Daft vapers: the competitive world of e-cigarette smoking
The idea of people competing to exhale the biggest cloud of e-cigarette smoke might seem ridiculous. But it is a growing sport – with prize money to be won
Breathe in, breathe out … a vaper. Photograph: Justin Sullivan
Gavin Haynes
Wednesday 22 April 2015
Cloud-chasing. It suggests Wordsworth and Scandinavian lovers scrabbling up hilltops, bespectacled nimbus-spotters in red socks and hiking boots consulting logbooks, not a bunch of scraggly twentysomethings with flesh tunnels and beards in an e-cigarette shop, whooping at a bro who has just blown a plume of smoke longer than his leg.
Yet in America, where the market for hotdog-eating and dwarf-tossing is already saturated, cloud-chasing is already turning pro.
It’s easy to master the basics. Contestants stand back-to-back, double over to expel every drop of air from their lungs, then suck on a modified vaper until they’ve filled their chest cavity with enough vaporised nicotine “e-juice” to shoot out a belch of white smoke upwards of 4ft long. The contestant with the longest plume wins, officiated by a pair of judges looking at a measuring tape against the wall.
Born out of the growth of the $1bn-a-year vaping business, what you might call the Red Bull-ification of a fiercely competitive market is starting to take shape: there are now sponsorship deals between e-cig manufacturers and the sport’s heroes, decent prize money of up to $2,000, and already two rival championships – the International Cloud Championships in California, and the World Series of Vape, due to be held in December in Las Vegas.
The skill comes in being able to angle your mouth to keep the plume flying in one solid cloud, and in the engineering dexterity to soup-up your vaping device. Most common is the wrapping of cotton around copper wires in the barrel of the unit: a vaper can suck far more juice with this copper wick, and burn it faster with the extra wire coils.
But there is danger in radically decreasing the amount of resistance in your vaporiser (so-called “sub-ohm vaping”). Unless properly checked, the battery can overheat – not something you’d want a few inches from your mouth as you go in for a winning puff.
source: http://www.theguardian.com/society/...chasing-competitive-sport-blowing-vape-clouds
The idea of people competing to exhale the biggest cloud of e-cigarette smoke might seem ridiculous. But it is a growing sport – with prize money to be won
Breathe in, breathe out … a vaper. Photograph: Justin Sullivan
Gavin Haynes
Wednesday 22 April 2015
Cloud-chasing. It suggests Wordsworth and Scandinavian lovers scrabbling up hilltops, bespectacled nimbus-spotters in red socks and hiking boots consulting logbooks, not a bunch of scraggly twentysomethings with flesh tunnels and beards in an e-cigarette shop, whooping at a bro who has just blown a plume of smoke longer than his leg.
Yet in America, where the market for hotdog-eating and dwarf-tossing is already saturated, cloud-chasing is already turning pro.
It’s easy to master the basics. Contestants stand back-to-back, double over to expel every drop of air from their lungs, then suck on a modified vaper until they’ve filled their chest cavity with enough vaporised nicotine “e-juice” to shoot out a belch of white smoke upwards of 4ft long. The contestant with the longest plume wins, officiated by a pair of judges looking at a measuring tape against the wall.
Born out of the growth of the $1bn-a-year vaping business, what you might call the Red Bull-ification of a fiercely competitive market is starting to take shape: there are now sponsorship deals between e-cig manufacturers and the sport’s heroes, decent prize money of up to $2,000, and already two rival championships – the International Cloud Championships in California, and the World Series of Vape, due to be held in December in Las Vegas.
The skill comes in being able to angle your mouth to keep the plume flying in one solid cloud, and in the engineering dexterity to soup-up your vaping device. Most common is the wrapping of cotton around copper wires in the barrel of the unit: a vaper can suck far more juice with this copper wick, and burn it faster with the extra wire coils.
But there is danger in radically decreasing the amount of resistance in your vaporiser (so-called “sub-ohm vaping”). Unless properly checked, the battery can overheat – not something you’d want a few inches from your mouth as you go in for a winning puff.
source: http://www.theguardian.com/society/...chasing-competitive-sport-blowing-vape-clouds
