CORE Pace

CORE’s current flagship Pace Pro has been around for approximately a year now and went down well amongst the CORE team and dedicated Big Air riders alike. It’s undisputedly a highly agile and performant kite, and required a razor-sharp level of kite control to get the most out of it. The Aluula airframe gave it insane theme-park-ride lift, and it had that punchy power delivery as well as an equally punchy price point to match. Responding to demand from both the consumer and the CORE team, a Dacron version of the Pace Pro was inevitable, and a year later, here it is.

Out of the bag, you’ll see a fairly familiar 3-strut Pace shape, albeit with some subtle changes. Higher tube diameters are utilized to accommodate the Exotech 2 Dacron which makes up the leading edge. The canopy profile is deeper to give the kite a more stable leeward flying. There’s increased segmentation in the wingtips to give the Dacron a little more stiffness here. To allow for a little more twist to improve handling, and to save some weight to improve drift, they’ve used the Exotech Light material on all three struts.

Like its golden cousin, the Pace has a fixed bridle, in this case with 14 LE hang points, so you need a CORE Sensor 4 bar to let it flag properly, which is a consideration if you currently own one of the legacy systems. The attention to detail with the build is always impressive on the CORE kites, and the white stitching on black fabric leaves no room for hiding bad workmanship at the factory, and also probably makes QC an easier process. The CoreTex 2 canopy is a triple ripstop, and is well proven across the entire CORE range. Compared to some brands, it seems to have a higher level of UV coating, and water beads off it well.

Compared to the Pace Pro, the Pace in Exotech Dacron is easier to dial into for the average rider and more forgiving in gusts. Its power delivery both during jumps and through loops is less spiky, and it takes less management and attention to fly. During heli-loops the kite flies behind you less and the kite behaves in a generally less aggressive manner. Its power delivery is extremely smooth and has a more predictable and assured feeling. Initiating jumps is extremely easy to time and you can throttle how much pull you’d like through your kiteloop by adjusting the diameter from smaller high pivotal spins all the way up to big ‘balls out’ low loops. What it does every time without fail is climb and recover extremely reliably, which really helps build confidence.

For the more novice or indeed progressive rider, the swept LE and thinner wingtips mean the kite has little suction on the water and is very simple to relaunch by just depowering and pulling a steering line.

In context to the rest of the CORE range, the Pace sits somewhere in between the XR and the Nexus. It’s like they had a honeymoon in Cape Town and produced offspring. It potentially eclipses the existing Nexus (their current allrounder) in some departments. We felt it had a distinct leaning towards Big Air with increased hangtime and a more punchy and easier to initiate kiteloop which pulls super smoothly throughout the kite’s rotation. If your riding is heading that direction rather than for wave use, we’d pick the Pace over the Nexus every time. For unhooked riding, we were surprised at the level of slack it had on offer. It doesn’t just pull relentlessly. The Pace also has a little more bar feeling where the Nexus is a little more passive.

It’s indicative of what a significant effect the modern materials we’ve seen implemented in airframes has, in this example of design direction when a kite starts life in Aluula and is then reverse engineered into Dacron. As far as we’re aware this is the first instance in a production kite that a model has been potentially toned down for the masses, and it’s a freeride triumph.

Rather than a compromise or a price consideration versus the Pace Pro, the Dacron Pace is more of a considered choice between extreme performance or something that’s far more forgiving, manageable and accessible. Regardless of its lineage, it’s a sportive handling top-tier freeride kite that suits a massive range of riding scenarios and is exceptionally fun to fly. In a mature kite market, it ticks all the boxes for the vast majority of riders.