MACkite Rides: Ending the Week With the 2016 Best Roca & Friends

2016 Best Red Bar & Roca Session

What’s a good way to end the week? Kiteboarding with friends with the winds in the upper twenties all while riding new gear and loving every minute of it. After burning out a long week at the shop bouncing between customer support, sales, marketing, and the shop handy man, a session was pretty high on my list of wants before the end of the week. It just so happened the NE wind forecasted shifted to a NW and the race was on.

With wind in the mid to upper 20s I wasn’t sure what kite to rig since this year I have changed my entire quiver to the 2016 Best Rocas… 17, 14 & 10 What should I pick? The first thing that went through my mind was, man I wish I would have stuck with the 12m TS and I wouldn’t have to make a judgement call. I opted for the 10m since Aaron was on a 9m North Dice and a Cabrinha Skillit, Just hoping that I didn’t make the wrong decision and wouldn’t have to come back to the beach and rerig… Something i noticed right off the bat while standing on the beach was a lot of canopy flutter if there was no back line tension, once you pulled the bar in just a little bit it was gone.

This would be the first time in a long time that I was riding a 10m, Typically the 12m and upper 20s was my cut off point since the 12m TS just seemed a little too fast a powerful for me when I would finally transition into it from the 17m TS. Well turns out the 10m was the right call. The wind had some holes in it but 90% of the time I was good to go fully powered on the 10m Best Roca with plenty of room on the depower line to push the kite up higher if the wind happened to come up.

Not only was I flying the new 10m Roca but I finally got the new Best Red Bar. It is basically the same bar as 2015 with a faux suede bar grip with embroidered graphics, a smaller diameter grip and the iron heart Quick release that they have licensed from North Kiteboarding. So if you are familiar with the North bar systems you know that this is one of the best quick release systems in the industry! I am honestly so excited that Best decided to go this direction with their bars.

As for the bar feel I was a little concerned that the bar felt pretty hard when I opened it and was rigging on the beach but once I was riding with it, there was not an issue. I really like the small diameter of the bar. I was also using the 52 cm bar, or their middle sized bar. They recommend it for 10m and up with the 57cm reserved for the 16m and 17m Kites, however I fly all my kite on the 52cm. Previous years when flying the 12m TS I would actually use the 47 on that kite just to slow it down just a little bit more.

The 52cm bar flown with the 14m and 10m Roca is a solid combination since I prefer a little slower kite in higher winds anyways and with the Mid sized bar and the Roca naturally being a little slower than the TS I felt right at home on the 10m Roca in the upper 20s with gusts into the low 30s.

Knowing the Roca doesn’t go up wind quite as well at the TS, I was a little nervous about heading out into the 4-5 foot waves knowing my first goal was to blast up wind from Grand Haven City beach and get tucked behind the pier to ride flatter water. You see I hate riding in waves, haha! Without too much more effort I finally made my way up to the pier and the holes in the wind seemed to get worse. I am happy to say that the 10m Roca handled the gust and the holes just fine and never really got too unstable. Goal one complete, I made it up to the pier!

Next goal was to suck it up and send it a few times to see how the 10m Best Roca boosts. Needless to say my timing was all wrong with the Roca, not only a new kite but also a smaller one than I am used to. Trying to boost on the 10m was just so different, I definitely need to get out more on windy days. But I did connect with a couple good ones and just like the 14m the 10m Roca seems to just love hanging out in the sky! Really floaty and something I was not expecting on a smaller kite.

Interested in the Best Roca? Learn More Here!

And once again I sent a few and ended up with the kite behind me as I landed (ok, tea-bagged), and it just drifted back into the window and stay up in the sky. It felt very similar to how the Cabrinha switchblade recovers after botched jumps. It was a nice feeling knowing that when I would screw up it wasn’t going to end badly.

After about an hour and a half to two hours I had my fun and started to head back downwind to city beach. This was the only time I noticed the canopy flutter while riding but i was also heading downwind pretty fast and there was not much tension in my lines. This also lead to the kite back stalling a little bit when I would head directly at the kite and get going pretty fast down the face of a wave. The only kite that I have not had this happen to is the Cabrinha Drifter which is the only Wave specific kite that i have flown and as the name applies it is built for drifting and wave riding. Since the Roca is an all around kite I think it handled the situation just fine, actually it handled it better that I thought it was since I was trying to get it to back stall. Since it is not made to be specifically ridden in the wave for most people it will handle beginner to intermediate wave riding, but if you are looking to get crazy you will want to opt for the Cabrinha Drifter or the Best Cabo.

All in all it was a fun day riding with the Grand Haven Crew and getting out in some windy conditions. I would give the 10m Roca 2 thumbs up for sure. It really does feel like a detuned TS and for me and freeriding it works quite well. As for the new 2016 Best Red Bar I am so stoked that they finally put together a bar that works w/out any issues, beside the cosmetic changes the Iron Heart QR is amazing and put the bar into a class with others that you know will not fail.

Catch you on the water and if you want to try the all you Roca Give us a call and we can hook you up!

Grab a 2016 Roca Today!

Cheers,

Jake V Marketing & Shop Handy Man.

10 Years Riding, 260 lbs., Freerider