anyone try a peak on a born ergo bar or something similar? that just might be my answer for small field snow-tivation.
i was going through the old discussion on the aussie site and decided to try that type of bar on an old 3m beamer, then it hit me that the peak might work well in that manner.
tom

I swear I saw somewhere that someone was doing this, but I can't seem to find it now. Maybe try flying with your current bar off the bridles in light/moderate wind and see how it goes? A friend here rides his skateboard and a 3m Slingshot B3 off bridles attached to a carbon tentpole in a U shape as his bar. I think he uses it much like the kite wings, where he just pulls it out of the wind window to depower. On your 4 line kite, you can set your trim so there's no backstall and ride unhooked in the same way.

edit - here's what I was remembering... 2m lines on an explore, but same idea:

How are the snow feet? Any more time on them, can you dig enough of an edge to get upwind?

another interesting idea there. thanks. nothing but green/brown grass here since the 9 inch hammering of snow in early november. that's allegedly set to change this weekend. normally we'd have 2 feet of snow on the ground now, and be getting hit with a couple/few inches every couple of days.
while i'd certainly like to give the snowfeet another go, i'm not unhappy to not have to shovel that crap and clean my car off multiple times a day.
what we're set to get here is snow of 5-7 inches during the night on friday, then 37 degrees and rain all day saturday. this is a nice recipe for nightmarish traveling.
tom

been thinking - my snowskate bottom edge probably isn't 24" long. those seem to go upwind ok. the snowfeet have a longer (combined) edge length than the snowskate.
while the snowfeet are shown in tramped-down snow, the writeup for them states that they'll work in almost 8" of snow. that remains to be seen, though. i suppose that with any lifty sort of kite they'd do that ok.
tom

Yeah - I have no doubt they will work, just curious about your real world experience.

I would imagine Randy would have a lot to say about alternate handles + short lines in small places, he seems to be the king of kiting like that :D But I guess you're looking for info on Peak in particular. Looks like you may get to be the guinea pig!

It seems to me that any device you can contrive that will create a differential in front to back line effective length would steer a peak okay.

How much differential? It's more than I can manage on regular length handles.
I'm thinking the distance between a bar all the way out (the line is doubled) and a bar all the way in is measurable and the minimum for a "one handle" set up.

My Peaks fly in a small field with bumpy wind. Attempts at short line flying, under these conditions has been unrewarding.
My Peaks will often fold up on the tips with light wind and 20m lines in my small field, however the smoother wind on my ex-field allowed for a full kite even close to the ground.

Just an old guy babbling. Now I'll go empty my spit cup.

excellent thought process regarding necessary bar length. please continue to babble at will.
thanks!
tom