Hey Guys,

I'll start riding boots, and like some of your advice from experienced boot riders.

I like to do some unhook and hooked kiteloop, nothing too extreme though and were wondering about my knees.

I've seen a post where several people strongly advise not doing kiteloop while riding boots and several knee injuries related.


Q1: What's your experience with boots and kiteloop ? is there any real more danger the straps ? (Let's say below 25knots)

Q2: I'm riding banana boots, they are quite flexible and checked the all boot can flex on the side almost 90?, so not much risk of breaking a tibia. Do you usually tight the boot max or keep them loose a bit?

I was thinking of riding the boots slightly loose so i get very badly pulled by the kite, my feet will still release off the boots. Since the boot is quite flexible, if only one feet releases I think the tibia should bear it as long as the board doesn't spin, but that would be the same as with straps anyway. Good or Bad idea ?

When I was wakeboarding we used to often loose the board on bad crashes.


Q3: What settings do you usually use on boots vs straps ? Angle, spacing ? Any advice ?

Thanks :)

Can you be more specific about "catching an edge", i'm not sure to picture it ?

You mean having the board sinking underwater or catching an edge on the tip, side.. ?

Does longer leash helps or it doesn't matter?

Dammien said..

Can you be more specific about "catching an edge", i'm not sure to picture it ?

You mean having the board sinking underwater or catching an edge on the tip, side.. ?

Does longer leash helps or it doesn't matter?

catching edge is when you land sideways, with a fair bit of speed and a low kite will give you the best results, the forward facing edge will catch the water and stop your feet then your head will get a crazy whiplash thing going on and get flung flat out into the water. you know when you have successfully landed an edge catch when you have either a crazy ass headache, blood lip, burst ear drum or broken board/boots. this trick isn't very satisfying but you'll definitely get a few cheers. sometimes you need a big edge catch to get you in that crazy go hard mood. good luck

glendog said..

Dammien said..

Can you be more specific about "catching an edge", i'm not sure to picture it ?

You mean having the board sinking underwater or catching an edge on the tip, side.. ?

Does longer leash helps or it doesn't matter?

catching edge is when you land sideways, with a fair bit of speed and a low kite will give you the best results, the forward facing edge will catch the water and stop your feet then your head will get a crazy whiplash thing going on and get flung flat out into the water. you know when you have successfully landed an edge catch when you have either a crazy ass headache, blood lip, burst ear drum or broken board/boots. this trick isn't very satisfying but you'll definitely get a few cheers. sometimes you need a big edge catch to get you in that crazy go hard mood. good luck

Haha, thanks for the graphic description.

I went today, first time boot, 15 to 25 knots very unstable in 8 meter.

I set the boots loose a bit to check how it goes.

Had a few crash and I did catch an edge after a back roll unhooked landing sideways on the front, both feet directly popped off the boot so I probably avoided having a bad time. Also once a foot popped off and actually it felt quite similar as when it happens with straps (which happened every two tricks before).

I did couple of kiteloops hooked and unhook (when the wind wasn't strong) and felt pretty safe.

Probably loosing the boots will reduce a lot the control of the board (when I snowboard I tight as much as possible), but it might be also a good compromised to have a better support than straps without having to badly crash as described above.

Overall it's a relief not loosing one foot when I pop, as it was very frustrating before to always mess a trick just because you can't keep your feet on the boards when you pop...

Will see after a few session, as today's wind didn't wasn't very nice to try trick.

Thanks for all the feedback

fsukite said..

ride with a 5th and leash onto it. that way when you let go you will get 0 power from the kite. been looping like this for years.

yeh but dose the bar travel halfway up the lines and then the kite folds in on itself and bowties? happens to me if I don't have it on Suicide mode.

I don't understand at all how a 5th line will help you when doing loops in boots... the reason most people get injured wearing boots and doing loops is because the kite simply stalls out one time at the bottom of the loop and then the person falls out of the sky into the water ontop of their board (because they can't kick it away). Thus a 5th line wont help you at all with this problem nor would a loose pair of boots.

Boots aren't really for loops, that's my 2 cents.

tighten your boots!!!

you would rather have your feet in rather then one foot come out and one in cause thats when knee injuries happen!!

boots are great they give you one less thing to think about when your on the water (loosing your board)

i would personally not go back to straps.