 click to enlarge.  WEEK 12!!! FINAL WEEK!!! We made it! 12 whole weeks in a winter that barely happened! Week 12, do or die time for anyone looking to beat their best speed for the season. Guy Lebrun has dominated the number 1 spot of the ranking since the first week and finishes the 12th week in the number one spot. Hardwater Kiting owner Chris Krug was a close second place but in spite of his efforts he couldn't catch Guy before the end of the ranking period. We were surprised to see Petri Lehikoinen, fast Finn and overall winner of last season's GSR, "pop up" and take the #3 spot for week 12. Well done everyone! OVERALL RESULTS.At Hardwater Kiting we are psyched to see the level of support and participation we've had in this season's GSR. Many past participants hardly even saw winter this season and were denied good conditions to ride let alone participate in the GSR. But a few people managed to get a session or two in and we were lucky enough to still get entries from all over the globe. Many new faces this season and some new top contenders to keep an eye out for next season. Congratulations to the top three competitors. Guy Lebrun of Quebec came out on top with his top speed of 70.87 mph/114.05kph managed to hang onto the top spot as fastest overall. Guy spent time as the fastest some weeks and the slowest other weeks. He is a good example of how "the speed thing" works in snow kiting and that even if you are the fastest, sometimes luck isn't on your side. It was fun watching his speeds over the season. Chris Krug managed to close the distance on Guy but couldn't catch him before the end of the ranking period. Almost!!! His efforts got him into the #2 spot and squeezed Gary into the #3 position. Chris is the only rider in the top 3 that was on a foil kite. Gary Kjelleren rounds out the top 3 this season and has been in the top 3 every year. Had winter cooperated a bit more this season who knows where he would have finished. As always we are happy to see Gary's speed in the ranking and he never disappoints. Petri Lehikoinen almost got him. ALMOST. In the top 10 Molly Savard narrowly squeezed out Paul Morse for the # 9 Spot by .4mph. Both she and Paul were on the Ozone Access V6 6m kites and have similar weight ranges. This was very close to "one design" competition in the ranking. Molly got a really good day last week and got her fastest for the season, and beat Paul. We also had Randy Berube narrowly beat out Robert Cook by .10 mph knocking Robert out of 6th to 7th. Again, similar kites and conditions. We want to mention Jim Cline. Even though he got pushed out of the top 10 this last week, at the time this was posted, he has 2000 miles logged for the 2015/16 snow kite season. If we had a mileage category, Jim would likely own it every season. Micheal Olsen is our fastest boarder for the season with a top speed of 47.8mph/79.92kph out on Lake Dillion, narrowly beating out Jason Yetley who was the fastest boarder in the ranking much of the season. Jason's top speed was 46.4mph/74.67kph on the Mississippi river which we find pretty dang cool. A shout out to Chrissy Zobitz, the only other female participant in this season's ranking. Chrissy was one of the many Mid-West participants in this season's ranking and we are impressed how she's progressed over the season. Molly and Chrissy show that girls can ride too and hang with the boys. We hope that their results will encourage more women to enter the ranking next season. Our youngest rider in the ranking was Nathan Brooker age 12 from Vermont. Nathan with a speed of 19.7mph/31.7kph beat out his dad Kevin by a little bit over 2mph and comes in as our second fastest kiter on skates. Our fastest kiter on skates was Doug Scieszka with a top speed of 24.2mph/38.94kph. We will be contacting the weekly winners for their T-Shirt sizes and shipping addresses next week so keep an eye on your emails! We at Hardwater Kiting want to thank everyone, all 50 riders, who participated in the 2016 Global Speed Ranking and helped maintain the fun factor that we like to see in the GSR.
We also want to thank everyone for their support, patience and enthusiasm in a winter season that hardly even happened. Thank you to all the new faces this year and all you old faces from years passed. :-) YOU ALL ROCK!!! We will see you all again next season
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 And we are now at Week 11. ONE WEEK LEFT!
Congratulations to Peter Catanzaro for taking 1st place position for week 11 while riding out at Skyline Utah. Peter's speed was 49.6 mph which is pretty zippy in soft snow. Michael Olsen out on Lake Dillon in Colorado came in a close second at 47.8 MPH. Again a fast speed on soft snow but especially for a snowboard. Mike's speed puts him as the fastest snow boarder for the season. Guy Lebrun, still the ranking overall leader, rounds out 3rd place just short of Mike's speed with 47.2mph. Well done guys. Good to see a few of the Mid-West crew still in the mix. We hope they can hang in one last week. This puts us into week 12, the final week of the ranking! After the week 12 results are in we will update the overall ranking. WEEK 12 submissions are due on March 25th.  WEEK 10!!! Congratulations to John Zdechlik out in Minnesota for his first place spot in week 10 of the GSR. Robert Bocik took a close second place with Lonny Heiden close on Rob's heels. A firmer surface might have gotten Lonny a higher spot but that's how it goes. Apparently the Slingshot Rally was the kite to beat for week 10? ;-) Although participants have slowly been picked off as their conditions have gone away, we keep getting new riders from regions that still have good riding. The ranking runs for 12 weeks and at this rate we might just make the full 12 weeks. At least some of us. To illustrate the tenacity of some of our participants. below is a video of the conditions Joe Sharron was in recently. Scratchy riding is still riding!
Keep sending in your submissions if you can make the next two weeks. We will keep the ranking open for the full 12. Week 11 entries are due by March 18th. See you next week!  Week 9! Winter is hanging on by a thread but we are still getting entries from around the world as people scramble to get a few last sessions before their hard water turns wet and their fields go green. Guy Lebrun is back in the weekly first place position just under the 60 mph mark. Will he beat his best speed of the season before the season ends? Who knows? He set the bar so high right out of the gate! Last week's top dog Paul Morse managed to dodge car size drain holes and bag 54.2 mph before heading back to work. Not sure if he'll be able to get out again before the ice is gone for good. Shout out to local hard charger Jim Cline for bagging his fastest speed in three years at 51.6 mph. Meanwhile the boys out in the Mid-West keep throwing down as they loose more and more ice based riding. John Zdechlik comes in 3rd for the week with 44.2 mph. The list is getting shorter and shorter as the season fades. We look forward to seeing anyone who can still ride in next weeks list. Who know's who the last rider standing will be? We will update the overall ranking soon. WEEK 10 SUBMISSIONS ARE DUE ON MARCH 11th.On a side note we want to apologize for the delay in getting this week's ranking up. We are in a bit of a scramble as our season is closing rapidly here and we are trying to keep tabs on the ice conditions and juggling clinics while we are also starting to see bike related work come in as we are transitioning to bike operations. Thanks for your patience! -Chris.
  Defying the sad state of winter in many parts of the world we have managed to make it to week 8 of the 2016 GSR! Traditionally this is the start of what many of us consider the "speed season" but if things keep going the way they have been many of us won't have any ice or snow left to compete on. We intend to run through the entire 12 weeks of the GSR so for those of you who have good conditions in the upcoming weeks, you have a good chance of beating the top finishers! Congratulations to Paul Morse for bagging his fastest speed of the season while test flying the Ozone Chrono v2 9m! Conditions were firm and covered in water (see pic) but still made for some speedy runs as Paul got his best run of the season as did Molly Savard with a close second place finish at 49.7 mph on an Ozone Access 8m. Canadian rider and overall leader, Guy Lebrun rounds out the top 3 spots just a little over 1 mph behind Molly. Jason Yetley is still bagging high speeds on his board ripping up and down the mighty Mississippi. Riding his 14m Switch Nitro he continues to throw down speeds that are usually only seen in the skier submissions. **We want to note that Robert Cook out of Madison Wisconsin enters week 8 with a speed of 63.1 mph but was unable to provide the required data files as outlined in the HWK GSR rules. Given his surface and wind conditions as well as his past performance in last year and this year's ranking we have no reason to doubt that he is capable of the speed he submitted nor are we disputing it. However out of fairness to others and in accordance to the GSR rules, as we cannot verify his session via data recorded in the GPS unit we cannot confirm the speed or list it in the regular ranking or use it in the overall ranking. Hopefully he can get another good session in before the conditions vanish out in Wisconsin! Week 9 Submissions must be in by Mar. 4th.
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Hardwater Kiting GSRThis ranking has been created in the spirit of the original Stormboarding World Speed Ranking sponsored by Rachael Miller/Stormboarding host of the original Snow kite speed ranking and New England Kitestorm event. Archives
October 2019
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