Land kiting is on the decrease FACT: how can we build it up again?
popeyethewelder.com/facebook questions
2012
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Ian Nudge Pearse –Land kiting is on the decrease FACT: thoughts and suggestions to how to build it up again
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Alan Vidow – It needs to be through clubs at the grass routes level. Going to & helping at kite festivals is always a good idea.
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Marcus Livermore – Problem is mate is that too many get into land kiting and then get drawn onto the water and never come back because of the soft landings and “glamor” if you like… Land kiting is a dirty business at times to !
- Ben Gwynne – Fact from where~?
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Ian Nudge Pearse – to the fact that a major kite company pulled out of PK mag and is concentrating more on the water and not land anymore, and they consider that noobs are going straight to the water and not land. Also look at the clubs that are around and their membership figures, these are nearly half of what they were 5 years ago
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Andrew AutoBuddy Jones – I think it does need the clubs to promote the landkiting more.. get people involved more with free tatster sessions. Keep it fun and enjoyable yet show people it can also be competitive .
- Ben Gwynne – Mmm. Not facts, just ideas then.#
- Ian Nudge Pearse – nope its a fact that there aren’t as many landies as there used to be and is on the decrease, the ideas part is how do we get people kiting on land again be it static in a buggy or on a board
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Ben Gwynne – Maybe the kite companies are pushing water cos ther is more profit in it?
- Andrew AutoBuddy Jones – Take for instance a weekend session at aberavon… There may be around 6 landies … Look to the water and you may have 10 regular kite surfers and maybe 10. -20 learners out on the waters with the kite schools..
- Does anyone really teach landkiting ? I mean there maybe some kitesurf schools that can … But they don’t really offer it out as much as kitesurf lessons do they ?
- Also is landkiting not as cool as kitesurfing ?
- How many of us land liters regularly break our kites ?? How many kitesurfers do ? More chances of sales there
- Also… What’s now in the Olympics ?? Kitesurfing !
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Karen Cartlidge – Drop the price of petrol & stop the soddin rain! 😉 I had a long conversation with Princess (Sparkles) about the land kiters who’d kited forever. They had one thing in common: they all started as static flyers, enjoying it without the pressure of wheels. Also the belief that budget kites make it accessible to more people is arguably false economy as there’s no personal thought & investment into the sport & the feedback from the kites is crap. 6 months after flying our £180 elegant Stacker10 we still didn’t know what a buggy was, but were blissfully happy gaining kite skills & sending it back & forth to the Flexifoil hospital for free repairs, even if it was our fault. Seemed a crazy Flexi deal but kept newbys interested/never out of action for more than a few days & soon filled our garage with more Flexi products. It’s all going underground again now, hopefully that will mean full circle once more & people will start static flying without the rush to buggy/board as they won’t have seen it either. Then when the switch comes they’ll also love it all the more & stay around for longer. Or that’s my 2p worth 🙂
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Marcus Livermore – Totally agree . In the years I’ve been kiting I’ve seen lots come and nearly all of them go to the water. There is very very few of us left that are true land kiters. I remember when we went to wallop back in the day and there was a sea of land kiters there. Most events that where on there was big numbers of land kiters. Don’t no how you would bring people back to the land when all the focus has been kite surfing. Land hurts when you hit it to hard
- Andrew AutoBuddy Jones – What about the fact that the bricks and mortar shops are dissapearing .. meaning less places to just go in and buy a kite on the off chance you wanted to buy one near the beach..
- A lot of kitesurf schools stock and sell specific lei brands.. don’t really know of any that sell foils.
- My first kite was from a caravan park we were staying at. If I hadn’t have got one from them.. then who knows. I probably wouldn’t be here.
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Karen Cartlidge – Good point. Mine was from free spirit a chain in Chester. We walked in & out of that shop 10 times before finally committing. On line we’d never have known/blocked it out of our mind
- Ben Gwynne – I think those who can afford kitesurf gear prices and fuel are the same ones that try to look cool on a weekend LOL!
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Robin Cook – Recon over here on Jersey (Channel Islands ) were outnumbere 10 to 1 by Kitesurfers. Only 4 of us regularly buggying over here with maybe 6-7 occasional buggiers.
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As much as I’d like more land based kiters over here it’s gonna draw more attention to what we do over here and increase the likelihood of bans and restrictions being put in place.
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As long as I can get 2 or 3 trips to the mainland to play with other kiters il be happy.
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Ben Gwynne – Anyway, land kiting is hard with all those kitesuf kites littering the beaches!
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Ian Nudge Pearse – You aren’t wrong there Ben, its one reason I don’t fly at Westward Ho! anymore. After being given a mouthful of abuse after missing a set of lines and a bar left out on the beach and then the amount of windbreaks dotted around the sand makes it nearly impossible to fly there any more
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Robin Cook – Yup I agree Ben. One of these days I’m gonna run one over.
They’ve got better over here after a few close calls. Quite tricky pulling off a 40mph powerslide and missing the lei by an inch. Made my point though. Don’t leave ya kite in the middle of our buggy tracks. - Marcus Livermore – There is a vid about of me at camber scattering a few leis that had been left out ! Fun times VIDEO 2.30 in very fast clip though ! And flying with a cast on my left arm too
- Alan Vidow – We used to love going to the X-zone games, wallop & the supercups. These all brought land kiters together (well the supercups were just buggying stuff).
The PKA put on 4-6 events every year for buggy racing, you do not need race kites or a race buggy to go & enjoy the racing, if people bother to turn up for the a 16″ wheel class they will run a 16″ wheel class series! - John Jones – most of the guys i fly with do both, land and water, me i just buggy, both cruise and race, and have no intention of getting wet
- Andrew AutoBuddy Jones – As Alan said.. I turned up to a race on a pretty much standard libre and with depower kites .. I raced .
- Alan Vidow – But did you enjoy it? (bearing in mind it was a full blown national race). How hard was it?
- Andrew AutoBuddy Jones – Oh yes I enjoyed indeed. I’m looking forward to racing some more. Even if its just club racing . Or racing around marks on the local beach chasing or being chased by others.
With it being my first race and it also being a very important one It did phase me a bit . Even with a puncture I gave it my all and flew to the best of my kits ability. - Was it hard ? Not super really.. just follow the persons in front and don’t get lapped. Lolol . In my eyes its a race between yourself and the person /s in front and behind you… Don’t think about beating the masters .. just be happy to get round safely
- Timmy Squance – ?Alan refuses to not let me say no he let me take my race license last year and had my first race mixed in with some of the big boys… ok fantastic isnt the word i would use… it was westward ho! (town end) very wet… wind was there but when your wet your just not happy… but it was the longest time i sat in the buggy in one session knocked out something like 15/20 laps and came 9th from the bottom if im right… did i have fun?… well apparently theres another race up at westward ho! in october… that fun race put the fun back into kiting with the close flying with others around corners… 🙂
- Stephen Webb – The present economic climate has greatly impacted on buggying. Fuel prices, and the gereral cost of a weekend away take’s it’s toll!
- As Alan said not that long ago, there were many more organised events! drawing all types of powerkiter together. Most of these just no longer exist. The many reasons being costs, insurance provision, and the dreaded Elf & Saft’y putting the kybosh on mostly everything! It’s a sad state of affairs, but without a rich benifactor, who’s prepared to pump cash in to cover these sorts of costs, just for the love of the sport, then I’m at a loss……Hell’s Bell’s this is a bit gloomy:)
- Alan Vidow – I personally think local events are the way forward
- Stephen Webb – I know I’m going to get jumped on….but there is more to Buggying that just racing….already ducking….:)
- Ian Nudge Pearse – Im not just talking racing though, just getting people to fly on land again. Not everyone wants to race, or even get in a buggy!
- Ben Gwynne – Getting qualified to instruct is a ball ache. Shame as I’d like to.
- Ian Nudge Pearse – I have already suggested to 2 clubs about have a fun race series and having the PKA members of said clubs to help and maybe some tuition, then have inter club racing………..Also I know that the flexi boys are keen to do freestyle clinics and have offered again to different clubs to come along and offer it free. Both I think would be great and from it, maybe some will join the PKA race team, and maybe the next batch of freestylers can be made……..you wont get me in the water either, I go funny shades of blue and purple on land!
- Phil Revill – I’ve not been going as long as some of you, so the scale of the “old” days were a bit of a surprise when I found out more about the old Wallops, X-Zone etc. Even so, I think I’ve noticed a decline since I started. We’ve been trying to promote buggying (and plank riding) as best we can through MASC and through pushing the BKSA comps/events. We’ve had a steady, but small, flow of new starters at MASC, but this year’s conditions haven’t helped. I do small buggies, which is a different problem to solve than large buggying IMHO. Hopefully the increase in entries in the BKSA, the introduction of the Amateur freestyle classes and the subsequent raising of the profile of landbased as a “proper” sport and not just “ooo look, he hasn’t made it on the water yet” will help.
- At the BKSA events, Joe Public can wander right up to us, and watch/ask questions, which makes us more approachable in some ways. It’s a shame there’s no manufacturer support have some taster sessions at those events.#
- Andrew AutoBuddy Jones – What happened to bksa event Comming back to swansea.. we had one here a good few years back but nothing since ??
- Ian Nudge Pearse – just a shame that you have to be a member of BKSA to enter and the BKSA only ever seem to show videos and photos of the kite surfers at the events never of the buggiers….pity we cant have our own freestyle events and not through an organisation…….and have even number of events down the south instead of everthing up north!
- Phil Revill – Speaking to the BKSA, they relie quite heavily on event sponsorship from local councils (or summat like that) so can only hold events where funds are available. It must take a lot of organising/approvals to hold an event like that in an open and public place. I know that last year’s Wallop round and this year’s Essex round were seen as such a sucess that they’re very interested in running more land based events at “private” clubs next year.
- I hear you Nudge, no coverage from Blackpool last year because the smurfers and landies were quite far apart and there was only one camera. I think Jack and Ash got on the video, though. There is a round at the Ho! this year, though, and the Northern guys also complain about not enough Northern events. In terms of promoting the sport, though, more events is key.
- Andrew AutoBuddy Jones – Also a lot of focus with official world records has been on kitesurfing.. how many official world records does landkiting have ?
- Timmy Squance – yea i agree with auto there… its not like you can easily jump a pier in a kite buggy or anything… cough cough
- Dave Roberts – ?Timmy allready been thinking about that one for a while…..
- Andrew AutoBuddy Jones – Who is the Len 10 off landkiting ?? We don’t really have land based kite stars / rock stars. Do we ? Ok we have people we aspire to and admire . But its not as glamarous as Len10 etc.
- Stephen Webb – that’s our problem. we arn,t sexy. I know beach vollyball in buggys…but I vote simon jeffries for the skimpy cossies:)