Right I haven’t been keeping up to date with the latest kite / bridle designs out there but having looked around recently I’ve noticed the number of pulleys seems to have shot up.

In short what are the benefits of more pulleys over the single pulley system that we have on the RISE and those first few generations of SLE kites?

I know someone will say performance but a little more specific please.

Hi noo noo!
I can try to answer this, pulleys are there for a number of reasons:
- to rotate the kite around a virtual axis. For instance, a C kite turns around the front line attachment point, whereas for instance a bow kite can turn around an axis much closer to the canopy.
- to help maintain the shape of the LE when powering-depowering the kite. The 2009 and 2010 Waroos have this, some branches of the bridle have pulleys to load-balance the bridle better, in an attempt not to deform the kite. What happens when you depower: the kite tilts forward, giving another angle for the bridle, so the shape of the bridle doesn’t match the LE anymore. This can cause some of the bridle lines to loose their load while the neighbouring line takes it all, you can image the LE wants to wonk like that.
- to assist in (almost) full depower when the bar is send way up (like on the Rise). The pulleys on the Rise hardly roll, only when you put your bar way up it starts to move. They sit against a stopper knot for most of the time. This is the reason why they hardly wear, even thought they take the full load.

I have owned Shockwaves, and flown a lot of kites, and they all felt spongy, indirect and slow responding compared to the Rise and, for instance, the Bandit. Plus at 220lbs I easily tore the SW bridles and pulleys apart, the construction wasn’t up to it. No problems with the Rise bridles so far!

In my opinion, the pulleys can assist in building a great flying kite but if you don’t do it right it goes at the cost of control and comfort, and brings weak points to the construction.
cheers, Rudo

Thanks

keeping the canopy shape makes sense. I’ve ceratainly seen several brands of kite deform under certain load conditions - from flared wingtips to the complete opposite where the tips are pulled in.

I’m looking carefully at the mods done to old ONEs and thinking of doing similar to my old 9m. Something to sharpen them up a little would be nice but when you look at all the different bridle ideas out there it’s all a bit crazy.

We’ll see. Need to fly it “stock” first before any changes.

Noo noo - pretty amazing what all these bits of high-performance plastics can do- pulleys, lines and kite fabric too.

Fly your 9m One for a bit with the stock bridle to set the baseline, if you are happy with its turning speed, then do the first Mod 1 bridle change ( adds 2 pulleys / kite ) developed by Wisha, I think you will be pleased with the reduced bar load when heavily powered. It worked pretty well for me with a little bit shorter New pulley V-line than suggested by Wisha.

If you want more turning speed and lower bar loads, then maybe go straight to the Dynamic bridle ( 4 pulleys/kite ). I’m trying this one now on my 12m ‘06 One, but haven’t had decent wind yet to test it.  It does have much longer bridles and pulley V-lines, so on a bad crash or in surf it may be prone to tanglingwith the kite, I don’t know, yet.

Give it a go, let us know what you try and how it turns out.

Certainly tempted to have a fiddle and play with it. Just trying to figure out which of the many configurations and ideas out there would be best suited to the ONE. I like the idea of direct rear line to sharpen the steering up a bit. Bar pressure I’m OK with as I didn’t find it too bad on the 9m. Now if I could fluke some extra stability that would be very nice indeed. Bridles wrapping round the kite is a real pet hate of mine. I have a 16m Caution Answer which has very short and relatively simple (single pulley) on the front and direct line at the back. The bridles are too short to tangle with the kite. BUT I have noticed the canopy distorting under different wind conditions i.e it wil flare out or even pull in under load.

But you’re correct I need to fly stock first to remind myself of the kite’s characteristics. Been well over a year since I’ve flown it.