Landboard, Buggy, Kitesurf - land/water

So, I've given them all a bash now and admittedly the kitesurf was only a brief introduction.

After considering dropping 1 of them so I can focus I've got the following thoughts.

Land based events usually take place in large areas so you can get a good run on, inland areas need to be quite large and devoid of obstacles that block the wind from all directions. Most good inland sites have some directions in which is the wind is unblocked and about as clean as it's going to get inland. The blocked directions make the site unusable when the wind is coming from that direction.
Ignoring the inland wind conditions, inland locations by their nature have size & shape constraints so sooner or later you're going to crave for a bigger playing area.
The next choice is a coastal beach site, which naturally gives a bigger area to play on - if nothing else they're typically long in one direction ( the coast line). Onshore winds tend to be super clean and make for some amazing kiting, they're as bad as inland sites when the wind is offshore.
A reasonably obvious statement to make for inland sites is that having any kind of accident *is* going to hurt.

So, the only other surface is water for kitesurfing. Coastal water is obviously massive but can be marred by hidden sand bars and tidal conditions. Either of these can effect the suitability of a location.

Pretty much everywhere you think of is restricted by local by-laws so always check the local conditions and *don't* spoil it for everyone else by going where the hell you please without checking.

For me the 2 land disciplines of landboard & buggying are complementary and both add enjoyable aspects to the sport.
Landboard is good for vertical kiting, what I mean by that is there's a tendancy to keep the kite vertically above you so you travel slower but you have the intention of jumping. You're typically looking for consistent winds for this to avoid being dumped.

Buggying is good for horizontal kiting, as you're typically looking to stay *in* the buggy and hold down some power. Speed is the order of the day so to do this you need to keep the kite down in the powerzone, just above the horizon and hold on tight! It's easier to deal with gusty conditions as it just affects your speed.

So, should I drop anything? At the moment I'm enjoying all aspects and if anything I'd probably drop buggying as the scope is fairly limited to just going fast. I really don't like the idea of buggy freestyle - it just looks like a world of pain and I'm pretty convinced all of those hard landings are going to wreak having on your spine.

Bolton-Le-Sands - RK Meet - 17&19 May 2008

This weekend was the RaceKites.com meet at Bolton-Le-Sands.

Journey
Saturday started with a few of us, Bibbler+Suicide+Antler+myself, meeting up at the service station on the M62 ready to continue to voyage at 6am. It's been quite a long time since I've been active at that time in a morning but the motorways were clear and we made good progress.

We arrived at Red Bank Farm at around 7:30 to find some RK veterans were already there as they'd stayed through Friday night. We pitched the tents and generally prepared for the day ahead.

The campsite was on a hillside overlooking the bay and it made for a spectacular sight across the expansive sands we were to be on later.

There was very little wind at this point and the forecast hadn't predicted much more so it was a bit of a long shot.

Also, local info told us that we needed to get down on the beach early as our access route with the buggies through dry sea channels would be blocked once the tide started coming in.

It was an excellent turn out and I got to meet old & new friends.

Kiting
Paul and I setup on the beach and we were off pretty quick as the winds were good and the beach was amazing.

I was flying my 13m Venom and Paul was on his 10m Access, both of us were in our RS Buggies.

It was a great day on Saturday and we both got speed personal bests of 30.0mph for Paul and 34.9mph for myself. Although for the most part we were pretty well matched for speed.

Slight downwind runs were definetly the fastest elements, and there was a turbo boost when travelling through the wind tunnel caused by the offshore winds running down a small valley and onto the beach. I also learned that cloud cover compresses the wind and accelerates it so it's something to watch out for.

It was really good to be going so fast and my venom 13m and atom 9m did me proud, with the latter just gaining an edge as it's faster at turning and pulling the bar in really is like pressing an accelerator - amazing! It's definetly opened my eyes to the power & versatility of SLEs, never mind the fact they're a damned site easier to relaunch than an arc.

Sunday was on the brink of a wash out as the winds struggled to come through, there were many cases where people just got stuck out on the beach when the wind just vanished. It was a strange site to see all those buggies and kites just parked, waiting in anticipation for the wind to return enough so they could get home.

I too got caught out there once when the wind disappeared, in the end I got fed up of waiting as it was lunchtime and my sandwiches were only a short walk away. Why sit baking in the sun when a short walk will get you some long earned food? So, I packed up my kite and dragged the buggy back to base.

My GPS told me I covered about 40miles on the Saturday and I dare say Paul covered about the same.

Sadly there aren't many pictures or video as we spent most of our time out flying!

It was a truly excellent weekend of buggying and I have the bruises to prove it. :)



And the evening was certainly lit up!

1st time out in a while

After 7 weeks out of the saddle due to a broken wrist I took the chance to go out today for a fly. My wrist has been hurting like hell since the cast was taken off just over a week ago and I can only assume it's the muscles that have frozen due to inaction for 6 weeks. It's been immensely painful if I accidently flex my wrist but the pain isn't where the break was. It just hurts. :(

I bought myself a sports wrist brace that's been helping me gain confidence in doing more adventurous things in the knowledge that it will prevent my wrist from flexing should I fall on it again.

The weather forecast was hot, hot, hot! But, typically there was no visible wind at all. Despite the forcasted poor winds I popped over to Pontefract park to chance my arm thinking that light winds would be a nice re-introduction to kiting while recovering and I'd get to see some friends over there for a chat if nothing else. Even a light 5mph would do me.

The light (or no) winds meant the only thing in my quiver that would fly was the U-Turn Nitro 4.9m on handles as my Arcs need about 10mph+. The nitro went up and it was good to have a nice static fly around to ease me back in.

The wind started to pickup a tiny bit so I borrowed Paul's 10m Access and had a play with that and managed to board about 100m before the wind dropped again. It was good while it last and left me wanting more.

All-in-all it was a soft re-intro and no sign of any pain. I'm very happy and looking forward to next weeks big outing to Bolton-Le-Sands with the RaceKites crew. :)

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

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.

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.

RS Speed Buggy (2 of 2)

A 2nd massive box arrived with the remained of my buggy parts in it, seems like it's been on a trip around most of Europe before being delivered.
Can't wait to get home and get this all setup as it should look something like this but with a 1.5 rear axle and a swan neck.

RS Speed Buggy (1 of 2)

With much excitement the axle for my new RS Speed Buggy has just arrived. Sadly, there's nothing else with it and the courier hasn't seen anything in the warehouse. Let's hope it arrives tomorrow.

Pontefract Park, Razor & RS Speed

Paul and I chanced our luck at Pontefract Park today for the first time. The winds were quite high and most were on small kites about 2m -> 2.5m.

Paul's RS Speed got it's maiden voyage on this brilliant new location and it certainly looked like he had a whale of a time with his Rage 2.5m. Not bad at all for a first time out in a buggy as the video below shows. :)

My buggy hasn't arrived yet so I had my usual board to knock about on. I also got to have a quick bounce on a Trampa today, I'm very impressed and one is now on my list of things to upgrade to.

The winds were generally too high for me and the only thing I had was my daughters 2.5m Pansh Legend. Trouble is that it's on handles I after trying this out for a while I just resigned myself to the fact that I can no longer fly well enough on handles. I'd left the bar for the 9m GII at home like a muppet.

Razor cuts

My recently acquired Ozone Razor 4.5m made a showing today with spectacular results. On reflection the winds were way too high for such a powerful kite but it was new to me and just begging for an airing.
My intention was to get the kite out, sort the lines out, let it inflate and just generally check it over.
I was foolishly convinced to give it a blast as I'd got it out so I put on my helmet and grabbed the handles. The kite was bouncing around on the ground ready to go. It looked so innocent just sitting there, how could it possibly harm anyone?
I launched the kite straight through the centre of the window and was rapidly launched downwind! Spectators after reported I'd gone at least 10m and a good few feet in the air before landing with a bump. This continued on for a little while longer before I eventually let go and come down on the killers.
Stupid - yes. Would I do it again - no.

Conclusion: don't be fooled into using a kite when it's obviously not the right winds despite how brave you think you are. Mother Nature *will* spank you.

Pontefract Racecourse
Ponty is a great open site, anything pure S->SE->E is lumpy as it comes over the grandstand. Anything around the rest - SW->W->N->NE is fine. W->N totally open with a pure W being the ideal as there's nothing to distrub the wind for what looks like 10 miles. It's also 1 mile from xscape at Castleton so easy to get to.

The field is *MASSIVE* and it's got council designated areas for Kites, Footy, RC aircraft, RC helicopter - kites get the largest area and roam about when there's no-one from the other clubs. Stay in the designated areas and fly safe and you're good to go.

The area is terraced in massive areas so you can do little jumps off the high areas onto the low areas and make your way up the little hills to get back. It's fun.

Apparently out of footy season the whole park is open to roam on kites & buggys.

There's a local club ( http://www.pontykites.co.uk/ )that works with the council and we pay £10pa to contribute to having the grass cut and open access. I joined after my first few sessions. They like the usual, safe flying, PL insurance, etc. Any surplus funds go to events & BBQs in the summer.