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Project Salvage : Restoring 20 Years of Kiting History. Over the next few weeks I’ll be working to restore the content that was once available on Flexifoil Forums / Kitecrowd. I’ll be attempting to restore nearly 20 years of kiting history where there were nearly 2 million contributions made by thousands of individuals. Why? It’s something personal for me, my first years of Kiting the Flexifoil Forums provided so much wealth of information. With kitecrowd, foilzone, arcusers, racekites all disappearing there’s been a significant amount of knowledge erased from the internet. Include the loss of Yahoo Groups and the amount of human effort that has been extinguished is actually quite mind boggling. This is my contribution to trying to retain some of that history and maintain its availability for others going forward. The current situation… The website went offline some months ago so I’ve gone in to this completely blind with the acceptance that it could result in a dead end. My initial assessment is that the database whilst a complete mess is recoverable, and the file system indicates that all the attachments etc are also recoverable. The original copy of the software itself that was being used however is not, this is something that I’m still assessing going forward. So given the situation I am confident at this stage with some considerable effort the content can be restored and live on the internet once again.

@roblukin makes the ABC News. Article: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-01/encephalitis-survivor-doing-extreme-sports-kite-buggying/100951660

Hello all! Now this might go unseen as I am not sure how many people may remember my father AndyFly (Andrew, Andy) who sadly passed in 2011 from a seizure. His passion was kiting, buggying, and mostly, being apart of the BrisKites & Extremekites community. On the long weekend of Easter in 2012 my family and I travelled to Yeppoon to meet with many of the kiting community as we remembered dad for who he was, alongside an event that he loved attending (with us AndyFly "maggots" joining the fun 😂) as we scattered some of his ashes on the beach out the front of Driftwood. Our family has so many fond memories of so many different people within this community, and the joy that it their friendship brought Andrew. For the first time since 2011, my mum Linda and I have travelled to Yeppoon to spend the last few weeks remembering the adventures we use to have with dad on these kiting trips and the people that we met. We walked along the same beach today, in front of Driftwood, drawing his name once again in the sands that he once loved. I watched a kite surfer today and it reminded me of the times I use to go and kite with dad in Canberra at the Amaroo ovals at 14 years old, learning how to kite and watching dad fly through the sky in his buggy for hours. So here is a big thank you from our AndyFly family to everyone who remembers dad. To everyone who brought such strong friendships, fun, banter, love and support to dad's life. For everyone who left such kind words after he passed, and who posted such amazing pictures of dad (some of which I am only seeing for the first time ❤️) We are all doing well and hold these memories of you all close to our hearts. Hope to see you in Yeppoon sometime in the future! Jess

Project Salvage : Restoring 15 Years of Kite Reviews. RaceKites was an example of a collective human effort coming together to build the largest, dedicated online repository of kiting reviews. In 2019 RaceKites went offline, today I would like to share that the sum of all that knowledge is coming to Extreme Kites. Alan Short, the owner of RaceKites was responsible for building and maintaining the platform for nearly 15 years containing over 1500 reviews. I’d like to acknowledge the thousands of hours Alan put in to the RaceKites community, and his immense generosity in providing that content to Extreme Kites. RaceKites as a platform in my opinion was one of the most important online resources available when looking to purchase that never ending ‘next’ kite. And even when you weren’t, it was still a bloody good read! With most of the manufacturers either having packed up or moved on from Land Kiting it’s increasingly likely that someone new entering kiting is going to purchase a second hand kite. Restoring this incredible resource to the Internet gives those individuals access to the information we had years ago when we were making those decisions for ourselves. Bite off more than you can chew, then chew like crazy! Over the next few weeks / months I will begin importing the RaceKites content to Extreme Kites. Right now I’ve revamped the Reviews section a bit, with a bit more to go and then that content will start to flow in and become available to everyone again. Similar to the ‘Recovering 20 Years of Kiting History’ news I’ll be using the comments area below to keep a running update on the progress. Thank you again for being part of Extreme Kites, thank you to the wonderful human being Alan is and hopefully today’s news brought a little bit of happiness to your day.

After VERRRRYY long break I finally got out on the buggy today. It was only a short one. About an hour and a half down at the much renovated Apex Park at Altona. 30+km SE wind with the trusty little 4m Ozone Access 2. I had really forgotten how much fun it is. Hopefully I'll get out a bit more over coming weeks.

Happy 2021 everybody- let’s hope there is more opportunity to get those kites out this year. Take care one and all!

An exciting day! At Sutcliffe Reserve in Corio, with my vintage 3m Quadrifoil. Probably needed a bit more wind 😂 There were a couple of faster bursts but they weren’t captured of course... Needless to say, it was a thrill and I can’t wait for the next session! IMG_0648.mov

Melissa asked me if I could 'vacuum a bit more' now that her maternity leave is coming to an end. Sure no problem, I can do that.... Fast forward a week... welcome to the family 'Jetson' We'll be at work and Jetson will do its thing... Olivia loves it Next step dishwasher in the kitchen and I can claim to do all the dishes too

It’s no secret that Land Kiting over the past decade has suffered a loss of momentum, as the number of kiters has reduced the fragmentation of the community has increased. This has accelerated how disjointed we are as a community from resources that were once easier to access. Today Extreme Kites has moved to a .ORG domain to clearly signal to everyone that we want you to join us and be part of our community. To help bring more of us together from all over the world, and in turn hopefully together reconnect and enjoy information and content that we thought had been lost forever. There’s some amazing projects in the pipeline for this community, the process of recovering the old KiteCrowd website is only step one and arguably one of the easier goals to achieve. Yesterday I announced the new Downloads Section which is already starting to see some updates. Thank you for being a part of Extreme Kites, more updates to keep rolling out

Decided to go out for a quick fly with the family today (as it's corona Kite fest weekend), and take some pics to add to the fun. But greeted with a buggy zipping around the field and a new kiter struggling with twisted lines. So a big Hello to the boys their today!! Don't be lurkers, say hello, post up a message, and we can include you in our events, or random banter. Plenty of old farts kiters here to help if you want it. Or even if you want a hand setting up a kite! Hope to catch you both next time!!! And a pic of what I set up for the Corona Kite Fest.

I hope everyone is (and continues to be) fit and healthy, and coping. I suspect a major effect of the current situation will be a significant impact on people's emotional well-being, especially as it drags on. Remember, we can all use forums to keep in touch, air our thoughts/worries, and offer each other support. Fingers crossed, we'll all be catching up in person sooner rather than later. Kingston 2021 may end up being HUGE. Stay safe, and keep in touch

What do you think my chances are of getting a warranty claim on one of the extreme kites t-shirts? I love this shirt, but after ONLY 8 years of regular exposure to sweat, salt water, sunscreen and sunlight it has started to fall apart. @.Joel what was the warranty period on these shirts, because I feel like I should of got at least 10yrs out of it? ?

I convinced myself that I needed this bug for when I'm travelling abroad. The bug packs down into a bag. It is of course BS. When do I ever get to go anywhere? I'm averaging about one holiday every 15 years. 😂 Truth is, I'm a sucker for shiny rims wrapped in fat juicy tyres, so I decided to get one after seeing both Haakon and Bobby O post pictures of theirs on here. Mmmmm, shiny rims 😵

Well here it is Sept. 2020 and Chris tells me I'm on target to get my Sysmic 3 at the end of Oct-Nov. I can't wait!! Once it's together , the thing I like about it is that you can loosen the swan neck connection , slide it out with the front wheel. Disconnect the 2 bolts that hold the 2 piece axle into the rear plate , then the seat section stays in one piece , the 2 rear wheels are separate with their half of the axle , and you can shove the whole thing into the back of an SUV!! You get to the beach , shove the swan neck together , put the axles in their place , tighten everything up , away you go!!

we used to believe that if something was on the internet then it was there and accessible forever. But apparently this is not the case. And before it is completely lost, it’s important to archive what is important to our community. You are saving history @.Joel

A big Happy 50th Birthday to Peter Lynn Kites!! If you want to be part of the festivities, they are live streaming on Facebook on Saturday the 4th of November. From my first steps into kite flying way back in 1988, all the way to today, Peter Lynn kites have been a staple for me. Power kites are where I have enjoyed the most fun, and combined with my first buggy (a PL Comp), many years of fun and friendship has been had. Pictured is just the PL kites, and the long suffering (24 year old) Comp buggy that has had all parts replaced a minimum of twice, except the down tube. Which is the only original part!! The kite list: Holding a PL sunrise Delta, one 3.6 Peel, 6 C-Quads 1.4 to 8.5, 5.7 Waterfoil, 5.6 Twister, 2 Core's (3m and 4m), and 8 ARC's (original 1120, 6m Phantom, 7 and 10 Scorpion, a 13m Phantom-Scorpion hybrid and 10m bridled ARC from the skunk works of the PL factory, and a 6m and 15m Mark 2 Phantom's. And the future? Well I seem to have corrupted my 10 year old son into kites as well. So with a nice selection of kites to choose from there is no doubt that he will also enjoy using PL kites for many years to come. To all the current and past people involved at PL kites, Thank you for the many years of enjoyment that I have had with the products that you have created. Here's to many more good times, with our community of kite friends all over the world. Happy Birthday Peter Lynn Kites!!!!

Today I sold the final elements of my kite buggy equipment as advertised in the for sale section. (tear in my eye). Good luck to Tony from Brisbane who purchased it all from me. I just wanted to say a big thank you for the friendships that I formed from this website at the meetings I attended in Kingston and at Sandy Point, plus Bob here in Canberra. I learnt so much from members of EK and progressed my skills through your help. I have many fond memories of kite buggying with you all but it is time to stop due to nothing more than age! The body just cannot do it anymore as I reach 70! Good luck to you all and safe kiting. I shall remain on this website because I hope to continue playing around with my one remaining stunt kite! Thanks again for your friendship - I won't list names; you know who you are!!

Hey all, It's been a looong time since I have posted anything and its been even longer since I have been out flying. I've recently had the itch to take me gear out and go flying again. But unfortunately due to the poor weather recently it's been difficult to get out. The other day I brought myself a new action camera the insta 360 go 2. It's a small action camera about the size of your thumb and it only weighs a few grams. Today I decided to take it out for a test run and mount it onto my kite using the magnetic mount that comes with it, Due to the wind being very light today I could only do some static flying but I was impressed with how the camera performed. The stabilisation and horizon lock works really well and it produced some great footage. I can't wait to test it out on a beach run. If anyone is in the market for a new action camera I would highly recommend getting one of these.

Yes Vapors need a gentle touch to get the best out of them. I loved them and still have 4 of them. I really hesitated to fly my 7m Ozone R1 I bought for a start but once I gave it a go I was hooked after the first 10 minutes. Thanks @gannet your a great coach. The depower is still sensitive to fly well, but the depower made it so much safer for this old fella. Being able to let off any power in the turn instantly was a refreshing change. They still high speed stall like a vapor if your rough, but I'm sure you will enjoy a race kite. Long Beach at Kingston South East in South Australia. I also had an 8mtr Ozone Access which I tried but it was so sedate after flying the Vapors I sold it along with an Access 6. They were just no thrill and no upwind like a depower race kite. You wont be dissapointed jumping straight into a depower race kite at all. It didnt take me long to aquire a quiver of R1's. 7, 11, 13, 15 and I have an 18 ELF Joker 7. Also have a Chrono 18 and a 15 Chrono2 but love the R1's more for pure speed. Long Beach in Kingston SE, South Australia. Hope this helps, Cheers Chook

part 4:

An awesome session on the clay pan at Kingston SE, Australia - by far the best I've felt in the buggy yet. Probably cos of the harness thanks to @The Duke. Captured, edited and soundtracked by the inimitable @jhn.holgate. Can't wait for next year!

Some of the static flying.....

And Dougie flew the drone on this one....

yeah-well, not under the tree after all. But half a buggy arrived express just the other day, from China even(!). Also e-mailed with Chris, wheels, pegs and backaxle is on the way soon. It all fit together nicely, just slightly excessive long straps... 😄

Well this is all dependent on what's going to happen in the next week or two...... But being the optimist, I am putting up the dates for weekends with great tides for Sandy Point. All depends on the weather as well. Sept. 26th low tide 12.17pm. Sept. 27th low tide 1.08pm. Oct. 10th low tide 12.19pm. Oct. 11th low tide 1.02pm. Oct. 24th low tide 12.09pm. Oct. 25th low tide 12.56pm. Nov. 7th low tide 11.15am. Nov. 8th low tide 11.56am. Nov. 21st low tide 11.06am. Nov. 22nd low tide 11.51am. Dec. 5th low tide 10.09am. Dec. 6th low tide 10.52am. Dec. 12th low tide 3.58pm. Dec. 13th low tide 4.58pm. Dec. 19th low tide 10.01am. Dec. 20th low tide 10.48am. Dec. 21st low tide 11.33.am. Dec. 22nd low tide 12.17pm. Dec. 23rd low tide 1.02pm. Dec. 24th low tide 1.48pm. So it might be good for a pre Christmas run if people have the time off. Fingers crossed we can get a run in considering this very strange year.

During this COVID lock down and losing employment because of it I decide I liked being home and it was time to start my own business. I bought a 3D printer to help with design projects- prototypes etc. It’s been fun trying stuff out, and I’m going to see if I can rebuild my old Revo truck board using printed parts. I’ve designed the main truck housing to use tradition skate truck hole setup as the original Revos have a specific setup which means drilling into your board. I’ve printed this first test setup with PETG, which it the same plastic used in plastic drink bottles. So I’m hoping they will be less prone to shatter and may have a little flex. I also printed the bushings using TPU filament, not an easy thing to get right, damn stuff just wants to keep clogging up the extruder. But I managed to get two pairs done and they are a perfect fit, if a little stiffer than I want at shore 30D. I’m no plastics expert, so I don’t know what to expect when I try them out. The wheels may break as soon as I start kiting, the truck housing could just shatter on my first turn- no idea. But I’ve got new tires and tubes, will re- laminate my favourite board, probably treat myself to some new bindings and see if I can make it work.

I know, the title sucks. This is a short video. Just me out riding while testing my new storm kite, a secondhand eBay special, a barely used 5m Cabrinha SwitchBlade. I have been wanting one for years but they've always been too expensive new and I have never known them to come up for sale second-hand in this size, until now. To be honest, this video is not worth watching expect maybe for the squall at the beginning which i found interesting. No speed run this time as the wind died down after the squall to about 24 -27 knots with a cross-cross-on direction which meant I was buggying almost directly downwind at times with the kite underpowered and stalling. Top speed of the day 53 mph, footage not included because wet sand obscured lens. 😏 This new kite is to replace my 7m Hydra that i used to achieve a PB in August last year. ( wind 45 knots gusting 57 knots ). So this 5m has a lot of potential. It is more efficient through the air to allow for an improved top speed by delaying the onset of being pulled downwind towards the end of the run, not to mention much safer in those high winds, but there is one small catch, it's probably all bullshit. It will not have the acceleration of a 7m and will therefore require more space on the beach which I do not have. I'm loving this new kite. She reminds me of her older brother, the Cabrinha Crossbow. That kite gave me my previous PB 9 years ago. The SwitchBlade like the xbow gives a lot of confidence for its tame nature and the bar pressure is much reduced when compared to the Genetrix Hydra which should help save my arms on multiple runs. Now for this national lockdown here to end and the winter storms to begin.

That would be handy just to know the proper dimensions of the original Revo elastomers. I've got mine at 20mm wide and 40mm diameter, but I found them tough to compress into the housing even though I think that is what the original dimension were. I found that a width of about 19mm wide works best for these truck housings, but I have a set ready for anyone needing some for their Revos. Got a test run in today with both trucks on and I have to say I am a happy chappy. They are stable yet turn really nicely, I really enjoyed just carving up on them.

We have increased the trilobite family to 8 now. They are all white with red eyes. The new additions are a pair of small 3 m another 7m and a 10m The collection is now 3,3,3,7,7,10,16 and 36m The smaller 6 can effectively fly themselves tethered. But the larger 16 and 36 definitely need a minder i can’t get photos in the air just yet, but the day will come when we can get outside to fly again.

I took a punt on a bag of kites out of Sydney sight unseen from a lady I had purchased some "Blade" power kites from from many years ago. She rang me out of the blue when she found this bag when shifting house. (See it always pays to send a postcard of Esperance and a few $5.00 "Scratchies", thanking the seller for her help, when buying from her. She had done the extra yards by getting the blades into a box/packaged and into the post for me. She still had this post card on her fridge with my mobile number on it). This new parcel arrived a few weeks back and the postage and bubble wrap ended up being half the purchase cost. I finally got round to undoing it and sorting them out today. (Well actually getting my welding bench clean enough to put ripstop on). Out come some nice bits of history in among them was. 3 x 6 foot stackers in fantastic nick. Lines, straps and Stacker lines. Their manuals were included. In the photo below I already had the 4 foot (blue sleeve) My 8 foot (pink and yellow sleeve) and 6 foot (pink sleeve) in this photo. There is also a 10 foot red "Stacker" of mine that is not pictured, but I havent got any spars for it. Everything else pictured was inside the blue and silver bag from her. It's all price marked marked in English pounds. There was a mint Flexifoil "Stranger" complete with sleeve, lines and manual. Inside an internal pocket in the bag was this little beauty that I know nothing about or seen before. Also in mint condition. All round a nice purchase from a lovely elderly lady (who wanted them to go to a good home) and I've never met. Cant wait to try them out. Some days are diamonds eh?

Really appreciate everyone's comments. Something quite fortuitous happened, I required some old software to complete this process so had to load up some really old drives and stumbled over thousands of photos that used to be here! I'll share more on this in a separate post, but at the moment the amount of content that will be returning is quite mind blowing

Just because why not.

Yep , Hi John, Lucy is married to a second cousin and only live a few kms from our farm but on VIC side and also have farm land in SA as do many farmers in this area . It has gone crazy with with people not being able to do shopping or go to doctors etc. They now have to travel a lot further into VIC to do these things. Jenny’s brother leases our farm and he also lives just over the border in VIC and he has to travel a lot further to go through border check points even though our farm and another of theirs is only a few kms down the road from them. Don’t know the answer to the issues but it’s not easy and there’s a lot of animosity to in the community at the moment with an us and them mentality which is crazy as they are family, friends and work colleagues of all of us. we ourselves have sold our house in Bordertown and since mid March have lived mostly in Kingston with the occasional trip back to bordertown to get mail etc. and stay at the farm which is only a bit over a km from the border Stay safe everyone in these uncertain times and hope to see you all in January but is looking less and less unlikely. Here’s hoping ?. cheers Brenton ps: nice van , I new you’d come over to the soft side soon. Enjoy your travels in it.

Well I didn't see you offer to pay my $1600 fine if I got stopped by the police for picking up a kite.

I was lucky enough to be working for an essential service when the COVID19 lockdown commenced here in New Zealand, so are still working and earning money. Have not been kiting or flying my RC gliders for a few months now, have been putting my efforts elsewhere, now concentrating on my music productions. Funny 7 years ago when I started making videos of kitesurfing etc., looking for music to go with it, vids got silenced for using copyrighted material (oops, then switched to a paid service) and thought, why don’t I write my own music — not so easy. But I have been steadily working on music compositions, so now instead of thinking about writing music for videos I have made, I film videos to promote my music. Fortunately I do not need a recording studio, just use my home gear. I use a combination of virtual instruments driven by a midi keyboard, electric instruments like my violin, mic up my acoustic harmonica and the odd sampled sounds I find around the house using a contact piezo or mic. This all gets assembled on a digital audio workstation (DAW) software on my computer. My son Zac is continuing his university degree locally but all online from home. Here is a link to my latest work:

Thanks Andy. I still have a bit to do to the sail as you can see there are a few wrinkles where I've flattened out the top 4 panels (tapered them in at the leech "trailing edge" along the batten pockets and restitched) so the top of the sail doesn't twist off as much but still has a slight belly at the 1/4 cord point when fully sheeted in at high speed. Got to take the luff pocket in a bit over winter and smooth out these wrinkles. It's a 7m2 sail and goes well. At 80kmh I can now throw out the sheet rope and it just sits there feathered with the wind. No shaking at all. Slowly getting there. Yesterday was a bit lighter wind and my adjustments on my 8.2m sail worked pretty well (65.7kmh) but needs more trailing edge tension. Unpicking the 5th batten today and I'll take it in another 12 mm at the back. (3rd time on this batten pocket but it's looking much better) All a good learning curve to get more stability at speed. I really enjoy tuning them to match the stiffer mast. Cheers.

Haven’t posted in while been busy more with music compositions, but still kiting and slope soaring my gliders with my son Zachary here in Christchurch. The Distraction by Norman Freund https://youtu.be/0exNctKqQkc Special thanks to my son Zachary for helping out with the time lapse pre-processing and advice during the music production. No I have not switched to LEI’s ha ha, some one else kiting in the beach scene. Hey @bakersdozen, thanks for putting me on to the Reaper DAW (Digital Workstation). Takes a bit to get used to it to feel free enough to be creative with it. I tried putting the video together with Adobe Premier Elements, very clunky, wrecked the quality, too slow …. . So I thought why not try the video editor that comes with the music DAW, Reaper, hey not bad. Cutting up the video segments and synchronising with the music phrases is simple in Reaper since your composition is already there with all the cues and midi notes. The video quality in Reaper is good too. Hope you like it. Music only copy on Soundcloud at: https://soundcloud.com/norman-freund/the-distraction Regards, Norman Freund

Extreme Kites over the past month has had an enormous influx of content, the challenge now is to make that content discoverable through different parts of the website. To meet that challenge many hands make light work, and I would like to thank @bakersdozen, @andy666, @Mfwetu and @igeighty for stepping up to help. The first step is for us to work through the 1600+ reviews that now exist on the website and apply the relevant tags and filters so that the reviews can be easily discovered and displayed alongside relevant content. This is a manual process now that each and every individual review is filtered, tagged and saved. The second step is going on a discovery mission and finding reviews in the Forum and moving them to the Reviews section. This is a little trickier but in the end will help centralise all reviews in one location. This is going to be a marathon, not a sprint and I would like to thank the people above for volunteering to help out.

Joel, thank you for what you are doing for the kite community. Very happy to be a part of rejuvenating this incredible sport. Alan / racekites.com

Thanks Joel. For being tenacious enough to persevere with this project. Your passion for this is amazing. Also for your dedication to the sport and its history. If anyone can do this mate, its you.

Wow! Wow! Wow! Bringing back the good old days.......... Many a night was spent absorbing the Flexi forum in my miss spent youth. Time to drag out the Peel's and C-Quads, and hop in the Comp buggy, well only after our Covid lock down here in Melbourne...

Good luck Joel, fingers crossed for you. I'm keen to check out some history .?

Wow, I bought my first Flexifoil Stacker back in 1994, I didn't realize that there was a forum for this until just now. If you need a tester, let me know Cheers Bob

I had a zipper on my 16m venom 2 give up on me last week. Bloody frustrating, as it was the inflate zipper and I was about to launch ?. The slide was so worn out that it won’t close the teeth anymore. anyway, I have fitted new waterproof zips to an arc before, but they can be a bit expensive and hard to find. So I thought it was a good chance to test out a Velcro alternative. its basically just a short sock and Velcro opening similar to the deflates in the flysurfer kites. the Velcro valves work quite well. I inflated the kite and slowly opened the Velcro. No air was escaping until it opened far enough to for the end of the sock to open. Sorry, no pictures before they got sewn in. But a few pointers I worked out for anyone wanting to do this mod. -Make the sock width about 50mm more then the zipper opening in the kite. - place sticky ripstop inside the kite where the zipper stitching was removed. - measure from the opening in the kite to the cell wall, subtract 1cm. This is how long the sock needs to be. -sew the sock in the direction you would use it to inflate the kite (pointing towards the centre) - sew a deflate valve into the trailing edge to replace the deflate zipper.

Bump for $450. Buy this and Trev's 3.5 & 7m's and you've got a great set of long star 2's

Three of the 'Tribe' 36,16 and baby 3. Taken from this angle, they all appear roughly same dimensions. have fun dougie..

Hey everyone...its been a while since I've been on. Been a while since I had a kite in the air. But I did get out last week as we had warm temps and great south winds. Had a good day with my bud Brandon at Atlantic Beach, New York. Project_01-11_4K.mp4

Had to upload this photo. Tibbey's brother-in-law is a photographer and captured this excellent picture of the "Tamer" Here is "Blob Marley" and two of the white Trilobites. I think its a great photo.