Considering picking up a Naish Cult (2009) but there's not a lot of information out there. Any general feelings, good/bad about the kite?

This is going to be mixed use: land, snow and water

Most flying will be inland on lakes, how does it handle gusty winds?

This would be my first LEI...

what size? how much do you weigh?

I've heard if you're looking at 09 Naish Kites you may want to look at the Helix.

the 08 Cult was Naish's top kite but in 09 the Helix received a total redesign making it Naish's best kite of the season.

Also you should talk to whoever you are planning on doing your bladder repairs and make sure they will service sigma series kites.

I've heard the sigma leading edges are a pain in the butt to replace. supposedly 09's are easier then 08's but still just double check with your repair shop to make sure they are okay with servicing sigma kites. also you may want to ask about time and materials costs as well since the sigma bladders can cost quite a bit more then a standard SLE bladder. Also I would suggest staying away from Naish's internal 1-pump system. I've heard it has a lot of issues and adds $$$ to repair costs down the road.

Good luck with your decision dude!

btw can I ask why you are leaning towards Naish if you intend to use this kite for land and snow use as well? have you looked at the Flysurfer Psycho 4 at all yet? its about the same price...

btw i've been flying the P4 for awhile now and me and a couple other foil kiters in the area including Bigsteve and Powerzone agree that the P4 is actually a pretty good gust handling kite.

it does have some windtip folding but it does it in a safe easy to control way. me and powerzone were actually thinking it feels like a hybrid between a standard Flysurfer bridled kite and a peter lynn Arc. since its fast and easy to relaunch but handles gusts kinda like an arc.

its probably the coolest kite i've ever flown and has the best bar system I've ever seen. anyway just figured I'd mention it.

oh yeah the the bladder repairs you will know, for sure. liquid force the only tube kite i ever owned and never had a repair. around 300 hundred hours on that kite

That's a great point about bladder repairs, I wasn't even thinking about it. I don't have a local shop unfortunately, so maybe anything inflatable is a bad idea. I was only exploring it as an option because I've seen a bunch of newish 2009 cults going for reasonable prices on ebay, and found a few good reviews about them...thought they may be worth a try.

I'll probably limit my search to closed cells and twinskins. Back to the pondering phase....

Anybody have any experience with the HQ Neo's?? I think I would lean toward the FS's but I might as well consider all the alternatives.

I haven't demo'ed the Neo but I've heard its a decent kite. I'm a bit wary of a manufacturers first version of anything. For HQ its there first Closed cell that I know of so I'd be worried it might have a few quirks.

Keep your eye out for flysurfers on ebay.

Ted at flysurfer USA has started regularly posting a crap load of flysurfers at a time on ebay. I bought my 10m P4 from him that way. it was a demo but in great shape.


Also I know powerzone has a 10m P4 demo forsale and several Pulse 2 demo's so he'd be a good guy to talk to if you decide to go down that route. His service is top notch and he sometimes offers free repair for kites purchased through him.

I bought my 15m P4 through powerzone. I demo'ed an ocean rodeo rise 8m and 12m recently and after trying both of those I decided to go back to foils and picked up a 10m P4 because I liked the 15m so much already.

I still think maybe this fall when the winds start cranking again I may decide to pick up an 8m Ocean Rodeo Rise. I'd say Foils are great up to about 30mph winds but beyond that the winds are too unstable around here and a rigid tube kite actually starts to be beneficial. not to mention since tube kites are so much less efficient they can bleed off more power in really gusty conditions.

totally agree with all comments from nwsurfwakeskate in this thread.

it is exactly what I feel regarding foils versus LEI

I started kiting with foils (ozone, hq) then switch over to Flysurfer, then started kiting on water with Flysurfers, tried many LEI brands and always com back to Flysurfer.

I have 2 P4 (10m and 15m). I feel they are very close to a LEI while being a foil.

I self launch, self land, help my friends to launch and land, and I feel safe knowing that I will rarely have a repair, and if I do I can fix probably do it myself.

I have a kitefix kit in my car but it's brand new.

The worst can happen with a foil on water is the bow tie. It happened few times with Speed2 but never with the Pulse or P4. I was always able to come back to shore flying it.

A bridle breaks and you can still fly.

A bladder blow out (I have seen it often) and bye bye

you will get more fly time with a foil, with far less maintenance.

A lot of good advice here, thanks guys.

I'll keep exploring my options with a healthy bias towards Flysurfers

There are some good points on here about lei and foils. It really comes down to personal preference. I fly all Lei. Bladder replacement dosent happen that often especially on a new kite. I do all my replacements myself, no biggie. As far as foils,ive seen the bowties, and the dredded bridal tangle, Ive spent hours helping fellow kiter untangle his, and hes an experenced kiter. Both have there good and bad i guess. Both will last if they are taken care of. Most on this forum fly foils, so thats why they are somewhat biased toward LEI.

i've demo'd the NEO 11m nice kite. very easy, very stable . i think a release top hat on the main (poor location) was an issue but you can remove it. on a main line snatch launch if you have long arms you may grab it by mistake. for the money hard to beat.
it is not a high performance kite. peaks out at the intermediate level. great all around land and water bridled depower closed cell foil. very FS like feel flight and build. for about 1/3rd more $ you could have a FS.