So after watching quite a bit of kite buggying videos on Youtube and trying to figure out how I can improve my skills I noticed something that has left me in a state of confusion. When someone is buggying (seen especially our good friend Jon Holgate's videos) it seems that the kite manages to work its way towards the edge of the window, but still develops a considerable amount of pull. (Enough to continue to develop speed in the buggy) Now I also noticed that Jon also buggy's in much more wind than I have been able to handle. From what I recall the few times that I have successfully started moving, I had to keep the kite farther back from the edge of the window to get the pull I needed to continue accelerating, and when the kite does get to the edge, all the power is lost and I come to a stop. Does the riding surface play a big factor in this? For example; will sand let you keep the kite towards the edge of the window whereas on grass you need to keep it farther back to get the same acceleration? While buggying on sand last time, it was hard to keep the kite from developing too much side pull which resulted in me sliding/ drifting downwind and not being able to ride perpendicular to the wind. More so, will each terrain change dramatically change the sweet spot for the kite in the wind window?

Yes to all that. The riding surface is HOOJ in determining what the kite power will do to you/for you. Slow surface will require more power to move or reach a certain speed. Too much power and you will have too much side pull (except for speed runs heading almost downwind).

At the sod farm there is a dirt road on the downwind side of the area. If the wind is at an angle so we have a downwind direction and then an upwind slog to get back, we run upwind on the dirt to get back faster and as you go faster, the power from the kite increases even more. Downwind is fine in the grass because it puts the kite further forward of you giving you more pull.

Tires can play a big role as well by using the tire with the least rolling resistance but yet enough to stay on top of the surface.

BB, when you ride at the sod farm, where is the kites position in the window when you are moving directly perpendicular to the wind? Seems like most of my problems are based on rolling resistance from the grass field and possibly not enough wind to develop power.

Man I have so much still to learn!! I hope I don't look like a total noob at WW!!
Sorry in advance for messing any one up there :embarrased:

Lol, you and me both Roc! I am still quite the noob with the buggying thing. Since I don't have one of my own to learn on, I have to read up and watch videos of others successfully buggying and figure out what I was doing wrong. Putting all the knowledge into practice is not as easy as it sounds either. I am also starting to become very envious of all those with a spot of hard packed sand that they can buggy on.:moon:

Start out by rolling downwind a few feet to gain some momentum, then turn crosswind. With enough power to overcome rolling resistance, you can maintain that line and with just a little speed you can even gain quite a bit of upwind ground. You don't have enough power if you can't hold a crosswind line. Depending on how aggressive you are cutting upwind, your kite could be between 9:30 and 11:30. Your site and speed usually determines where your kite is in that range.

Read THIS a dozen times and you will feel this stuff start to click when you get in the buggy.

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Start out by rolling downwind a few feet to gain some momentum, then turn crosswind.

This is how I start off every time.

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You don't have enough power if you can't hold a crosswind line.

This has happened to me several times before, but I always assumed it was just bad positioning in the window.

As for the positioning, I was mainly concerned with placement between the edge and the center of the wind window. Usually at the center I get too much side pull to do anything except get yanked out. On the other hand, anywhere from the midpoint of the center and edge and the edge itself, there's not enough power to continue going. I usually try to keep it as close to that midpoint as possible. Is this making any sense?

You either don't have enough power, too much resistance on the ground, too aggressive an upwind line, or your kite is too low performance to reach forward in the window. And yes, many of these are probably in play at the same time. :ticking:

Read that CWS buggy tutorial over and over till you have it memorized. Link in my last post.

I'm reading it now (believe me it's not the first time) One of these times it will all click. Thanks for all the help BB.

As Bobby indicated I think you are answering a lot of your questions.

After watching more first-timers here on Jekyll, I'm adding one thing to my list of common difficulties I see people have in the buggy, and that is racing the kite to the edge of the window before buggy speed comes up. The kite then stalls at the edge and power is lost, very frustrating for all. This seems to happen more in lower wind with a larger kite than the other way around. I was out the other day in 22 mph winds with my Rage 3.5 and I was reminded how sloppy one could be and still get away with it. But back to the problem, 2 things come to mind...

Begin with the buggy pointing more down-wind and dive the kite into the power zone to get rolling, then immediately harden up (turn towards upwind) so that you are back on a reach across the wind with some momentum so that you are better able to keep up with the kite. This all sounds good, but the other problem I see is that once rolling, the student often loses all directional and situational awareness and forgets where to point. This can be exacerbated by the fat that as you move, the apparent wind kicks in and can confuse the student, who forgets where the true wind was and what direction a beam reach (or across the true wind) was or is. I try to help by pointing out land marks, drawing lines in the sand or setting out orange cones as items to aim for.

The other thing is kite control and keeping it moving so that the average position is somewhere between 10 and 11 o'clock on one tack, or 2 and 1 o'clock on the other. Very often the kite is flying the student and not the other way around. I'm trying to figure out a way to develop drills for this - to teach the student to keep the kite in a precisely controlled portion of the wind window. what is counter-intuitive about this is that it means sometimes flying the kite backwards to the direction of travel for a moment in order to "re-set" its position in the window. Flying slow, this is like figure-eights, but as speed builds it turns into a sine.

People also forget that if the kite is in the wrong place in the window, you can correct it not just by moving the kite but you can *move the window* by changing your heading for a moment, and with it the apparent wind. Remember that the wind window is always dead downwind of the *apparent* wind, and the apparent wind changes with motion. moving from your side when starting on a reach (across the wind) to behind you while you gain speed. You max out on speed when the edge of the window moves from in front of you to just ahead of directly to your side.

Jover I could not see a lot of what was going on in the video you posted, but if you were getting pulled sideways, try pulling the trim strap in to speed up the kite and get it farther out in front while you accelerate. Of course the very edge of the window will move back to besides you, and you will beak loose again if you try to power up. I set my arc's trim strap so that the wheels break loose just when the bar pressure builds up to have to pull with more than a finger or two.

Jovver-
If all of this is getting confusing, dont worry about it. We will have lots of veteran buggy riders at Wildwood who will be happy to sit down with you to make sure your buggy experience is a good, learning, and memorable one.

And the rest of us will be %$*&ing up right there with you.

If your going to be at Wildwood Jovver your more than welcome to take a spin with me. Sitting right behind the pilot to see what they're doing real time definately shortens the learning curve. And if your adventurous and the wind is right we can always have a go at breaking Ripsession's recent tandem speed

Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to be able to make it to the spring fling at WW. I'm def going to shoot for the fall get together though.

Awww. You should come. It's fun.

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Originally posted by Jovver So after watching quite a bit of kite buggying videos on Youtube and trying to figure out how I can improve my skills I noticed something that has left me in a state of confusion. When someone is buggying (seen especially our good friend Jon Holgate's videos) it seems that the kite manages to work its way towards the edge of the window, but still develops a considerable amount of pull. (Enough to continue to develop speed in the buggy) Now I also noticed that Jon also buggy's in much more wind than I have been able to handle. From what I recall the few times that I have successfully started moving, I had to keep the kite farther back from the edge of the window to get the pull I needed to continue accelerating, and when the kite does get to the edge, all the power is lost and I come to a stop. Does the riding surface play a big factor in this? For example; will sand let you keep the kite towards the edge of the window whereas on grass you need to keep it farther back to get the same acceleration? While buggying on sand last time, it was hard to keep the kite from developing too much side pull which resulted in me sliding/ drifting downwind and not being able to ride perpendicular to the wind. More so, will each terrain change dramatically change the sweet spot for the kite in the wind window?

ITS CALLED APPARENT WIND BABY!

i think you got a lot of real good advice so far here but "i" may have missed how AR (aspect ratio)fits into the mix.
my general attempt to explain...
AR effects how well the kite can/will perform throughout the entire window (including the edge).
a low AR kite will not prefer riding/flying at edge of window. the lower the AR kite the less forward (edge of window) performance it is but very easy to fly. so you get a lot of lateral(straight down wind) pull instead of forward(edge of window) pull. why beginner kites are low-med AR.... easy to fly.
i buggied with an NPW (in decent wind range+)and it darn near pulled straight downind. you can guess what AR range of kites this belongs to. in order to get the buggy to go forward i had to travel a little bit down wind.

high AR kites (also refered to as Race kites) perform well at the edge of window but are trickier to fly. high AR kite will want to go straight to the edge and sit there. we *sine the kite or add some **brake input to keep it from simply sitting at the edge.
parS-P-A-M-L-I-N-K-n ride is nice too. kite sits at edge and you simply do nothing but cruise. sine the kite for more speed/fun.
*sining the kite generates more power/speed too(an aparent wind discussion)
**adding brake input to kite forces kite to grab more wind. i've seen it explained that it is when one let's off the brakes that the kite shoots forward 'back to the edge where it likes to be" and this shooting forward of the kite is where the speed gain comes from.
you can find more better/scientific explanations to the above two flying techniques.

with high AR kite you have the ability to get more directions of travel (known as upwind performance). meaning that you don't have to run exaclty 90 degrees to wind direction. you can, if need be, run very close to directly into wind direction.
generally higher the AR the more upwind performance (bigger range of travel direction) you have but the more trickier the kite behaves.
Paul