Peter Vanden Busche from Mellow (Flexifoil European Distributor) invited myself & Sy Leonard to attend an event held at Quiberon, West France. This is one of his main Flexifoil testzones where he also invites riders & colleagues down to chill out and relax and kite plenty. Heading down to the event were some of the German Flexifoil Crew, French Riders, Belgium Riders, Mellow Staff, Myself, Sy & Kirsty. Most importantly was Richard Boudia who was able to capture the event in Pictures.
We planned to drive down Wednesday Morning and arrive mid afternoon at the spot. Tuesday evening I packed my gear into the car then headed to bed at around 10.30pm. Sy arrived at mine at Midnight so we loaded the rest of the gear into the car and strap the buggies onto the bike rack. Now fully awake I decided to head down to the ferry and catch an earlier crossing. With only just over 1 hours sleep we made our way to Dover. Once on the ferry we found some seats to grab some much needed sleep. Just over 1 hour later we arrived in Calais.
With 6 hours left of driving we knew it would be a long drive, one thing that quickly hit us was how empty the roads were, it was now 9am local time and there was hardly any other cars on the road. After 9 hours of driving, 2 hours on the ferry and 3 cans of Red Bull we made it to the spot.
What a spot, we pulled into the car park and walked over the sand dune to reveal a massive 6 mile beach, with clear blue water & golden sand! It was defiantly worth the journey!
We headed over to the campsite to meet up with Peter and the rest of the crew who had now arrived. We set up Camp & chilled out for the evening. Myself & Sy were knackered so we caught some sleep to be ready for the next day.
Thursday Morning we woke to clear skies & on-shore but light winds. We headed down to the beach with all the gear to get our first buggy session in. All the other riders grabbed the demo buggies and took the blurr’s out for a thrashing. Myself & Sy took out our Blade IV’s for some freestyle action, its been along time since we have had a beach this big to play on, so we went for a little adventure up the beach. About half way up was a wet patch so Sy backed out, I carried on upto the end of the beach. By this point you could not see the rest of the crew’s kites, this just made me realise how big the beach was. I headed back down to the rest of the guys to carry on with the session. I swapped over to the Blurr which ended up with around 8 buggies all razzing it around on Blurr’s, a very very sweet sight in the sky.
As the tide was fully in a few of us headed out onto the water while others caught some rays! The wind was not strong and as it was dead on-shore it was hard work, but the 14.5 Ion Three did a pretty good job! After around 30 minutes the wind died fully so we packed up and headed back to the campsite.
We put up some Blurr’s and some fun on the campsite as well as cooking a BBQ and chilling out into the evening. The wind was not strong but it was good fun for all the riders.
Friday morning brought cross on winds so we headed around to another part of the bay, it took around 20 minutes to get to the spot. When we arrived it turned out to be the spot I had buggied to the previous day. I took out the Blade IV 8.5 and went out freestyling, sadly the wind was not super strong so it was not ideal but it was a good session. It was cloudy which did not make it ideal for pictures.
We kited for around 3 or 4 hours messing around, razzing it up and down the beach enjoying the winds. Richard had seen a spot where we could buggy & get some sweet shots so we put the Blurr’s up and headed over to it. After about 30 minutes the tide was coming in and we were loosing usable space & with it being late afternoon we headed back to the campsite.
Again the kites came out at the campsite and we messed about into the evening, having a BBQ & drinks in a nice chilled out atmosphere.
Saturday brought cross shore winds but clear blue skies. Richard wanted to get some sweet photos so we took a drive south to find some little spots to get some photos. We found this ideal little bay so unloaded the gear and headed down to the beach. It was by no means an ideal spot but we got some amazing photos and it was great fun. Some of the other riders went surfing & stand up paddle boarding. As this was the first time I had given it ago it did not go to well. I headed in after a while and went and grabbed a 6m Rage & went body surfing! I do not think the surfers were sure what to make of it. As the wind was cross shore I was able to drag out and drag in easily. It was a great laugh and well worth it. Myself & Sy headed into town to grab some food and arrange our ferry home. The plan was originally to travel back Monday but looking at the forecasts & our local spot back home had a perfect forecast with Quiberon having very light winds. We made the choice to head back a day early and grab a session back home as we had not been able to get a powered session here.
Back at the campsite we went down to the gravel track to do some kiting aswell as some lapped times around the campsite. We all used a 5m Blurr, standard buggy with no harness or lap strap. Peter was the quickest by far, in fact 12 seconds quicker than me & a good 8 seconds quicker than the others!
That evening we decided to try the local cooking so me, Sy, Richard & Kirsty went down to the local town to have a pancake meal. It was a bloody good laugh and great way to spend our last night in France. In the town was a music festival so we enjoyed this for a bit before heading back to the campsite.
As we arrived back at the campsite the German guys were hooking up a projector onto the back of their camper to show DVD’s & Videos. We had some vistors in the way of dune bugs that buzzed around for some time before disappearing into the night. The videos lasted late into the night with most riders knackered, at around 2/3am we all headed off.
Sunday morning we woke to cloud and light winds so we loaded the car up ready for the journey home. We said our good byes to the crew and started the 6 odd hour drive back to Calais. We boarded the ferry and set off to Dover. Once back in the UK we had a 3 hour drive back to home. We arrived back home at around 10pmish.
Monday morning we both woke to NO wind! It had turned out it had sea breezed in France & they had had on shore 20mph winds & sunshine! We were truly guttered that we had not got the session we were looking for, it was a great event and well worth the journey. Just a shame we did not get the wind we wanted.
Massive Thanks to Peter for arranging the event - Click for Website
Massive Thanks to Flexifoil for supporting the Trip - Click for Website
Mega Thanks to Richard Boudia for the Photos - View more photos by Clicking Here
