2024 Eleveight RS V7 Overview with Kevin Wade

Pat from MACkite catches up with Kevin Wade at the King of the Great Lakes Test Fest to chat about the new 2024 V7 RS kite from Eleveight Kites.

Kevin: It's so good to be here. It's always a good time. It almost looks like the Caribbean out there with the water color. It kind of tricks you into thinking it's tropical, but it's a little colder. It's great weather and I'm stoked to be here and tell you about the lineup.

Pat: So you've got the new RS for this year- the V7, right?

Kevin: Yeah. It's hard to believe we're going into our eighth season. Obviously, things continue to get refined, and the RS has been our staple in the kite segment, being a freeride kite but something that's versatile and also has a lot of performance. A lot of people equate freeride with being a beginner kite, and it is good for that. It relaunches well, it has stability and a good wind range. However, we also just broke the big air record for three-strut kites about a month ago with 35.8 meters.

Pat: That's pretty impressive on a freeride kite, not a big air kite.

Kevin: The XS is our Extreme Series five-strut big air kite, and people always ask me what it can do that the RS can't. With XS, you're going to get more hangtime, but in terms of just going big, the RS boosts huge, you're still going to have soft landings, plus it's going to turn faster.

Pat: Its versatility is pretty awesome. I think most people are looking for a kite they can get the most value out of. Not everybody is just going to go boost; you want to be able to strap on a surfboard and you want to be able to foil, so it's nice having the option to do that with one kite versus getting a multitude.

Kevin: That's the cool thing about our sport. There are a few places that are pristine for one discipline of kiting, like a great flat water spot or a great wave spot, but most of us live in a place where you get choppy water, or sometimes the good waves will come through, or sometimes you'll have the wind blow in the right direction. A couple years ago we were on the other side of the jetty here where it was butter flat for freestyle. For the most part, you don't want to have to buy five or six kites for your quiver and switch up a bunch of stuff to be able to get out there, so the RS is definitely a good value in terms of the overall package. The versatility is key.

Pat: So you've had a bit of a redesign for the V7, right? Kind of going back to some of the old DNA with a little bit of tweaking?

Kevin: I would say so. The wingtip geometry has been changed a bit. For kiteboarding, a lot of times you have to weigh power versus speed. You can have something that's quicker, especially for the freeride segment, or it can be really good for waves, or you can really juice it up so it's going to be good for jumping. The RS has evolved and we've had a couple years that were more grunty and a couple years that were more performance-oriented. When we removed the pulley in the bridle two model years ago, that changed it up in terms of reactivity. That, combined with the new wingtip geometry and the panel cuts, have given us the best of both worlds. I would say this is more powerful than last year's RS, but it's still fast-turning.

It's also got new graphics. It's probably one of the biggest graphic changes we've done, with very bright, contrasting colors, so I think people have really been digging that.

Pat: It's a big step away from last year's versions, color-wise.

Kevin: A lot of times we were trying to go for more of a technical appeal, and that's something the industry was moving to at a certain point, but we always try to take a poll among our customers and distributors to see which color was their favorite for that year. This year we have a white one that has some purple accents in it, which is something that's been super popular. The blue with the contrasting colors is something that just pops in the sky and you can look at that and know that's an Eleveight kite.

Pat: Awesome. Thanks for running us through the RS V7, Kevin.

Kevin: Absolutely. Thanks for your time, man.

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