Kickabout-A Worldwide Event
I was reading recently in the book, Ultramarathon Man by Dean Karnazes, that he regularly goes on something he calls, a “runabout”. It’s loosely, very loosely based on the Aboriginal journey called “Walkabout”. What he does is set out early in the morning with only some water, a credit card, and no pre set course. He doesn’t know where he is going, how far he’s going to run, or where his food stops are going to be, he just runs! So I thought, why not start a Kickabout! Here’s the concept.
Great book that sparked the idea for the Worldwide Kickabout.
We’re picking Saturday, May 7th as the day for as many of you as you can, go out get on your Footbike, and just kick. No pre set course, distance or difficulty. Just go out and kick wherever your Footbike will take you. What a great way to know that people all over the world would be kicking that day. Go for as long as you can, as long as your schedule will allow you to go, or as long as your legs hold out. Take some pictures or videos, come back and post your experiences of that day. What did you learn about yourself along your journey? What interesting conversations did have? How far did you go? And because this is a Worldwide event, it will be great for you Footbikers in Europe to do with us. How about you Aussies kicking in as well? Right there we could have people in three different continents participating. Wait until we get all seven continents in the mix! (Let’s see who the first person will be to Footbike Antarctica.)
Let me know your thoughts and please share any of your preparation that might help others. We’ll be doing future blog posts on nutrition and some of the latest science on hydration that should be very helpful for all.
Set your calendar again for May 7th, to be a part of the First Annual Worldwide Kickabout.
Great idea. I would love to be a part of this. I will hit all the kickers here in Utah on it and get as many as we can involved.
Sarah, It will be a great event. I already have people in three continents pumped and ready. Thanks for getting all the kickers in the Wasatch Front area informed and involved.
I love the idea. That is my kind of event! Count me in! I am counting the days.
Oh yea, count me in, sounds like something i want to do,KICKABOUT! I’LL KICKABOUT SOMEWHERE THAT DAY FOR SURE!!
In the Netherlands, on Saterday may 7th there is a competition match, it is an important match for the Dutch Kickbike-cup.
It is a very special race, as it is kicking 37 Kilometes one way, on a dike. http://www.autoped.nl/afsluitdijk/
So, there will be a lot of Kickbikers in the Netherlands kicking the dike that day!
I love the kickabout worldwide initiative, and will spread the word in the Netherlands!
Good luck, hope you get a large group to kick the world!
Agnes
Great idea. I’ll do my Kickabout in the Pitt Meadows Airport area ( near Vancouver, BC Canada) – either on the dikes using my Belize 26/02 or country roads using the Millennium Racer. It’s on my calendar now! Good luck to everyone.
I’ll do my Kickabout in Varkaus, Finland.
Yes, sure, for us almost every day is a scooter day – well at this time of a year up here in Finland we still go kicksledding on snow and ice! Let´s meet as many kickers as possible on the roads, or offroads that day.
One thing I don´t like is that the word “footbike” is used as a generic name for the scooter sport. It is a brandname of a scooter – that happens to be a copy of my original invention, the Kickbike – scooter. And thus our dear competitor on the market. Also in this invitation their marking is up on the top of the page and the word footbike is written as a name Footbike.
Many call our sport also “kickbiking”. Well, that separates us from the popular miniscooters that are designed for tricks. Well, I think that a scooter is a scooter no matter what the wheel size is. And then we have different brands – original ones and followers.
Happy kicking!
Hannu
Count Australia in. Hopefully the fourth nation to register.
I will advertise it to all our kickers, so that we can all go “Kickabout”.
Hey Hannu—–Try to remember that we are not trying to steal your scooter or your sport. Since we are perpetually confused in the USA, we just asked Thijza at the IKSA World what we are supposed to call the sport. Until we are told otherwise we are going to head out this afternoon for some footbiking.
Now the fact that Optima Cycles decided to call their copy of your product the Footbike falls into the category of smart and stupid at the same time. HOWEVER, make a note in your archives that they reason they decided to call the product the Footbike is because you were telling the world that the sport is called Kickbiking (after the name of your product).
So for future reference, this is how the lingo is going down in North America.
“We are going to go out for a kick”
“We are going to go out footbiking”
“We are going to enter a footbike race”
“Who wants to go kicking”
We never forget to credit the fact that you made one first. In fact, I believe there is that exact reference at the FootbikeUSA.com website. Many of us own both a Kickbike and a Footbike—the problem I have is that everyone thinks the Effendi is better than both! In all cases the goal is to grow the sport. If we grow it big enough then we will be offering every scooter made to North America—-even yours! Peace—Jeff@footbikeusa.com
Sounds like Hannu knows that the second mouse always gets the cheese.
If I tell people that I scooter, they think I am riding a motorscooter. If I say kickbike, footbike, or push scooter, they don’t have a clue. Kind of like when I told people I skated on the road they assumed inline skates not quad skates. It is all based on one’s frame of reference.
Scooter to me indicated the one I had when I was a kid, but then I am from another era of time. The one I had in the 1940s had kind of lawnmower like wheels on a footboard with a steering mechanism, no brakes.
Does anyone know or care that the first human powered scooter seems to have been invented circa 1816 in Germany.
So I thought of a few names. “Wheeling” indicates and is defined as moving on wheels. Push wheeling infers pushing with hands,kick wheeling infers like kicking a ball. One could use inline stepwheeling for the best definition, since it best defines the action, but I will settle with “stepwheeling” for now. “Google translate” seems to indicate “wheeling” translates as wheeling in most languages. It is universal! The prefix, well that can be different.
All that said, I am so looking forward to the “kickabout” on whatever we call our vehicle, and will enjoy hearing and seeing pictures/videos of everyone’s adventures.
For now, from this day forth, in northwestern New Jersey, my vehicle will be known as a stepwheeler, on the road and my brand will be a Footbike.
Yea—I would definitely go on for some StepWheeling. It also sounds cooler than AdultScootering. I had a conversation with Christophe Quiniou who sells Kickbike’s out of his shop in France. We were sharing stories about footbiking in our countries and he said the biggest hassle was that there was not an easily translated word for what we do. No matter what angle he took the listener always assumed he was kicking around on a children’s razor scooter.
[...] For more info and the story behind this world-wide event please visit Footbikes California. [...]
For all our friends in Australia, we are all excited for you to be part of this event.