hidden inside all the cardboard and bubble wrap i finally uncovered my latest ebay purchase, a shiny new (well new to me) Garmin Etrex GPS unit, this unit seems to be the choice of kite buggiers and was recomended to me. the person i bought it from was even nice enough to leave two new batteries in it for me.

It appears as though Cycle Speedos are not the most accurate of devices at the best of times even when fitted to a bike, after a day at the beach and multiple runs up and down the beach my speedo was making the very bold claim that i had managed to attain the speed of 59.6Mph

To put this in perspective the current speed record for buggying is around the 80Mph mark, and this was achieved with equipment costing many thousands of pounds and with pilots who had years of experience buggy riding and kite flying, along i came with three months of experience, an inexpensive kite and a second hand buggy and had came within 20Mph of the current world speed record…

Oddly when i posted about this on a kite forum i was met with some curious looks and some questions on what i was using to power my buggy.

After a lot of discussions and thoughts about this speed i needed to get some bases covered to try and help prove this may well be correct, so between me and my brother in law we devised a plan to tow my buggy behind my car on an empty industrial estate and monitor the buggys speedo using acutal GPS units.

After two seperate runs @ 20Mph using two different Iphones both using different GPS applications it became fairly clear that the speedo on the buggy was acutally correct i had acutally managed to-do 59.6mph.

Desipte all our good efforts and tests to prove that the speedo was acurate on my buggy, it appears as though the only true way people will accept that i did this speed is to capture it using a GPS unit, so a quick stop back at my favorite auction website and i was now awaiting my GPS units arrival.

after the usual head scrating i had managed to turn my pile of metal tubing into the usual buggy shape, i was getting quicker at doing this it no longer looked like somene trying to re-plumb there boiler with a DIY kit, but i now looked like i knew what i was going with it.

Got the kite flying and as i expected,  the new kite produced a lot more traction than my previous kite, it pointed this out to me by trying to pull me across the beach and into the sea. Jumped in the buggy and off i went.

After about 10 minutes i also realised the new kite produced so much pull that my buggy was now able to travel sideways when the kite decided it should, this may sound very cool and perfect for a quick adrenaline rush, however when your not expecting it,  have no idea how it should be corrected, it tends to scare the life out of you.

88Mph (back to the future reference)

so i was now able to speed down the beach and have great fun doing it, the next bit that hit me was the question, so now im zipping down the beach, how fast am i actually going?

so after a good day spent going back and forth the beach, soaking up the sun and enjoying the thrill of being 2 inches off the ground and shifting at what felt like a million miles an hour i decided i should get a little more technical with my speed measurements and get the buggy kitted out with a speedo.

So like most things i do, i referred to my old friend Google, after some reading up on the matter and question asking, i came away with two options.

• Satalite Navigation
  This option seemed to be the preferred option by everyone, however it could also cost a lot for the GPS unit itself, so i decided this would  be my final solution when i had money to pay for a GPS unit.
• Bicycle Speedo
  I settled on this option as it was fairly cost effective (potentially under £15)  easy to get setup and seemed to be accurate as well.

So off to my local Bicycle shop i went with a buggy wheel and some cash, after a few discussions with the owner i left with a bike speedo that suited the size of wheel i was using and would fit on my buggy with little modification, an afternoon spent with a sharp knife and some wire ties it was fitted and ready for its first test run.

my thought process was simple and effective.

the bigger the kite the quicker i go.

whilst this was pretty much spot on, i did run into some flaws that i needed to iron out before going any further, these were :

• Insurance
• Head Protection
• Bigger Kite

Proberbly the last thing on anyones mind when there just getting into a new hobby is the fact anything bad can happen, ive always been a tad pesimistic when trying something new, as it always looks shiny and new but you can gaurantee there is something lurking around the corner waiting to upset you.

This was the propect of injuries and other painful problems an extreme sport can inflict on a person, so i started shopping around, and shortly after i reliased i needed insurance i was insurered and a quick trip to my local Motorbike dealer secured me a nice helmet to protect my head.

later that evening and some more abuse of my bank account i managed to confirm an order for a larger kite, this was a step up from the 3 meter kite i already had it was 5 meters wide and going to be the equivilant of a Spitfires Merlin engine compared to my 3m kite.

Time to sit and wait for the couriers to turn up.

so we did what we have been doing for the last couple weeks packed up and headed for the beach, it was after about an hour i realized that i was not able to balance on moving objects. this was something i also found out when i was a lot younger and my grand parents had bought me a skate board.

so i made the decision that Kiteboarding was not the route for me, so it was kite surfing or buggying. well as it happens i am a really poor swimmer so i settled on buggying.

One quick Ebay auction later and i was ready to go.. hmm doesn’t look very safe does it.

The weekend couldn’t have come quick enough, but it did eventually turn up so i headed back to the beach for some fun in my new buggy. after a bit of head scratching and contemplation i managed to get a mass of metal tubing connected together and i was away.

After trying a lot of different things it finally hit me that my newly acquired three meter Kite was not up-to the job of pulling me along the beach..

in fact i’m pretty sure a category 5 hurricane would have struggled to move me and the buggy down the beach using my current kite. i was a little bit gutted by this thought as i was a little bit attached to my little kite, it was the first one i owned and what i had been using till now.

Time to get back on the internet for some research..

I found myself telling Ebay to notify me when nearly every kite for sale in the UK came close to ending, after a bit of a bidding war and two near misses it happened.

Ebay : Congratulation you have won.

i was now the proud owner of a 3m Powerkite, all i had to-do now was wait for it to arrive….

The two days it took for this kite to go from the previous owner to me seemed to drag on forever.

Eventually i came home from work to find a package with my name on it. so i sat down unpacked it and found an uncontrollable grin working its way across my face at the thought of my new Kite.

Not long after this i phoned a friend and made arrangements to get out into the local fields to have ago with my new purchase. after unpacking and getting everything setup, i was slightly disappointed to find my new Kite refused to fly and when it did fly it was near enough uncontrollable.

After some tinkering with lines / knots and other kite related bits i was in business, after that my time was spent  getting to grips with the basics of Power Kite flying, control and also trying to ensure i did’nt end up being dragged of my feet.

It was a short while after my friend had launched his Kite i realized how much respect they demand.

Whilst talking to him and running through the usual list of questions someone new would be expected to ask. my friend was halfway though an answer to a question, when without warning he disappeared off down the field quite quickly in the same way Superman would take to the skies.

The only difference however my friend was not Superman, so we set off after him to check he was ok, after a brief amount of cursing at the Kite he explained to me that whilst he had been talking to me he had taken his eyes (and concentration) off the Kite and it had decided to remind him that not paying attention would come with consequences.

So whilst Superman he decided he needed a few moments to recover and asked me and another friend if either of us wanted to try flying the kite, Now im not sure what the difference between my friends though process was and mine but the outcome was he said NO and i said YES , I was then given some quick lessons on Kite control and the basics.

It was at this point i found myself standing in a field flying the largest kite i had ever encountered at this point, it was surprisingly easy to-do, i had expected to be fighting to make sure i did not become this Kites next tool for flattening out the ferns, but it was nothing like that at all, it sounds cheesy but its as though the Kite knew what i wanted to-do as very minor movements from me made it react and move very easily.

After about 10 – 20 minutes (it felt a lot longer in my head), i had started to become a little more relaxed and braver as well, so i started to-do more things and also started to investigate the amount of pull a 3m piece of nylon could develop. I can happily say that they develop a LOT of pull. So with my friend still a little dazed and me being pumped full of adrenaline i decided this was something i could get into.

By this point it was getting cold dark and windy so we decided it was time to head for home, i was almost as happy to hear this as i was flying the kite. My Reason? Ebay / internet / google so many ways the geek inside me could now start researching Power Kites and how i could get involved.