Hello,

I'm rofer and I have an addiction. It all started about a year and a half ago, largely with this video:


A few days later I bought a mountain board and my first kite. Ever since then I've been desperately trying to get my fix in inland Pittsburgh. Anyone else willing to share when their kite problem began?

Broken spars on a stunt Kite. Went in for a repair on the Oregon coast. Guy sold me on a ram air style stunt Kite, flew it in a coastal storm with winds to 50mph and got towed down the beach on my face after a line broke. Hooked right then. Went in the next day and bought my first 3.5m quad line quickly followed by a 5m, 6.5m and 8m rest is history!

Had a Prism Quantum and took it out when winds were gusting about 15mph. Really felt the power kick in, wasn't exactly dragging me but close to.

I thought to myself; there has to be another kite I can buy that will give me just a bit more power to drag me around. At the moment, I discovered power kites. And that was exactly what I got! Like all newbie's I thought to myself that I need more power! So what did I do? I picked up a PL Twister 5.6 IIR. Worst decision anyone can make!

That was basically the kite I learned to fly on. Still remembering those days, it was definitely too much kite for me. So a year later I decided to downgrade and get a 3m Hornet.

To this day, I'm hooked onto kiting. Even though I don't get many sessions during the winter here, it has me looking forward to the summer months more than I used to! :D

very similar to iFlyKites. bought a $20 stunt kite from a hobby store, then looked online for bigger and got quantum, then looked online for bigger and here I am. I stumbled across skd videos which blew my mind. I had no idea this stuff existed.

Lift Lines.

i stumbled across this tv show on sunday mornings 6am called Catchin Air
2 guys traveling all around the country playing w/ kites but mostly looking to be in the water
there was like 8 episodes they repeated for like 2 years every sunday on whatever dopey cable station
i knew 10 min into the first show i had to get some of that
would really like to thank them some day they changed my life right when i needed it

I was an avid skier who didn't want to leave my wife home with my newly born children when they came along so I stopped going to the mountain every weekend to ski and looked for a way to fill the void. I was a dual line kite flier since 1995 so I was aware of the power side of the sport but didn't know how to enter it. Then I saw this video



There are two ponds in my backyard which are accessible only in the winter. Though I never got a kitewing, I searched for a place to take kite lessons and did that very weekend and then began flying the ponds in my backyard every weekend and soon met up with others via this forum and the internet.

While my interest was originally kite skiing, I way prefer KLB on the beach at low tide.

for me as a kid i always enjoyed flying single line kites and even made a few kites,i always liked to join as much line together and get kite flying as high as possible!

up to about couple weeks ago i had only ever flown single line and was always curious about dual lines but never tried anything over than single line.this year i brought a hq symphony 1.8m which i have tried to fly but not much wind since owning it sadly.

i have just brought a hq beamer 2.0m which i have yet to fly so cant wait!

I had lost a few people who were very close to me and was fighting off depression. One of those I lost was my adrenaline buddy. He was into stunt kites and showed me a video on Corey Roesler ( sp? ) and his Kite Ski setup. He talked about foils and their potential. I played with his stunt kites but wasn't as turned on as he was.

I didn't want to go to pills as a solution. At some point I decided to go for kitesurfing lessons in Steve's honour and it was just the "pill ". A new passion and a way to get out of my head.

Roll forward 10 or so years and I find myself dealing with losing a whole new batch of loved ones. Problem this time is that the wind Gods have also abandoned me and I can't get my fix. :Ange09:

Like a lot of us I was a kite flyer and serious enthusiast since I was a little knee-high. When I had kids I started taking them kite flying (all single liners) and rekindled my love of wind power. I had been a lover of sailing those little SunFish and Hobie16s as a teenager too and that just all sort of tied together. About 10 years ago I bought a 3m Tensor and felt real power for the first time in my hands. Loved it! I owned a 3, 4, and even a 5m Tensor for quite a few years and would take them out from time to time as much for a workout as anything. For a while I was flying static off of two lines with wrist straps holding the kites back like crazy, then I'd land the kite, do something like 50 push ups and then launch the kite again, going back and forth like that.

For a lot of years I'd been staring longingly at the snowkiters out my way and the kiteboaders when I was at the beach. Some way or the other I came across some YouTube videos of kite buggying and bang! Knew that was for me. Somehow found PKF, bought my first buggy here (Folding PL) and the rest was, well, history.

I've really loved this evolution and struggle with my addiction on a daily basis. May need a 12-step program someday!

PKF (and XK) have been wonderful online communities for me... so thanks to everybody for your sage council, friendship, and more than a few belly laughs! :D

i admit as a kid i never once got a 1le line to fly...ever.

Quote: Originally posted by abkayak

i admit as a kid i never once got a 1le line to fly...ever.

That's okay, I've still never caught a fish. ever. and i did go fishing as a kid.

Quote: Originally posted by ssayre

Quote: Originally posted by abkayak   i admit as a kid i never once got a 1le line to fly...ever. That's okay, I've still never caught a fish. ever. and i did go fishing as a kid.

you come to me in Sept...i will guarantee you 30# Bass
and 25mph onshore winds

Quote: Originally posted by abkayak

Quote: Originally posted by ssayre   Quote: Originally posted by abkayak   i admit as a kid i never once got a 1le line to fly...ever. That's okay, I've still never caught a fish. ever. and i did go fishing as a kid. you come to me in Sept...i will guarantee you 30# Bass and 25mph onshore winds

Sounds like a plan. I'll do my best to make it over there.

My wife and I were flying our cheapo delta's and mine kept overflying the edge and failing. I asked her if I could spend a few more bucks and get a legit kite to fly - she felt sorry for me and agreed. Didn't take much Googling to notice these "foil" kites and thought, one of those would be worth trying out. Picked up my HQ Symphony Beach and was absolutely hooked! Thought those "jumping" videos looked like fun so, like IFlyKites, next kite was the 5.6 PL Twister IIR. Spent the summer learning it from the bottom to the top of it's wind range, and buggin Drewculous with all my jumping questions.

oops, double post...

I was surfin' the net looking for fishing kites to carry baits offshore. On some website I clicked a link and it took me to a video. I knew instantly,I was going to buy one of these and build one of those. And the rest ,as they say,is history.



Windstruck ,nice avatar... LOL

Was looking for something different to do off-season, as family and work commitments made it increasingly difficult for me go surfing as often as I wanted to. Looked at a kitewing, but THIS appealed to me as something different that I would enjoy. That was 18 months ago. Glad I started doing this, I absolutely love it.

it was the early 90s when i got a into the wind kite catolge dont know how i got it.
got a few single lines that year and went to wildwood kite fest saw buggying for the first time in
wildwood the year was 1994 and i knew i had to try it. got my first buggy pl comp and my first kite a skytiger 26 both which
i still have and rest is history.

a little throw back photo I recently came across doing some tidying up - started making kites again in the early 80's and had stacks of flex foils and used to stand on my windsurf board doing downwinders in the late 80s. Got a buggy and then I met Glen and Paul and Dean and Brian and Jeff and Mike and Jim and Dave and Chris and Jason and ..... and another kite and another kite and another buggy and another board and .....on and on

Hey mark
Cool picture reminds me that's how I flew kites when I was a kid in the 60's