Heelside falling leaf

More practice, about another hour tonight. Have my heelside falling leaf working out well for me now, still no idea about toeside, will need to work more on that.

Also, no new snow, so the snow that is there is getting icy, and not that great for control, but still better than wet sticky, or even worse - none!

First Snowboarding Winter 2010

I was really surprised when I arrived home from work to see that there was a good coating of snow all over our grass. We have not had as much snow as lots of other places. The best thing was that it was all really good grainy powder.

After we had tea I headed out to my very own private nursery slope :)

I pretty much started off from where I had left off last season, I was riding reasonably well, but couldn't ride switch at all. So after a few full length, normal runs, I decided to work on the switch. After a good few slow short runs I was starting to get it, and ventured to the top. From there I would start off switch, ride across the slope to the edge and change to regular. Then zig-zagging down the hill I got lots of practice in, including stopping and changing directions.

By the end of the evenings, after a few quite hard falls, I was doing pretty well, riding fast in switch, and flipping round to toeside, then carving (a little) round to regular, and flipping back to switch at the other side. Some of the runs felt really fluid, and quick. Other times I just fell. I think its like the kitesurfing - what I need is just more practice. Oh, and a ski lift :)

Another lunchtime session

Today I was working from home, so took advantage of the moderate NE winds. Curiously the road from Downhill to Benone is currently closed due to a rock fall, so rather that going the mad round trip I just went a few miles along the beach :)

Got there, got set up, strong wind, so pumped up the 9, and got into the water. The winter gear is fantastic, today I was booted, gloved, and hooded, and roasting! It was about 6 or7 degrees outside, and I was quite cold on the beach while setting up.

When I got into the water it was one disaster after another. First I wasn't well enough powered up, and was letting it out little by little. I should just have let it the whole way out to start. Next on a right to left turn I think I turned too far downwind and went towards the kite, it dropped into the water and inverted. I could have pulled the safety straight away, but with the reride that can take about 1/2 hr to get untangled, so I fought with it for a while. After a few minutes I had it flying again, but the lines were inverted, so it flew ok, but not great. I tried a few tacks to work upwind to get back to the car, but it wasn't working, so I got out and walked.

Landed, untangled, and out again. Going a bit better, still struggling on the right to left turns, and on the left to right into the waves. Sort of stalling when I go over a wave, I think I need to go downwind more as I go over the wave to keep speed. Also suspect the line lengths aren't the same for both sides of the kite, seems to fly a bit better one way than the other. Blue is too long.

Came back in to meet Maris, who I had bumped into at the start of the summer. Had a chat and gave him a launch before heading out for a last quick 5 minutes. This last run was the best of the day, in fact it turned a pretty bad session into a pretty worthwhile one. Fully powered up, I seemed to be doing a lot better, and staying upwind too.

I really don't enjoy the East wind. More NW please.