Kiteboarding Article in St. Pete Times
 

I haven't seen it yet, but Gabe informed me there is a pretty good size article in the St. Pete Times today. 8/14

article
 

Steve-O,

I believe this is what you are talking about:

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/08/14/Sp...ve__and_.shtml

hmm?..never heard anything about a kiteboarding club at USF. Must be new.

after dealing with the media quite a bit last year for "the race", this is probably one of the best articles published in local media. They usually throw "facts" about the sport out that are completely untrue and make us wince. This article seemed to give a fairly accurate portrayal of the sport. Thru the Kitemasters efforts to spray the media last year with accurate info about the sport and Matt obviously taking the time with this reporter to make sure that things are realistic, a good article has emerged.

We need to all remember to be careful when speaking to reporters/photograhers. A "good story" to a reporter can be a dramatization of a kitemare and we definitely don't want that sort of exposure. This could lead to us being banned from certain launches, etc. This piece really made me want to get out and ride and that is the best way to end an article about kiting in the general media here in st. pete.

I am fairly certain Alex is at UCF in Orlando. I wonder how long ago this article was actually written?
Was Sunday wetsuit weather?

There was some exaggeration in the article imo, such as kiting carrying the most risk of all the extreme sports and the kite loops at 60 to 100 feet idea, but this was a promotional article not an educational one, so that is par for the course. It was a well written marketing article for the school.

LOL.

60 foot kites?

100 foot high kiteloops?

Riding an east wind in the dead of the summer at lassing in a wetsuit??

Kiteboarding the most risky extreme sport?!

Pretty funny article if you ask me!

LOL. you guys need to take this with a grain of salt. have you read some of the other articles in the local media? This article may have exaggerated some things in order to make it more dramatic but for what it was, it captured the reader, gave some info, mentioned lessons, etc.

BTW "popeye", if you ask some of the families of guys who have died in a bad kitemare i'm sure they'd tell you that it was one of the most extreme sports...especially before all the safety systems evolved.

Its funny how you always try to cause controversy and stir things up when people were simply commenting on kiteboarding exposure in the local press. let it be... every single thing on this forum doesn't HAVE to be an argument but it seems like there are certain people that try to get make it that way.

I'm not going to argue with you however, I've also worked with numerous reporters on covering a sport that they know absolutely nothing about and its a challenge to produce something worth sharing. let's all just be happy that it was a positive article discussing our sport instead of a negative one.

have a nice day and smile! :)

You can do your own research. Kiteboarding is not the most risky extreme sport (or even close).

Here's your smile. :)

I think it was a fantastic article, and did a good job of explaining everything and highlighting the accomplishments and good deeds of a few locals. I understand Amber's point on the media's portrayal of our sport, it isn't an easy sport to understand in just a few minutes of observation, or in a 5 minute interview. Mr. Chris Girandola did a fine job!

I did like the pics ... pretty good shots on a full spread.

I appologize Amber, for poking fun at the "most risky extreme sport" comment... but my last "extreme sport" was cave diving and I lost many friends to it (more than just a few). I guess calling kiteboarding extreme just hit a nerve with me, sorry. No big deal.

Good article aside from the technical errors.

I think poking a little fun at the 100 foot jumps etc. was taking it with a grain of salt and having fun. Reading about 60 foot kites is pretty funny. I guess the reporter just guessed on these figures?

The thing is, guessing when it comes to the associated risk of the sport is not cool, imo. The line about kiting being the most extreme (risky) of all the extreme sports concerns me. Hopefully readers will just miss the sentence and the idea it holds. Yeah, I just realized (sounds elitist, but oh well) the average reader will miss the sentence, no worries.

i believe there is an incredible amount of risk involved and that it should be taken VERY seriously by anyone considering the sport. We use meters, but perhaps converting meters to feet makes it more dramatic? A 20 meter kite isn't that crazy, is it? Heck, Toby used to get dragged downwind by a 25.5 machine! Lol!!

i just feel like sometimes a simple topic such as an article that many of us would have missed doesn't need to be dissected quite so much. no biggie and no chastizing. I suppose grouping us in with "extreme sports" to the general public means TO THEM that this is a sport that isn't like baseball, football, tennis, etc. It is not mainstream (yet) and so people view it as "extreme". When someone "jumps across an island" on "stunt junkies" it is probably grouped together as "extreme".

thanks for taking a broader look at the topic and understanding that it is only a reporter's portrayal of a sport that they probably don't know much about. Cave diving is scary and i would never do it but i hear the aquaduct is kinda crazy.

Kiteboarding is much more an extreme sport today than it was 11 years ago, period!

not to stir the pot, but I think I know this one :D

But it's not a 20 meter kite... thats surface area... maybe the reporter didn't get it.

To me "extreme" means you *probably* don't walk away uninjured if you screw up the first time ... you definately don't try it 20 or 30 times without a scratch until you get it.

Is telling everyone that kiteboarding is the most dangerous of all extreme sports is the right way to promote the sport?

We don't want to be doing something this dangerous around kids and tourists at a public beach right?

I have a better idea. Repeat after me:

1) Yes, Kiteboarding is FUN, no it's not hard, you don't have to be strong, and YES it is safe.

2) Yes, you can rent the gear for $75/hr from an instructor and it comes with free lessons and/or instructor supervision (mandatory for each rental).

;-)

You are right Raul. I gave it A LOT of thought, cuz I knew you had a real point to make. You are right, when you started you were 11 years younger.
Just getting out of bed in the morning is an extreme sport now compared to what our bodies could handle at twenty or thirty... oh well. ;)

I agree with Popeye's point. Kiting can't compare with base jumping, freestyle MX, running with bulls, and a bunch of other sports where people get worked all the time, often with only one mistake. A handful of people are out there doing crazy shit with kites, but for the most part, it's chill unless somebody screws up, and that is usually because of a series of user errors, not because the sport is inherently dangerous. When done right, I think kiting is reasonably safe, just like cooking with raw chicken or driving a car. We accept the risks of kiting because they are largely manageable.

Making mistakes in any sports can get you injured or killed--hell, heart intensive sports like running, basketball, and tennis are probably a lot more risky than kiting in terms of heart attacks and strokes, given that a kite session usually doesn't do much to push your heart rate. People get waxed by lightning on the golf course in Florida regularly. All sports carry their own risks.

Kiting is extremely fun and cool, but if you want to be really extreme, climb the cliffs at Pointe-Du-Hoc through machine gun fire with German soldiers throwing grenades down on you.

If that is too much, take one fall behind a boat while trying to invert on a wakeboard or bust ass on a concrete half-pipe or a rail on a skateboard and you'll find out that kiting is not even the most extreme board sport around. Let's not portray ourselves as a bunch of hardcore bad-asses who eat bull sharks for breakfast and only bother to kite when a hurricane makes landfall at North Skyway. Frankly, we don't deserve that reputation as a group.

There are a lot of great kiters around here and plenty of em' like to go big. Still, jumping 20+ plus is one thing, but only a handful of kiters around here are really pushing the sport and taking the risks that go along with doing so.

A significant amount of the rest of us are just trying to have fun without injury and most of our sessions involve cruising around, busting some movez, and trying to develop skillz and have fun without unacceptable levels of risk. The average kiter around here, including me, is not trying to be the next Laird. We're no different than the legions of other people who are stoked to charge some sport and stay active, whether the sport is bowling, running marathons, or whatever. So let's enjoy the stoke without acting like we are the Delta Force of the sports world.

i prefer mako over bull shark for breakfast. ;)

E-Bone, you crack me up man.

Scott's right i go 2 UCF. i was never asked where i went. And im def not going to try to resurrect the kite club. but i did introduce the kiteboarding "manual". shoulda said ebone and I are the bash brothers of kiteboarding.

i actually stopped skim boarding because i got hurt more doing that than kiting...
nothing like splitting your shin open on the skim board:mad:

I stopped extreme farting when I sharted once at Wal-Mart. Too extreme for me...thought I was gonna die from the stench and runnage that ensued.

problem is, if you dont throw out the "danger stats" to the newbies then they get lax on the lessons and go the do-it-yourself routine to get on the water.

gotta at least put up the veil that we are hardcore.

hehe..

kiting to me, for what i do, is easy.. but requires my full attention and i have paid the price for the moments where my mind wanders too far.

I think its similar to snowboarding.. its simple after the inital learning curve, can be pushed to a higher level if the rider wants to, and failure to pay attention or push it to far results in anything from a bruised ego to the rare-but-happens-on-occasion casket. (just google "snowboarding deaths" and you will see what i mean.. a handful per year.. same w/ kiting)

So who is in charge of the Bulls Kiteboard Team?

Sharted. Wow. So thats what it's called. Boy that brings back memories.

I sharted one time after my buddy dared me to eat a raw Scotch Bonnet after I had already eaten half a jar of Scotch Bonnet pickled sausage. I was sure I was "extreme" so I did it. Hell yeah, ain't scared right.

Hell NO. After the pain, tears and sweat subsided, my stomach made this weird gurgling sound like I'd never heard before. Sort of like rusty metal sqeaking down a chalkboard combined with a gurgle. I knew something was very wrong.

So... fast forward... I got about 100 yards into driving across the howard franklin back towards St. Pete on an emergency tech call when I "Sharted" about a quart of liquid into my drawers.

The worst part is I was driving to our other office 45 minutes away because of an emergency network repair call. I had to go in and do the work, shart or not, because the CEO was there waiting for me, already pissed off.

Lets just say there was no pleasant conversation when I arrived with wet pants smelling like backside skyway in the heat of the summer. I threw my underwear into a bush on the way in the door.

Don't ever let me eat one of those again. Ever. Yikes.

I think the notion that kiteboarding is extreme is the only thing keeping the flood gates up against new people entering. It's bad enough as it is with new people getting into the sport. WSW can't even keep up with the amount of people that want lessons. Let the papers continue shining on the sport and, soon, everyday at east beach/skyway will be a 40-kite day. I say kiting is hella-extreme and should only be attempted under supervision. ;)

Scott- Wish I knew bro. I go to USF and haven't heard anything about it. I'll be sure to investigate because I have one semester left to join the club if, in fact, it exists. Must be new.

For some reason I don't think a Bulls Kite Team exists. This sport is gonna max out in terms of the density/enjoyment factor at EB by mid-season, next season max. We already had several days with 45 kiters last season. Oh well, that was easy to see coming and it's an exponential curve, (not a diminishing returns curve like in Econ. 101).

Oh yeah, Tom?

Well if you really want to tempt fate, eat 8 ounces of sugar free chocolate and see what happens an hour later. I have never been in so much abdominal pain.

Also, I ran the last two miles of the State cross country race with shit in my shorts due to an instant stomach bug at mile marker number 1.
Man, that was disgusting and hundreds saw it. Definitely a shitty day and for some reason no one wanted to sit next to me on the bus ride home either :(

haha...so gross...yet so funny at the same time. :) I ate lambÃ* in the D.R. once and ended up with food poisoning. Let's just say one time I was about a foot-shy of the toilet. Damn thing was so far away........so far.

I was just thinking to myself. You know it's a bad time of the year for wind when kiters are sitting around telling shit stories to pass the time. lol

Damn, you guyz are nasty. Don't know if I want to get in the water with you nasty bitchez any time soon. Might have to quit kiting.

LMAO. Nothing funny about being that sick, but gotta laugh.

I just remembered another one... uh oh.

I had just started working at Extreme. We were short handed on a Saturday (bad...bad) and I was sick as hell with a stomach bug. I told Daryl I was gonna come in anyway and tough it out. Only 2 people on a Saturday is basically losing about a grand, so I felt I HAD to show up, even though I was really sick.
Well, within 3 minutes of entering the shop, I had to hit the restroom. I puked twice and did one of those liquid... you get the picture.

Keeping it short, I ended up accomplishing nothing but showing up, smelling up the place for the customers and leaving. "Way to go, tough guy", Daryl said as I left in defeat. :(

I think we should do the kite night thing, some of us obviously need a better place to tell these stories than on a public forum. :)

Um Scott, I hate to break it to you buddy but that wasn't chocolate.

I can't believe you fell for it!

:confused:

Think about the number of views this thread will get by next week. All of which will have read the poop-tales. lol hehehe

"Hmmm? Ethel, that thread is 3-pages long now. I wonder what came of it since we read it last. Oh My God! It smells like shit now!"

id just like to say congrats to Josh for his 5 word section in that artical LOL ;-)

This brings to mind a story about chocolate flavored laxatives...
in dental school i lived with this guy who weighed about 300 lbs, always ate all of our food(late night eater) one day we decided to get even...
We baked up a few chocolate chip cookies with a healthy dose of ex lax chips added. Plate of cookies goes to his room and disappears. No action after several hours..Must work by body weight so we'll try some more. fred how about a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream? Sure . This time we doubled the dose enough to move the rock of gibralter. Still nothing. Next day around lunch fred goes running by me with a streak of diarrhea running down his leg(picture Azamat bagatov from borat and you will get his approximate size and hairiness) goes in the bathroom and absolutely explodes to all of our delight and amazement.

Wow. It took him THAT long? Slow digestive system huh? Karma baby, karma. :)

My Sugar Free Chocolate (SFC) episode started within about an hour or 2 of eating it in the mall. When it did "hit the fan", Donna was with me. It was BAD. I am talking no one has smelled anything worse.. no way... just ask Donna sometime. It was not the smell of a fart. It was more like the bowels of hell.

Unfortunately my attack occurred inside Bed Bath and Beyond (BBB) while looking for stuff for the house. Donna and I hadn't been living together in sin long (this was about 4 years ago) and I owed her mega brownie (ha ha) points due to continually canceling on stuff to .... (duh... kiteboard!).
So, when she said she wanted to buy stuff for the house at BBB, a bad stomach ache just wasn't gonna get me out the obligation, and frankly, I wanted to get it done that day, (it was windless that day) regardless of the pain I was in.

Well, what started off as a real bad stomach ache progressed to an uncontrollable and necessary need to relieve abdominal pressure by "pooping the cork" occasionally. (note* store was crowded on this day)

When I was about to pop, I would make up some lame excuse to check out something further down the aisle, slowly walk away, pretend to look at something while relieving myself, wait a second or 6, and then return to her, hoping the fart didn't "follow me" (I still don't get the physics on that one, but apparently some of these pesky ones can walk)

At first she thought someone else was farting maybe (cuz they were apparently walking back with me). It took her about 3 or 4 "fart and runs" to realize it was me. I think she caught on when an elderly person screamed at me in disgust while I farted near them while pretending to look at hand towels. The really sad thing was it was PACKED in there that day (isn't it always with those BBB types?) and I couldn't find vacant spots to leave one. I was forced to choose my victims (the humanity!) I usually went for the kids separated from a parent, assuming - 1)they had better odds of survival, and 2) surely the parent would blame the child for the act.


Unfortunately the farting frequency, and worse, potency of the farts, was getting exponentially worse with each passing minute.
The half lives of these gaseous gifts were outrageous, (on the nuclear decay side... they just didn't obey the diffusive laws of physics) so they would hang in full potency for a minimum of 3 minutes. It was bad. I was starting to run out of victims and slowly becoming a repeat offender. I was on the verge of being ratted out.

Finally, Donna and I decided we better just buy what we got in our limited visit to BBB and get out of there. So she headed to the check out line.
This is the worse part here (as if this story isn't shitty enough).

While she was in line, I had literally been pulling the "fart and go" move everywhere in the store for the past twenty minutes .... Fart... go... fart.. go... trying to minimize potential inhalation poisoning of infants and asthma attacks of the elderly....... when my worst, biggest fart was coming. I could feel it.. this was gonna be a big one. Hiroshima was descending from my colon.

Well, I decided to attempt to release this one while walking full speed to maximize the area of dispersal. I had also decided to bolt out the store at this point (the fart while on the move, move).
I was adjacent to all the people waiting in the various check out lines (including Donna) when I attempted this advanced mode of release.
I did a decent job, especially for someone with not much practice at this advanced procedure, I was moderately proud of myself, actually. Not a hint of shart, just pure gas. :) It seemed I was gonna make it to the car without a brownie stain. :)

One problem though...... you know those fans that rotate a full 180 degrees every 10 seconds or so?

Yep... that fukin' thing had initiated a full swath of the area immediately following gaseous release. I hadn't spotted the fan before my release. What an oversight! How could I be so narrow sighted? This was going to be the worst fart in the worse place with the worse technological enhancement of dispersal I had ever witnessed. I needed to quickly prepare my eyes for what they were about to witness.

Well that stupid fan effectively blew my purposely placed fart (about 40 feet upwind of potential victims, in an uninhabited area) right into every single person standing in every single check out line! It was horrible. Yes, people actually dropped out of line (no lie, about 20 percent of them) and got out of the area in sheer disgust.

What an irony I thought... the "shit literally hit the fan".

Some of you may wonder why I remained in the store in my condition. You OBVIOUSLY have no clue on the fact that to get brownie points, you have to be in the store with your partner (not in the parking lot... no go on that one). Otherwise, trust me.. for the love of all that is good in this world, I would never have jeopardized all those innocent lives.
It was worth it baby.. I got to ride the next day (this was before Donna was a kiter, if I remember correctly)

True story, sorry it was so long (I just noticed E-bone's return to the forum and this post was basically a challenge to him to see who can write the longest post with absolutely no kiting relevance.. I WIN :) )

My Father always taught me to open the passenger side door for a lady while on a date like a gentleman...so you can relieve yourself of all of the built-up gases after dinner as you walk around the back of the car to the drivers side door. That man is a genius.

Great story SS I think I just laughed so hard I sharted!

Oh, and one comment on the article...more than likely it was written by someone who is not familiar with the subject matter.

At my last job I had a freelance writter doing a PR piece on my companys products, gas/steam/coal/nuclear powered turbines and industrial sized generators for power plants.

She asked me when I went to a job site if I took the turbine with me, not knowing they are the size of a small building...

I had a lot of explaining to do...but these kinds of things happen all the time, just like 100 foot kiteloops

Wait.. not yet...

There was the time I ate Thai food. I say "Can you make it spicy?" the waitress says "How spicy you like it". My wife leans over me interrupting and says "As hot as you can make it. He can take it. He likes it that way.".

Rather than eat my pride, I just nodded. Hmmm....

When it came it was still sizzling and letting off some smoke. It was so spicy everyone's eyes started watering and people everywhere in the restaurant started coughing and gagging.

The waitress ran and opened the front doors and a few minutes later I looked over to see all of the cooks leaning out the kitchen... staring at me. Some with a grin, and some with a concerned look. Nice.

So I ate... I held back any emotion or signs of pain. The waitress asked me "You like some water?". I calmly said no.

She came back again "You need a refill on your drink???". No. I do not, I'm fine.

Yeah I'm stubborn. I ate the whole meal without a drink, paid and left.

They were impressed. I could tell.

I went home, went to bed. Nothing too bad. No big deal. This will show the wife! yeah... this will show her.

The next morning, I drove to work and started feeling the cramps. I had to drive an hour to sarasota so I toughed it out the whole way, holding my breath at times to prevent any sort of surprise. When I got there I rushed to the bathroom, and there were a few people in there taking a whiz.

I calmly walk to the stall, close the door, drop my pants, bend over and before I could even approach the toilet seat there is this really loud "POP!" sound, like a balloon popping!?!

Startled I look back and it looks like someone textured the entire wall behind the toilet with brown mud. Argh! An ass explosion! Not in the toilet, not on the seat, on the entire wall behind me. Hell I hadn't even sat down yet!

Just as someone at the sink says "what the heck was that" the smell hits and people start gagging. Nothing smells as bad as airborne liquid pooh... worst part was I had to sit there for another hour trying not to think about it until i could finish my business enough to clean off the wall and leave.

Ok I'm done. I don't need any new nick names.

HMMMM...I dont know Ebone, I think being the Delta Force of the Sports world sounds AWESOME!!!!! We need to talk one of the Kite Compaines to start making CAMO colored Kites!!!!

HEY Alex, Talk to Dimitri and tell him to get camo colored kites. You, the Bone and I can be the Delta Force SQUAD RIDERS!!!!!

Funny as hell. :p

I saw the forecast (Josh Linker) while in the gym. Looked like Tom's poop explosion the way the 7 different colored forecast paths bifurcated ad nasuem from the North to South Poles after 3 days out.
They are really covering their asses on this one. :)

The new Eclipse kites look pretty cool. Camo might be a new one. Do you think anyone would buy it? I personally hate camo, but was amazed at how many harnesses, footstraps, etc. we sold that were camo. (People can still see you with that crap on, ya' know).