Valhalla Kite Buggy trip

Our Spanish teamrider Rubén Sereno made a 5000Km trip to compete in some of Europe’s bigger buggy races and to check out some of the best buggybeaches around. Here’s his report.

This season we wanted to organize another big travel. Jon Muzás and I were thinking about competing in the 24h of SPO, and we told about this plan to our partner and good friend of our same city (Vitoria-Gasteiz, North Spain). Our mate didn’t have to think twice and he joined us. Sadly our fellow buggypilot injured his knee and he had to undergo surgery. Jon couldn’t go either because he had to work. Anyway, my girlfriend and I took the most of our first holidays to visit Holland, Denmark and Germany. We already knew the Netherlands (we trained there before the World Championship of De Panne 2010). Now I wanted to compete in the last race of the powerful Dutch League, and then make the trip to Denmark with the idea of getting to know the famous beaches of Romo and Fano, and then to top it all off compete in the 24h at SPO. Nice Kite Buggy holidays!

The days before the race in Holland were disastrous: it was raining on Friday 17, and on Saturday 18 there was too much wind, so we couldn’t train. Even the day of the race, there were bad beach conditions, so the race was cancelled. Anyway we met a lot of friends and could see Arjen and Ozzy on the podium.

That day we made the trip to Romo, Denmark, where finally we could enjoy some hours of Kite Buggying with the PL Vapor 3.8m. The next day (Monday 20^th) we got to know Romo in all it’s glory and there was a very nice wind for the PL Vapor 4.5m. When the day ended, we went back to the camping and we saw that the wind was blowing from the West, so we sensed that the next day the beach was going to be flooded.

At Tuesday 21^stwe decided to go up north to check out Fano. In time for the International Kite Festival. Thousands of kites and a lot of buggies. It was a very nice show and a precious beach. We met Guntram Leibrock (German PL rep.) and fellow teamrider Dirk Fok, and we made our PL Vapor dance in a very funny circuit.

Wednesday 22^ndwas spectacular. There was sun and the wind was blowing from the SW. Nice buggy speeds aroud 70-80 km/h. All was fine untill my buggy’s backaxle broke(!). Fortunately, one of the local pilots (Paul-apollo) located a German buggyclub (windbrand.de) at the beach, who build their own buggies. They’ve been training Kite Buggy since 1991. They fixed my back axle in a few minutes. They were very friendly! Thursday 23^rd with my back axle fixed, we returned to the beach to say goodbye to Fano. There was a lot of good wind for the PL Vapor 3.2m.

Friday 24^th we had to go to SPO. We had good memories from the European Championships in 2009, and when we arrived it was as beautyful as the first time. A great atmosphere, a lot of pilots driving on the circuit and a lot of Vapors flying. It was a very funny and instructive day for me.

Finally, Saturday 25^th was the big day. Originally I was going to compete alone, but I found two new partners at the beach (Douwe de Kroon H-117 and Jesper Petersen DK-94). We didn’t know each other but we made friends easily. At the beach there was a lot of show and Fair Play. The rain began making the things harder at the half afternoon, and the changing winds didn’t allow us to maintain a good rhythm, reducing the possibilities of obtaining good registries. In the night the rain got more intense and the visibility conditions were quite bad, even with all the efforts of the GPA of keeping the security. Somewhere around 1:30 AM Arjen and I crashed, head on, in the dark. While Arjen continued I had to go to the hospital, finishing my part in the race. Finally the PL team of Arjen, John and Sebastian won. Douwe, Jesper and I got 15^{th out} of the 42 teams. Douwe and Jesper did a great job finishing the rest of the race without me.

At the end of the holidays we did a lot of touristy stuff, 5000km road, made new friends, shared new experiences, and saw new beaches…I wouldn’t think twice about doing it again!