Desert Kite Buggying Diary

Time has come, I am leaving UAE.
Also leaving the DESERT GANG, the Fridays in our sandpit, the meetings, "winding each other up"s, the great stories behind...
Not as easy as I thought...must means that I am leaving not only kiting buddies here but FRIENDS.........

Decision has been made, time has come, it's time to move.
Although I won't come on Fridays, will be less screaming in the air, will be less lines to go through, maybe you will find more room around your buggies to ride without watching who's coming behind in reverse, blablabla, but I'll be watching you guys in the hope that once I'll come back for some fun in the dunes and catch up with my friends of Desert Gang.

I'll try to keep my BLOG updated writing about new experiences on European terrain which will be much different but I'll try my best to find the best bits of having fun.
I have been accepted as a member of this bunch of crazy, lovely people, I have learnt here a lot, I got lots of help from all of you, which I can't thank enough, but I give it a go:
THANK YOU GUYS, THANK YOU DESERT GANG, THANK YOU FRIENDS!!!

I hope I will hear from you (on this blog, in the usual emails, facetube, where-ever...), and do hope you all accept my invitation to Hungary. Let me know if you're nearby, or knock on my door, with or without your kites...any time

Take care DesertGang,
Merry Christmas,
have a great windy new year,
Bolts

Yesterday, then weather forecast promised good winds all day and Giorgio was chomping at the bit to get his buggy fix. Unfortunately, the workshop messed up his metal bits for the Shamal (Composite buggy), so that wasn’t ready. Still, he could use my DB-I (Death Buggy Mk I).
Meeting under the Ghaf tree as usual we debated what kite to use. This is a common scenario that goes something like this:
“What kite are you putting on?” says I.
“Dunno yet, what are you putting on?”
“Either 4m Blade or the 5m Blur but wind seems like it’s dropping, so might use the 4.9 Blade”.
“In that case I’ll use my 4.5 Fury”
“As wind forecast promises to pick up during the day finally I think I’ll use 5.0m Blur.”

We decide to run around the sabkah for a bit but then the dunes looked too inviting,
My Blur has 25m lines, which aren’t the best for the dunes, so headed back to the Ghaf to put on some 40m lines.
During my line changing exercise, Giorgio came back quite elated telling me he’d achieved a new personal best of 64.9 kph. “Crazy Italian”, crossed my mind as I said, “Well done Giorgio, I’ll photograph your GPS to get that registered on Popeyethewelder’s Flexi sticky”.























GIORGIO’s PB
Now I wasn’t decided if I should do the Half Pipe or The Dragon Run but winds looked more favourable to do the Dragon.
I was buggying about a kilometer from the Ghaf when I saw Angelo’s car kicking up the dust headed for the Ghaf. I will run down these dunes and tell Angelo that we will do the Dragon Run as soon as he is ready. As this thought was passing through my mind , ‘Ping’ as a right hand brake line appeared to break during a particular hard pull up a soft dune coupled with a sudden nasty gust.
Examination showed that the Blur had blown apart & will need professional fixing.
Brig driving her Razor picked up my 4m Blade from the car. I could then carry on back to the ghaf where Angelo was about ready.
We ran around the sabkah a while for Angelo to warm up and then I said are you both game to try the Dragon Run?
No hesitation from either of them and as I was the only person who’d ever done this run led out across the sabkah watching Giorgio going like a mad thing as the buggy spent a lot of time quite unplanned on two wheels. “ Crazy Italian” crossed my mind again.

Heading south towards the Dragon’s teeth sat at the bottom of the dunes, we easily mounted the first high dunes. It was then a series of climbing big dunes & dropping down the steep leeward sides. The strong South Westerly we’d had about a week ago had deposited a lot of soft sand on the now windward side of the dunes making it very difficult close to the dune ridges at the buggies sunk deep into this soft stuff.

THE DRAGON
I’d dropped down one very long & steep wall into the trough & zipped up to the ridge of the next dune and waited there for the others.
I saw Giorgio & the DB-I catapulted over the ridge I’d just crossed. Giorgio was flying through the air with the buggy tumbling over and over as both hit the sand close to the trough.
It looked very nasty so buggied over to Giorgio to see how much he’d been damaged. Fortunately, just one kneepad and & one elbow pad had taken the brunt of the impact, so nothing was broken.

















DAMAGED KNEE & ELBOW PADS

He removed his helmet and his face was covered in sand with him swearing about the kite being no good.
Brig was stifling a laugh “Crazy Italian”, I said out loud.
He seemed shaken but was putting on a brave angry face.
The impact had blown all the air out of the rear left hand tyre and we thought it was a puncture at the time.
A spare wheel was fitted , Giorgio dusted much of the sand off & deeper into the Dragons’ belly we went.

Just to show the Dragon wasn’t going to let anybody off, Brig badly stuck her Razor on a dune crest. We all walked back to help her with me moaning as usual. A little more digging. Angelo & Giorgio feeling very strong lifted the rear of the 650 kg Razor clear over the dune crest.
When in front knowing the other guys hadn’t been in the Dragon before, I would occasionally look back to see if I could still see their kites. Where’s Angelo? I headed back with much difficulty I might add and his kite was down with a broken leader line on his right handle.
So the dragon bites again but not as much as before.
Finally, we made it on to a large sabkah, which was the start of a long 8 km (point to point) upwind tack. My longest single tack on that stretch was 3.3. kms. Checking my GPS download, I’d actually buggied 20 kms to tack this 8km upwind.



















UPWIND TACKING

Giorgio & I followed the black sealed road for about a kilometer but Angelo went off in the wrong direction, which necessitated him having to drag his buggy & kite with help from Brig under a power line. Back into the dunes on the last leg back to the ghaf was easy for me as I’d been through this part many times before & recognize almost every dune, shrub & tree along the way.
Back at the car Wendy & Pete along with Francesco who had later turned up during the day were messing about.

While waiting for Giorgio, Angelo & I were laughing about our adventure in the Dragon. After some time, Giorgio arrived with helmet damaged. The Dragon had taken one last bite at him before he made it back. He told us he’d lost control on one of the dunes with a spectacular OBE landing him on his head.
“Crazy Italian!!!”


Sand-Yeti - 7 March 2009

HalfPipe - Trailer from AllWindDrive on Vimeo.

Check out slideshow:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2130210.ece?slideshowPopup=true&articleId=2130210

Please note: the video repeats itself and has no sound for the first 50 secs...enjoy

Dear All,
let me introduce you the new homepage of the hungarian buggiers.

http://www.kiteforce.hu/

It's brand new design also with english version, so feel free to comment.
You'll find some familiar pictures there too.

The blog site is going through various changes, with new gadgets and gizmos added to the site. I'm planning to give the blog site a new skin, but its going through a trial and error phase at the moment and it would be great to have any feedback or suggestions for the site.

I've just added a shouter box widget which will allow you to write instant messages on the site, and just like MSN messenger, if anyone else is online you can message them right away...enjoy...and hope to catch you on here :-]

Thought I would set up an area for great action shots. Please feel free to add to this area with your best action shots or footage...







Photos where taken by Sir Bolts...

The winds didnt show today but we staill managed to get some time in....FluffyWOO, Francesco and myself set up, Bolts and fox decided just to play in the dunes on their MotoX Bikes. One absentee was Sany-Yeti, rumour is that he didnt want any fuss made of his 65th birthday. We ended up eating the cake and drinking the wine without Dave....it would have been wrong not to drink it!!!

We have some pictures of the day, myself anf Francesco just cruising with our stunt woman FluffyWOO trying free style again. Considering the rest of us just cruise, she really is trying to get the advantage over us guys!!

We were also joined by Ashi, our friendly Camel farmer, I dont know what Fluffywoo was doing but the camel didnt look too pleased!!..Well there is always next week to wish for the wind.....DRD

The highlights of 2008

What great winds we had today for our last day of the holiday season and a new start to 2009! Bring on more winds like this, we buggied from around 12 noon to sun down....