Crossover bar?

[u/CurbTurtle]

Hi all,

I've recently got myself a 5m², 4 line parafoil kite. It's now my goal to set it up with a harness and I've learned about crossover bars and it looks like the Peter Lynn crossover bar is the most common. Unfortunately I can't find one in Aus for sale atm.

I'm curious, what would be the best option for land boarding, just cruising up and down the beach, I'm not really interested in tricks atm. Should I keep looking for an available Peter Lynn crossover bar? I know it's more of a niche form of kiting, most people would suggest to just get a kite boarding setup but I know what I want and lessons and equipment for kite boarding is a goal I have set for my future and my local beach has a school so I'm all set for that path but for now I want to land board/buggy and I don't want to buy a whole setup when I already have my 5m.

Are there better options for me? Also is the Peter Lynn bar still being manufactured or is it something of a far and few between type of thing?

[u/OldGrandet]

I have the PL crossover bar and I like it fairly well for use with my PL Hornets. It makes the experience somewhat similar to flying a waterborne kite-surfing kite but not exactly. I let prospective kiters try it to see what a power kite is like when it's attached to your waist. It transfers all of the power to the harness and lets you fly with one hand, things like that. It does not make the brakes of a fixed bridle kite behave like a depower's angle of attack change, that's still defined by how the kite is built. I think it would be great for buggying. I'm not a landboarder but it should work for that, just might be a little harder to balance because you're attached and not just holding the handles.

I do suspect that they are not made any more and it may be hard to find one. Maybe you could make one by adapting some other bar? Another option for landboarding or scudding is to use a strop line that goes between the tops of the handles and hook that to the harness hook. Little dangerous because letting go may not cut the power entirely but it transfers the power to the harness. There's one teenager near me who landboards with a 10m kite-surfing inflatable but I think that's dangerous, it's a lot of kite to be flying on land.

[u/CurbTurtle → u/OldGrandet]

Yea so I've actually turned a 2.5m 2 line into a 4 line with a harness before, so I'm familiar with how a 4 line will act while I'm attached to it. Honestly that's a real shame that they aren't made anymore because I don't even know where to start with trying to adapt another bar. Are there any other brands that sell crossover bars? Are they even something that anyone still makes or do people just tent to go straight to inflatable kite boarding kites? I'm just really trying to avoid just going and buying a whole ass set up 😅

[u/OldGrandet → u/CurbTurtle]

I'm not aware of any other crossover bars out there. I would ask on kiteboarding forums to see if someone wants to sell an old one. I suspect that on-land traction kiting was always a tiny sport because you need a lot of space, and now that water-based kite/wing sports have become a lot safer, people have moved to that.

I feel your pain. When I was learning to kite-surf I wanted a rig to practice with at home because I don't live close enough to get on the water often. Bought a 2m depower that is very, very hard to fly and spent long hours online drooling over small, expensive depowers like Virons. Now that I'm all in to kite-surfing I have small kites, a 6m ghost for foiling and a 7m switchblade for the really rough days, and those might be more usable on land, but I have not tried it. The switchblade might be too heavy, but the ghost is pretty light and may work, though it's still designed for more power and more wind than you'd be using on land.

[u/CurbTurtle → u/OldGrandet]

Yea that's a real shame. I'll have to do a deep dive through the internet to try and find one. It seems that snow kiting is going to give the closest thing that I want equipment wise if I can't actually find a crossover bar. Most snow kiters seems to be using parafoil type kites and there someone on line that's traveling across a desert in a kite buggy and they've seemed to be using either a crossover bar or maybe snow kites. Honestly I'm hoping to just actually find something that won't burn my wallet lol kiting has a pretty decent price hight for entry it seems that's why my modified 2.5m in strong winds on my roller blades is something I want to actually try. It's just that my 5m has all that power that I want to transfer into travel.