What’s up everyone! Welcome back to another Blog. Jake Kelsick here and today I’m gonna be talking about how to set up your twin tip and touch on two common mistakes most people make when they’re setting up their brand-new board for the first time. Please watch the video above if you cant follow this via text!
Okay guys so today we’re gonna walk you through how to set up your twin tip. Today we’re gonna be using the Tona Joy Ride for our example because it’s my favorite twin tip to ride with foot straps and all that stuff will apply to no matter what board you have. And yeah, setting up a twin tip is actually super straightforward but there are a few key things that you may not have paid attention to if you’ve never set up a board before and that’s what we’re gonna kind of talk about as we start setting our board up. So the only tool you need to actually set up most twin tips is a star tip screwdriver. So we got that here and with the Tona Joy Ride whenever you purchase one it comes as a complete setup. So you get some Tona Slippas right here, boom boom boom. These are our foot straps which are gonna go onto the board. We also get a little Tona handle right here, boom boom boom, which goes right into the center of the board. And then we obviously get all our nuts and bolts as well. So some for the Slippas and then two for the actual handle. So you should get everything you need to actually set it all up. And we’re gonna actually start setting everything up. So here’s where things can start getting sort of interesting, I guess. Because its super simple to set up a twin tip but there are few things that most people when you’re first setting one up, you don’t even think about. So yeah the first tip is going to be actually on the bottom of your board dealing with your fins. So we’re gonna pop all this stuff off for a sec and walk you through underneath of the board.
Alright so here we go. So basically this is the underneath of the board. So you got some fins this side, boom boom boom, and we also got some fins this side, boom boom boom. And from a quick glance they may not look very different but basically this is one of the key mistakes that most people make when they first set their board up. They actually put their fins on the wrong way around. So as you can see here on these fins, the highest point of the fins should actually be at the tip of the board and not at the other side like it is over here. And this is one of the funniest mistakes that most beginners make when they set it up because your board will actually still work like this but they are definitely back to front. And it can be a little bit deceiving if you haven’t really looked at too many boards because you would think you would want the water running over this way but you actually don’t you want to set up like that. So that’s the first tip, make sure you have your fins on the right way and no one will be secretly laughing at you when they see your board on the beach.
Alrighty, so the second thing I see a lot of people sometimes run into when they’re setting their board up it’s not paying attention to your insert alignment. So some boards have them in center; the Tona Joy Ride actually has them offset and this allows you to get a nice angle of duck on your foot strap. So basically there is a right and wrong way. If they are at this angle, basically you want your foot strap facing this way and not the other way. So this would be the heel side edge, this would be the toe side edge. So when I put my foot straps on this way, you know it kind of gets a natural, nice angle for your foot to be in the foot strap. Where as if I start putting them on more on the other way, like this way, you start to lose the ability to get duck because your inserts are actually offset to be the other way, like this. Alright so that’s a small thing to note. If you find like you’re not able to get enough duck out of your foot straps, it may be because you’re actually using your interest the wrong way around because you should be able to get a nice amount of duck on your foot straps to have a comfy ride out on your kite session. And then you can also see there’s a bunch of different inserts There’s one, two, three, four different stance options. So this actually doesn’t make too much of a difference. This is kind of personal preference. I usually walk all the way in or just one out. But if you were a taller person or you just liked having a wider stance you could kind of go all the way out to here. So that’s something that doesn’t really matter too much but it’s worth pointing out that, you know, feel free to experiment with your stance. It is always slightly different for everyone.
And now I’m just going to set the board up completely. Get all foot straps on, get everything set up and kind of show you guys the final product when the Joy Rides all set up and then we’ll kind of wrap it up and get out for a session.
The straps are good, everything’s lined up perfect, fins are the right way around on both sides and pretty much that’s all you need to remember about setting up your board. Make sure your stance is good and make sure your fins are good. Pretty straightforward but I’ve seen a lot of people kind of messed it up so figured I’d make a video about it as well as show you guys the Tona Joy Ride.
So guys that’s pretty much it. Hopefully you guys enjoyed getting a few pointers on how to set up your board. If you did, feel free to drop a comment down below on what board you’re riding right now. I’d love to kind of just know what people are out there whipping around on. And if you want to find out more about the Tona Joy Ride or anything Tona, make sure you head over to tonalife.com, check out what we got cooking up and that’s pretty much it, booze. See you guys soon for another video. Peace, love and big ups!!
– Jake
Nice article Jake. Interestingly some boards have also the property to change their flexibility behavior according to the footpads positions. It is nicely explained in this article: https://kitesurfculture.com/blog/46/Hidden-benefits-of-pads-settings-in-our-twin-tip-kiteboards.
Is this the same for tona boards or do they get little influence out of the position of the pads?