This is a really insightful and well-written post. Thank you. I can appreciate what you say, especially when it comes to foiling/windsports. Many of us actually don’t get to do them very often, because we don’t live in Maui/the Gorge/Australia/SoCal, etc. Or made the mistake of building them instead of riding them I have an immense emotional attachment to wind/watersports, and sometimes just reading forums and reviews does help connect me to a sport that I don’t get to do as much as I want. It satiates the need. But the engineer in me, and with experiences like yours, I simply don’t believe 90% of what brands or reviewers say anymore. I literally started Project Cedrus because brands were saying they “engineer their flex.” Now we have brands so focused on “thickness” that they miss the most basic laws of fluid dynamics. It is maddening. My goal with Project Cedrus is to make a mast that lasts 4-5 years, instead of being on a 1-year cycle like all these brands that come out with something slightly different every year and make people feel like they need to upgrade. It’s not healthy, it’s the psychological trap you are referring to, and in a way the review culture promotes it.
I am working on growing a demo fleet, so to answer your question yes I do think you can try it someday and I do think you will notice a difference. My challenge has been lowering my costs so that I can begin to do more wholesale/retail sales which is the best way for people to see/touch/feel/ride the mast. Obviously shops deserve a cut of sales given the value they add in this regard. But until now there wasn’t room. My new manufacturing process will allow it.
Everyone is riding their own specific conditions (water state, wave speed, chops, etc), have their own weight, quads strength, technique etc etc.
Nothing like riding the gear yourself to know if it works for you. Reviews give you a rough idea, but you need to know the rider and where they ride and how they ride.
I made a 20yrs mistake of buying windsurfing gear based on reviews. Only to find out eventually as a lightweight that my needs are very different than the “average” rider.
Same with foiling , Foiling is relatively new and like many mentioned demo gear is next to impossible to get. So I just buy them ($$$, and don’t tell my wife).
I do offer them for others to try, weirdly enough, I presume because of the cost of the gear and fear of damaging it, not many will take on the offer. @ProjectCedrus I do love reading your technical stuff.
Just watched the Foil shop review on your website. Good review. Like @Hdip said, I trust those guys for being unbiased. Anybody proning on your mast out here on Kauai? Would love to sample one day…
Underrated point here that most people do not have the sensitivity to notice the difference between badly tuned setup, inappropriate setup and just bad characteristic of gear. You’ll probably find that your man wrote up a detailed comparison of all this gear, contributing to the noise.
On reviews, I think 99% of reviews are useless for prone because 99% of people are not good enough to form valid opinions that are worth sharing… however in aggregate some sense of signal does emerge (the wisdom of crowds)…
testing rules of thumb:
If it works, stick with it
If you are consistently making mistakes pumping, you need something easier
ride what people ride locally
you need a few sessions to write a foil off entirely
I firmly believe until you’ve ridden a front wing with a few different tails, fuselage lengths, and tail shimming - you don’t know that wing. I’ve seen half a degree shim on the tail make a front wing turn from a dog to coming alive. You have to put in the time to understand the gear and there aren’t many reviewers doing that (or at least talking about doing that)
Adam is very very very rarely towing and you will know straight away in the clip as he doesn’t wish to hide it. I can assure you he can pump an fone eagle 690 a very very long way in far from optimal circumstances, which is no easy feat for anyone and particularly his size.
Nearly all his best australian clips are filmed at wategos Byron which requires a paddle in, a good pump to get out of little wategos most of the time and if you wish to get to the pass and further you had better have the very best pump games. If you want to learn how to pump tiny ha wings then Adam is your man.
Some great posts in this thread but a few that I find embarrassing as a Foiler and should be removed. They are not in the spirit of foiling as they are just wrong and look a little bitter and personal.
The reason Foilers are so reliant on “reviews” is multifactorial:
-there is minimal demo gear and when there is a demo conditions may not be optimal or representative or the setup is not tuned right for you
-gear is advancing so fast that every 6 months there’s a >10% better setup coming out
-gear is extremely expensive so you don’t want to make an error with your investment
-foiling is hard and it’s fun to think there’s a perfect setup out there that will bring us more fun/happiness
The PROBLEMs with reviews include:
-multiple biases as previously discussed
-different conditions are better for different gear (Florida versus Hawaii versus Australia versus Europe etc)
-different rider skills/styles are better for different gear (ie. Bennetts on the original Hyper wings was better than 98% of us today on the best gear, how can you even factor that into your purchasing decision?)
A good rule of thumb is just to ride what the locals ride and have fun with your friends
I have an immense emotional attachment to wind/watersports, and sometimes just reading forums and reviews does help connect me to a sport that I don’t get to do as much as I want. It satiates the need. But the engineer in me, and with experiences like yours, I simply don’t believe 90% of what brands or reviewers say anymore. I literally started Project Cedrus because brands were saying they “engineer their flex.” Now we have brands so focused on “thickness” that they miss the most basic laws of fluid dynamics. It is maddening. My goal with Project Cedrus is to make a mast that lasts 4-5 years, instead of being on a 1-year cycle like all these brands that come out with something slightly different every year and make people feel like they need to upgrade. It’s not healthy, it’s the psychological trap you are referring to, and in a way the review culture promotes it.
