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Reformed petrolhead...
 

[Closed] Reformed petrolhead seeks new hobby

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I would recommend, Snowboarding, great rush and so much fun.

Wake boarding, again a lot of fun and physically challenging

Both of those are quite seasonal

I have got into RC in a big way.

I have a TRX4 crawler for the scale driving and requires plenty of tinkering

I have a Baja Rey for blasting about and boosting jumps in a scale way - love trophy trucks and pre-runners.

I have a RWD drift chassis I use on carpet indoors at tracks, so much tinkering and lots of fun.

Defo satisfies the tinkering itch without laying on the floor under a car.


 
Posted : 16/11/2021 1:13 pm
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My brother goes sprinting. The hot ticket in the class he sprints in is an old MG ZR 1.4. His most recent car cost him £300 and he does about 12 events a year at Curborough Sprint Course on the varying layouts of the track. Sort of like track days, but you get the competitive element plus chatting with likeminded car nuts.


 
Posted : 16/11/2021 1:14 pm
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He wasn’t kiting, he was basically parasailing…

Ah, yes. I've seen this movie before.

Mate of mine bought a new Blade (high-performance kite). He let me have a go.

I thought "I've flown Blades before, I know what I'm doing" and flicked it straight up into the centre of the envelope (so from parked, directly to max power). I then learned a few things in a very short time frame:

1) This was a larger kite than the last Blade I flew;
2) This new model was considerably more aggressive than the old one;
3) What Kite Killers are for;
4) Sand doesn't taste very nice.

The thing bit, hard. Blades are traction kites, they're designed to pull and by god do they. I literally went flying, in the blink of an eye. I don't quite know how high I went but fortunately it was more distance than height. I dropped it to full brake, hit the ground lengthways and was still being dragged bodily across the beach in something of a panic with the spiteful bastard thing pulling like a train.

Oh yeah, Kite Killers! I let go of the handles, the straps round my wrists pulled the lines to collapse the canopy and I slid to an ungraceful halt just before several hundred quid's worth of kite embedded itself into spiky rocks and thorn bushes.

That was a bracing few seconds of my life.


 
Posted : 16/11/2021 1:35 pm
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Quite difficult to break bones kiting. Tendon injuries are much more common. You might be able to get some cheap kit from him though!

Give it a go on land.... Number of twisted ankles, bruised ribs, etc....

Great fun, though.

The wind is free and maintenance of gear is pretty cheap.

Still take my old Flysurfer out in the snow using my snowboard (Reschensee). Much more fun than a day on the slopes. Far fewer people and way cheaper.

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The UK is pretty good for kiting. Lots of wind, never that far from a decent beach and most towns have a large, grassy rec area to fly.


 
Posted : 16/11/2021 1:57 pm
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Yeah, skydiving (apart from the danger part).

I was actually going to suggest getting hold of a classic motorbike and doing a DIY EV conversion on it. I really like my Suzuki Bandit (despite a not so hidden desire for a Ducati 1098) and if the bike dies bigtime, I'll be looking at turning it into some sort of EV commuter bike (and then buying a 1098s)


 
Posted : 16/11/2021 2:02 pm
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FPV RC planes? More immersive than RC cars, and the level of kit geekery is almost limitless..


 
Posted : 16/11/2021 2:06 pm
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Video gaming. The proper kind, not the new-fangled FPS, RPG, immersive, job-simulation, take-this-object-there-to-get-another-thing-that-has-to-go-somewhere-else, oh-you-died-that's-no-problem-here's-a-respawn-point guff but stuff that's really ****ing hard. Three lives, no continues, beat the high score. Old school style shoot 'em ups are brilliant for a quick adrenalin buzz and add in newer style bullet-hell stuff for some proper flow-state fun.

And, ok, right, don't laugh, but racing round the Nurburgring in Forza Motorsport 4 in whatever virtual car you fancy on an old xbox 360 gives me the same sort of rush that motorcycle trackdays used to give me.

Or just do more biking from your door maybe? There must be any amount of stairs and stuff close by you can send it down 😎


 
Posted : 16/11/2021 3:22 pm
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Isn’t MTB enough? For me it’s the best place to get speed thrills whilst not actually travelling that fast, so when you come off it’s not usually that bad

Tell that to Gee Atherton. 😉


 
Posted : 16/11/2021 3:47 pm
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There must be any amount of stairs and stuff close by you can send it down 😎

I'm so glad that I live in south Wales if this is what MTB means to the rest of the country. 😀


 
Posted : 16/11/2021 3:53 pm
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I’m so glad that I live in south Wales if this is what MTB means to the rest of the country. 😀

Well, yes, smartarse, not everyone has the luxury of actual mountains to chuck their bike down so you just do what you can do and it's better than driving somwhere to ride, isn't it?


 
Posted : 16/11/2021 4:04 pm
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Give it a go on land…. Number of twisted ankles, bruised ribs, etc….

That’s why I stick to kitesurfing on water! I’m even twitchy on flat shallow water which a lot of kiters are attracted to, great for doing flat water tricks but not so great landing in shin deep water from a trick gone wrong and breaking your ankles. I’d much rather be outback in the waves where I’ll never hit the bottom but might have a bit of a swim once in a while.


 
Posted : 16/11/2021 4:09 pm
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Well, yes, smartarse, not everyone has the luxury of actual mountains to chuck their bike down so you just do what you can do and it’s better than driving somwhere to ride, isn’t it?

I can't post proper emojis here, but you are absolutely correct, I'm being a smartarse! 😀 (And it rains far too much around here - the sacrifices we have to make for living somewhere with trails..)


 
Posted : 16/11/2021 4:14 pm
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Car track days are dull too many rules on overtaking. Motorbike track days are fun I’ve done over 400 and 10 years of racing. But having got properly into my mtb riding 3-4 years ago I do one or two a year now, with an average Trackday costing £3-£400 for the day, tyres and running costs with a fast bike it is expensive. By comparison mtb is peanuts, a day in the peaks costs £10 in fuel to get there and food in a cafe, even a day at a trail park is only £50 all in. Spares are cheap and tyres are throw away. The adrenalin is the same, but with mtb the freedom to ride how when and where I want is priceless. Follow a few simple rules and no one bothers you anywhere. I worked out a while back that the adrenalin buzz of being on 2 wheels was what I enjoy and it doesn’t have to be a motorbike.


 
Posted : 16/11/2021 8:10 pm
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Please don’t get a jet ski. In the eyes of many (I’m a sea kayaker) it’s the maritime equivalent riding a motorbike on a footpath.

Those people are of course wrong. Riding a motorbike on a footpath is illegal and no matter how considerately you do it pretty inconsiderate. Whereas there is a general right for anyone to navigate the sea even with a jetski. They are however often driven by incompetent arrogant idiots so you will get tarred with that brush and find it increasingly hard to find somewhere you can launch. They are also expensive to run – the fuel economy will make any car you’ve owned seem like a prius! And many people report getting bored fairly quick.

(Frankly if you are a seakayaker encountering problematic jetskis regularly you probably need to broaden your range of destinations – after all once you are away from the beaches there’s no one to show off to so most jetskis are not found in the amazing remote locations a seakayak can be so nice to use).

Yes, I also detest jet skis. And I am a seakayaker too. The problem is that for me to avoid jet skis I have to avoid the beach I live next to…. For a weekend paddle that’s fine. I can paddle away from the beach where most of the Jetskis are messing about and explore the rocky coast beyond. For a quick evening paddle I am stuck with the sods as the noise and kerfufffle dominates the bay. This has led me to take to my pack raft which can be launched from more remote Rocky coves i can walk or ride to.

Mind you, I thought Gower was bad for jetskis until I went to Lydstep in the summer.


 
Posted : 16/11/2021 10:02 pm
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For me mountain biking totally took over from motorbikes, I just didn't have the time and money for both and I'd rather do mountain bikes.

But then I needed a car so I got a fast estate 😛 But generally speaking mtb is pretty much the closest equivalent.

I do find RC cars have some of the same appeals, but obviously very different in other ways.


 
Posted : 17/11/2021 11:24 pm
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Gluing your face to a road ?.

Be quite ironic and even slightly dangerous.


 
Posted : 18/11/2021 1:33 am
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Motorbike trackdays, just like car trackdays but are actually fun 🙂 and not a procession of cars behind a really bad driver who does not look in his rear view mirror and has 2000BHP to use down the straight bits 🙂


 
Posted : 18/11/2021 8:37 am
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