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Trident by 'Jest of Eve Kites'
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The Trident is a Freestyle Sports Kite designed and built by Mark Clements. This is Mark's first offering, and it's really quite good. |
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Technical Specifications:
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Design Features:
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Build Quality and Design All of the Tridents Mark makes are custom coloured with a striking panel layout. The stitching and craftsmanship is outstanding, with particular attention to detail. Stress points are all adequately reinforced to prevent wear and tear, and the raw materials used are amongst the very best available. |
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The end result is a great looking, very durable kite that will provide many hours of enjoyment. In comparison to many Sports Kites currently available, the Trident has quite a high aspect ratio. This, along with the ballast and frame weight, makes it extremely sensitive and pitchy. This is a freestyle kite and will react quickly and accurately to flier inputs without the need for big hand and body movements. |
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Flight Characteristics The usable wind range of the Trident is around 4 - 18 mph, with the sweet spot being a steady 8 - 10 mph. There is a comfortable amount of drive, without too much pull. Much below 5 mph, and some ground movement is required to keep the sail alive and much over 15 mph, the kite is over-powered, and the wing tips start to judder. Anywhere between, and the Trident stays active and responsive very nicely indeed. |
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The freestyle design makes straight tracking and sharp, accurate cornering quite challenging. With careful handling and delicate inputs to prevent over-steer, some semblance of precision flying can be achieved, but that's not really what we're all about here. Where this kite excels is in freestyle and trick moves. All of the most recent moves are accessible, along with some beautiful floaty 'Old School' manoeuvres too. Axel based tricks such as 'Cascades', 'Fountains' and 'Cometes' are sharp and precise and look stunning executed slowly, but mind blowing thrashed out as fast as your hands will go. The Trident is stable in a 'Fade', and will 'Backspin', 'Backspin Cascade' and 'Barrel Roll' comfortably. The 'Turtle' is equally stable, with 'Lazy Susan' based moves causing no problems. There is such an amount of inertia generated form relatively small inputs that multi-rotational spins from a single pop are a pleasure to fly. |
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Because of the high aspect ratio and ballast, this kite will yo-yo with ridiculous ease. Multi-wraps come naturally aided by the Andy Wardley design Roll Bars. A really neat touch is some extra stoppers along the roll bars. These act as additional catch point when executing 'Pop' tricks whilst wrapped, effectively keeping the lines within the Roll Bars themselves instead of slipping off. If there is a downside to the pitchy characteristic, it is that careful slack tending is needed for 'Rolling Cascades', 'Cyniques' and 'Insanes'. The slightest too much input will cause the kite to over rotate and wrap up. Careful tending is a small price to pay for such readily accessible yo-yo moves though. |
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Summary The 'Trident' is a great looking, well built, Freestyle frenzy of a kite. It is difficult to compare against a Benson, CR, R-Sky or any other top-end sports kite currently available, but I would suggest that this is equally well made, and flies in such a unique way, that it's worthy of a place in any kite bag - alongside the more established brands. |
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September 2006
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The Trident 'Light' is the light weight brother of the Trident Freestyle Sports Kite designed and built by Mark Clements, now trading as Jest of Eve Kites. |
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Technical Specifications:
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Design Features:
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Build Quality and Design Mark has already established himself with a name for excellent workmanship on the kites he makes, and the Trident 'Light' does not disappoint. The stitching and attention to detail is outstanding making for a durable, as well as eye-catching piece of sporting equipment. The panel layout on this version is somewhat different from the standard, with a full 'Alien' face being depicted. There is potential for this kind of design to look somewhat childish, but this is not the case. The design really does stand out and certainly carries something of a 'Wow' factor to the casual observer. This light version has all of the style of the standard, and thanks to some nifty frame weighting, in the wingtips, centre 'T' and spine, none of the trick performance is lost in very light winds. |
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Flight Characteristics As with the standard version, this is a 'Freestyle' sports kite, so if you are looking for precision, look elsewhere. If, however, you are looking for a free flowing, great fun flying experience, you could well be in the right place. The usable wind range of the Trident 'Light' is between 0 - 12 mph, with the sweet spot being a steady 4 - 5 mph. This is not a true 'Ultra Light', but will with a little work perform all of the modern freestyle moves in a solid, even aggressive attitude right down to the very lowest of wind days. The Trident 'Light' will float, very nicely indeed with slow 'Axels', '540's' and 'Slot Machines' just drifting round with the most delicate of inputs. However, unlike many light weight kites, this kite will respond to more defined handling, and will withstand being told exactly what to do. |
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None of the pitch characteristics of the Standard have been lost. This is probably the most yo-yo friendly sports kite currently available. Multi-wraps come naturally, and wrapped flying and add-on tricks cause no problems once the technique is mastered. The same can be said for rotational moves. 'Backspins' and 'Lazy Susans' will multi-spin comfortably from a solid, single input. As will 'Crazy Copters' and 'Yo-Fade Backspins'. This is probably all sounding a touch technical, from the perspective of a casual flyer, so it's probably enough to say, that if you can fly any kind of 'Freestyle', this kite will keep up with you; In the lightest of winds too, a rare thing indeed. |
October 2006
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Reviewed by Bryan Beasley |
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For further information on the Trident or Trident Light see: www.jestofevekites.com |
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