newbies...who had most influence on kite brand you bought?

[TheKiteLife]

...your friends...magazine ads...some pro rider...local shop...brand reputation....or kite instructor?

[humandrive]

What the local shop was selling/demoing and what the local riders were on.

[slightlyimperfect]

#1 for me was price. I also fell for Best's marketing.

Then I looked into Ocean Rodeo, because it's Canadian and has a great rep.
Haven't looked back since.

[BWD]

Friend for the first one.
Now it's mostly up to what I can try out before buying!!
What certain people say, including a few here, piques interest,
but rather pay for kites I have flown than otherwise.

[Windrider]

For my first kites (late 2002), I asked the local Naish shop because I already knew them from windsurfing daze. They steered me to one of the better beginner kites of the day, the Aero. Good choice for kites of that time frame.

For my kites of three years ago, it was my brother-in-law on Maui who liked the Best Waroos a whole lot and told me of the sizeable number of Maui riders selling their Cabriihna bows to get Waroos because of the performance improvements. The price was just icing on the cake.

For my most recent purchases of EH kites, it was purely self-testing. I tried them and was blown away by the performance. Again, the pricing was just icing on the cake.

So far, I haven't found either advertising or forum input to be a major influencer.

[voodoospirit]

none, made a self protocol for my kite choice. at the time, i only knew cab,F-one, the kites i learnt on. i use the kites on snow and water and wanted the same quiver for everything.

needed
- autonomy = exit LEIs. so peter lynn or flysurfer. FS have the edge on that.
- fast relaunch: bows and flysurfer
- tolerant kite (gusty conditions) = many kites. peter lynn known to be safe kites, close to impossible to frontstall. huge capacity to drift.
- solidity and easy to repair + ground crashes: flysurfer then peter lynn.
- "fast turning": C-shape like or hybrids: many kites + Peter lynn
- all round kite. = heavy foil advantages ground/snow/water
- easy and forget kite = many kites, PL have the autozenith which is cool for waves (no shorebreak nightmares), board recuperation and so..
- price = peter lynn and some LEI brands.

put all that in an equation = peter lynn has been my choice.

never flew one, learnt the specific relaunch, kite have some drawback that i don t like but in the overall (especially since the synergy), it still have huge advantages over some specific situation disadvantages.

i kept the same protocol for my ultra lightwind kites, flew many LEI kites that were supposed to be very lightwind/light wind specific, none matched the speed² 15, so i bought one. this kite suck in my turbulent wind region but when i go to the sea, that kite rocks and burry every other kites.if i had to keep a kite for my region only and lightwind, it would be a switchblade 12 IDS or not, but i don t have enough wind days for that here...the speed² allow me 80% of my rides in summer (water 7/12knts) and in winter (snowkite 6/10knots) with the ability to be relaunched in 6/7 knots winds both water/snow.

my protocol works well, a friend used it and ended with a Vegas cause his priorities were not the same.

[mv]

I looked at what everyone else was doing and did the opposite.

I went foils while everyone else was going LEI bows. It has worked out great. Now there are more and more of the LEI bow riders wanting to ride my foils.

mv
http://www.kitesurfinfo.com

[cloudsfan]

I spent many hours on the web looking for my ideal quiver and ended up buying Flysurfer without having tried anything other than Waroos (at kite school).
I too had defined a lot of criteria that had to be met, among which range of use, build quality, depower, easy relaunch, solo use. I so purchased through Foilzone a Pulse 1 quiver (7-10-13) and then a SA19.
During my first year (I ride at minimum twice a week) I observed what worked for what kind of rider in my region (strong, turbulent, unstable wind) on the beach and tried a bunch of LEI. I also took constant note of which kite I was using, in which conditions etc...
Finally, I swapped them all for a Genetrix Hydra 2007 quiver (all sizes) for a fraction of the price, but put more attention to my boards quiver !
Happy with that now. One sure sign : I don't read new gear tests so eagerly as I did before... It's the weather bulletin that gets all my attention !

[cramit_the_frog]

i spent time on here looking at posts about kites, one stage i thought the pl gorilla sounded great with its auto zenith! ah to be young and naive.

no one in my town i new that kited, only 4.

couple of other types of kites i was interested in at the time. i never heard of bows at the time of my lessons and took my lesson on a airush c kite


the instructor after gave me a rough idea of of kite size and board i should buy and a couple of places i should go to look for second hand kites as they had a good selection.

so went to one of the shops , i was more interested in new kit than second hand so was looking at the cab recones , but there was also this new type of kite the shop owner was raving about, i didn't know shit from shit at the time so i walked out with the switchblade 1. was an easy kite to learn on.. no regrets!

i swapped to north after looking at the kite video of the 07 rebel being used in egypt it looked like a really nice kite and at the time the sb felt like it didn't have the performance i wanted.

i now ride predominantly the vegas because the rebels went flatter and lost some of its appeal that the first 07 had.

online... to
instructor... to
shop... to
video... to
finally knowing and understanding what i like

[kitesurfrabbi]

lou back in the dayy when he was riding for LF!