Strapless Kiteboarding Collective Gorge/Oregon
18.07.07

After a 10 hour stop home in Germany I was on my way again, as I was invited to Dave Tyburskis “Strapless Kiteboarding Collective” event in the Gorge and really did not want to miss that!

And I am so glad I did not! Such a fun event and the first one of it’s kind too! Not only I came a long way, there were Top Hat, Brian Lake and ex Pro Skimboarder Joe Pasquala from Oahu, Shawn Fareley from Mexico, Cam Barker from Australia and Kyle Touhey from Canada plus a whole bunch of local riders like Dave himself, Sky Solbach, Ian and Dylan, John Doyle, Chris Gilbert and so on. The first day we did not get any wind and hung out a little bit at first, but Dave, not wasting any time, had organized one of the best waves of the Gorge for us. So we went to ride strapless the wake of an old Navy boat which really was a pretty impressive one and I can only say we all had great fun! The next 2 days we had very strong wind (typical for the Gorge I guess) and kited the Hatchery, the White Salmon bridge and the Sandbar for fun and photo as well as video shootings. I rode my surfboard strapless the whole time and enjoyed to learn some little jumps, some different kind of tacks and some riverswellriding, but I was just sooo impressed by what the guys did. They were throwing their boards around, turning, twisting and jumping huge!!! So cool! And then on Saturday was the “Clinic”day. Dave and Joe gave a Skimboard clinic, Kyle and Sky a strapless surfboard clinic and I had 15 girls sign up for a girls clinic! That really was an amazing day as everyone had so much fun and seemed to be so motivated, just kiting together, hanging out at the beach and getting some Pro tips too. I was having so much fun myself with a bunch of really cool and super active girls around me and was so stoked to see that there are so many girls in just this one spot that are ripping it! After talking a little about strapless riding (after all what this event was all about) I answered questions for an hour or two and then we all went out riding together! And as if this was not good enough yet the event went on and on. The strapless race was not only a really fun thing to do, but was also amazing for me as I became second (after Sky)!!! I was stoked and still don’t know how I did that but I think my surfobard really goes upwind well! ☺ So we celebrated in the evening with a huge raffle and a nice price giving and also enjoyed a great fireshow and a band playing at the beach! What can I say, a great success Dave and a perfect way to showcase this aspect of our sport as Kiteboarding has so much variety which only is very seldom shown…