Flysurfer Peak2 9m 2015 Kitesurfing Review

Flysurfer Peak2 9m 2015

Reviews / Kites

Flysurfer 19,664

At A Glance

Now for something completely different! Whilst these images were taken at the Flysurfer dealer meeting in Egypt, this kite is most certainly more at home in colder climes! The idea for the Peak was the brainchild of Reinhart Paelinck, it was a pet project of his to create a single skinned bridled kite with no struts. It’s a testament to the developmental attitude of Flysurfer as a brand to let him run riot with this. Run riot he did though and last year the Peak was born.

Essentially the Peak is just that, a single skinned kite with no struts and a depower system. It gets it’s shape from an intricate bridle system and “half cells” that are like a stripped down version of what you would find on a Ram Air Foil style kite. The principal is that the kite is VERY light, packs down ridiculously small and also has a lot of low-end power.

In the mountains, where this kite is most at home, the wind is often non-existent, so you need a kite that can cope with those sorts of conditions. Being very packable means you can stuff it in a rucksack for a back country split board mission too, and then use it as and when the wind allows without feeling like you’ve needlessly carried the kitchen sink around!

As a nod to its backcountry intentions there is even an optional touring bag, which packs the kite and bar, and doubles up as a harness too, there is also space for hydration as well. This would mean you could go into the mountains for the day without any of the clutter snow kiting usually brings. No pump, no harness, no worries.

Sizes: 4m, 6m, 9m, 12m,

The Bar

The Peak is designed to be flown on the new Infinity Light bar system, it is a lightweight version of the Infinity Bar and offers depower as well as a front line safety flag out system. The chicken loop release has been designed with the French Standard in mind and it works really well. It is a mechanical push-away system and releases with hardly any pressure at all, it is also very simple to reconnect.

Another neat feature is the ability to untwist the lines simply by sheeting the bar in. By using two ropes for the depower lines that run through independent holes in the bar, you simply pull the bar towards the chicken loop to get rid of any twists. This makes it very easy to ensure there are no twists in your lines and that the safety will always work should you need it to.

In The Air

Flying the Peak2 is a very unique experience, it just looks on the ground like it shouldn’t work, but it does! It’s a very powerful kite, and the amazing thing about it is that it generates so much power in hardly any wind! If you ever flew small kites as a kid you’ll remember just how much power they could generate. And that memory comes flooding back when you launch the 9m Peak2 in 3 knots of wind.

It flies to the top of the window and pulls like a train. The lightweight nature of the kite means that the aerodynamic forces are all working to generate lift, rather than trying to keeps its own structure in the air. This makes it brilliant in light airs and perfect for use in the mountains.

The handling is impressive too, the bridle works to keep the kite responsive, something they have improved this year, and while the bar pressure is a little on the heavy side it is easy to get the kite to move around the window. Of course, with no structure when you initiate really tight turns you get some flutter on the tips, but this doesn’t detract from the flying experience.

Sadly, being in Egypt we didn’t get to try the kite out on the snow, but we packed it down and it folds to almost nothing, so we can imagine that it will be very practical for the mountain men out there. The self-untwisting bar set-up will be perfect for those long kite looping climbs up the hill too.

"If you want to get deep into the backcountry the Peak2 is for you!"

For

Great for the backcountry and snow kiting, very impressive design idea and very well executed too. The Peak2 is very light and the handling is surprisingly good.

Against

Nothing really strikes as an ‘against’ for this kite, just remember it’s a kite for a very specific purpose, it won’t relaunch on the water of course, but you can easily relaunch it from the snow!

Overall

If you want a very powerful, very lightweight kite that packs down to a tiny size to take into the mountains with you then this is it.

Videos

This review was in Issue 49 of IKSURFMAG.

For more information visit Flysurfer

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By Rou Chater
Rou has been kiting since the sports inception and has been working as an editor and tester for magazines since 2004. He started IKSURFMAG with his brother in 2006 and has tested hundreds of different kites and travelled all over the world to kitesurf. He's a walking encyclopedia of all things kite and is just as passionate about the sport today as he was when he first started!

Tried this? What did you think?