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/

What: Slingshot Demo with XLKITES
When: Thursday 29Apr10 from 12 noon to 5 or 6pm
What:  All kiteboarding equipment will be available for demo including boards and kites.  Sales made during or in the few days following the demo will be 20% off!  This goes for kites and boards. 
We just bought a bunch of 2009 Closeout RPMs in 10m, 12m, 6m as well as some Octane 13m kites.  Email or call the shop houston@xlkites.com  281-508-6485 for more info or to order, they will go fast.  $999-1249 complete.

The final day for The Litewave/Globekite demo was Yesterday 28Mar10 Sunday.  Winds were great from the North West at 22-32mph or so varying all day long.  We had a very good turn out and definitely had the most riders that the Pass riding location has ever seen.  Most of the demo gear has already been sold but we still have a few boards and kites left and they are going for sale at the demo price the rest of this week. 

We have a 12m Sonic, 11m Trix, 9m Trix, 132cm and 144cm spirit boards and 5′8″ surf shape surfboard.  All demo equipment is at least 20% off retail and has only been used for the last 2 days during the demo.  Call 281-508-6485 or email houston@xlkites.com to buy or inquire. 

Enjoy the pics of the madness at the Pass:

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.

HQ demo at the Levee in Texas city from 9am to 12pm.

Chris from HQ will be on hand for a demo at the Levee riding area tomorrow, Tuesday 2Feb10 from 9am to noon. There will be light winds but a good time to checkout some of the new foils from HQ including the scout, Hydra, and Neo. The Neo is HQ’s newest foil design which is a relaunchable water foil. Similar to the neo is the hydra which is a trainer kite version of the Neo that allows students to take their trainer kite in the water for body dragging.

Meet XLKITES in front of the convention center Wednesday am for a surf session in the waves. The wind should be out of the ENE which is side shore and should be great for surf riding. We’ll be out there till 11am or so.

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

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

We have some smaller to medium sized kites that we’re moving out to get the new 2010 gear in stock.  Here is a list of what we have:

2009 10m North Vegas complete $1099
2009 10m Slingshot RPM complete $1099
2009 9m Slingshot T3 complete $899
2010 10m Switchblade IDS (locals discount)
2009 12m Slingshot RPM complete 12m (limited quantities) $1199
08 $415 Crazyfly RockyPro Edition 130×40 deck and fins only
08 $350 Crazyfly Raptor Pro 132×39 deck only (no fiins)
08 $390 Crazyfly Girls Allround 135×41 deck and fins only
08 $199 Liquid Force Proof 161 deck, fins only
2009 Misfit boards complete $450 (less with local discount)

Used Gear:
Slingshot T3 $525 on the 11m no pump
Slingshot T3 $275 T3-5m kite only
Slingshot T3 $ 300 7m kite only
Rev $ 325 7m kite only
HQ Montana 9.5 $595 complete 
Pyro Pro Drysuit MT no leaks $300 (in fresh water only)09 NPX Lucifer
Pyro Pro Drysuit XXL no leaks $550 (new)
Pyro Pro Drysuit XXL warranty repair less than 3 hours in fresh water $480
17m Cabrinha Contra 17m New condition never flown
11m Slingshot Rev complete $750
11m Slingshot GTO complete $250
11m Slingshot Fuel complete $225
15m Slingshot Fuel Complete $300
20m North Rhino (brand new condition never flown) Complete $425
179cm Litewave Freeride complete with bag $350
Slingshot SST 6′2″ with bag $399
152cm Slingshot board $100 complete

Give us a call or email to get in on some of these new or used deals…we have a lot more but cannot list it all.  281-508-6485 or houston@xlkites.com

We also just got in the following gear:
Sand bags
Wind meters
Helmets
booties
Magazines
New Ben Wilson surf dvd
New snowkiting dvd
Pyros and Renegade harnesses
More 12m RPMs
All sizes of 2010 Switchblade IDS
HQ spinners and recreational kites
Give us a call if you have specific questions 281-508-6485 or 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

A group of H-town locals headed to the Bacliff Spillway Park today to take advantage of the huge winds following that cold front that pushed through early on Monday. There were the two Chris’, Big Mitch, Me (Phil), Matt, Dru, John, and a few others. I sacrificed part of my session to get shots off a piling off shore a ways. The pics turned out great and I did get to ride before and after. Chris definitely gets the award for the best shots of the day with Matt K running a close second. I picked out a few good ones of the 300+ we took. Check our Twitter account for these types of events in the future or give the shop a call. Ride Hard and Support your Local Shop!!

For Pics hit the continue reading link below…

9 of 17 riders make it to St Luis Pass from East BeachSupport your local XLKITES Shop!  Keep events like this happening, from kite repairs to small assessories, every bit helps to keep the stoke up in the local area.  THANKS for coming out for the event those who did!!  Racers met at East Beach just after 11am for a skipper’s meeting and then headed down wind to St Luis pass.  The wind was 13mph to 17mph with 5-8ft surf most riders rigged larger kites because the forecast was .  Total riders at east beach was around 20-30 of that 17 brave souls decided to make the 30mi journey downwind to St Luis Pass. 9 People made the run all the way to the end.  This was the first time we’ve done a downwinder this long and will be sure to do another since we got such a positive response.  Fastest finish was 2hrs 21min and slowest was around 5 hours. Send your personal ride stories to houston@xlkites.com or just post them as a comment on this page.  What happend to those who didn’t make it? I’ve heard of a ripped kite panel, self-rescue at the sea wall, and extreme exhaustion.

…..SUNDAY Galveston Island ride…..
11am Skippers meeting at the East Beach Jetty
Everyone needs to find transportation back to East Beach from St Luis pass (leave cars at st Luis)
Camping Sunday night at St Luis bring tents, sleeping equipment, etc (I’ll bring the keg)
Don’t forget to bring water on the ride as well as safety equipment (impact vest, hook knife, dry bag cell phone, kite leash, etc)
Expect head-high surf (5-6ft) and side/side-on breeze from 15-17mph and plan accordingly
The side/side-on wind direction will make it somewhat difficult to ride directly down wind without some skillz…so bring em. 
Don’t forget to stop by the SWAP meet today we already got some good stuff in from people.

Swap meet is on for 10am-6pm Sat November 7th at the new XLKITES-Houston location.
The 30mi down-wind ride is scheduled for Sunday November 8th from East Beach in Galveston to St Luis Pass.  Lets move the skipper’s meeting up to 11am at East Beach (start around 11:30am).  This means the XLKITES van will leave St. Luis pass at 1030am.  Also, if we’re going to ride Galveston island we need to do the whole thing so we’ll meet up at the East Beach Jetty for the 11am skipper’s meeting.  Forecast below:   

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!
______________________________________________________________________________________
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:
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Houston Shop is moving to 1207 Marina Bay drive…  about a block from the old shop next to Banks Sails.  The swap meet will be there, make sure you drop off all used items by Friday 6Nov09.  Give us a call or send us an email for more info houston@xlkites.com 281-508-6485.  There may also be a way to buy items via the internet after the initial sales are completed.