Best Kiteboarding Waroo 9m 2009
Reviews / Kites
55,300
At a Glance
The Best Waroo has been one of the most popular kites on the market for some time, and with good reason. It has in recent years become one of the kites that just “works” whatever you decide to throw at it. The low price made it a hit with kiters and word spread. Last year, in 2008, the kite was somewhat of a revelation, kiteloops, freestyle, waves, freeride you name it, whatever you threw at it the kite performed. This year the 09 Waroo has a tweaked bridle aimed at giving you more depower and the usual beefy construction, something that in recent years has really come on leaps and bounds. With the Waroo you can be assured it will survive a nasty wipeout or two with enough reinforcements to install confidence in the canopy.
The Bar
The new Best bar is really something to pay attention too, one of the best thought out set ups we have seen in a while. It is packed with features; there are landing handles on both front lines allowing you to land the kite safely on your own. Oh Shit handles on the rear lines add extra safety, the chicken loop release is also very easy to activate and to reset. The chicken loop uses male/female shaping to ensure it won’t twist when you unhook and the bar ends are super comfy for kite loop tricks. It really does ooze quality.
In the Air
Last year the Waroo really set the benchmark in terms of a freeride kite. We were keen to see how it would fair this year and can report we were not disappointed! The kite comes with plenty of user settings to enable you to set it up how you want it to ride. You really can set it to be slow or fast and also vary the bar pressure. We set it on the fast turning points and were very impressed with the speed of the kite this year; it really does turn with a blistering pace. This translates into some huge air and hangtime. The kite really rips you off the water and boosts you super high. You can hover the kite over head and still have time to redirect it forwards in time for the landing. The bar pressure while adjustable on the kite felt fine on the fast settings, not too hard or too soft. Giving you enough feedback to know where the kite was at all times. Upwind the Waroo also flies well with the thin leading edge allowing it to really penetrate the window and drag you upwind with it. Unhooking with the new bar is excellent as the chicken loop sits exactly where you would expect it too in just the right place to pull the bar in and hook back in. We were also pleased to see the kite delivers a good loop too; one of our favourite features from the 08 kite. Pull on the bar and send it through the window to find a decent consistent pull on the kite.
For
The 09 Waroo is an awesome freeride kite, great jumps, easy to unhook and excellent upwind. With good depower too the Waroo won’t disappoint.
Against
We have said it before and we’ll say it again, we love one pump, We have heard for 2010 Best may be introducing an external style system as opposed to the internal one they used on some kites in 2008. We would love to see a one pump Waroo.
Overall
Fantastic bar, great kite, what else is there to say, once again the Waroo does exactly what you ask it to, pure and simple.
This review was in Issue 15 of IKSURFMAG.
For more information visit Best KiteboardingRelated
By Rou Chater
Rou has been kiting since the sports inception and has been working as an editor and tester for magazines since 2004. He started IKSURFMAG with his brother in 2006 and has tested hundreds of different kites and travelled all over the world to kitesurf. He's a walking encyclopedia of all things kite and is just as passionate about the sport today as he was when he first started!
