So today i went into the freezing water. I have to say when your looking at the water and somewhere on an sandbank a bit further away lays about half a meter of ice (just some spots) it doesn’t help with enthousiasm to go in that water. But well we did it anyways. Because I wanted to finally give those screamers a go.
Only problem was the wind.. it wasn’t really there. The first session was kinda weak. Nobody good get upwind but some managed to stay at a certain height. But me and a friend are between 30 and 50 kilo’s heavier then most of them. So we got the 14 and 12 screamer. The wind was just not enough to really go with it. I was riding the 12m.
And DAMNN what a nice kite. It felt so familiar right away. Loads and loads faster then my old 13m waroo, and more power and loads more speed. Eventhough I couldn’t keep height I went fast. My friend on the 14, had about the same problem. So after a while we stopped for a while. We where kinda disappointed so we checked the internet about what wind we actually had. About 12 knots with some gusts from 15. And on that point even less. About an hour later we tried again because slowely the wind was picking up. Maybe 13 knots, but we gave it a go but not too much.
Then a guy I know wanted to test the 14m since he’s also 30 kilos less. And suddenly the wind also started picking up. So he even could get upwind a bit after a while.
Then I got on my 12m, and damnnnn what was it nice. So fast and much power. Couldn’t queit find the sweetspot for jumping since it’s a little different then my waroo. The kite feels so good, stable and fast. It even felt good enough to try a backroll kiteloop, and I haven’t done that one too much and after a couple months of winterbreak I didn’t even think of it.. but at some point I wanted to give it a try.. WELL… lets just say that 12m does something while looping… the loop pulled me up a bit with loads of power resulting in a nice head first landing in the freezing water. I overturned to much and ended up way higher then I expected it too. It was really impressive to feel the sudden power in the loop.
Since the wind wasn’t really strong yet, me and that other guy changed kites, me on the 14 and he on the 12. I believe he liked it. The 14m had so much power, loads more then I expected. From the speed its similar to my waroo 13m but a bit smoother and much much more power. Maybe even a bit too much power when the wind picked up a bit. I even needed to depower (maybe because of the fact it was my first time in 4 or 5 months kiting again) but I reckon it was inbetween 17 and 19 knots tops.. but it had too much power for me at that point. So I got the 12m on again. And its simply a different kite. Its so much faster and feels lighter. Was really a lot of fun to ride.
The bar was great, I usually cramp up my hands in the first session with gloves on. But the bar felt really good. Nice grip and easy too use. One of the first videos of you dimitri was with you playing and fooling around with the bar, power/depower, stopperball, QR and that kind of stuff. I thought it was going that easy because you are that good… WELL.. I did all those things without any effort. Playing with the stopperball. I even could ride the 12m full on the stopperball with my hands behind my head.. NEVER could do that with my old kites. That’s how stable it is.
Also tried to release the kites a couple of times. I didn’t know what to expect since I read a bad review on the blade 09 QR, but it shows the 2010 improvements work really good. Didn’t cost much effort to release it, the leash and mini fith did there work just fine. And it was so easy to put back together. Specially compared to those pins on my previous kites.
The straps work really good, not too far away from me, and I like the elastic band that keeps the power strap on a steady place.
The barpressure, call me a sissy but the 14m had a lot of barpressure in those winds. Not that insane much as the first bandit had. But it was still a lot. Also at some point the kite even had a lot of power with the bar against the strap. Didn’t like that feel to much. But again maybe it had more to do with me not kiting several months. The barpressure on the 12 was waay nicer, cant call it a light barpressure but it sure wasn’t too much either.
Relaunch was easy worked a lot better then my waroo, it was really just waiting with one line in my hand and it launched again.
So screamers. Are obviously fast, have much more power then other kites I know. Very smooth steering. I found them very quick responding. An other guy said it had a bit of response delay which could be since he rides deltas. I didn’t notice any delay myself. Hangtime is sweet, the kites put me down very softly. And when you loop them be prepared to go hard.
In other words.. CANT WAIT FOR MY NEXT EPIC RIDE.
J. Tump
