All Charged Up about Chargers Pt.2

Gear intensive.  That's what kiting is.  You start out with a 3m trainer kite then you move up to a 5 or 7m either fixed bridal (non-adjustable angle of attack, limited or no depower) or 4 line sheetable (depower, adjustable angle of attack).  Then one day you get skunked by either too much wind or not enough wind and you go looking for another size to fill that wind range.   Before you know it you have a quiver of 5 or 6 kites to cover every wind range you might run into.  Then you buy more kites because your lovely wife rides too and you need to cover her weight (hopefully lighter than you) for the same given wind.

Now you've got 9+ kites and only 3 or 4 get used regularly.

But I think I've found the alternative for me.  Almost the "Holy Grail", a one kite quiver, the Peter Lynn Charger 15m.

I can't stress enough how broad a wind range the Charger has.  I thought I had it figured out a few days back but I never really got caught in any substantial wind changes to REALLY get a feel for it.  To really utilize the trim that it has.

This weekend I got a true taste of it.  And me likey! I flew that kite in winds blowing 15 gusting at times to 25mph and that kite was like a dream.  I have never seen or ridden anything like it.  The trim has a unbelievable amount of adjustment and add to that the adjustable stopper ball you can make that kite fly anyway you need too. 

A key quality to the usable depower is the fact that with heavy depower the kite STILL FREAKIN TURNS!  So many kites have a ton of depower but turn like complete garbage if you have heavy trim on them.  Some are totally useless.  The Charger turns about as close to completely normal as I think you hope given how much depower it has.  Only when I maxed out the depower did I notice any real delay in steering performance.  Even then it handled well enough to be useful and fun.

I can only imagine the same holds true for the other sizes of Charger.  After getting a feel for the 15m I'm now really looking forward to flying the 19m again I winds that earlier had me scared into the 15m. I think I really underestimated the wind range of these kites.

In my defense no other kite I've ever flown had this kind of wind range.  Even the Synergy wasn't nearly as versitile.

And the 15m goes upwind like crazy.  I think I've mentioned the up-wind abilility before but today I got to put it head to head with Molly on her Apex.  Anyone who's seen Molly ride that Apex knows EXACTLY what I'm talking about.  That woman is a menace on that thing and I swear sometimes if the wind is nukin' she drives that thing straight up wind.  You tack 4 or 5 times to every 1 or 2 of her's.  It's unbelievable what she does on that kite.

But today I gave Molly a run for her money.  I felt like I was working hard to just stay ahead of her but she said I was actually out running her upwind.  This is almost unheard off.

The woman is a menace. (shaking my head)

Yesterday she got to spend her first session on the 12m Charger.  She got it figured out and before we knew it she was out ripping around like a freak.  Laying out cruising or busting airs with sweet grabs, she was doing it all and looked like she'd been riding that kite all her life.  I think we were all suitably impressed.

I'm really stoked on the new Navigator bar.  The stopper ball and clam cleat are key to getting a lot of kite tuning on the fly. Let the stopper all the way out and you have a retarded amount of depower.  Pull the ball in to where you want the bar to sit for your reach and the pull the trim strap to adjust the power back down to where you wanted it before you adjusted the reach.

Very, very slick.

I've been running the Chargers on thier lowest internal settings and with light external bar pressure settings.  Which tells me that it can be even faster and more powerful in each given size range. 

This being the case I would say that the 15m would handle 90% of general kiting for someone with good flying skills and in the 185-210lbs weight range.  It would probably handle 75% of the kiting for someone 145-185lbs.

So theoretically you could run one or 2 kites most of your flying needs.

I guess the bottom line for me on the Chargers (at this point) is they are superior to every kite I've ever owned.  The design has taken the best attributes of the Syns and made them better and taken the bad things (like the overflying) and elimnated them.  It's super stable like a Venom 2,  fast across the window like a Scorpion and faster turning than the Synergy.

I feel a little awkward spewing all this sunshine about the Charger.  Especially now that I'm on the Peter Lynn team.  It casts some doubt about my ability to be objective or non-biased about the Charger I'm sure. But I swear to everyone that I would be saying these things even if I wasn't a sponsored rider. 

Seeing is believing and the proof is in the pudding.  Get out there, ride it and you'll see.

Thanks for the pics Seth.

Time to refuel.