2014 Liquid Force Envy 12m

Kite


Super cool fast inflate/deflate valve


A bit of fraying on the front edge


Let's caveat this review with the fact that our wind here is HORRIBLE. The summer is the worst. If you're insanely overpowered and then your kite falls out of he sky and hits you in the nose, that's sort of our typical day here. I bought the Envy because I was looking for something stable and predictable that wouldn't shoot way forward in the window during gusts, but would still remain airborne in the lulls.

I only flew the Envy a handful of times and in some of the worst summer conditions we have. During one session, the Wind popped up from about 0-8 (while I was flying my 14m Rally) to about 0-15-20, so I put away the Rally and pulled out the Envy.  This was the best session I had, and this is what I noticed. 

This kite has a lot of grunt. I was really surprised at how hard it pulled when I'd launch, bar out, trimmed at about halfway to the edge of the window. Once up, she's very stable as long as she has wind. It really doesn't move around a lot until You provide some input. Again, tons of grunt in the power stroke. I fly my kites fully powered a lot and the Envy has loads of extra power when you pull that bar in.

It turned surprisingly fast, but I wasn't super impressed with the bar-out turning speed. However, I'm probably comparing it to my 2012 Rally, which isn't really fair. The Rally pivots around and goes shooting off in your new direction; The Envy is buttery smooth and tracks on a stable path. I can see why people love this kite in places where the wind is somewhat reliable.

Also, the build quality is bomb proof except for some strange fraying on the leading edge. I don't think it affects the longevity of the kite at all, but it's sort of disconcerting to look at (see below) The inflate / deflate mega valve is killer, but it requires a special LF pump that I don't have, which is slightly annoying. Slingshot does the same thing. I think North finally allowed us to attach the hose directly to the kite with no adapter, which is cool. But I digress...

Relaunch is pretty easy, but not quite as easy as my Rally. In low wind, I found myself having to pull both break lines and flip it around a few times.  In decent wind, this is a total non-issue. 

The crazy awesome part about this kite I noticed when I sent the kite back across the window being me while landboarding.  The power build on the Envy is one of the smoothest I've ever seen.  It doesn't build slow, just smooth. I really could see getting freaky with this kite in the air... If only we had some wind to work with. 

The thing I didn't like about the Envy was a) it's weight and b) it's handling of constant gust/lull conditions.  It's a pretty heavy kite, due to the solid construction, but ultimately that means it takes some steady wind to keep it flying. So when a lull would hit, it would just ... Plummet. If I was moving, I could usually steer out of it, but it wasn't quite as fast or recoverable as we need here in this dumb wind. Also, since it has a propensity to sit back in the window (which I typically like) big gusts were really quite exciting. This thing has a lot of canopy near that center strut.  It's what makes it so smooth... But it also likes to catch all that new wind with all that canopy. Luckily it depowers nicely, but big gusts can still be a bit disconcerting.

Anyway, I would totally own one of these in the future, but it doesn't fit what I need here while I'm learning water in horrible conditions.  I'm switching it up to a North Rebel for a little more forward-flying, high aspect, rigid kite to help get around those gusts/lulls.  We'll see how that works out. 

Incidentally I LOVE the color and graphics on the Envy. I was sad to see her go:

My first water lesson was with a 10m Envy. With stout winds I found it very user friendly. Simple water re-launch