Does anybody out there know anything about monkey kites good or bad ???

I'm a kiwi living in Sydney and I have some experience with Monkey Kites. The owners of the brand are locals at my beach and I have known them for about 18 months, they are very nice people, always keen to help anyone out.

I purchased a 15m from them last jan after my Rhino exploded and was pretty happy with it, and have had many sessions on it. It has a lot of grunt and is tough, I have put it through the wash cycle with some big waves without a scratch. Recently I crashed it onto a reef which was a different story, but the sail loft said it was easy to repair. It is starting to get a bit wobbly now, but I probably fly it 1-2 times a week, sometimes 3-4 times.

I got a 2005 10m in december and am loving that kite, it is the high aspect and is an improvement over the 2004 design. It is very stable and fast. I also got one of the Monkey boards and it is a really good FLX style board. Since getting the new board and kite I have been spending more time in the air and have been able to get spins and grabs sorted. I'm not saying they are the best/most hangtime/fastest, but for a resonable price they are a well designed and made product, and I am happy with my purchases.

If you are interested they are doing custom colours on the kites and boards, one of my mates is getting his kite in BOP colours! I'm not part of the company, and they don't sponsor me, but have been very helpful letting me demo/borrow equipment when I needed it.

Gav

Quoted from www.zeroprestige.org ......

I may as well dispell the myths and rumours upfront.
Yes it is true, my designs are now being used by my sister for www.monkeykites.com
My sister has been a designer for the surfing industry for 12-15 years and has sourced materials and done manufacturing and retail around the world. She saw an opportunity for fairly priced, high quality kites realising that not everyone would want to make them themselves. As a brother I naturally wanted to help her in this endeavour which she has based in Sydney, Australia.

The designs are not exactly the same as those on this site as they have been tuned to be extremely reliable and predictable and have all the good things that people would want in "production" kites. You should still feel free to make any of the designs posted at this site and you will not be disappointed for your efforts, i still prefer to fly something i've sewn myself, it's a double blast, plus it lets you think about all the things you'd change on the next one you make while you are out there and the wind drops.

One of my conditions for supplying her with designs is that I would continue the zeroprestige effort. It is too rewarding to see all the excited kite builders out there trying their own things and pushing the aerodynamics in new directions. As i see it everyone wins, fairly priced kites will be available to those who wish to buy them, and zeroprestige continues to push the edges of theory and design and here I can try all the stuff the doesn't work, or works only for very specific conditions. This year I expect to build some very weird and hopefully very interesting kites with new behaviour.

My big thanks to all the inflatodesign (yahoogroups) and zeroprestige and foildesign (yahoogroups) contributors who passionately push the boundaries and openly discuss new designs, methods and ideas. All those people are the Dogtown Z-Boys of kiting, developing new stuff for the personal gratification, and ignoring the high-label consciousness of a lot of other consumers.

My biggest interest is in making the thousand year old tradition of designing, building, and flying kites available to more people. I love the fact that it is a sport that puts you in touch with the elements and doesn't require fossil fuels.

I'm sure there will be a lot of shit fly around from retailers and others in the industry and lots of crap will be said. Oh well. They can go and fly a kite. Hopefully a monkey kite?