plummet wrote:Ok. So we know some kite brands are good at some things and worse at others.
As an example ozone canopies pin holeing easily.
Cabrinha bladders not as robust as others
I've heard that some north kites are too robust perhaps they are over engineered?
Do we ??? (know that some are good at some things and worse at others)
In some areas, maybe you are right - but this is more designwise I think.
But I dont know if I can name any brand that is "bad" at some specific things, over multiple years, so agree 100% with Starsky, it will most likely NOT be possible to make generalizations
An example could be the Cabrinha bladders - why do you say they are not as robust ?
Because you experience a lot of new defect Cab bladders yourself or your friends ?
Asking, because if I were to choose a kite brand, then our history here goes like:
In the C kite days, before 2005 where Bow/SLE slowly took over, Cabrinha almost killed themselves - at least in our region.
The bladders "went" in the seam, almost all of them - so a full extra set of bladders was delivered with each kite sold.
This was of course better than no extra bladders - but as the extra were from the same production, it did not help much - you still ended up NOT being able to kite anymore
This was known all over quite fast, so everyone ran towards other brands, and for many years to come since, there were not one single Cab kite around (almost in the whole country).
A natural way of fleeing out from problems - to leave the ship and find a new one
But if I should choose a kite brand, and I was hysterical about bladder problems - I for one would choose Cabrinha over the others, as Cab have learned their lesson and one must assume they have changed production and quality control very soon after, as otherwise they would not survive.
So Cab could, if you think about it, have the best bladders of all brands actually
An example (if the case it is what you remember too plummet) where it could be deliberately wise to choose some who HAS had problems, but learned how to solve them
North and Naish have had issues with valves delaminating in heat - but again, I am pretty sure this has/is being handled so better now.
So I would be careful and not generalize.
In order to tell what you personally have discovered of bad things, you need a year and a model with these weaknesses, and seen by many riders (and sometimes it is changed on a model in the same year).
Just a thought, that we should be careful to tell what year/model when complaining in public, and even then it could be a one-shot and not a "brand" weakness/strong side c",)
Peter