Skateboarding Reviews - Videos & DVDs
Skateboarding DVD Video Review:Red Bull's King of the Air 2005 - "Upwind"
Director:
Studio:
Released: 2005
Rating: 5 Stars
Staring:
Robby Naish, Pete Cabrinha, Marcus “'Flash" Austin, Cory Roeseler, Lou Waiman, Ellito Legoe, Adam Kotch, Don Montague, Rueben Lenten, Susi Mai and Aaron Hadlow.
This is a review based on the free Red Bull King of the Air 2005 Upwind DVD packaged with Kiteboard magazine.
Before you get all higgelty-pigglety on me about reviewing a kiteboarding video, lets briefly discuss why this may be relevant to our world of SK8. Our differences may be land -vs- water, but kiteboarding is about harnessing the power of the wind as a form of energy and propulsion. This energy could well benefit a skater looking for a new thrill.
Remember all those "off-road" skateboards with spring-loaded trucks and knobby rubber tires? Still wondering what to do with one?
But lets get back to King Of The Air...
Kiteboarding is a relevant sport, if for no other reason, it was born from the minds of brave individuals who wanted to take their love for water sports and do it bigger and better. Anyone who has wind surfed or sailed knows that Mother Nature can deliver enormous power. The trick is properly harnessing that power.
At its inception, kiteboarding had no commercial backing or an industry interested in developing the sport. Individuals welded wind surfer parts to make bars and crafted kites from the best materials they had available to them. It was soon evident that kites could deliver much more of an adrenaline rush than any other wind-water sport.
As spectators on the beach saw the 40' airs and watched riders dangle below an arc-shaped kite, word got around that something crazy cool was going down. In a few short years, individuals had perfected their home grown sport to the point at which they ruled the water for both speed and air. Zooming past wind surfers was a common occurrence - they couldn't keep up!
A milestone in the sport was the ability to travel upwind. Much like kayaking a river, kiteboarding was a one way adventure that went where the wind took you. The art of digging in the rails and being able to maintain a line while traveling upwind changed the sport immeasurably. Suddenly, all sorts of people were kiteboarding and magazines and manufacturers sprang up - almost overnight.
As equipment got better, so did technique. Riders learned to dump and return power to and from the kite allowing them to control how much power they took from the wind. Compared to windsurfing, a kiteboarder has twice the sail and half the board - an excellent combo for speed.
King Of The Air gives a rich history of the sport, told by those who were there creating that history. Their stories of an infant sport's rise to glory is inspiring. Check out kiteboarding and watch as it grows even bigger.
Bonus Stuff
- Slide show
- Flash Austin figures it out - watch the master develop his kite skills that would propel thimself and the sport to new heights.
- Mike & Corey Talk Shop - 30 seconds of these 2 guys discussing how to best go upwind. Um... wtf? 30 seconds? Is that a bonus feature?
But what about SKATEBOARDING?
Right. So lets examine why kites and such could benefit those of us who prefer to surf the concrete waves...
Mountain boarding or off road skating as it has been called involves those expensive custom decks with springy trucks and knobby inflatable tires. For a while i thought it would be fun to rage down a mountain - like snowboarding with no snow - with one of these things, but after one run, the thought of climbing back up the hill ruined it for me. Would you go snowboarding if there were no chair-lifts? Exactly.
So, kites take advantage of the power of wind. Hmmm... I'll bet a decked out off-road SK8 with sky-hooks (loops to keep your feet on the deck) would hold a line way better than a wakeboard with fins. Imagine taking that power and raging through a mogul field taking air with the greatest of ease.
Give it some thought.
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