First I'd like to point out that while sometimes I review products, I never review places. This is rare, but needs to be done.

I just wanted to say that Chris(feyd) @ Hardwaterkiter.com has been a great place to deal with. Chris called me back in a timely fashion. He spent quite a bit of time on the phone with me discussing all options regarding kites/harnesses etc. that I was interested in. He then responded to email questions very quickly, and even went so far as to update the website within a day or two to help me order some accessories he suggested I have. Really amazing service.

To put icing on the cake, I made a decision this year to drop the snowboard and go strictly to skis. I do not own skis and know nothing about them. Chris took the time to answer every dumb question I had and then some. And he actually sounded liked he enjoyed talking about it and helping. I wanted to purchase skis/bindings/boots from a local place here in Minnesota that has given me great service in the past. Chris actually took the time to browse through their website and send me suggestions as to what he would purchase. Who does this? He actually helped me buy a product from somewhere else.

Nowadays when everything is getting less personal, it is very nice to run into a guy like Chris who just helps because he wants too. Needless to say he earned my business and I shall continue to give it to him. I hope you do too!

Mike

And he (Chris) posted about the experience on Facebook.

So apparently, it was a positive experience on both sides.

ATB,
Sam

Love your job and you'll never work a day in your life.

not surprised by this story at all...thanks for putting it up

I tried to find it on FB Indigo but was unsuccessful. I would be curious as to why he wrote about it lol, I was just another annoying customer .

I second everything said already. Chris has also helped me on numerous occasions with advice and purchases without a thought about personal gain. Def a stand up individual in my book!

If only he could make me go faster on skis...:D

Quote: Originally posted by mflander

I tried to find it on FB Indigo but was unsuccessful. I would be curious as to why he wrote about it lol, I was just another annoying customer .

Hopefully Chris won't mind.....



ATB,
Sam

Thanks for the kind words guys. We (Molly and I) really appreciate it.

For anyone who did not know that we are a snowkite school and retailer, we never really officially announced the start of Hardwaterkiter.com as a business in this forum. One because it's mostly a forum for buggy and water riders, and two as someone who frequents this forum I get turned off when companies pimp themselves in a forum environment.

And obviously there are other retailers here that have built long standing relationships with forum members and are more than capable of satisfying the needs of their customers in the forum. And we don't want anyone to feel as though we're stepping on their toes. We feel what we provide is different. We do snowkite only. We don't do snowkite to get us through the winter until surf season comes back. We do nothing but snowkite because that's what we know, what we teach and what we sell. We pick our limited gear offerings based on what works for snowkiting in most places and we know what works because we use what we sell. As mflander points out this is becoming a rarity in many gear intensive activities these days. For us, this is the only way to do business.

We just want to teach people how to snowkite and be able to supply snowkiters with the gear that a snowkiter needs.

So anyway there you have it. We hope to have the opportunity to provide more of you with the same level of service we provided mflander and we hope to build some reputation as a "go to" source for snowkite related stuff.

Again, thanks for the kind words. It's always nice to hear that people are happy with what you do. :D
-Chris

I'm going to need some serious instruction with the Apex...I can ski like crazy but putting that together with the awesome pull of this kite scares the heck out of me! My brother is in Manchester so hopefully I can get over by you guys when the snow fills the fields and the wind decides to blow~~~

We'd be psyched to see you. Being a good skier is a huge asset as learning the kite is relatively easy. My bet is there are just a few things you need to get checked out on before you feel really confident with your Apex. Having just the one size can limit you a bit if the conditions aren't quite right for example if the only time you've been out is in the higher end of the 7m's wind range. We have a full size range of school kites for all conditions as well as a nice little fleet of demos from Ozone, Flysurfer, Peter Lynn and HQ if you want to play with something new.

Speaking of demos, looks like we're getting a 15m Ozone Chrono demo which we're pretty excited about. :evil:

As I said we'd love the opportunity to shorten the learning time for you and get you riding like it's your job.

We start land based lessons as soon as snow allows, ice based lessons usually begin late December and we've started scheduling lesson time for 2014/15 season. I think we're going to have another killer season. :D