Introduction to Kiteboarding

I first started kiteboarding in fall of 2001. That was soon after I had first heard about it at Boardsports in San Francisco, which is a funny story.

I went into Boardsports on a Friday during my lunch hour looking for some booties for surfing in Santa Cruz. They had a video playing behind the cash register. As I looked closely at what was playing on the screen I noticed there were guys on boards hooked up to really big kites, doing the most incredible jumps, flips, spins, etc. I was fascinated and had to ask the clerk behind the counter "what is that"?

He looked at me and slowly said in a well practiced California surfer drawl, "...Dude...it's kiteboarding". Well, I had to try it. He sold me a Slingshot 2m trainer kite on the spot.