2007 North Rebel 12m Review

davewsail · Post by **davewsail** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 8:37 am

It's hard to do kegels with external plumbing. Although wikipedia says it can be good to stop the onset or Peyronie's disease.

airess · Post by **airess** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 10:29 am

Fassn8 wrote:Zeev, what say you about those pesky battens breaking?

in regards to the battens breaking(i've broken a bunch on my vegas's)
bruce is looking into making some out of different material that he thinks won't break but still be light. will keep you posted. rita

Fassn8 · Post by **Fassn8** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 10:45 am

Hopefully it's "the same material they use on the space shuttle". Man, I miss that tag line. Everything in the 80's used it from car parts to kitchen appliances.

Hey North, bring back all that "space age" stuff! I'm trying to go big here!!! :-)

tim_fred · Post by **tim_fred** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 11:40 am

Re: Battens

I had problems with battens too. It's from dropping the kite hard, and now in my 5th kite season I'm dropping the kite more and more since I'm attempting harder tricks, so this isn't a beginner thing.

Here's my fix: buy a coil of 3/16" diameter ABS plastic welding rod like item # 7889A87 from http://www.mcmaster.com ($17 plus shipping). Cut to length with a pair of pliers and take the sharp edges off with a file or the concrete curb.

This has the same stiffness & weight as the 4mm Nylon rods in the Rebel and slightly higher impact strength. It does still break, but who cares when I have 100 feet of it back at the car?

windhorny · Post by **windhorny** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 1:22 pm

Good idea on the abs(And I dont mean 7 minute abs)replacement but i am thinking the nylon is porobably a bit stiffer.

Z, I cant argue with simple being better, but I am extremely lazy! I dont think that pumping 5 struts would be horrible, but I have a rhino and pumping 8 struts would keep me from getting teh kite. But I think that Slingshot systems is still the best, other than not beiong able to put seperate pressures in the LE and the struts-but I cant honestly say I ever noticed a difference. So far I have never had one single problem with SS or Norths inflation system.

windhorny · Post by **windhorny** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 1:24 pm

Fassn8 wrote:Hopefully it's "the same material they use on the space shuttle". Man, I miss that tag line. Everything in the 80's used it from car parts to kitchen appliances.

Hey North, bring back all that "space age" stuff! I'm trying to go big here!!! :-)

And they need to stop saying "aircraft" grade aluminum as there isnt a damn difference from one billet of 6061-t6 to another if its labeled.

wjb · Post by **wjb** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 3:00 pm

NEWS FLASH !!! This just in!

http://www.northkites.co.uk/Rebel_08.pdf

inocuous · Post by **inocuous** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 3:31 pm

NEWS FLASH!!!!! This just in!

On the used kite market, your '07 Rebels are now worth only 35% of what you paid for them new.

dewey · Post by **dewey** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 4:05 pm

Looks like I'll be buying one of your rebels!!!

bobbyboom · Post by **bobbyboom** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 10:46 pm

The battens are $1 each and you can get them at Kite Wind Surf if you break them (I'm sure other places have them, too. I confirmed with Jeff at KWS that they are indeed $1 each and he confirmed). Like Bulldog said, I too don't notice much difference without them.

I haven't had a one pump or two pump system so i don't know the benefits. I do like making sure all my struts have 12lbs of pressure and my leading edge with 6lbs. I love the PSI meter on the North pumps. I'm a little anal about this and don't mind the extra minute-and-a-half it takes to pump the extra struts. If i had it I'm sure it'd be nice, but the trade off right now is not too big. The pumping up of the kite is where i get my "warm up." Legs, arms etc get warmed up and I'm ready to hit the water after the kite is pumped. Are we getting lazy here? :)

-Bobby

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2007 North Rebel 12m Review

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