Is strapless overrated?

[tautologies]

haha that aeticle falls solidly into the who cares category. Ride what you want. Once thing about kiteboarding I like is to ride a variety of styles...I'll never be a pro at any of them, but I still love it.

The only piece of information the author got right is that strapless does not fit every condition...but you can still choose to ride strapless, its your session.

Edit: I have to say the only thing I've reacted to in kiteboarding is a convert of people trying to convince people that there is only one way to ride...like the ones trying to say strapless with a fixed bar was the only way forgetting that the spot they rode had exceptionally stable winds and a wave that was ideal for it.

[Eduardo]

his summary is right on:

Riding strapless has a really nice feeling to it but it will not make you look cooler : riding well does. And riding well means being confortable with the conditions and your equipment. Although the “Strapless” word broadcasts a higher sense of freedom, it will actually not be the case for most riders.

Talking to people on the beach, I don't think people are trying to be cool. If you really think people are wow'd by your equipment, or even noticing it at all, you are in the wrong sport. In my view, the sport is now very experimental and diverse: everyone wants to try new things to keep the stoke.

[grigorib]

People get influenced by great riders, they try to repeat, follow and be eventually better.
Riding strapless skimboard is kind of fun, riding finless twintip over three inches of flooded beach is fun.
You don’t feel any need for straps once up and foiling, you kind of need them for boardstatts and in lightwind.

I’m pretty sure some people get inspired and go opposite way - boots. And it works for some, and I hope they find their happiness trying to learn what they couldn’t do earlier.

[badgb21]

Huh?

Good article that shouldn't have offended the International Strapless State (ISiS) too much. Then again, I was once a member and would have taken offense to it back when I was operating under their indoctrination too. Now I am much happier that I have moved on since I do tend to question the group think that even I am suceptible too.

Quotes from the original article:

start with straps, get and get confortable with them before you take them off.

My foundational piece of advice to first time directional riders is the same. But my reasoning is that the strapped jibe is more difficult and needs to be mastered first before you try strapless. If you don't learn the strapped jibe first, then you have another problem to tackle when you try to go back to strapped from strapless. Being able to jibe strapless, but falling off trying to jibe strapped, will really discourage you from experiencing strapped fully. If you first learn the strapless jibe, forever a strapless rider will you be. If you learn the strapped jibe first, you can more easily come to your own conclusion as to what is better for you since you will be able to jibe both ways.

Over the time, I’ve seen so many guys struggling to stay into the waves and looking funny in their maneuvers all for the sake of riding strapless. I don’t say you have to be Keahi De Aboitiz to enjoy strapless kitesurfing, but fighting the wave every step on the way isn’t the idea either.

I can relate to this as I had to learn the hard way. I did river swell which very much conducive to learning strapless, and I was also in a bad ocean break location for strapless with junk waves most of the time. But that was not what made me realize that my idolization of strapless was not making me happy. It was the absolute irrefutable fact that the "rollercoaster" ride in any wave condition was more intense with straps, than I could have ever made it without straps - at any skill level. And not only that, but kitesurfing is limited and restricted to surfing simulation when the rider is strapless. With straps, the boundaries are erased and the limitations of prone surfing no longer apply. So it is not that strapless kooks are being kooks. Strapless riders are just dealing with limitations/handicaps that are extremely difficult to deal with, if the goal is to look good to the untrained beachgoer's eye. But even if they look like kooks, they are still having fun dealing with the limitations that they are determined to one day overcome.

.....I personally felt a lot cooler the day I took the straps off my board....

.....That’s the time I’ve finally learned not to follow trends too much....

Everybody follows trends, and everybody lies about it. This is a cross culturally observable reality in the human species. The more one resists this fact of human nature, the more of a snob one becomes. The best way to combat it is to embrace it. Go with the flow, go with the group think. Just make absolutely sure you give yourself a way out when the time comes to embrace your future self realization. In strapless vs strapped kiting, that "way out" is to have a really good strapped jibe down before you start your strapless experience. Then you can go back and fourth with comparing the two, and truly decide as an individual, what is the most fulfilling for you.

Strapless should not be a religion

It is perfectly acceptable for strapless to be a religion. In fact, strong beliefs are foundational to any sort of limitation on thinking. The only problem is when the strapless crowd moves beyond religion into an "all encompassing ideology" that is rigidly enforced. When ideas are forced upon, rather than allowed to be examined and accepted/rejected, progress is retarded to the point of "going backwards". The best way for the strapless crowd to break free of this trap is to not be focused on what is best for all, but rather what can be shown to work better, or in different situations. Given the subjective nature of kitesurfing, along with the impossibility of removing radical ideologies from all individuals, going with the flow AND pushing back will greatly expand kitesurfing's horizons.

[Slappysan]

Honestly the though of riding a SB strapped feels about as wrong as riding a TT strapless. I don't begrudge others who like riding strapped SB, but the idea that I have to keep my feet in one set position would be awful.

On top of that most of the really good strapless SB don't have inserts anyway, so often choosing to ride straps means choosing to ride a heavy log of a board as well.

[edt]

read the article not just the title. The guy is just saying that there's room for strapped in riding too. Not everyone is going to ride strapless all the time in every condition. I think that's fair.

[BWD]

I love strapless and for 10 years have ridden that way more and more.
But there are times I have been really glad of straps on my surfboard, and others I spent too much time chasing a strapless board in closeouts.
Boosting is fun, so are strapless airs.
Strapless taught me a lot about how boards work and how to find the sweet spot.
Strapless probably helped me avoid a bunch of injuries (like the toe sprain that took years to get better after a strapped jump gone bad).
Strapless helped me make sure I learned how to hydrofoil better and with less injury and gear damage, too.
But if I am going on a trip, I usually pack some straps.
They can really help versus closeouts, extremes of chop, let you boost big etc. just another tool to get it done

[kiteswede]

Thats whats so great about kiting, you can do strapped, strapless, tt, and so on if you get tired of one of them

[mr_daruman]

Straps are great for learning and crap for surfing. No front/back foot freedom to position yourself for a particular wave.
Big air with a strapped surfboard? Id rather use a twin tip. Strapless jumps have this amazing float feeling of holding your board to the wind at a certain angle that just cant be mimicked with straps.
In extreme choppy conditions, Im on a foil

[jumptheshark]

Honestly the though of riding a SB strapped feels about as wrong as riding a TT strapless.

or worse, with a handle!!

Of course its about what you think is cool. Everyone's definition differs.

I've never really seen much strapped SB riding that looks all that impressive..... There was that one clip with Davey Blair pulling sick little bankrolls from the flats and landing on the lip, but thats pretty much it.
All but one were strapped in that clip and they make it look pretty cool but they were out surfed by a young strapless Alldredge.

Here it is:




I've seen sooooooo much sick strapless riding. Full on massive no grab airs. Back rolls, front rolls, ALLL the really sick wave riding in anything under say 30 feet. The talent out there is all doing it strapless. Kinda seems like consensus of sorts.