Postby Dan-at-Duotone » Mon Mar 10, 2014 6:33 pm
Burn45-
If you are hooked in most of the time and are mostly doing freeride and waves, the Rebel will make you very happy. It's been our best selling kite for years, and according to the numbers I've seen it's the best selling model ever. There's a reason for that. It performs really well, but on top of that, being a 5-line direct-connection kite, many people find that the feedback and 'feel' of the kite are unmatched.
You can unhook the Rebel on waves and for freestyle, but that is for sure its weakest point. It's not super stable when unhooked, so if you take your eyes off it while on a wave it'll tend to drift up or down. It also has really consistent pull, which makes it very forgiving for freeriding and jumping, but affords little slack for doing aerial handlepasses.
So if you're mostly staying hooked in but want to dabble occasionally into some very basic unhooked riding like raileys or F16s, I think you'll be really happy with the Rebel.
The new 2014 Evo has been completely redesigned so that pretty much everything I said about the Rebel above will describe the Evo as well, except for the part about the 5-line direct 'feel' of the Rebel. So my recommendation for that type of riding would be Rebel unless you really prefer the feel of a bridled kite or have some fear of 5 lines, at which point I'd say Evo.
If you think you'll spend a good bit of time unhooking, whether on the waves or for freestyle, and you want to work on progressing beyond some basic wakestyle moves, you'll probably be better served by the Dice. It gives up just a little range and freerideability to the Rebel, but in my opinion the Rebel has the most range and is the best freeriding kite on the market, so pretty much every kite will give up a little range and freerideability to the Rebel. The Dice won't jump quite as well, it has slightly less grunt, it doesn't go upwind quite as well, but the sacrifices are relatively small considering how solid it works as an unhooked kite. It still works really well for freeriding, but it does really well in the waves and unhooked. Consider the Dice a do-it-all freeride/wave/freestyle kite.
The best advice anyone can give you, though, is to try to demo as many kites as you can before choosing. If this isn't an option, from what you've told us I think you'd be extremely happy with either the Rebel, Dice, or Evo.
Hope this helps.
-Dan