Phil Midler breaks world record by riding 200 nautical miles in over 17 hours.

The Whole Story:
Click here for the Podcast
Check out local news coverage: http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/video?id=7479519
Over 200 Nautical miles rode using only kite power along the texas coast for over 17.75hrs using a Slingshot Celeritas 5′4″ Surf Board, Slingshot RPM 10m kite, Mystic Razor life vest, GoPro HD head cam, etc

Monday started out at 4am getting our gear ready and making sure the chase crew had everything they needed.  Our chase crew consisted of Mitch’s girlfriend Pepper for the southern portion of the ride and my wife Alesha for the finish area.  First off, Pepper is the coolest chick ever and flew down from Houston to chase us using Mitch’s car.  She left SPI for Corpus at around 5am, which would be the first area she would see us.  Mitch and I geared up and had a sending off by a few brave souls: Dave Horn, Chris Summers, and Norberto Ponce (local deputy sheriff).  Dave Horn is an ordained minister so he gave us a quick prayer and we hit the water working our way down wind.  The breeze was averaging around 20mi/hr out of the south-south/east, so it was almost directly side shore so the going was tough.  Mitch was on a 12m and I was on a 10m because the wind was going to get much stronger as the day went on. 

 
            The first 70mi was very hard due to the wind strength and direction so we were constantly jibing back and forth in the surf averaging around 10-14mi/hr.  It was slow going, Mitch felt that I had a better chance to make the record alone so he stopped south of Corpus at the first point we met Pepper.  From that point forward it was a solo mission.  Once I got near Corpus around the 100mi point the coast line started to curve so that south-south/east wind was more side shore allowing me to make better time (still constantly pumping the kite but making a better angle down the beach).  In this area the wind was averaging high twenties and gusting well over 30mph so I was glad for the 10m size decision.  After 100 miles my legs already felt like Jell-O and I knew it would be a hard second half to finish that day.  Neil Hutchinson (previous record holder for his ride from Key West to Cuba 94mi) had given me some pointers on the ride and told me a lot of it would be mental.  The next 5-6 hours of riding would be a brutal test of my mental toughness.        

The next point I would see the chase crew was in Port Aransas before the jetties.  After that point I would enter a very remote section of the Texas Coast called Matagorda island, these are a set of barrier islands about 65-70 miles long with no access, no people, and nothing resembling civilization.  I met Mitch and Pepper at Port Aransas after about 9hrs of riding and made the decision to go for the record riding solo across the Matagorda island section.  From Corpus to Port Aransas was the fastest section of the ride with a great side shore wind.  I averaged 22mi/hr and had a max speed of 38.4mi/hr!  This was the best section for me flying past people swimming in the surf and blowing by all the kiteboarders at Bob Hall pier.  I even managed a high-speed high five from one of the boogie boarders as I rode by. 
           
           After meeting Mitch and Pepper at Port Aransas I left and started the process of cutting up wind to get around the .5mi long Port A jetties.  This is no small feat on a surf board set up for down wind riding and in 15ft breaking surf.  After 30 minutes of struggling I finally made it around the jetties and stepped into the most remote section of the ride, the Matagorda barrier islands.  For the next 65-70mi I would see no other vehicles, people, or buildings.  By this time the coast line had shifted enough so that I was now edging on my board, cutting slightly up-wind to stay with the coast line.  I was still making great time, but made getting around the inlet jetties and debris in the surf very difficult.  The toughest jetties to make it around were just past the Port O’Conner inlet to the east.  I was cutting hard upwind riding parallel to huge breaking surf when I was actually thrown onto the granite jetty because I was too close.  I was very tired and the heel-side tack was so much easier that I kept getting closer and closer to the jetty on my heel side before switching to toe-side to get around it.  I landed board first and managed to escape to the other side of the jetty with only scraping the skin off the front of my right shin.  I stopped on the other side after clearing the jetties to inspect the injury and was surprised to see that despite all of the blood it was only a flesh wound.   

By now I was approaching 12-13 hrs of riding and it was starting to get dark.  I knew that I had one more set of jetties to get around and I was worried about doing it at night.  I rode for about an hour after dark and finally stopped.  The wind was blowing about 25-30mph and was directly onshore if not slightly onshore the wrong direction, I had been riding upwind hard for the last 2 hours.  I committed to spending the night on this remote spit of land until it was light enough to finish the ride.  This was 180 nautical miles (via GPS) from our start point in South Padre Island.  I wasn’t worried about my night on the island and knew I’d be fine.  I’ve been in much worse situations climbing remote mountains around the world.  I set up camp digging a hole in the sand and putting my kite over it to protect me from the wind.  I took a space blanket with on the trip incase of something like this so I used it to keep my upper body warm until it was light again.  I knew the chase crew was worried about me and didn’t want them to scrabble the authorities so after a short reprieve I left my makeshift shelter, got my cell from the dry bag and tried to climb around on the dunes to find a signal to get them a message.  I was finally able to get a 1x signal and get a short text to Mitch and Alesha telling them I was fine. 
          
           Daylight came slowly as it was a cold windy night.  At around 5am I started gearing up for the final push to safety.  After lying down for so long my whole body ached from the previous day’s accomplishments.  I remembered a talk I had with Neil Hutchinson about his trip from Key West to Cuba (94mi) in the open ocean and was just thankful that I was able to make it to shore for a safe night sleep.  I had run out of food and water over the night so was pretty anxious about getting to the finish.  The last 20 nautical miles were upwind riding in a crazy shore break and took me a long time.  I finally got to the last set of jetties and after a battle made it to the inside of the inlet and the end of my trek.  The beach that I finished on had woman (Dorthy) who was on duty with a construction crew keeping people out of the construction zone.  They were refurbishing the jetty system with large machinery.  Well I came riding right into the construction zone onto a narrow beach that Dorthy happened to be standing on.  She said “you’re not supposed to be here” and I said “I’ll only be a second, I just broke a world record”.  She replied “where did you come from” and I said “South Padre Island”.  Dorthy decided to let me stay I the end and even signed an affidavit to the fact.  It was 8:15am and I had finished a total of 200 nautical miles over 17.75 hours of almost continuous riding.  

Phil Midler of XLKITES houston has broken the world record for long distance kiteboarding.  During a grueling 17hr ride over (15hr of which were on one day), he covered more than 230 statute miles and beat the standing distance record by more than 25 nautical miles.  For the whole story pictures and videos check out The Kiteboarder Magazine:

http://www.thekiteboarder.com/wordpress/2010/05/american-phil-midler-breaks-kiteboarding-long-distance-world-record/

Another great day of demos with Litewave Dave, GK, and seaspecs at the Levee. We had light winds in the morning and then they picked up to 15-17mph later in the day. The new 2010 Trix and GK sonic are super sweet kites, the Trix is better for kiteloops and freestyle and the Sonic is grunty for light air and cruising..it is also great at boosting huge airs!

We’ll be at it again today (sunday 28Mar10) Demoing all equipment at St Luis Pass. All the demo gear is for sale and will be discounted for the demo. It is going fast so get in on the action today!! See you at the Pass! Will will be 17-19mph from the NW so great riding conditions for the demo out there.

Winds gusting to 43mph or so it was a good day to be lit up on our 7m kites. Later in the day the wind layed down a bit and we were able to take out some 9m and 10m kites but were still way over powered. The first pictures are from the new spot off 8mile road and the second set were done from Point west. The water was very low at point west so we had to walk out maybe a quarter mile. Turned out to be a great day for kiteboarding in galveston.

We rode at a new spot in Galveston yesterday (2Mar10). It is located off of sportmans drive at the end of 8th street. See pics below. Great shallow spot with lots of islands to play with and around. Was great on a North West wind, but could be even better with a westerly wind. For more info call the shop. There is some obsticals out there and the launch is a bit tricky, but if you pump you kite up and walk it to the nearest island it isn’t too bad.

We took a recent trip to St Martin and thought we would write a little review about its kiteboarding and atmosphere. 

Saint Martin is a tropical island in the northeast, about 186 miles east of Puerto Rico and is split between the Dutch and French.  It is the smallest inhabited sea island to be divided between two nations.  Most business is transacted on the Dutch side of the island and most kiteboarding spots are on the French side.  The airport is on the Dutch side and has runway that ends/starts at a public beach.  This beach is right between two bars so tourists would go get loaded and hang on to the fence while 757’s took off and landed.  When the planes took off the sand hit them so hard they would be bleeding and sand would be blow a good 100 yards into the ocean.  Crazy!!!

The typical winds blow from the East so the north east part of the island is the best for kiting.  A few of the spots are Oriental Bay and Embouchure Bay.  I spent most of the trip in Philipsburg with a French couple (Vince and Sandra) aboard “Carolina” their 40′ aluminum sloop.  Vince is starting a 6mo sailing adventure around the Caribbean, like any great adventure.  He had to make a few “sacrifices” to make it happen one of which being quiting his job (although he did say he can get it back after the 6mo).  Anyway, I so jealous of the whole ragtag crew of the “Carolina” including Jean-Philippe whom I only spoke with never met, but will be arriving on the boat soon.  Wish them the best of luck with their trip, and hopefully they’ll have lots of wind.   

While we were there, the wind was light so no riding to be had, but we talked with some of the local kiteboarders and kiteshops.  If you’re traveling there give the shop a ring at 281-508-6485 or email us at houston@xlkites.com and we’ll forward the local kiteboarding info. 

Here are some pics from the trip.

Bacliff Spillway Park, 7Jan10

The winds were strong and the weather cold this morning, but a few of us braved the elements to get a piece of this front before the weather turned too cold for even the toughest Houston kiteboarders.  The morning started with a meet-up at Bacliff for a 10am start.  Winds averaging around 30mph with a temp in the mid 40s.  There was a miscommunication about which “truck” my wetsuit was in so I was wetsuit-less when I arrived at the Spillway.  I did have a old  short sleeve 2mm suit with me in my van and it started looking pretty good as a alternative to scrapping the session.  So we suited up, Chris in his 5mm with the built in hood and me in my 2mm with no arms…oh yeah hardcore.  At first there wasn’t much of a crowd at the park, but in no time as passerbys saw us kiteboarding fools out there pumping up we soon had a half full parking lot of spectators for our session. 

We pumped up a 10m RPM and 9m 2010 Octane with the 133cm Vision and 132 Misfit boards, thinking winds would be 25mph or so.  Once I got the 9m Octane in the air I could tell that is was much higher than that….gusting to high 30s.  We decided the safest course would be to take turns on one kite…I also had a strange feeling this would be a short session for me and my sleeveless-wonder-suit.  Made it to the boat ramp fine sometimes using 3 points of contact with the ground to keep steady in the gusts.  As soon as we got on the ramp with the kite, we were stopped by a group of curious girls exclaiming how cool it looked.  Of course we stopped and advised them that it got much cooler once we were in the water…I think they dug the suit.  Once in the water with the board on, the power was much easier to deal with and I was soon making progress out of the spillway toward the bay proper. 

I did my first jump just leaving the spillway and it was huge, high enough to totally kill any timing for landing.  Luckily, I had a short sleeved wetsuit on so there was no feeling in any of my limbs for the impact.  The next couple of big ones were better and by the end I was nailing them.  After 40min or so I traded the kite over to Chris and headed back to the van to calm my involuntary shivering.

From the van I had a great vantage point to watch Chris’ riding.  He had the same timing issue but was soon nailing his jumps.  He had some real monsters that were every inch of 40ft+.  There was one jump in particular (some of you can relate I’m sure) where he jumped high and just as his accent stopped you could see the gust hit and carry him an additional 10-15ft higher in the air.  I think someone with a telephoto-lens could have actually seen him crap his pants at the apex, it was extremely cool.  I only had my phone camera so no great shots today.

Great session!  We headed back in packed everything up took a bow for the parking lot crowd and headed back to the shop.

Phil Midler
XLKITES
281-508-6485
Houston@xlkites.com

While you guys are down in Houston living up the warm winter winds during the holiday break, I’m up in Minnesota with my family.  Here are some pics from snowshoeing the last few days on the St Croix river.  The wind has been light the last couple of days or I’d be out on the frozen lakes doing some snow kiting.  We’re supposed to get a snow storm with 10-24 inches of snow tomorrow so we should have great conditions for some epic snow kiting.  Enjoy the strong warm winter winds down there, can’t wait to get back. 

Chris Summers after the rideBacliff crossing…kind of

We (Mitch, Chris and me) met at Bacliff Tuesday morning to do a crossing to Smith Point on the other side of the bay, where we would be rewarded with island jumping and waist-deep butter flat water.  When I say Bacliff I mean the Bacliff spillway park, which can be seen in more detail on the riding area section of this site.  The spillway is a great spot to ride on a westerly wind and also a great spot to access the shortest distance for a mid-bay crossing (Eagle Point to Smith Point).  From the Spillway park to the other side of the bay at Smith Point is about 10mi in a straight line one way.  The crossing track that we proposed to take heads across the bay at an easterly direction passing to the north side of Red Fish Island before crossing the shipping channel on the way to the other side.

We met at the park at around 11am to rain and lightning, the winds were 20mph or so out of the NNE.  The day was off to a great start as I packed my 13m kite instead of my 11m, meaning I would have use this for the ride across the bay.  It was between my 9m and 13m so I chose my 13m and took the smaller 133cm board.  Mitch Andrews was on his 14m RPM and his 135 Len10 Lunacy board, he almost went with his 10m but decided on the 14m incase the wind dropped.  Chris Summers was on his 10m RPM with his 5’4” Celeritus surfboard as this is his go to board for all crossings…ask him about his first endurance race and he’ll tell you why.  We got our stuff pumped up before the heaviest rain started and waited for the storm and rain to pass.  The wind clocked a full 180 degrees as the front that the storms preceded passed and finally blew decidedly out of the original NNE direction.  The crossing to Smith Point needed a solid north wind or there would be a lot of upwind and downwind riding, so we knew we may already need to scrap the long run for the day. 

We suited up appropriately for the crossing in case we were reading the wind incorrectly or the wind shifted while we were out there.  I launched my 13m first (super over powered), Mitch second, and Chris self launched (since he had the smallest kite).  We walked across the parking lot and down the boat ramp into the spillway.  The spillway is fed by a “river” that used to bring cooling water to the NRG power plant that ceased operation years ago so the spillway is actually a shallow silt filled strip of water about 1ft deep.  The wind was blowing directly down the spillway so we slowly edged our way up wind until we could get around the metal and concrete bulkhead that extends about 100 yards out into the water to protect the spillway entrance.  Chris and I got impatient and jumped the bulkhead downwind to start our run south to see if we could make a line in the direction of point Smith.  We quickly learned that we could due to the easterly north wind.  We did however have a pretty good line to Red Fish Island so we headed for that.  Mitch and I were overpowered so we couldn’t make upwind progress as well as Chris so he led the way, we needed to make 5-7 tacks before we could make it to the inside of Red Fish island.

If you’re not familiar with Red Fish Island, it isn’t much of an island.  More like a crescent shaped pile of rocks with the open side of the crescent facing Eagle point.  This means that this pile of rocks kept a large section of water in the interior butter flat with a northern or easterly wind direction.  The Island is very close to the ship channel maybe .25mi or so, making it a good destination for tanker wave surfing.  The northern side of the island is no good for surfing but if you head to the south side it is an excellent spot to ride some swell.  While Mitch and I enjoyed the flat water riding and offshore jumps Chris took his surfboard to the southern end of the ship channel and rode the wake of the multiple tankers that kept passing.  There had to have been at least 3 really big tankers and probably 5 or so smaller ones while we were out there so he had plenty of action.  I saw him head to the upwind side of the channel to stay out of the tanker wind shadow. 

The jumps in the Red Fish island flats were phenomenal!   Because of the offshore winds inside the island you can jump very close to the beach and the wind will pull you back out to deeper water.  This means you can load up on the pond-flat water very near the beach.  Another great thing of riding in offshore winds like this are jump starts off the beach and board taps up onto the beach.  Smooth water also helps you hold your edge when loading up against a overpowered kite so the jumps were very big.  Overall, I think all of our riding out there was pretty conservative because of the prospect of the long self-rescue of 10mi or so down wind to the Levee if something were to go wrong.  After Chris came back we headed down-wind to our starting point at Bacliff landed our kites and packed up.  The entire trip was around 13-15mi of riding and we were out there for about 2.5 hours or so.  Great day on the water!

Phil Midler
XLKITES Houston          

2nd Attempt at Levee/Bolivar flats crossing
Local ripper Darrin Ramsey and I attempted the Levee/Bolivar flats crossing again this morning.  The weather was clear with winds from the ENE at about 16-20mph, I was on the 11m Slingshot Octane and Darrin was on his 12m Liquid Force Assault.  We both took twin-tip boards 133cm and 135cm.  The wind was initially a little more NE and it shifted ENE after we left the levee.  It was cold out this morning, but the wind was good and we were psyched to do the run.  We got to the levee around 9am and got our suits on, pumped up, launched and hit the water.    

After leaving the levee we quickly realized that the wind was too Easterly meaning we would have to tack up-wind until we could make it around the end of the dike.  So the trip up there would be hard but it would be smooth sailing down-wind on the way back.  We hit the dike at about the mid-point from tip to base on our first tack out, turned and started our long haul up-wind.  Darrin and I were not too close to one another, but occasionally we would see to see if the other guy was still there.  After turning on maybe the 3rd or so tack I saw Darrin’s kite in the water (which is strange because we were just riding back and forth).  I watched him and he relaunched it and everything seemed to be ok.  I kept riding and the next time I turned around Darrin’s kite was flapping like a wounded seagull trying to stay aloft.  It looked like his leading edge had partially deflated.  The kite eventually fully deflated and Darrin self rescued to the Dike.  Luckily, we were fairly close to a good section of the Dike that had a beach and no power lines so he was all set. 

I helped him get is stuff on the beach and while we were getting stuff situated we noticed a small new beach on the south side of the Dike (opposite side as the levee).  It must have been created during hurricane Ike as I had never seen a good access point on that side of the Dike before the storm.  We had never ridden over there and I’ve never heard of anyone even attempting; so we gave it a try.  The wind was coming over the dike so it was offshore, but a self rescue could have been made back to the very west end of the dike.  The water on this side of the dike was glassy smooth and the wind was completely unblocked by the low profile of the 5mi long dike.  It made for an amazing ride!   On an off-shore wind condition a rider is able to jump very close the shoreline and the wind will actually pull him back out to sea in the air.  It’s pretty cool.  There was one beach (across from where we self rescued) and another one about a half mile to the west (down-wind on the dike).  I could see the second beach from the first beach and decided to follow Darrin’s progress down the dike by doing a short down-wind ride on the south side of the dike.  My plan was to then access the north end of the dike, ride back to the Levee and pick Darrin up when he got back to skyline drive. 

Did I mention that neither one of us had booties, we had both forgot this morning?  This made the progress for Darrin down the dike very painful I’m sure.  He said that is was “90% painful and 10% excruciating”, he had to have walked 2+ miles on broken rock, gravel, etc lugging all of his gear until making it to Skyline drive.  Anyway, We made it down to the small beach and I came ashore.  Darrin was making arraignments with a dump truck driver for a ride so I figured he was all set; in the end the driver(s) denied his requests and he got to walk the whole way.  Meanwhile, I was walking across the dike to the north side to ride back to the Levee….the shoreline was totally wrecked…and me with no booties.  I did a horrible job starting on some rocks and pilings and then just did a super-man body drag out over the oysters and rocks till I could put my board on.  No idea how either of us escaped this escapade without some sort of foot injury.    

 I finally made it back to the Levee, self landed, packed the gear up and hopped in the van to go get Darrin.  He must have made great time or maybe I made bad time, but when I got to him he was back on Skyline drive and jogging toward the levee.  Who is this crazy guy!  He was probably .5 or .75 mi down from the dike road and I guess got cold so started jogging to get the blood flowing.  Finally made it back to Darrin’s car with him and all our gear.  What an adventure!  Moral of the story don’t forget your booties.  Gloves, life jacket, hood, and a warm wetsuit is also a must for cold weather long distance rides. 

Phil Midler
XLKITES-Houston
houston@xlkites.com

-For Complete story and pics hit “continue reading” link below-

This morning a bay crossing was planned from the Levee to Bolivar Penisula in Galveston bay.  We had 4-5 guys who were going to do it.  The wind was forecasted to be perfect out of the North East, giving us a nice fast tack there and back.  The plan was to leave the Levee in Texas City at 9am and head past the end of the dike through the shipping channel and around the bolivar ferry port to the cut in the Bolivar side jetty.  This would get us into the butter-smooth Bolivar flats.  Then do the opposite ride back to the Levee hitting tanker waves on the way…it would have been a 20mi ride round trip.  Long story short I ended up doing 17mi of the ride solo, details below:

I made my way to the Levee through the cold driving rain, the wind was definitely more than had been forecasted but I wasn’t sure how strong it was.  When I woke up I check the updated forecast for the day, actual readings and the radar so I knew the rain wasn’t going to give me any problems.  I arrived at the Levee by about 8:20 and started to rig my kite, I had a choice between the Slingshot Octane 13m or 11m.  The wind was gusting over 35mph at this point so I went with the 11m…hoping it would drop a bitJ  I waited till 9am and no one had showed up yet for the ride.  Instead of scrapping I decided to give it a go solo.  Keep in mind that even with good planning, experience, and steady wind conditions any kind of open water ride can be dangerous solo and should be well thought out decision.  That being said, I still wanted to do it.
 
I took my phone and van keys in a water proof bag, I wore booties and a life jacket just in case I needed to come up on some rocky shore.  I had an idea on the drive down that the other guys may bail so I came up with a contingency plan of attack for a solo ride.  I would ride to the end of the jetty and then switch to a west tack to make sure I could make it back up wind.  At this point I would do a few more passes to get well upwind to give myself drifting room in-case of an emergency and then shoot the gap to the other side of the channels as quickly as possible.  For those of you not familiar with the Dike/Galveston bay area.  If a kiteboarder had to self rescue anywhere southeast of the end of the dike he would end up floating through the Texas City and Houston Shipping channels not to mention washing ashore on Galveston island or Pelican island (a good 35-45 min drive from the Levee riding area).  I was on my 11m Slingshot Octane which was only about 2 months old so I wasn’t worried about a mechanical failure  and already had a plan of where to come in should I have some other problems out there.  

After cutting up wind at the end of the Dike, I started to cross the two shipping lanes.  There were two tankers in the main channel which was a problem for me being on the downwind side of them.  I needed to get upwind to the other side of the channel before they passed or risk being stuck in their wind shadow.  When I say ”tanker”, I mean any huge ship (1000-1500’ long); they could be oil tankers, container ships, or whatever.  All I know is they are all way taller than my kite and moving a little faster than I can on a broad reach.  I quickly crossed the channel well before they passed me giving myself plenty of room should something happen, but my adrenaline was still pumping.  After getting to the other side, I saw a rounded dorsal fin from a dolphin in the channel.  Then I saw another and another, there were like 3-5 dolphins out there with me doing their thing in the Houston Ship channel.

Once I rounded the edge of Bolivar Peninsula where the ferry comes in, the wind sharply dropped (because of the direction and it’s movement over land).  I decided I’d had a good trip so far and turned to head back so not to press my luck.  The channel was now filled with 2-3 different sized ships making their way into the bay (all huge).  Since I was on the upwind side of them and could take an almost parallel ride I kept heading north northwest trying to keep up with their fast pace.  About halfway across from Bolivar back to where the dike is, I started hitting the waves from the boat I was behind.  First I over took them from the rear and then moved across the stern of the boat (I was a really long way behind it) and started to make my way up to where the waves were breaking on the western edge of the channel.  It was hard to find a really clean break this far south in the bay, but I managed to get some fairly good rides in along the way. 

Once I made it back to the safety of the northeast side of the dike, I wanted to do some testing to see how bad the wind shadow was off a large tanker like these.  I made my way to the West side of the channel and into what I thought was the wind shadow of the large ship I had been following and nothing happened.  I figured I was too far away to be affected and started back to the Levee. In about a minute and a half  I started smelling the diesel fumes and the wind completely dropped out (kite falling out of the air).  I had found the wind shadow.  Even though I was probably 6 boat lengths away from that tanker it still had a large enough wind shadow to completely depower my kite.  So I sat in the water safely out of the channel and down-wind of the tanker and waited for the shadow to move.  It only took a 30 seconds or so and I was back in business.  Good to know next time you think about tanker surfing on the downwind side of these ships, eh?   So I played around in the surf for a while until I thought it was safe to head back in. 

Made it back to the Levee beach no problem although the wind had dropped significantly since I started this morning (see wind graph), I was still powered up.  The rain had not stopped since I left and actually felt good on my face after the long ride.  I half expected there to be a bunch of riders at the Levee, but only one guy was there, in town from Iowa just keeping warm in his car and biding his time till he ventured out to get wet in the cold. 

All in all is was a fantastic ride and a great thrill to do solo.  The wind had been gusting to over 35mph when I got to the levee and by the end mid teens.  The whole ride was probably around 17mi (3mi short of the planned trip) and took me about 1hr 20min to complete with no stops (other than the unplanned tanker stop).  The dolphins, tankers, and rain made it memorable  for sure.  If you have a kiteboarding story to share email me at houston@xlkites.com and we’ll post it.

Phil Midler – XLKITES.com

30 mile ride from East Beach to St Luis pass this Sunday. 
Details will be posted as we get closer to Sunday and the forecast gets more accurate. 
Meet at East beach at 1pm for skippers meeting about the ride.  The ride will start about 1:20-1:30pm (all times are tenative).  Final times/plans will be announced at the swap meet Saturday at the new shop (details below), they will also be posted on www.houstonkiteboarding.com as well as the twitter account.  We will be dropping the XLKITES truck at St Luis Pass and taking my black van back to East beach leaving St Luis at 12:30 SHARP!  Everyone needs to provide there own transportation or get with other riders to get to East beach.  If you’re at St Luis with no ride you can hitch with the XLKITES crew at 12:30 I have room for 10-15 brave souls.  This down-wind ride will be about 30mi and with the Easterly wind direction fast riders will make it in about 2 hours slow guys may take as long as 6+ so it is not for beginners.  The Keg of beer at the end of the ride will be for everyone (provided you’re of age).  There will be a number of us camping at St Luis after the ride…beer, tents, fire etc.  Please join us if you have a flexible work schedule for Monday or can go in late.  
 
Highlights:
 
-30mi down-wind ride for confident wave riding kiteboarders
-keg of beer and camping for every level of rider or freinds and family
-No watercraft will be in chase so self rescue compatancy is a must
-Down wind riding skills should be a prerequisite as it could be a seriously long ride if riders can’t ride down wind easily.   
-Skipper’s Meeting 1pm East Beach, ride start 1:30pm or so. 
 
ALL RIDERS ARE PARTICIPATING AT THIER OWN RISK, THIS IS NOT A SPONSORED EVENT…SEE YOU THERE!
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Kiteboarding Swap meet
Where: New Shop 1207 Marina Bay Drive, Kemah TX 77565 (see map)
When: Sat November 7th (10am-6pm)
Details:
 
Rules are the same as every year.  Bring used gear in to sell, have it to the shop by Friday Nov 6th.  Fill out the information below to put on a tag on your stuff.  No commission will be claimed by the shop for gear sold and money reinvested in new equipment.  A 20% consignment fee will be assessed for sellers wishing to get cash or check for their sold gear.  We’ll start all equipment at full marked price (the price you put on your tag), and at 1pm the price will drop 20% to ensure we get as much equipment sold as possible.  Some items people are looking for:
-Quad and tri surf boards
-Regular boards that are cheap
-Fins, Pads, Straps, etc
-Kites (Larger bow kites for light wind, or smaller bow kites for this time of year). 
 
No matter what you have, bring it by the shop and we’ll see if we can get it sold next weekend!  here is the information that you should have to put on your kite:
Item Name
Item Description
Item starting price
Owners name
Owners phone
Owners email
 
All sales will go to the customer’s XLKITES account, emails will be sent out if you’re not around on how you did with the equipment sale and you can decide what to do with the proceeds.
New Shop Location is in the old North Canvas Shop:
View Larger Map

Sweet trip to Hatteras, met some great folks from Wisc, Calf, Mich, Texas, NC, and Virgina out there.  The wind and waves were pretty good 20-30 the whole trip save one day, but the night life was crap.  If you fly to Hatteras, make sure the wind is blowing because there is nothing else to do unless you like building sand castles.  Talking to other riders there about their home spots, I think that Houston has more advanced riders than most areas in the nation…including hatteras.  We’re thinking of doing weekly clinics at the shop for riders who would like to bring thier skillz

Riding at Point West was great this morning!  Mitch, Gator, John, and the crew.  We’ll be out at the Levee all day Sunday 25Oct09 should be mid-teens all day.