Why do some kites need heaps of pulleys on their bridles but others don't need any at all ??
yeah seems odd..
fly a jekyll to see how well a bridle kite can fly without pulley wearing parts and one wonders why kites are designed to need them?
I changed out my pulleys and replaced them with a 12mm Dia thick stainless rings on my helix with no difference to the feel of the kite.
Sure the line still wears out but I have made up short replacement lines that are easly changed out so their is no need to change out the whole bridle.
Pulleys are a good idea in theory.But I`ve got a brand new kite and the pulleys don`t work. All it takes is a couple of grains of sand and the pulley jams up. Good idea undone. I`ve had pulleys wear out and the bridle jam up, not a good experience.
I put it down to bad R&D. My mate has a GForce and the whole kite only has 2 pulleys on it flys perfectly with very little bar pressure. Compere this to something like a SB, someones done their homework!
Pulleys, who needs em?
I can recall, pullies were a revolution in kiteboarding safety (depower, etc...). they represented a kind of a quantum leap from the 4 liners of the time (let alone 2 liners). The only problem I've found with them is that they wear. If that silicone spray solves the problem, then they are not really a bother...
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pullys are useless. some kites have them for de-power, some for turning some for bar pressure. and yet there are kites like the jekyll, the origin, ozone, which have no pullys and in my opinion perform better.
theres nothing like a direct feel of a kite.
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Maybe having consumables on a kite is like cream on the cake for kite brands , not just selling a kite but also having a chance of selling replacement bits for the kite is pretty smart for a company. It's 1.1 of selling and producing anyproduct , assesories or consumables to increase sales and profits as long as it's done with some slick marketing folks buy it up.
Simple answer! Buy a North Rebel, never had pulleys or bridles, and they handle great!
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Pulleys are fine, there is no need to not buy brand "X" kite due to fear of pulley failure. We sell pulley kites and also non pulley kites, both fly great and we've had no problem with either. Both lots of kite buyers are happy with their respective purchases and have many hours of joy on the water.
Pulleys are total BS, wear through bridle lines (great for the retailer selling numerous replacements) and if you ever have the misfortune of one breaking which does happen chances are the kite will go into a dangerous spiral. I check my pulleys regularly and the one that broke causing a near fatality looked okey to me, it simply pulled apart. Most pulleys used are not sufficiently strong enough for people kiting regularly in 25-30 knots
Hopefully in the future we can look back at the day bridles were ill designed with numerous pulleys.
if you are afraid a pulley might break and put you in deep sh**, you can always build a fail-safe system.
just add a little piece of rope around the pulley, so if the pulley breaks, the rope you added catches the bridle, and the kite keep flying normally until you go back to the beach.
