Uh....basically, you are stoked if you end up here moving here.
Just like Ireland, the wind blows west to east off of our coast and inland. Rather than the gulf stream which plows into Ireland, we get a temperature difference between the cold Pacific Ocean and the warm inland valleys so it sucks wind across the coastal area and the San Francisco peninsula sticks up like a boner right through the middle of this great wind generating difference and has water on all sides of it, plus a massive river flowing towards the bay which also gets great wind, and we have waves on the coast.
Basically you can live anywhere within commuting difference to SF and be in a great place. From SF downtown you have pretty much 6 different sites to ride within 15-30 minutes, and then in an hour you have about 6 others ranging from gnarly waves to the redneck riviera of Sherman Island in the Sacramento River Delta and inland lakes - even lake tahoe! I'm not sure what to say, live as far north as San Rafael, as far south as San Jose (or Gilroy, if you like garlic and mexican food), as far east as Sacramento and as far west as, well, San Francisco (or Maui). Asking which place is the best to live in the bay area for kiting is like asking someone from your homeland how the weather is outside or how hard it is raining - everyone will have something to say about it but the reality is that is it raining and the weather is shitty. Same thing here, wherever oyu live it will be good, unless you live in Daly City or Colma but that has nothing to do with kiting.
The main season is from end of March until around October-November, and then the months inbetween we get great surf with offshore winds. But even during the November to March time period people go for kite holidays in Mexico and get skunked only to hear that everyone here in SF was out riding during a a good storm.
People are pretty friendly here. If you are nice to people, people are nice to you. I'm not sure what else to say. It's a good vibe here.
We have so many places here that there is not really a central spot people go for pints afterwards. Actually, people usually bring booze with them to wherever they are riding and just hang out on the beach or in the car park afterwards and party together. Some places we even have kegs of beer, DJs playing music and BBQs at night and I saw some strippers once do a photo shoot at the dock one night after kiting (actually there were people kiting behind the strippers in the moonlight hucking 20 meter high kiteloops). No smokey pubs.... but with DJs, kegs, strippers, and moonlight kiteloops you won't really be complaining.
For used gear you can find it here on this website or go to
www.craigslist.org where you can find pretty much anything you want to find in the bay area (I mean, really, anything), even a great deal on your friends stolen kite gear.
Hope this was helpful and look forward to seeing you when you get here.
