Firstly let me introduce myself, I am Andrew from near Cambridge, UK.
I have recently purchased my first power kite, a HQ Beamer 4m, I have flown this quite a few times now, on the beach, hills and open areas in various
wind conditions and feel fairly confident with it, I also have a land board but not taken it out yet.
I am looking for a control bar and harness which would suit this kite (not wanting to spend a massive amount of money though)
A harness will be an improvement but I am unclear why you want to add a bar?
Flying on a bar with a fixed bridle kite dumbs your kite down and gives you much less precise brake control.
You can add a " strop " line to the tops of your handles to " hook in " and still have the fine control of brakes. After LOTS of time and a little
money spent trying to adapt a bar to FB kites I accepted this fact.
Ozone turbo bar or new pl crossover bar MIGHT work well. I believe the Beamer is one of the kites that work on it. Personally I would probably stay on
handles and save your money.
Thank you for your replies, well it was to get more into land boarding really and being new to it all browsing YouTube vids they pretty much all use
control bars. I must admit I do think I would miss having that amount of control as I use the brakes quite a lot and just wanted to take some of the
strain out of my arms and thought that was the only way to achieve this.
Herbo99 - I'm with the rest of this esteemed crowd. IMHO, four line FB kites are best flown off of handles, period. If you want to hook in then a
strop is the way to go as others have mentioned and explained earlier in this thread.
When I was new to the sport of mobile traction kiting (in my case, buggying) I paid nearly $200 for a Peter Lynn Cross-Over Bar for exactly the same
purpose as you seem to be trying to do. I used it twice with two different FB kites (in this case a PL 4m Hornet and PL 4.5m Uniq Quad) and despite
all the fiddling and adjustments I could muster couldn't wake up the kites. "Dumbs down" as noted by Blade is an understatment; "lobotomized" is more
like it. I turned around and sold the bar at a loss and moved on.
Should you want to go this route I might suggest looking at two videos posted on YouTube by Big Mike:
Ozone has discontinued its Turbo bar so I believe the only one really available at this point is the PL Cross-Over.
Great that you are enjoying yourself! If you are wanting to get going land boarding I might humbly suggest you consider going with a DP kite. One
suggestion I would have would be to explore the line of Flysurfer Peak 2s. These are "single skin" depower kites that get flown off of a bar hooked
into a harness. Wonderful kites with the ability to change the pull on your body based on how you work the bar; something you won't really be able to
do from a PL Cross-Over bar too well with any FB kite. The issue here is that a FB kite tends to transfer wind load directly to the user, potentially
throwing you off balance on your board, while a DP kite can with simple movement of the bar sort of even out the pull allowing you to stay up and
rolling. Probably not an issue for accomplished riders, but certainly a consideration when starting out.
Have fun and stay padded. Helmet, knee and elbow pads please!
Thank you for your replies, well it was to get more into land boarding really and being new to it all browsing YouTube vids they pretty much all use
control bars. I must admit I do think I would miss having that amount of control as I use the brakes quite a lot and just wanted to take some of the
strain out of my arms and thought that was the only way to achieve this.
If you look closer at the videos you will see that 99.9% of those pilots are flying Depower Kites. They are the kite of choice for land boarding.
Getting a harness and getting comfortable hooked in will not be a bad choice but it will only be a step in your learning process. I NEVER push it with
a harness and FB kite hooked in! That said hooking in to rest up + walk back upwind will save a ton of energy and allow you a lot more flight time per
session. I cruise hooked in ( now I am experienced ) . I just don't push it hooked in to FB.
Harnesses become a very personal choice. In general people riding mountain boards like seat harnesses. Waist harnesses tend to ride up.
Save the money you were going to spend on a bar and use it toward saving up for a depower kite. If money is tight, shop used ( on here is a good safe
place ) and consider selling your 4m to fund a depower once you have learned all you can from it. 4m isn't exactly a low wind kite so I suspect once
you go depower the 4m won't see much action? DON'T impulse buy! Get advice from folks before putting your money down.
Great advice here Herbo,... I agree on all fronts. If you're interested in landboarding, you'll be best served by a depower kite. Beamers are GREAT
kites, but unless you are flying in really clean coastal winds, you will likely have trouble getting on a board. I say consider the Beamer a trainer
and move into a depow when you can.
The Beamer 4m (at least the IV version) works very well with the Ozone Turbo Bar. And while you will lose a little bit of control, I never needed to
do anything with the kite that I couldn't do with the Turbo Bar.
For me, it's about comfort and ergonomics - I'm more comfy flying with a bar than with handles and strop (which is undeniably cheaper, smaller and
better control).
There's some footage of flying the Beamer 4m and turbo bar on this vid: Day after Labor Day
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