Cabrinha FX 10m
The new FX from Cabrinha is supposed to appeal a wide range of kite styles and it is one of the new kites people have been asking us if we tested it already. The FX is the latest out of the current eight models from Cabrinha and yes finally we were able to test it. Cabrinha describes the FX as follows; the all new FX kite effortlessly bridges the gap between freestyle and freeride to create the perfect crossover kite. RIDER PROFILE: A rider who mixes hooked and unhooked freestyle tricks. Loves huge jumps and kite loops. Sounds good that is something we as many others indeed love to do.
In the designers note Youtube video is explained that the FX is meant to fill the gap between the full-on competition freestyle kite Chaos and the famous freeride kite Switchblade. The kite has 3 struts, 2 battens at each side in the trailing edge and a wide and quick one pump in- and deflate. It has 2 options for the steeringlines and the split point of the front lines is low, just above the depower system.
Cabrinha Bar depower system
Bar and lines
The 4 line bar has a very nice, gentle soft grip. To ride it on suicide mode, you need a bigger leash-hook than average. The depower lines can be twisted (turned), to untangle the front lines after a kite-, back or front loop. As described in other reviews, we think each 4-line bar should have this feature, to overcome any safety issues. One thing we don’t like is the very old -fashion power/depower system (which is common on Cabrinha bars). It needs too much effort to power the kite. It also doesn’t look to fancy and -in our opinion- is ready for an upgrade. The Cabrinha Overdrive bar will coast you around 500 euro which is very expensive.
Test
Cabrinha FX steering lines settings
We tested the 10m in a steady wind at 22 knots on open sea with medium sized waves. We (simultaneously) compared it with the North Dice 9m 2015.
There are two aspects of the kite that comes to our mind immediately when flying the kite. It is super light (almost as light as the Best TS) on it’s bar pressure. Even on it’s hard/slow (“B”) settings steering lines on the tip the kite is very fast with minimum bar pressure.
Second is it’s quickness in response. We flew the 10m but due to these two aspects the kite felt more like a 8m. This shouldn’t be misinterpreted as being a kite that has a bad low end. We would describe it’s low end as average (the 9m Dice had as much pull as the 10m FX).
One more thing that became clear while jumping and looping: is it’s kindness; the kite is really sweet to you. It handles so nicely that the kite is anything but aggressive. Even overpowered the kite still lifts you in the air with a short but nice pull. The same can be said from a kite loop with the FX. All though a real (mega) kite loop with a 10 meter isn’t the ideal testing combo, we felt just like it want to be nice to you.
More experienced kiters will miss that aggressive aspect of the kite, but you really get a lot in return for it. We would even suggest that this kite would suit a kiter that is ready for his next step in doing some tricks. But we wouldn’t advice it to people that either needs to really feel the kite all the time or those who have a less gentle riding style.
List price
Cabrinha FX 10m Eur 1249,-
Cabrinha Kite Bar Overdrive 2015 Eur 499,99
We Test Kites 
You mention Cabrinha writes it’s a kite that meets in between freestyle and freeride performance. So… What about freeride and freestyle performance? I am gravely missing aspects like stability, depower, power delivery, pop, slack and so on. How can you test a multipurpose kite by just looping and jumping? Also the “More experienced kiters will miss that aspect of the kite…”, what is that referring to? It’s kindness? You mean the kite is forgiving? Looking at al the errors in this text and the fairly poor comments on the flying of the kite, the one who wrote this was in a rush? Maybe get this poor review offline and actually test this kite?
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Hi Lisette,
Thanks for your reply. We like feed back, even when it’s ends with suggesting to get the review offline.
Let’s see if we can answer some of your questions;
Freestyle performance: not so much; the kite if too quick for that. IF you want to place it in percentage from freeride to freestyle, it would be around 70/30.
Freeride performance; What is Freeride? It is too vague defined to answer that question; we think we leave that up to the reader by looking at it’s performance on it’s different aspects.
Stability; The kite is very well balanced and doesn’t jelly fish. Is this the same as stability?
depower/power delivery and pop al is a bit in the same area; We think the sentence in the review sums it up quite okay; ” It handles so nicely that the kite is anything but aggressive.” Which reads to our opinion that the pop is there but gentle and that the power comes at a gentle but nice pull (as written).
Slack; what is in you opinion the slack? The kite is fast (in both reaction and in speed), does this mean it has little slack?
And yes the errors are there, we try to have them as little as possible. Just as you (including the errors) we are not native English speakers. But unlike most reviews, these errors are there since there is no money involved, no sponsors, no biases, just independent reviews. Reviews which will for sure have errors. As long as we can discuss them, we think they can be there.
As it was unclear we added the word “aggressive” to the explanation what experienced kiters will miss in this, truly nice, kite.
ps
Any one who can attribute to the discussion is welcome to post there comments!
Dave
We Test Kites
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Hi Dave,
Sorry, but I really don’t see why you have answered my critical notes with new questions.
On the freestyle performance: personally,this 70/30 percentage tells me nothing. I just want to know how this kite behaves when you unhook it. As you mentioned noting on the kites freestyle behaviour, I am assuming you didn’t ride it that style?
On freeride performance: Do you really want to ask your readers what freestyle performance is? Or if you think this term is too vague, shouldn’t you try to explain in words how the kite behaves, so the reader kan decide for himself wether or not this is a freeride kite? You say you are already doing this, but notes on the kites performance are very scarce in your review. Where does this kite position itself in the wind window? Does it ride upwind well? What about riding speed? Does it have a low or high AR?
Stability: Why are you asking me what stability is? As far as I’m aware no jellyfishing kites were made in the past few years so I don’t see why you would mention it. What I do want to know is how the kite handles gusts. Does is fall from the sky if the wind drops for a second, or is it perhaps behaving nervous?
Since when are depower, power delivery and pop the same thing? Ok so it has a gentle pop, does this mean there’s a lot of depower on the bar, or not? This link really doesn’t make sense to me so please if you could enlighten me?
My opinion on the slack? I don’t know, I didn’t try the kite that’s why I am reading your review. Regarding what ‘slack’ actually means, please just google it.
For sure it’s a nice initiative that you are writing unsponsored reviews, but why does that mean there have to be mistakes in your review? Does the fact that you are independent make it ok write crappy reviews? I am not just talking about grammar or typo’s, I genuinely feel that if you’re going to write kitereviews then you should either write proper ones, or you shouldn’t publish them at all?
I am not in this for the discussion, I just visited your page cause I’m curious about the kite. If you really think discussion is the way to go just to get to the bottom of every single kite’s characteristics, shouldn’t you then just call it a forum?
Sorry to be this harsh, I didn’t plan to criticize your work but I do feel some honesty on the quality of this review was in order.
Perhaps you can make use of the feedback in your next review?
Cheers
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Hi there ! What the big difference compare to the Dice ? I’m not sure whit one I will buy !
thanks
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Hi Pierre-Marc, The Dice has more low end, more bar pressure. The Cabrinha may be a bit better in quality how it is build. Dave
We test kites
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True ! I try both and I find the Dice had a lot more bar pressure. The Dice is faster but develop less power true the turn. Dice look to boost little bit more but the FX is better for unhooked for me.
Let ride !
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The Dice boost more than the FX?? !! First time i hear that.
Isin’t the FX an even better boosting kite than the switchblade? Witch is quite a bit higher than the Dice already.
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I ride the SB for the last 4 years and no the FX does not boost better for sure !
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@Lisette. I don’t know what you ride and In what condition. The slack is not as long as with dedicated wakestyle kite, a bit like the RPM. For unhook if you have ever done any, well you trim it till you ride at 10cm from the swivel or you take a knot until you can do so and you got a near perfect kite. The kite is fast and responsive so it will not be the best beast out there for wakestyle if you are not precise on how you place your hands on the bar, you might send it in the wrong side of the flying window or drive it to the water. On the other end , it is not an on/off kite, so it keeps pulling you if you go blind and is a bit heavy on your back foot, it will keep pulling you until you get the proper balance. Freeride is navigation with the occasional wave riding on the way in, boosted jumps, hooked-in freestyle moves, rotations, unhook if any is mostly for back/front flips, railys, s-bend, no passes. By the way, this can be in big part understood by the original review
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@all
Lisette Blankestijn is “Editor in chief of Access Kiteboard Magazine”
A magazine that indirectly demands money (by demanding to buy an advertisement in the magazine) for reviews of kite hardware….
How about biased reviews!?
Dave
We Test Kites
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Hi Dave,
This is my first post in this website as I found it 2h ago. Congratulation with the reviews because it is something that we need in this sport. Every kite review that I read in past 10 years end like this “This kite is good for freeride, good for freestyle, good for wave and it is for beginners, intermediates and experts…” Independent reviewing is something very useful.
There is something else that I do not understand. I read the review F-One Badit VIII vs. North Dice and there you mentioned that 6 persons spent 4 weeks in Tarifa sailing. How it can be that you write so short review after so much time spent in the water? This FX review I consider it short too, here you mentioned that you tested this FX simultaneously with Dice. If you mention this then we expect that you are going to tell us your impressions of this comparison.
There I partially agree with Lisette (I do not agree with her tone as she sounds rude at some points of discussion). You need to put more things, more details. People that are reading you reviews are very informed. I can imagine that you need more time to collect all information but then edit the post and add more to it afterwards.
I don’t want to discourage anyone working in this project as I consider it great thing. Looking forward for some new reviews.
Cheers.
Branko
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Hi Branko,
Thanks for your reaction, we appreciate it very much.
You are right some reviews could be longer. Sometimes we did not get the kite long enough, sometimes our capabilities are limited (free/wakestyle).
For the Dice/North test we made 2 pages; I think you may have missed the one on the bridles: https://wetestkites.wordpress.com/2014/11/08/bridles-f-one-bandit-8-vs-north-dice-2015/ ?
We also are still learning, but the last thing we wanted to do is “guess” on a description of the supplier or judge without actually test and understand
the effects.
For example there are some kites we own and can describe also long term wear out, but on the other hand you want to compare as fair as possible and we only have a few brands to be described like that. So that is one of the many ideas we have, but we try to sort our time out as efficient as possible.
So we like (and need) the feed back we get and try to work on it!
Thanks again for the support.
Dave
We test Kites
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Hi,
i just read all the comments. I found the review too short and without enough detail.
This is a disappointing review IMO for a website designed to review kites I would expect a much more in depth review. Also I would expect a comparison to the dice since you rode both at the same times. Stating which was better for what.
I have ridden the Dice but not the FX and having these types of details would be ideal.
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