Flexifoil Hadlow ID

[pwnd550]

Today I received the 12m Hadlow ID and Hadlow bar and unboxed them. Here are my first impressions:
The pump is as usual, yellow, but there is a Flexifoil sticker on it which I think will deteriorate if it gets wet.
The bar looks great! There are two chicken loops that come with it (one for unhooked riding, and one for hooked riding) and a handlepass leash. The lines look really strong, can stand up to 350kg I think, and have a nice dyneema protection cover on them. The bar comes with a bag that looks to be very durable with good materials and a good quality.
The kite is packed well. There is a Hadlow compression bag for the kite inside the bag.
The bag itself is really made of good quality and seems to be comfortable while on the back for carrying. There are two pockets at the side of the bag, where you fill find the repair kit and stickers. The repair kit comes with a ton of tubes (for the octopus system), materials to fix a hole in the canopy and the bladders.
One problem that might change in the future when I use the kite is that (the way the kite is actually packed) there seems to not be space left inside the bag for the pump, since there is barely for the bar..

Flexifoil seems to be a very reliable company, because I live in LA, and it arrived in 4 days, and the shipping was free.

Here are two pictures of the bag:

Screen Shot 2012-01-26 at 4.43.51 PM.png (536.17 KiB) Viewed 2400 times

Now I hope this kite is great! I'll post up a review after I return from Punta Cana in a month, and maybe pictures too!
Thomas

[dandaka]

I had tested this kite for 20 minutes in Boracay, 12m². I can't say, I'm positive about it (I ride North Vegas most of time for unhooking).

I was little underpowered and it was crowded, so I tried to jump hooked-in few times. After one of small sent jumps I fell in the water. I was looking at the kite and was very impressed. It was falling from the sky right from the zenith to the water, turned upside down. I was looking and it was falling and I couldn't do anything about it. So it felt down fluffy with completely slacked lines. After I relaunched it easily, BUT.

I have never experienced such this with Vegas and will never ride a kite like this. If you fly under Vegas kite hardly (which could be the case with bad performed kiteloop, but definitely not after SENT JUMP!), it could become fluffy for a few seconds. But still stays where he is, still flying and still manageable to get out of this fall. I'm not pimping you Vegas, since I'm sure that every good kite should behave like this. When you learn jumps and tricks, you will always get slacked lines and kite should not fall like ID.

Bar of ID is ok, but depower setting could be much better (I like simplicity of North).

My friend (owner of ID) also confirmed this behavior and he wants to sell it.

[pwnd550]

I had tested this kite for 20 minutes in Boracay, 12m². I can't say, I'm positive about it (I ride North Vegas most of time for unhooking).

I was little underpowered and it was crowded, so I tried to jump hooked-in few times. After one of small sent jumps I fell in the water. I was looking at the kite and was very impressed. It was falling from the sky right from the zenith to the water, turned upside down. I was looking and it was falling and I couldn't do anything about it. So it felt down fluffy with completely slacked lines. After I relaunched it easily, BUT.

I have never experienced such this with Vegas and will never ride a kite like this. If you fly under Vegas kite hardly (which could be the case with bad performed kiteloop, but definitely not after SENT JUMP!), it could become fluffy for a few seconds. But still stays where he is, still flying and still manageable to get out of this fall. I'm not pimping you Vegas, since I'm sure that every good kite should behave like this. When you learn jumps and tricks, you will always get slacked lines and kite should not fall like ID.

Bar of ID is ok, but depower setting could be much better (I like simplicity of North).

My friend (owner of ID) also confirmed this behavior and he wants to sell it.

So you didn't like it? How was it for freeride? What were the conditions when you kited? What would give this kite out of 10/compared to Vegas?

[dandaka]

> So you didn't like it?

I didn't like it at all because of this stalling issue. You can't use kite like this for tricks and unhooking.

> How was it for freeride?

I find my Vegas better, but I'm riding Vegas 2 years since I learned, no real experience with other kites. I would stick with delta/bow shape for a freeride. Also you need to check windrange before talking of freeride performance.

> What were the conditions when you kited?

Boracay, flat water, around 16 knots, very stable wind.

> What would give this kite out of 10/compared to Vegas?

20 minutes are too small to judge a kite.

[pwnd550]

> So you didn't like it?

I didn't like it at all because of this stalling issue. You can't use kite like this for tricks and unhooking.

> How was it for freeride?

I find my Vegas better, but I'm riding Vegas 2 years since I learned, no real experience with other kites. I would stick with delta/bow shape for a freeride. Also you need to check windrange before talking of freeride performance.

> What were the conditions when you kited?

Boracay, flat water, around 16 knots, very stable wind.

> What would give this kite out of 10/compared to Vegas?

20 minutes are too small to judge a kite.

Alright thanks for the review man
So you said it's not good for unhooking, but did you try jumping the same way again in those 20 minutes?

[dandaka]

Yeah, one more time I've experienced stalling, but I've managed to keep the kite out of falling down. Also I've experienced almost-stalling on all my jumps, when I was dropping the kite just before landing — no power and kite unstable.

After these issues I decided to go out of water, since it was crowded, last day of my friend in Boracay and I didn't want to mess things.

One hour later I was riding my 2011 12m² Vegas and was very comfortable with every move with it. But I'm very used to it, so it tells almost nothing about ID.

[pwnd550]

Yeah, one more time I've experienced stalling, but I've managed to keep the kite out of falling down. Also I've experienced almost-stalling on all my jumps, when I was dropping the kite just before landing — no power and kite unstable.

After these issues I decided to go out of water, since it was crowded, last day of my friend in Boracay and I didn't want to mess things.

One hour later I was riding my 2011 12m² Vegas and was very comfortable with every move with it. But I'm very used to it, so it tells almost nothing about ID.

Yeah I get that. Maybe it's also a question of being used to riding the vegas and not the ID, who knows. I'm pretty impressed about what you have told me, because since then I only read reviews that were only positive (there are not much, but they sure seem biased sometimes). This is pretty worrying since I'm going to Punta Cana in 3 weeks and might not get to test it during this time, and if I do not find it good, it's hard to send it back since I have to pay the shipping for that huge bag to go to England to get my money back... I really hope it works well for me, because that would have been such a waste of money then.

[dandaka]

My friend is riding Fuel 9m²/7m². He liked my Vegas 12m² (tried for 30 mins for the first time) and confirmed my experience with ID kite stalling.

Hope you'll be happy with your kite

[2extremes]

I had a go on the 12 when it came out, You definitely can unhook on this kite!
the lines on the bar are short so it may take a while to get used to, straight out the bag you may find the back lines to long once you have the kite set up nicely it shouldn't stall.

Boosts big and loads of hangtime it's an impressive little kite just wan't for me coming off the hadlows

[Dr_Rosen]

I have tried the ID several times. It is really nice and definately very suited for unhooking !
Good power too. The barpressure is a bit high but with the Flexi bar you ride with arms pretty straight so no problem really.
I have also tried Vegas several times and will not say it is better suited for uh at all.