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Crossbow....my thoughts.

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sascho
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Postby sascho » Fri Jul 29, 2005 5:22 pm

What I don't understand about the Crossbow - how do you FULLY dump the power without loosing the kite? When you let go of the bar, it still hangs down from 2 lines, which makes me feel a little uncomfortable with the concept.

Also, any experience anyone with the bar accidentially popping through the stopper ball?

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Dax
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Postby Dax » Fri Jul 29, 2005 6:20 pm

sascho wrote:What I don't understand about the Crossbow - how do you FULLY dump the power without loosing the kite? When you let go of the bar, it still hangs down from 2 lines, which makes me feel a little uncomfortable with the concept.

Also, any experience anyone with the bar accidentially popping through the stopper ball?
If the bar is let out past a certain point (just past the stopper) it will fall. But there is a sweet spot where the kite will still fly but have trainer kite like pull.

toyletbowl
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Postby toyletbowl » Fri Jul 29, 2005 6:22 pm

dax...if i'm on snow or in shallow water and want to dump the kite with no power...or very very little power...will this kite sit there like a good little kite until i grab the bar for relaunch???

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Postby UNSAFE » Fri Jul 29, 2005 8:11 pm

From my experience, yes. The relaunch is also incredibly easy, pull a back line, it turns on it's side takes off hot, sheet out the bar and it goes up with no pull. We had people doing it the last couple days in wind that was too light to ride with no instruction on technique, they just did it and it worked everytime, 6-8mph on iwindsurf. Many of the riders are also snowkiters and this blew them away, we were doing it off the sand beach and water.

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spidermedic
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Postby spidermedic » Fri Jul 29, 2005 9:59 pm

sascho wrote:What I don't understand about the Crossbow - how do you FULLY dump the power without loosing the kite? When you let go of the bar, it still hangs down from 2 lines, which makes me feel a little uncomfortable with the concept.
When you FULLY dump power, the kite somes down. You can sheet out so that there is just enough to keep it flying though.
sascho wrote:Also, any experience anyone with the bar accidentially popping through the stopper ball?
Yes, I say it happen a couple of times yesterday when someone was fully sheeted and let the bar go. It's actually a pretty good safety feature if you think about it. If you move the bar out to the stopper, it won't pop.

Interestingly enough, the folks that accidentally popped the stopper were able to recover the bar, get control of the kite and reset the stopper without stopping/falling.

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DrLightWind
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Postby DrLightWind » Sat Jul 30, 2005 12:55 am

ed257 wrote:DrLW,
How was the bar pressure? Did you find it a bit on the heavy side like others have reported. For a kite that is setup to not ride against the stopper, heavy bar pressure is not a good attribute.
I have to tell you yes, it’s on the heavy side just like others have reported.
To me what helped was to reset the Override Stopper Ball to a lower position with an Allan Wrench,
to take the load off of my hands since I found so far I’ve been sheeted in most of the time anyway.
If you pop the stopper ball because of too much pressure or too early, resetting the ball is easy to click it in.
The Bar is PowerLock compatible so when the optional part becomes available it will be a must IMO.
I’m lesser weight than an average flyer but learned how to adapt the bar pressure during test flying.
So, to me honestly it’s not negative factor.
The X-Bow flies without any distortion and wingtip flares.
The backlines are connected where the L.E. ends not at the trailing edge of the wingtips like any other kite.
IMO the reality of bar pressure, lesser drag with more lift and achieving low and high end wind range in one kite,
has a lot to do with the refined wingtips and it's dual pulley sytem.
The X-Bow quality and flying attributes excels in everything
and the bar pressure will be completely eliminated by using the PowerLock.
I’m sure there are many other ways and solutions to that question if it’s really needed.
I'm waiting also what other creditable riders or techno geeks has to say and how to improve on it? :?:

Cheers,

DrLightWind

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Postby ronnie » Sat Jul 30, 2005 2:30 pm

Techno geek here,
The powerlock will be similar to resting on the stopper ball and will not reduce the pull required to steer. That comes from the 2:1 pulley system which doubles how far you pull the rear line, but also doubles the force required.
To solve these problems you need to change almost all of the kite design slightly to compensate, but the designers are making good progress and there are a lot of clever guys in their teams. Necessity is the mother of invention, but she sometimes takes a while to come up with something cheap enough.
Someone else suggested a pearl necklace type powerline. This could be locked at the bar using the thumbs, but as with powerlock, you would have to rely on a quick release from the harness, which would make the stopper ball redundant.

ronnie
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Postby ronnie » Sat Jul 30, 2005 2:35 pm

Sorry, should have said 'quick release from the powerline'.

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Mark for kiteforum rider

Postby Older Salt » Sun Jul 31, 2005 5:54 pm

I feel Mark should be drafted by us all to be the kiteforum sponsored rider.

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maba
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Postby maba » Mon Aug 01, 2005 3:32 pm

Got my chance to try Crossbow 12.
I am 93 kg, intermediate skills 8)
wind was gusty 5-7m/s side shore with some waves near beach
When Nitro 20 and TT 131 started driving me downwind as wind dropped, I switched to Nitro 17 and 180 directional Fanatic McCoy - the combination that was doing the job.

When I got the chance to switch to Crossbow still on directional, guys were telling it will not get me going. Well - they were not true :) Had to sine at first several times and as soon board picked up speed things started to work out.

The kite was very fast, very responsive and relaunch (do to fast turn) - wow! - easiest in my life. The power management takes some time to get used to - bar position really makes difference in power, so I had to remember keep it sheeted in.

Have to quote Mark: "It does however like to drift off to the side so some attention is needed." - it is one thing that has to be noted - not so easy to keep it straight up your head with one hand. The stopper ball does not stop much - even light pressure of bar makes it leave its position (easy re-click though). Definitely missing powerlock.

So if powerlock and stopper ball function are improved I would go for it! Would be interesting to hear about low end of size 16. Does it outperforms Contra 19.5?


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