Power Kite Forum

Single bar for quiver OR seperate bar for each kite?

IFlyKites - 5-8-2016 at 09:27 PM

Wondering if everyone uses a single bar for their whole quiver of depower kites or a separate bar, (that the kite comes complete with) for each kite?

Personally, for me it would make sense to just use one bar for all kites. But at the same time it would be a bit of a hassle to change the bar every time. Thoughts? :puzzled:


rtz - 5-8-2016 at 09:46 PM

For me; depends on lots of variables.

For LEI kites; I could have only one bar since line attachment is a non issue.

DP snow kites; I'm not going to hook up lines each time on a large foil kite in the wind.

BUT; it depends on how often one goes out to kite. Everyday or once a month? Just going to use one kite for the whole day or be swapping kites as the wind picks up then dies down towards the end of the day?

The hassle vs's the convenience.

Or if one only has two kites. A big one and a small one and one gets used ~90% of the time. Do you fly one size most of the time? Some people live in places like that.

canuck - 5-8-2016 at 09:51 PM

I have bought most of my depower kites RTF so it is not much of an issue. I think there is more than the bar to consider. I have one bar and 27m line set for my PL Venoms and find that the 10m behaves well but I have to add pigtails to get the 13m to auto-zenith. It is not a hassle to change the bar/lines but it sucks when I leave the pigtails in the 10m bag.

crazyherb - 5-8-2016 at 11:12 PM

I fly two bars on 3 kites...
It's not the bars, it's the line lengths I keep on those bars:

30M lines on one bar for light wind-big kite days
22M lines on the other bar for all-round

Steve

B-Roc - 6-8-2016 at 12:20 PM

Dedicated DP bars and dedicated handles for each kite for me. I fly foils.

volock - 6-8-2016 at 12:32 PM

I think it depends as much on snow/land/water and how often your wind likes to dramatically change as much as anything else. I find swapping a bar between LEIs for water to be fairly non-issue for me. When snow-kiting in constantly changing conditions, having to swap a bar sucks and I curse not having a bar for each. Wind also seems to be more consistent when it's doable to water kite, vs what I get for snow and land.

ssayre - 6-8-2016 at 01:33 PM

+1 for what everyone has said. I use my peaks mostly on long lines and purchased them complete. It is very nice to simply unwind and launch. im making an additional depower bar that has 5m lines. So I'll have 3 dp bars for 2 dp kites.

My nasa stars share 2 bars with short and long lines between 4 kites. When sharing control gear between kites, always detach the lines each time out. It never fails, next time out I usually need a different size which involves detaching from one kite and attaching to another which is a pain. So I always detach at the end of a session if I'm using shared control gear.

Windstruck - 6-8-2016 at 02:40 PM

I've got eight DP kites all RTF so right there you have your answer. I've got four Peak2s that come on two different bar widths. I further make width adjustments such that I run my 4m P2 on the narrow setting (pigtails coming off the inside of their attachment points) while I run my 6m P2 wide on the same narrow bar. For my 9m and 12m P2s I run both with the lines set wide on the wider bar. This gets me a little more spunk in the 9m and all the spunk I can get in the 12m that generally turns like a barge.

For my four Access sizes I just run them the way they came, all RTF.

carltb - 6-8-2016 at 02:58 PM

2 leopards get flown on one bar. 4 chargers get flown on 1 bar and a fury on its own bar. I have bars for every kite I own, but if I could get away with it, id only use bar for every kite, but different kites need different bar set ups.

grigorib - 7-8-2016 at 08:21 AM

Have two primary bars for all my kites:
- 52cm, 22m lines, regular freestyle
- 52cm, 30m lines (and optional extensions to 37m) lightwind and foiling

Used to use longer bar for larger kites but since my current lightwind kites are 15m Turbine and 14m Rally 2012 they are quite responsive on regular bar length.
Shorter bar for smaller kites wasn't adding value.

hiaguy - 7-8-2016 at 03:34 PM

Generally, my buggy lives in my car and I grab a couple of kites from my garage that I thinS-P-A-M-L-I-N-K-ll fit the session. When there's enough time/space/wind to fly, the last thing I want to worry about is where a bar is and taking the time to switch things around. 5 DP kites - 5 bars. Same thing with my foils - lines and handles on all of them.

Kober - 7-8-2016 at 07:54 PM

I use separate bar or handles for each kite .... Mostly because there is always some small adjustments for each kite that I do to make it fly the way I want it.... Also is much easier to sell RTF kite when you done then kite only ..... For LEI you could use one bar ..... but size of bar make a difference too .... I would never use bar from my 14m on 7m kite .....