So, I've recently decided to make this blog in order to track my progression and experiences while learning to kiteboard (as well as anything else that I feel like). And this is the result.
To start it all off, I was first introduced to kiteboarding back in the winter of 2003. I was living in my fraternity house (Alpha Delta Phi) which sits quite inconspicuously (when there aren't any parties or random debauchery taking place) on the shoreline of Lake Mendota in Madison, Wisconsin. The lake was frozen at the time and my neighbor in the house, James Jaeschke strolled on over to my room and asked me if I wanted to go out and fly his kite with him. He had told me about this strange new sport a couple of weeks earlier and I jumped at the opportunity to try it out for myself.
We finished rubbing the sleep out of our eyes, it was only 11 in the morning after all, and slipped into our cold weather gear. We stepped out the back patio of the frat house and were met by a fair breeze that managed to immediately seep through all of our layers and send a shiver down my spine. To this day I'm still not sure if the shiver was the result of the frigid wind chill or if it was my adrenaline, brought on by a foreboding sense of what was to come.
We continued to lug the gear a considerable distance out onto the frozen lake. Once we reached an ideal spot, James proceeded to inflate and rig up his gear. After some brief instructions and explanations I launched James' kite for him and watched the giant 20 meter Cabrina Blacktip kite soar into the air. The second thing that I noticed was James leaning back and fighting against the incredible power that the kite generated. There was so much power that he was soon dipping the kite through the air and skidding across the ice....all while seeming to be perfectly comfortable and in control.
The winds were probably blowing about 10 knots and gusting to 12. After a few minutes he asked me if I wanted to give it a shot. I may not have shown it, but I was more than a little hesitant to hook myself up to this giant kite which clearly had the power to pull me along across the ice. Despite this, I was still so excited to see what it was like. I simply responded, "Yea man...I'll give it a shot." Before I knew it, I had caught the kite, strapped the harness around myself and hooked into the kite, received a brief lesson on how to launch it, and here I sat giving James the thumbs up while the kite sat at the edge of the wind window ready to launch me into my new addiction.
Within a few seconds the kite was in the air and I was struggling to maintain my footing. James ran over and grabbed onto the back of my harness and instructed me on flying the kite back and forth across the sky, all while the kite pulled the both of us slowly across the ice. At one point when I had the kite directly overhead, I learned the true power of the wind and how it takes just a little bit of wind to turn this from a leisurely past-time to a full-fledged, adrenaline charged addiction. With one quick gust, of only about an extra 2 or 3 miles per hour, I was flying about six feet up in the air! With James still hanging onto the harness behind me! We were both in the air for probably only 3 or 4 seconds (if that) but it seemed like an eternity! The two of us, having been up about 6 feet in the air came down about 30 feet or more downwind! From that point on I was hooked. I had discovered the "stoke" (or titillation, if you will) that is kiteboarding and now I had to get in on it.
Here we come to the trials and tribulations segment of my story. For the sake of keeping this history positive and from becoming too tedious I will attempt to bring everyone up to speed of where I stand at the time of writing without embellishing in too many details.
As I have already mentioned, I had to get in on this sport by any means possible. However given my limited budget during my college years, this was going to require some ingenuity. I bought an old Wipika Classic (one of the first kites ever made for kitesurfing) from James in the winter of 2004 with the hopes of repairing it. Little did I know that this was a lost cause, as it had been heavily used and abused for years. Eventually after a couple of weeks of trials and tribulations, I admitted defeat and reluctantly gave the kite back to James.
It wouldn't be until the fall of 2004 that I could afford to buy a used kite and gear on ebay. All in all, I was able to find some incredible deals on a kite, bar, lines, pump, and harness by scouring the internet relentlessly. I ended up getting all the above gear for approximately $450.
Now I had the kite and gear....all I needed was some wind and a board. As the board would require extra money which wasn't the easiest to come by since I was just starting my career, I settled on just learning to fly kite on land. By the time winter had rolled around, I was quite proficient and flying the kite on land. Now that it was mid winter I managed to come across a hell of a deal for a used snowboard on
www.chicagokitesurfing.com and picked it up at my first opportunity from one of the local kiteboarders.
Now I had everything that I needed to get started snow kiting. Everything except the snow and the wind together. The winter of 2004/2005 sucked! We either had snow and no wind or wind and no snow, but when we did have the two together it was too windy for my size kite (20m when laid out flat). Two of the three times that I did go out that winter ended in disaster.
The first time ended with James chasing down his kite all the way across Busse field only to watch it tear itself apart on a fence post. The second time ended with me getting dragged across a Lake Geneva golf course and ending up in a sand trap....So needless to say, not a whole lot of kiteboarding took place that winter. The one good experience took place up in Marinette where my mom and I went out onto the ice (which was completely free of snow) near Red Arrow beach. Got some good "kite sliding" action in before I noticed a low flying plane fly over my kite and dip its wings. It ended up being my dad who in the middle of getting his pilot's license. A little while later I was perfecting my "kite sliding" while my mom looked on, when I saw something out of the corner of my eye as my dad drove along side of me in his truck. We we both slowly cruised along across the ice, I decided to show him what these kites can do. So I launched the kite (and myself) and managed to get up higher than his truck (about 10 feet over all) before gliding down to the ice. Upon seeing this, my dad decided that he'd like to give it a try. So he hooked it and I lauched the kite, but as soon as he felt himself being pulled across the ice he let the kite go and crashed it to the ice. I think he just had to experience the power of it for himself.
Now spring came along and with my new 3/4mm wetsuit and helmet that I got for Christmas, I was ready to get into the cool waters of Lake Michigan. This of course, required a kiteboard for the water. I got a few killer "body dragging" sessions in. Body dragging is simply the water variation of the aforementioned "kite sliding." I managed to get a used board from a local kiteboarding guru who goes simply by "V" just in time to take advantage of the lulls of summer.
After a number of light wind days of flying the kite on land (there wasn't enough wind to ride a board on the water) and a few sessions of nothing but "teabagging" (where you try to get up and riding on the board but only stay up for a little bit before falling back into the water) we come to the present. The winter of 2005/2006
is upon us.
I had my first snowkiting session of the season yesterday out at Busse with West. Winds were light (about 9-10mph, gusts of 12-13) I spent most of my time trying to keep the kite from falling out of the sky and with West's help I did fairly well. However when I took my attention from the kite to put on my snowboard, I either got dragged away from it or the kite fell from the sky. So most of my time was spent trying to relaunch the kite as West was out riding on his even bigger kite. After West left I got some more "kite sliding" in and was even able to ride on the board briefly before the kite fell. At that point I decided to pack up and head home, with just enough time to catch the final minutes of the Packers unbelievable loss to the Bears over the radio.
So there you have it! The first entry of hopefully many in this KiteLog.
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