What to do on a windless day on Maui - Freebord!

Just before heading out to Maui, I brought Susi and Tom up to SF to visit Freebord to try out their gear on a windy day at Crissy. We wanted to see if we could snowboard on asphalt and stay upwind with a kite. 35MPH winds, with a trainer kite and a freebord...

The product is like a longboard with two truck wheels along the center that swivel - so it rides like a snowboard. Here are some cool shots of the board's evolution :

The intention was to bring them to Maui and try them out with 4 line kites so we could also depower if needed. We planned to kite but the wind was too light. So we rode 'em anyway! Susi Mai, Tom Court, plus Jesse Richman (winner of PKRA France) and Clarissa Hempel, who just won the Texas Velocity games last week.

Kristen Boese & Susi Mai - winners at SuperKite Brasil

Our own Susi told me that she placed at Superkite Brasil today. From the news release : Another great moment of the day, for riders and the public, is the Course Racing. Imagine: a beautiful beach, 25 knots wind, coconut trees, a perfect set up, helicopter, a 1.5km course with upwind and downwind tacks (2 rounds for the men, one for the ladies)....




Course Racing Women ranking:
1 Kristin Boese GER Best
2 Susi Mai GER Cabrinha
3 Ainhoa Garcia SPA Airush

Susi Mai teaching the Raley

Back to Mai Tai Kite Camp lessons... Susi does an amazing Raley, and she looks almost as good off the water as on.

Incredibly limber with great power - and by definition, unhooked.

I've not kited unhooked (on purpose) for 5 years - but given the quality of her moves, i'm going to focus on the baby step of kiting unhooked this summer.

Mai Tai Kite Camp 2007


Last week, 3 dozen kite addicted Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and VC's converged on one of kiteboarding's epicenters - Kite Beach Maui - to learn and improve with coaching and help from Natasha Casebolt and Susi Mai. Pete Cabrinha and crew also provided a TON of help -



Lots of pics are have been posted by Susi Mai at MaiTaiSports .

And here are a couple lessons from the trip : First, here's Susi showing us how its done --

And if ever Cameron Dietrich (who tests all the Cabrinha prototypes)says "here's how you jump" - just hand him your kites - thats what I did..