Hi,
Last winter I started experimenting with high speed kiting. I have put together a video clip from a fun day on the sea:



What type of kites do you think would be best for reaching as high speed as possible with ice buggy? Buggy race kites?

Be sure to post your speeds on www.stormboarding.com and popeythewelder has a site for buggy speeds. I clocked 48mph on a sled I built and expect to go a bit faster on my buggies that I just built blades for. I think race kites ought to be fastest but there just are'nt enough out there flying on the ice to really see if they dominate. Peter Lynn chargers are breaking 70mph on skis and they are any but a race kite. Good luck , have fun , post your speeds.

Sweet setup Vindman. I put some blades on my buggy about 10 years ago, fastest thing I've ever ridden behind a kite. I used a 3m Ozone razor on handles and a 6m windwing foil. (they don't make either kite now). Back then, I was hitting 60mph, but it was hard to steer because my front blade was too long and my runner were not sharp enough.

I'm building a custom Ice buggy for this winter; with the right size runners and a wider, longer design. I'm going to use a 4m and 6m Ozone Yakuza race kite. Will post pics and video when I get it finished.

If you're a kiter and like speed, Ice is where its at. Get a race kite on handles if you want to go as fast as you can.

Thanks for posting.

Joel B

Here's a pic of me on my ice board a few years back:

Since ice buggies have very little resistance on the ice, you only just need a little bit of wind to pick speed.
As such, a very efficient buggy race mattrass is highly recommended as these kind of kites have the least aerodynamic drag.

Arjen van der Tol, the fastest man in the world in buggy, has done 99,5 km/hr on ice and he used Peter Lynn Vapor kites.
I am not sure if this 99.5 km/hr is the fastest ever on ice, but ice buggying goes fast for sure.
You only need big lakes, black ice and no trees on the shore line and certainly no cracks in the ice : watch this : http://www.xxtreme.nl/xxtreme-ice-buggying-2/

rgds,

Eric MTwater
snowbuggy.nl

Thanks for the replies and the useful info. Great that there will be some more ice buggies out there this winter. Let's hope for good ice. It would be interesting to see photos of your crafts when they are ready.

Race kites are new to me since I usually fly depower. Well, not completely new, since I use a 14m Yakuza during snowkite expeditions when the wind is weak, but I have no experience of race kites in stronger winds. The Big Yak is a great kite, it is possible to go really far upwind, even when pulling heavy pulks (sleds), much further upwind than the other snowkiters can go with their normal kites. Race kites are indeed exciting beasts. It would be interesting to start to use smaller race kites with the ice buggy. It seems that I should invest in some race kites for this winter then. When I use my depower kites (Frenzy, Manta, Access) on ice, the buggy seems to be too fast for the kites, so a fast kite should be good.

How about using the Ozone Turbo Bar with e.g. Yakuza kites, do you think that would work?

Eric: Spectacular OBE in the video! Imagine if he would have landed on the head

Hi Vindman,

Great to read you have snowkite expedition experience.
We are preparing ourselves for a crossing of Greenland in 2013...have you been to Greenland too ?

If so, I woudl be pleased learning from your experiences.
Could we communicate via email ?
Somehow I can not send an email or PM via this forum to you.

Rgds,
Eric
www.snowbuggy.nl

Hi Eric,

I had a look at your website. What a fun project! I am also involved in an interesting snowbyggy project: I am helping a couple of ex paralympic athletes with buggy snowkiting (as well as ice and land buggying). We're trying out homemade designs where the pilot can control both the kite and the buggy with the bar. We are also trying out buggy with skis that edge in the turns; this concept works really good with rocker skis from Hendryx. One idea that we have is a design which is a bit like the crab buggy but with skis instead of wheels.

When it comes to snowkiting with skis on the feet I like to do long tours on the tundras of arctic Lapland and on the frozen sea between Sweden and Finland. I also cooperate with X-plore where I have introduced Sápmi in their tour program and I run their tour kiting courses (see video from November last year). Sápmi is a good place for tour snowkiting since there is interesting terrain and a long season; just look at this photo from downtown Kiruna yesterday (the season has started )



It would be great to see your buggys in action! Maybe you could come over here to try them out? Flatruetvägen.se is a website that I created and there I describe a place that is very good for snowbyggy tests. I will contact you via your website.

Cheers,
Anders

Now I have tried Yakuza 7m with the icebuggy. It is definitely better than my depower kites for high speed kiting. It pulls a lot at high speed - also upwards, which I noticed yesterday. I also noticed that even though my ice blades are high, they do not break through all snow walls.

Vindman the sights and sound in your video are newly familiar to me and oh so sweet. Those gentle OBE's though I have yet to experience. Nice vid!

Nice OBE's...much more relaxed then Ozzy's OBE here in Holland...


Anyway here is our latest video of our snowbuggy build for our oncoming Greenland crossing :

http://www.vliegerforum.nl/index.php?showtopic=46988