Bolton-Le-Sands - failed attempt

Well, what can I say. I attempted to join the lads from RaceKites.com at Bolton-Le-Sands for a weekend of kite buggy action but the beach was a complete lake. The rain was just sitting on top of the hard bit of beach we'd usually use and it looked like it wasn't going to dry out within the space of a couple of hours. So, I didn't even get out of the car and headed straight back.

I dropped by Pilling and Knott End to see if there was a remote chance of some action down there but they were unusable too.

I didn't even try Ainsdale as I know you need to have some kind of special license and you have to sign forms days before hand before you're allowed on the beach. It's a bit OTT in my opinion and they really need some kind of quick process / day pass thing sorting out.

I even chanced my arm down at Pontefract but I was greeted with a heavy shower and the sky never cleared up.

All in all, it was an expensive waste of time at 240 miles round trip and it didn't help with lots of people saying "I told you so".

My next opportunity for kiting will be in a couple of weeks.

It's been a while

I was just re-visiting my blog and I didn't realise it was last year when I last posted!

Still, a lots happened since then and I don't as much time as I used to and everytime I turn up anywhere the wind seems to disappear.

Still, I've made a few visits to Pontefract over the winter and I dabbled in the water at Fraisthorpe last week *but* true to form the promised wind didn't appear so it was a bit of a wash-out again.

I'm determined to get out onto the water and get up and kitesurfing as soon as possible. I'm just waiting for that magic combination of high winds and good tides to kick it all off.

Talacre or Bust

On the 22nd Feb a few of us co-ordinated a trip to Talacre (North Wales) for a good days buggy action. By the time we got there only 5 of us turned up but we still looked set for a decent day.

The winds hard turned direction to cross beach so we had to walk quite a long way south around the headland in order to be able to get some long-ish runs in but the best we could get was cross-onshore winds making for diagonal runs. I think it took us about 20mins over dragging the buggies and kit before we set up camp.

The beach itself was variable softness with long banks of wet, hard, soft and super soft banks to work your way around or through. It made for  some quite technical riding if you wanted to stay dry/safe/both.

We ventured off in the buggy south around the headland for quite a distance and then made downwind runs back. Again, the downwind runs were quite hard as it was easy to over-take the kite. Keep them high and moving to keep them powered up.

…or bust.

I ventured back to our camp and decided I was getting hungry but I’d left my sarnies in the car so cue a long walk back to the car park.

Just as I was walking back a paramedic turned up and he jumped out of his car fully loaded with kit. I walked with him up to the beach and chatted, weirdly I asked him if he was looking for the kite lads but he said someone had fallen off the lighthouse and he was here to attend them. I felt relieved and I walked with him to the lighthouse before I trudged off.

As I got closer to the camp I could see a crowd of people nearby, which I thought was strange as we were setup quite a long way from anywhere.

I got closer and I could see something on the floor and the people were waving at me. I realised what was happening so I turned around and headed back towards the paramedic who was now looking lost as he hadn’t found the mythical person who’d fallen off the lighthouse.

I managed to get his attention and we walked towards each other and I told him it looked like something was wrong further round, and it was.

He was totally loaded down with kit and refused to let me carry some to share the burdon so I sped up to dump my stuff and help out where I could.

I reached the site to see Chris was decked out with his ankle at 90degs to where it should be. Ewww. There was a handful of people there too and the woman was squeezing Chris’ hand to keep him comfortable.

After lots of to-ing and fro-ing the paramedic eventually made it to the site and proceeded to radio in the details of the injury as he said we’d need the air ambulance to get him off the beach.

A few minutes later the lifeguard turned up along with a 2nd unit and they proceeded to find a decent landing place for the pending helicopter. We helped them find the hard sand as we’d been riding on it most of the morning.

After what seemed like a lifetime the helicopter turned up and the lifeguard set a flare on the beach so they could see the wind direction & strength. It was pretty cool really. :)

By this time the paramedic had prepped Chris’ leg and he was now fully morphined up.

We all helped to get Chris into the air ambulance and he was taken to a nearby hospital for care. His fried Karl broke the news to his missus and we were left to get together all of the kit and get it back to the cars.

Sadly, Chris missed most of this as he was doped up on morphine but he’s since seen the pics & vids. :)

It actually turned out pretty exciting for what started out to be quite a dull proposition and the wind disappeared shortly afterwards so we kind of wimped out at the end of the day.

UPDATE: Since then, Chris has made a full recovery from broken tibs & fibs and he’s back out kiting with the rest of us.

Bought – Flexifoil 10.5m Ion III (3)

I recently bought a used Ion3 with the intention of plugging the gap between the 9m Atom and the 12m Atom. The main problem I have is that the 12m Atom is quite a heavy & slow kite so the bottom end of the wind-range is deceptively high. This means it rarely sees the light of day.

I’m also hoping that the Ion re-launches a damned site easier than either of the Atoms do. They’re particularly bad and I’d even go as far as to say dangerous on water as they’re a complete pig to re-launch on water.

In an ideal world, the 10.5m would be a single kite quiver but I can’t see that happening. It may languish in mid-table obscurity but time will tell.

Fraisthorpe Buggy

Day at Fraisthorpe
Weather promised cross-on 15mph winds all day, low water @ 12pm. So it was going to be ideal.
A few others were there notably AlliDelta, Andy, Tom and some unknowns.

Arrived @ 10am, winds were 12mph, beach was wet.
Travelled all the way into Bridlington in the buggy.

Wind disappeared at roughly 12pm and never came back, so I left.
Flew 12m Atom with buggy. Top speed - 30mph, distance travelled 12miles.

Ponte mud bath

Went to Ponte again today with Paul (antler).

Winds were SW between 14-25mph.
Flying: 9m Atom
Riding: flexifoil buggy
top speed: 29.3mph
Weather: mostly overcast, occasional rain
Ground: soaked through & muddy

It was a muddy session and I got caked in it. :(

Kite Riding Upwind - How To/Tutorial

I've seen a few people hit my blog looking for 'riding upwind' so I thought I'd write a small entry as it's one of the later skills you'll acquire after basic kite flying, staying on/in your board/buggy. The same technique applies whatever you're doing really.

Riding upwind is usually needed for you to get back where you started from and saves a lot of walking. :)

A few basics:
You need power! It's impossible to ride upwind without a lot of power as you're going to put the kite at the edge of the window, which only uses a fraction of the available power. Imagine it uses about 10%. So, if the wind is only light then you're not going to have enough to get you going.
If you're struggling you can produce more power by diving the kite through the powerzone but this is best left to when you're competent as sining the kite to generate power and learning to ride upwind will blow your mind!
This can be the biggest hurdle when you're still learning as you're probably still not confident in high winds (POWER!!) so don't despair if you're having trouble getting upwind, it will come.

Upwind riding
As I mentioned before, you're aiming to go slightly upwind if you're current position so get yourself moving and then bring your kite as close to the edge of window as you can.

So you (BLUE), kite (RED) and wind (GREEN) under regular flying would look something like this...

With the kite at the edge of the wind window you can see how the wind hits your kite and sends it in a slightly different direction taking you with it. The power is less so be prepared for slow steady progress. Remember, the closer you get to the edge of the window the less power you'll have and ultimately the kite will die.
So, aim slightly upwind of your current position get the power in the kite and edge/turn hard against the wind.
The trick is in going upwind as close to the limit as you can get.

 If you're going upwind too much then you will loose a lot of speed, possibly stop and drop the kite. To prevent this just head back downwind for a little while and then edge back upwind, you're route will look like an 'S' shape with the upwind portion hopefully longer then that downwind one.

I hope this, helps everyone. Please post comments as it will help me improve this How To.

RaceKites at Ponte

Morning session at Ponte where loads of people turned up from Birmingham way, at a guess about 15 people in total. Winds promised 15mph from North so it was set to be ideal.

Sadly, the winds had all but disappeared and we struggled for 5mph.

To make things worse, there was also a 'Santa Dash' so the car park was full and there were loads of Santa's jogging about *and* the footy players decided to use the most awkward pitch for us that was right in the middle of our typical run.

I had to leave at 1pm so I hope it picked up after that.

Ponte - 22/Nov

4hr session at ponte
good North winds - 15-22mph
top speed - 32.1 mph
distance - 26 miles
flying 9m Atom
riding flexi buggy
loads of people out for the rare perfect winds for the site.
temp was close on 0 degrees, absolutely freezing

Review: RS Buggy - power kite racing buggy

RS Buggy - power kite racing buggy

The preparation

After playing around with the landboard for sometime I was bitten by the kiting bug and craved more speed and an easier ride. A buggy seemed to be just what I was looking for.

In December 2007 I set myself a budget of £250 and started to hunt around for a nice kiting buggy. At this point I'd seen a wide variety of buggies in the flesh at the kite club at Pontefract but I didn't have the experience to know what any of them were. The only brand I really knew anything about were the Flexifoil buggies, which I suppose I ended up aiming for.

After discovering how expensive the flexi's were I'd plumped for the Peter Lynn Comp buggy as a good compromise on price and usability and I was all set to pay.

About the RS Speed buggy
My friend had stumbled across some posts on the Flexi Forums talking about the RS Buggy and these after some more research these looked brilliant and were amazing value with my £250 budget getting me the top end RS Speed buggy with everything I could ever want!
* Swan neck
* 150cm wide axle
* Delli Midi 16x6.50 - 8 inch tyres

A few weeks later the parcels arrived and I excitedly assembled the buggy in my front room. It was quite simple to put together and it stayed built with the exception that I removed the rear axle for transport & storage. It felt super solid and nice & heavy. The buggy itself is very well made, strong, clean welding, 27mm side rails, 40mm box section downtube, 43mm diameter axle, 20mm wheel bearings all round, choice of 3 axle lengths, standard or midi wheels etc. etc. If anything it's too well made, with my wide axled beast weighing in at a hernia inducing 20+kg.

The buggy went into the back of my VW Golf with the back seats down and the axle off. No other changes were needed.

The ride

Bearing in mind that at this point I hadn't ridden a buggy of any description I had nothing to compare this against.

The deep racing seat was really comfortable with a relaxed riding position and support provided by the hard back rest. The adjustable footpegs meant I could set the swan neck for maximum length and keep the pegs back as far as they would go. I later found this was a good choice as it meant I avoided rubbing my feet on the wheels on sharper turns.

My first proper session was at Mablethorpe where the big tyres and long wheelbase kept me from sinking into the sand and the wide-axle meant I could keep a lot of power down during long runs and make faster turns. The ride was always comfortable and super stable even at speed.

I had many great sessions in the RS with my best session being at Bolton-Le-Sands where I clocked up a 70 mile trip and maxed out at roughly 43mph without batting an eyelid. The stability of the RS filled me with confidence on speed runs and big powerslide turns. The comfort meant I could stay out all day without any aches & pains. Fantastic all round.

I bought a Total Splash Guard from buggybags.co.uk mainly to keep all of the sand/grass/water landing in the seat as the swan neck effectively turned it into a low slung scoop by lowering the front end.

Summary

I would definetly recommend these buggies to anyone - they are amazing value, fantastically built and inspire confidence while riding. I definetly learned faster while using the RS. *****



UPDATE (Oct/08):
I recently reluctantly decided to sell the RS Buggy solely for transport regions. I got a new job and I had to swap cars and relocate so I needed something that would pack down into a smaller package. Sadly, I swapped the RS for a flexi buggy.

When comparing the RS buggy with the Flexi buggy I've traded a lot for the ease of transport. I appreciate that I've gone from a buggy intended for speed to one that's mainly intended for freestyle.

The flexi bug seat is nowhere near as comfortable for longer trips. The lack of deep sides & proper back support means it feels like I'm always going to come out.

Even at full stretch the flexi bug isn't really long enough and my legs ache from being permanently bent. At 5'10" I'm typically described as 'normal' but it's an issue for me.

With the smaller axle and shorter wheelbase the flexi bug is *nowhere* near as stable and I now have to fly one-handed to hold on to the buggy and lean out of the opposite side. I've had a few unintentional 2-wheel events and some near OBEs too. I'm tempted to invest in the 1.5m axle but this would take me back to where I was with the RS.

Hats off to any speedsters in flexi bugs, it's way more scarey with virtually zero stability.

I wish I could get a RS buggy that was more transportable. Deeper seat and wider axle would be my top picks.