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My name is Ruben, although most people in the kite world know me as LEN10.
I started kitesurfing in Noordwijk in 2000 and created LEN10 in 2004. What began as an obsession quickly became my career, my playground and my community.
I competed on the World Tour, won Red Bull King of the Air in 2005 and eventually stepped away from competitive freestyle to chase something different. Stronger wind, bigger jumps and harder kite loops.
That journey helped shape the Megaloop and the early days of Big Air. Together with filmmakers, riders and brands, we created films like Stormjees and On The Loose, signature products, wild projects and events that helped bring a different side of kiteboarding to a wider audience.
Today the sport has gone far beyond anything we imagined back then, and that is probably what excites me most.
I still ride as much as I can, but I also coach, host, commentate, create, DJ and build projects around the things I care about most.
Kite. Music. People.
Still learning. Still sending it.
The story, stretched out
My name is Ruben, although most people in the kite world know me as LEN10.
I started kitesurfing in Noordwijk in 2000, when the sport itself was still figuring out what it wanted to become. I loved that. There were no real rules, the equipment kept changing and every session felt like discovering something new.
In 2003 I joined the Philips Coolskin team, coached by Stef de Jong and managed by Roelof Hengst. Suddenly this kid from Noordwijk was travelling the world and competing against the best riders in the sport.
The World Tour became my school.
I finished third overall in 2004, second in 2005 and won Red Bull King of the Air in Maui that same year.
But even while competing in freestyle, I was always drawn to more power.
During a competition in Belgium in 2003, I sent my Slingshot GTO into a kite loop that went much bigger than I expected. I crashed, tried again, crashed some more, and eventually started figuring it out.
That little accident became an obsession.
After an injury sidelined me in 2006, I decided not to return to the World Tour full-time. Instead, I became a freerider and focused on strong wind, Big Air and pushing the kite loop higher and harder.
The Megaloop started taking shape, along with variations like the Megaloop late backroll, Boogieloop, handlepasses and other tricks that still form part of the foundation of modern Big Air today.
Around the same time, filmmaker Dave Lute played a huge role in documenting those years. Together we created Stormjees in 2006, 2007 and 2009. They were raw storm films made in an era when Big Air was nowhere near as big as it is today.
Then came On The Loose with Aaron Hadlow. Season One launched online in 2009, followed by a second season backed by Red Bull Media House in 2011 that reached millions of homes around the world. Ten years later, Aaron and I brought it back for a third season, mostly because we missed the fun of it.
Events became another way to experiment.
From Red Bull KitePunks and floating sliders in 2007 to Red Bull Boven NAP, the LEN10 Megaloop Challenge in Cape Town and eventually the Red Bull Megaloop, the goal was always similar: create events that showed people how spectacular kiteboarding could be.
Along the way came signature products too. My Slingshot Lunacy board launched in 2007 and my Mystic signature line followed in 2008.
Not everything went according to plan.
Cancer, injuries and a shattered ankle forced me to stop, rebuild and look at progression differently. Code Red became one of the projects that meant the most to me because it represented coming back, getting healthy and doing what I loved again.
Music has been another constant throughout the journey.
I started DJing in 2008 and have been collecting music ever since. From the Triple-S Invitational and Kiteboard Open to Pacha Gran Canaria, Cape Town clubs, beach parties, weddings and De Hangout back home, I simply love playing and bringing people together.
Today I still ride as much as I can, but I also coach, host, commentate, DJ, create experiences and work on projects around the sport.
What excites me most now is watching the next generation take kiteboarding further than we ever imagined.
Higher. More technical. More creative.
Exactly how progression should work.
Kite. Music. People.
That has been the thread through it all.
The whole story
My name is Ruben, although most people in the kite world know me as LEN10.
I started kitesurfing in Noordwijk in 2000.
Back then the sport was young. The equipment was changing constantly, nobody really knew where kiteboarding was heading and everyone was experimenting.
I loved it immediately.
The wind, the freedom, the progression, the crashes and that feeling of figuring something out for the first time.
It became an obsession.
THE EARLY DAYS
In 2003 I joined the Philips Coolskin team, coached by former Dutch Champion Stef de Jong and managed by Roelof Hengst.
Suddenly kitesurfing became serious.
We trained, travelled and competed together, but it still felt like one big adventure.
The World Tour became my school. Brazil, Cape Verde, Hawaii, Europe and wherever else the wind took us.
In 2004 I finished third overall on the PKRA World Tour.
In 2005 I finished second and won Red Bull King of the Air in Maui.
I was 17.
At the time I was mostly thinking about the next trick or the next session.
Looking back, those years shaped almost everything that followed.
LEN10
I started LEN10 in 2004.
At first it was simple. Ruben Lenten, number 10, LEN10.
A logo on my board. A nickname. Something that felt like mine.
Over time, it became the name most people in the kite world knew me by.
LEN10 grew alongside the journey through competitions, films, signature products, events, partnerships and plenty of ideas that started somewhere between beaches and airports.
It was never really planned as a brand.
It just grew with me.
THE LOOP THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
Even while competing in freestyle, I was always riding hard and powered.
During a competition in Belgium in 2003, I was riding a Slingshot GTO when I sent the kite into a loop.
It went much bigger than expected.
I crashed.
Then tried again.
And crashed again.
But I could feel there was something there.
Eventually I made it.
From that moment I kept taking the loop higher, harder and further.
In 2006 an injury sidelined me from competition. When I returned, I decided not to go back to the World Tour full-time.
I became a freerider instead.
I wanted stronger wind.
Bigger jumps.
Harder loops.
More freedom to experiment.
That was when the Megaloop really became my direction.
I started building tricks around it. The Megaloop late backroll. The Megaloop frontroll, which became known as the Boogieloop. Megaloop handlepasses. Unhooked loops. The Kung Fu frontspin 360 handlepass.
At the time, those tricks felt pretty extreme.
Today riders are doing versions of those same foundations much higher, further and more technically.
I love that.
That is exactly what progression should look like.
STORMJEES
Filmmaker Dave Lute became an important part of this period.
Dave had a real passion for kiteboarding and also understood filmmaking and the internet early on.
He was there with the camera when some of the best sessions happened.
Together we created the first Stormjees film in 2006, followed by Stormjees 2 in 2007 and Stormjees 3 in 2009.
There wasn't a big content plan.
The process was basically: A storm is coming. Let's go. Find the strongest wind. Ride. Film. Put it online.
Kitecinema.com and Hanglos.nl became important places where those films spread through the kiteboarding world.
At a time when technical freestyle dominated the sport, Stormjees showed another side of kiteboarding.
Raw power. Big jumps. Megaloops. Heavy crashes. And a lot of fun.
I wasn't trying to invent a discipline.
I just loved going all out.
ON THE LOOSE
The adventure around kiteboarding became just as interesting as the riding itself.
Aaron Hadlow and I had spent years travelling together. We were competitors, friends and constantly pushing each other.
Producers Jeroen Otten and Jan Gitsels came to us with an idea to document that life.
The competitions, travelling, injuries, sessions, parties, people and everything that happened in between.
That became On The Loose.
Season One launched online in 2009.
Then Red Bull Media House came on board and Season Two launched in 2011, reaching millions of households around the world.
Suddenly the lifestyle around professional kiteboarding was being shown far beyond our own community.
In 2021 Aaron and I brought On The Loose back for a third season.
Mostly because we wanted to have some fun together again.
BUILDING EVENTS
Creating new event formats became another part of the journey.
In 2007 we created Red Bull KitePunks in La Manga, Spain.
At the time we were heavily into riding boots, sliders and kickers, so we built what was basically a floating skatepark for kiteboarding.
Rails. Kickers. Riders trying new things.
We later repeated the concept in the Netherlands.
As Big Air started pulling me back in, the event ideas changed too.
Red Bull Boven NAP followed in 2010, focusing more on height, power and spectacle.
Then in 2012 we organised the LEN10 Megaloop Challenge in Cape Town.
Lewis Crathern took the win, but the bigger takeaway was clear.
Big Air was alive. People understood it instantly. A rider went insanely high, threw the kite underneath himself and the entire beach reacted.
That was the wow factor I always loved about kiteboarding.
In 2013 Red Bull King of the Air returned to Cape Town.
In the Netherlands we continued with the Red Bull Megaloop Challenge, now Red Bull Megaloop.
After several editions in Zandvoort, the event now takes place at my home spot, with Kitemana supporting it.
The funny thing is that after all these years the event still depends on exactly the same thing Stormjees did.
A storm. When the forecast turns on, we make the call and go.
PRODUCTS AND PARTNERSHIPS
Progression also moved into product development.
In 2007 Slingshot offered me my first signature board, the Lunacy.
In 2008 I started developing my own signature range with Mystic.
Boards, harnesses, apparel and products designed around how I rode.
I loved that process. Ride. Find the problem. Change something. Ride again.
The best partnerships throughout my career have always worked like that.
Not simply putting a logo somewhere, but creating something together.
BIG PROJECTS
Some ideas never really fitted into competition.
Stormjees. LEN10 in America. On The Loose. Jumping Tarifa's pier. Snowkite cliff jumps. Chapter One. Code Red.
A lot of them started with a simple question: “Do you think this is possible?”
Sometimes the answer was no.
Which usually made me want to try it more.
THE HARDER CHAPTERS
There were also moments where life made the decisions for me.
Injuries. Operations. Cancer in 2015. A badly shattered ankle later on.
Those periods changed my perspective.
Progression wasn't always about going higher anymore.
Sometimes progression meant getting healthy. Walking properly. Returning to the water. Or accepting that the body has limits even when your head doesn't agree.
Code Red became especially meaningful for that reason.
After cancer, we chased extreme conditions through Iceland, the Netherlands and Ireland.
On the surface it was another wild kite film.
For me it represented being back. Healthy. Riding. Creating. Living.
MUSIC
Music has travelled alongside kiteboarding for much longer than most people probably realise.
I started DJing in 2008 and began taking a controller with me wherever I travelled.
I played at the Triple-S Invitational in 2009, Kiteboard Open in 2013, 2014 and 2015, Pacha Gran Canaria, Metro Dance Club Alicante, various clubs in Cape Town, beach clubs, parties, weddings and plenty of spontaneous sessions.
The opening and closing parties at De Hangout back home remain some of my favourites.
For me, playing has never really been about trying to become a full-time club DJ.
I simply love music. Collecting it. Discovering new tracks. Building energy. Watching people connect.
Music has this ability to make almost anywhere in the world feel like home.
And every time I get behind the decks, I'm still excited to bring the vibes.
Kiteboarding and music actually have more in common than you might think.
Timing. Energy. Freedom. Progression. Reading the moment. And people.
THE NEXT GENERATION
After spending years trying to push the sport myself, one of my favourite things today is watching other riders take it further.
Modern Big Air is incredible.
Riders are going higher, learning faster and adding new levels of technicality to movements that started decades ago.
Some of the tricks we experimented with in those Stormjees sessions still form part of the foundation of Big Air today.
They're just being done at another level.
That's how it should be.
I don't want the next generation to repeat what we did.
I want them to destroy our limits.
And they are.
TODAY
These days my role is broader.
I still ride as much as possible. I coach. I host and commentate. I DJ. I create content and experiences. I work with athletes, brands and event organisers.
And I enjoy connecting people and ideas around the sport that has given me so much.
After twenty-five years, the things that matter most to me are actually pretty simple.
Kite. Music. People.
Kiteboarding gives me freedom and progression. Music makes me feel at home wherever I am. People make all of it worth doing.
A lot has changed since I first picked up a kite in Noordwijk.
The equipment. The level. The events. The media. And definitely my body.
But a strong forecast still gets me excited.
A new idea still keeps me awake at night.
A great track still changes the energy of a place.
And watching someone land something for the first time still puts a smile on my face.
I'm proud to have played a small part in kiteboarding's story so far.
But I'm much more excited about where we're going next.
Still learning. Still sending it.
Ruben / LEN10
Kite. Music. People.
Still learning. Still sending it.
Come ride, work or create together.
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