FireOnTheCoast - 5-6-2004 at 05:37 PM
Hey,
New to traction kiting, but have been flying stunt kites for some years... I want to use my new traction kite (Ozone Little Devil) to surf sand
dunes... Question: What kind of board sould I use? Shouldn't the wheels be rather wide? Is it possible to surf sand dunes on a board
without wheels? Thanks...
doomwheels - 7-6-2004 at 02:54 AM
Sand dunes, as I know them, are rather soft and most ATB wheels would easily sink especially with the added side pull of the kite.
If your dunes are hard, you may be able to move a bit with a large kite and big wheels, though I doubt you could make it back to your starting point.
A board without wheels would only be good for straght downwind runs at low speed. Plenty of drag with this setup.
Soft sand dunes
FireOnTheCoast - 7-6-2004 at 06:45 PM
Doomwheels,
Thanks for the reply / advise... Yea, the sand dunes I wish to surf are rather soft. But there HAS to be a way to surf them!! 5 miles long and 2 miles
wide, on the northern California coast, lots of wind!... DuneBuggy wheels??, modified boogie board with cardboard on bottom to reduce drag??, skis??
What do you think? 
doomwheels - 8-6-2004 at 08:35 AM
Here is an idea just for you...
http://www.doomwheels.com/gallery/kiteskate/troy_bonny.gif
It's a wakeboard with ATB trucks mounted upside-down on the top of the board, snowboard boot bindings and "Rollease" (sp?) for the
wheels. You could use buggy bigfoot wheels just as well.
This pic shows the TOP of the board.
It was built by my friend Troy Navarro for the Bonneville Buggy Enduro back in 1994. I easily got this thing up on 2 wheels with a Quadrifoil 75 in
high wind the day before the event.
We rode it on a hard surface, but something like this may work for you on the dunes.
doomwheels - 10-6-2004 at 11:30 PM
You know, one advantage to soft sand is that you can do some big-air jumps and land them softly. Even though a raw deck (no wheels) would not go very
fast, you could focus on jump tricks using the board as a landing surface sliding from one jump to another. The sand/kitepower load you could build up
with the board would help launch you higher in the air.
A word of caution... dunes have tricky wind currents and steep drops. Dune winds could pop you up perilously high and then foldup your kite dropping
you like a stone. This should only be attempted by well experienced traction kiters.