Best Value Beginner Package on the market - Freedom Foil Boards?

Foils and Boards - Gear Talk
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I hadn’t come across this site yet - they do have a lot of stuff - thanks for the recommendation!

I started pricing out what it would take to piece together a used Axis system to compare that to the FFB deal. Looks like I might be able to put together something like a 75cm 19mm Aluminum mast with the rest of the bits, red fuse, classic Axis 820 ($300) from their original line or BSC 1060 ($500) and 400 stab plus the two local used wings for about 1575, which still leaves me looking for a board but assuming I can eventually find something between 500-800, that puts me pretty close to the FFD deal. It also took me many hours of research to figure out (Axis has quite the lineup), which I’m not sure many beginners would be willing to do, but I am that guy for better or worse, and this also involves buying direct from forum classifieds and facebook, which certainly adds another level of requirement for being able to navigate those waters, dodge scammers etc.

For anyone else following in my footsteps in the future, Axis also has their Super Easy Start Package at 1,238.00, which might be good, but the wing probably wouldn’t resell as well because it hasn’t been reviewed a lot, isn’t carbon, and comes with a nonstandard fuse.

The board is the toughest part because there is nothing large on the local market and used shipping will suck. Renting might work to get through the first few days - I’ll have to check with Real…or maybe just rent a jet ski and do some flat water towing.

I think this is mostly just a product of me being new to this sport and trying to digest what has been presented to me. When I got into kiteboarding back in the day around the advent of the bowkite, kiteforum had massive megathreads for each brand and it was easy to go through and soak up people’s experiences in one place. Up until today (when I found an Axis megathread on standupzone) , I hadn’t found anything similar for this sport to allow me to get my bearings. There are so many brands and so many choices within each brand that I don’t think it is possible to really understand how each brand compares, especially with things changing so rapidly. When I get on forums like this, everyone is talking about progression and unifoil. I followed a bunch of people on instagram and youtube, and it’s the same thing - everyone has their brand and niche and the new hotness is downwind etc.

However, the downwind stuff is what made me interested in this sport at all, so given that it is my long term goal to work toward, I’m just keeping that in mind with any gear path I take if it makes sense. Everything I read about learning winging is about how difficult it is to get up and get started on foil at first, and then everything I see about DW boards is that they get up on foil super fast. The tippiness before getting up to speed could present its own problems, but that seems like it could be more of a problem in my wheelhouse (balancing on boards) that might allow me to focus on the new problems (foil) riding more often.

I was searching around the idea of learning on a downwind board and came across this discussion between people seriously suggesting it, so I don’t think it is THAT crazy, just a bit untested at this point in general. The people on that thread were saying it is hard to know because they can’t go back to being a beginner, which kind of gives me the itch to be that guinea pig (for science)!

Thanks for your suggestions - they have definitely spun me out in new directions - we’ll see if I come back to the FFB kit or not in the end, but I’m actively working on the Axis situation at this point.

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Yes I was sort of approaching the FFB kit with the idea that I would sell the board and foil together within a year to another beginner. I wish that the used prices I’ve found reflected that the previous stuff has been rendered worthless. I’m seeing like 25-35% discounts for the most part. Of course there’s room for haggling, but then there’s also paying all of the shipping costs from a bunch of different sellers.

I feel like, at least in my local market, I could flip the board and foil together as a beginner kit quickly, because there simply is nothing above 75L on the market here (and hasn’t been for the past 4 weeks).

I’m toying with the idea of scrapping together an Axis rig now, just because of the amount of time I’ve sunk into researching the gear, but I’m still left waiting for a reasonable board to pop up locally or a great deal new. That FFB kit still seems like a viable path, especially because I’ll likely want different gear next year any way. Cheers!

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That’s the main reason I respond to these beginner threads so much. The foiling landscape is to overwhelming and hard to learn. Don’t get an AXIS BSC. Get an AXIS 1150PNG if you want to learn very quickly.

Get last generations DW boards. Kalama E3. Sunova Aviator Pro/Elite. In the 6’5" ish range. A SUP that you can literally just stand on. They work as wing boards.

The sellers aren’t listing gear lower, but that gear’s not selling. If you watch long enough and in the right places, which are unfortunately mostly WhatsApp groups. Then you will see that prices are low. People eventually get to the point where you either sell quickly for cheap. Or wait around for a long time to sell.

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I din’t read through this thread, but I have Halcyon 1030 and 1250 and can comment on that. Halcyon 1030 is not a fast high aspect wing. Its mid aspect allrouder. You don’t need to reach high spead to get it up like on HA foils. It pumps, rolls and turns well. I use it for winging and prone surfing in weak mushy surf. Construction an quality is quiet simmilar to Armstrong. Im 75 kg.

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Good to hear the 1030 is performing the way they describe it on the website! I wonder what they did to achieve that since the aspect ratio is listed fairly high at 8.7 - too many variables in this sport to take anything at face value - thanks for your feedback!

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Halcyon 1030 has the aspect of 7.2. Thats what FFB website says and thats how it feels.

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I really appreciate you taking the time - hopefully it will pay off for future people searching as well. 1150 PNG it is!

Good call I’ll research those more and see what I can find. I think I may have seen a Kalama E3 for sale 4 hours south of me.

My ears are perked - how do I find this treasure trove of desperate sellers?! I’m not on What’s App, but I’ll change that for the right price haha!

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Oh okay that makes more sense - thanks for pointing that out! I was looking at the specs tab on the 1030 Foil Kit Page, which are incorrectly listed at 8.7 compared to the specs on the 1030 foil page.

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There’s the LA one. You gotta find the other regional ones yourself unfortunately.

FFB dagger just sold for $1600 for example. The Hawaii one has even better deals.

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Oahu is where the real deals are. Fly out there and foil for a week.

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GEEZ yes those are the kinds of deals we need over here on the east coast!

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UPDATE: The foiling gods smiled upon me and a decent listing came up! I grabbed a good condition 2020 Quatro Pro Wing Drifter 5’8 120L for $350, which seemed reasonable to be able to resell when we’re ready to move on. Some people back in 2020 were discussing using the 5’8 as a sup foil as well, so there’s that option, though I think maybe the newer board designs have surpassed it for that usage.

I asked the seller if he had any other kit to sell and ended up grabbing an Axis HPS 980, ART 999, 375 progressive tail, short black fuse and 90 cm mast, doodad and base all for $650! He threw in a very used 5.5m slingshot wing that he said would get us through a few beginning sessions - more than kind of him!

So at this point, I’m thinking that I either purchase (or trade the ART 999 for) an 1150 PNG, pick up a 75 cm mast, 400 tail, and then we have a decent starter set with plenty of room to move forward w/ the 980/999 and eventually will have enough kit for two simultaneous setups, which is good because I’m learning with my brother. The Axis setup will give us the extensibility to move into other brands of foil wings depending on how we progress.

I’m exactly $1,000 in so far, which is a good place to be compared to the $2000 FFB starter kit. I can now grab a couple more inflatable wings for ~$500 (either used or the FFB 2 wing package on macKites). That with the extra mast, rear wing, etc should put us in a great place to start learning with plenty of options to last us for a while and we can swap boards as needed.

Thanks for all the help on this everyone - we’ll be out there flailing around very soon!

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Good find on the gear, plan seems decent if you plan to have 2 full axis kits. But I would just skip getting a smaller mast right away if you are just planning on winging (unless it’s really shallow where you are and the 15cm can make a real difference). The longer mast will give you more leeway before breaching, quite useful when you are a beginner.

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Axis is great for winging. If you want the easiest possible setup go for the bsc1120, yeah its slow but that’s what you want for your first 20 sessions until you get your jibes nailed. Then you can go into higher aspect wings.

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I’d say because you can kite board you could attempt the black fuse compatible PNG 910b as you’ll probably be able to make it work but this depends on your aptitude a bit. Ideally borrow a bigger rig and a similar to 910 for a few sessions before committing

However if you have lots of marginal <20mph wind days then go bigger as Meow is right you want a big foil to learn to gybe. If the wind is strong then gybing is super easy as the wind just blows you along and keeps the wing out the way.

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You still have this set up or have you sold it yet? Looking at getting started now.