my FLX132 arrived from underground a few days ago. finally i could get all touchy / feely with one of the new sticks. i already felt i knew a bit about them having been involved in a few web/print marketing projects advising others to feel the FLX!

but first, i had to get the board out of its packaging. underground has always gone a little overboard in this regard, and i've built up a comfy mattress in the back of my van from numerous sheets of foam they've sent over the years. but this was different: it appeared a team of paranoid engineers messing with methamphetamines had spent a week, and an unlimited budget on wrapping my board with so many double and triple rail protectors that i now have a winter's supply of fire-starting cardboard as well as enough sheets of blue foam to give permanent beds to auckland's homeless.

finally after much slashing, ripping and gnashing of teeth, the beast emerged. ye gods! i was initially stunned by the slick finish and lightness of the thing. then i noticed how thin the board is - about 10mm with hardly any deck shape through the centre. had they forgotten to take my board out of their 30-tonne press before smoko, i pondered?

then i noticed the rails. how the hell did i get fluoro-green day-glow paint between the otherwise graphically styly decks?

now i have nothing against the eighties, but do i want to be reminded of them every time i go kiting? i can hear the wowsers already: "how dare you piss on your supplier's colour sense - you'll NEVER get boards from anyone EVER again - you'll never work in this town again etc. etc." ad nauseum.

feeling a little queasy or not, i had many bits of hardware to start assembling, from some prettily organised little parcels. fortunately i had a comprehensive collection of allen keys at my disposal. how would a man get on if he had his board delivered to fiji's yasawa islands i wondered?

putting boards together is actually a lot of work and takes about 25 minutes i've found + 30 minutes to defeat the packaging. now i know why retailers deserve their money - they have to set up heaps of boards and don't even get to ride them. imagine their frustration! feel their pain!

anyway, the highlight of the assembly was finding the fin pilot holes didn't match the fins - or so i thought. as i wound the fins in, they fitted all right and had the effect of flattening a bit of the rocker out of the board's tips and increasing the tension, and presumably altering the flex characteristics of the bare hull. had those foul-smelling resinheads down the line factored this in to their calculations i enquired of my nonplussed kitten? i must point out at this point, for those easily alarmed, i have nothing against south islanders, just a tiny piece of the south island filled with murky water, known as the pooey. unfortunately, many of my friends congregate their daily and get all lathered up in slime - but i digress.

next day i arrived at a 10 knot-swept shakers, with a determination to test the new craft to the full limits of its performance. apart from the fatal lack of wind it was a cracker of a day. plenty of peacocks strutting their stuff, the sun a shining, everyone else working, me with cold ale in the fridge when i got home.

as i pumped my new 17m slingy, i made a startling discovery. YE GODS! the strut protectors of my kite were that same puke green as my FLX rails. such was the clash of other garish colours involved in the kite's scheme i hadn't even noticed this freak coincidence before.

there was another moment of truth when i realised i had no option but to still use my spring suit, even though people had been telling me for weeks that autumn was well and truly here and i was a crazy fool with white legs, even more often than usual. damn i wish i'd pandered more to the retailers - say what you like about 'em, they often have racks of full length wetties at their disposal.

at last my kite was flying. usually in such conditions i take my skim board for a trog and make a right old marnis of myself, but i took my fridge door 138 for a trog instead. actually it was better than i thought, with the outgoing tide and all - it was only marginal - not completely rancid as i had earlier suspected.

i managed a few flips and flops and a couple of whose-a-me-whatsits followed by a triple reverse flickety flack whack give the dog a bone jack. bizarrely, this inspired a few tourists to start pumping their own toys.

stealthily i switched boards and snuck back out while everyone was busy and wouldn't see me sinking up to the top of my leaders while flapping on the slim FLX. incredibly, the board felt better in the light wind, steep chop combo than my previous pro carbon steed had done. she was simply faster, lighter and snappier and as an added bonus, didn't spray me in the eye at all. "i can see!" i yelled at the seagulls. this simple improvement was going to revolutionise my kiting! watch out auckland's #1!

i took advantage of my new found sight to peruse the new craft as she slipped through the water faster than a newborn dolphin. having such thin rails meant i could really sink the edge in and push the tail hard. even the green didn't look so bad underwater - kind of like phosphoresence flashing away on some kind of undersea acid trip. i must admit i zoned out for a while there, had a few vietnam flashbacks and nearly sailed right into a 200 foot cliff. at one stage in my reverie, i thought i could actually see the bones in my feet but this was just the anatomically correct patterns on the footstraps. those guys!

bugger me if the boys haven't cracked out a fine board in the FLX132. she's the one with the main trunk line running through her, and the word down at the railyards is $995 for a brand spanker, including free eyewear if a man's sharp. fair dinkum.

i'll let you know how the little rascal behaves in a bit of a blow and how it likes some solid flat landings, out of control kiteloops, unguided baton twirlings, beach grindings, river patrols, the odd vehicle driving over it, if mike hardy has his way (he once parked his mummy's car on my fridge door and she lives on) etc etc.

go the FLX! go the mighty vodafone warriors! go Go GO!

i made that bit about the warriors up - they really suck, and the blues and the all blacks and team nz. suckers - all of 'em. and me for watching them.

go fly a kite bubba and aloha to you all who have felt the FLX, and those who will live to feel its pace and experience the terrible and magnificent jugements ahead!

watevausaybro...take ur medication 8)