Bicycle rotations by Aerialis Kites

Transcript

1. ›

   Introduction

   0:01

   Hi kite people, Sven from Aerialis Kites. How are you today? I hope you're ready for another quad line kite tutorial: the bicycle rotations.

2. ›

   Where this tutorial comes from

   0:53

   Now, am I really ready for this one? I mean, yeah, I do have the bicycle rotations with all their variations down, well, give or take, but do I have what it takes to make a tutorial? How do I go about describing it, because there are so many details that have to be included in order to be able to pull off these rotations and make them look good? So I was looking for a way to go about it, when I kind of stumbled upon this article by David Hathaway at the KiteLife website. I read through it all, and suddenly it all became quite clear to me. This was the way to go about the creation of a tutorial for the bicycle rotations. So hats off to David for providing us with a description that is spot on. My effort lies in adding some video clips to his explanations, hopefully making things even clearer. Just to make things clear, this tutorial is based on David Hathaway's article about bicycling in KiteLife issue 46, published on February 1st, 2006. So if you're ready, here we go. Oh, almost forgot: in this tutorial I'm flying a 10 meter, that's 30 feet, line set, to get the kite up close for filming purposes. You surely can practice on longer lines.

3. ›

   Rotating without losing height

   2:14

   Okay, it's just like riding a bike. One of the big mysteries for new quad line flyers is how to pinwheel, you know, rotate that kite in one position without losing height off the ground. It seems like it should be a pretty straightforward maneuver, since you simply push one thumb forward and then the kite will start to revolve, but your early efforts will usually result in the kite descending with each successive rotation. In this tutorial I will try to describe a way to rotate your kite without losing altitude. Broken down into specific parts, the sequence of events is commonly known as bicycling, and it will become pretty obvious how this name came about once you get through this tutorial.

4. ›

   Step 1: a hover with the leading edge vertical

   2:56

   To start off, the first thing to get under your belt is to simply hover the kite with the leading edge oriented vertically. I've already done a couple of tutorials on this earlier, so check out the links down below. Which vertical direction you do this in isn't important at this point.

5. ›

   Your hands move

   3:38

   When you're teaching a friend the basics of flying a quad line kite, the usual point that is made, and often repeatedly, is to keep your wrists down in front of your torso, your elbows against your sides and your hands basically parallel. This can prove challenging for a kite flyer who has predominantly only flown dual line kites, as it's nearly the exact opposite of what is required for a dual. Sometimes it can be such a strain to overcome that I will loosely put a belt or strap around the person's wrists to try and drill the difference home. But once you get the very basics of flying down, you will notice that there are times when your hands will move back and forth. To hold a quad in a leading edge vertical position, whichever lines are controlling the highest side of the kite will move back towards your body, and the lowermost lines will be moved forward, away from the pilot. This is what I previously called the skewed hand position.

6. ›

   Controlling the height

   4:42

   From here, if you move your uppermost lines on the kite forward, the kite will move down, and if you pull them back further, the kite will rise. Now spend some time simply moving the kite up and down in a vertical line, slowly. Your hands will generally not need to move a whole lot when you're doing this, nor will the motion resemble a dual line hand movement for turns: you will simply slowly pull the uppermost or lowermost lines back and forth. What you're doing here is getting a feel for controlling the kite's height by pushing or pulling one hand. One of the keys to consistent quad line flying is the ability to be able to do anything in any direction, so make sure that you also practice this with the leading edge facing in the other direction: up and down, landing softly on the leading edge tip and then climbing back up. You will begin to get a feel for how much or how little you will need to move your hands to change the vertical height of the kite.

7. ›

   Swapping top and bottom

   6:34

   Once you're comfortable with moving the kite up and down, move it up to about, well, three or four meters off the ground. If you're flying on the longer set of lines, let's say 30 meters, you should go somewhat higher off the ground. Once the kite is there, simply hold it in that position and take a close look at how your hands are. Now, the idea is to swap top and bottom, to have the kite's leading edge pointing in the opposite direction. You want the kite to simply rotate on its center so that it's facing the other way, and stop once you've switched sides, and then hold this new position. Now repeat this, just moving the kite back and forth, and you'll notice as you do this that your hands will move in and out from your body: whichever side of the kite is the high side, the corresponding hand will also be the closer to your body. Now check it out.

8. ›

   Rotating in a complete circle

   8:05

   When you take this motion further, you'll notice you run into a problem. You know, you can't keep rotating your hands unless you're some manner of octopus or what. So you need to find a way to rotate the kite around in a complete circle while leaving your hands where they are. At first I thought the last step in this was going to be easy to describe, until I started trying to think it through in my head. After you've been doing this for a while, it becomes very much second nature, so I had to head out to my local flying field and work out the precise steps. Essentially, what you will do now is to start the rotation, as I talked about at the start of this video, with one thumb pressed forward, but now use your newfound skills in maintaining height with one hand to keep the kite in one place as it's revolving. Whichever thumb is forward will dictate which direction the kite will be rotating, and once you've started this, with each rotation one hand will act as the height control, and the other is going to power the kite through the turn. Hopefully you can see this more clearly in this little video clip.

9. ›

   Bicycling

   9:51

   Whichever hand is controlling the height will come in and move back out, and the other will act as the power to get your kite around. By the time the leading edge is pointing towards about four o'clock, your lower thumb will push forward, providing the momentum to power the kite around the lower half of the circle, and your other will be pulled back. As you come around to about 11 o'clock, your thumb has released back and the other hand is now forward. You'll find, as you get more comfortable with this, that both your hands will be involved in height control, and it is at this point that it becomes very apparent why this is referred to as bicycling. Check it out: picture how your feet work as you pedal a bike. Your hands will start to do the same thing, and voilà, your pedaling quad kite will now magically stay in one place in the sky.

10. ›

    Speed and hand roles

    11:15

    Experiment with rotating at different speeds, since it will be harder to manage your timing when the kite is spinning rapidly, and easier to apply your timing in slower rotations. This is one of the advantages of flying quads: speed control. You can do this very slowly for a start, and later, when you get the hang of things, you can speed it up. You will find your own way to be comfortable with this as you experiment. What works well for a lot of people is, if rotating to the right, clockwise, to keep the right hand on top, with that hand acting as height control, and the left hand below, pushing the thumb in and out to power yourself through the bottom of the circle. If intending to rotate counterclockwise, the hand positions will reverse. This is the kind of thing you will want to work on in both directions and within any spot of the wind window.

11. ›

    Height and line tension

    12:15

    Here's a note to the new learner: you will spare yourself a few ugly crashes if you start working on this technique three to four meters, 10 to 15 feet, or higher off the ground, and by using a longer set of lines you can go even much higher to prevent those crashes. While the rods on most quad line kites can be very durable, one thing leading edges don't tolerate that well is high speed ground hits, especially diagonal ones. Yeah, I'm speaking from experience here. And once you have a better grip on it, you can amaze your friends with how close to the ground you can rotate that kite. At first you may find you need to keep a mental count of how many times the kite has revolved, so that when you go in the other direction you do the same number of times around, in order to unwind. But this will become second nature very quickly as you get used to line tension. The more you wind it up, the tougher it's going to get as the lines wrap around themselves. As a starting point, try to stay under four rotations in one direction, and then switch and unwind in four in the opposite direction. Personally, I find that once you get past six to eight reps, it becomes a bit unmanageable, depending on the wear of the lines and the length of your line set. And as a final step, start increasing the speed of your revolving, resulting in lightning fast spins, but also work on doing this as slowly as you can as well. An afternoon spent down on the flying field and this will become an easy thing for you to perform.

12. ›

    Wrapping up

    13:40

    Well, that about wraps it all up. Once again, thanks to David Hathaway for his article at KiteLife.com, and thank you for watching. Until we meet again, keep spinning that kite of yours, and just fly.