Maintaining your Kiteboarding Kite

Video Transcript

"In this clip, we're going to go over basic kite maintenance and, you know, how to take care of your kite, make sure that it's in proper working order at all times. One thing that can happen now with these new found or these new age kites, you know, there's a lot of advancements that make things a lot more user-friendly, a lot more forgiving. Things like bridles which are attached to the leading edge right here. You know, they're really good, they help with re-launchabiity, they give you a much larger wind range but, at the same time, it's one extra thing if it goes wrong and breaks on you, it can send you into what's called a like a death loop, where your kite just looping, looping, looping and taking you for a ride. So making sure these things are in proper working order at all times is definitely going to help you in the long run. So pretty much every time you go in and out for a session, you want to check your kite and go over everything. This is a bow-style kite from Cabrinha, it's a light wind specific kite so you know it's a larger meterage kite. Inside here, there's actually bladders that are basically going to hold all the air for you. These bladders can, you know, pretty much get pinholes any sort of tear any sort of rupture, the glue can come apart and can give you a pretty tough time trying to get them back together. So, you know the more you maintain your kite, the more you upkeep it, the happier you're going to be. Different companies use specific styles for, you know, their inflation systems. The new age kites are all one pump systems. So, if you can get a kite where you're going to put it on and inflate it all from a single point, it will inflate all these struts, including your leading edge all from right here. Other kites are, you know, new wholesale kites are going to have separate, you know, inflation points for each one here. And, you know, that can be cool because you're making sure that you isolate air from every compartment, but it's definitely going to add a couple of extra seconds on to your, you know, sort of start-up time when you're trying to get into it. So, if you don't have very much time, you just like, you know you're taking a lunch break and you want to get out and have a session, a newer kite with a one pump system is going to help you out."