Sunday, January 12, 2014

Are waterski gloves used for Hang Gliding?

Hang gliding gloves require the best grip possible, so Kevlar palm is recommended, and fingertips with silicone dots to improve the grip when the glove gets wet for any reason. Nothing is more dangerous than slippery gloves on a hang glider.

We got an order for several pairs of the Connelly Claw 2.0 waterski gloves with the Kevlar palm, the best waterski glove on the market. Order came from Bucaramanga Colombia. It seemed like an unusual order because nobody has a water ski boat in that city. After contacting the client, we learned that he is part of a popular hang gliding club. It turns out that Bucaramanga is one of the top hang gliding and para sailing sites in Latin America with canyon cliffs carved by a main river, waterfalls, lush green hills, and some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.

By coincidence, we had a friend passing through that city on vacation, so we had him take the gloves with him and had him call the client for pickup at the hotel. The hang gliding enthusiast was very happy for this in person delivery and gave an invitation to go up on one of his tandem gliders similar to the way they do for tourists in Rio. It was a tempting offer but said no. Cant imagine doing this type of ride the first time as a beginner.

From that day forward, we have promoted the Connelly Kevlar grip gloves and other Kevlar grip gloves for hang gliding and other extreme sports that require the best grip gloves on the market.

Gloves
 gloves


Monday, November 25, 2013

Is the Elan El Grande the widest snowboard in the world?

Is the Elan El Grande the widest snowboard in the world?

-Article written by Big Al, our editor.

We received a comment from a young snowboard rider:

"Hey just letting you know that this is no longer the widest snowboard in  the world. The lib tech skunk ape horsepower ultra wide got it beat - A massive rider."

REPLY: The skunk ape horsepower?

First of all, with a name like that, it cant be as serious wide snowboard for mature all mountain riders who are on the big and heavy side. It is probably a park board for that Lib Tech made bigger to compete with the wide boards on the market. We say this with no offense intended. We have nothing against park riders who want to grind rails, and nothing against kids and teens (and sometimes adults), wearing jeans half way down the butt with the underwear showing. (I cannot imagine somebody doing this who weighs 280 lbs or more). A quick look at the board graphics demonstrates my point. Note the morbid skulls on that board. Human skulls, skeletons, and a zombie looking ape in a grave is not a graphic that mature adults riders would buy.


Aside from graphics and the name, lets look objectively, without bias, the width specifications and compare side by side to the Elan El Grande. El Grande has a name that tells you that it is a board for big riders. The name in Spanish means the huge or the big.

We looked at the all sizes available for the skunk ape ultra wide HP. To be specific, we located SKU: 14-M-BD-LI-SKUH-UW where UW stands for ultra wide.

The El Grande beats the skunk ape for the sizes 163 and 167. For the Lib Tech Skunk Ape UW HP170, the largest and widest lib tech in that series, the skunk ape beats the el grande 171 waist width by only 1 mm, but the El Grande 171 still wins for tip and tail width.

The Lib Tech is a different type of board designed to be bi-directional. The El Grande is directional for all mountain riding and designed for heavier more mature riders going on those super long runs in Park City Utah, or mountain riding the black diamond rated trails in Telluride, CO, or those heavier riders looking for a board that will stay afloat on fresh new powder snow. The El Grande is not designed for park riders.

Note that this lib tech Ultra Wide board retails for about $700, compared to the MSRP on the El Grande for $550. WaterSkiWorld has the El Grande on sale for $549. Elan Austria is the premiere location for pro skiing and snowboarding, and the best equipment comes from Europe. Compare to Lib Tech Seattle WA. This information should be enough to compare and make a choice.

CONCLUSION: The Elan El Grande is still the widest snowboard in the world


Elan El Grande Snowboard:

http://www.waterskiworld.com/snowboards/

Monday, June 10, 2013

Wakeboarding Tricks and Tips

Wakeboard Tricks and Tips
Wakeboarding in Folsom Lake near Sacramento

By Suzanne Hurt

wakeboarding tricks


Dan Bright trailed behind his boss’s boat, ripping out wakeboarding tricks on Folsom Lake. He sailed into an air railey, catching 10 feet of air in a flip maneuver. Then he launched off the wake in a whirlybird and cartwheeled his board like the hands of a clock. “That’s a show winner,” said his boss, 29-year-old Ryan Ash, who owns Launch Wakeboarding School. “He’s inhuman.”

Like the rest of the wakeboarders on his boat, Ash spoke in awe of Bright. At 22, the senior at California State University, Sacramento, has been wakeboarding for 15 years. He has competed on the pro level and wakeboards year-round with Sac State’s Wakeboard Club. Bright, Ash and the other instructors not only can show what you can do on a wakeboard, they can teach you to do it. They do it all on Folsom Lake, one of the region’s top wakeboarding spots.

The sport is as cool as ever. So cool, in fact, that it’s getting harder and harder to find powerboats that aren’t already outfitted to accommodate wakeboarding.

“It’s almost a must-have for boats now,” said renowned water-skiing coach Pat Kennelly, who owns Water Ski World in Citrus Heights.

The recession has slowed his store’s sales of wakeboards. New boat owners are buying just one wakeboard for the boat rather than one for each family member, he said. This summer looks promising for water sports on Folsom Lake, said Dan Tynan, Folsom Lake State Recreation Area superintendent. Boats were already out on the lake by early May when the lake level was at a very full 85 percent. This week, it reached 466 feet, according to a Web site operated by the California Data Exchange Center (http://cdec.water.ca.gov and click “reservoirs”), which works with state and federal agencies to monitor water levels.

Tynan expects the water to hold up for boating through Labor Day, unlike the past two summers. However, the Folsom Lake SRA doesn’t control the water level.

Wakeboarding is sometimes described as snowboarding on water. It combines elements of water skiing, surfing and snowboarding. It is not as easy to learn as water skiing, unless you know how to snowboard. One of the fastest ways to progress is to work with experienced teachers like those at Launch, a Folsom Lake concessionaire.

Like many young wakeboarders, then-14-year-old Ash got into the sport so he wouldn’t feel like he was giving up snowboarding each summer. He quickly got hooked. He and his older brother, Tom Ash, bought the Launch school in 2006 while Ryan was its manager. Last year, they acquired a $65,000 Moomba XLV wakeboarding boat tricked out with a wakeboard tower that holds wakeboards and Loud Liquid speakers, and hoists the towrope high for bigger jumps. A bilge pump sends water into the stern to tip the bow, creating a huge wake.

Boaters can buy wakeboarding towers for boats they already own. But jumping on a trend, manufacturers now sell boats designed for wakeboarding. These bigger, more expensive, over-the-top boats dominate the market, said Kennelly. Some water skiers, who need smaller wakes, aren’t happy with the bigger boats being sold as water-ski boats, Kennelly said. After Bright finished his wakeboarding demonstration, Sac State student Chelsea Ison, 20, decided to give the sport another try. She’d had little luck wakeboarding with friends.

Instructor Dustin Auger, 19, of Shingle Springs coaxed her into the cold water. Ison later said she was a little scared.
With his hands on the rope, Auger pulled Ison and her wakeboard into a good start position while explaining how to overcome the first hurdle: getting up as the boat takes off. The hardest thing to learn is to work with the boat rather than fight it, he said.
Ison sat in the water in the same basic rocking-chair position used by waterskiers.

“Let your butt come all the way to the board and you’ll pop right up,” he said. “Arms straight? Legs bent? Let’s go!”
She got right up but crashed just as fast. After a few more tips, Ison could stay up. Soon she was bombing shakily over the wake. Auger helped fine-tune her moves until she could cross back over the boat’s wake.
Source:
www.sacbee.com