Nowadays I'm so rarely home (meaning my main home))) in St. Petersburg Russia.
Now I had a chance to spend half week there. Plan was to go snowboarding, but weather turned too warm and slopes were closed.
So I went to ride by wakeboard in swimming pool, what is our special possibility in Russia.
Now I've been riding there only time to time, earlier years quite often.
When swimming pool closes its doors for normal customers, wakeboarders and e.g. divers take over the place.
I got some questions about this swimming pool riding and thought to write about it a bit.
 |
| Me and Backroll to blind training... |
Pool must be 50 meters long and wakeboarding needs width of 4 swimming lanes. Wave stoppers of swimming lanes can be collected to the both sides of riding area -> killing waves as name suggests.
In our case divers have other side of the pool and actually they don't disturb even if they come to our side, if they are just diving)). I've been riding also in swimming pool, where other side was reserved for canoe polo, sometimes some canoes or their ball came to our side, but everything worked in good harmony.
Often 2 pylons cables are home made in Russia and it's same with this swimming pool.
In this pool we have latest and simplest version of cable. We don't need pylons, cable is just connected straight to the walls. The other end we have engine box and on the other end tightening pulley. Cable is so high that it doesn't disturb normal usage of swimming pool, so it's there all the time.
Here are a couple of pictures:
 |
| Engine box and wall mounting frame above of diving tower |
 |
| The other end wall mounting frame and tightening pulley (yellow pulley). Riders below waiting their next ride. |
How riding works?
We are not making turns in the end of the pool. It's just one ride to the other end and you give handle to the next rider. Then you just wait your next ride.
It's ideal, if there are 5 riders same time, but now it's so popular that there are normally 7 riders, which little bit limit your real riding time. Anyway it's really fun, everybody are their own level, training their own tricks and atmosphere is really supportive among riders.
Normal set is 45 minutes and during week we have 2 x 45 minutes every evening and weekends even 3 x 45 minutes. All sets are fully booked already during summer. Of course during week it's quite late when the first session starts 22:15 and seconds ends 23:45. Especially kids who go to school are probably tired.)) Of course all depends on what are opening hours of swimming pool, they work until 22:00 in Russia, but e.g. in Finland I know opening hours are normally only until 20:00.
Swimming pool is create place to train first air tricks and technique for them. E.g. I have learnt all my air tricks there. Mostly we are making only air tricks, but I think a few times a week there is also kicker (spine type so you can jump from both directions). Kicker is connected by underwater ropes to swimming pool corners (e.g. to stairs). Why there couldn't be also some other obstacles (sliders etc.), but those need space to store during swimming pool normal opening hours and install them to the water takes also some time.
Last winter we had at least 3 different swimming pools with cables, one of them had even 2 cables. All 4 cables were fully booked!
 |
| Me and S bend to blind... |
I believe it's possible to make all possible tricks in swimming pool. Of course space limits a bit size of the tricks.
Operator must be really professional for safety reasons. Riding is really safe, during years some small injuries have happened, but just these kinds of normal strains etc., what are happening also in normal conditions on the outdoor lakes.
So no other than cables for swimming pools in all countries where the winter limits our hobby!)))
