Kiteboarding Article in St. Pete Times

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.

[amber]

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.

[BigR]

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

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.

Originally Posted by popeye

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.

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.

[amber]

i prefer mako over bull shark for breakfast.

E-Bone, you crack me up man.

[Alex]

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.

[inferno]

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