It's 7.15, we've JUST woken up and there's a loud knock on the door, I throw on some pants and open it.
It's a delivery for me.
My new kite is here!

But man, 7.15? I'm going back to bed

Woohoo!!! And i also understand you have a water board?

We need to get you out there and having some fun.

Yeah, I'll post a pic of that later, it's a super old brunnotti twin tip, it's huge but I'm only a beginner on water so that's not an issue, if I have money later this year I'll get a nice board like a decay or something made for me.

Gonna pump up the kite and get some pics

Awesome!! There is a young lad here in chch that will custom make you a board later on...and at a very very reasonable price.

There we go.

Man, I'm never gonna like pumping that thing up

Pumping is just the art of preparing you body for the session ahead... If you like ill pump it up and fly it for you.....

No chance
Nobody flies my baby till I've broken her in (which will probably mean crashing it with me having a hospital trip)

Of course people will be welcome to give it a ride, but I gotta get in a sesh or two first

ooooh!. nice.

how about getting an air compressor and filling a 9kg lpg bottle with air(obviously without lpg in it). Yourl also need a hose and a air gun. When u get to the beach you simply use the air in the lpg bottle to fill the kite?

ps you don't want to over inflate! Bang!

You lazy sod... Pumping is like a big part of the whole lei experience! But we were having dissucions about this sort of product at nelson in Jan.

In all honesty plummet that sounds like more work than just pumping never mind that I'd have to get the stuff and rapid inflation could cause issues with the kite unrolling too quick (as I just open till I get to the valve and pump till it's done).

I'll hopefully get to fly today and let you all know what I think

haha!! i'm so lazy that i refuse to use lei's full stop primarily because of the inconvenience of pumping them up!

have a good first flight mr mac. tho in true form the weather gods are punishing you for buying a new kite by supplying rain for the next few days!

i want to see a pic/video of you doing and inverted mega loop handle pass board off 1080...... ;}

I did manage to get out tonight. after a bit of faffing with the kite, emma not having delt with launching one before and this being my first lei I've owned I needed a bit of time to figure out how to get it to launch right and get the lines right (some were a bit too long to start with had to adjust etc etc). By the time we were all sorted the iwnd had shifted to e/se and was almost right on shore and picking up.
This thing is so floaty, even with only 10knots, if that, I was jumping and having time to redirect twice, it's super light on the bar pressure which I wasn't expecting and it's super fast through the window once it catches the wind.
even made some basic tricks that would have left me on my butt with the sabre just due to he speed of the thing getting into power fast enough to keep me of the deck.

so glad i got it and got to fly today, and plummet i agree about the pumping but for the freestyle stuff it;s just the better way to go for the faster kites with more depower

good to here your having fun....

tho i will refute the fact that you need a lei for freestyle. you obviously haven't flown a manta as that baby is fast with way better depower than the old sabre/frenzies. i'll admit its probably not as fast or has as much depower as your Ion.

Butch would argue foil kite loops are way more powered and more manly. I can't argue that cause i'm too scared to try them.....

still waiting for that inverted nick nack paddywack give a dog a bone trick.

I almost agree with you plummet! Those Mantas are freaking nice kites...

Flew a Frenzy FYX 9m the other day and that thing was really nice. Really stable and awesome for cruising and unhooking...

But im not letting all that get in my head cause i want to be able to hit the water and freestyle out there as well so the lei is better for me.

Foil kiteloops are awesome! Kitelooping my 6.5 blade a little bit now... working up in the wind speed.

well one day when the moons of jupiter align we may get together and have a kite swapping session!

PS i have some business in chch in the coming months so i'll be flying in/out in a day or so. there may be a small window for kiting! if that is the case i expect someone to pick me up from a hotel and take me to the beach and supply me with a board/buggy so i can experience the mightyness that in chch kiting scene!

pss i'd be on a lei if i was on the water too....

psss been to my hill a couple of times latley. ooh manta loves hills.

Yeah I want to be able to go out on the water and do stuff, so the LEI is a nice bridge for them.
I've done kiteloops with foils and all the rest of it, but that's not important.
I'd say that the flysurfers are probably one of the other good choices due to the massive float etc but you're welcome to give it a go if you're about

Depending on who you fly with you should be able to have a kite bag as 'spots gear' at the least