Steve & Monique, local Canadians

This couple moved to a little town to the north as Steve is involved with a Canadian mining company. He has been kiting for 6 years or so, and she is just starting to learn. They are a delightful couple: I ran into Monique at a restaurant and we had a good old chat about life in Portugal and how Steve and I should buddy up as we are at the same level of kiting. This suggestion came partly out of the fact that she was about to pay a visit back home for the next 6 weeks and Steve could enjoy someone to hang out with in her absence.

On an apparent tangent: Now one thing I’ve acknowledged about the old van is that the rear-wheel drive tires are as bald as anything. Following a failed parking attempt at the edge of a slipper grass and sand slope, I found myself stuck. I envoked a whole family to give me a push actually over the edge into the flats, where I may be able to drive out. This we did successfully, but I was still stuck as I couldn’t gain any traction on the dry grass, and kept threatening to dig a deep rut in the underlying sand.

After trying to jam some loose wood planks under the tires with no result, I set to changing the worse stuck tire for the spare, which had ample tread left. But even then I could not break free. Resigned to calling a tow truck – the next morning, as I figured I would get an extra after-hours call out fee this late in the day – I heard a friendly voice call out if I was OK.

It was Scott, who’d come down on a day off to try and get a little kiting time in. Although that effort was a miss, his timely presence came to my rescue. He applied his 90+ kg bulk to rock the van out of the little ruts and backed up onto the cardboard I’d laid out as a kind of mini runway. Then he got behind and pushed as I took off as best I could.

But even still I felt the insidious feeling of bogging down again in the sand – that awful knowledge that you don’t have enough speed to keep moving, but that if you give it more gas, then you succeed in just spinning the tires and digging ruts that trap you even worse.

But then I kept moving and caught on harder ground and suddenly I was free! I asked Scott afterwards and confirmed that he’d been able to catch up and give that little extra assist I needed to keep momentum and escape.

“So what are you drinking?” I asked in way of wanting to say thanks.

He was happy with a small beer at the closest tavern where the Spain-Portugal match was playing. We got engrossed and at half-time decided to move to a more comfortable scene to enjoy the rest of the game. In between the action we got into a good chat about kiting and gear (as you do) and had another beer (that he definitely was not going to be allowed to pay for!) Although Spain beat Portugal, we enjoyed our short boy’s night out. He had an hours drive home, so we called it quits at that point, but I look forward to the next time (hopefully without vehicular incident this time).

Post-script to the van incident: after riding on the spare tire for 2 days, I went out one morning no issues. Then 2 hours later, I went to get my students for a lesson and felt a rhythmic thump as I drove. My first worry was that the clutch was slipping. But it was the tire. It had deformed - in the heat, under use, or with the full pressure of inflation, I'll never know. Well we made it out to the kite spot, and I let some air out as we could visibly see it had deformed. The drive back felt better, but we ended up limping - then thumping - into a gas station. I had hoped I'd let out too much air for full speed driving, but found the outer layer of the tire had completely separated. Nothing to do but swap back to the bald original. Oh well, guess I'll need to find a replacement (after I make some more money!)