i personally tend towards Sliders. The pulleys are good too but I just have more faith in the sliders

I personally tend towards Pulleys. The sliders are good too but i just have more faith in the pulleys.

It's a difficult one isn't it!
We generally have damp wet sand that spells disaster for bridles with sliders, most pulleys I've used I've had no problems with, far less wear than with sliders that's for sure.

I've got some new proto sliders and some of the latest Ronstan pulleys I'm going to test over the next few weeks

The point isn't the sliders wearing the bridles a little faster in wet sand (which incidentally wreaks havoc with pulleys, rusting and wearing them to shit too), it's the fact that worn bridle lines don't mean you have to throw out the kite or order parts from a small village in fricken China. The bridle line is fully replacable in roughly 5 minutes by a semi-trained monkey, with widely available line purchased inexpensively at any boating supply chain. The line wears predictably, and visibly. It's cheap enough you can order a couple yards of it and stick it in your bag. Chances are you won't change that line more than once during the life of the kite.

A pulley wears internally, and you never know when one is going to give up the ghost during a kiteloop and F you up. If it fails, good luck finding and installing the new one on the bridles. The knots on the bridle line in most cases will not fit through the pulley (as is the case on my Cab SB.)

There is no advantage either way. One wears out a little faster, but you can see when it is about to screw you, and the other one will probably be fine for the entire life of the kite, unless it isn't, and potentially kills you.

Man, this shows again that you don't know what you are talking about.
The pullies are from Ronstan and are different to the ones Cab used.
The line goes through the pin hole and should the pulley fail, the line will still be attached to the bridle.
Take a minute and have a look at the design.

Dude, I was arguing pulleys in gereral versus sliders and rings. No need to get insulting and condescending.

Man all this talk of sliders is making want a cheeseburger

Hahah! +1

In all seriousness, can someone please explain, how pulleys vs. sliders give a kite more range? You'd think is more of a feel thing rather than range thing. I don't understand the physics of it I guess, the only thing I can see is the difference in radius from the pulley vs the slider, and I guess the distance the bridle has to travel on this radius, but do these minute changes really make a difference? or what's the actual explanation.

Tnx.

Just for discussion sakes I'll give this a shot...

Imagine your front connection point as a pivot point. When you sheet in and out the kite pivots on this connection point and either exposes more of the canopy to the wind or less. Now Imagine if that pivot point would slide as well... sheet in the pivot point moves closer to the rear/outer edge of the kite... sheet out and the pivot point slides closer to the front/center of the kite.
This allows a sort of dynamic aspect ratio...?

K so that is my guess... anyone want to correct me?

Some Para-gliding manufactures are "Thinking" about replacing
the guide pulley for the breaks, with a THICK but small diameter ceramic
coated Ring. The consequences for failure are a bit greater on a PG
than for our water kite, and we Both lay our equipment on the ground
for launching.

The Ring itself , really isn't that bad of a replacement for a pulley, if
the aria where the cord makes contact with the rind is slippery
and thick, (large contact aria) .
It also helps to use a braided cord like Spectra for the bridal, because
of it's "Lubricious" nature.

NOW -- a pulley with a ceramic coated surface for the wheel would
be great ; if the wheel froze-up ; the bridle would still slide kinda easy.

Ring OR pulley ; when the cord shows signs of wear, it's time to replace it.

Bille