[pike]

I am a competitive slalom water skier. I am 56 years old. Water skiing is a dying sport. Why? Because most of the kids today don't want to slalom ski. They want to wake board. Why is that?
First, slalom water skiing is an elite-ist sport. To be competitive, you need access to a lake with a slalom course (almost always a private lake). Then you need a tournament ski boat (about $50K new). Then you need a ski (around $1000 for a new comp. slalom ski).
To wake board, you need any old boat, any body of water, and a new wake board is nowhere near the cost of a ski. Then you have all the COOL guys wakeboarding on TV. Big Air = big wows from the kids.
But skiing is dying and wake boarding is growing because that is where all the new participants are going.The largest segment of water ski tournaments is now the 45 years old and up age groups.
If you want to grow the sport of hang gliding, you need to figure out a way to capture the imagination of the young teen crowd. HG has to be COOL.
I would suggest something like a challenge "Learn to hang glide" competition between Tony Hawke(Champion skate boarder) and Shaun White(Champion snow boarder). These guys are way COOL!, and heroes of the target age group. Then you would have to get it televised. Maybe you could get the people that do the X-Games to do it. Maybe you could find sponsors that would back it. I don't know. But I see the lessons to be learned from water skiing. HG has to be accessible. It is really pretty affordable compared to a lot of other sports. But it has to grab the kids and make them say, "That's too cool. I want to do that". What I do know is that if you don't get the young people coming in to the sport, it will die like water skiing is dying.
George

[jimrooney]

Sorry to be mr negativity here, but... reasons you list for skiing dying...
It's flippin expensive.
Private lake, 50k boat, 1k/entry.... vs... any old body of water + cheap board.

Imagination doesn't really seem to have any part in it.
Jim

[Wagner24314]

sorry but ski ing is boring just my 2 cent

be honestly your 56 and unable to kick ass on a wake board your time has come just accept it your getting old

[jimrooney]

So what you're saying is that if it were exciting, you'd be willing to spend that kind of money to get into it?

[Wagner24314]

you can paint a turd and yet its a turd

[pecofly]

Oops, I mean Wagner.
Ya , I,m a waters skier of the competitive sort as well and to me it,s only obvious that you never got good enough on a waterski to know the adrenalin part of it.
Thats like saying Hanggliding is boring when ya only got to the running down the slope and lifting yer feet off the ground.

I,ve done both sports all my life and have put in quite a bit of time wakeboarding as well and gotten lots of airtime on a wake board.
Wakeboarding is way cool too, but doesn,t require near the finess or strength that is required of a good slalomn skier.Unless you are "really good"
Now if you,ve pulled a clean course at 34mph with 36' off then, you might know what yer talking about,
And the real good guys are just warming up at that.
Frankly, I rather doubt it!
Ok, really had to voice my 54 year old opinion on that one.lol
Actually , what really pisses me off is when folks who really know nothing about a sport, have an opinion on it.
Like , know what yer talking about first before you start flapping.
Way off topic for sure.
Sorry, just MHO.
Pete

[pike]

I'll be the first to admit I'm getting old. That's one of the reasons I am looking to get into hang gliding, less wear and tear on the body. And while I'm no pro, I usually get well into 35 off. That qualifies to me for the "adrenaline" zone for 56 years old. My point is, how many young folks do you have hang gliding. Seems like a good bit of the people that post here are close to my age. As for expense, that was precisely my point. Hang gliding is way more affordable than skiing. That' a big advantage. There's no doubt it's a very exciting sport. So why is everyone concerned about growing the sport? Seems to me, it needs to be sold better. That was the point I was trying to make. It's not that the sport doesn't have a lot going for it. That's not the problem. I thought the idea of the "Growing the Sport" forum was to get new and different ideas. If I misunderstood, let me know and I'll keep my opinions to myself.
George

[knumbknuts]

capturing the young??

[designbydave]

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[tokyoDirk]

[QuienesSuPa]

George,
Getting those uber cool dudes to give HG a shot seems like it'd have huge results. Same for PG. Whichever. I like the idea. I doubt USHPA would sponsor lessons for these guys but getting a proposal to some "stars" couldn't hurt. Especially if we could muster up the money to make it "free" lessons for them. If anyone has a link to that publicity world, I'd love to hear more thoughts. As the Rocky Mtn club president, I could pitch the idea to our people and try to get some dollars towards something like that. Who know's what they'd say, but could be worth a try.

Cool idea.

I don't know what's up Wagner's A$$, but that kind of disposition to personally poke someone with a new idea is hard to understand.

Later,
BJ

[jimrooney]

Agreed... best to avoid derailing things... it's too easy with these sorts of topics.

[Rebardan]

get this guy back on TV

[pecofly]

No worries about your comments.
It,s all good
Young Wag , I,m sure can take it as good as he gives it.
I prbly came on a bit strong in defence of "one" of my beloved sports.
Thing is, there are so many great sports out there.
Problem for Hanggliding is that is viewed by the general populous as an extreme fringe sport that carries a huge risk versus benefit stigma, due in large part to our somewhat scary beginnings in the early 70,s.
If we want to really make our sport grow, we have to somehow tackle they way that Hanggliding is perceived.
We all know how safe it can be, when done properly.
The media unfortunately hones in on our very infrequent accidents and makes big news out of it.
So, if we are really to grow this sport, we,ve got to get more exciting and fun movie footage into the news and what would be great is to somehow create a surfer style movie out of the early days to where it is now and imagine if we could bring it to the big screen what that would do?
Media as much as it can hurt this sport could also help grow it.
There.
Keep on talking guys, this is good.

[Wagner24314]

[jimrooney]

Here's an other little "tweak with your brain" sorta thing...
I live with a bunch of skydivers.
They provide some unique perspectives on things (both intentionally and not).

The first thing I find odd is the desire to show mom and dad how safe our sport is. Then in the same breath we say we want younger people in the sport. This may not be readily obvious, but these are at opposite ends of the spectrum.

See, the older people (you and me) are the ones that want something safe. Those kids you're looking at aren't as concerned. So this "show the world hang gliding is safe" idea just baffles me.

So, get this... the majority of skydivers are exactly those kids you're talking about "marketing" hang gliding to. Our dropzone is packed with them. College students galore and just out of college kids line up in droves to go skydiving. Dropzones in general can't find enough tandem masters to handle all the business they get. If you've got a tandem ticket, you've got a job.

Did skydivers somehow convince the world that skydiving was safe? I'll give you something that might help answer that... guess which demographic lines up to bungi jump?

Here's an other fun bit of info.
The skydivers I live with think we're nuts. And one's a basejumper. Thinks we're out of our gords. And they've tried it... they know what they're talking about. And get this... they're talking about scooter towing. Yup, five feet off the ground in a hang glider is what they call "man, what a rush!... you're nuts!"

Jim

[Wagner24314]

girl i know sky dives and she thinks hang gliding looks scary in the videos she has never seen me fly yet.

[pecofly]

Gotta agree here too.

If it didn,t have pucker factor, then I doubt that many of us would stay in it that long.
Imagine you could fly anytime and there was absolutely no risk, no matter what you did.
Boring!!!!!!!!!
Gotta have a bit of PUCKER FACTOR now and again.
Ya know,something that makes ya go Woooohoooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So Roon, yer right about whats all that about it being super safe?
Truth is, if you do everything right and the weather is right equipment is all good, ya still might die.
Murphy,s Law.
Hows that for an about face?

[red]

[pike]

Jim made a good point. I don't think selling the safety of the sport is the issue . Particularly with the young crowd. But it's still a case of marketing in my opinion. People see sky diving on TV occasionally but HG is off the radar. Pecofly, if you get tired of the cold up in BC, grab your board and come on down to Pensacola. I'll give you a pull. It's dry suit time, but very skiable.