Review Speed2, Size 10m
Testspot: Brasil, Spots from Uruau, Fortaleza to Jericoacoara
Conditions: Water 27C, Air 32C, Sun cream with Factor 25
Wind: Area Fortaleza; constant 3-5Bft, Flat-water
Area Paracuru; constant 4-5Bft, Waves
Area Jeri; gusty 5-7Bft, Flat-water and Waves
Rider: Jens Siegert; 65kg
Holger Vogel; 74kg
So far, so good. As usual I save myself from talking about construction, rigging, accessories etc. As always there is never anything to criticise. That’s where Flysurfer is ace.
So first day, wind around 4Bft, kite out of the bag, placed on the sand, harness on. No pre-inflation just straight up with the kite in the middle of the Powerzone. The kite starts quite fast and without any annoying wingtip folding as is common with an under-inflated PS3. Here first pluspoint, Kite can easily be launched without thorough pre-inflation.
Next, board on my feet and out through the middle. Holger, with the 10m PS3 and me with the 10m Speed2. HaHa, and straight away I notice, or better say Holger notices that I have an outright high performance kite at the start. One dive and off I go whilst Holger has to work the Psycho3. Here the next pluspoint. The Speed2 has significantly more low-end grunt than the Psycho3.
And another Pluspoint of the kite is for jumping. Here we are talking Hangtime. Whoever said the Speed1 fires you high should first try the Speed2. On some jumps I thought I better depower in midair as I flew very close to the beach.
Back on the beach we changed the kites. I wanted to see what Holger has to say about the kite. So swap bars and on we go. Here I would like to point out that both kites are incredible stable in the air. No folding or overflying... Ok, I suppose this now has to be expected from modern kites.
Now we are in the waves of Cumbuco. We swapped the kites every hour to make definite statements. The waves are all over the place and only once in a while you get a good one to ride under your board. So I suppose now its hailing minuspoints. Smile Actually, is a Speedkite built for waves? Well we had great fun with both kites in the waves. The Psycho3 is the freestyler and thus is superior when it comes to riding waves. It turns tighter but not actually faster. The Speed has more basic pull but this isn’t always an advantage. I personally found that the Speed reacted faster to steering input but because of its more elongated shape took longer to go round the corner.
What the Speed doesn’t like so much are unhooked jumps in the direction of the kite, or surfing a wave towards the kite. Here it can happen that the kite can all of a sudden loose all pull or relaxes momentarily if you aren’t quick enough to tug on the bar and then ends up in the water. Because we had this happen often enough we can now make an accurate assessment of the water-relaunchability. Here the Kite gets another big pluspoint with extra star. All who are familiar with the waterstart of the Psycho3 know what I mean. So, if the Speeds in the water, obviously on its nose, pull Both!!!, Both!!! Steering-lines and the kite rises backwards, then let go of one and after the kite turned around let go of the other one, now depower fully and the kite goes up smoothly without dragging the rider 100m through the water. For a high performance kite I have to give big praise here.
To really let it rip we went to Jeri where the wind is usually 2Bft stronger than everywhere else.
Downwinder from Prea to Jeri, approx. 20km in 5.5-6Bft. Waves up to 2m.
Launched the kite lightly pre-inflated at the edge of the wind window (start-behaviour normal), straight into the waves with a good portion of gigantic hangtime. The kite feels very direct and gives good bar feedback. Steering-forces are high but not tiring. As mentioned before, the kite could turn tighter and faster for waves. Looping it is no problem and the kite shoots quickly to the edge of the wind window. Here you can use the kites fast acceleration to ride the waves.
Lagunes around Jeri, wind approx. 6Bft, gusty.
Here lies the strength of the Speed2 and everyone will get goosepimpels who flies the kite in its upper windrange. With a fast board you go really, really, really fast on the water. In this point the Speed2 has also overtaken its predecessor. Also in regards to its depower-range. With my meagre 65kg I was still jumping relaxed when the windmeter already showed 7Bft. Here you have to make sure to have enough room downwind to avoid landing on the beach!!!. In comparison to a Bowkite (we had a Best Waroo’07) the depower isn’t as direct; to only let go of the bar isn’t enough, a little bit of board-edging is still necessary. The end result is however the same. No Flysurfer up to now had such extreme depower and is still stable in the air.
Subject Unhooked: today even the beginners seem to learn how to waterstart to blind:-). Just pull the trimmer a little, unhook and pop. What the kite does nicely is to accelerate horizontally. What it also does, or better say doesn’t do is to backstall, providing there is wind. So two components which are very important for riding unhooked. Only minuspoint here, when landing towards the kite it can momentarily relax which can result in water-relaunch.
Out of the many weeks here in Brasil I used the Speed2 10m approx. 90% of the time together with the small Flyradical 122cm. I could use the kite from 10knt to 33knt. I was never overpowered and in 10knt, ok, not really powered but enough to practice tricks. So, all in all a Top ”One Kite Solution”.
Here again the main points in overview:
Positive:
No folding wingtips during launching, extremely stable in the air
Good bar-feedback, steering forces, fast reaction of the kite
Lots of depower, significantly more than the Psycho3
Gigantic hangtime
Much more basic pull and huge range
Hardly any backstall, loops well but with large radius
Fast top-end speed.
Reasonably easy water-relaunch by pulling both back-lines
Negative:
Larger turning radius due to the elongated outline
Fast loss of pull when under swinging the kite during jumps or when riding toward it in waves.
The usual line-salad when leaving the kite on the beach for any length of time in strong winds.
Speed 2 review by "Gridlock" Foilzone:
Just got my Speed2 12 and had 2 weeks in Panama to test it out. Winds were steady and between 10 and 25 mph every day. I was always on my 141 Spleene Session with 4.7 cm fins on the heelside and 4 cm in the center. Mostly practicing front/back rolls both powered and aerial. Rode for 5-7 hours every day for 9 days straight. I am very tall, 2.1 meters and over 200lbs, and have been kiting for 6 years, 3 on the water.
In a word, WOW! My first thoughts were "this is the best water relaunchable kite I've ever flown hands down". Although I've got about $15000 worth of kites, if I could only have one kite to fly, this one would be it. The turning speed is very close to the 10 speed and the power is very similar to the 13 speed, maybe marginally less. Boosting 3-4 meter in 12 mph of wind and in 20+ mph you can easily boost 10 meters. In light wind ~12 mph you have to sine the kite once or twice to get going but then you can ride fully powered and easily stay upwind with bar all the way in. Often I did not know how hard it was blowing except by how far you have to hold the bar in to ride fully powered.
Landings were smoother than with the 13 speed1 and the kite was about as much fun to fly as my speed 10 which was my previous favorate kite to fly on the water. For light winds you have to go full tilt then push the bar out and turn the kite and coast into the power zone then crank the bar in and stomp on the back foot for maximum air in light winds. With this kite I was always riding farther upwind, getting much bigger airs and having way more fun than any of the LEIs on the water, Bows and C kites alike.
There was one 14M flat kite from Genectrix that was also staying pretty far upwind and jumping well. Tried out the flat kite and it had way too much bar pressure for me.
Jumping in normal 15+mph winds you can use the same technique as with other kites. Kite bowtied on me twice but once was able to fix it by messing with the lines, the 2nd time I had to wind up the lines and go to the kite to fix.
Tried the FLS system and it works well. Like it better than the 5th line system on the Psycho3 and pulse.
Everything below is rated 0 (worst) to 10 (best).
Launching 9 Easy and better than the Psycho3. Side window kite inflates quickly and easily with very little hassle,not as scary as the Speed 1's to launch downwind because of extra depower.
Depower 9 Better depower than PIII or pulse but not as squishy of a bar feel as the Pulse or Psycho3. About as good as a bowkite without that bow kite feel.
Jumping 9 The only kite I've ever flown that is a higher jumper is the 10.5 blade III with the UDS system. This kite is amazing, hangtime is unreal.
Upwind Performance 9 Very good, always doing better than everyone else, including big Lightwind LEIs like the machine and 16 meter waroos.
Downwind Performance 5 Crappy downwind preformance, as with most High AR kites when you turn downwind it falls from the sky. You have to loop the kite to keep it from falling out of the sky.
Gust handling 8 Very good, better than the Psycho3 , not quite as good as the pulse. Kite quickly goes to edge of the window and is easy to deal with, marginally more of a tendancy to overshoot the window than the speed 1, probably due to the depower.
Low End 9 At 10 mph you can stay upwind, Psycho317 has slightly better lowend but is no where near as much fun to fly. If you ussually fly your kites at the low end of the wind range the Speeds are for you, if you ride at the high end the Psycho3 is a better choice.
Landing 9 Landings were much smoother due to better turning speed and faster redirection.
Water relaunch 8 Much better than Psycho3 better than Speed1 in my opinion. Very easy. Still risk of Bowtie from overshooting, but rarely happened for me.
Turning. 8 Not as good as the Psycho3 but still much better than speed 1's.
Conclusion. If you ride in light winds on flatter water and want to maximize your fun the speed2 is for you. If you ride waves, unhooked or want to spend more time going downwind, get a Psycho3. No matter what you choose go with the FLS not the FDS.
Karl
_________________
Water: Speed2 12 & 8 Speed 1.5 17SA 6:2:1 , Speed 1.5 10 6:2:1 & Psycho317 Session 141, Rip Plus, Thorn 129, Plydoors
Snow/Land: B3 10.5 DB 8:4:2 & 8.5 DB 4:2:1, B3 4.9, B2 6.4 & 4.0, Frenzy 5.0
205lbs / 2.1 meters
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gridlok
Foil Family
Joined: 04 Jul 2005
Posts: 126
Location: Willseyville, NY
PostPosted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 8:20 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Oh yeah I forgot to mention, there is absolutely NO backstall which is awesome.
Also the kite like to be ridden with the bar pulled far in, not left out like the speed 1.
I crashed the kite plenty of times and there was never any problems relaunching except one bowtie that I had to go the kite to fix.
The first day I rode the 12 was snowkiting in NY and it was doing almost as well as my modified 10.5 blade for speed and cruising which was pretty impressive. I still use my blades on the snow because ground handling closed cell kites in any real wind sucks, but the speed2 is darn close in performance to the blades.
The first day I flew the 12 speed 2 I ordered a speed2 8 to replace my 7 speed1 and my pulse7. I was that impressed.
Way to go Armin, you are the man. One tiny complaint is that sometimes when front rolling if I pushed the bar out when spinning around one of the brake line knots would get caught in between the front lines which was a pain. It was not a danger or problem, just an annoyance.
After 2nd flight kite was pulling hard to right, mixertest quickly fixed that.
Also I like the 3 segmented lines because as the lines wear from powered rolls right near the bar you can switch them around 6 different ways to get 6x the life out of your lines.
Also the new mixertest balls that replace the knots make the mixertest a 5 minute job not a 15 minute job which is nice.
There is also 2 more ELC on the front lines which is nice if for nothing else you can have spares if you lose one and it doesn't ruin your kiting day.
New FLS is well constructed and works well. I like the leash as well, those plastic buckles always seemed to break on me, last year I stopped using them altogether.
Karl
