I'm thinking of setting up a guide for different beach locales based on a standard descriptive rubric. Maybe a post for each state to keep peoples search queries organized for individuals needs. Example:

Beach Name:
Locale: (state,city - gps coordinates)
Legality: (any issues past and present that may have arisen)
Access: (parking availability - walking distance to beach)
Criminal Activity: (has there been a pattern of criminal activity in the areas history)
Length:
Width: (estimate at a median tide and low tide)
Crowdedness: (how many people for every hundred yrds):
Prevailing Wind Directions: (onshore/offshore what direction works best for locale)
Steepness: (angle at runnable surface)
Facilities Available: (food and restrooms)
Places to Stay: (hotels, camping, rv)
Other Info:

maybe a score for each of the components that tabulate into an overall score - can create a standard in which to describe a beach in numerical values rather than arbitrary personal descriptions.

Post on here any ideas you may have for buggying/landboarding/static flying factors at a beach that could be useful descriptive factors for those that have not been there. I'll be compiling the data into a guide that I will post later and we can all update as time goes by.

Thanks for your input

Here's a sample:

Beach Name: Ocean Beach

Local: San Francisco, California

Legality: Static Flying only, there is a ban on any wheeled vehicles on the beach - wind powered included.

Access: Plenty of Parking on the North end of the beach. Stairs from parking lot give immediate access to beach - you will need to tote gear about 50 yards to waters edge.

Criminal Activity: None that I know of, never been acousted or had my car tampered with while there. I've locked my keys in my car twice so far - once with my cell phone right next to my keys.

Length: 3.5 miles

Width: 20 feet runnable at median tide 30 feet at low tide

Crowdedness (how many people for every hundred yrds): Weekday: 2 Weekend: 5

Prevailing Wind Directions (onshore/offshore-best direction): Onshore W most common, can be NW or SW. When Buggying and Landboarding was permitted there a due W wind allowed the most mobility, since the beach was oriented N/S. With a NW or SW wind higher speed can be achieved but with the sacrifice of speed in the opposite direction - rollercoasting.

Steepness (angle at runnable surface): 0 to 5 degrees.

Facilities Available: There are lots of restaurants close by - one in particular "Beach Chalet" (near the big windmill) has a restroom available for the North end of the beach while the South end of the beach has public restrooms at the Sloat intersection.

Places to Stay: Plenty of nearby hotels, but they will be pretty pricey - there are also youth hostels available.

Other Info: From early Fall to late Spring there are Snowy Plovers nesting in the dunes adjacent to the beach - lifegaurds aren't too concerned but there are local bird watchers that will make issue of anyone flying a kite near the dunes - located just South of the parking lot area at the North end of the beach.

What other Data could be added?

Access to the beach, relevant parking info or other access restrictions ( could be tied in with the legality issue ) because sometimes it sucks having to haul your gear a long distance. Of course, if its a pristine open beach with good winds, giving a heads-up for a hike and its worthiness might be helpful.

//EDIT//
Also, i know this ties in with legality and what you can do on each certain beach, but if one beach is better known for buggy and not so much for landboarding, that could be nice to say " meet other _____ people here ".

"Prevailing wind" is the phrase you want ...
How about "Risk of your car getting broken into and ripped off" hearing some bad stories from NZ today of kiters cars getting done over. God I love NOT living in NZ sometimes ...

Ouch, that would suck. I remember reading a story about some guys car and trailer that got ransacked, he lost something like 30+ kites...

I dont know that I would ever bring that many kites with me unless I was moving. A few good kites can cover the entire wind range, what could somebody possibly need over 10 kites for at a time? Maybe doing demos or teaching...

Overnight info (hotels, food etc.)

I don't remember who does the oregon beach matrix but I think that might be a source for a format.

I'm updating the example and sample up above as suggestions are made. If someone could find the link to the Oregon Beach list and post it here that would be great - I couldn't find it.

It's archkiter's... associated with nw traction kiting.

http://home.comcast.net/~stace78/stacecase/oregonbeachmatrix...

I've been updating and altering the original posts I made as the suggestions have come in - any ideas on fomat, color coding? Wondering also if the admin could help in providing input on organizing the pages of information that I think will be placed on their site.

[EDIT] comments removed by the author.

My inspiration for this was thread was having talked to local kiters here in California we are always looking for new beach spots and I thought I would start a thread to help compile that info for all the members to reference and update. I didn't mean any offense to your site and the work that you have put into it - I think that the information already garnered here can be very useful to your site. I think that a collaboration will be the best solution. We'll see how the member input here help shape this simple database.

I think this thread should be more formalized, kind of like the good trader list. Nothing off-topic.

I was going to just let the locale list spring forth from the members here - the spots they know of and use - that way the specific data fields in the format people are helping make will be filled in. Right now I'm just looking to see what people would want that format to be.

I think it would be pretty cool to have a thread on PKF where people can write up their local spots, provide links to realtime weather data/webcams etc, post photo's and videos - that sort of thing.

It would be a pretty good little database thats easy to access and post in - and each post would be tagged to a local rider who you could contact u2u if you were planning a trip.

I guess the posts would have to be moderated through an administrator to keep the thread on topic but that would be a small price.

I think flexi's format looks like a pretty good start. Think you should include which wind direction the spot works best in and other info on conditions. A heading for "other info" would cover everything!

obviously this data could be put on larger datasets like localkitespots but it would be nice to have something within the PKF community.

There is that "where do you ride" thread but not many people have posted pics etc.

I would love to see photo's of everyones kitespots - would be great to plan a kite safari to the states or canada (or both!) one day.

I'm starting with beaches soley because I know there will be fewer spots for people to input data into - would love to have everyones personal flying spot added but may start to get out of control pretty quick. I think this will be a good start at building a usable database that sites like William rx-7's can use to help people just starting out or experienced kiters that want to check out a new locale. I updated with your suggestions lives2fly, good addition. It looks like it just needs some tailoring but it's almost there - thanks everyone that helped with your input thus far.

That I think should do for now. The organizational structure I'm thinking should be like this-

<start thread>
California Beach Locations
- list of rubric for people to copy and paste into their threads
Beach Name:
Locale:
Legality:
Access:
Criminal Activity:
Length:
Width:
Crowdedness:
Prevailing Wind Directions:
Steepness:
Facilities Available:
Places to Stay:
Other Info:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If your not in California and you want to post a beach locale than start another thread

(your state) Beach Locations.

I'm not worrying about alphabetical order of the locations (I don't know if the admins might be able to help with this) just as long as a few basic rules are adhered to -

1. Please don't post anything other than beach location information on these threads.
2. Try not to double post a location. If you think something needs to be added to a certain location that has already been commented on then contact the person who posted it and send them a u2u with the relevant information - if they don't get back to you right away try and avoiding posting your information on the same thread - will start to create a mess.
3. If you post a location realize you are taking on the responsibility of following up on other peoples information that may be forwarded to you in a u2u.

Does the admin have the ability to clean up a thread? I'm already seeing the basic rules of the other thread being ignored - I'm working at having this resolved in a diplomatic way but just wondering if the admin could help me keep the thread clean.

Thanks

just an idea... the width at median tide is good, but some beaches really open up on a low tide, I know my beaches in HK triple in size with a big (spring) low tide as opposed to a small (neap) low tide, so the width would be 40 feet at median tide, 100 feet at a neap low tide, and as much as 300 feet on a spring low tide, so when I get back (currently near Van BC) with my landboard I'm only going to be able to fly on the low tides...

so maybe adding in the width for big low tides might make a difference for people who would hit the beach when tide is low and give it a pass when the tide is high.... :puzzled: wouldn't want to make it too complicated tho...

and yeah good luck with the other thread...

Country, State, City,Beach in thread title.
Legality:
Access:
Criminal Activity:
Length:
Width:
Surface:
Crowdedness:
Prevailing Wind Directions:
Steepness:
Facilities Available:
Hazards:
Recommend Equipment:
Parking:
Accomadations:
Other Info:
[url= [LINK] ]Map[/url]
[url= [LINK] ]Wind Forcast[/url]
[url= [LINK] ]Tides[/url]
Paste your link over the entire [LINK] including the brackets and no spaces between the =yourlink] and it will look like the link below

Here is a LINK to one area I listed

Thanks - good ideas - just updated my pages with the info

I created a page with links only for Oregon so if the forum will post up there riding spots we can just link it in the state listing you create.

http://www.powerkiteforum.com/viewthread.php?tid=12311&p...