SoCal Kiters...help

[amir]

I just had an awesome session at zeros (Nicolas canyon, at the south end of Leo Carrillo bay) malibu. If you are used to 20+, you'll go near here after an hour++ drive north. All other spots I'm unfamiliar with other than its lighter with summer restrictions.

Topanga can be great, but Leo is better. Definitely avoid kelp.

Weather is tough to call. iKite human forecasts and NWS are usually off or vague, so it may take awhile to figure it out.

I think the Santa Monica bay near the marina is better on storm winds. Stronger, no people and no summer restrictions.

Good luck!

[yojimbo]

When I lived in LA about 12 years ago, Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro was the spot. As far as I know it is the windiest spot in the LA area. It has butter flat water on the harbor side of the jetty, and waves and chop on the outside.

Just on a side note, its super windy, like Sherman Island windy in Palm Springs. I used to windsurf the the percolation ponds out there, but I think they fenced them off.

http://www.sandydan.com/sports/kitesurf ... eaches.htm

[acctx]

I can't comment on your question, but this is somewhat related. I hope I don't hijack the thread too much.

It seems that as far a forum for SoCal goes, all they have is iKite, where the general tone can be less than helpful and it doesn't seem to be very community oriented. I have socalkite.com registered and have been thinking of basically mirroring this site with a clean database to launch socalkite.com. My motivation is two-fold - to provide them with a place online to say what they need to say and give them a shot of actually building a 'nicer' community. (If they deserve it or not is another question!), and ultimately maybe to have a few ad dollars come in. At least I'm being honest.

But we've all seen for years that online anyways, they are more often difficult and combative than helpful and friendly. Do you think if they had a decent forum, that would change? To build a forum with users and content takes time and some fail, but it could be good for the socal community...

What do you all think?

Good idea, they have a good group at belmont. They are the so cal kiteboarding association or something like that. They are trying to drum up interest on facebook but so far it looks like there isnt much. But the crew is out there almost every day.

I think adding it to this site so you could see bay area and so cal on the same index page. But have access through the socal URL (maybe california kiteboarding too )

[acctx]

When I lived in LA about 12 years ago, Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro was the spot. As far as I know it is the windiest spot in the LA area. It has butter flat water on the harbor side of the jetty, and waves and chop on the outside.

Just on a side note, its super windy, like Sherman Island windy in Palm Springs. I used to windsurf the the percolation ponds out there, but I think they fenced them off.

http://www.sandydan.com/sports/kitesurf ... eaches.htm

Cabrillo has the best wind in the area, but everyone seems to be scared to kite there. I think it is closed for kiting on weekends (may be summer and holiday only)

Belmont can be good but is in the 15-18 mph range. Cabrillo is usually 2-3 mph more.
Seal is supposed to be 1-2mph more but comes in later in the day.

One weird thing is that belmont has so much space people just self launch and land. Hardly anyone helps each other to launch/land. People also wander around with their kites at 12

[SFPete]

Its OK to hijack the thread. I got the info I was looking for. The ikitesurf forum sucks, so there seems to be a need for a good Socal forum. I think acctx is on to something. If you could join a sister site to this one you might get a good jumpstart for the socal forum and get added traffic on both - some issues are just about kiting and not location specific. I would routinely check both out, like I check out kiteforum.

[recoprianto]

I have a good buddy in Ventura (C-Street) that would love to help with a new site as a local contact.

[OliverG]

I think instead of starting an entire new mirrored site with a new database it might would better to start a sister site here that meshes with the existing site. Socalkite.com can direct straight to Socal forums.

The only funny logistic is that everything on the top of the site is specific to the Bay - logo, artwork, Schools, Sites, Classifieds and Cams, etc. That's all sitewide stuff, so I need to think about that. From that point, and for the ads too, there may be a point to mirror this site and it would be separate, but maybe use the same database, so users can interact cross-forum with logins, etc...

[Aloha]

That's so cal it hurts brah

[The111]

One weird thing is that belmont has so much space people just self launch and land. Hardly anyone helps each other to launch/land. People also wander around with their kites at 12

That's not weird... it's nice! Weird is being crammed together on a small mud island surrounded by rocks, aka 3rd ave. Although we do have nice winds here.

[vdeub]

Take a surfboard in the car.
Weather is so tough to call and drive are so long, you want to maximize your chances.
Working from home, I barely managed to get one Seth a week, when in the bay I was kiting almost every day, summer or winter.
In fact, winter was better in SoCal, stronger wind pre post storms and paradoxaly easier to predict as you see the low coming.
Gl&hf