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Sonic 8m, Waroo 9m, Shockwave 7m

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kitenb
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Sonic 8m, Waroo 9m, Shockwave 7m

Postby kitenb » Mon Feb 27, 2006 2:55 am

We had a great day of winds today in Florida with winds averaging around 30mph most of the day...some gusts near 40mph at times. We pulled out a few kites from our shop to give them a try back to back. Flew the 8m Sonic, 9m Waroo, and 7m Shockwave. I work for Extreme Kites (http://www.oceanextremesports.com), so let me get that out in the open before my review. We carry these kites, and just about every other bow kite that is out now(Crossbow, Switchblade, Turbo Diesel, OR One). These are my thoughts from riding them today:

8m Sonic:

Positives: Light bar pressure, great high end, good low end(rode it later in the day when the winds backed off a lot and was still powered up), jumps to the moon, good speed(not slow, not super fast, just right), simple bridle, probably the smoothest feel of any of them.

Negatives: Most of these are with the bar, not the kite: don't like the depower cleat system they have on their bar. Made the mistake of starting out at full power and took me a few minutes to be able to get a hold of the depower end to pull in a few inches. Would like a better stopper ball so I can rest more..the current one didn't hold when I let go. Lack of pull through a bottom turn on a wave.

9m Waroo:

Positives: Light bar pressure, great high end, good low end, good speed, jumps to the moon(got a little higher on this one than the 8m Sonic...of course it is 1m bigger too...), better pull through the turns

Negatives: Not really much that I could find out. I've ridden this one in a lot lighter winds too. Probably the only negative so far is I find myself riding with the bar pushed away a lot and that is a bit awkward. Same thing on the Sonic. I guess without the 2:1 pulleys on the bar, it takes a little more to depower it.

7m Shockwave:

Postives: This thing had as much if not more power than the 8m Sonic and 9m Waroo. You could control it easier than the other two. Push the bar away only a few inches and most of the power is gone. Pull it all the way in, and watch out!. Good pull through a bottom turn on a wave, nice stopper ball that works so you can let go of your hands

Negatives: bar pressure was heavy. I knew the 12m had some heavy bar pressure, and didn't think the 7m would have much at all...but it did. Probably not anymore than the Crossbows, but after coming off the sonics and waroos, it fealt 2 times as heavy. I had some good jumps, but nothing close to the other two kites...but this is a wave riding kite, so jumping isn't really what it was made for...

Well, that is just a brief summary...wish we had more winds like this more often... My wife got this picture of a jump on the 8m Sonic.
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omg
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Postby omg » Mon Feb 27, 2006 8:03 am

excellent to hear a comparison between these kites! Thanks kitenb!

Have you tried riding waroo unhooked? I'm fearing a bit if it doesn't have a nice and solid pull from where you are able to get good pop and the other thing is if the pull when unhooked is much much heavier from c-kites?
And did you find Waroo smooth and stable?

Any comments would be appreaciated!

kitenb
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Postby kitenb » Mon Feb 27, 2006 3:59 pm

Unhooking on the Waroo and Sonic is not a problem at all. Bar pressure is no different than on any other kite when you unhook. The biggest thing is that you don't want to be overpowered on that size kite when you unhook. Just like when I ride a C shape kite, I usually go "small" if I am going to do a lot of unhooked stuff. It is the same with the bow kites. Yesterday when it was averaging 30mph with gusts close to 40mph, and I was very comfortable riding hooked in, I wasn't going to unhook on any of those kites... way to much power for me. But, late in the day when it dropped down to averaging mid 20's, I was very comfortable unhooking. Wind chart attached below. So, if you get the right size, for the right wind conditions, it is no problem at all... again, just like on a C shape kite.

In terms of which is smoothest for me for unhooking, the Sonic and Waroo are just about equal. The Sonic tends to like a lot more front line tension, so before you unhook on that one, make sure you have the depower line pulled in a lot(stay hooked in, pull the bar to full power, make sure it doesn't want to fall back...if it does, pull more depower line until it wants to just stay at the neutral position...then you are good).
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winds yesterday...
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Detlef
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Postby Detlef » Tue Feb 28, 2006 6:24 pm

It is interesting that I got comparable results in a test of these kites on snow.

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