It has all happened quite subtly. You may not even have realised the point at which it became a necessary part of your life that you owned a big kite. A long time ago in the midst of your subconscious your dad or grand-father made you a kite out of a couple of bits of bamboo and an old newspaper. You recall running down a field with the kite behind you and the exhilarating tug of the kite string when it finally flew. It was a simpler time and since then every time the wind blows you feel good about it and wonder what happened to your childhood. At some point you may have even owned a Peter Powell stunter: the bit of blue plastic with the blow up red tail. These memories and good feelings run deep.
Into the present and I would imagine that you were sitting on the beach this summer, feeling a bit bored and there was this guy with some sort of parachute shaped thing and he's having a great time being hauled around the beach. You also noticed that there are some guys in the water doing something similar with surfboards and one of these things; and on the beach there were some guys with what you thought were all terrain push chairs bombing up and down. "Kites..." your subconscious whispers to you; and you smile in a daft sort of way.
Something has happened to kites that appears to have completely passed you by. They have become cool. Extreme Sport has become some how attached to that old newspaper kite that you flew all those years ago.
You have read an articles in one of the sad lad mags that you read (Stuff, FHM, GQ) about kite surfing. Kites are "happening". The "how to" section of the article has made it look quite easy; prior kiting experience will "increase your learning curve dramatically" the article claimed. You used to be pretty handy with your Peter Powell stunter and reckon you could handle it.
You have been surreptitiously surfing the web for kite porn and you have even stood in front of a Flexifoil point of sale display watching the video loop a couple of times.
I would imagine that your girlfriend/wife has been on at you for some time to: go to the gym, give up football, do something! The kiting thing seems to satisfy so many needs: you can fly a kite (!), power kites give you "a great upper body work out", they are fashionable and you can do it on the beach when you are bored.
So you are approaching the critical point - your other half has agreed you can have one for your birthday/Christmas - you now have to decide which one you want...
Kite Selection
OK. Lets face it. You have been totally swayed by the Flexifoil marketing. You have read the brochure cover to cover more times than the porn mag you have stashed in your sock draw. You feel you understand the Beaufort scale and you are up on line strengths and have begun to appreciate there are two line kites and four line kites. Kite surfing seems a bit out of your league at the moment, but you like the look of it; what you need, you think to yourself, is a good solid introduction to power kiting.
Your local sports shop sells Flexifoil kit and the urge to get one of these things is becoming almost overwhelming.
Stop.
You are about to lose £20. Here's how it goes.
You walk into the sports shop and the spotty youth approaches you. With supreme nonchalance you indicate that you are in the market for a power kite. You start a knowledgeable conversation about the different types. Assistant has not got a clue what you are talking about and sells you a Super 10 in about 5 minutes flat - approx. cost £120. Lines and handles and you are down to the local park before you can say "what's the wind speed today". Get to Park, unpack kite and get kite into air (see below for more details). The kite goes up the kite goes down the kite goes left the kite goes right (full instructions below). It even pulls you about a bit. After 10 minutes you are bored shitless. You go home. After a couple more goes you advertise the kite on e-bay and manage to sell it for £100. Loss = £20.
Bit more research is required. What do you want the kite to do?
Jumping, Traction - yeah! Now you are talking... go on... off down to the specialist kite shop to get something that is going to do it for you.
In to the Aladdin's cave of the kite shop and you are still inexorably drawn to the Flexifoil stand. This unfortunately marks you out as a complete sucker. Fit and tanned assistant smiles knowledgeably.
"I wanna get into kite jumping and traction" you say in an accent that you heard on one of the extreme sports channels - Mid-Atlantic, surfer skateboardese. Suddenly you are looking at Blades - now this is more like it; this is hard core. You never imagined that you would be talked about in the same breath as a Blade so early in your kiting career. Clearly the assistant has seen that are serious about this and know what you are talking about. Ignoring the warnings of the assistant, in 10 minutes you are confidently swinging an incredibly cool Blade rucksack on your shoulder and walking out of the shop. A hyper fit looking blonde girl eyes you up on the bus - Jackpot!
Ummm...you still have not got a clue what you are doing do you?
OK Blades are not that bad, in fact they are really very good; so buying one will not completely wreck your life.
Down the beach, sports field for your first trial flight.
1. Pre Set Up
To make this a profitable experience ensure that you have the kite, the lines, the handles and some stakes, the plastic ones are just about OK; something more substantial is even better.
Read the manual and make sure you know what you are doing. When you get to the site check the wind. Assuming you have gone for a 3.0m to 4.9m kite, for your first flight the tops of the trees should be swaying gently. Any more than this and you will be in trouble. Do not kid yourself on this one!
Ideally go with someone who can help you. Wives are generally hopeless.
2. Set Up
Get well away from trees, power lines, the sea, rocks, stanchions and anything with a sharp or solid edge. When you put the kite up in the air you are going to have to move forward a pace or two so make sure that you do not end up in the sea or the goal posts when this happens.
Peg out the lines in the same direction as the wind. and check the length by holding them on your fingers with one end pegged - wrong length then you should get someone who knows what they are doing help you set up. Sort out the top and bottom lines and the left and the right.
Peg the handles out by the brake lines - if you are flying a Blade there are convenient loops on the bottom of the handles. Proceed to opposite end and unpack kite. This is where the light wind thing is important. Too much wind and this will turn into a bit of a nightmare. If you are on a beach then lucky you as you can sand the trailing edge (the back bit) to stop the whole thing flying away.
OK bit of revision: Top lines are the ones that make the kite go, bottom ones make it stop and make it safe when on the ground.
Get kite out and lay flat with "leading edge" (the front bit with the openings) towards the back attach the lines - brake lines first! Then the top lines. Fluff the kite up in the wind. With a bit of luck it should sit up and stay still. If it doesn't it and flaps about madly then maybe too much wind, maybe you have problem with lines and bridles, maybe you go home and try again another day (see packing up)...
Need I go on? You have acquired something that might actually do you some serious injury if you make even a relatively minor mistake in setting it up. The sections on flying, landing and packing up are just as complicated; so I'll stop here.
Buying a power kite should not be an impulse buy - an impulse buy is anything that you buy when you don't actually know what it does but it looks kind of cool.
Find a local kite spot and talk to the local fliers; I guarantee they will let you have a go and will give you some free, well informed and utterly prejudiced (their kite is the best) advice and tuition. Fly as many kites as you can without embarrassing yourself.
Once you have got the hang of it and understand the basics then start to consider what you want out of a power kite. If its just for holidays and the odd trip to the fields, get a two line stunter and teach your kids how to use it.
If you want a bit more then bear in mind that once you have got dragged down the field a couple of times and been up in the air, you are going to want to do something more with it than just twist your ankle - kite buggying, boarding and surfing will beckon; if you are going to spend one, two, three hundred quid on your first kite then it might be as well if it fitted in with your overall plans for kiting; losing money on kites on e-bay is fun but not very rewarding in the long run!
Some suggested Guidelines
1. It is cheaper to fly someone else's kite than spend money on you own. Check e-bay if you don't believe me
2. Flexifoil make great kites; but so do Airea, Ozone, PKD and Libre, and many others. Do some research and try and fly at least a couple of different ones.
3. Have some long term aims and goals - I know this kind of defeats the Born to be Wild spirit that you are buying into, but will pay off in the long run.
4. Never launch a big kite in the middle of the wind window
5. Never hold Flexifoil handles in your teeth.
6. Always accept advice from guys whose first name begins with "A" or "G"; be suspicious of "C" and "D".
7. Don't get into a pissing contest - especially if its into the wind.
8. Go drinking with guys whose first name begins with "A or "G" (especially if they have just given you some advice).
A word of warning
Having rediscovered the simple pleasure of flying kite again, your subconscious will not let you go. You will not be able to look out of the window at work, at home or in a car ever again and see a tree swaying in the breeze without feeling trapped and wanting to be somewhere else with a kite.
Will
| |
|
|
racekites.com currently has 9660 registered members.
|
|
|
|
There are currently
1490 kite reviews available.
|
|
|
|
There are currently
203 active users online.
|
|
|
|
|
| racekites.com shop |
|
|
|
|
| racekites 2008 Calendar |
|
|
|
|
| racekites Online Chat |
| | User | Room |
 |
no users chatting |
|
Enter Chat  |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Site design and development  Need a website, get in touch.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 17 Members Online
|
x-nonkiteflyer, GingerT, Orange, Jonno, Fuzzy, rayens, Rob19, Ramsey, MM75, nudge, The Moog, probjones, Insane_Jester, mrmawalker, Clarkee, lambo, crazyllama
|
|
Today's Birthdays
|
14 members are celebrating their birthday today :
Verwüstung
,
madlight
,
Lanni
,
alex
,
QBoogie
,
Turks
,
scorpion
,
Jobjorks
,
windjammer
,
ossie5705
,
FlyingSimba
,
nohap
,
cuckfield flyer
,
gorf
|
|
|
Users Online Today :
|
Orange,
x-nonkiteflyer,
lambo,
nudge,
gorf,
MM75,
Ramsey,
Clarkee,
probjones,
rayens,
Rob19,
Jonno,
GingerT,
crazyllama,
The Moog,
Insane_Jester,
Fuzzy,
mrmawalker,
Trucknut,
noisy_lightning,
skypirate,
grazzer,
Hightimes,
adun,
Farmboy,
buffyifonly,
soundman,
9991thomas,
carpman,
szlenart,
imabloke,
johnkiteman,
intrance,
EricS,
badknees,
Red Panda,
waterworx,
Bumcake,
richard.i.brown,
Martin_R,
DaveRedBull,
moroni-10,
SUICIDAL,
Hoops,
Pete B,
Mike-veryOd,
ad.c,
peeledballoon,
ratatoskr6666,
vyrus,
davidf173,
whandrag,
BladeAddict,
spence46,
bs.r1,
flydad,
roirizla,
popeyethewelder,
m4cca,
Ziggi,
markopolo,
lewisreeves,
alzpalz,
AlexT,
Timmy,
Kathy,
wezzie,
Hogster,
Reco,
Ant-,
The Bibbler,
squambug,
atypidae,
Uphigh,
martnic,
sneds777,
RedSkyHorizon,
jk891,
flyingsean,
kelsiml,
kiteart,
thedarkclaw,
sandar,
JKicker,
jaybay,
Wolf,
eazyrider,
archkiter,
The R/C Man,
tridude,
kielschwein,
Sky2Jack,
big_dave,
hizakite,
oscar1,
deejaykmp,
cametal,
chevytraveller,
smegg,
lee_barro,
fibre,
windjammer,
windwhisperer
There have been 103 members that have logged in today.
|
|
|
|
| Note : racekites.com or any contributor to racekites.com will not accept any liability for any incident or damages resulting from any kite related activity. The information given on this site is advice for best practice only. |
|
| |
| ..:: Site Map ::.. |
| |
racekites.com is hosted by
|
© Copyright 1998 - 2006 racekites.com
|
|
|
