 Kite Buggy Story |
So you have bought yourself a kite (or even kites) and you have a buggy to sit in. Basically this is all you need to kite buggy (the clue is in the name). You go to your local buggy site and happily tootle up and down. You read the kite buggy newsgroup and check out web sites that cater for your particular tastes in extramural activities; and suddenly having a kite and a buggy is not enough.
Given that you have limited time to play the set up of your buggy becomes a fairly fundamental issue quite early on. The spanners provided with the buggy while adequate constantly slip and the adjustment moves about.
Acquisition 1
A flash socket wrench with assorted heads so you can spin those nuts on and off with spectacular ease and showiness. A Leatherman knife may also make an appearance at this stage as you will need to cut things and….well it looks really cool and outdoorsy.
You also buy a roof rack for your car - one of those inflatable ones - and/or a cycle rack - buggy does not seem very stable on either.
It starts raining one day when buggying. You have to pack up and go home because you are so wet and uncomfortable. By chance the next day on the newsgroup there is a fascinating thread about dry suits and you realise that you need some waterproofs.
Acquisition 2
A set of waterproofs (wet suit, dry suit, spray suit, golf trousers); now you can buggy in all weathers and in all conditions. You also invest, heavily, in a pair of very flash shoes that are waterproof and have several other useful functions that you usually find on computers rather than shoes.
You also notice that the buggy is not that comfortable when wet or when you are leaning over hard to tack (especially if you have a Flexi buggy).
Acquisition 3
A spray protector and pipe lagging for the side bars.
Your buggy is beginning to look quite cool (you think!) a couple of stickers appear on the rear bumper and you acquire some black webbing tape which you stick indiscriminately on various key areas. You also notice that the stakes that you were provided with when you bought your kite are not really substantial enough and there are some really flash "holsters" that you can strap to your leg and produce at a moments notice; one of those dog leash thingeys seems like a good idea as well (especially if you tie a Sainsbury's bag to it as a makeshift windsock).
You now need a flash rucksack to carry a lot of this toot around. Re-sleeving kits begin to find their way into your bag (although you have no idea what to do with them) together with more assorted rolls of plastic tape and lots of bits of string and rope that you start picking up wherever you see them and cramming them into your pockets.
Acquisition 4
On a particularly frosty day in November your fingers nearly drop off with the cold, so a flash pair of cycling/sailing gloves becomes essential (as does a small flask with tea/coffee in it). Bumper packs of Jaffa Cakes have also now become a permanent feature of your kite bag.
It now takes you a good 15 minutes to load the car and you always seem to have forgotten something.
The next symptom is mild back and arm pain while buggying. You notice that all the "pros" wear harnesses, and hey, you've been buggying for a couple of months and are really pretty good.
Acquisition 5
A harness (generally a cheap one); you use it three times and end up with third degree burns on your thighs and waist; sell cheap harness and buy a flash new one with lots of padding - feel a bit embarrassed wearing it as it looks very new. End up dragging it behind the buggy a couple of times down the beach to give it that authentic lived in look. A later Acquisition (about 99) will be various different wheels for your harness as you are such a "hard" buggier that you are wearing out the nylon rollers too quickly.
More bits of rope and plastic tubing start to appear in your bag as you now need a huge assortment of strops.
You think about a captive harness system and enter into animated debate on snap shackles and kite killers. You buy one of each and never use them.
First time out with the harness and you are catapulted 30 yards forward. You scrape arms knees and head quite badly.
Acquisition 6
Helmet (this takes ages as cycle helmets make you look like a dork and you can't kind anything cool enough) and full knee and elbow protectors.
Your wife also becomes concerned about your well being (or rather your inability to provide for her and your children in the event you crash). You decide to join as association; its very complicated so you join both the BBC and the PKA - you start putting your number on all your posts on the newsgroup just to show how professional you are. You stop doing this after a month when you realise that the only cool PKA number are the single and double figure ones - you feel depressed at your high three figure number.
Your trips to the beach are fine as long as you have rock hard sand to buggy on. Guys with bloody enormous tyres flash by you as you get bogged down in the sand.
Acquisition 7
Wider wheels or when money is no object Big Foots.
About this time, speed becomes a key obsession; you have watched the mpeg of the buggy speed record a couple of times and reckon that you have gone at least that fast.
Acquisition 8
The speedometer: bike speedo first - what a hassle, wires dangling everywhere, completely poxy magnet and endless fun working out wheel circumferences and other stuff. Your first "high speed" run registers 11mph, a passing dog overtakes you easily. On the second run you kick the wire and break it; fortunately you have enough tape and a Leatherman and can fix this. Second run registers 10.5 mph - feels like at least 30mph. Re-calibrate speedo. Third run and you kick the magnet off. Wireless speedo next and specialist earth magnet; lasts four runs.
With no justification whatsoever you spend a significant amount of money on a GPS system; after all when you take that trip to the Nevada Salt Flats you will need it to find your way back. GPS system confirms that you are possibly the slowest buggier on the beach; for some reason it will not record above 12 mph.
By now you need another bag and packing the car has to be done the night before. You now also have several kites, including something enormous that you acquired second hand from some geezer at a service station in Toddington - you have flown it once and scared the living daylights out of yourself. You tend to get it out and have it just sitting there just to show how hard you are.
Other assorted bits of crap begin to find their way into your kite bag. For some reason you bought a wind meter and stand around with your arm up in the air and then knowledgeably select the perfect kite for the wind conditions; you then get something smaller out as you are dragged down the field/beach screaming like a stuck pig. Your bits and bobs bag now weighs as much as a small child and rattles alarmingly when you pick it up.
You cannot walk into a kite shop without buying something. You frequent an increasingly bizarre range of shops: hardware stores, camping shops, yacht chandlers and survival stores.
Seemingly unconnected bits of kit suddenly become essential for kite buggying: a digital camera, waterproof mobile phone, a tent, portable barbecue amongst other things.
During this time kites have come and kites have gone. You have a selection of different length lines as someone told you that you need longer lines for inland flying.
It is about now that buggy envy starts to set in big time. Your buggy has every accessory going: wider wheels, wider axle, suspension, better seat, bearing protector kit, tandem kit; but you still feel inadequate. Names like Chameleon and Pagonia and Parastorm and Libre Full Race begin to figure large in your consciousness; you can earnestly discuss weights of buggies and side slip and stability when tacking.
You have never raced but then nor have most people with an M series BMW. You start clicking the boxes on online shops of the buggy you want and all the accessories that you will have with it; the price keeps coming out at something around £1200; you try and sell your existing buggy and are appalled when you are offered only £100 for a buggy with every accessory known to man. Decide to keep the thing as you will be able to give tandem rides to your friends (as the only friends you have by now are fellow buggiers this is a vain hope).
Acquire full race buggy and get divorced at the same time - you think the two events are unconnected.
Suddenly your kites are looking a bit sad and you really need something tuned to your race buggy. Sell all kites on internet. After extensive research you buy set of kites that some guy won all the races with last year.
After a couple of months you can just about make it up the beach and back without the kite collapsing on you. Your buggy is still suspiciously clean and the tyres still have the nobbles on from being new. Start to have pangs about your old buggy and spend more time talking about how great it was and how full race kites need a specific kind of wind to get the full benefit out of them.
Lend kite to some kid on the beach who wants a go. He goes up and back the beach so fast you can hardly see him. He is also in some ancient flexifoil buggy that they stopped making about six years ago; comes back on two wheels saying how easy the kites are to fly.
Hmm...you think... you need some more kit...one of those back packs with water in so you don't get de-hydrated while buggying...
note :
Any resemblance to persons known or unknown, living or dead, involved in kite buggying or not is purely intentional; recognition of either yourself or your close friends in any of the above is likely; but don't worry you can't sue me as it is all true.
author : William James
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