adjusts between 42 and 49cm) or the Quad 24 or 27 (the bar adjusts between 46 and 53cm). There is also the wakestyle bar but unless you know you really want it, you don't really want it.

I agree with Da Yoda's suggestion. I like the S/M bar, I think 49cm is plenty wide, even when I'm on big kites. I use that bar/setting from 14m down to 7m. Then being able to drop it to 42 when you're lit on a 5 or 6 is really nice. If you get that bar along with the line extensions you'll have an adjustable width (42/49cm) bar with adjustable (22/24m) lines.
That said, a lot of people still prefer the increased turning speed you get from the larger bar (especially people in lightwind areas who ride mostly 16s and consider a 12 to be their high-wind kite), in which case I'd recommend you get the 24m bar. You can't easily cut that down to 22m, but you can still get extensions if you want 24/26m line options.

The Click bar is fixed length (same as the outside setting on the S/M bar, which is definitely the setting I would use on an 8m and 11m kite anyway) but comes with 22m lines attached to 2m extensions (so it's 24m out of the box, remove the extensions to get 22m).

Hope this makes sense, if you have further questions feel free to post here or PM me.

-Dan

[BrianMaiden]

Really helpful responses, thanks guys