About

Hi, my name is Chris. I am the founder of KiteGearFix. At the age of 8 I learned windsurfing. That was decades ago. I loved it and did a lot of it. It became my passion. I went nowhere without my windsurfing gear. For years I followed the wind, I even chased it.. always damaging my gear in high waves or high winds.. Ripping sails, breaking boards, footstraps.. I started working at a windsurfing and sailingschool in the south of france and got into repairing windsurfing gear. I spliced my own ropes and harnesses. I made my own surfboard (it was a failure and broke apart) and I worked there on Sailboats, Catamarans, Optimists and 420’s. I got familiar with a lot of different gear in these days.

In 1999 when a friend of mine told me about kitesurfing, I went to the Tradeshow “Boot” in Duesseldorf and bought my first kiteboarding gear. I went into the park and attempted to learn to fly the kite in high winds…

That obviously was not very smart.. But there were no teachers or schools or other kiters at that time.. So i had no choice but to be self taught.

After i was dragged through the hole park by that shear uncontrollable force, i was hooked.. With bleeding knees, ripped Jeans and trembling fingers, i found my sport… I immediately sold my surf gear and was all in into kitesurfing. As you can imagine at that time the gear was different. I started with the most basic two line kites, then got one of the first Wipika inflatable kites. It was a 9m, much to small.. switched to the first edition of flysurfer by buying a speed 9m and went back to inflatables with a wipika 15m. From there i went through a lot of brands, tested out what was best each year… Each year i got new gear… and followed every step of the development from different brands to where we are today..

Those were the times of trial and error. The research and development improved over the years, but we had to fabricate and invent ourselves at that time.. and i came up with a lot of personal solutions and fixes for my gear, as well as my friend’s.

At some point i found myself being asked and consulted by my kitesurfing buddies and their buddies, when something broke, or was not functioning as it should anymore. It was then that the idea of a repair service came up.

I got my experience with professional sewing machines from working on different machines early on. Startet with a foot pedal Singer machine, then evolved to a professional Bernina, and then a Pfaff Walking foot machine. This machine does the perfect stitching for the sophisticated and strong 3-step-zig-zag seams of a kite and it is strong enough to work each Canvas thickness of a kite as well as multiple layers of Leading edge material.

Today i can say with confidence, that there is no repair I have not attempted. I am not afraid of tackling the most difficult repairs.. For me it is a challenge. And giving up is not an option.. 🙂

In the meantime I have worked on hundreds of kites of different makes and brands with different systems. I came up with customized bars, worked on a Universal bar with variable length and invented a couple of other gizmos to make kitesurfing more easy..

I always had a lot of respect for people that followed their passion, their dream.. Who accumulated knowledge and skills over the years and, who found a way of giving back to the community.