A blast from the past - How to mountainboard...

As I was thinking about getting back onto a board I was Googling various things about mountainboards and came across an article that I wrote for racekites, from November 2005 and after I had completed my mountainboard instructors course...

http://www.racekites.com/2005/11/905/

There have been lots of questions about riding a mountain board, stance, speed wobble, stopping and turning – so I have written a ride guide starting with the basics to get you on the board and going down hill and then stopping at the bottom. Many of the principles can then be transferred to kiteboarding.

This is only meant as a guide and in no way can replace having proper instruction/training from a qualified ATB instructor.

Riding a mountain board has similarities to riding a skate board and a snowboard and if you have done either of these you will have an advantage (which I know doesn’t help if you have never ridden a skateboard or snow board!).

When riding safety is paramount, wear a helmet, wrist guards, and knee and elbow pads before even stepping onto the board. Never get on or off a moving board as this can cause injury to your self and your board can continue on and injure somebody else.

Before riding you need to know your style (goofy or regular) this means which foot you lead with (or are comfortable leading with). Regular is leading with the left foot and goofy (or fakie) is leading with the right foot (obviously). If you have skateboarded or snow boarded you will probably already know if you are goofy or regular stance.

If not you will need to know which is your lead foot. Did you ever slide along the ice as a kid (I still do!), which foot did you lead with? That is the one you want pointing down hill as your front foot, as you will feel that is the way that you will be most comfortable and in control. Or stand up with both feet together and get somebody to give you a gentle shove back – which foot did you step back with to stop yourself falling over? That again will be your front foot.

If it still feels uncomfortable when riding try switching your stance, the above doesn’t work for everybody.

The way to stand on the board is, feet in the bindings (locked in -see atb guide), knees slightly flexed. At this point you will be pointing to one side and not forwards! So rotate at the waist to look where you want to go (the pictures on the mbs ride guide do show this) and keep your weight over the lead foot.

Power sliding

(when down hilling only) – start by practicing on the flat on a stationary board!

Stand on the board with your feet in the bindings, crouch down and wrap your arms around your knees and grab the edge of the board between your feet. Gently lean back still holding the board – and eventually you will end up on your arse, which is the basis of a power slide that will stop you. Now try it on a gentle slope – as you start to role (and before you are going to fast!) crouch down, wrap your arms around your knees, grab the edge of the board and lean back – the board will turn hard (it may slide) and will stop. Again you will probably end up sat on the ground. Keep practising that on a gentle slope, you should be able to stop yourself quickly without ending on your arse and standing back up, it may take about 5 or 6 attempts.

As you progress and gain confidence your power slides evolve, one handers, palm off’s etc. I find that I also tend to lift my back foot slightly as this helps get the rear end around and you get a great looking spray of grass or dirt. Then hop the board around and off you go again. I still end up on my backside at times, but power sliding is a great feeling and I love it.

The power slide technique can also be used with a kite to stop – but you won’t grab the board and the kite needs to be sent up to the zenith.

Getting moving

I started off describing how to stop (huh!) as before you get moving it is essential that you know the technique to stop!

If you are on a hill, rather than pushing your self off with one foot and then trying to step onto the board (and into the binding), set the board up on a slope, with it the right way round so that your lead foot is in front (down hill). If you let go of the board it will roll down hill, so before you step on reach across and hold the tyre of the up hill wheel and grip it tight so the board doesn’t move as you climb on.

As an example – I ride regular style (left foot as lead) so I would have the board on the hill so that when I climb on and step into the bindings my left foot is in front. Before getting on I would then reach across with my right hand and grab the furthest up hill wheel (to stop the board moving), then climb on and still holding the wheel make sure you are comfortable in the bindings.

Let go off the wheel and you should gently start rolling, stand up but keep your knees flexed, keep your weight over your lead foot. Keeping your weight low maintains a lower centre of gravity and better balance. Before you go to fast, practice the power slide to stop.

Turning

Once you can stop safely you can gradually build up to heel and toe side J- turns (the turn is in the shape of an inverted j). This will allow you to control your speed as you descend the hill (and avoid obstacles!). Start with heel side first (as is similar to a powerslide) and just press gently on the heels to turn and keep turning until you stop. When you are comfortable with heel side then try toe side.

When you have mastered that then you can try to link turns carving across the hill to control your speed.

The fastest way down the hill is in a straight line down the fall line (imagine letting a ball roll down a hill it will follow the fall line – the fastest route). To control your speed you need to be able to carve across the fall line.

Depending on the size of your turns and how close to the fall line you turn depends on your speed of decent down the hill. For a fast decent, head more or less straight down hill with gentle turns to scrub of some speed. For a slow decent ride further across the hill, you will need to do big carves and remember as your board points down hill in the turn it will pick up speed.

As your confidence and control increase you will find that you will make shallower turns and take a more direct and faster route down hill.

As your balance on the board improves you may want to try a 90° hop to start – looks cooler! Practice first on flat ground; stand on the board feet securely in the bindings (locked in) and jump with the board, as you jump you need to spin the board through 90° – so that you land with your lead foot pointing the way you want to go. Jumping clockwise for regular stance and anti-clockwise for goofy. When you can do this on the flat, getting the board through 90°, landing, remaining upright and stable you can try it on the hill.

Place the board at 90° to the fall line, it should remain stationary, so that when you get on you are facing down hill, stand on the board and secure yourself in the bindings. Then jump the board through 90° (clockwise=regular, anti-clockwise=goofy), you should end up with the board pointing down hill, with your lead foot in the lead (!) and starting to move.

Before you know it you will be doing a 90° hop to start, speeding down the hill (in control) and pulling off a dramatic power slide at the bottom, kicking grass and dirt into the air! You will be covered in mud and grass stains (maybe some bruises!) but will hopefully have a huge grin on your face – bring it on!

All this gets covered in an hour’s lesson (which costs £10-£15) and is easier to teach directly and demonstrate than explain. As I said at the beginning this is only meant as a guide and in no way can replace having proper instruction/training from a qualified ATB instructor.

Speed Wobble

...is the wobble that occurs when you are going at speed on a board!

It mainly happens with skate trucks (which are the most unstable) but can happen with other trucks.

It develops from steering/balance corrections which are very fine and done without knowing it, but because of the speed and less stable trucks, they gradually spiral into more and more over corrections that make the wobble bigger and bigger and you quickly feel less in control.

Before you know it the board is snaking around under your feet and then you are lying on the ground thinking what the hell just happened!

If you have skate trucks you can tighten the king pin (the central bolt) or change the bushes to a harder compound – though this may effect the steering.

Keeping your weight onto your front foot (by trying to keep your foot, knee and hip in alignment) and both knees bent can also help. If it starts to wobble get lower (it hurts less if you fall off) and lowers the centre of gravity (more stable) if you are not going to run into something just try to let the board run out straight and slow down a bit. These principles work both with a kite and when down hilling.

Sometimes knowing what it is helps – I saw a kid (9 or 10) riding a board with skate trucks, gradually getting more and more confident going down hill, then he started to get wobble and took a few spectacular wipe outs. Typical kid though, just jumped right up and had another go (fearless) but was starting to get frustrated. I just mentioned to him that it’s nothing he was doing wrong and it was speed wobble; keep your weight forwards – no more speed wobble! Instead he decided to try and wipe himself out on a jump!

Stuck-up...?

Changed the sticker on the back of my car- from this...

to this...

Just wish I got it on straight!

Review - Flysurfer Rookie 2 GE 9m

This review was originally posted on racekites back in 2005 and I have also added it to my review section over there on the right...

As there is always a lot of anticipation around the launch of a new kite I have decided to post my initial impressions of this kite after only a couple of flights. I will update the post when I have gained more experience with it.

I received my Rookie2 at the beginning of June after buying it from www.airbossworld.co.uk, I ordered prior to going on holiday and it was delivered to work on my return.

I have been flying a 5m Samurai for the past 12 months initially with handles and more recently with a bar and harness. I loved the Samurai but needed to extend my kite bag to encompass a bigger wind range – so decided to go for a depowerable foil. This would not only have the flexibility to fly in a big wind range but the potential for getting more air and for use with my board as well as static flying.

The Frenzy was out of my price range, so after much research opted for the cheaper Flysurfer as it is supposed to have similar characteristics – I am not planning (at the moment) to go on the water so the opened cell design was perfect.

The things that really sold me on it apart from the price (£450) was while reading the PDF instructions from the flysurfer website I came across these 2 lines under the section called Kite-control in extreme situations -

“If you get lifted up very high… Don’t panic! You actually have a small paraglider over top of you and you will be able to control your flight with gentle steering impulses.”

“If the kite collapses, this is called front-stall or luff. Fortunately, you have a FLYSURFER kite and you will notice this phenomenon more often when watching other kites”

It may have been describing the Psycho2, but it was a deal clincher!

What you get

The whole package comes in a large grey and black rucksack, with gold Flysurfer logo’s on it. It has a large main pocket which has room for the kite, bar and lines, but also swallows my harness and pads. It has 3 small pockets (one on the top and two at the bottom) which will take keys, phone, instructions, etc. It would benefit from a couple more, larger external pockets, but is more than adequate for the job, comfy to wear and looks good in a subtle understated way. There is no zip on the main compartment, just draw string inner cover and Velcro lid. So no chance of getting the kite caught and torn in a zip.

Kite – gold (not yellow!), black and grey. 18 cells, all with large open vents (large enough to swallow a pigeon in the middle!), with double stitched and reinforced internal bracing. The fabric feels lighter than the Samurai but remains very crisp. There are no problems with loose threads as was reported in the review of the Psycho2’s (Psycho2 review) and all the stitching and bridle attachments are excellent. It comes with lines and bar attached – ready to fly.

There are four 18m lines, two (red and green) depower-flying-lines as well as two white steering-lines attached to the ends of the bar. They all appear to be sleeved dyneema and thicker than on my 5m Samurai, particularly the coloured lines.

The gold edition (available in 6 and 9m) comes with the 50cm control bar (looks the same as on the psycho2, but I don’t think it is carbon) with the trimmer (only available on the gold edition) to adjust the angle of attack to power or depower the kite for different conditions. The bar is also colour coded so that you know which way round it should be. The Rotor-Kite-Leash (RKL), which should allow for multiple bar rotations without the safety system becoming tangled around the depower loop, and gust absorber. It does not have the multiwac system of the psycho2.

The depower loop has a safety system activated by pulling and then letting go of the red ball (not forgetting to let go of the bar!). This allows the trailing edge and wing tips to fold up allowing the kite to fall to the ground with greatly reduced pull (1:3).

The kite is also secured to the rotor-kite-leash to stop it blowing away, which also has a similar safety quick release – though this means the kite is free to blow away!

Both safety systems are simple to reassemble after practising a couple of times.

The instructions are comprehensive with good pictures; they are generic for the Rookie2, Psycho2 and Extasy (Flysurfer instructions PDF). Again it would be nice to have a DVD showing how to setup, launch, fly and pack away the kite especially as I have never flown a depowerable kite before.

First Flight

A gusty Shropshire day wind blowing anything from 0 – 15mph (approx), first time out with a depowerable foil, so a nice nervous knot in my gut!

Unpacked it all, hooked in ready to go, adjusted the trimmer for minimal power, pulled on the webbing attached to the power lines and it started to rise gracefully into the sky then collapsed. I tried a couple more times with the same result – have I bought a dud? why did I sell my Samurai?

After playing around with the trimmer for 5 or 10 minutes I decided that it wasn’t windy enough for full trim so launched with minimal trim. Different story, the kite flew to the zenith and was much more stable, it started to generate some good pull and lift when the wind picked up, handled the gusts well, but it still tended to collapse whenever the wind disappeared (which it did frequently). Though if one wing tip collapsed or folded in it could be shaken out while still in the air and would continue flying.

With minimal trim launching and landing were straightforward and could be done without assistance – as the kite was sat there, inflated, waiting to go. To launch, after attaching the RKL to the spreader and the depower loop to the hook on the harness, all I needed to do was take a couple of steps back or pull on the webbing of the central power lines and up it would go.

Landing it is even easier, as recommended in the instructions, either unhook or pull the safety on the depower loop and it would flutter down completely depowered onto the trailing edge. You can then either stake it through the loop on the RKL and then weigh the down trailing edge or hook back in and have another go.

Reverse starts were simple, by pulling on the thick steering leader lines the kite would launch backwards and could be turned to land on the trailing edge and then launched as normal.

Later on I had about 10 minutes of steady, clean wind, I am guessing about 5 or 8 mph (from experience) in which the kite became a different beast – it was smooth and stable, and turned really quickly almost on its tips at which point it felt very similar to my Sammi – the grin started to appear. The wind then picked up and the gusts came back, the kite started to generate some good pull enabling me to skud down wind (about 10 – 15m) and it started to show its potential for plenty of lift – unlike the Sammi and one of the reasons I bought this kite.

The control through the bar was excellent, with subtle movements of the bar resulting in subtle movements of the kite. But pull hard on one side and the kite responds in kind, with a tight hard turn. The feedback through the bar was good. Without looking at the kite and while it moved through the window, I was able to feel the change in direction, power and wind strength (sounds a bit Jedi I know). To my surprise the gust absorber (a dense foam cylinder on the depower line, which the bar pushes against when the kite is caught by a gust) seamed took work and did absorb some of that excess energy.

My hour of fun was then up and I had to pack away and head back into work.

Following an e-mail from Gary at www.airbosswold.co.uk I was told that the problems with the kite collapsing and small wind window should resolve with the 6m line extensions and as the kite settles in. This has also been suggested by other members of the forum.

My initial impression, following the early frustration is – that this is going to be a very stable kite, quick to turn and with the potential for loads of power and lift but with the controllability and safety of the depower. Yellow (I mean gold!) wouldn’t normally be my first choice of colour for a kite, but it looks great when flying. Nevertheless it is going to need the line extensions; I am not sure why flysurfer sell the kite with the 18m lines.

The line extensions – four lengths of 6m sleeved and looped dyneema colour coded to match the lines on the kite. Easily attached in 5-10 minutes. Increases the total line length to 24m – lets see what difference these make to the performance. In theory, they should increase the size of the wind window, improve low wind performance and overall give an increase in the stability, power and lift. The only draw back is they may take some of the edge off the handling as shorter lines tend to equal greater responsiveness.

Harlech Beach, North Wales

With the line extensions attached I took the kite out for a couple of hours on the beach.

Wind blowing 8 mph (approx.), sun shining and the beach was very quiet considering it was 20°C, the tide was just about on its way out when we arrived.

Unpacked, bar out of the bag unwound the lines (no tangles) and staked it out through the safety on the RKL. Went back to the bag and got out the kite, unfolded it and it instantly filled and sat there like an eager puppy, ready to fly.

I returned to the bar attached the RKL to the spreader on the harness, hooked into the depower loop and up it went straight to the zenith with a nice steady pull where it sat. I added a slight bit of trim, to prevent it overflying and it sat there happily with only minor touches on the bar to keep its position.

I spent a good 1 ½ hours just static flying it, getting used to the size of the wind window and the feeling of the power zone, lift etc. This kite is awesome, with the line extensions it is very stable, and the wind window is huge. It is pretty quick through the air and I would imagine the speed would increase with the wind speed. It turns on its wing tips and at no point was there any sign of the tips collapsing or luffing.

There is no or very minimal loss of responsiveness with the line extensions, and the bar forces allow for constant feedback at all times.

The power delivery is smooth and constant through-out the middle of the window and as you near the top the lift kicks in. I was able to scud effortlessly and spent 10 minutes filling my shorts with sand while butt scudding and having a real laugh. I managed a few small jumps (2 or 3 feet high) I am positive these will be bigger with more wind.

For the last ½ hour I tried it out with my board, I am still in the early stages of board riding, but this kite dramatically increased my ability, as I was able to do a few good runs and stay in control and slide to a stop – fantastic! it was the best session I have had for ages.

Overall I rate this kite very highly; my initial concerns have been wiped out with the introduction of the line extensions (why don’t flysurfer sell this kite with the longer lines?).

It is well made, looks fantastic in the air, and has great smooth power delivery and the potential for loads of lift. It is quick through the air and turns on a wing tip, but is hugely stable and with the line extensions doesn’t luff or collapse. The safety systems work well and are easy to reassemble. The kite can easily be launched and landed if you are on you own.

I would recommend it for static flying and boarding and in particular on the board my confidence and ability have increased dramatically with this kite.

If you are considering a depowerable foil take a look at the rookie2 as you get a lot of kite for your cash and the performance to match.