If you could pick only one kite event....

Dittos on JIBE for me... though Randy and I are both In Metro Atlanta and that has a lot to do with it. Though I have to say Jekyll Island has appeal beyond JIBE. It's just a great place to vacation.

I know with most all of the events it's just as much about the people as it is about the locale and we all know how awesome most Kite-people are!!!... so I imagine everyone will have the same input about whatever event that they frequent!

I would love to hear from folks who have been to more than one of the big events to see which they prefer most!

And if we could ever get Steve to come out to JIBE I'm sure his input would be included

Quote: Originally posted by soliver

And if we could ever get Steve to come out to JIBE I'm sure his input would be included

I don't see your logic?

I would suggest your analytics are all wrong. If you have one vacation for kiting a year then I would go to a different event each year due to the equidistant parameter. Additionally, after a couple years you will be promoted which will include twice as much vacation time. This will double the kiting vacation duration which of course halves the time required to experience all kiting events. Due to the non linear relationship between kiting duration and kiting nirvana, as more kiting events are experienced the probability of achieving kiting nirvana grows geometrically creating an ever increasing probability of disaster. All kiting and no kiting happening simultaneously.
If that answer doesn't work for you then go to Ivanpah since they have the biggest playground.

Quote: Originally posted by Ed Cline

I don't see your logic?

Quote: Originally posted by kteguru

I would suggest your analytics are all wrong. If you have one vacation for kiting a year then I would go to a different event each year due to the equidistant parameter. Additionally, after a couple years you will be promoted which will include twice as much vacation time. This will double the kiting vacation duration which of course halves the time required to experience all kiting events. Due to the non linear relationship between kiting duration and kiting nirvana, as more kiting events are experienced the probability of achieving kiting nirvana grows geometrically creating an ever increasing probability of disaster. All kiting and no kiting happening simultaneously. If that answer doesn't work for you then go to Ivanpah since they have the biggest playground.

Outstanding contribution to this thread by a bonifide kite guru. How could you question that? :karate:

I have had the distinct privilege to attend IBX three times and (Fall) SOBB once. Agree 105% with what has already been well said by K2 regarding these two events. BTW, don't sell that pint-size Hercules short; he's got balls-like-bull on the playa and knows of what he speaks. :P

My (US) bucket list? JIBE, Spring SOBB, Wildwood, and lest we forget, Alvord. Alvord is fabled to make Ivanpah look like a postage stamp and has a much better surface.

Quote: Originally posted by soliver

Quote: Originally posted by Ed Cline   I don't see your logic?

Lots of history here Ed, lots of history! Some day my ATL brotha!

Quote: Originally posted by BeamerBob

I've moved around the country a lot and that has exposed me to most of the kite events. The short answer is that there isn't one you shouldn't go to. I haven't been to WBB but they have a great beach and a close knit crowd that really has a good time together. It's the biggie on my bucket list. I was at the first two JIBE events and got to return last spring. I had forgotten how great the surface of the beach is there. I'll be running Landsegler wheels there this spring to speed things up a bit. My grooved Bigfoot tires I have are just not a benefit there except to and from kite beach and the boardwalk to the parking lot. Is that good. Angus jokes that he has a "wind button" that he pushes every day at 3:00. It doesn't seem like he's joking. That's when the sea breeze kicks in and is generally better and more onshore than forecast. It's a must ride event. Alvord is a special place. If you imagine the biggest riding area you can, Alvord is bigger than that. I once rode miles out across the lakebed and saw a tent camp set up that had not been visible from our camp. Due to the curvature of the earth. I kept riding towards the other side and the tents disappeared again. You can be riding with a dozen people and not even be able to see all their kites (or sails). I did not think the surface at Alvord was as good for speed runs as Ivanpah. It's a bit softer and more like talcum powder than the sandpaper at Ivanpah. But don't let this detract you from getting there. You have so much space, high winds could carry you for 6-20 minutes without having to worry about obstacles or a shoreline. SOBB is a must attend as well. Buggy camp is maybe the tightest in the country. You ride together during the day and eat around the fire together at night. Bring your biggest kites. I went twice and never flew a kite as small as 5 meters. Made the run from Sunset beach south to Seaside using my 14m Yakuza GT. It's a morning I'll never forget. Maybe 14 miles one way. And you have to buggy to the shipwreck too. People at the shipwreck will look at you like you just landed in a spaceship. Bring your big tires and your big kites but definitely bring your self and don't miss this event. I attended NABX it's last 4 years. It was the greatest kite buggy event in the world. Hands down. This was during the kite buggy heyday and in 2012 there were like 175 people there. Riders from all over the world were common. It had the show biz factor, the elite riders from the world there and it had Ivanpah. I say all this because it's all a foundation for what happened next. Lots of my friends know how IBX came about but most do not. I'm going to tell it's story to shed light on what my dear friend and mentor Bladerunner meant about IBX being a fractured crowd. After the epic event that NABX 2012 was, the organization again was late getting in the permit application. It's due 6 months before the event and it was over 3 months late. BLM said no, you won't be having an event on Ivanpah in 2013. That drama all unfolded on this forum and there were about 30 people that took the risk and showed up anyway. When I got on the lakebed, (I lived 40 minutes away) the tent company was taking down the tent used by NALSA. It was sad for me and I'm sure anyone else that saw it. During this week, we rode and made the best of getting to ride together, but maybe 15-20 different people independently told me that maybe it was time for a change of events on Ivanpah. I didn't want this to be the end of NABX but there were discussions about what needed to be different. For about 3 months, things were quiet but Brian Holgate was asking me to help him put on an event. I always said I wouldn't want to put on an event that competed with NABX. By the end of June 2013, we decided to do the basics of setting up an event with BLM on the premise that if NABX got things in order for a 2014 event, we would drop it and continue to support NABX. I called Dean (Nabx organizer) and informed him the first week of September about this plan and that we had met the requirements to get a permit from BLM for a kite buggy event of NABX did not do so by the deadline. With a few days to spare, they turned in an initial permit application and got a long list of things needed to secure a permit but nothing further was submitted. Ivanpah Buggy Blast went live later that week. We had some sponsors that had promised to back us. HQ and A Wind of Change have sponsored the event every year and are a significant reason along with many other generous sponsors over the years why we are about to have a sixth year this spring. My biggest drive to help Brian put on the event and I'm sure why Morrie Williams and his wife Kelci have done SO much to make the event easier to put on, was that Ivanpah is one heck of a place to ride. There is a reason so many world records have been broken there. There had to be an event there. There must be an event that will cause people to take time off from work and make travel plans to come and be part of an event there. On a beach, if you get over 30 mph, you've done something significant. I had done that once at JIBE and remember it like it was yesterday. 35.4 mph. I broke 40 my first 3 days riding at my first NABX with my Flexibuggy. Many have said that you can learn more buggying at Ivanpah for a week than you'll learn in a Year wherever you ride at home. I was lucky enough to live near it for 6 years and still get the same nervous feeling every time I drive off pavement across the California state line onto the lakebed. Ivanpah is a place that every wind junkie should ride in their life. And that's why there is an IBX.

Bob, THANK YOU SO MUCH for taking the time to chronicle what happened back in and around 2013. I had heard bits and pieces but it was all fragmented in my mind. Ivanpah with 175 riders must have been AMAZING. Thank you too (along with Brian, Morrie, and Kelci) for putting in so much effort these recent years putting on IBX. It is the highlight of my year recently.

JIBE!

Yes Bob, not only do you have a great feel for most of the events but I felt I was not qualified to talk about 2013. I missed that year.

When I describe IBX as a fractured event I referred to the event Post 2013. The old guard set up a No NABX non event camp separate from the IBX tent and official event. You must drive past the non event to get to the event.

What was as sad as anything about the whole change up of the event was the sponsors all turning tail. Big Prop's to HQ and AWOC for sticking with us! The event may no longer be the international showcase for sponsors anymore but the event must go on. Ivanpah is too fantastic a place not to celebrate at least once a year!

Good point about Alvord! Typically a good sized group of great guys meet there Canada Thanksgiving week. Around Oct.12. It is rough camping but from what I can tell would be great for ATB.

Quote: Originally posted by pbc

I love the idea of rotating between the events each year. I don't do it but I think it's awesome. :-) I'm a regular attendee at JIBE and love it. The hardpack is super wide and hard. At JIBE I never encounter the squishy stuff I often see on my home beach. Monday through Thursday the beach-goer crowd is light so you have a lot of freedom to pour on the power. Friday gets a little busier, but not too bad. If you want some technical, white-knuckle riding, and the wind gets a northerly component, head north and try to make it to the north end. You'll put your gear and yourself at risk, but damn it's fun. Just remember I warned you. You could be 3 miles north of camp when you snag your kite on a 70 foot pine tree. ;-) The community at JIBE is great. It's a very friendly crowd with lots of regulars that define the event. People rent houses, others camp at the JI campground. I've done both and both are great experiences. There are group dinners at the local restaurants. It's pretty common for a house renter or a camper to host an evening event. If you are camping the temps are still pretty mild at night during JIBE. A screened tent can get a little chilly--bring a light blanket. I also logged 7 or 8 trips to the dry lake beds of the Mojave. I have sailed at Ivanpah, El Mirage and Silurian. Each is great, each is special in its own way. Sailing a dry lake bed is dreamy. It provides very low rolling resistance--second only to pavement. That allows you to sail and go very fast with very little sail, but it's not just about speed. If you are a beach sailer your flying experience can feel kind of one-dimensional. On the dry lake, it's fully two-dimensional. You can easily do maneuvers that you barely have room to execute on the beach. I love approaching the edge of the lake bed at speed, and turning upwind as I lift the kite high into the sky. You can just keep shooting upwind turning all that wind into velocity made good. When you finally reach the zenith and decide it's time to turn, slowly turn that kite downwind and take the widest downwind turn of the buggy you've ever made. You can turn so wide your wheels never slip. As the wind shifts to your other shoulder you still have most of the speed you had when you started the turn. Then start a slow dive of the kite as you continue turning toward the wind. As the power comes on you rapidly accelerate from maybe half your cruising speed to full speed in several seconds. It's such a trip. Make sure you try some insanely wide, speed conserving turns at the lake bed. Once you get good at it you'll figure out you can do the same thing on your home beach. It's harder on a beach and not quite as trippy, but the freedom of the dry lake will make you a better flyer on any surface you take advantage of what the dry lake has to offer. Philip

Philip - wonderful description of your speed-conserving wide downwind turn. I was just sitting in my living room in the pre-dawn light trying to pantomime it out. Glad my wife didn't see me with my hands in the air!

I'm primarily a Bar kite flyer though I do use handles on occasion with my NasaStars. Can I assume that your description involves flying from handles? If flying from a bar with a DP kite one flips the bar top to bottom when making the turn. I'm having a hard time picturing this bar flip. I'm adverse to experimentation at speed with my kites on the sandpaper like surface of the Ivanpah playa because it just puts a beating on my kites so I would really want this worked out in my head before trying it. I'm on a first name basis with the fine folks at fixmykite already and I just don't want to keep giving them business if you know what I mean.

So... this move with a bar? Thanks!

Quote: Originally posted by BeamerBob

It's just as easy with a bar. Requires a bar spin after you finish. You just turn under the kite but it changed sides of the buggy so there is one twist.

Thanks Bob! I figured it was like that (bar ends up upside down too of course in a down turn) but I wanted to double check as compare to drag some beautiful EU Made SS under tension along the lake bed surface the first time I try and pull this off.

Quote: Originally posted by Windstruck

Philip - wonderful description of your speed-conserving wide downwind turn. I was just sitting in my living room in the pre-dawn light trying to pantomime it out. Glad my wife didn't see me with my hands in the air! I'm primarily a Bar kite flyer though I do use handles on occasion with my NasaStars. Can I assume that your description involves flying from handles? If flying from a bar with a DP kite one flips the bar top to bottom when making the turn. I'm having a hard time picturing this bar flip. I'm adverse to experimentation at speed with my kites on the sandpaper like surface of the Ivanpah playa because it just puts a beating on my kites so I would really want this worked out in my head before trying it. I'm on a first name basis with the fine folks at fixmykite already and I just don't want to keep giving them business if you know what I mean. So... this move with a bar? Thanks!

The move is definitely with a bar. If you turn the kite up you'll get zero twist in the lines; if you turn down you get a single twist. I am pretty sure I always do a down turn, but to be clear the kite is always pointing in your direction of travel. Before you start, the kite needs to be at the zenith. As you start the turn the kite stays at the zenith. As you turn the buggy downwind you turn the kite to match it. In this way, the kite and buggy are always pointing in the same direction. The buggy is moving downwind, but the kite is traveling with it. The buggy's speed provides ample apparent wind to keep the lines taught and provide control. The kite stays near the zenith until around the point in the turn where you are at a broad reach, then you start the kites descent into the power. As your turn progresses to a reach the kite needs to arrive at the sweet spot and the G-forces should be kicking in. It is delicious when you get the timing right.

I found a video Nick made of our adventures with dean in 2014. It captures one of these turns in what might be the screamingest ride I ever had at Ivanpah. Here's the goodness Tour de Mojave

What you can't appreciate from the video is how terrified I was. I was flying dean's F-arc that day. I was first up with the F-arc and it was tuned too hot. It was an ancient no-trim bar. I had nothing to work with but bar throw. I should have landed it and adjusted the trim, but I kept flying. We did add some pigtails later and the kite became much more civilized, but for this segment the kite was insanely hot. I could fly the kite, but it was full-on white knuckle. Fortunately, I was in a heavy buggy with hip engagement so the floating feeling under my seat was not a death sentence. In this particular turn I had so much speed and so little weight on the tires the buggy was on the verge of breaking free. To make it more exciting, there was gravel scattered on the edge of the lake bed. The closer I got to the shore the more gravel I encountered. So it was a balance of turning wider to minimize the side forces yet not turning so wide that I got into more gravel and lost what little traction I still had. Obviously, it all worked out fine, but I can't recommend learning these maneuvers with so much power. It's only a good story if you live to tell the tale.

Philip

Quote: Originally posted by pbc

Quote: Originally posted by Windstruck   Philip - wonderful description of your speed-conserving wide downwind turn. I was just sitting in my living room in the pre-dawn light trying to pantomime it out. Glad my wife didn't see me with my hands in the air! I'm primarily a Bar kite flyer though I do use handles on occasion with my NasaStars. Can I assume that your description involves flying from handles? If flying from a bar with a DP kite one flips the bar top to bottom when making the turn. I'm having a hard time picturing this bar flip. I'm adverse to experimentation at speed with my kites on the sandpaper like surface of the Ivanpah playa because it just puts a beating on my kites so I would really want this worked out in my head before trying it. I'm on a first name basis with the fine folks at fixmykite already and I just don't want to keep giving them business if you know what I mean. So... this move with a bar? Thanks! The move is definitely with a bar. If you turn the kite up you'll get zero twist in the lines; if you turn down you get a single twist. I am pretty sure I always do a down turn, but to be clear the kite is always pointing in your direction of travel. Before you start, the kite needs to be at the zenith. As you start the turn the kite stays at the zenith. As you turn the buggy downwind you turn the kite to match it. In this way, the kite and buggy are always pointing in the same direction. The buggy is moving downwind, but the kite is traveling with it. The buggy's speed provides ample apparent wind to keep the lines taught and provide control. The kite stays near the zenith until around the point in the turn where you are at a broad reach, then you start the kites descent into the power. As your turn progresses to a reach the kite needs to arrive at the sweet spot and the G-forces should be kicking in. It is delicious when you get the timing right. I found a video Nick made of our adventures with dean in 2014. It captures one of these turns in what might be the screamingest ride I ever had at Ivanpah. Here's the goodness Tour de Mojave What you can't appreciate from the video is how terrified I was. I was flying dean's F-arc that day. I was first up with the F-arc and it was tuned too hot. It was an ancient no-trim bar. I had nothing to work with but bar throw. I should have landed it and adjusted the trim, but I kept flying. We did add some pigtails later and the kite became much more civilized, but for this segment the kite was insanely hot. I could fly the kite, but it was full-on white knuckle. Fortunately, I was in a heavy buggy with hip engagement so the floating feeling under my seat was not a death sentence. In this particular turn I had so much speed and so little weight on the tires the buggy was on the verge of breaking free. To make it more exciting, there was gravel scattered on the edge of the lake bed. The closer I got to the shore the more gravel I encountered. So it was a balance of turning wider to minimize the side forces yet not turning so wide that I got into more gravel and lost what little traction I still had. Obviously, it all worked out fine, but I can't recommend learning these maneuvers with so much power. It's only a good story if you live to tell the tale. Philip

Nice video! Ballsy move doing it behind the vehicles. I know just what you mean about the surface back there; nothing like out in the middle of the playa. I see the move now. Will most definitely try it way out in the open at much lower speeds and not with a kite that could loft me at zenith.

Quote: Originally posted by BeamerBob

In the worst twist of paradoxes, the faster you are going, the better it works.

Marvelous. Of course it does.

It is so easy to do with my hands in the air in front of my iPad. Let's just say I'm glad there's that little drain hole in the bottom of my seat.

Quote: Originally posted by BeamerBob

In the worst twist of paradoxes, the faster you are going, the better it works.

Yeah, what Bobby said. The kite is aiming straight downwind and still the lines are tight. Go figure!