Why No WAVE TOUR?

[jaycob]

Flicking thru many magazines and online forums wave riding is every where.
Its turning into a big part of kiteboarding.
Why is there no tour?
PKRA tour is all about freestyle and then they try to put on one wave event on judged by freestyle riders.
KPWT tried but seems they just cant get their head around what wave riding is.
A start has to be made but when will someone do it and do it right???

[surfingwithkites]

I don't think I'd hold my breath on this one. For one, venues are really hard to find. It is much harder to find good, predictable, contestable conditions for wave kiting than for surfing.

Your gut feeling about the PKRA and KPWT is spot on from what I have seen. They will never get it right and their contests will continue to be a joke for the foreseeable future. They are just trying to milk an extra 20000$ out of their sponsors to pay judges etc. Pure hoax events from start to finish. Clueless criteria, crap judges, the works. These guys bury the needle on the donkey meter.

As for a kite company stepping up? Not much chance. No company is going to put up enough to do it right because it could turn into free promotion for another companies riders if their team doesn't win. Kite companies operate on thin profits and are tighter than a chinese gymnast.

Out of industry sponsorship and organization? Never gonna happen. Not with kitings image. Unless the sport gets a "mercy f***" from some rich guy like Branson.

Your best bet is video, grassroots local events, and traveling to see what is really going on.

The sports really just not ready for contests yet. Need to sort out riding styles etc. and find a way to market it.

Consider that both womens surfing and pro longboarding are pretty much defunct as competitive circuits go and they are way bigger, richer, well defined, organized more marketable sports and you will begin to understand why it will be forever before a real kite wave tour that means jack shit will ever exist.

There will be pro SUP contest circuits way before kiting. And that is funny.

Just go ride.

[BullsShit.com]

We had it back when with Waddell, not a tour but a contest.
Red Bull Maui was one sort of as well.
Would be great to have, but there is no way to have the holding period .
To have wind and perfect waves on contest day is not guaranteed.
There is way to much money to be lost for all involved, sponsors and riders.
Will never happen, but would be nice for sure.
If there is a sponsor who can take a potential loss of millions, giddy up !

[Toby]

there are many riders and people thinking on how and where to do it best.

We should have it for sure, just a question of time.

As for SUP: not comparable. A SUP contest is a SUP contest. We already had kite events in 98...but not split into different disciplines like we see now.

[jaycob]

Sound like SWK hit the nail square on the head.
Just took a gander on pkra site, wave world championship after one wave event.
You have to be joking and keeping numbers limited.
All Pkra is doing is making a mockery out wave surfing with a kite.

[Windrider]

There will be pro SUP contest circuits way before kiting. And that is funny.

A SUP contest?? That would be funny!

The "cross country" of the water world.... here's the course track....

(1) Beach start into on shore breaking waves... first goal to get out beyond the break zone to round the first bouy...
(2) Once you get out of the break zone to round the first bouy, you have to go across the onshore swell with slightly onshore wind upwind to round a bouy..
(3) Then you have to go out for the down wind run past the point that you started (imagine janitors racing the length a football field pushing a piece of paper in front of them... or, better yet, imagine a curling race on the water)
(4) Then they have to round a bouy and get back upwind to their starting point on a zig zag course of bouys. Once they get back to the bouy offshore of the starting point, the timed part of the race ends.
(5) The big finale is the wave riding event to shore with points scored for wave riding skills and number of waves caught in a 30 minute period.

Winner is determined by some formula of the timed part of the race and the wave riding part of the race.

Sounds like a ESPN event to watch! (Actually, I would watch something like that....)

[surfingwithkites]

"Just a matter of time"

Yep, a really, really long time.

Just like womens pro longboarding. Gonna blow up any day now. LOL. Kiting isn't even close to womens longboarding actually. And that is pretty funny.

My friend runs the triple crown over here each winter and we were talking yesterday about how hard it is even in surfing to run great events much less tours. The asp took two generations to get sorted and they started with a well defined sport and well run events.

You want a tour with credibility? First you need a generation or two of retired top kite wave riders to judge the things and then two month holding periods for events and lots and lots of money. Your only hope is a mercyfuck from some rich tool.

We can have this same discussion again in fifty years.

Meanwhile the donkeys will ruin the sports credibility with riders and potential sponsors by running incompetent events.

Lovely.

[mv]

I think the answer may also lie in the kiters that ride waves. Most kiters that rides waves would rather go ride waves then be in a contest. Just my opinion though.

mv
http://www.kitesurfinfo.com

[kiteboardingshop]

We are right now in the process of organizing the first wave competition in New Zealand and the response is overwhelming. We originally expected maybe 30 competitors but after announcing the event last week, we think we have to revise this number drastically. Considering we only have a population of 4 million, I think there definitely is a growing market.
If you are in the neighborhood and like to check out some world class surf, come and join us – it is an open event:
http://www.kiteboardingnationals.co.nz
Cheers,
The Kiteboarding Shop

[surfingwithkites]

Just by making it open you already have more credibility than the pkra and kpwt. Good on ya. With well planned divisions clear criteria and decent judging you should have a world class grassroots event. Good luck and show us the video so we can all benefit. Cheers