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Written by Alex Close/Tahoe World
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Tuesday, 18 July 2006 |
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 While the water on Big Blue might not be the warmest water in the world, the wind is usually reliable. With the heat from the Sacramento Valley pushing air up and into the Sierra for most of the summer, each afternoon is often perfect for wind sports.
One of the more extreme activities in that category is kiteboarding. For those who don’t know, kiteboarding is essentially riding on a wake board – although kiteboards are a little bit more flat – while flying a huge kite that pulls the rider along through the water like a sail.
The same thing can be done on snow, and often is up at Tahoe Meadows and other high elevation wind whipped areas during Tahoe winters.
There are some essentials as far as gear goes in the world of kiteboarding. Unfortunately, kiteboarding doesn’t seem to have caught on in a huge way in Tahoe, and only one local place carries gear. tahoemountainsports.com is that place.
Dave Polivy of tahoemountainsports.com is a kiteboarder as well as one of the owners of the online adventure sports retailer.
According to Polivy, to get started someone would need a trainer kite, board, harness, lines and a bar, along with a wetsuit, helmet and PFD.
A trainer kite is essentially a smaller kite, usually with two lines and is almost always a foil style kite, which means its leading edge is open as opposed to an inflated kite which has an inflatable leading edge.
Polivy recommends the Slingshot B2 or Ozone Imp as good trainer kites.
 The most essential thing someone wanting to get into the sport needs is lessons. Polivy said this is not a sport one just tries out.
“Lessons are a requirement,” Polivy said. "One wouldn’t want to get carried over the mountains because they don’t know what they’re doing."
Unfortunately there are no kiteboarding schools in the Tahoe area, but Polivy recommends Wind Over Water kiteboarding school out of the Bay Area.
For those already in the know, there are some cool new things out.
Polivy said that Ozone pioneered safety and de-power technologies in its snow kites and now that technology has found its way over into water kiteing.
Also a very cool new kite is Slingshot’s Turbo Diesel series, which are bow kites that offer much greater control, are very de-powerable and provide a larger wind range.
According to Polivy, the lust set up for this year would be a Slingshot Turbo Diesel kite, which when complete comes with a carbon pro-fire bar, which is a powerstroke four line bar with 100 percent de-power ability.
As far as a board goes Polivy recommends the new 2006 Slingshot SX along with a DaKine Tabu harness.
From kite to board it’s about a $2,200 set up.
Polivy acknowledges that kiteboarding is expensive to get into, but offers some consolation.
“If you’re looking to get into the sport, any kite from 2004 on would be acceptable,” Polivy said.
Happy flying!
Photos by Ryan Salm/Tahoe World
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 18 July 2006 )
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