Plummet said..

hornedsquirrel said..
I thought you guys had waves even if there was no wind?

Yep. The surf has been epic the last several months. But i'm not a surfer. I much prefer the mtb. I also have a 2500m mountain 20km away.

I live in holland. Its flat as F%ck. So boring here without wind .

Kajo said..
It's depressing not being able to kite for weeks on end and I really miss it. Farq I even dream about it....

Haven't really found anything nearly as much fun that's able to replace it for me.

Was pushing myself uphill to get back into surfing more and snapped my board in a wipeout as well as having to struggle to get back to shore with a piece of foam left on my leg in 6 ft surf. So am done with that.

Was thinking downhill mountainbiking or something but still haven't really come up with a great alternative.
Anyone else feeling this way?

Foil.

dyyylan said..

Kajo said..
It's depressing not being able to kite for weeks on end and I really miss it. Farq I even dream about it....

Haven't really found anything nearly as much fun that's able to replace it for me.

Was pushing myself uphill to get back into surfing more and snapped my board in a wipeout as well as having to struggle to get back to shore with a piece of foam left on my leg in 6 ft surf. So am done with that.

Was thinking downhill mountainbiking or something but still haven't really come up with a great alternative.
Anyone else feeling this way?

I tried really hard... moved to a mountain town and tried to get into the snowboard half the year/mountain bike half the year lifestyle. It's just not as fun as kiting :(

Downhill MTB is fun, but it's just so dangerous you can't push yourself like you can with kiting. I'm at the point where I just want to do jumps and technical downhill and for me the risk just isn't worth the reward - one wrong move and you break 6 bones and maybe paralyze yourself. So I keep my wheels on the ground and it's gotten a bit boring, after you've been kiting and are using to 7-10m jumps off of waves.

Snowboarding/skiing in powder is the only thing that I can really find comparable to kiting, but it's infrequent enough that it's not worth it for me either, when I could just kite every day instead and always have that feeling of bottomless pow on the water.

But if you live in a spot that you can kite when it's windy and bike when it's not yearround, you can definitely have fun doing that. I'm still looking for something that gives me the same thrill, though.

Well in the last 2 weeks I have done technical mtb trial riding, punched a nation downhill track with some sizable gaps and drops and even raced a cross country. Plus I have had 6, 8 and 13m kite sessions. Been out in 30-40 knots and 5 meter swell, jumped to the moon fully powered on the 8m, crashed off my downhill rig and been punished in the hell rinse cycle of dumping waves on the 5m swell day and had to swim into the beach with a rip, and hell suck back. Sacrificed the kite in the waves rather than total release so it could partially drag me in so I didn't die in the stupid conditions.....

What have I learned? If you are progressing or at the edge of your limit it is fun. No matter what the activity. Punching the big lines full commitment on the dh rig was insane easily as fun as any kite day. Riding the technical rooty trail at the limit of my skill any my trail bikes travel goddamit that was just as much fun as punching the big lines on the rig. I have never ridden so well in my 20 years of mountain biking. 8m fully tapped boosting day was off the scale insane, Sooo much fun it should be illegal. The 6m kite 5m swell day was fun but not ideal swell or wind it wasn't as fun as the epic mountain bike day. The swim in when my was farken dangerous. It was potentially life threatening. Mountain bike danger is obvious. However you can choose to jump that jump or not jump . When on the water you are at the mercy of the wind and the swell.So the conditions are far more dangerous for kiting. The chance of death a lot higher than biking. If something goes wrong when you are 7-10m high and stuff up the redirect that could end just as badly or worse than an mtb crash.

So. .. Summary. If you are progressing or at the limit its fun. If you are riding well within your limits.... not as much fun. At the pointy edge of your skill both sports are dangerous. . . . . . . .Lets face it. Danger is part of the fun.

I reckon this vid captures the essence of MTB pretty well. It amazes me how more punters out there don't get it.

yeah that video is awesome, aside from it being one shot(an amazing technical feat in itself) Brendan Semenuk is a freak. For most people though that kind of riding will never be realistic.

The video I posted however showcases riding on epic trails in an epic location, something anybody with intermediate technical skills can achieve and experience. Being out in nature ripping descents with some mates 100% focused on the trail in front of you is what its all about. We are pretty lucky here in aus/nz we have a huge amount of this kind of riding available to us with more opening up all the time.

bennie said..
I reckon this vid captures the essence of MTB pretty well. It amazes me how more punters out there don't get it.

If we talk kitesurfers. Many of them are watermen and are manily interested in water sports of all kinds. Surf, sup, kite, swim, canoe, sail or whatever gets them on the water more often. They simply have no desire for non water based sports.

So mountain biking is of no interest to them.

Both mtb videos are unreal.

What's with the bike change halfway through the made up track?

I really enjoyed the girl fanging it in the first one and the sort of snowboarder and Kitesurf attitide of making the most of the bumps.

Wish west oz had a 5000 metre mountain range 20km in from the coast

I guess different type of track on the layer half then.
Interesting.

Thanks Mick will give it a crack for sure