Revolution Line Wear and Binding: Tips from the Masters by Revolution Kites

Transcript

1. ›

   Silicone spray and binding

   0:00

   Hi, I'm Joe Hadzicki, inventor of the Revolution. One of our club members asked about applying silicone spray to his line set to help with binding. I've got two comments on this. Number one, I don't suggest applying anything to your line sets. First of all, if it's slippery it probably won't stick to your lines, and if it does stick, other things are probably going to stick to it, like sand, and that's about the worst thing that could happen to your line sets. Secondly, I don't think the actual problem is binding, it's actually spin management.

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   Spin management and wear

   0:28

   So let's talk about spin management and wear and tear. We have four lines, so we will have wear and tear. Two conditions in particular I want you to be careful about. The first is high wind conditions, like over 12 to 14 miles an hour: there's going to be a lot of tension on those lines, and that adds friction. The other condition is wet, sandy conditions. If your lines get wet and then sandy, that is extremely abrasive and is not good for your lines.

3. ›

   Conditions that add friction

   1:00

   Here are some other conditions that cause friction. An old line set has more friction than a new line set. A high number of spins will cause a lot of friction. Shorter line sets cause more friction: they increase the angle of the lines, and this causes more friction at the twist. Spinning causes much less friction than flying. When flying and turning your kite, your lines need to slide past this twist, and that's what causes all the friction. Flying your Rev with those spins is where the binding happens.

4. ›

   Recovering from 20 spins

   2:09

   I often recover from more than 20 spins. Notice the bicycle spin tank that I'm using; this just keeps the altitude so I can continue the spin. With each spin that I get out, it becomes easier and easier to control the Revolution. That was 20 spins. Did you notice all I did was spin to remove those twists? I didn't fly around the sky at all. The key point to take here is that your goal should be to reduce those spins, not to fly around. That was 20 spins, and these aren't even new lines.

5. ›

   How twists form

   2:48

   When we fly to the right and to the left, we really have no twist, because our handles follow the direction of the Rev. But when we fly down, we have a half twist because our handles are still pointed up. If we continue to turn, we have a full twist. Now when I'm flying, I can feel the friction, but I'm still in pretty good control.

6. ›

   Feeling the friction

   3:07

   Let's do another twist. Now with two twists, I'm starting to feel it, but I'm still in control. Third twist. Okay, now I'm starting to feel the friction. At this point, when I have twists in my lines, I'm really thinking to myself, I've got to get rid of those twists. Combining twists with pattern flying is one of the fastest ways to wear your lines. So the rule of thumb is: number one, get rid of twists; number two, if you have twists, limit your pattern flying.

7. ›

   Finding the binding point

   3:46

   Okay, let's continue from those three twists and find the binding point. Yes, it's bound. Ten twists. There are a lot of variables that will affect when your lines will bind. For example, I'm flying on 60-foot lines in three to five mile an hour winds and I'm binding up around 10 twists, but if you were flying on the beach in 20 mile an hour winds and your lines were wet and sandy, you might bind up at two twists.

8. ›

   Clearing a bound line set

   4:23

   At this point we have two options. Option one: we can fly back up into the sky and spin as fast as we can, hopefully in the right direction, to reduce the friction until we can fly. Option two: we can just pair our handles together as one and spin them out like this. Both handles are clear and both line sets are completely clear. A common mistake is to pass one handle over the other. This will take the twists out between the two handles, but you'll end up with twists on each handle. Now, the fly-out-of-the-spin technique. I like this technique because it's fast and it's fun. The only problem is that lots of times I choose the wrong direction. Clockwise. Yes.

9. ›

   Spins in a pattern

   5:43

   All right, so let's look at a couple of examples of using spins in a pattern. This is one of my favorite patterns: an inverted slide with 360 snap spins. The key here is to keep your spin count low, and when you get up to the higher numbers, let's say three spins, don't spend a lot of time flying the pattern at that spin count. Here's what it looks like. Fly to the right, 360 spin to an inversion slide, add another spin, slide. Now I've got a lot of spin count, so I'm going to take it back out: slide back, snap spin the opposite direction, slide, continue, and snap spin out of it. Now our lines are clear.

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    A trick the pros use

    6:30

    All right, here's a trick the pros use. For example, we're going to go over to the side and do a clockwise spin leading to our inverted slide, and then another clockwise spin. What we can do is start, before we get there, with a counterclockwise spin, and then when we go into our clockwise spins, we'll actually be reducing our spin count. So let's go to a dive stop and put in a counterclockwise spin to set us up. It looks like this: dive stop, counterclockwise, fly out clockwise to the inversion.

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    Balancing the twists

    7:06

    Now I have a half twist. Another clockwise spin, and now I have a half twist the other way. Now I slide back out, snap, and now to the end, snap. The trick here is that if you can plan out your pattern, you can use those clockwise and counterclockwise turns to set up a pattern that keeps your spin count low.

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    Bicycle spin practice

    7:35

    All right, let's do one more example. Remember our bicycle spins? Let's practice that, and remember we're trying to keep our spin count low. There's some pulling action involved in that bicycle spin, so let's go for three spins, and remember we want to balance our practice on both sides, so we'll do three spins in and three spins out. Here's what it looks like: one, two, three, pause, one, two, three, pause. Basically we're doing spins and we're not really flying any patterns, so that's another key to that move. So the final word is: spin to your heart's content, just don't do a lot of flying around the sky with twists in your lines. Check out the Rev masters at Club 38 and see if you can identify their spin strategy. We'll see you on the field.