Slacklines are available from outdoor outfitters and some climbing gyms in Arkansas as well as from Internet shops.
Gibbon is the biggest brand, but there are other manufacturers, including Balance Community, Asana, Freeflow Lines, Mammut.
You can rig your own slackline using flat, polyester webbing or buy a kit - which generally includes a line made of 1- or 2-inchwide webbing of varied flexibility, depending on your goals, with a loop or metal ring on one or both ends and a ratchet built into the line.
Wide, stiff webbing is considered better for kids and beginners than the narrow, more flexible webbing favored by “trickliners” - people who do stunts on a slackline.
A German company, Slack-Line Tools, offers a support kit for use where (lightweight) climbers don’t have trees to hitch to.
If you like your sports equipment to match your lipstick, Gibbon makes a Ladies Line, pink with flowers; recently it was on sale at the website of retailer REI for $43.73, reduced from $89.99.
Freeflow Lines sells a starter kit (about $150), that includes a 2-inch, 50-foot slackline, separate tree anchors and ratchets, and an overhead “cheater” line, made of 1-inch webbing, that the website says “gives the slacker that extra boost of balance.”
The independent product-testing site Outdoorgearlab.com tested 15 products from various manufacturers. It recommends the Balance Community Titen Series custom pulley system (priced from $300 to $700) for its versatility. The Gibbon Surfline kit ($95 to$140) was the lab’s favorite trickline, and for beginners it recommended the Gibbon Classic kit ($52 to $75).
For a “best buy,” the lab’s website describes a do-it yourself “primitive rig,” whose parts cost about $70.
ActiveStyle, Pages 28 on 07/08/2013