6 Extreme Sports You Won't Believe Anyone Survives
#3. Swimming Jumps ... With a Human Catapult
Maybe it's been a while since you've cannonballed into a pool on a hot summer day, but one whiff of chlorine and coconut sunscreen can usually bring it all back. It wasn't enough to sit on the hot concrete and daintily lower yourself into the water feet first -- at least not if you wanted to be respected by those punks you called your friends. If you were serious about summertime fun, you had to jump. And if you were dead serious, you had to make a splash so big all the grownups would go home on account of rain.
In other words, how you got into the pool has always been serious business. Today it just got seriouser.
Allow us to introduce you to the bone-breaker of your dreams. It's called the AirKick, and it's exactly what it sounds like: a giant commercial catapult designed for the sole purpose of launching you 26 feet into the air. Its driving force is about six buckets' worth of water, shooting through a rocket nozzle with enough pressure to fling a fully grown human.
Baller House
Or a man-child.
Of course, where you land is your own business -- the manufacturer names swimming pools and foam pits as potential landing sites, but if you're the sort of person who purchases a goddamn human catapult for recreational purposes, chances are you can afford to get a lot more creative about your destination. (Vanilla pudding.)
Jochen Schweizer
Or a carpet of floating strippers.
#2. Freestyle Jumping ... With a Giant Kite
For people who want to get in the air but aren't coordinated enough to attempt hang gliding or the process of buying plane tickets, kite jumping is probably the best start. Because anyone can jump, right? Sure. But jumping is the easy part.
The recipe for kite jumping is as simple as the recipe for disaster: A comically oversized kite and you, trying not to die when it inevitably snatches you up into the sky.
Ian B., College Humor
This is the final picture of at least one of these kids.
It is considered one of the riskier forms of kiting, an achievement that may seem comparable to being the most hardcore knitter in the Woolly Sock Club ... until you actually see it in action.
Like we said, you are by no means in for a smooth ride: you are at the mercy of the wind, which can fling you to the ground in a screeching, crushing arc.
YouTube
"I'm beginning to regret several specific life choices."
And of course, while you're up there, you do tricks. Because how else would it be extreme?
Could there be a stupider way to get airborne?
Yes, actually.
#1. Surfing, Snowboarding/Skiing ... While Hang Gliding
Aviation is never a simple thing. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than with hang gliding, which is basically just a dude leaping off cliffs wearing a giant wing thong and trying not to die. Yet the sport of hang gliding somehow manages to have some of the strictest safety standards around, with more controls, harnesses and safety measures than a moderately equipped bondage dungeon.
But then there's the Kitewing, which is an unholy cross between a hang glider and a kite that's stripped of every single conceivable safety feature. What it has instead is a handle, for you to better hang-on-for-dear-life with.
Kitewing
"I like a morning glider shark hunt before my afternoon volcano skiing."
Technically, the Kitewing can be used safely, as a sail-like propeller to extreme sports vehicles such as roller skates, surfboards and snowboards. But Kitewing is also specifically designed to provide lift, in order to gain the extra element of uncontrollable flight to sports that are strictly surface-based.
And so we have these guys snow skiing with Kitewings ...
... and using them to fly right the hell off the side of the mountain:
YouTube
"The handles count as a safety feature, so I don't really need a helmet."
And then we have this guy ...
... using it to kite himself right across a frozen lake at breakneck speed:
YouTube
"I'll take imminent, gory death over coffee any morning."
Damn it, people. If God wanted people to fly via kite, he would have given us kite heads.
For more ridiculous sports, check out The 10 Most Insane "Sports" in the World and 6 Ancient Sports Too Awesome For the Modern World.
You know... It probably wouldn't work in New York, but in the windy city of Chicago, you could use those kite-jumping kites...
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ReplyOh, come on. That guy kitewing-boarding the frozen lake in the last video looks like he's having crazy-fun. While I enjoy the hell out of snowboarding the usual way, I'm not suicidal and I'd give that a try.
ReplyIt's like Jackass meets ESPN! Brilliant!
ReplyThis was fantastic! I teach English as a foreign language and I used this to make a more interesting sports lesson for my fifth graders. They ate it up (I just hope they don't tell their parents where they got the idea to run with springs on their feet). Thank you!
ReplyParkour is for morons.
Replyfree running and parkour are bad ass and awesome. Trying to do it with springy feet apparatuses is for morons.
So...you're into Parkour then?
silly goose. That's not where you do math. At most he probably lost his depth perception.
Reply"That's when the hardcore practitioners knew it was time to take it to another level. Of stupid."
ReplyCrackin' up.
Anyway, a fine line indeed, between awesome and insane, but free-running is already a fairly risky sport and, if anything, you might just be driving it deeper into the insanity realm it already belongs in. I mean, you look at the gear the stilt-spring free-runners are wearing, is it not necessary for "normal" free-running? Hardly the case, you can easily crack any number of bones in any number of places as it is. So, just a point.
Man, some of these made me really regret the fact that I live a mostly sedentary existence in front of my computer, with about the most extreme thing I do all day trying to eat a microwaved taquito before giving it time to cool off...
ReplyI had an adrenaline rush just reading this. HAHA! XD
ReplyThe last video with the porn music was a nice change from all the generic rock of the others
ReplyI shall combine all of these sports and also add nuclear material to make it even more extremeier because large amounts of drugs and alcohol. *__*
ReplyIf anything that good on bikini can ride that thing, yeah it's safe.
ReplyJust a note - Parkour and Free running are not the same.
ReplyAnd kung fu isn't karate. You learn to keep it to yourself for general audiences or risk sounding like the athletic equivalent of a trekkie.
yeah, NERD!
i havent read every one of these comments but i hope im the first one to point out (atleast in the comment section) the awesome connection they made with WHEELMAN BUSHPIG and Al Gores MANBEAR PIG! on SouthPark. i tend to devote my free time to family guy, american dad, south park, and most importantly, cracked. i love this site and every contributer to it, im too high to think of something hilarious to say so i will end it with this.
ReplyI want to say something snide but... honestly, I wish I was you.
thank you, my life is pretty fun sometimes. between drugged out stupors where my imagination runs wild and tells me i can be just like every other pilled out, psychadelic chemical dropping creative genius out there. then i write full fledged articles for cracked and hope to one day send them in when i kn0w theyre perfect. look for my most recent one, 5 reasons your grandfather hates you
I would do about 4/6 of these.
ReplyThat was freaking awesome!!!!
ReplyWhat about card games on motorcycles? It's not less than 30 times more dangerous than texting and driving drunk off of a bridge.
ReplyYou're talking about Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, aren't you?
Yami says that the 5Ds stand for, "Don't watch it!"
The only way you didn't just contribute to several more deaths and injuries in each of these sports is if every one of Cracked's young male readers is in the same level of physical fitness that stereotypes about internet commentators would suggest. Someday, I hope to develop the upper body strength to try kite jumping myself. With luck, I may even win my very own Darwin Award, and enjoy every minute of it.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesJust remember to have your friends put it on youtube.
With all sports, it's a good idea to take lessons to minimize risk and maximize fun. Solstice Sports in Florida gives lessons - but you need a windy day. Have fun if you go.
One would need to have friends beforehand. If there was a desire to start such a sport, I doubt it comes with social skills...
and for that, we thank you.