THE F-ONE BANDIT 6 IS HERE!

THE FEEL OF THE BANDIT 6 IN A FEW WORDS

More stable, less fluttering with greater smoothness, control and less lateral force. All this added to a lighter feeling and a more efficient, direct feel in the bar.

 

     
What is our goal? What should we improve?

These are the first questions that we usually ask ourselves when working on the R&D of a new kite. It normally doesn’t take us much time to get a feedback from our riders and clients. But with the Bandit 5, the comments were getting rare since its design is already highly evolved and it has impressive flying qualities in every aspect. This is great, but is also means that only a few hints of solutions were brought to us. But since we have such a strong desire to improve our product, we did our own analysis of what the improvements should be and what changes we should bring to the Bandit.

This analysis has to take into account what will be the market demand in the next few years to be able to adjust the features and qualities of the Bandit towards what our customer want. The Bandit is made to anticipate the tendencies, for example the increase in strapless wave riding.

Our sport if not only about pure performance: a great deal of our work is to improve the sensations that the Bandit will give you, since fun is the main goal in kiteboarding.

 

Our first goal this year was, as usual, the increase in the wind range even though this aspect was already a strong feature of the Bandit. A wide range of use offers two main advantages: a great
riding comfort associated with safety and a smaller number of kites to have for a complete quiver. We worked especially on the control of all the shape changes in powered and overpowered situations as well as the lateral force produced by the kite in the high wind range. With the B6 at 12 (neutral position) on the beach you will already feel a better control while sheeting out (pushing the bar out) and a greater stability feeling, which will make you more confident.

On the water, the lateral traction as well as the pressure on the board, in the legs and in the back was reduced, increasing the comfort of the rider by a lot. The B6 will allow you to control your direction with more ease.
During these researches about control, we also gained a better power management. The B6 gives a more steady traction and a less violent reaction to gusts. The rider will discover a feeling of smoothness and control.

But we did not choose the easy option of a lower profile, since we didn’t want to penalize the low wind range and the legendary power of the Bandit: quite the opposite! The vertical lift for a high
jump is still there, but even easier to bring into play.

The real advantage of the control improvement is to allow all levels of riders to focus better on their riding, their tricks or the surf.

The second point that we wanted to work on this year was the feeling of lightness. This is an essential quality to improve the sensations while riding: it is such a great feeling to ride with a kite that feels nimble and doesn’t make you tired. In the first few moments with the B6, you will already have the sensation of riding a kite 1 square meter smaller. On the water, the B6 is more dynamic and feels like it lost some weight. But we did not suppress any reinforcements or used a lighter material: we worked on the dynamic weight.

This improvement is ideal for the bigger sizes and in light wind where the B6 is more reactive. Even in the other sizes, the progression is still there since it is always nice to have the feeling of riding one size smaller.

The third point on which we focused was the bar feel. The bar is the command center and it is where all sensations converge. The R&D department worked on perfecting the direct feel and the efficiency of the bar when it is sheeted out, but also in the sheeted in position like during a jump.

When depowered, you will still have a feeling of firmness, not a floaty feel, and you will not have the bad sensation that the bar keeps wanting too go up. This is a great advantage while riding or in the surf, to be able to ride with the bar out without having to pull in to make the kite turn. The result: a better direct control ad a better feeling of the kite reactions.