Dynabar - Sliding kitesurfing spreader bar

My first few days out kite surfing I used a waist harness. I had a pretty rough time, like most people, with lots of dragging my face through the sand and hopelessly body dragging to find my board. I remember that the harness I had would ride up around my chest and greatly restrict my breathing. This left me with a real dislike of waist harnesses. I have a knackered knee, so there is no freestyle on my agenda, just wave riding. So I ditched the idea of a waist harness and got myself a seat harness. I felt so much more relaxed in a seat harness. However, riding toe side is tricky and uncomfortable, as the harness cant twist round.

So, I was introduced to the Dynabar, with a sliding anchor. It’s like a regular spreader bar, but without the hook. Instead, there are connection points at each side for a steel rod, or a rope. Here is a link to the website:

http://www.jaystore.eu/

To start with I rode it with the standard configuration, which was a hook running on a steel bar with a bungee to pull it back to centre. This worked well. Suddenly riding toe side was a piece of cake. However, there were some issues.

- The bearing on the back of the hook that ran along the steel bar would wear out super quick and become really stiff.
- When riding toe side, the bar gets quite a long way away from you.

So, I decided to try to get some roller bearings into the bearing surface. I also wanted to make the connection as short as possible, so that on toeside the bar is not too far away. I don’t do unhooked, so I decided that the hook could go. This is what I came up with:

Dynabar - V1 - Ball bearings

This ran much smoother, and it did get the bar closer, but it would tend to twits and jam at one hip, leaving me in a rather contorted position. In addition, the bungee would wear out quickly at the ends. Generally I felt that the system was too complex.

The Dynabar was delivered with a piece of Dyneema cord. Dynabar suggested that the cord be used for snowkiting. I had always wondered how it would work however I was not convinced that the cord would run smoothly with the delivered bearing or my previous bearing setup, so I went out and got a Ronstan 30 Block:

http://www.ronstan.com/marine/product.asp?ProdNo=RF35101

I attached my Flexifoil chicken loop to the pulley with some cord:

Dynabar - V2 - Ronstan on Dyneema

This was totally sweet. It was SO smooth going from the metal bar to the Dyneema cord. No more snags or sudden whipping back to centre. Just buttery smooth. It's like the kite is pulling you from your centre of mass. It’s a really cool feeling. Riding in the waves was bliss, switching from toes to heels, jibing and tacking, all super smooth. I can't recommend enough ditching the bungee and the steel bar :-)

I carried on with a few more tweeks. I was still keen to get the bar as close as possible. I took apart a Flexifoil swivel chicken loop and got this:

Dynabar - V3 - Flexifoil swivel

Then I sent a mail to Flexifoil with an idea, in the hope that they would make it for me:

Dynabar - V4 - Mockup

They were interested, but never got round to making one. So here is one that I made:

Dynabar - V4 - Home made

Also, I found that you can make one by dismantling a Wainman chicken loop:

Dynabar - V4 - Wainman

Last year I sold all my Flexifoil kites and moved to Ozone and Switch. These all have chicken loops that can be threaded through a shackle. So my current and best Dynar bar setup is this:

Dynabar - V5 - Awesome!

Dynabar - V5 - Awesome!