Sat Jun 29, 2013 11:12 am
Your best bet would probably be a good UL. It won't necessarily give you more tricks, but it should be able to do a full range of tricks in lower winds. A lot of the bespoke makers - certainly Benson and JoE - rate their UL model as the most versitile of the range. You will get a lot of use from a UL. In my (limited) experience of vented kites they don't give you that much extra usable range - maybe 3-4 mph of actual trickable wind. Once the wind gets over 16-18mph you are going to have to work hard to trick almost any kite well and generally speaking unless you have to fly - competitions etc - once a standard with air brakes gets too much you're probably better off going home or sticking a small foil or speed kite on and have fun ripping up the sky. Vents are expensive for the amount of use most people get from them.
SUL's are a different thing altogether. They need a completely different technique to other kites, gentle guiding rather than pop and pull and , as Mike said, they can be very fragile. Because they are are light they often lack inertia so the range of tricks they can do may be limited. There are also 2 types - you get the true no/low/indoors type like the Benson Innerspace or Skyburner Prodancer that will fly in a Gnat's fart and do great floaty 360's, 540's rotational type stuff but won't do pitchy tricks and you get others like the Talon SUL which will do a largely full range of tricks but needs a little more wind. They are not easy to fly well ( but look amazing when you can fly them well) and maybe something to try when you have a bit more experience.
Current Bag:- HQ Shadow, Spiderkites Zodarion, Flying Wings Soul, Old blue HQ Jive , 'PAW' modded HQ Maestro II, Delta Hawk,