Postby Dan-at-Duotone » Mon Jul 15, 2013 6:31 pm
Mike27-
You are correct in your impression. The easy way to think about how your connections affect the bar pressure is to think of a spot between the front connection point and rear connection point as being the center of effort for the kite (I know the engineers are cringing right now... I know I'm not using the correct terms. Please don't yell at me). The closer you move either connection point towards that middle spot (move the front connection back or the back connection forward), the larger a percentage of the load that line will take. So if you move your front connection point back (going from freeride to wakestyle) the front lines will take more of the load so there is less load on the rear lines which obviously means less bar pressure. Similarly, if you move the rear connection point forward (slower turning), it will take more of the load, resulting in higher bar pressure.
So in short to get the lightest possible bar pressure, you should use the rear connection point for both the front and rear attachment points.
On a related note, the further forward you put the front attachment point, the more depower you will get, so when you move the front attachment point back to the wakestyle connection you will get less depower and reactivity out of the kite.
As to the sizing thing, that is completely rider and spot/wind dependent, however if it helps, I have had an 8/10/12 quiver and switched to a 7/9/12. I preferred the 7/9 because I found myself often overpowered on the 8/10... The 2013 Vegas has significantly more lowend than the 2012. At the same time, one of our team guys, Craig, recently went the other way and says he prefers the 10m to the 9m because it's significantly slower turning for a relatively small amount of more power.
And for me, with gorge winds, I very rarely get blown off the 7, whereas the 8m was occasionally just too much. So as I said, it really depends on your local conditions and the type of riding you do.
Hope this helps.
-Dan