If you’ve never heard of the Velocity Games, either your very out of touched with the competition side of kiteboarding, or you haven’t been kiting long enough to catch word about it. Back in the day it was a fairly large international competition bringing in many of the top ranked kiters along with a handful outside sponsors. It was kind of a big deal, and it happened on the very streets of downtown Corpus Christi. But oh how things have changed. It’s still an awesome, super windy, and very consistent place to ride but I don’t see an event of that scale coming back to Texas any time soon which is a bit of a shame because the kiting there is on par.
Right around the corner from “what once was” is “what still is”, and that is no other than Kiteboarding.com. The Kiteboarding.com, our sport’s website, and I had no idea who the heck that was.
Kiteboarding.com, “Oh that’s cool, nice name choice,” but I had no idea I was standing in the presence of a man who has had a very large impact of our sport from almost the beginning in so many ways I don’t have time to go into detail with. The guys at Kiteboarding.com and actually the whole kite crew scene are one of the coolest, most genuine group of individuals I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in a very long time. To see such a community was”¦ refreshing. You could literally feel it in the air, almost as if the air was fresher.
On Saturday, May 28th, Damien and I were lucky enough to score perfect demo weather and an injury free day full of good vibes. But on Friday, the day before is where all the excitement at this stop happened. After a quick and delicious gas station taco, we pumped up our 6 and 8m’s and went all out! Big old floaty kite-loops to kick things off right, then we went into some board offs to back it up, oh and don’t forget about all the shenanigans! Riding on each other’s shoulders, jumping into each other’s kites, jumping over Tiki huts on a dock. Lovely right?
Well even the best of us make mistakes and can cost us dearly. I was one bad bar pull away from looping my 6m Switchblade backwards with one foot strap right into a dock. I even took photos. I knew lining up for the jump that this didn’t feel right and as soon as pull the trigger my front foot came out. I was able to keep the other footstrap off but at the time I was slightly twisted into a front roll. Naturally I went with it, but since I went into the roll late and unintentionally got discombobulated, I wasn’t exactly sure which line I needed to pull on.
When you’re in a position like that (backwards and confused) and you have a small enough kite that can react to the movements, it’s best to play a small game of ping pong to feel which way you need to bring the kite. Right, left, right and the kite’s back at 12 landed me somewhat softly. If I were to pull too drastically in either direction I would have been flung into something I could do without hitting.
Damien of course sees the whole ordeal, flags me back, and gives me a good reprimanding. You live and you learn and I was lucky enough to live. I wasn’t able to make the crossing across their bay to kite around the aircraft carrier but I think we had enough fun for one day.
We packed up shop, got a bite to eat, and rallied over 200 miles to land us at our very last stop, Houston Kiteboarding. There was word that I might have the opportunity to surf a tanker wave for the first time in my life. Well timing is everything and we didn’t have it. I saw some potential but it was a mission and a half to get to the area plus just like real waves, you need a set, i.e. a big heavy loaded boat, and unfortunately we didn’t get that.
But what we did get was lightwind, good vibes, and some big mother loving mosquitos. As we were waiting to set up, Damien and I went for a stroll in the van around the Jetty and parks in the area. I swear to you it was like a scene out of Jurassic park, these monster mosquitos were bouncing against the windows dying for the taste of our blood. “You boys ain’t from around here are you?” The mosquitos questioned.
Luckily, 8 knots was all it took to blow the bugs away and we had 12! But again, this was the perfect chance to show how efficient our Contras and Velocitys are against the challenging task of riding lightwind. People were stoked, vibes were great, and we totally got what we came out here to do. It was a good trip. I didn’t get to surf a tanker but that’s one of the reasons I plan to head back to Texas sometime soon.
If you’d like to see more of Brandon Bowe and his travels you can follow him on instagram @BrandonBowe or on facebook.com/