Kiteboarding Banned at Hobie Beach

pdxmonkeyboy · Sat Mar 20, 10 5:08 pm

Two words: Kevin Kearney

stevegriffith22 · Since 14 May 2006 434 Posts Obsessed

It is about sponsors, and riders. People as sponsored athletes need to know that as a sponsored athlete that they represent the company on and off the water. If they get drunk in a bar, it represents the sponsor, if they kite loop over public there name is all over the kite, so sponsors should have serious discusions with athletes about the way they want the company represented. Besides, who wants a d-bag working for them. Shocked

blancoh2o · Since 15 Mar 2005 1154 Posts Oregon Phishy

blancoh2o · Since 15 Mar 2005 1154 Posts Oregon Phishy

Lets try to put the Oregon Vs Florida argument to rest. A couple of us adding to this discussion moved here from Florida.

Last year we had an awesome contetion of Florida kiters spend a lot of time here and they all are welcome to come back. They got involved in many of our local events by volunteering their time to make them very succesful. I can't thank them enough for their participation.

This thread is very much about dealing with people and respect. Obvisously Mike Bradley has no respect and has done lost of damage to our sport. There have been other guys who have showed up in the Gorge (from all over the world) and didn't realize they were breaking rules and once they were warned everything was cool. Unfortunatetly Mike Bradley still doesn't give a crap about our sport. He already was dumped from one sponsor, hopefully his current sponsor will get wind of his unproffessionalism and dump him too.

bwd · Since 04 Aug 2007 385 Posts Obsessed

I didn't mean to diss FL (and FWIW actually live in the east and haven't been in the gorge for a long time).
FL's got a lot of crowds, obviously also enormous offerings.
And plenty of room to ride where it's less crowded.

When I say no more team riders until improvement,
it's my way of saying, "check the brakes, there might be a wreck around the next corner"
Like the latest thing in Miami, all the guy had to do was accidentally unhook or miss timing, and oops, another potential big black eye for the sport.

I didn't mean no sponsorship/ brand representation at all or punish everybody.
I mean if one rider is sponsored and does bad stuff, un-sponsor that rider, and get potential riders vetted for sanity and judgment before signing on.
And the guys that aren't sponsored and do dumb stuff?
Still a problem, but good role models can help at least a bit.

pdxmonkeyboy · Sun Mar 21, 10 11:59 am

yeah, I wasn't trying to diss on Florida. I have ridden in Naples several times now (and even got a warning once for unhooking to close to shore). The guys I ran into were very cool. I really don't see beaches being banned in Florida having an impact on the NW scene as kiteboarding is much more prevalent and understood by the planners, land managers, port authorities, etc that make the access decisions on public lands.

For places where wind sports are not as prevalent, it really is a bad precedent. Some planning official in say, south Carolina tries to find out how to deal with the kite "problem" and low and behold, they uncover that Florida just banned their asses.

I think what it is really going to take is some asshole kiter hurting someone on the beach and they end up getting sued and losing their ass. As it seems to me that the threat of beach closure does little to address the problem.

just my 2 cents.

shred_da_gorge · Mon Mar 22, 10 8:19 am

It's a tipping point. Most of the public doesn't know what kiteboarding is, but they'll be introduced to it either partially curious or 100% opposed. They're driving back from Boise and swing by the event site and see people hitting sliders and jumping and they say "Wow, that's really cool! What's it called again?". Or they see a guy on TV getting dragged into a building in a hurricane and say "wow, kiteboarding's really dangerous!" What they don't say is "Wow, that guy used bad judgement, but kiteboarding seems interesting." So we're all role models, like it or not.

And when public discussions come up around kiteboarding access - for instance in a recent opportunity we have at a planned waterfront park in East Palo Alto, CA - they're either going to be dead set against you or they're going to be open enough for you to work your ass off to convince them not to be.

One rule of thumb - people value (and protect) children over anything else. So if you're kiting in a public place stay far away from kids. An adult might be mildly upset if you kite too close to them, but if they deem you're even the remotest threat to their child you've gone too far so expect beach officials to hear about it. This video looks like this rule would apply.

specialk · Guest