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Quad Race Rods...


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Ok...I spent all the money I'm permitted for the rest of my life!! But, I should receive my Racing Rods in the next day or two for "My Most Beautiful" Elvira (Blk/Rainbow mid-vent). Ah...Yes...how expensive the women in my life are. :cat_lol:

I will be keeping the rods under lock and key along with my Lazer Pro Gold line, because their cost is now exceeding the value of my house that I had to morgage to buy them!! ;)

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But, I would like to hear from the experienced ones out there on a question I have...

If the wind is "really" light..just enough to barely get Elvira's beautiful legs off the ground...would you put 2 wraps or Racing Rods inside her? :confused!:

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And don't say, "Buy a Zen!" :kid_loved: (Maybe, in my next life!) :)

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Keep It Up!

Duane

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would you put 2 wraps or Racing Rods inside her? :confused!:

Howdy Duane

I believe some use the race rods pretty much most of the time in light wind...

some even like to use their race rods in their venteds when the wind picks up!

have fun experimenting and seeing your preference.

no idea if it's a fashion thing but the RRs were all the rage when they first came out.

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now that the new zen rods are out I am going to watch for race rod deals at my local rummage sales

Oh Bill, that's just plain mean!!! Truthful, but mean!!

Cheers,

Tom

AHHH...NOOOO! You've gotta be kidding!! :kid_loved:

"Zen Rods" are now the way to go?!?!...A day before my Racing Rods will show up...their "out" and Zen is "in"! :confused!:

(I'm going to have to try to sell my wife on EBAY again... :) )

Keep It Up!

Duane

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AHHH...NOOOO! You've gotta be kidding!! :kid_loved:

"Zen Rods" are now the way to go?!?!...A day before my Racing Rods will show up...their "out" and Zen is "in"! :confused!:

(I'm going to have to try to sell my wife on EBAY again... :) )

Keep It Up!

Duane

Duane,

Keep this quiet ... don't tell anyone else.

Don't get caught up in chasing that elusive "thing" that others lead you to believe will instantly make you into an accomplished, but older, JB. If you enjoy chasing the latest great thing, and you can afford it, than go for it. However, realize that the only thing that will make you into a great kite flier is hours and hours of very enjoyable practice.

At our club get together, it's interesting to watch the beginners become grounded when the wind starts to die down. Next, the intermediate fliers to come to ground. Finally, there will be one member still flying ... with an old, well worn SLE. If it was windy earlier in the day, he probably installed 3-wrap rods and was too lazy to take them out as the wind died down. So, old equipment, wrong equipment, and not the latest, newest, best thing, and yet, he's flying when the rest of us are unable.

The difference is practice ... sorry, just plain old ordinary practice. Oh yes, there is one thing that can really speed up the learning curve. Fly with others every chance you get. It's amazing what you can pick up flying with others. And, ask for help!!! I asked Bazzer once how to do a reverse tip pivot ... in five minutes he made the process so clear that I was able to do it before the day was over ... maybe they looked a bit goofy, but they looked good to me!

Cheers,

Tom

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You take care in case you end up in the negative equity trap Duane.

I like Race Rods and will fly with them any time I can. Use them in full mid and full vent sails.

Then of course you can go for hybrid sets. Race in middle with 2 wraps in the outer. 3 wrap middle, Race outers, etc, etc.

You just be sure to have fun.

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AHHH...NOOOO! You've gotta be kidding!! :kid_loved:

"Zen Rods" are now the way to go?!?!...A day before my Racing Rods will show up...their "out" and Zen is "in"! confused_1.gif

(I'm going to have to try to sell my wife on EBAY again... :) )

Keep It Up!

Duane

Duane,

Keep this quiet ... don't tell anyone else.

Don't get caught up in chasing that elusive "thing" that others lead you to believe will instantly make you into an accomplished, but older, JB. If you enjoy chasing the latest great thing, and you can afford it, than go for it. However, realize that the only thing that will make you into a great kite flier is hours and hours of very enjoyable practice.

At our club get together, it's interesting to watch the beginners become grounded when the wind starts to die down. Next, the intermediate fliers to come to ground. Finally, there will be one member still flying ... with an old, well worn SLE. If it was windy earlier in the day, he probably installed 3-wrap rods and was too lazy to take them out as the wind died down. So, old equipment, wrong equipment, and not the latest, newest, best thing, and yet, he's flying when the rest of us are unable.

The difference is practice ... sorry, just plain old ordinary practice. Oh yes, there is one thing that can really speed up the learning curve. Fly with others every chance you get. It's amazing what you can pick up flying with others. And, ask for help!!! I asked Bazzer once how to do a reverse tip pivot ... in five minutes he made the process so clear that I was able to do it before the day was over ... maybe they looked a bit goofy, but they looked good to me!

Cheers,

Tom

Very Sound advice and probably the best you'll ever get right there. With experience you can spank just about anyone with a old EXP in hardly any wind.

Race rods are great for their ability to spring back to shape after loading up usually good in a standard sail up to about 10mph after that they get a bit squishy but would work great in a vented from 5-15mph (with practice)

Enjoy them they are great.

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Whenever the wind drops it is a steady progression of kites coming back to earth.

Same when when there are strong or subtle wind shifts where the edges change rapidly, etc.

People complain the wind is this or that and the kite is this or that.

Ask anyone that knows me and they'll tell you what I say..........

YOU fly the kite, the kite doesn't fly YOU!

Basically the advice given by others above is sound. You just need to get out there and fly and fly and then fly some more.

With respect to the race rods. They are normally my go to set up on all kites when flying alone or just bumping around the sky with others, but when flying team, one needs consistency so you go with the masses and use the same.

Since you are new and not yet really flying on line with anyone, it's important to try different set ups.

The thing is, this hobby/sport is so subjective. You really need to experiment and decide what works best for you. As you improve you will be able to make the snap, on field decision on what suits your style the best.

Caveat here....while at TI earlier this month, Ben handed me a set of ZEN rods for my B series kite and said "have at it". Where a lot of people say the race rods flex and then snap back at the outside of the leading edges quickly after the sail has loaded up and come out of the heavy pressure zone, I found the ZEN Rods to load up in an entirely different manner. The flex comes more from the center of the leading edge and slightly stiffer on the outsides of the leading edge. Makes the sail load up in a different way. I found them to be a little less forgiving then the race rods but a whole lot more precise in feeling the kite throughout the window. What I noticed most was that I used less pressure on my fingers to give input to the kite, making the turns that much more precise.

LOVING IT!

The above said.....I haven't taken those 1.5 ZEN rods out of my full sail yet. Today however, I'm gonna put them in my mid vent and check out their characteristics in a kite with holes.

Keep pushing the envelope Duane. There is nothing you can try that won't encourage you to try some more!

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The Racing Rods will do me fine for a while...I'm still crashing the ground every now and then, and the Zen Rods might be a little too delicate for me right now. (That doesn't mean I'm not putting my wife up on EBAY anyway!!)

I sure wish there were some flyers to fly with around here.

MrDenny is a couple hundred miles north and (when I think I'm ready) we are going to get together and "wrap Rev. lines" to get me over the fear of that before the next TISKC festival. There are of course flyers over on west coast of Florida at Treasure Island with the "sunsetflyers@msn.com" but that's a 3 1/2 to 4 hour drive over there. Otherwise, I'm the only Rev. flyer there seems to be in these parts.

That's one of the reasons I'm so "noisy" in this forum. I have to fulfill the formular for "being" something. There are 5 things to do to "be" something!

1) Desire it.

2) Imagine you can do it.

3) Read about it.

4) Get around those that are doing it.

5) Practice it.

And then you will "Be It" (Whatever "IT" may be)!

I decided I wanted to be a kite flyer about a year ago and joined "KITELIFE"! And even though I can't hold a candle to JB (or "imagine" that) or do a Tristan "two skips and a throw"..."I AM a Kite Flyer" today, through the help of "KITELIFE". And this forum is the best "#4" I could, or can, presently come up with!

Now my goal is to be a better kite flyer and fly in a group fly next year at TISKC!! (mainly because it's fun and really exciting!!)

........ :kid_loved: ...Practice...Practice...Practice... :) ........

So, thank you'all for being here! ;):cat_lol:

Keep It Up!

Duane

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Looks like I'm a bit late, but here's my thoughts...

The Race Rods are the ones I use most often, simply because they are very versatile. This is the selling point for me. I have flown my full sail B-Series with race rods indoors. When the wind picks up enough to not use race rods in my full sail, I put them in my full-vent. Very rarely will you find me with 3-wrap or 4-wrap rods in my full-sail kites.

As for flight characteristics of the rods, I don't care so much. If I can do something with my race rods, I seem to be able to do it just as well with 2, 3, or 4 wrap rods. Haven't tried the ZEN rods yet, but from what Rich says, I don't really care to. THey sound like they are not as versatile, and that is what is most important to me, because I am lazy. I don't want to spend my time switching rods.

As for the newest coolest stuff, I don't care about it. I do not own a single mid-vent kite, and it's not a big deal to me. When I'm flying, I go straight from full sail with race rods to full vent with race rods. What do I need a mid-vent for? This is not to put down the mid-vent though; if I had one, I would fly it, I'm sure. However, there are things that are higher up on the shopping list.

So, in the end, for me, it's about versatility, and being able to spend as much time flying as opposed to changing rods, and changing sails, and changing this or that.

With this said, I do break my own little rules here when flying with a team. In this occasion, I use whatever the team is using, so that our kites fly the same way (i.e. not running each other over and not lagging behind)

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Thanks Watty, and everyone else!

What a pleasant surprise! I didn't really expect the Racing Rod to be much different from the 2 wraps...but I was wrong!! These are really great!! They are much more stable then any of the other rods!

The wind was varying from about 8 to 13 MPH, with lulls down to 4 MPH and gust as high as 18 MPH (a storm was coming in). And it flew great in all of it, but I did feel the 18 MPH was maybe pushing it a bit, so after experiencing one, I'd move a little bit to the side of the tunnel until it passed with the others.

The most amazzzing thing was in doing "slides". They went really great with the racing rods. I was even doing good "inverted slides", which I was having a real hell of a time with!!

Yep!! They are definitely worth the extra money!! :kid_loved:

Thanks to all of you!

Keep It Up!

Duane

PS Anyone want to swap their racing rods for my 2 wraps!?!? :w00t:

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Oh Yeah...I didn't fly the dualies after the Rev. and that was "good"!

It felt good to carry the Rev. "state of mind" afterwards to let the Rev. experiences sink a little more after my practice.

On the way home I remembered a Zen story I would tell people some times as to how to get up from meditation (zazen) and to move slowly, trying to carry the "state of mind" that they gained from meditation into the daily world as long as they could.

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It is said the some people in Japan believe seeing a white mouse in their house is "Good Luck"!

This family was sitting at their dinner table eating dinner when the wife saw a white mouse running acrose the dining room floor. She pointed it out to the rest of the family and they all cheered and exchanged smilies with each other, because they knew "Good Luck" would be coming their way. But, just as the white mouse was about to round the corner it stopped and shook it's body real hard. A cloud of white dust flew into the air and there stood an ordinary brown mouse. The family now looked at each other exchanging frowns, because it wasn't a white mouse after all...just an ordinary brown mouse. Apprently, the mouse had gotten into their flour bag and was just an ordinary brown mouse covered with white flour.

I've decided not to shake off the Rev. "state of mind" so fast!!

Keep It Up!

Duane

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Scanned the above REAL quick, was wondering how having a White Moose in your house could be ggod luck, indeed do they have Mooses (collective name for a group of Moose?) in Japan? And indeed how much of a mees it might leave behind it.

Then read correctly MOUSE.

OK, then got to thinking, if the Mouse has been in the Flour bin, with all the associated stuff a Mouse might leave behind it, little presents etc.

What was the family eating at the time, had it been made with the flour from the bin. Indeed bad luck is about to arrive.

Good story Duane.

To qute a you'ism

Keep it up!!

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Oh Baloo,

You’re just suffering from “Delayed Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome” from your previous life because of the rodents that spread the Bubonic Plague throughout Europe, killing millions.

The mice in Japan aren’t like your European mice, Japanese mice are very clean, neat and potty trained too! :w00t::kid_loved:

Keep It Up!

Duane

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