Guilt, Opechee Keen and Bob's First Time.

Early Morning Kite Area.

Kiting is too much fun.   Fun to the level that some days I struggle with feelings of guilt about it when I'm out there especially when I'm flying solo.  Friday was one of those days because I hit Province again.  The weather was awesome, the wind was awesome  and the surface was awesome.   But inspite of it all every cruise, jump or turn I made there was a little tinge of guilt in the back of my mind knowing that Molly was working and I was getting some miles in.  Kinda sucks but I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

There wasn't much wind in our neck of the woods Saturday.  We wanted to stay close to home and debated whether to go to Chocorua or hit Silver Lake for the first time this season.  Silver is a good spot but comes in late because the depth is around 160'.  Chocorua at 20' freezes much sooner.  Mike went down to Silver and scoped it out.  Molly and I went to Chocorua to check the conditions.  Mike had a close call with some open water and ended up over at Chocorua with us.

There was wind when we got there but it soon died out.  Mike was on his 19m Venom, Molly on the 19m Charger and I was playing around with her 19m P4 to figure out some bridal issues.  Some of you may be saying "Why is Krug riding something other than a Peter Lynn?"  The answer is simple.  If you want to have any kind of credibilty in your opinion about how well something works you have to have something to compare it to.  A lot of people bash other people's gear without any expirience on it.

Molly's P4 is an awesome kite I won't lie.  It's got a lot of ARC traits which I did not expect and was pleased to find.  But the depower isn't half what you find even on an old Venom 1 and the bar system is junk.

And the bridals ( I know it needs them) are ridiculous.  Functional but a pain in the ass especially after flying with no bridals for so long.  

Anyway, back to Chocorua...

Molly was out setting up the 15m Charger when a small mob of spectators came out to the ice to talk to her.  There wasn't much wind as I said before so I just kept riding.  It's a funny thing to see all the cars stopped on the road to watch us poke around with no wind.  I'm sure it looks pretty rediculous sometimes.

Molly with Irish Water Dog bumper Sticker.

Molly was approached by a woman named Kathy from Irishwaterdogs.com.  Kinda hard to explain the site so I suggest you check it out for yourselves.  It's  pretty cool site worth checking out.  I think snowkiting and kite surfing are a nice fit with the Water dogs theme. Nice to see people with a general stoke about stuff.

It was a pretty uneventful day on Chocorua but the weather was nice and Molly got to meet some interesting people.  Beats the hell out of sitting on the couch.

Sunday the wind reports were looking bad so we decided to head on down to our friend Bob's new place down in Laconia.  We took all our gear just in case because you never know what might happen.  On the way down we stopped briefly at Berry Pond to see what goes on down there when Jim Cline isn't kiting on it.  All kinds of user groups on the ice in New England!

Berry Pond Ice Races.

We could have spent the whole day watching the ice races.  It looks like a ton of fun.

We got to Bob's place about 1:30 in the afternoon.  There was a little wind and I started to get my hopes up that we could ride.  First let me say that Bob has never kited but his new house is in a PRIME location for a kiter.  He has Lake Opechee about a five minute walk to the east and Lake Winnesquam about a quarter mile to the west.  On top of that he's about 15 minutes from Ellacoya State Park.  An excellent access point and launch area for tha big lake, Winnepesaukee.

Bob (aka B-O-B) and Sirius

I walked down to Opechee to see if there was any wind. The ice right off the beach was covered in a layer of snow but further out the ice was relatively clean and that looked like the best bet for wind. As I headed out I notice a large steel tower on my left on shore and realized we had high tension lines over head.  Obviously not a good mix with kiting.  They were so high and thin that I didn't even notice them.  and as high as they were they were'nt high enough to clear a kite.

I got out to the clean part of the lake and was met with about 10mph winds comming out of the ESE.  I also saw that there was a substantial amount of open water just about 200 feet out.  But that's okay because the wind is blowing away from the water.  Unfortunately it's blowing towards the powerlines.

I headed back to Bob's house to get my stuff on and get Bob and Molly and get back to the lake.

 We met Bob when I was building Downhill mountain bike trails for Attitash.  He's never kited but a lot of what you wear for DH'ing can multitask as protection when kiting.  Sometimes it seems like overkill to wear all the armor and the full face helmets. Some people would even make fun of us for wearing the protective gear.  It's not "cool".   But ice is hard and when you slap from 20' in the air you're glad you have that fullface on.  I'm not here to impress the jackasses and I want to be able to take the hit and keep riding the rest of the day.  At 6'4" Bob looks like "The Iron Giant" in this shot.

By the time we got back to the lake the wind had completely crapped out.  Man this recent stretch of light wind is killing me.   Molly wanted to give Bob an intro to flying her Apex and I took out the 19m in hopes of getting something going if a little wind comes back. 

It didn't take long.  The wind was shifting to the south and had picked up to maybe 8mph.  Enough to get me going a little on the 19m and enough for Molly and Bob to get the 7m in the air and get Bob a chance to fly a little.

Ass drag

Sometimes there was enough wind for Bob to get a sense for the power of the kite and get some "ass drags" out on the ice.  Other times he got to expirience the "stand around on the ice and wait" aspect of Kiting.

Eventually the wind picked up Molly and I got to put some miles on.  Molly busted out the P4 again and we palyed with that and the Apex.  The range we were able to fly in was pretty limited by the wires and the water but there was still enough room to have some fun.  And once again the cars were lining up on the road.

All in all it was a really good day.  The riding wasn't earth shattering but it was fun and on a day when there is doubt that you'll get out at all you're psyched to have some wind.

Me

Molly got to show Bob the basics of flying and a whole lot of people who have probably never seen a snowkiter or any kind of traction kiter got to see how much fun you can have on a flat lake with a little wind.  We strive to be good ambassadors for the sport.  We don't trash the place or leave anything behind and  when people want to talk to us we try to give them some time and make a good impression. Every time a kiter goes out they're a representative of us as a user group.  And the impressions we make can make or break our sport.  It really ticks me off when some idiot does something stupid for thier own benefit without regard to how it effects us as a whole.  We've lost some riding here because of a few individuals that have done just that.  Fortunately one left town and the other keeps to himself these days.

Idiots. Okay off my soap box. 

Bob did really well Sunday and I hope that he gets into this kiting thing.  It will give him something to do in the winter when there isn't any biking and he'll make use (and so will we hehehehe) of his KICK ASS home base.  Really it's sweet.  He and Molly left about 4:30pm and I rode for another hour or so, packed up and WALKED to his house in my ski boots carrying my speed skis and the 19m.  It took all of maybe 5 minutes.  Not bad.

I must have been a hell of a sight walking around at night in the middle of Laconia in my ski boots, full face helmet, skis on my shoulders and monster back pack, ice screws and tethers swinging all over the place.  If Bob gets into it, it's a sight the people of Laconia might have to get used to.

Next week hopefully Curtis Savard (yeah I know, no relation to Molly) will be comming to visit and we'll be doing a Peter Lynn photo shoot.  Hopefully the wind will pick up by then!  I'll let you all know how it goes.

Until then...

Wow.