2023 Duotone Rebel SLS Kite Review With Dustin & Pat

This is Dustin and Pat, and we're here to review the Duotone Rebel SLS.

Dustin: So right off the bat, the Rebel SLS is the ultimate jumping kite. For loops or anything in the air, this is the kite. I got hooked on it this year.

Pat: Yeah, it's super boosty, lofty, and has surprisingly good loops, which was not expected from my past experience with the Rebel I'm used to. I still have the old five-line Rebel with the weird geo-shaped leading edge stuck in my mind, so that's what I think of when I think Rebel. This is not that kite. They've completely redesigned it. It's definitely geared more towards that old school/new school big air riding.

Dustin: It's like the "easy button" for loops. I went from being extremely uncomfortable with kiteloops this past year to where it's a no-brainer. You pull and go. It's crazy. It loops super quick.

Pat: Yeah, for being as high aspect as it was, I wasn't expecting it to be a super catchy kite. I thought I'd have a little bit of trouble or it'd be a bigger, arcing loop. It's actually super nimble on the loops, it's super fast around, and it catches super easily. The first day, we were a little underpowered. It was maybe touching 25 knots, and Dustin finally convinced me to try a couple loops on it after yelling at me enough. I went for it and it caught me, no problem, and I was genuinely surprised.

Dustin: It's a game-changer. We are both around 190 lbs. We've been riding the 9m in 25 plus knots, and it's been absolutely amazing. The only thing is, it just doesn't have the drift, but then it's not a wave kite.

Pat: Yeah, it's not designed for it. If you're looking to cross over a little bit with foiling or wave riding, I would push you more towards the Evo if you still want to dabble on the big air side, or maybe even the Dice. It's just not going to drift well down the line at all for you. When you run out the kite, it wants to shoot out to the edge of the wind window, and you end up stalling, so it's just not made for that, obviously.

Dustin: Yep. This kite is the "easy button" for big air. It's awesome, to say the least.

Pat: Yeah. It was a super pleasant surprise with its big air performance. Personally, I love to hate Duotone. They're a kite brand that I actively try to avoid in the shop, and I make fun of the guys in the shop that ride Duotone stuff, but I'm slowly coming around. They make good equipment.

Dustin: Okay, fair enough. He's coming over to the dark side, slowly.

Pat: I'm slowly being converted into it, for sure. It's a great kite. If you can get your hands on one this year, I would definitely recommend it. I think these kites are gonna fly off the shelf in the spring, so I'd get on it early. We both picked one up for our personal quivers, if that tells you anything about the kite. We love the thing.

Dustin: It's a five-strut kite with super easy relaunch, kind of a no-brainer. I think this kite is for everybody, from beginner to expert.

Pat: Yeah, relaunch is super easy and the kite jams upwind. It does sit fairly far forward in the wind window. I would define the progression as the Rebel's going to sit the furthest forward in the wind window, the Evo sits a little bit deeper than that, and the Dice even deeper than that, so as you go down that line, those kites sit deeper and deeper in the wind window. The Neo sits deeper than the Dice, in my opinion. It depends on what those kites are geared to do. So if you're looking for something to jam upwind, send it big, do big boost, and get into looping, I probably would say this is the kite to do it. It's going to catch you super easily, and it's fast. It's just not the same Rebel that I grew up with. It's a completely different, completely redesigned kite.

This has been Pat and Dustin with MACkiteboarding.com checking out the 2023 Rebel SLS. If you guys have any questions, give us a call at the shop or shoot us an email.

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