Duotone Evo SLS

The Evo SLS from Duotone has taken the market by storm, why? Its super light weight, exceptional handling and great in air abilities are why.

2021 Duotone Evo SLS – Surf FX

Hey guys Jon from Surf FX and this is the 2021 Duotone Evo SLS. Now this is a pretty hot kite it's a total ground up redesign of the Evo because they gave it the SLS technology which is the Penta TX material on the leading edge and the center strut. Now it's a super, super rigid material which allows them to basically make a tight skeleton that the kite can just, it just doesn't deform so in gusts it doesn't wobble, in turns it's nice and rigid along the the front edge and really the biggest thing is it also takes a half kilo of weight out of the bigger sizes so pretty awesome that they can get that much weight out of the kite so you really feel it even when you pick up the bag you feel hey this is lighter so pretty cool that they can do that.

Now the overall design of this kite is that it's their all-around free ride do everything kite so you know a lot of guys say that but it really works quite well so they've got a kind of elongated wingtip similar to the rebel so that kite just boosts like crazy so it's got decent hang time having that rigid structure keeps the kite, can keep it quite open so you got really great glide to it and they've added the flex tips on flex tip struts to the side struts and what that does that gives it a bit of movement so the kite can actually twist around and pull it around so you have a more constant turn and it allows it to just whip right around if they, you know they talked to these guys before, if they used that Penta TX material in the struts they found the whole thing was just crazy too stiff and it didn't turn, so they have to have some softness in those tips to get it to go around so having that kilo or half kilo weight shaved off it gives it noticeably a bit better drift too.

So they've done that, they've done some other stuff like that new line material, that flight 99 line through the bridles you've got less resistance through the air, having that rigid shape means you can go a little smaller with the leading edge so it actually can cut into the wind it actually flies a little bit further into the window so it cuts up wind a bit better and also having a kite that flies farther to the edge it's an easier one to send to the moon as well. Having a super rigid structure allows you to hold in a bit bigger wind than you normally would so your high end range on these kites is a little bit more than what they had on the other kites from their previous construction just because it doesn't deform so it's a more constant shape when it's really really maxed out and loaded and having a half kilo lighter kite means it can fly in a bit lighter wind so you've got a little bit better low end too but really the gains are in that top end so you can hold a bigger kite and you can absolutely boost.

Being a three strut design keeps it quite stable you know I said you don't have that outright rigidity of the five struts but again you have a better drift so it's a bit more forgiving so if you stuff up overfly the kite you know it's gonna float, it's able to float back and and you can catch it so it's not gonna you know crash and overfly you but really the big changes this kite is the way it goes upwind and then the way you can just send it having that stiffer structure and flying a little closer to the edge of the window.