Just bought and received the 10.2 Unik, sounds crazy or maybe a bit foolish but I bought this kite because I really like Gong’s philosophy and what they did after the past years so I thought, well …. for this price and theyr return policy let’s give it a shot.
I flew a lot of kite brands over the last 16 years and a lot of boards, at the moment I fly with another brand because they fit me the most, most of the time I’m doing waveriding on strapless directionals here on the Northsee coastline in The Netherlands with lots of downwinders in any direction. After so many years I can say about myself that I can feel if a kite doing it`s job or not, so below my summary of The Gong Unik 10.2. (I flew the Unik with bar from another brand with the Y split on lowest position)
The bag:
High quality and comfortable bag with excellent access, enough space and a very good zipper, 2 holes with straps on each side for the bar and pump, some big brands have way less good bags than this one, the only thing what should be convenient is a small extra pocket with zipper or velcro for your spareparts or belongings.
9/10
The kite:
Came nicely packed and sealed in a box in 5 working days, well done!
The kite is beautifully and tightly finished and looks great in the entire wind window without hardly any fluttering. 1 drawback I could find is the rubber tube from the leading edge to the strut, pumping is difficult here, you have to move the small tube to let the air through it, not a big problem but you want the kite to be pumped up in one go without staggering.
I solved this by cutting 2 cm’s of the black rubber tube, 2 min work.
The 2 Ronstan pulley’s are a bit out of time, they do what they have to do but I prefer the sliding pulley’s, much cleaner and most likely we will see this in the 2020 models.
The 10.2 is a powerful kite and light, it is faster than my kite from another brand and drifts perfectly. (difficult to say this but It`s true)
This UNIK can do it all and I think Gong has put down a very good product here, which is certainly not inferior to the more famous brands.
I will give more updates after a number of downwinders as also how this machine will fly on the foil, let’s see how this outstanding one-strutter behaves in overpowered conditions and how de wind dump is (High end) Low end is powerfull!
To the Gong team: You nailed it with this one! :-))
Shorten the black rubber tube by 2 cm and sliding pulley’s instead of rolling pulley’s.
8/10
Pricewise 10/10
(I give it an 8 because I have no comparison one strutters material but that will certainly follow)
Kiteboarder : Erik et sa GONG Kite 10.2 Unik.
Read more avec le tuyau de la latte en 9m. Je finis mon autres matos et je reste chez GONG. Pour info j’ai acheté un foil Allvator et une Catch avant de partir en vacances il y a 2 semaimes, jamais fait de foil et en 2 heures je planais sans toucher sur la traversée du Lac de Monteynard. Je précise que je n’ai rien à voir avec la marque GONG.