Who is Everyone???

[lickedysplit_au]

Hi Everybody!

Well I have been a member of EK's for a while now and seen a few newbies pop up (like myself) and all I know is that we all like wind and nylon of some type. There are a few scattered introductions here but I'm alittle lazy and as I said a "few scattered". So who wants to tell who they are?? What bought them here? experience?? injuries?

Spose it be fair that I start the ball rolling -

Names Troy, 27, Married, live in Beautiful Sydney have a 4 year old boy and just found out one on the way . During the day to pay the bills I fix Poker Machines and the large networks they are attached to, and I am still paying off my house so no I can't win on them :cry:

Been flying for nearly a year (told ya I was a newbie) although I had a stint with some stunties when I was about 13. Learnt plenty of lessons in the past 12 months most the hard way but I find thats the fastest way to learn. So far my injuries have been limited to quite a few grazes, cuts, bruises and one busted wrist. On the contrary I have learned to wear longer pants, get some wrist guards and keep my eyes open :shock: I usually fly up at Rooty Hill when I get the chance as it's pretty local although I have been getting down the Shoalhaven Heads which is a great spot. If you want to see how ugly I am you can see a pic of me in the Gallery heres a link for all you other lazy kite flyers out there -

http://www.extremekites.com.au/gallery/members/lickedysplit_au/

Well if you actually read all this I congratulate you because I bet it is as boring to read as it was write.

SO WHO'S UP NEXT??? even some of the veterans

Regards,

Troy

[Baggsy]

Hi Everybody!

SO WHO'S UP NEXT??? even some of the veterans

Regards,

Troy

all goes quiet... :shock:

[lickedysplit_au]

Well don't be shy Baggsy :oops: from what I have read on the forums the fast few weeks people are anything but shy!! So who's up ?? Don't make me delete my own post people :cry:

Regards,

Disheartned newbie :cry:

[Baggsy]

just kidding troy

i am tha same as you, i am fairly new to the kiting but i have had a VERY steep learning curve straight up !!

in 2 years i have progressed from flying Ebay nasties to now owning a 06 naish shockwave and a 20 meter naish kite.

i went land boarding and had no one to challenge me so i went to the water and have had a trail of locals now to compete against and we all love it !!

i manage a property of serviced apartments and i am 50 meters from the water so if the winds up .i am gone !!

so for me to kite every day is easy (even if it is only for one hour)

so there you have it !!

by the way my name is Graeme

now to put more in...

i am 36 or so..(cant remember ) my birthday is 29 april. and i have 2 kids under 10 . my wife thinks i have a obsessive compulsive disorder with kiteing :roll:

i have owned or now own:

ATB reef scrub

1.2 mtr stunt kite

1.8 beamer

2.1 ozone little devil

3 meter buster

6 meter kite surfer (like a peter lynn)

PL 630 arc

naish shock wave 9

naish: 8, 9.5 12, 14, 16 20 meter lei

several kite boards ..LF, RRD Home madies', and (just aquired)Mutant

next purchase is a BEST Waroo 13 meter....

[sinbad]

Hi Troy And baggsy

Been kiting a couple of years but got into land stuff and buggys in the winter.

I cant get enough of it.

I have 6 kids three of them go kiting with me the other 3 are a lot older.

Have too many kites to mention but i have an excuse. The kids needed one

I'm an IT Guru for a company, with offices all over Australia and NZ so travel a lot so you might find me on your favorite beach

My names Terry

[nigel]

Hey, it takes us old timers a while to get the energy to type

Me, Nigel, no funny alias' here.

Single, and on the prowl too. :wink:

33, 165cm (5'5), 65kg.

Make go fast parts for Yella Terra.

Been kiteing since 1988, but yes only the two string ones...till. (Did get a Rev in 92 though!)

1998, found power kites!!!!

Got a buggy the next year and havn't been out of one since.

Tried the water in late 2000, with a PL Water foil, and Picklefork board.

Got up first go, no lessons, did it twice more and found it not to be that challenging. Not really a water baby, so the buggy had more pull.

The standard of the kitesurfing picked very quickly since my first dip, but the water has not excited me too much. Not enough to get me back in, but I might still make it one day.

Tried the ATB boards, different, but don't like the speed wobbles, if you see a dirtsurfer going cheap let me know!

Flown a fair number of kites, and can claim to be able to help on most topics, or point you in the right dirrection.

[sinbad]

Nigel can you please tell me what is the pink pig all about, it looks like a story in it self.

I'm sure others are as intreasted as me.

Edit: you can start another thread.

[BillyMac]

Great idea Troy

Me I'm 27 as well, although I didn't start of as early as you're self have a beautiful little girl 19 mths SASKIA Also married to my high school sweet heart. Have been only kiting for not even 6ths. First seen it advertised in Men's Health magazine a year a so ago and thought Gotta try that. Then when I saw a ad in the local rag for a demo day (ABBOTT) I got in contact with the man and it went from there. Bought my first kite from Baggsy a 3m buster, then eventually bought Abbott's buggy from him as he was upscaling.Just purchased a 5m Ozone Samurai form Schmick and at the time of typing this have not yet flown it. Live and work in the lovely Whitsunday's for Ergon Energy(Power Company) doing LIVE LINE :shock: that's maintenance ect. on high voltage power lines LIVE :shock: 11000-66000 volts.

Really enjoying Kiting/buggying (little less tough on the ageing body then Rugby Union) and like the whole learning experience that you can get from EK's, a great little community.

CHEERS

WILLIAM

[sluggo]

My real name is Mark and i'm mid 40's .Married with two boys 11 and 10 the younger of my boys is starting to show interest in flying kites and i don't know who has the bigger smile when he flies. I have been flying kites ( 2 string stunt kites for about 10 years ) until a bloke gave me a go on his power kite about 14 months ago and i thought holy s%&t this has some pull and good fun . Now i spend most of my time looking at trees and trying to get out and have a fly. I work on a travel television show up here in Queensland and am fortunate to travel alot with my work. Taking the kites is almost as important as packing my camera and tripod.I don't get to fly on all my trips because work does get in the way ,but i have had some fantastic moments in unbelievable locations. I hope to be doing this sport for many years to come as it keeps me young at heart . I don't want to break any speed records or jump tall buildings , i know my limitations and am happy with my lot

[Macca]

Name, Paul as everyone knows. Married two kids, one 14yo boy and one 13yo girl. Originally a vet but now run biotech companies. Live in Melbourne but have lived USA and UK too as well as interstate. Done lots of outdoors stuff over the years including rugby, climbing, caving, adventure racing, rescue instruction (SES and own training Co.) and mountaineering. Done a bunch of big climbs around the world incl some first acsents.

Got out of climbing and into wind sports a year or two ago when (a) my mountains got too big to climb in 4 weeks holiday ( they got big enough that they had upwards of 10% mortality rates and © I wanted to do things with the family. Shoved kms of rope and other climbing/mtneering crap into the corner of the garage and made room for paragliders, then when the weather was consistently too crappy to fly, kites. Now got a bunch of them cluttering up my home office. The kids get into it too, with Lizzie kiting an Imp and Callum having a ball on his own landboard. Great stuff!

Love it and now kite most weekends and even mid-week sometimes if I can sneak away. Kite ground board, downhill/single track on the ATB and am taking the first tentative steps towards kitesurfing.

Am a tad competitive and so push myself hard-ish. Therefore seem to have a propensity for bashing myself up (not sure is safer than rugby Billy!) and held the "Most Damaged" crown until Lee masterfully stole it away from me recently.

Oh and am another old fart, 41yo. I too look at trees a lot, study wind forecast sites and want to keep doing this for a long while.

Paul

[.Joel]

Name: Joel

Nickname: Dot Joel (.Joel) / JockStrap (Don't know how i got the second one, but it stuck).

Went to my first GKC meet, Andy Mac was there, we all standing in a circle introducing ourselves, much similar to here and I said "i'm Joel" and he goes "is that dot Joel?" and it sort of stuck. I used to use the dot before my name simply to be able to use my name on forums and other things u signup for and your name is always taken. Sort of rubbed off elsewhere now.

I'm 22 Yrs old (23 in April :twisted: ), live in a single bedroom house at the rear of my father's house with my GF. I moved here when I was 16 as the mother decided to move too far out of the city and thus i came here originally so i could study. GF moved in when I was 19 / 20.

Started kiting end of 2003. Bought myself a kite, then between Christmas and New Year got the buggy. Spent the next 2 yrs just poddling up and down an Oval at Elwood. Got into a couple of races, decided hey its fast but not 4 me as I found I would get bored of it. So after another 6 months of throwing the kite around a bit, and contemplating what to do I decided i would throw the kite over the shoulder just once and see what the result was. It was 1ft of air and to me it felt like a kilometer, my view of kiting would never be the same again. Changed kites from Bullets to Blades and since then been jumping.

Outside of kiting I was running a company I started a couple of years ago. We sold that to a much larger company in November, and finalization is this month. So from there I'm not sure what I want to do. I finished my uni papers etc, so no interest in going back to study. I may go back to work, or start it all again in a different sector of IT. For now I will take a year off and just peace out. Right now I contract myself out for a 5 - 10 hours a week and that is more then enough. After having worked 70 - 90 hour weeks quality of life really starts to mean something. Will look to buy a house in January 2008, preferably on an Acre or Half Acre of land just outside the metropolitan area.

In the past I played soccer for 11yrs, and cricket.

Marriage and proposals are now to be somewhere on the cards.

I have no ambition to break top speeds or any of that, but I do have ambitions to jump tall buildings

Regards,

Joel

[bob]

Macca, thats enough of the "Old Fart" business. You are just not in the League!

I will be 60 next birthday and I am planning to keep flying another 20 years yet. Then you can call me an Old Fart.

But I am not volunteering for Macca's team. I am not into the high performance stuff. I can relate more to Sluggo's style.

My biggest challenge is to keep my bum not more than 6 inches off the sand.

Before I started power kiting a few years back, I was getting twinges of arthritis in my shoulders. Kiting has totally cured that.

For aerobic fitness I run and cycle but you can't beat kites for a general workout, twisting, bending and upper body strength.

The social aspect is an important ingredient too. People are often curious and want to talk to you about kiting. These days I just want to flyt. But I can be persuaded to stop if she has a sweet smile.

The Huge Troll was unimpressed with the people he found gathering at the local oval every week. I don't find that very exciting either, I would much rather a long curving beach or some hills. However I can see that the lucky people who have a regular meeting every Sunday arvo regardless of the wind, are enjoying themselves and they have always been very helpful to me on my occasional appearances.

Enough for now. Less talk, more action.

[sinbad]

Thanks Bob

Feeling a bit younger now. Not the oldest in the circle any more

I felt old when i talked to Joel and then relised i had two kids older then him :oops:

The big 50 in April.

[Longbow]

Names Pat. From Bris vegas Im 16 (god, all these dinosaurs!) I work at target (and always need more money for kites)

Been flying for...ages(i cant remember!) Got my first 1.4m buster of jason at briskites, It was a full on gale that day. Jason was even doing jumps with it. he gave me a quick fly, i was scared sh**less (i was 40kg at the time). Tried that in lighter winds, awsome, got a 4m buster, then a PL buggy, then a 2.5m century, now looking for another. Havnt been out flying in a while, but i should catch up with sluggo soon. (i wanna see how his tree climbing abilitys with that Raptor, lol)

So thats about it..

[Angus]

ummm well...

I'm 19. I was interested in kite surfing from year 7 (~13yrs). However it wasn't until year 10 (15yrs) that I bought my first kite.

I went with my dad to Geelong and we bought Sky tiger soon that had recently gone out of production. Over the past 4ish years I have done a bit of kiting. However I'm not competitive and I have been busy with school and work etc. so I can't claim to very experienced. I have many interests that compete with kiting.

I really really enjoyed the old race series that used to be around. It was going to them that really taught me alot.

I still use and enjoy the 3.9 Sky Tiger, however I my quiver now includes a 4.9 blade III, a 5m raptor and a Mountainboard. Along with using my dad's (Bob) kites and buggies that are listed above.

So that's my kiting stuff.

My actual life story is that I finished Year 12 in 2005. Throughout 2006 I worked on the Gippsland Lakes taking school kids Sailing and Sea Kayak expeditions.

I'm a very active outdoors person and enjoy Hiking, Rock climbing, Kayaking and more.

This year I start a 4 year secondary teaching course in Bendigo. However this may change to Primary Ed down the track.

[Red Panda]

Well I am a newbie to this site but have been kiting for a while though have spent most of the past year out with a kite inflicted knee injury..............so spend a lot of time doing photography................

My name is Karen I live in the UK on the South Coast, married with two children and we all fly.............husband buggies, daughter landboards and has now gone for depower, and the little one has just started out..............

I have my own website which is not just for kiting but also other pictures as well............have a look at http://www.windriders.co.uk

Karen

[rollenrolley]

Hello,

My names Martin (call me Marty) and I am new to all this too, although I'm loving every second of it. Started out when my mate (Troy - Lickedysplit) showed me how to fly one of his stunt kites, then showed me what he knew on his whopping prism P3 Addicted from there on in I bought a X-trac 3.5 which served me well with a buggy I built (yeah it's still up for grabs), then I purchased a Crossfire 4.0. This year I am planning on getting myself a PL buggy and to get fully confident with my Crossfire, if you don't know what I talking about have a look in my gallery, there is a video of me getting my butt kicked by father wind (I find mother wind to be much nicer )

For a job I am a Service Technician that works in the hospital/medical field. I'm single at the moment (we need a ladies kite day - I can assist )and living in Sydney at the tender age of 28.

:arrow: Marty

[goshen]

Hi,

Well my name is Goshen, and i've been into kiting pretty much since I took over running the Geelong Kitepower store in 1998. There was no kitesurfing back then! I'll be turning 30 this year; so I am not really that old, no.

I've also been climbing for 15 years; and am still pretty active on rock if the time can be found - especially in the winter months. (Macca, we should hook up some time, if you feel the need to dust off the ropes).

Anyway, I remember my first 'real' kiting experience, and that was at the Belmont Common at the one of the clubs fly days. I grabbed a 3m Mylar D- 'type' Wing, in what was about 20 knots, sat in a buggy - then promptly flew cross downwind at high speeds and an almost certain death at the other end of the oval. I think I managed to panic and crash the kite before colliding with anything

[Macca]

I've also been climbing for 15 years]

Very happy to Goshen but looking at your body then mine it's not hard to tell who is the gun sports climber and who is the old school trad/aid/mountaineer... :roll: I remember when I used to have a power to weight ration, now I just have weight :-)

Did some farkin' terrifying sea cliff climbs on Phillip Island late last year - was like climbing weetbix!

Macca

[schmik]

Nice thread!

My real name is Mike and I'm a kite addict.

I'm 30 and married with two littles ones (9months and 2.5 years). I live in sydney and work for a huge multi-national corp fixing stoooopidly expensive computers.

I started flying in 2002 after breaking my collar bone boogie boarding the sandbar of death. I started on a Little devil 2.1 to strengthen my shoulder. A year and few kites later I baught a mountain board. Now I have far too many kites and 'rides'. I own a mountainboard, a buggy and 2 kitesurf boards. I seem to kitesurf more than anything at the moment but that is just cause the water is so soft and it is summer. Kite mountainboarding is my favourite. (BTW, the pics of rooty hill look sweet, will have to try it).

schmik

[lickedysplit_au]

Thanks Schmik :wink: thread has come along SWEET! thanks for everyones input. Has been awsome reading about everyones everything! So who's up next?? Mark D, I havent seen a HQ avatar yet? I know you would have abit of history to tell (for a 29 year old )

BTW Schmik Rooty Hill is a great spot PM me or post when you get some free time - Meet you up there

Regards

Troy

[sinbad]

Come on come all, Theres plenty others out there, come out of the closet and tell us about your kiting.

Pete.Gav,Act, We would really like to know who you are Billy Mac as well.

Nigel would still like to know about the pink pig any body else want to know :?: :?:

[goshen]

Not to clutter this thread; but I have seen the pink pig. Nigel brought it to Altona one kite day. It's a 4-line kite (sort of like a Rev), and well - it flies like a pig

I think Nigel bought it off some dodgy internet site somewhere :roll:

[Don]

Hi Don here!

52 years old going on 16. Took up land kiting two and a half years ago with the aim of getting on to the water.

Followed a lot of advice from buying a stunt kite, progressing to a 3m Little devil, landboard and now on the water and having a ball.

Spent many years wallowing after a fairly active Rugby Union and League career looking for a sport to supplant. Can honestly say that the rugby would have been cut short had I found kiting years ago.

I love it. Live in Stockton on the other side of the Hunter river from Newcastle and am here for kiting! Makes water skiing and wakeboarding pale into insignificance.

Only regrets?

I have a running argument with the wind gods!

Major positives - my son is developing into a very competent Kiteboarder and we enjoy a heap of time together and many arguments! Plus I have never enjoyed the level of fitness I now own without having had to work very hard at it.

[Pete]

Ok. My name really is Pete & I now live if Melbourne since moving here from Canberra at Xmas.

I am 33, married, one son who loves his Ozone Imp and constantly pesters me to progress to 4 liners... he will get his wish over the coming months.

I am a professional Mechanical Engineer and work in a national technical lead capacity which can be rather demanding.

I took up kiting seriously in 2005 after a few knee surgeries, hence why I buggy. Before that I did quite a bit of MTB riding and I have even competed in the Mont 24hr endurance race and many smaller events over the years.

I have a real passion for motorcycling & just bought a brand new Ducati to appease that interest.

I like movies, long walks on the beach....... :wink: oops wrong forum