HOW IT ALL STARTED:
Just like many of the people, it was down to a simple single line kite given to me by my dad (and mostly flown by him too). But things got interesting when I got a Peter Powel stunt kite; which I made a disastrous 4x larger scale model of!
It quickly became impossible to ignore the growth of power kites. Finally giving in, I brought my first Sky Tiger and have never looked back.
It was on a trip to Cornwall that I first saw someone with a kite and a mountain board. Unfortunately he was having a miserable time as he was constantly getting stuck in soft sand.
It seemed to me that the board's small wheels weren't working. So having been an aero space engineer for 25 years I now wanted to build a board with big wide wheels and that was the start!
KITEDECK TAKES SHAPE:
The fact is that an idea without investment is just a pipe dream. If customers and suppliers are going to take you seriously matters need to be conducted in a professional manner, i.e. solicitors, patent attorneys, trademark attorneys, product and personal liability insurance.
After getting two more friends involved we thrashed out some concepts/prototypes and the Quadrolution was born.
QUADROLUTION:
The original idea was to make a board that kite surfers could practice water starts on dry land and or if they couldn't get to the coast.
Each tyre was 6" wide, the board was heavy, large and its pre-loaded springs were clumsy and crude.
We replaced the wheels with 12" Skyway's which solved the weight problem and the springs were replaced with an elastomer block, which has a minimal pre-loading and makes for easy transportation.
This is as it is available today, a very stable, very fast board.
REFLEX: The Reflex board was conceived out of necessity; we had met Glenn Butcher, better known as "Butch" during the early days of development on the Quad.
Butch was using one of the first orange Trampa boards and skate trucks but the trucks were simply not standing up to his abuse.
At this point we had a huge decision to make. We had already committed a lot of time and money on pattern tooling, patents and design protection and manufacture of the Quad, should we do the same again?
Nothing ventured nothing gained: One of my partners had a basic working prototype, which we tweaked and refined to suit the Trampa boards. We built in some adjustment and fine-tuning for the end user, with the right choice of materials for the gaiters, axles and guides and we had the basis of a beach-proof unbreakable truck.
Unbreakable! It was always going to be a brave statement, but because the "Revo" truck was engineered to aircraft spec we had every faith in the product.
The axles we use have been independently tested to make sure after welding, the material would not suffer a catastrophic failure. Unfortunately, in certain circumstances, such as a very hard impact with a solid object, an axle may yield. That said if someone does manage to bend an axle we will replace it no questions asked.
WHICH DECK?:
With the trucks finalized we needed to make a complete package and the board choice was easy. Trampa.
- If you set out to make an unbreakable truck it stands to reason that you want an unbreakable deck to complement the truck system.
To date I don't believe that anyone has broken a Trampa board as they are not affected by moisture and don't delaminate.
We cut down the board to bring the trucks as close to the centre of the deck as possible, (without grinding the toes off the end of the riders boots) to reduce the swing weight of the board. This made aerial spins more controllable.
CUSTOMER FEEDBACK: All the feed back from our customers suggests that no other truck/board combination tracks the ground like a Kitedeck board.
The interaction between truck elastomer and board technologies are most evident on a beach when the tide has left large areas of rippled sand. The quick and controlled response of the board keeps the rider upwind longer allowing more runs instead of skimming across the top of the ripples and drifting downwind.
The issue of speed wobble or the lack of it is down to our 'no compromise' attitude. We could cut corners and make a slightly cheaper truck but kiting is a small tight knit community and our reputation for quality is everything. Rejects are not acceptable.
WHAT YOU GET:
The Revo truck system should give reliable trouble free service for years. If they have been neglected strip them down just to make sure everything is clean. Use the right size tools. ALL THREADS are under tension and MUST be lubricated with "Copperslip" or equivalent. Lastly DON'T over tighten anything. Stainless steel and aluminium threads are soft and they will strip. (Stripped threads are not covered by our twelve-month warranty.)
KITEDECK - THE FUTURE:
So what's next? We have produced a few pairs of Titanium axles, which have a substantial weight saving but also, come at a substantial cost.
As a company with customer service at its forefront I couldn't justify fitting Ti (titanium) axles to a reflex and charging £££ amount more for just saving half a kilo. So I decided to design the NXS Kitedeck.
THE NEW NXS KITEDECK:
The brief was to lose as much weight as possible without compromising strength and reliability. But more importantly we needed to support our existing customers.
The NXS prototype weighs less than 5 kg but will also soon be available to existing customers in modular form so you can upgrade by simply buying the board and new truck body and Ti axles.
TEST, TEST AND TEST AGAIN:
We owe our success to the first customers that tried and tested our products. Without them and their truthful input we couldn't have gone on to develop the company as it currently stands.
We have recently become part of the Trac Group, serving the engineering requirements of the world's largest airlines. With this kind of backing and access to expert engineering things can only get better.
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