I've been having a blast in the buggy lately and I thought I was going pretty fast.

So...I hooked up a Magellan eXplorist XL the other day and I started seeing my actual speeds.

Whoa...I'm only going just over 20mph.

It sure felt faster than that! :sniff:

Any tips to go faster?

I can't give you any advice on how to go faster but I can relate to what you're saying. When boarding, I feel like I'm flying and then when I'm done I can see my tracks in the grass and realize the runs weren't as long as they felt so the speeds not likely to be nearly what I thought.

My wife filmed me kite skiing this past winter. It was an awful day - really gusty and bumpy wind. I knew I was fighting the kite but I felt good about the situation and even the unexpected, snatchy loftings seemed somewhat fluid to me and ended with controlled landings.

When I saw the film, I was surprised at how laborious and choppy I looked and how slow my actual runs were. And the loftings were much smaller then they felt. So I decided no more cameras. It wasn't my best day but it felt good until I saw myself. I've never clocked myself but I'm sure my experiences would be similar - sometimes its best not to know and just walk away with that ear-to-ear grin and think "I'm d'man" :singing: and not let actual facts disprove that point.

I think part of my problem is the small fying area I visit. Once I finally get going, I'm out of room.

20mph over bumpy softball fields still feels pretty fast.

20 isn't slow for a small feild. I've managed to crack 30kmh on an elementary school soccer feild, felt smoking fast for the area. On a big beach though, 30mph can seem like an easy cruise.


I can only offer a couple bits of advice for going faster. On a small feild, downturning the kite and carrying some speed through the corner is key, gotta be fluid. When you turn the kite down as you change directions instead of turning it up, it'll generate way more power and give you a nice long powerstroke as it blasts across the window 10 ft off the ground.

Other bit of advice is to watch the kite size carefully. You want to be powered up nicely so you don't have to work the kite to speed up, but not overpowered enough to be sliding and scrubbing off speed. If you're underpowered and working the kite, the kite will stay back in the window giving you more downwind pull and less power being put into speed. You want to be able to pump the kite once or twice to pick up speed fast, but then be able to park the kite and let it run. You want enough power that the kite will still speed you up when hanging at the edge of the window. If you want a lil more power, you can always apply a bit of brake and drop the kite back in the window to get more out of it. If you're overpowered, you'll get going no problem, but once your speeds up and the apparent wind kicks in you'll start sliding, and sliding just scrubs off speed.

Different types of kites have different top ends as well, If you're flying the likes of a buster, expect it to cap out earlier on. Mine will start to drop back quite a bit when I get near the 25mph mark. With the Century's I've been to 35mph, maybe kissing 40, but the kite's still stuck at the edge of the window. So far it's been the pilot holding it back. I know the JoJo RM is good for 72.9mph. Don't expect a butterball to give you speed, and likewise, expect a race kite to take a bit to really get cranking.

Kitesize is really key though, I've had days where I'm forced to fly one of my busters because I just don't have the right size Century and actually go faster, simply because it's the right size, no working the kite, no sliding of the buggy, everything goes into forward motion. You'll know when you have the right combo.

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Originally posted by DaVinch I've been having a blast in the buggy lately and I thought I was going pretty fast. So...I hooked up a Magellan eXplorist XL the other day and I started seeing my actual speeds. Whoa...I'm only going just over 20mph. It sure felt faster than that! :sniff: Any tips to go faster?

Bet your PL was rattling like a good'n at 20 mph.

Sand-Yeti

Thanks for the tips Pablo! Yeah, the PL buggy rattles a bunch...

My best day out so far was with my little 1.5 Bullet in big winds. Man, everthing was just right:D

I'm still looking for something in between my little Bullet and 4m Bego. A 3m Brooza or 3.2 Crossfire are on my list to check out.

The surface you ride on will have a huge effect on the overall speed you can acomplish. Riding out here on the dry lake beds offers nearly zero resistance. Most of the time you have to flip your buggy upside down to keep it from being blown across the lake bed without you.

The less resistance you have, the faster you can go.

Kite design plays a huge part of speed as well. The Ozone Razors, Yakuza's and the JoJo's are awesome kites that are designed for full race applications. They totally rock for high speed runs. The problem with these kites on grassy bumpy fields is that they are sooo fast they hit the edge of the window before your buggy begins to move. This can be quite frustrating and will take some serious piloting skills to get the buggy up to the speed of the kite...all before you run out of space. Going with a smaller sized kite will help because you can continue to loop the kite through the power zone until your buggy gets up to speed. Too large of a kite and you will be side dragging during the loops and wont be able to capitalize on the forward speed nearly as much.

20mph is fast for a grassy field. If you have room, pump the kite hard while you are cruising and direct all the extra power gain into the front of the buggy for more speed. The harder you work your kite, the more speed you can get. Watch your tack angle as well to get the optimum speed/tack. Too much upwind angle and you will loose speed, same goes for downwind tacks.

As a generalization...you can go twice the wind speed. So if the wind is blowing 10 mph you should be able to hit 20mph in the buggy. On flat smooth surfaces (parking lots / dry lake beds, etc...) and with high performance race kites you can get nearly 3 times the wind speed. So with a 10 mph wind you can get close to 30 mph speeds in the buggy. You can go faster with smaller kites than you can with larger ones simply because you can fly the smaller kites in stronger wind conditions. Putting up a 2.2 Yakuza in 28 mph winds has the capability of yielding speeds close to 70-75 mph. Putting up a 10 meter Yakuza in the same winds is suicide and not even possible.

As like most sports, the athletes experience is the determining factor. A highly skilled pilot on a low performance kite will usually outperform an underskilled pilot on a full race kite. Also like most sports, the more you practice the better you will become.

Have fun - be safe - buggy on!

Good info Ken - thanks for the reply.

Never flown a Yakuza or a Razor, but the RM+ and the Century have no problem getting going when bogged down. We were happily dragging ourselves around in the soft dry sand at Sunset Beach. I fly mostly Century's at our local small, grassy/sandy park no problem, only time I fly something else is when the wind's from the NE, then it's comming over some large buildings and really messed up. Then it's time to break out the Broozas.

But you won't want to get anywhere near a race kite unless you're comfortable with brake turns and such. Most race kites also like to be fairly well powered up.


Davinchi, The 3m Brooza could be just the ticket, nice fast kite with good handling and does well in gusty conditions. There's some lift mixed in there though.

I used my gps to get top speed for me. Its a nice tool for that.
Im way under the speed record. but i have had a few very nice runs
My personal top speed was 51.8 mph.
I wet my pants almost
equipmnt was a 2.0 blade and a homebrew kart.
bob

for me the key was to find a nice breeze day with out HUGE gust.
Harder the ground is packed the faster you will go. But really dont worry about top speed. Just have fun. as your skill increase your speed will to.
Have fun dont fly way over powered. and DONT get HURT.
Going very fast without knowning your equipment and your LIMITS is not smart.

I almost never have to look at my kites now i just know where they are and how they are performing.
God bless bobo

I was once told, (and I don't have a solid reference, so it may have been pure bovine excrement), that a mast/sail combination can achieve about 2.7 times the given wind speed, and a kite can achieve 2.3 time. Everyone with any experience on the playa knows the dirt boats are faster. There are some complicated engineering and aerodynamic formulae which set this limit on things, and it's just like any other physical laws.. you can always fool yourself that you're beyond them.

How fast is fast? When seated four inches off the ground, 25 seems like 55, doesn't it? I learned very early on that my "average" speed over any given day was between 15 and 20 mph. Not very thrilling to read, but from the pilot's seat, it was awesome! I once got yanked to just over 54 mph in a gust on Ivanpah, (that same afternoon Corey-Lama was almost abducted... he was on his tippy-toes on the footpegs, and hangin' on for all he was worth, and then some). I don't ever want to go that fast again, except in my big, steel box on the freeway. I trust those lines of paint on the road to keep me safe!

I used to always twiddle with a speedometer, and now have a GPS... almost never use 'em anymore. Who cares? Look at the scenery... is that guy taking nekkid pitchers of his girlfriend over there? How fast can I get over there and find out? Is that a gas can, a trash bag, or what lying out there on the playa? How fast do I need to go find out? Can I go faster than that other guy? Sure I can... I've got an ambulance under me!

- Dooley :moon:

I hit a max speed today of 27.1 mph overpowered by my Bego 400. My buggy was rattling, pinging and sliding sideways on the bumpy softball fields.

Man, it felt fast! Got to love this stuff...

I add a tail to my kite, it makes me go faster, try it you will like it!.......aj

As people have already said here, it all really depends on the surface you're buggying on and what feels good to you - usually what feels fast is not actually that fast in real terms, but if it feels fast then thats good enough for me

I think the fastest I've ever gone was at Berrow some years back. My speedo said I hit 34 and it felt pretty damn fast (but safe), until I hit a patch of sand where the tide had left those undulating bumps like a washboard - at that speed I thought I was going to die! I was bumping and shaking all over the place, and without footstraps on my footpegs my feet were bouncing up off the pegs and I realized I was completely out of control! Now that was scary!

If you are going for speed, please get a steering head mod. on your PL buggy, If you go over about 40 Km the front wheel will be in control(tank slaping), NOT YOU !... I will post a photo later on what to do. pete...
head bolt is set back 33mm on PL.
& 50mm at the top / 60mm at bottom of bolt on big foot.

Pete
Thanks for the post and photo. Could you be a bit more specific on what negative symtpom to look out for? I have a new PL Comp XR+ and am taking out for a first ride most likely today. 40kph is 26 mph and I'll likely hit that if the wind predictions hold.

Thanks

tips to go fatser..:puzzled:

only if you have absolut control of your kite and Buggy..!!

is your bug wide and heavy enough?
you don't wanna tip over..

i always take in strong and gusty winds a Low A.R. kite with a little drag.
and that usely works great!!
just place it low to the ground and then pull the brake just a little..
and let the drag do his job.

my acceleration from 0 to 60 M/pH and back to 0 took only 0,8miles..

note:
here in Holland whe don't have that much (big) beaches.
so there are a few factors:
smooth beach (..it varies enormesly here..)
no crouwed with doggs
strong winds
right wind-direction
no rain