What is your 100% fun low end?

[Kamikuza]

Fringe here is riding a hydrofoil and NOT racing

[coleman]

We don't have steady light wind in Austin. Our low end threshold is now 5-12mph with lulls to almost nothing.

On these days we are having a blast on our speed4 lotus kites. I have a 10m and my buddy has a 12m.

Sp4 lotus stays in the air in less than 5. You can barely feel wind at the surface. It's pretty phenomenal.

[Sir V]

no i really don't think u guys understand, i write this with so many friends on the beach who do not foil and have not experienced that lame ass 1 foot non breaking wave...it is a whole different world once you experience it...the true power of the ocean that u can only experience with a hydrofoil

im not even trying to be a snob or anything man, i truly want you and everyone else to experience it as a kiter, i really want all surfers to pick up a kite and experience it, ill be long and dead before the beaches in florida become too crowded with kiters with foils

foil face for me....11/12 knots with a 12m solo and a strapless zeeko alloy foil
10 knots with a strapped go foil doing stupid 'kook" "monkey on strings" shit

i truly enjoy the strapless foil more

those two extra knots allow me to drift the kite and ride that endless wave, but a steady 10 knots allows me to have an enjoyable kite session, i can prob get going in 8/9 with work,...and the fear of swimming

I get your stoke man, from feeling the same way about it. I have been in the same position here on the Gold Coast from when I started and had to go through the learning process.. to now when I ride nothing but a Drifter 5.5 and my custom Lift when everyone else is out there on Zephyr 17M and SB. The video below is from Feb this year and I ride the 5.5 exclusively.

But they still sit on the beach and look, but refuse to try it.. it baffles me . Fortunately there's a couple of mate now starting, on different brands.. each to his own

http://youtu.be/HxcTDraVuzM

[Peter_Frank]

no i really don't think u guys understand, i write this with so many friends on the beach who do not foil and have not experienced that lame ass 1 foot non breaking wave...it is a whole different world once you experience it...the true power of the ocean that u can only experience with a hydrofoil

im not even trying to be a snob or anything man, i truly want you and everyone else to experience it as a kiter, i really want all surfers to pick up a kite and experience it, ill be long and dead before the beaches in florida become too crowded with kiters with foils

foil face for me....11/12 knots with a 12m solo and a strapless zeeko alloy foil
10 knots with a strapped go foil doing stupid 'kook" "monkey on strings" shit

i truly enjoy the strapless foil more

those two extra knots allow me to drift the kite and ride that endless wave, but a steady 10 knots allows me to have an enjoyable kite session, i can prob get going in 8/9 with work,...and the fear of swimming

I get your stoke man, from feeling the same way about it. I have been in the same position here on the Gold Coast from when I started and had to go through the learning process.. to now when I ride nothing but a Drifter 5.5 and my custom Lift when everyone else is out there on Zephyr 17M and SB. The video below is from Feb this year and I ride the 5.5 exclusively.

But they still sit on the beach and look, but refuse to try it.. it baffles me . Fortunately there's a couple of mate now starting, on different brands.. each to his own

http://youtu.be/HxcTDraVuzM

Exactly - it is difficult to say WHY, but you dont know nothing bout low end (nor high end) kitesurfing till you have learned to hydrofoil, about how it feels and the stoke - thats the bottom line that noone but those having learned understands

We can tell, but I havent seen anyone grasping the feel at all, before they learn - then it is another world

Many other board sports and other sports you have at least an idea about whats it all about - but this does for some reason NOT apply for hydrofoiling (might be as you have to learn different muscle memory reflexes and this also gives it a whole new side you can not know about, or the crazy transition from the water suddenly letting you go and then unlimited acceleration, or the smoothness - most likely all of it)

PF

[mig27]

...But money, time, family and already having a raft of sports i do and enjoy make the justification for an additional expensive craft very hard. But I will do it one day!....

I fully understand, it set me back one year too due to the big investment to make.
That is why I bought second hand

However for the price of a carbon foil second hand, the aluminium Zeeko (among other) is even cheaper brand new.
And I have seen a friend of my riding it, for the money he was very impressed with the performance.

Are you talking about a deadman turn where you fly the kite a full 360 right directly upwind of you? I have done these with the 12 chrono in the buggy. It was freaken awesome and surreal to fly the kite directly upwind.

Exactly what I mean!
A true challenge for the Hydrofoilers at this moment

Many other board sports and other sports you have at least an idea about whats it all about - but this does for some reason NOT apply for hydrofoiling...

So true!
Maybe this is also the biggest drawback of this new sport, a big hurdle to come in and try it

[plummet]

I feel u plummet, some folks get into kitesurfing just because it looks cool or everyone is doing it or its the it thing right now. They never get around to trying other things on a kite that are just as much fun. It amazes me when I zoom by on a landboard and a kitersurfer looks at me like he just saw an alien on rollerskates. dude landboarding and buggying have been around just as long as kitesurfing.

Hehehe. yep. 11 years kiting at my local. One kitesurfer had a landboard but shifted out of down, one guy tried my landboard once, and another guy bought a buggy then also shifted out of town. So I'm still the solo landkiter locally.

Plummet,

I get the fringe within a fringe. I have not done the three aspects you have mentioned, but I have my list.

Riding a mountainboard on a salt flat, doing slow rotating 720's over fences and landing on perfectly soft clay.

Riding in a salt evaporation pond less than a foot deep. The water is so smooth that you can see the clouds reflected in the water and the air is so hot at 107 degrees F that you want to drop into the water, but there is no way due to a hard crystalline bottom surface that will tear your flesh if you even touch the bottom.

Snowkiting in hip deep fluff that is so light that every turn is a face shot in the mountains. Requires the perfect setup. Perfect snow (less than 9% moisture), perfect wind (less than 15 mph, so the snow is not blowing around), and ideal terrain.

That sounds like a cool list man. One day I will also do some snow kiting. But as with hydrofoiling I'm at capacity currently with sports, toys and allotted man trips per year. Any more would be unfair on the family.

I doubt anyone else on this forum has done those 3 kiting things..................

LOL dude seriously? If I can think of one, I'm sure there are many others.

Name him. I want to talk to that person!.. Your wrong by the way. You may find somebody who landboards. But not many jump at all let alone objects, you might find someone who buggies. but doesn't buggy in sand dunes, If you magically find some who does jump boulders on a landboard and buggy in sanddunes they probably don't longboard skate with a kite too. There may be only a handful of people in the world that can claim those things plus kitesurfing as well.................. It is definitely and oblique fringe within a fringe.

PS I know one other bloke who can claim to do those things. That's Butch in Foxton. I cannot recall anyone else in any forum at any time.

But they still sit on the beach and look, but refuse to try it.. it baffles me .

It baffled me for ages too why more dudes didn't landkite. But then I figured its just not their jam. Just like wake style and freestyle tricks is not my jam. I admit it baffles the hardcore kitesurfers who live to ride waves that I use a mutant in the big waves. Its a similar thing im not interested in a surfboard. Tried it, didn't like it.
Look on the bright side.The less hydrofoilers there are the more room for you!

[plummet]

Are you talking about a deadman turn where you fly the kite a full 360 right directly upwind of you? I have done these with the 12 chrono in the buggy. It was freaken awesome and surreal to fly the kite directly upwind.

Exactly what I mean!
A true challenge for the Hydrofoilers at this moment

Oh yeah that will be very cool to see someone doing a deadman turn on a hydrofoil. I suspect it will be a lot more difficult than the kite buggy (which by the way is still very difficult) as the kite buggy has more mass and momentum to drag the kite directly upwind.

[mig27]

My educated guess would be the problem of sufficient momentum.
A foil has pretty low drag going into a straight line.
But when you turn the friction (drag) will increase, thus reducing the momentum.
Also going up with the foil feels like a big drag/brake. Keeping your height stable is another challenge in itself.

We will see, when the first deadman will appear on YT of VM

[Starsky]

Nah, it will happen. You can create line tension by carving away from the kite, so it will take massive speed and a pretty committed carve through the eye of the wind, but someone will get it in really light air, short lines and a razor of a kite.

[Kamikuza]

EDIT: username is bullet here.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2387989&p=877162&hi ... tb#p877162

Might seem fringe to NZ but there are loads of guys doing all that in the UK and the US...