Bits and pieces from the Rev world
Ah yes, that quiet time of spring when there’s not necessarily an awful lot going on in the kite world. National Kite Month (where I do hope some of you took the time to teach someone new how to fly a rev!) is over, and the summer festivals haven’t quite ramped up yet. And of course, it’s sitting on deadline day in the Kitelife offices and I am staring at a blank screen. But, Revs and flying are never far from my mind and while there may be no “new product news from Revolution at the moment, there’s certainly things going on in Rev Land in general.
Let’s start with WSIKF. A couple of weeks back, I wrote a little piece for the WSIKF program regarding iQuad and our attendance there (more on this later) and it dawned on me, wow, it’s really only about 2 months away at this point! While there are no plans to be smashing any records (that’s not to say it won’t happen, just that there is no plan for it…) this time around, rest assured that there will certainly be a lot of Revs on the beaches of Long Beach. As usual, the week (and some people DO go for the whole week, though I don’t think that I will be there that long this year) is the third week of August, August 15th to 23rd. If you don’t have a reservation nearby already, you may find it a little tricky to get accommodations but, there are some places in towns nearby or there is always camping. Again while there is no specific plan for earth shattering record breaking stints of many rev awesomeness, you can expect a lot of team flying both in the “usual” side by side format and the grid format. I have personally placed an order for extraordinarily nice weather as well, you can thank me after the weekend for that. Though, now that I think about it, the last few years have been pretty nice weather all weekend long, so either my ordering is working or, it’s just been nice. You can be the judge.
For the “completest” kind of Rev collector, you may want to keep an eye on the Rev forum (and company site of course…) because I have heard there will be some new Masterpiece kites out sometime in the very near future. I do not have pictures yet and I have very little solid info beyond the following :
1] They will be Rev 1 sized, for the most part, with some slight modifications regarding the sail depth. It will not be Zen sized however.
2] They will be designed by Carl Robertshaw, all around ace European Rev flyer, designer of many an amazing dual line kite ( as part of the his company Kite Related Design) and leader of last year’s World Championship team, The Scratch Bunnies
3] There will not be many of these, likely 10 at the most.
4] They will be “finished” (ie, leading edge) by Bazzer Poulter (who is JUST finishing off a new workshop!)
Like I suggested, keep an eye out on the forum as the likely first place these will be shown and I suspect they will not last long. I’d start saving now. I am!
If one wanted to see a bunch of Rev videos, obviously Youtube might be your first stop. There’s quite literally a metric ton of them, many that are great tutorials. But, one thing that’s been decidedly lacking is indoor Rev flying, specifically tutorials. It can be a pretty mystifying kite at first without someone to take you through the basics. A good example, I owned an indoor Rev for 4 years before I really got any use of it inside. It looks like someone was paying attention to this deficit of video material because John recently did a huge trove of indoor specific tutorial videos. All of them are available here :
I –highly recommend watching some of these if you have any interest in getting to be a more accomplished indoor Rev flyer. Or, a brand new one!
And lastly, just over five years ago, iQuad got it’s start on the Ocean Shores beach, the Sunday afternoon of their Spring Fling event. Last weekend in Vancouver for the Pacific Rim Kite Festival was the 94th festival we have done as a group. Um, wow, where did those five years ago. Some days, it seems like it’s only been 2 very fast years. Other days, it seems like roughly…. 5 years of an awful lot of fun flying revs with people all over the world. The 100th festival will take place in Bintulu, Malaysia, during the 7th Annual Borneo Kite Festival. One of the best things about all the time we have spent flying Revs has been the people we have met and flown with. A huge thanks on behalf of all us, and here’s to the next five years!
David Hathaway