mike c

Good luck with the coming meeting, keep it up!

Have now taken a couple of layers of skin off my little finger, addictive!

Cool, thanks for that Adrena1in, getting consistently over 9,000 now but want to hit 10k before I put it down.

How long should I be able to keep it going for in one go?

My first powerball, a neon blue, came with postie about 40 mins ago. Have only got a whisker under 9,000 at the moment. Does this mean I am a girl? I broke my wrist skateboarding years ago and I agravate it mountain boarding the whole time, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Forgot to say, did you win that on ebay with a 7.3 Frenzy. If so, I was keeping an eye on that but decided I was too skint.

Have seen one at Priory Farm (mountainboarding centre) and looks fine - full size board, channel trucks, wood deck. Was one of the better boards of its day but is now a few years old. Similar to a Sol if you have seen one of those. Many have imitated MBS design so it looks pretty standard now. Will be a nice complement to your Lion Canyon as very differnet board being full size and with channels. Heavier but way more suitable if you ever want to downhill (as I'm sure you know Lion Canyon although great for kiting is a kid's ride for downhill and would be pretty sketchy.)

if still under waranty maxtrack should replace? (guess that still applies when parts have been bought rather than complete MBS board.) Maxtrack replaced free for me once and I have bought parts since my gear was more than a year old.

No shame here, they're yellow that's all!

Went through three sets of the black ladders over the past year and a half downhilling and now finally have a set of grey ones, which seem fine. (Also a new full set of grey F3s for my atom street board.) Your new ones should be sweet. Not so fun when your binding gives as you land a jump downhilling - ouch.

Time to treat him to a Trampa?

Those 661 things look pretty good. I just bought some vision street wear hi top skate shoes for mountainboarding / kiting as I like a bit of ankle protection. Think they're called DV8 or something. They are newish design but harking back to the late 80s (Rad!) - padded leather high tops with laces to top and velcro strap. They offer some protection (way more than my Ipath high top skate shoes) but I reckon if you land realy bad they wouldn't do that much. Unfortunately the ebay trader I bought them off sent two sizes two big so they're not too great to ride in. Good in theory though.

Looks like you would ride seriously duck footed to me. Totally different from angles on standard MBS setups. Is it deliberate?

Comp 16 Pro - been using it for downhill for 18 months or so, before that exit airforce which was a plank. Roll on Priory Farm reopening. Kiting with the Comp16 now too and use on the beach has taken its toll already, as if comp 16s aren't squeeky enough after a lot of use. Still an ace board. And BTW Bug Eyes the easy rider was replaced by the furnace creek and is a similar spec (except may be not alu trucks?) - your right old skool look is bang on!

Anyone know how long the lake is frozen enough to kite on? I'm going out mid-march. Ta

Hey Spooky Almost all my use has been downhill as still relatively new to kiteboarding. The part on the buckles that has been replaced is just the bit that makes contact with the ratchet strap, the rest is still metal and just as sturdy as ever. My board is one of the earlier batches and the newer grey straps do seem better than the original black ones. I did try atbshop, I bought new buckles from them last week and they had no supply of new bindings (very nice people though and an ace shop!) I still rate the bindings above anything else I've tried, it's just worth knowing that some parts are consumable. Cheers Mike

F3s are sweet but for some reason hard to get hold of at the moment. I have a new set ordered from Maxtrack (to go on an MBS Atom street board) and it's going to take three weeks. Hope the new ones wear better than the old ones. I'm on my third set of ratchet straps and second set of buckles on my Comp 16. The bindings are like Trigger's broom off Fools and Horses;) . The new buckles which I just put on are plastic where they connect with the straps though so should be better. Haven't ridden raptors though so I wont vote.

By the way Plugus, if you haven't used YSE before they are a really good company. I'm using them for the fourth time this year. Great chalets and food and the owner (who is a sleazy old git) has a taste for young blonde girls, hence most of the chalet girls are fit. I will be in Val from March 12 also looking to do some snow-kiting for the first time so post your experiences when your back. Cheers:)

Had an amazing day exactly one year ago with some mates in Weston Super Mare with little 1.45 m Radsails we bought for 25 quid. Got home, found this site, got some advice and a couple of days later had a 4m buster. The first time I took the buster out it was blowing a gale (had read good advice on here about first flights but I was struggling to listen to it.) Fortunately I didn't get spanked because I managed to tangle the lines so badly I couldn't launch it. Took it home to untangle as it was uncomfortably windy:eek: I took the lines off the bridles untangled them and then wound the lines around the handles without reattaching to the bridle (Doh ). Went to a common with two mates who also had never flown before and went to reattach the lines which were now of course totally tangled again. It was bloody cold but we spent about 45 minutes shivvering and untangling, too many cooks and all that made it an ordeal. Just as the last tangles werecoming out, the perfect breeze that had been blowing died and the heavens opened. A puddle formed on my buster and despite numerous attempts the kite understandably would not fly. Wet and jaded we went home. The next day having dried the untangled kite I headed to Blackheath on my own. Nice gentle breeze, unpacked the kite, launched it, loved it.

My little 1.5 LD has a tendancy to bounce around when staked in very high winds, which is obviously the only time it ever comes out of the bag. Will try putting some tension on the power lines too. Had my 15 stone scudding with it in yesterday's big wind, great little kite.

How about the LD 1.5. Lovely little kite and very nippy.

They are probably not too bad, but why settle? I'm no expert on the kiting side but have mountain boarded now for quite a while. I started with an exit airforce with steel channel trucks, which is probably very similar to the RTH board and ended up giving it to my cousin and upgrading to Comp 16 pro after just a few months. It was well over 9kg and you do notice that weight on the downhill side for sure. But I'm sure you'll have a blast whatever you get. I just think for the money (or close to it) there are better starts than the RTH board. Or as someone said spend less for a virtually identical clone Exit atb.

I had a look at them when I was at Priory Farm (Ride the Hill centre) they look Exit standard and that's not too good! I haven't ridden one though so my opinion is only from a close look. Steel channel trucks are heavy and the deck looks like it would be a bit of a plank. I reckon for the money you are better off buying a better board second hand or looking out for a bragain on ebay. A mate got a new hyline hellraiser on there for about £120 which has a layer of fibre glass and has aluminium trucks for same price as the RTH board. The person selling those seems to have one up for sale pretty much all the time.

I was at camber sands on Saturday. Wind was 0mph gusting to 2mph. Doh

Thanks guys. According to the missus Rye is a nice place and that is very nearby, so everyone's happy.