Power Kite Forum

Our local kite crew is on Google Maps Streetview!

burritobandit - 31-1-2012 at 09:03 AM

A kite buddy (PJ Smith) was looking at old Google Earth images last night and saw that Gmaps updated their StreetView images for our local riding spot, Lake Pflugerville!

http://g.co/maps/b2fty

That's from a session last April. If you pan left, you'll see 3 kites on the water: Black/Blue Rev is Nassim, Orange/White/Black OR Rise is Jasson (kitemare4321 on these forums), and I'm on the Orange/Black Waroo. My budy Pj's 13 is parked in the grass.

Now we just need a Google Maps pic shot from SPACE of all our kites parked on the grass :frog:

Does anyone else have themselves and/or their kitecrew showing up on Google Maps and/or Streetview?

MikeDobbs - 31-1-2012 at 09:29 AM

hahaha that's Awesome!

BeamerBob - 31-1-2012 at 12:40 PM

That's cool. Any chance that yellow Xterra is AJ?

burritobandit - 31-1-2012 at 01:04 PM

It's not AJ. It's another local, David Weiss.

lunchbox - 31-1-2012 at 02:24 PM

Way cool....

When I picture myself taking a cruise across the country, I envision stumbling across a lake like that, setting up and just cruising!

Seems like real laid back set up...does it get crowded? How are the winds?

barnes - 31-1-2012 at 02:55 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by lunchbox
Way cool....

When I picture myself taking a cruise across the country, I envision stumbling across a lake like that, setting up and just cruising!

Seems like real laid back set up...does it get crowded? How are the winds?


Didn't see any kites on my road trip from Philly to Boise until I took the final stretch to the Oregon coast...who knew I'd see kites in Hood River? ;-)

burritobandit - 31-1-2012 at 04:02 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by lunchbox
Seems like real laid back set up...does it get crowded? How are the winds?


The setup is great! We park right in front of our rigging area, launch our kites, and walk down to the water. Winds are usually offshore, so you have to be able to go upwind in order to take advantage of this great setup.

It's not TOO crowded right now. There's only about 10-15 core kiters that usually show up when it's really windy. On average days it's 10 kiters or less. Lightwind days, usually 5 or less. The typical direction is SSE, and that grassy spot you see us rigging on is the spot to be because you get easy access to the butter flat water on SSE days . If the spot were to grow to about 20 core kiters, the north side of the lake would probably be utilized way more than it currently is.

Winds are typically SSE but switch to NNW during cold fronts. The wind is your typical inland wind: gusty and shifty. On days forecasted at 10mph, expect 4-15. On days forecasted in the high teens, expect 10 - low twenties. If the forecast is 20-25, winds could be mid teens to mid 30s. Wind directions can switch by up to 30 degrees; that wind turbine is a great indicator for it.

In case anyone missed it, here's the latest video we put together from footage taken at that spot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIXKKgw0h98

lunchbox - 1-2-2012 at 11:29 AM

Thanks BB for providing all that info....:thumbup: Interesting to learn about your wind speeds....I panned around on Google and didn't see any large obstacles so just assumed the wind was smooth like butta ;-)

Really liked the video...you and your crew got some serious skills!!!

burritobandit - 1-2-2012 at 12:38 PM

Thanks!! :thumbup:

joedy - 1-2-2012 at 02:48 PM

What a great place!

-joedy

rtz - 1-2-2012 at 04:56 PM

Here's our local kiteboard spot at Lake Hefner in OKC:


burritobandit - 1-2-2012 at 05:07 PM

Nice! That's the kind of shot I hope we get one day.

That looks like a sweet launch set as well!! Looks like there's a potential buggy/ATB area on the right side...

Kamikuza - 1-2-2012 at 05:18 PM

Like :)

kitedelight - 1-2-2012 at 09:31 PM

nice riding!

ya, might be gusty, but looks like you guys have the bonus of flat water though. That's nice.

burritobandit - 2-2-2012 at 12:15 AM

We make what we can of it. Another bonus is if we can ride here, we can ride ANYWHERE. Seriously, the gusty/shifty winds here make the coastal winds feel like heaven when we all go out there.