Toby wrote:Spectators got bored with that? Do you mean the riders watching themselves? True, but not the average joe
well my memory's failing as I get older
- but that's pretty much how I remember it yeah...
certainly when board-offs were popular around 2001, 2002 you'd regularly see 'average joe's' (including myself) trying board-offs and varials down the local beach. Nationally and internationally comps would see riders desperately trying to find new ways of twiddling their boards around while doing a big dangle...
even then it felt like maybe the sport had driven itself up a cul-de-sac - the organisers tried to spice it up by banning handles to increase the difficulty - but it still felt like something was missing...
my memory of everything changing was the first time someone hucked a massive kiteloop in competition - think it was one of the slingshot riders (jeff tobias?). Suddenly here was this move that required timing and skill - and huge committment as the wipeouts were brutal (remember this was back when every kite was a c-kite and very little depower)
board-offs pretty much disappeared overnight round our way as everyone tried to build up the courage to do this new fangled, scary-ass 'kiteloop' thing...
not quite as big - but similar impact on the pkra this year I think - now everyone's figured that bindings give the opportunity to have full board control with way more power - the whole level's jumped up a notch (imho)
I agree that it's not instantly accessible to non-kiters though - to me ideal would be a kiteloop contest run alongside each freestyle event