I wish to know more about one of my bridals and about bridals in general.
The 2005 Montana by HQ came with a two pulley bridal and they promptly switched the next year to a four.
I can remember my '05 Montana flying much much better and in less wind than it will now and am not sure if maybe I messed with the bridal at some point. I can't seem to find a manual online that shows the two pulley bridal so, I am trying to figure out bridals well enough to tinker with this one. I am a lonely kiteskier out way rural and online is my best chance to talk with others about bridals. If you know anything behind the physics of bridals, l would live to read about it. Cheers!
Brandon

Something to make sure of when you notice a difference in performance of any kite, is to check for stretching in your line set. This is always the place to start when trouble shooting. From there, go to the bar leaders, and attachment points, then check out the kite. If all is ok, then you could possibly have just had some bad wind. It has happened to me many times where you feel like there is good wind but the kite just keeps telling you that it is not.

Funny you should post this! I just figured out that I need to adjust the bridle system on my HQ "Rush 3 Pro" 350 to make it fly more forward in the window for kiteskateboarding. It seems that the kite is sheeted in too much at the fixed bridle so I am going to shorten the front row 4cm and the middle row 2 cm and see if it makes a difference. It seems to fill the kite better while I am "hand flying" it by holding on to the flying line attachment point at the kite. When I shorten the front and the middle lines a bit with my fingers, the kite seems to fill better and fly more above me rather than downwind of me. I wish this would work with a bigger kite. I know this is not much of a help for a depower kite, but you should know the ins and outs of both fixed and depower kites before you tackle any bridle mod.

On the snow I am running a quiver of HQ Montana 5's and an extra 12.5m Montana 6 that I use for higher winds than my 12.5m Montana 5. The 2 pulley (4 pulleys per kite) system is nice in that it allows a more even sheeting angle and better distribution of load on the kite attachment points. But old single pulley systems (2 pulleys per kite) still worked fine. I used to own a 7.5m HQ Apex II with a single pulley system. This is one of the best training kites avaliable in that it really teaches you that sometimes need to sheet out to power up a kite in the back of the window, even though most inflatable kiters are unaware of this and often have a very difficult time trying to get anything out of a foil. The exception to this that I am aware of is the 2010 Ozone "Access XT's", of which I own two but only use them as loaners. And they do make great loaners because they are fairly insensitive to sheeting angle in the back of the wind-window. They tend to sheet just like a newer inflatable so "water only" kiters that are trying snow can easily handle them.

My past bridle mods include trying to make my 4m HQ "Scout" (origional Scout 1 with the terrible "at the bar" bridle mess) into a depower kite using one of my Ozone bar and line sets. Success was somewhat limited and I kind of gave up on the project once I purchased a 3m HQ "Apex III". I came away from that experience with 2 new pieces of info on kite bridles. First, bridles are extremely sensitive to being just .5cm off. Second, it takes so much time to modify a kite just to get it to fly, let alone preform, that it is almost not worth it.

My friend also had put some time into trying to modify his ancient 7m HQ fixed bridle kite to become a depower. He could make it work if the wind was right, but it would simply not handle shifty/sheary winds like the purpose designed depower kites. On an average wind day, it would become impossible to keep up. He also put way too much time into that kite and wound up purchasing another kite that was ready made depower, or at least almost ready made.

He bought a depower Pansh and used his own old C-kite bar and line set. I am really impressed with this kite now, but it was total junk when he got it. I think he spent almost more time trying to tune the bridles on that kite that was supposed to be a depower, than the he put into trying to convert the old HQ to depower. But again, it now flies great and I would almost say it could be better than my smaller HQ Montana's.

My other bridle experience is with replacing 4 bridles at the leading edge or my 12.5 Montana 5 that I had to cut through to get down from a street lamp. I was feeling pretty good jumping for all of the cars driving by one day when I kind of forgot to be on the lookout for hazards on the sides of the wind-window. I felt like I was being so careful about the downwind hazards that I kind of got "down wind tunnel vision". So now I have some 60kg braided Dacron fishing line on the leading edge attached to the kite on 1 side. Since it was only one side that I had to cut, I just measured the other for the proper legnths and made the replacement bridles about .2-.3cm shorter to account for stretch. I first thought this was going to be only a temporary fix to keep me going, but it turns out that the kite works great. I was really concerned about the excessive stretch of this line that I should only be using as sleeving over spectra/dyneema. Those concerns are all but forgotten except that I do not let any one else but me fly this kite. I even get a little bit of gliding time in with it in that it has a slightly higher AR (thus power perceived) than my 12.5m Montana 6.

FYI: Fun With Wind sells some bridle line and I have both a spool of the 100lb and the 150lb if any one wants to know exact diameters.


I also have New England ropes "Spyder Line" in the 1.8mm and the 2.8mm dia.


All of these lines are still too big for me to use at the kite side of the bridle system, but they are handy for bridles as you get farther from the kite. So if anyone knows of a source for sheathed dyneema/spectra that is closer in diameter to the smallest bridle line, let me know.

I found the field card for my '05 montana FINALLY!!! FEW! I published the link below for any who are interested in the single pulley Montana. From all the googleing I have done I have learned one thing, that this kite originally got great reviews for its stability. That's good considering I want to give it a go for short descending glides with little or no wind.


http://www.funwithwind.com/store/pdf/FC ... tana-I.pdf

I still want to hear more about others that have tweaked or created bridals.
Cheers to ya,