Hi,
Yesterday we had a great session with 1m waves, side-off wind. Started on 9m ended on 7m.
I used both kites on 20m lines north 2008 bar, outer back line settings.
The wind was very gusty with lulls down to almost zero and full power when going down the wave. Riding back side, gave great crashes
.
First out in the 9m. It is definitly a Rebel. Not like the Evo in bar feeling. This means It is much harder to kill the kite on the back lines than 08 but still easier than on Evo. So i had some adaptation time.
The 9m kite turns very fast and tight just as i like it. Felt better than 2008 version. The most noticeable difference from the ones from previous years is stability. It is almost impossible to make it fall out of the sky.
A very important thing for me is kite handling huge loads made by strong gusts. This is what made sell my Vegas 2006 and made me uncomfortable in radical days with Rebel. Note that all brands i saw in my spot have this problem: when hit by a huge gust, kite distorts and falls out of the sky. These two babies are super solid rock. Really great news!
The wind had great failures, so i cannot give more info about the kites in the air now. But they felt very similar to 2008, with more power.
Then we switched to the 7m. The first feeling was that there was not much difference to the 9m. Both in power and behaviour. The wind might have picked up more. In the big lulls i sometimes killed it by oversheeting but it doesn't backstall. It just does nothing.
I will definitly use the forward backline setting on the next ride.
I am still struggling with 5th line length. It must be the bar because the problem was the ame with both kites. I will check the bar line length today, but on my 2008 bar, what happened was that both kites didn't turn well. Both kites where hanging on the 5th line with both front lines slack. In this state, the kite doesn't respond to bar input to turn. I lengthened the 5th line 5cm and it was perfect.
New One pump is great to pump up when in the rush to go to the water, same time to pack. Nice to have, i hope it is as reliable as it should after so many years of thses solutions in the market.
I weighted Rebel 2007 7m and Rebel 2009 7m and 2009 weights less 70 grams than 2007 (2,660 kg vs 2,730 kg) so the strut removal + stronger material + onepump ended up in the same weight.
Here are a couple of frames from the video i did with a Oregon ATC 3000 cam (the cam was not set right, though, so even some tandem wave riding we did where not on "tape"...
).