Reo V5 – The Understated King

July 10, 2019 / Kite

The Kitebaorder Magazine's review for the REO v5 is live!

"The Reo is one of the understated kings of the surf test with its sparing use of high-quality materials and lightweight yet stable airframe that yields the perfect blend of performance and reliability….
The first thing we noticed when we jumped on the Reo was its really light bar pressure on the factory setting (high depower); it had comfortable bar pressure for cruising and longer sessions. We also noticed right off the bat that you get a lot of angle of attack change within a really small portion of bar throw really close to the rider. This is a really nice feature for wave riding because you get a ton of control right at your fingertips and you get a ton of depower when you sheet out. The Reo’s steering response is really crisp and fast, part of that might be the lightweight canopy, but it does seem like the wingtip shape and leading edge diameter yields really quick response to bar input.

The Reo features a tight radius turn that falls on the pivot side of things and tends to drift really well when you travel down the line, moving directly at the kite. These two qualities make the Reo very user-friendly in the waves, allowing you to put the kite where you want, maintain line tension and make quick adjustments to keep the kite powered as you attack different sections of the wave. As we noted above, the Reo serves up a really solid amount of depower when you need it and has a good progressive power delivery while being fairly unaffected when oversheeting the kite. The pivot turn doesn’t build a ton of power in depower mode which makes it very predictable for surf. Because so much angle of attack happens in such a small throw length, the power delivery might be something that takes a bit of getting used to for entry level kite surfers, but for a skilled operator the kite control is super tight. Overall, the Reo V5 is a super fun, nimble surf kite that scored super high points for its top performance in the waves."

REad their full review here: https://www.thekiteboarder.com/2019/07/tkb-surf-test-2019-ozone-reo-v5/?