This time last year, I was rambling on about the coming year’s events for Revolution’s 20th anniversary. Some days, that seems like just yesterday, but, at other moments, it seems like it was an awfully long time ago, especially as John and I first chattered about such an idea back in 2006 for the first time. My, how time flies when you are having fun, and, fun we did have.
For me personally, the anniversary took me to more than 20 separate festivals, which took about 42 separate plane flights to get to. All over North America and across the Pacific to Japan, and across the Atlantic to England, flying Revs in all kinds of conditions, weather and spaces, from pristine sand to rough damp grass, to the streets of Tokyo, to the docks of Portsmouth. And just about everything in between. What a tremendously fantastic experience and I have huge thanks to dole out to a bunch of people. First off, Revolution Enterprises themselves and Ben D’Antonio in particular for having the vision to pull this all together. Also, The Drachen Foundation for their generous support of the events. Below is a video they produced from some of the footage shot by their people at a few of the events. It made me go all misty-eyed when I first viewed, wondering how the heck a simple kite flyer like me got to go to all these events.
That being said, there’s certainly some events on the horizon for next year already. iQuad is off to the South Padre Island Kite Festival again at the end of January and we’ll like put a visit in to Kiteparty at Huntington Beach again towards the end of February as well. Later on in the year, there’s going to be a large gathering of Rev flyers at Berck Sur Mer in April, plus it’s looking likely that The Decorators will make it over to Wildwood in May. It’s also very likely that iQuad will return to WSIKF this coming summer as well, so, even if it’s a slightly quieter year, there will still be a lot of opportunity for large mega flys at a few events over the coming year. Sign me up, and I’ll be sure to mention these as they come up in the calendar next year, as more details come together.
What else is on the Rev Radar? The introduction of the B Series pro has kept one Mr. Poulter extremely busy this fall. Essentially, the Pro Series is a slightly tweaked but beautifully put together B Series, sewn one by one by Bazzer himself and in lovely Icarex. Super light, super tough and lovely to look at. I’ve only managed to steal Steve DeRooy’s beta sail for a short while but, wow, it looks great and flys even better. Check the Rev site for the all the colour options and of course, these are available as Standard, Mid-vent and Vented configurations. iQuad will be moving to a set of these in January (yes, we have to get in line like everybody else :D) but, Team Bolau is on a set of them already and they will soon be joined by Team FLIC as well. These will be formally introduced at the annual KTAI convention this January (which, John will be providing daily updates at, right John?) and there’s a chance will see another new Rev debuting at this event, something that will alow Rev flyers to achieve a true “Zen” experience when flying in any wind conditions. I’ll have more to write about with this particular kite next month, if I am lucky…
if you manage to get out over the winter (at least, in the Northern Hemisphere!), be sure to bundle up warmly or better yet, get some Indoor flying practice under your belt while we wade through winter. There’s some excellent tips on winter flying lurking in the Rev forums, so pop on there to get a look at how some of the braver and hardy flyers tackle the cold before you freeze yourself…
Anxiously waiting for the world to warm up again,
David Hathaway