What Is A Kitewing?

You propably know what a Kite is, but have you heard about the Kitewing?

The kitewing is a lightweight handheld wing shaped as a kite that can be used for sailing on ice, snow and land with a pair of skis, skates or a snowboard. This is done in wintertime. For summer use one can sail with the wing using roller blades, a mountainboard or a skateboard. I havent yet made it in summer, but winter usage is really cool. I mainly ride at frosen lakes, but snow-covered open spaces like moun-tains are maybe even better – You just need some more wind to get it going in the mountains. On plain ice you just need a little as 4-5 m/s of wind.

Im no extreme rider, but some other people have found out that the wing is also capable of doing jumps. Well, several 100 meters is maybe more flying than jumping? The current world record from 2004 is 505 meters (1666 feet) made by a Kitewing team rider and helicopter pilot Andreas Laurent.

If you like speed the wing gives you a good ride. In optimum conditions, you can reach speeds between 60-80 km/h, but the speed record on ice was 107 km/h the last time I heard about it.

I have found out that people interested...