A brilliant and visionary move back in 2008, when F-one decided to reduce its kite range back -more or less- to only one type of kite; The Bandit. It is safe to say the Bandit made a lot of kiters really happy, no matter if they where doing freeriding, freestyle or even waveriding. An impressive achievement. Whatever we will have to say about the Bandit everybody, including us, will be happy riding a Bandit. But is the ninth version still revolutionary? We could test five different sizes of the 2016 version for over one month to answer that, and many more, question.
Bandit
We see the F-one Bandit as one of the inventors of the -more and more popular- all in one kite. A kite that can be used without almost any compromise for freeride, freestyle and wave riding. Where most brands have at least three or more different lines of kites (North for example even has seven different types of kites), F-one believes in focus on more or less just one; the Bandit (next to the Trust and the Diablo, a race kite). Marketing wise this is kind of tricky. A marketing theory is that if you have less options the chance you will buy at this company decreases.
With a kite with such a broad spectrum of possibilities it is easier for you to try new moves or even other disciplines. For example take the Ozone Edge; it will probably give you the best airtime ever, but is not likely to push you to do your first kite loop, your first unhook trick, to do a Jesus walk or to go out and catch a wave on your surfboard. The Bandit will.
The test

Let´s starts with the positive aspects of the Bandit nine: It is a wonderful toy which responds quick and intuitive. Nobody really needs to gets used to it. No matter how little experience you may have.The bar pressure is just about right and if you think it is a bit too soft set back the steering lines on the tip of the kite. Its most outstanding point is its remarkable high end performance. You can easily hold the Bandit 2 sizes up from other brands and still have that controlled feeling. Pushing the bar just a little bit away will relieve you from a lot of pressure. It is really a superb on-off kite. The load to a pop is moderate and is easy to achieve since the kite doesn’t need much effort or dedication. However when you have used a C-kite before you may find the pop from the Bandit a bit soft and not radical enough.
Looping, or learning to loop, is super fun. The Bandit can make super snappy kite loops. Try them in moderate winds and learn it. When you are better at it you will advance quickly with the Bandit to still do those loops way overpowered. The canopy will shake and let you know you did something radical, but that has been with the Bandit for a time now. Need to worry about it? Not really. Just make sure you check your battens every now and then. Since we know

a lot of the seven and eight versions broke or even lost them from its little pocket.
A bit disappointing is the low end. The sweet spot of the Bandit lies in its higher range. Another fall back is the follow up of the industry last steps in innovation: No large inflate and no detwistable depower line (the swiffel wont do its work and doesn’t turn by it self, just like most others). It also misses out a stopper ball on the fly, a length adjustable depower system or a length adjustable bar. Just to point out a few things we do see at a lot of other brands. We also are aware of the fact the bridles get severely damaged by the wheels in the pulleys after roughly a year and a half. Unnecessary (North for example uses pulleys without moving parts) and very annoying because this is bound to happen in the middle of a perfect session…
We didn’t test te Bandit with a directional waveboard. But our guess is it (still) works perfectly riding waves. Especially when you like to throw the kite around at each bottom turn, you will benefit from the Bandit quick, light and easy responsiveness.
Compared to other kites
We tested the Bandit while using the North Dice (2016), The Carbinha Switchblade (2016), the Bandit 8th edition and the Airush Union (2016). From most kites we had several sizes.
The Switchblade, Union and Dice have a better low end than the Bandit. The Bandit can be thrown around the easiest, but it also feels the softest (the Union comes close). Especially the Switchblade and the Dice feel far more firm. Air time is a clear win for the Switchblade. However the Bandit still can be found among the highest jumps in the Woo leader board, which is highly due to the fact it can be used insanely overpowered. This is where the Dice is used at least one size smaller. For freestyle the Dice is clearly more suitable than the other kites we used. It just has more aggression in its responses. The Bandit has -as before- nine different colour options. Way more than any of the other kites.

The Bandit ninth version should have small differences to the eight, according to F-one. If there are any, they are indeed small. We had a hard time judging if we could feel the difference. Visually we couldn’t find any differences. If there are any it can be found in its high end performance. The ninth version is a bit less shaking when used overpowered than its older version, but it might be related to the fact the ninth version is a lot less used and less stretched.
Bar and lines

The bar and lines on the ninth version are almost identical to that of last year. The lines are usually 21.8m long, but be aware F-one calls this setup “24m” because they add 2 meters for the bridles (which is a bit unusual). There are now options to get 2 meters or even 4 meters less versions, resulting in 19.8 or even 17.8 (!) lines (which is new for 2016). Something which is not explained on the F-one Brochure or hard to find in other reviews. We know from our experiences in testing that a few meters more or less can affect the feel of a kite completely. If you are not sure we would suggest to buy the 24m version (so with steering lines labelled “21.8m”). For our test the 2016 bar wasn’t available yet, so we used the 2015 bar with the 21.8m setup. The colour of the bar for 2016 is also a bit different from 2015.
We also noticed in the brochure of 2016 that he top of the depower line on the 2016 bar is fitted with some sort of line guide made of metal (F-one calls this a pulley) instead of the metal ring. This should overcome the most common wear out of the depower line, which lasted just about 6 tot 12 months.

From our line comparing test we know F-one uses lines coming from the French factory Cousin Trestec. They are one of the lesser strong ones out there. And we must say that we have seen on more than one occasion 2 or even 4 lines snapped due to a gnarly gust of the punishing Levante wind in Tarifa.
The bar itself is made out of aluminium and it has proven that it is strong enough, but it hasn’t much features as other brands have (like adjustable bar sizes or stopper ball etc.). It does come with a nice plastic protection system around the depower rope. The (upper) ends of the bar are quite sharp and unprotected and could potentially damage your surfboard. It also has no single line safety (the bar cannot go higher than the split point). This is more or less a discussion between our preferences and that of some readers (who don’t like the enormous spaghetti mess you will get after a release with a single line safety system). We do prefer a so called single line safety flag out, The main reason we prefer this over a double line safety (like F-one has) is because it will release all its pressure and won’t be dependent of the distance from the bar to the split point. The split point is quite high at the F-one bar. So probably in 99% of all releases will give the intended pressure relief, but we just worry about that 1%.
List prices
F-one Bandit IX (kite only) 9m 1289,- Euro
F-one bar (depending of the line length) 469,- till – 489,- Euro.
Hi Dave,
thx a lot!Helped me a lot 🙂
cheers,Zoltan
Hi Zoltan,
Thanks for asking. If you don’t want to change anything about the performance of the Bandit it is not easy to change to a different bar. The split point height is very unique for F-one (around 4 m from the depower system). I don’t know of any (major) brand that has it exactly the same.
We used a lower (split 1.50m from the depower system) alternative bar which worked okay for the Bandit (see https://www.wetestkites.com/2016/06/04/alternative-bars-tech-talk-and-a-test-of-a-279-euro-bar/) but isn’t exactly the same. The North bar has a higher split point (about 2m higher) which may affect also the performance.
We never used any Tacoon bar, so we can’t tell if this any good.
Hope it helps (a bit)?!
Dave
We Test Kites
Hello,
just would like to ask,which bar is fit for bandit 9th(9sqm),instead of f-one Monolith?Based on your reivew I think control bar should be with 22m lines length.I’m thinking about north quad bar,or rrd,maybe takoon diamond bar,or other else?
thanks for your reply in advance,
cheers,Zoltan
Hi Jeroen, thanks for asking.
Supposing you are about 80kg, we would say 18 knots on the tt.
On the wave board 15 knots should be enough, with the 12 m and a big bar it should be fine
Hi Dave,
Thanks a lot for this review. I am looking at a bandit v8: 7, 9 and 12 meter. I own a TT [F-one 2016 Trax glas] and a waveboard [secret weapon Cabrinha 5’6].
What do you think is the low end for the 12 on a TT, if you still want some pop and med size jumps? And with the wave board, you would only use the 9, not the 12? What would the low end be with wave board you think?
Thanks!
Jeroen
My question
Hi VL,
we may need more info, but if we see you use now bandits which has relative short lines and being quite quick but soft on its own, makes old school tricks a bit tricky than for example a North Evo. Down side to -for example- an Evo is that you probably miss out on the active feeling a Bandit has. But as you ask for old school tricks with good power a Cabrinha Switchblade or North Evo are suitable of delivering that.
Dave
We Test Kites
Hi Dave ,
Great reviews thanks for that. Riding a bandit 8 in 8-11m. Looking for old school tricks , boosting as high as possible and very basic unhooked tricks.83kg and prefer to go slightly overpowered.
What is your recommendation on kite?
Thanks
VL
Hi Rafael,
We have tested the the FX from 2015 a while ago. But still I think you will have at least a bit more low end, less stalling and better quality in general.
This reminds us that We need to test the FX 2016 soon!
Dave
Hi Dave, i have a bandit six and planning to change for a cabrinha fx 2016, wich differences can you notice between the fx and bandit 9?
Hi L,
The Naish Pivot may be good for wave riding, but is extremely soft in its pop. If you plan on doing any jumping, the Bandit sounds better. Indeed the Naish bar isn’t our favourite to!
Dave
We Test Kites
Hi Dave,
Thanks for the review – I need to change my 7 and 9 but still not sure on the best fit for me – my shortlist is Bandit and Pivot.
I saw that your test wasn’t about wave ridding – My program is wave ridding (in EU – mainly not tubular) and free ride – Any advices or comments?
The Naish bar that I have seen looks even worse than bandit any opinion on that?
Hi Jay,
indeed the F-one bar is not a really good one. The swiffel (as almost all) doesn’t work and you can’t untwist it manually while riding and I have seen too many safety problems due to this. The lines are also quite weak. Going from C4’s to Bandit’s sounds like a step down from several point of views.
Dave
We Test Kites
Dave,
Have you got an impression that the bar is s bit of a… PITA when you do a lot of kiteloops and rolls? I was thinking of changing my C4 setup for Bandits but lack of swivel under the bar is starting to look like a deal breaker. Especially from the safety perspective – not sure how effective the system would be with twisted lines?
Hi Jorge,
I think you will be just fine. Make sure you check the wheels on the bridles every now and then!
Dave
We Test Kites
Hi Dave using your your experience with those kites, do you think a 12m Bandit would be enough for a 75Kg rider, 15kts wind in Brazil (28º C temperature)?
O like freestyle and I´m beggining on waves.
Tks!
Hi Rafael,
No we did not really test the drifting of the Bandit. But yes it is very fast, and very good in snappy/short kiteloops. Yes It needs about 1 m more to compare with similar power from a Dice.
Dave
We Test Kites
Hello Dave,
Did you test bandit 8 on the waves?
Do they have good drift? Fast enough?
Im thinking about taking one 9 meters.
Im 67kg. I will use for wavestyle and freestyle.
Is the bandit 8 good on kitelooping?
Compared to dice 8m, the bandit would be 9m? I mean, one size bigger than the dice.
Thank you
Hi Mirko,
You will need a bigger Bandit than the Evo for sure. The problem is that the Bandit is 9 version is either in 14 or 17m…difficult one!
Dave
hi dave,
beautiful review, I wanted to ask some advice I am now using a evo 2015 14mt weight 108 kg and go only in strapless, reading that the bandit 9 to a low end not amazing what measures would you recommend to me …
thanks
dave
Hi Sam,
I just got the same question in with exactly the same situation. The Dice may be a little bit better, but it sounds more like the Cabrinha FX is more your thing. I really like the stiffness feel of the Dice (and would choose it above a bandit and would take 7,10,13 but maybe even one size smaller for all), but I guess this is not what you look for.
Dave
Hi,
I’m riding bandit for 6 years now. I actually have a 10m and 7m bandit 6. I’m looking to get new ones but I’m also looking to get North Dice 2016. I like the power (high jump) of the bandit but little bit too much pressure on the bar and I’m scared to kiteloop hard the kite. Do you think that the Dice will be a good compromise ? Dice 7m, 10m and 13m for 73 KG or Bandit 7m, 10m and 14m ?
Thanks you
Hi,
thanks for the feed back!
I think the wheels in the pulleys get stuck if they are used in sandy environments, like a beach. IF there is no sand in them there are no worries for this.
Dave
Hi !
thnx for good reviews.
I’ve been riding the Bandit 5 and the Bandit 8 for the last 4 years.
Do agree on most of your comments, but have no experience what so ever of any wear on the bridle lines from pulleys on any of my 5 kites. I have experienced this on other brands with roller-pulleys but strangely none on the Bandits, still like new on kites with 100 days on them.
marvelous kites but some other “weaknesses” though
Frayed depower lines, broken lines B5 and B8, delaminating rubber on the boom on B5, ripped canopey B5, bulging seams on the leading edge on B8.