Hi Hung and Group:
What is left of it : )

I got on board the summer of 1999. It had been many years since I had
seen the Truck commercial with Cory Roessler water skiing down a canal
being pulled by a big Delta Kite. I had been waiting ever since for
this "kite skiing" thing to mature to the point that equipment would be
available for purchase. When I saw some kite boarders on a TV show
using Wipika Classic Kites I knew that the time had come. I took
lessons and bought a kite within a couple of months. In the summer of 99
the biggest kite I could buy was a Wipika Classic 8.5 , which was way
too small for me. My bar was a home built 2 liner, a piece of sail
board boom with a couple eye bolts on it. The safety system was a long
leash that shortened one of the lines with a slip knot wrist strap. The
board was a surfboard with 3 windsurf foot straps bolted on the deck.
By the next summer I had converted the kite to 4 lines and had bought a
Naish AR5 15.5.
When I took my first lesson from Bruce at Sheldon Sails in the Delta he
didn't know how to stay upwind yet.
If I remember right, back then we could buy kites and lines but we were
on our own for bars. Your site and this discussion group were
invaluable. I am really glad that now I don't have to kludge up my own
gear. It is really cool that the ideas we tossed around then have come
to market. I don't spend even a fraction of the time now that I did
then on line talking about it. These days it is all about doing it.
The sport has matured. I don't follow any of the discussion groups any
more. The only reason I am writing now is because this group gets to me
passively. I almost never take the time to hit the Kite Forum. I only
go there if I am trying to find out about something specific, like what
kind of board to buy. I'm really glad it is there but since I don't
subscribe to any of the topics currently it is outside of my awareness
mostly.

Happy Anniversary Everyone!

Steve
Carson City, Nevada, USA

HungVu2000 wrote:
>
> I went to Alexa and check the traffic pattern of kiteforum.com
> http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/kiteforum.com?q=
> <http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/kiteforum.com?q=> and
> notice that the current traffic is on the downward trend. The peak was
> in 2006/2007.
>
> Kitesurfing is now a mature sport so people is more interested in local
> events as opposed to world wide events.
>
> Hung.
>