My leash has come detached quite a few time will riding. Last week the leash detached will I was surfing near a reef that could have resulted badly. My kite was recovered later and I was dragged into shore. Do you have any suggestion as to how I can curtail this safety problem?
Tom

Hi Tom,
thanks for posting this, did it detach at the harness side or the chickenloop side, and can you tell us the model year of you bar?

It is occurring at the chicken loop (the metal clip end).

I believe that it has occurred on several of my bars. I have 2 - 2008/09 SLE 2.0 and and a 2010 SLE 3.0.  The latest mishap occurred on the 2010. All three of my leashes have the std metal clip. The attachment point on the chicken loop is the same for all of these.

thanks
T

Ok thanks, I ride all kites with the same leash that happens to live on my harness, do you keep your leashes to the bar or the harness?
So the clip manages to open and fall out of the metal ring or PU covered loop.
Did you inspect the spring action of the clip? When you operate it with your thumb, does it open an snap back? Maybe try some lube on the hinge of the clip.
Otherwise I wouldn’t know.

The leash does infact live on my harness. The clip seems to operate just fine. Yes, it is hooked to the metal ring and as I said, it manages to come off. I know it defines logic but it has happened to many time for it to be a freak thing. I have to say that I am a very technically minded person and it baffles me. I was considering trying some kind of cover, say a piece of rubber tubing (ie bike tube) that one could slide over the clip to keep it from releasing.

It is a head scratcher for sure.

T

so do you hook up upwards or down, with the clip lock facing down? Maybe rattling on the lock opens it up.
Can you post a picture of the clip?

I believe that I clip in with the bale facing up. As you can see by the photo, nothing is out of the ordinary.

Send us your mailing address and we will send you a new leash. It sounds super strange to me but I’m happy to help you out.

(The only time I have seen a leash fail is when the kite is violently torn from an unhooked riders hands and the leash takes the whole load, leading to the clip being bent and distorted. If this happens, the leash needs to be replaced as the clip will not function properly again).

JZ

John,
I tried to send an email with my address to you but your inbox was full. I followed with an email to OR explaining the situation and got no response. Further suggestions?

T

Hi
I have had the same problem with my 2009 bar.

Over about 2 years with the same leash I have riding as per usual and just found the leash trailing behind me on about 5 occasions.  I have recently tried using a naish leash, it has a different style clip but it still happened once.

I connect the leash to the ring under the chicken loop and the clip is functioning perfectly.

I think the problem is caused by the leash attachment ring being rigid, if the leash flicks around a certain way it is possible for it to unclip itself. Its possible to demonstrate this by manipulating the clip by hand and it will disconnect without too much effort.

I believe this could be fixed by having a flexible point to attach the leash, like a loop of rope instead of the fixed metal ring.

Cheers,

Jared

I have heard about this problem one of my friend face this problem about 2 months ago,And cant resolve it until now.