Saturday 23 February 2008

RaceKites.com meet - Mablethorpe 23rd Feb 2008

Today was the day of the RaceKites meet at Mablethorpe where lots of members had vowed to turn up for a weekend of fun. The weather & tide were set for some great sessions over the Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
The winds were stupidly high yesterday so there was a chance that the wind would persist and we wouldn't be able to get out at all.
I packed everything kite related into the car and set off east for the coast, watching all the tree tops on the way.

There is a wind farm close to the site and as I approached the blades were whizzing around at stupid speeds so I was still worried. It started to rain too. :(

Paul and I got setup between AlliDelta and Rushmore + Friday Girls. The beach slowly filled up with plenty of other people making for a fantastic day.

The wind was gusting 16-35mph offshore, so only the brave went out. The only high wind kite I'd brought was the 9m Guerilla II, which looked way too big compared to the 2.5m kites everyone else was getting out including Paul's Rage 2.5m.
There was no way he was getting his new 10m Access out!
mrmawalker went out with his 13m Venom but he soon came back, this wasn't looking good. Turned out later things just didn't work out for him on that day.

Anyway, I launched the GII and stood for a while pondering what was ahead. I got static lifted a few times, which felt good but aluded to what may happen in the buggy. Time to dive in a get going as it's what we'd come for.

I set off in the buggy to join the others on the sandbank and soon got whizzing up & down, the wind out on the bank was even stronger as we'd been sat in the leeward side of the dunes.

The bank was great for buggying with some patches of wet-hard, wet-soft, dry-hard, dry-soft and water channels to keep things interesting.

On on of my upwind legs I was aiming for a water channel that looked pretty deep and the wind had picked up so I aimed upwind with the buggy to go around it, things were going well till I dropped into the wind shadow of the dunes and decided to transition. I lifted the kite for the turn and of course it went above the wind shadow, powered up, lofted me and dumped me face down in the water channel I'd skillfully avoided earlier! The buggy trundled off without me towards the sea. I eventually managed to get back into the buggy completely soaked from head-to-toe but with a smile.
I had 1 more controlled OBE but that was it for the day.

Going upwind meant trying to keep the kite powered up and I had to control the kite with my left hand while hanging onto the buggy with my right hand to keep everything together. Even with the 1.5m back axle I got briefly put onto 2 wheels, maybe I was aiming a bit too much upwind with the kite too far back.

The downwind legs felt amazingly fast and the kite & buggy handled them well. I even managed to overtake a few others. ;)

As the day progressed it hit upon something that was obvious in hindsight. With the kite low down the bar effectively controls speed, push out (depower) to fly faster and therefore further towards the edge of the wind window, pull in (power up) and the kite drops back into the centre of the wind window. The trick is moving the bar to keep the kite just far enough forward to maintain speed but back far enough to generate power. Obvious when you think about it. :)

The 9m Guerilla II did me proud today and it kept me going in a wide variety of conditions. It may not be the fastest kite on the block but anything is better than sitting down watching from the sidelines doing 0mph.

Paul and I had a fantastic day and met lots of new friends. We were the last ones to leave the beach as we hung back to try out Paul's 10m Access after the winds dropped to more managable speeds. It looked good as the kite went through the sunlight cast over dunes and was almost illuminous.

Paul (Antler) & I spent quite a bit of the day capturing footage that you can see below on YouTube. me @ intro, 2:33, 3:55 & 6:42







Sunday 17 February 2008

8m Access II => 13m Psycho II

Well, I've done it. Gone and swapped my beloved 8m Access II for a 13m Psycho II. I'm regretting this already but I'll see how it pans out. :(

The intention was to get a low wind depower kite to sit below the range of my 16m VII and there was a swap on offer on the Flexi forums that matched up with my AII.

I got home to find the bridle in a complete mess and I had it wrapped around the lights & picture frames in the front room to try and make some sense of it all. In the end it took 4hrs to unravel the monster but I've done it now.

I'm really regretting swapping my AII, I'll see how this thing flies.

I hope I've not been stupid as my AII has always been faithful and the one kite I could pretty much rely on for a good session in the board or buggy.

This is right before the RaceKites meeting at Mablethorpe that's coming up, I'm worried I'll turn up without anything to fly now.

Friday 15 February 2008

Trampa test

I managed to get out at luncthime with the trampa for a quick downhill session at Norfolk Park.
Board is nice and irons out the bumps while remaining nice and controllable.




Thursday 14 February 2008

TSG arrived

I ordered a nice red Total Splash Guard from buggybags.co.uk for my buggy recently and it arrived today.

It sits underneath the swan-neck with the intention that it prevents splashs from the front wheel hitting the driver. I hope it does after my last soaking at Mablethorpe.

Monday 11 February 2008

U-Turn Nitro 4.9m

I'm now the proud owner of a Nitro 4.9m after I did some swapping. I know it's similar to Razor but it's more valuable to me than the thing I swapped it for.

It should look like this.....

...but in these colours


Wednesday 6 February 2008

Trampa arrived

The trampa arrived today, it's super springy and looking good.

It's a 13 ply 35deg short kite deck, scrub matrix lite trucks, rockstar hubs, primo alpha, scrub ratchet bindings.

Stripped it down, replaced the wheel bearings that were shot and cleaned it all up. The bearings are completely missing on one of the king pins! I have no idea how the previous owner could have ridden this but I'll have to get some ordered before I can ride it properly.

This is a world apart from my Kheo Air-S: it rides higher, massive amounts of pop, bindings are super grippy and the Trampa boards are notoriously bombproof.


Tuesday 5 February 2008

Kheo Air-S sold

It's gone, the end of the newb era on landboard. It's all trampa now.

Saturday 2 February 2008

RS @ Mablethorpe - 1st beach buggy session

Got back earlier from my first session at the beach with the buggy. The intention was to go to Cleethorpes but there was fencing around the beach when Paul and I got there so we headed south to Mablethorpe.

When we arrived there was very little wind and what there was was coming cross-off but we'd come a long way so we chanced it, especially as this was our first beach outing with our buggies.

There were a couple of other lads there but none of the regulars so we setup.

I tried a bit of everything, started out with a recently acquired Ozone Razor 4.5m - just a pain to handle and too twitchy for me.
Next out was the 16m Venom II but the winds were just too light so it just kept dropping out of the sky and refused to relaunch when heavy & wet - more wind required for that I think.
Finally resorted to 'old faithful' and the 8m Access II, it was underpowered but enough to trundle about.

I had a great session but rapidly discovered why people wear drysuits on the beach as there's so much wet sand gets thrown up and the low seat is at exactly the right angle to catch everything the front wheel throws up. I ended up completely soaked with a face full of sand but that was part of the fun.

I headed towards what looked like a shallow sea channel to find it was actually quite deep and I ended up sat in waist high cold sea water with the buggy seat holding it in. Turns out I was sat on the drain hole so it wasn't going anywhere! A quick weight shifted resulted in the water draining away but I was soaked.

Despite the soaking, light winds and constant kite swapping it was still good to get out and have a blast in the buggy. I think Mablethorpe is a little too far unless the weather, tide and time guarantee a long session.

Roll on good Easterly winds!

2/Feb - New RS Buggy riding out

Paul and I went to Pontefract park again for the 1st time out with my RS Speed buggy. Winds were OK and the 8m Access II was about right for the day. Got a few runs up and down and quickly got used to the buggy.
Another day full of grins.