axis was my first real foil brand after my gen 1 nsp foils. initially they were great as i was doing wingfoiling, loved how much better they were compared to nsp and ended up buying maybe 40-50k nzd worth of axis gear from them, all of which is sitting in a closet never to be touched again. there are a number of things that have led me from being the biggest whale / fanboy to basically a hater. first, they overpromise and you get screwed with the new product launches.
example 1: i have a wide range of wings, im gonna need a wide range of fuses to match to the wings, so i got invested in all the non-advance standard fuses, then the plus came out, which means i have to buy all the fuses again. A few months later the advance plus comes out, and adrian says that the advance plus is just so much better than the plus and standard, they dont even sell the normal plus anymore.
example 2: spitfire was released and it was touted as a great wing to pump and link. i learned on the spitfire to prone and it was like the best wing ever for that, draggy but perfect for learning to turn like a surfboard. but it was also advertised as an amazing pump wing. i linked maybe one wave in the 6 months i spent trying to prone foil that, i had to give it up and go back to the 1099/1201. now its widely accepted the spitfire lacks the glide of a higher aspect wing, but the initial hype and advertising was like crazy over hyped on how well you could link with it.
example 3: last straw for me. because i was proneing on the 1099/1201 as those were the only wings i felt like i could easily pump and link, i was always looking for the solution from axis. here comes the art pro series. i should have listened to dominic hoskyns but instead i listened to an axis team rider who told me the 1051 would be perfect for me to pump and link as i loved the 1201 so much. i tried the 1051 one time, the stall speed was crazy high (and felt terrible on a wave) and i never used it again. now axis releases the fireball which seems like a copy of the code R, which is basically an art pro v2 but they screwed everyone over with the first gen art pros. this is not just me saying this. look at all the pro dw team riders they had and lost during the art pro (andrew gibbons, edo, etc…) . the inside information given to me by a dw pro team rider who switched was that the art pro was a disaster, they rushed it and the reason why it sucked was because they have to basically build every design based off the big rectangular conection system.
my code experience: my next wing / foil brand i tried was the code 980/1130 and i was one of the earlier adopters, the very first wave (i even have it recorded from the boat), I was linking 4 waves on the 980, pumping 40 sec into the wind. the code R wings are just silly good for pumping, i say that the R makes the S feel like going back to an outdated axis setup. (though my favorite wing is still the 980S)
im sure the new axis wings are better, but the crazy marketing and all the money i wasted has left a bitter taste. l feel misled from axis marketing about how every product from axis is just amazing and pumps great, when 6 months later they come out and say "oops actually its sht and here the new model is good". I mean what good does the smaller art pros have compared to the new fireball, if they were honest they should recall that art pro or at least rename it to sht pro. Last thing, you have adrian going on podcasts talking down about all the other brands about and saying that color is more important than area and all that nonsense just adds salt to the wound.
