So I was on the beach the past two weeks and bought a kite for the kids, which in the end became very much my fascination! It was the typical triangular/dart shaped 2-string one,so nothing fancy, but the first time I’ve ever learned to get a kite to ‘move’- great fun doing big dips/figure of eight moves, etc.

I’m thinking of getting more of a canopy/training style kite, to play a bit, but I’d be keen to get one which could be good training towards kite surfing. I might not get any further than the kite, but if it developed the potential skills to move on, all the better. Any tips/good buys?

I’ve got an Ozone Flow 4m. Maybe look at the 3m if kids will be using too.

Its a basic friendly 4 string kite. It will drag you reasonably easy and will teach you all about the wind window and how to fly them to get the most out of them.

The other one to look at is the Hq Beamer. I just thought the Ozone looked nicer 😉

Have a look at the Kite Crowd forum.

I don’t fly mine as much as I used to. But still great to take to the beach in the car.

Thanks- Ozone caught my eye, but only as a friend of mine used to have one of their paragliders. 3-4 meters sounds about right!

I’ve got a 5m Flexifoil Blade and it’s a monster if there’s quite a bit of wind.
Good training for learning control on handles or a bar, and a right laugh on the beach for dragging. Should find a fair few second hand as well.

Great stuff- I take it these are just hand controlled/4 line kites, nothing involving a harness? And is there a difference/preference between running handles or a bar?

Ozone are a great balance of performance / price.

If you want a Beamer I’ve one I’d part with.

A Blade is many things, but a My First Kite it is not, unless you line it up to pick you up on the beach and drop you in A&E.

Have 6-7 of various sizes of which the new year will see then being slimmed down.
The Blade 6.5m will run run handles or bar/harness and happy pick up a 15st person

is there a difference/preference between running handles or a bar?

Lies To Children answer; you want handles for land and bar for water.

In honesty, I’d suggest finding a local club / LKiteS to talk to, rather than running out and spending a not inconsiderable amount of money on something that could hurt you in the face. A good shop may let you play with a few.

see below for my previous adverts (the 4mtr blade has now gone)

https://flic.kr/s/aHsk4onsTJ

Up For sale is my Kite quiver.

All in excellent crispy condition and only used on nice grass, no sand gravel or ploughed fields.

Flexifoil bullet 1.5 in orange with the bag 25 mtr lines and ozone kite killers/handles £90 pound posted

Flexifoil 2.5mtr bullet in grey and purple (no original rucksack but i will supply similar) flexi kite killers and handles £90 posted

Flexifoil model iii 4mtr blade in a orangey red colour complete with sturdy rucksack kite killers handles and 25 mtr lines. £125 posted

All are in excellent condition and not used for the past 2 years. Stored all dry and ready to fly.

All 4 handle obviously no tears or pulled lines etc and if you want all three then i can do a discount.

Items are on the wirral.

Thanks

Pace

Whilst we’re pimping,

I’ve a near-mint Flexifoil buggy for sale too.

Also while we’re on this train… I have a 14ply carbon Trampa Kiteboard with Scrub bindings, wheels, and trucks with red primo tyres.

You can have a great deal of fun with something 4 line as small as 2-3m in a good wind. Go for something designed more for traction rather than lift, it will drag you along but not try to get you airborne too easily. You should be able to get something for around £130 complete with handles and lines, The Powerkiteshop often has good deals. HQ Beamer or PKD Buster are great starter kites. I am only small and 10 stone but if you are larger then a bigger kite smay be possible. Use kite killers as well,these depower the kite if you let go of the handles in an emergency. Be warned, unless you work out a bit, your upper body will ache like heck after a good session! Start at the edge of the wind window on first flights to see how the kite powers up when it gets in the power zone. Great fun but can be hurty if not very careful to start with.

You can have a great deal of fun with something 4 line as small as 2-3m in a good wind…..Great fun but can be hurty if not very careful to start with.

Brilliant post, start to finish.

Too many people think that they should just get the biggest, baddest kite, right away. They’re the people in A&E, as others have pointed out.

Get something small and fun. Learn. Have more fun. Then get bigger.

Pace- I may be interested in the 2.5 metre, seems a good one for progression. I completely agree about finding a club/not getting carried away- I’m primarily interested in getting some kits skills at the mo.

Reluctant wrinkly- that all sounds great to me- I’d already looked up about kite killers and they seem the way to go. I’m fully up for the workout, in many ways part of the appeal is to do something totally different from riding, in terms of terrain/exercise/etc.

CFH- agreed, I’ve always found that getting the fundamentals right with standard kit has made learning any new sport best- worked with climbing, kayaking and bikes! I read that kite surfing is about 80% kite skills, 20% board, and I’m mainly interested in kite skills ATM

True words spoken by many. Dragged across a field on your face is one thing even with kite killers.

They are not toys.

The 2.5 bullet is purple by the way. and mint with 4 lines and kite killers.

Great thread and very good advice. While you don’t need a harness, I used to find that using a harness for power kiting / buggying was useful to spread the load across my body, particularly when flying larger kites, albeit I am quite a lightweight.

Pace- had a look at the pics and the 2.5 bullet looks sound- I’m out of the country at the mo, with intermittent connectivity, but I’ll check funds when I Gert home in a fee days and get back to you! Any further flying tips anyone?

I’ve had various kites over the years but my current is a flexifoil rage 2.5m which I picked up 2nd hand but it had hardly been used. It’s ace fun and can really drag you along the beach in a good wind. The best kite I’ve owned was a 14m north lei. That thing was fo much fun but absolutely brutal if you panicked.
I started with a 3m ozone samurai 2 which was imo perfect. It could lift me up but was a real pussycat most of the time. That thing went out in all weathers and I loved flying it. I actually really regret selling it but there you go.
Learn reverse launching. Learn about the ‘wind window’ and how to use it. All really useful knowledge especially if you move on to traction kiting on boards or buggies. Practice bailing out and make sure you use kite killers unless you enjoy chasing a kite for extended periods of time.

After reading this last night and the learning something new thread this morning I’m thinking of giving this a try for 2015.
I’ll be looking for a kite first of all and like the OP want to learn the basics first.

Anyone mentioned the Decathlon kites as good starters? I have a 2.4m and it is ace – lives in the car boot, waiting for windy days. Iirc, it was only £50 or so.

johnny, where do you live? if you think you will be heading onto the water then head to the beach one day and speak to the people who are kiting. They will give you some good ideas on local conditions etc and hopefully there contacts so you have someone to head out with when you have had some lessons.

I started with a 3m PKD Buster. I played with that for a few weeks then bought a landboard which i loved.
My kites progressed in size but for landboarding i ended up using some old Peter Lynn Guerilla kites which were an absolute blast .

Then i met a lad who became a really good mate, he showed me how to kitesurf and all the deep water packdown stuff. So onto the water i went and i have not looked back. Nothing much beats it.

From there on it became a full on addiction 🙂 The amount of different kites and boards i bought were unreal.
Currently have a set of Cabrinha Switchblades which for me are perfect.

So just get a 2 or 3 m traction kite and have some fun. See where it takes you 🙂

True words spoken by many. Dragged across a field on your face is one thing even with kite killers.

They are not toys.
That much was clear talking to a kite-buggy rider up on top of Westbury White Horse who had a bunch of metalwork sticking out of his arm!
Dragged off his buggy by a sudden gust of wind as he was about to get off the buggy, snapped a couple of bones in his arm, trip to A&E followed.
Watching one of the others up there regularly getting four or five feet of air showed me you have to treat them with respect.

“Respect” is a very appropriate word. It’s quite easy to get caught out even when you know what you’re doing (or think you do) if you take the eye off the ball.

First time I played with the latest generation of Blade (III at the time maybe?) I thought, “I’ve flown Blades this size before” and launched it straight up into the power band rather than at the edge of the envelope. I landed horizontally about 20 yards away with brakes on full and the damn thing still pulling like a train. I learned the benefit of kite killers that day as well.

When you’re learning look for consistent wind conditions (not too gusty). XC Weather or Windguru are good sources, check out the average wind and the gust strength and the closer together the two numbers are the better.

2-3m kite sounds about fine for learning, wouldn’t go any bigger than that. If you progress on to larger kites then although the power they generate is much larger, the good news is that they’ll be more docile too so easier to control and generally more stable. Modern 5 line kites, and the newer generation 4 line kites offer impressive levels of de-power if you should need it.

Kitesurfing (in water), provided you’ve been trained in self rescue, water pack down and don’t go out in un-favourable conditions is also generally much more forgiving than using power kites on land since if it all goes wrong you’ll hopefully end up with nothing worse than a good old dunking. A sandy beach landing is generally far less forgiving.

Quite. Nice soft sandy beachs aren’t any where near as soft as you’d think. Same goes for grass fields. They hurt too. Thankfully I’ve never done anymore than knock the wind out of myself. The main thing is practice makes perfect. Don’t get too icky too quickly and think you can manage your 3m kite in a howling gale. It’ll at best wound your pride.

Just as aside, I have 2 kitesurfing kites I’m thinking about selling.
A 12m airush flow and 16m north Vegas, quite old models but in good condition.

Where would the best place to advertise these? What’s the kitesurfing equivalent of STW?

Cheers.

Here?

IIRC there used to be a Flexifoil forum that was basically SingleKiteTrackWorld, but I think it either died or was replaced with something else.

Also there is a page set up on Facebook called Kitebay – 2nd hand kitesurf listings.

A lot of kit is advertised there.

As I think ChrisDW mentioned, the Kitecrowd Kite Forum http://forum.kitecrowd.com/ might be worth looking at re trying to sell some gear – think this site possibly replaced the Flexifoil one that Cougar mentioned