I was going to pen some sort of review about two weeks ago but a cancelled trip to work meant I had more time with the kite. I’m glad I did as that review would have been substantially different to this one.

Let’s deal with the build first: the usual quality we’ve (or at least I’ve) come to expect from Kite Related Design – all properly put together with areas such as the wingtips, LE cutouts, centre-T all dealt with in the same manner as their Fury range – but with some new seemingly bulletproof material at the nose and the sail standoff reinforcement. Sparred mostly in SkyShark P200 but with Aerostuff Blue S LSs. All quite conventional, no corners cut, all very nice. It’s a light wind kite; not a UL and the max. wind is limited to how fast you want your kite to move. I certainly stopped flying well before the kite/frame started complaining.

As for design, this is one flat kite. The (four) standoffs are a bare minimum of 7cm shorter than would be considered “conventional” by today’s standards. Combine this with a wide-ish nose angle and the standoffs being quite distant from the spine you’ve got something that is considerably different to the majority of today’s offerings and seems to harken back to designs from over a decade ago. But with tail weight and multiple yoyo stoppers.

To be honest I’m no fan of the stoppers; they work well but are just four tie wraps on each LE and look tatty in comparison to the rest of the kite. I just wish they could have come up with a more elegant solution.

So let’s fly this sucker !

I have to say that my first few flights were distinctly “uh-oh”. I had a horrible feeling that it as to be Stefan Furter’s Challenge all over again – a kite he can fly like a God but no-one else can. The Element is very conversant in Old School – flat slackline rotations are the order of the day and plenty of them but I couldn’t get it to gel at all. It was back to trick flying rather than freestyle; no flow, no cohesion. Flic Flacs were not coming together either. I couldn’t nail the basics and I certainly couldn’t string them together.

Frankly I didn’t much care for it.

But the extra time finally made it come together. For one thing, ditch the long lines. 20m is plenty and 10m is more than usable at a pinch. And for another you are going to have to get your eye in for this kite’s profile and learn what it looks like when it’s ready to be flipped or spun. And it does look different. Once I started down that path…. oh very much yes

In addition to those unconventionally-flat-by-today’s-standards rotations this bugger rolls up like nothing else I’ve flown. Other kites describe a mathematically interesting orbit about a point in space, this thing folds up on itself. It takes no room and, if needed, precious little time. And it’ll go either way – forwards or backwards – with pretty much equal ease. As the kite uses such a small amount of space to trick you end up working it right down to the deck. I swear I removed some dandelion heads with Yoyos.

After a little musing I think what we have here is a kite that Harry Turtledove might have come up with. It’s a “What If ?” kite – what if after the Stranger and Box of Tricks the design fashion hadn’t been for the deep kite but everything else had occurred ? You’ve got the back in the day Axels and oh-that’s-why-they-are-called-that Flat Spins but you can Yoyo this all over the place and, once you grow accustomed to it, you can mix and match.

I’ll be honest, I don’t think anyone is going to pick this kite up and within 15 minutes pull off a strong repertoire of their own moves. There’s a learning process to make your way through. It is a bit different but I think it’s worth getting to know. I don’t think this is remotely a kite for everyone and I’m not prepared to call it My New Favourite kite yet but it offers something other when so many of today’s kites are variations on a very narrow theme.

An’ anudder thing !

I’ve been doing some tricks I actually had forgotten. Because the Element flattens out fast and can be made to rotate more than once per “pop” I’ve been doing Genie Pops again. I’d forgotten how damn cool they look. And Multiple Axels, which I haven’t done in years. And Tornadoes (Backspin takeoffs). And Torpilles that look they way I remember them.

As I said… it speaks Old School very well when asked nicely.

Mike.

What’s it for?
(Other than flying manically around the sky in a ‘falling with style’ kind of way.)

For a good while, team CR and their sponsored fliers were all conquering within competitive kiting in the UK. There was however, a young Padawan learner lurking in the background.

Slowly but surely, most of the CR fliers stopped competing due to pairs splitting up and individuals getting proper jobs and going to college and such. This left the young Padawan to become a Master in his own right, and ‘Le Petit Phenomenon’ took control of the competition kite scene. There were a few freestyle fliers pushing just about hard enough to keep trick skills and style moving forward, without actually mounting a serious challenge, but essentially Chris was all conquering.

A slightly shorter while ago, a resurgence in freestyle flying saw a rise in prominence of ‘other’ fliers, and there was a redefinition in what was perceived as cool. More to the point, Chris had some competition.

Now throughout this time, the CR Fury 1.0 and later the CR Fury .85 were the competition kites of choice for team CR. The trickier .85 does have limitations in some of the more recently proclaimed en vogue tricks and freestyle combinations though, and hence Chris set about filling some gaps in the repertoire and it would seem the Element represents the culmination of this work.

What’s the design and build quality like?

The first thing that strikes the eye is the lack of depth in the sail in comparison to most of the more recent trick kites available. Old Skool has become in fashion again, and the flat aspect here certainly helps in that regard. There’s no other dramatically striking or new design features to be found. Yo-yo stops, leach line with variable tension options, long leader lines and a bit of weighting round and about, and that’s about it. Nothing fussy or overly complicated. There’s a funky shape to the trailing edge though, something to do with holding lines in place for turtle spin moves.

Taken from the info available via the Kite Related Design website…

• Wingspan: 220cm
• Height: 84cm
• Weight: 265 grms with 1 x 15 grm tail weight
• Sail: Icarex PC31
• Bridle: 3 point fully adjustable
• Frame: Aerostuff Blue-S / P200.

The Element is built to a similar standard to pretty much anything else that comes out of the CR studio. That’s as much as to say ‘pretty much as good as it gets’. Quite beautifully put together then.

There’s nothing particularly pretty in the construction, it’s all ever so – functional, industrial even, built for a purpose. There’s cable ties for yo-yo stops (4 of ‘em each side BTW), brass tubing for ballast and rock solid straight seams to accommodate the foldy over type joins. The whole thing is, in essence, Urban. It’s build in London, from girders and ‘Damn’ but it works.

So, how does it fly?

The simple answer is ‘Pretty much any way you want it to’.

The Element will track a pretty straight line, carve a steady curve and cut a sharp, accurate corner. All of this takes some pretty acute handling though, ‘cos over cook an input and all sorts of strange things happen. That’s alright though, because this wasn’t really designed for straight forward, regular flight. It was, as Chris said when I asked the other day, designed for freestylin’ and trick competitions. So…

…Ok, spin moves are really spinny and flat moves are extremely flat. Pitch action is, well, ever-so pitchy and the sharp, angular stuff is – you guessed it – sharp and angular.

There is, in built, pretty much every trick in the book, with the vast majority of currently en-vogue stuff reasonably straight forward to dial in to. Nice. In a light wind with gentle inputs this all happens in a smooth and slow fashion. Hit the thing a bit harder however, and it’s all lightning quick. It’ll comete, as an example, just as fast and sharp as you’re hands will go. Truth is, there’ll be not many able to keep up and the result will be a wildly spinning dervish of a thing. No problem though, ‘cos recovery from all sorts of positions is a given.

With a bit of pressure in the sail, the whole thing moves forward a pace, and without some serious footwork, everything is again a blur of whizzing sticks and ripstop. Big fun

There’s a few quirks, anomalies, (some will call them annoyances – not me though ;-)) that will take some getting used to. A dead spot just past horizontal in the flare for example, that doesn’t come back to life again for a while, and quite fussy half axels and cascades. Gorgeous when you hit it, but different from most other modern designs. See through and persist a bit though, and the rewards are rich and fruitful. It’s well worth the effort.

Ok, enough already. There’s no way the Element will be to the taste of everyone, but the hardcore freestyler and trick artiste will grow to love it to bits. It is in summary, a grin inducing trick monsty that’s staying in the ‘A’ bag for a while. No question.

Bryan