Cabrinha Crossbow IDS – 13m Review

So I ended up buying the three kites I were talking about in the previous post. I got a good price for them, payed only $1500 for all three including 3 bars, pumps, bags, everything.

So far I had two sessions with my 13m. My first reaction with this kite was the fact that the stopper was missing on the bar, where the hell is the fucking stopper was my first thought and I was a bit annoyed that it was gone. And it annoyed me in the water as well. I’m used to keeping the bar close to my body and I use the stopper to place the bar halfway up in the depower throw, which allows you to rest a bit since it won’t be necessary to keep your arms tightened all the time.

This was apperantly not possible with the new bar. The mechanical stopper is exchanged to a stopper which uses friction to stay in place, but the friction is not enough to allow you to rest halfway up. It’s just a question of time before you push the bar more than halfway up which pushes the stopper further away from you. Occasionally you’ll have to depower by pulling the red strap which then be located at the very top of the throw, hardly within reach! Luckiliy I have monkeyarms, so I can manage to grasp the depower/power straps, but I still found it very annoying. Later I found a great article, Override vs Overslide, which explains why Cabrinha removed the stopper and also how to modify the bar if you’re not happy with it.

Other than that the kite was great. Pretty quick turnings for being such a large kite and the pull upwards when you jump are great! Also, the IDS works flawlessly. I failed once and didn’t know what was up or down. The IDS was released and the kite was fully depowered.

The day came when I had my second session and this time I didn’t bother so much about the absence of a stopper. I think I had a little less power in the kite this time, so I didn’t had to extend my arms so much to depower the kite. I actually started to appreciate the kite much more after the second session.

My conclusion is that the new 2009 IDS bar is quite good after all. The bar pressure is lighter, so you don’t have to push so hard all the time. However, if there is lots of wind and you suspect that you’ll be overpowered and if you have two bars, one old override bar and one 2009 IDS bar, then I think that the new bar might not be the best option. If you ride with the bar close to halfway on the throw, then a stopper is great, since you can rest some of the time, this is not possible with the IDS bar.