Freeride - ein neuer Trend am Kitehimmel?

Phil Mandeau, Vertriebsleiter von GIN-Kites und Brunotti-Boards, hat sich zum neuen Freeride-Trend Gedanken gemacht:

„Nachdem die Hersteller in den Anfangsjahren des Kitesurfens ihr Augenmerk weitestgehend auf viel Power und Lift gerichtet haben, lässt sich spätestens seit Einführung des Bowprinzips ein Trend zu gutmütigeren und einfacher zu bedienenden Kites beobachten.
Unter anderem durch die massive Erhöhung des Depowerpotentials sind nun auch weniger ambitionierte (Wasser)sportler  auf das Kiten aufmerksam geworden und steigen in den Sport ein.
In den Schulungen können wir beobachten, dass  Leute, die noch vor vier bis fünf  Jahren mit dem Kitesurfen massiv überfordert gewesen wären, einen Riesenspaß am Gleiten auf dem Wasser entwickeln. Diese Zielgruppe, die weder Waketricks (unhooked etc.) lernen, noch in Riesenwellen surfen will, ist meines Erachtens zur Gruppe der Freerider zu zählen. Diese Kiter sind oft schon mittleren Alters (>30) und demnach auch finanziell oft besser gestellt als die hippen "Freestyle-Kids".Das macht diese Kunden für die Hersteller sehr interessant. Ich denke dass der Markt auf diese Zielgruppe noch stärker eingehen wird, indem er, wie schon beim Windsurfen, spezielle Kites und Boards für unterschiedliche Zielgruppen produzieren wird."

Was muss ein Freeridekite können?
"Zuerst einmal muss er leicht zu bedienen sein, ein gutes passives Lowend mitbringen (Schirm kann früh angestellt gefahren werden.) Außerdem sollte er über ausreichende Depower verfügen, um möglichst lange den gleichen Schirm fliegen zu können."

„Jeder hat Fun auf seinem eigenen Level“

Naish-Produktmanager Damien Girardin hat dem KITE Magazin dazu folgendes Interview gegeben:

KITE: After the euphoria for freestyle and obsession of wakestyle the kite market is discovering a new target group: the freeriders. What is freeriding in your opinion and understanding?
Damien: Freeriders in my opinion are people that ride "all terrain conditions" which means, if there are some waves they are going to have fun in the waves, if it's flat water, they will cruise around and jumping, Freeriding is actually what kiters do, they go have fun each at their own level.

KITE: Which characteristic has a freeride kite?
Damien: An all terrain/ freeride kite,  first of all must be as versatile as possible, which means a lot of things: it must have the biggest wind range possible so the rider doesn’t have to change kite everytime the wind varies a little bit, it must be very forgiving because it must adapt to all levels of riders it must be easy to jump, must turn quick enough but too fast, must have a smooth pull during the kite loop so people can kiteloop without scaring themselves like they would on a kite with too much punch. Also we have noticed that a freeride kite should have a fairly light bar pressure, it gives a more friendly feeling and allows riders to have longer sessions without having to rest too much. Which is pretty good when you can not ride very often because then it matters less if you're getting out of shape in between sessions! This is for exampe something that pro riders care less about as they ride everyday!

KITE: In which way will freeride manipulate or change the market?
Damien:  Since the beginning of kiteboarding it's obvious that some mistakes have been done in terms of targets for the products, it's been too extreme and we probably have turn away some people from kiteboarding by offering some products that were simply not adapted to their level and scared them, today, the industry is certainly going the right way by focusing on the all terrain category.
The fact that freerider are now a target for brands is great for the end consumer riders, it means that they now actually are the target of the designers. At Naish when we designed the sigma series for example we spent most of our time designing the most user friendly kites we could, our focus is always to get versatile and easy to ride kite, we test our kites in the widest range of conditions, and spend extra time when the wind is the mist gusty to make sure it works in "real world conditions" we do take in account the feedback from our top team riders because they are very precise in their kite flying capabilities, but we also have a team of tester that are average riders to help us developp the most suitable kite for them.
Overall, the average riders can now find kites that are really designed for their level and way riding. And when we see how successfull a kite like the Cult has been this year,( it has been so far our biggest seller kite ever), we know as brand and for me as a designer that we are making people happy to ride with our products which ultimately is our goal.

Auch F-One-Chef Raphael Salles hat sich zum Thema Freeride geäußert. Hier sein Statement:

Raphael: "For me free ride is doing kitesurf for the pleasure and the freedoom of sailing with a kite. Going around and having sensations from just gliding on the water being pulled by a kite.
You can also do some jumps around for the feeling of flying. Its all about doing  kitesurf but not in a extreme way and its even better if you do it with friends.
A free ridekite should be super easy with good performances because you don't have pleasure if you should work to much to make your equipment going.
Safety, relaunching and de- power are for sure the key for this program.
A large part of the kitesurfers are doing free ride since a while I'm not sure it will change much the market to put a name on it. By maybe mistake we write free ride on the basic equipment because its not for the top riders and it demand less technology.
I think that its important to promote the free ride and not only the extreme
part of our sport to open it to the maximum of people."