Tom Payne

How to get a perfect start

2011-06-16T19:59:00.000+02:00

In a few race-to-goal tasks recently, I've been surprised to see some pilots starting low and late - this puts them at an immediate disadvantage. Here are a few tips that I've collected for getting a great start: on the line, high, and well placed as the gun goes.

On the ground

A good task starts with a relaxed pilot. Develop a routine for readying your gear so that you can prepare quickly and be sure not to forget anything. When the launch time comes, good launch skills allow you to be not intimidated by the launch but instead get away quickly and cleanly and focus on the race. Nervous launchers tend to focus all their attention on launching and see no further than the act of taking off, whereas confident launchers see taking off as just one natural step in the process and are already thinking beyond.

Launch early. You don't have to take off as soon as the window opens, but giving yourself plenty of time between getting into the air and the actual start gives you time to get comfortable, explore and put yourself in the best position. It's much better to spend a few extra minutes floating around at base waiting than be stuck on the ground in the launch queue. Generally speaking, the better pilots launch earlier so if you wait then you risk getting blocked behind a pilot who takes ages to take off. As a general rule, as soon as you know that you can stay up then you should launch.

In some tasks, the start can be several kilometres away. Factor this in to your planning. You need to allow time to fly the distance *and* climb to base. During the race you'll be averaging 30km/h or so, but pre-start you'll be slower. Personally, I try to give myself at least five minutes per horizontal kilometre and ten minutes per vertical kilometre. For example, if the start is 2km away and cloudbase is 1000m above launch then I want to take off at least twenty minutes before the start as an absolute minimum.

In the air, early

Early on you have time to explore and understand the real conditions of the day. Not all the pilots are in the air so you have a lot more flexibility. It gives you time to zip up your harness and check that all your gear is functioning correctly, for example I try to do at least a few seconds of gliding on full bar before the start to check that everything is working correctly. By doing this early, you have plenty of time to fix the problem or even top land if needed, and as the sky is less crowded it's much easier to do.

Here are some of the things that I assess in the air:

Airmass: How strong are the thermals? How well formed are they? At what altitudes is the best lift? What is the wind strength at different altitudes? What features are associated with the best lift? All this helps me plan my strategy for the task. What is my speed to fly? How do I climb most efficiently in these conditions? Do I do wide circles in well-formed thermals or should I to crank it round tightly in bullets? Can I climb up from low down (and therefore arrive low after transitions) or do I need to stay high?

Start point: You'll have already looked at the task in detail on the ground. On some days there will be a clear optimum start point, on others there will be many possible options. Now that you have more information about the airmass, you can determine the actual optimum start point for the day. Typically it is on the edge of the start cylinder closest to the first turnpoint, but wind can have a big effect: starting on the upwind side of the cylinder can be a significant advantage. Even a cross-wind glide is much better than a into-wind glide. Once I have identified the optimum start point I try to fly to that point and get a visual ground reference for it, such as a terrain feature, village, or bend in the road. If the start cylinder is very large, the optimum start point can sometimes be on the other side of the valley, and in very extreme cases the best place to start can be on the opposite side of the cylinder from take off!

First leg: If the start is still some way off, you may have time to test out all or some of the first part of the task. This can provide valuable information, including what the air between the thermals is doing. Too many pilots spend all the Window Open time only circling in the thermals. If you're in the air early you have time to explore and get back to base for the start.

Evolution of conditions: Being in the air for some time before the start not only gives you information about what the conditions are like now, but also how they are evolving. Are conditions getting stronger or weaker? What's happening along the course line? You can use this to predict not only what conditions will be like at the moment of the start, but also what they are likely to be like for the first part of the race. Sometimes this can open up new start options that you had not thought of before: maybe there's a cloud forming on the other side of the valley, upwind of the first turnpoint.

At the start you can rely on there being lots of other pilots in the area marking thermals. There is a constant feed of pilots from take off who will be marking thermals even low down. All this means that much less risky to explore well before the start: you have both ample time to get back to your chosen start point and a lot of information about where the air is going up.

In the air, late

As more and more pilots launch the sky becomes more crowded. Most of them will be thermalling lazily in wide circles. This crowding reduces your options: you don't have the freedom to fly as you did when there were fewer gliders. Now is the time to fly smoothly, fly predictably, be polite and go with the flow.

Moving about the sky to explore takes time. If you glide somewhere before the start, you also need to factor in the time that it takes to regain the altitude that you have lost. On a typical competition wing, if there are 2m/s thermals about then you will spend about as much time climbing back up as you did gliding. This means that in five minutes you can fly about 2km and climb back to your previous altitude (assuming there's a 2m/s thermal waiting for you at the end of your glide, of course). Realistically, you have to be much more conservative and generally I try to be close to my optimum start point five to ten minutes before the actual start time. Here, the visual ground reference point that you identified earlier really helps: you can keep a look out instead of staring at your instruments.

Thermals are cyclic, and it's not unusual to find yourself optimally placed several minutes before the start, and then have the cloud that you were waiting under dissipate into nothing. It's another good reason to try to be high ten minutes before the start. At minimum sink you lose about 50 metres per minute - this is not too bad and often means that it's worth staying where you are rather than risking losing a lot of altitude at the last moment by flying somewhere else.

The start

As the start approaches, you should concentrate on getting as high as possible where you are. Generally speaking, you will have more information if you are further back than higher, than if you are out front and low. Of course, it goes without saying that you should try to be out front and higher. That all said, don't sweat it! All the competitors will be flying now and the sky will be crowded. Chill out: a few metres height difference will be quickly wiped out on the first glide.

Judging crossing the line at the right moment is a learned skill. It's better to be a few seconds late than half a second early - crossing the line ahead of the start will typically score you zero for the day, unless you turn round and go back for it which can be hard as the rest of the field are flying at you fast in the opposite direction! Modern instruments help a lot, and have different ways of telling you whether you're going to be early or late. However, there are some simple rules of thumb that can help you get a perfect start even with a simple GPS.

At trim speed, you fly at about 36km/h, which is 10m/s. So, in one minute you will fly 600m. So, when you look at the countdown, if the distance to the edge of the cylinder is ten times the number of seconds to the start then you should fly at trim speed (or just a bit slower) to be at the start at the perfect time. For example, with 30s to go you should be at 300m, at 10s to go you should be at 100m, and so on. If needed, you can always slow down to avoid being early. Full bar is less than twice your trim speed, so if you are at 200m with 10s to go then you can fly full bar and be sure not to cross the line early.

Ideally you'll get the timing perfect, but if there are a lot of pilots in your start gaggle then you may have to wait your turn as the gaggle "unwinds" to head to the start line. Once again fly cool: this may make you a few seconds late, but you'll have the advantage of being higher.

The first glide

Immediately after the start is a critical period. It is at this time that you have the most information: there will be 100+ pilots showing you what that air is doing around you! The gaggles are already starting to form: the lead gaggle will be made up of those who push full bar on the first glide, and a few who where very, very high at the start who glide in to join them. Later gaggles will be made up of those who pushed less bar. Thermal cycles tend to accentuate this effect: if the lead gaggle gets a cycle that the rest miss then you will not see them again until goal. If the cycle is large enough that slower pilots also catch it then it will take longer for the faster pilots to get away. Since there are 100+ pilots, there will inevitably be pilots above you, below you, in front of you and behind you. With so much information now is the ideal time to push full bar.

If your competition is using GAP lead-out points then it's worth knowing that these are mainly won early in the race (people who are ahead at the end are compensated with time or speed points instead). So, getting a good start and pushing on early can win you points - and you get the satisfaction of stealing them from whoever crosses the line first (sorry Wagga!). PWC scorer Ulric Jessop explained that, if you want lead-out points, then it's much better to push hard and then glide slowly than to glide slowly and then push hard.

Interesting starts

There are a few pilots who I've seen who really master starts. Here's what they do, if only I could tell you how they do it!

Russ Ogden and Mads Syndergaard are amazing climbers. They're able to climb to the top of the gaggle and stay there, even as the thermals weaken and conditions change. Now I'm getting the hang of being the right place at the start, but they always seem to be above me. This puts them in a position of immediate control from the first glide.

Bruce Goldsmith and Mark Graham are brilliant at spotting the optimal start points. You see them launching early and then only at the start do you spot them 5km away on the upwind side of the cylinder. They're usually the first to arrive at the first turnpoint.

At the PWC Turkey I saw Luc Armant do something very strange. Conditions were getting weaker, we'd climbed together in one gaggle, and were gliding towards another which was closer to the optimum start point. Suddenly, Luc turned left ninety degrees, away from both gaggles! I didn't understand why - had he seen something? - but I couldn't see what it could be so I glided on to the gaggle I'd chosen. Our thermal died shortly afterwards and me and that entire gaggle lost several minutes. Later I quizzed Luc about it decision. He explained that he'd been unsure which gaggle would do better. So, by choosing to fly between them at min sink he had kept his options open and been able to pick and choose later once the answer was clear. Of course, he wouldn't be the best placed in the gaggle he chose, but he did guarantee that he'd be in the best one for the start. Luc demonstrated just how much it is possible to exploit the information available at the start.

Conclusions

Launch early and explore then chose your start point and get high. Cross the line at the right moment, push hard and go for it!

Five things I learned the hard way about competitions

2011-05-18T18:06:00.003+02:00

This isn't your usual collection of competition tips. Here are five things I had to learn by repeatedly getting them wrong. You'll get them wrong as well, and then you'll finally learn, and then I'll be able to say "I told you so".

Somebody always gets to goal. It's remarkable. When you throw 100+ pilots at a task and, even when it seems impossible, somebody always makes it further than you ever believed possible. They push 10km into a strong headwind, get the turnpoint, and cruise into goal. They fly 50km in complete shade. They top out at 2500m when nobody else can get above 1500m. It's so easy to believe that it's not going to happen, so easy to justify giving up and landing. But it's wrong. Know that somebody will get to goal, and make that person you.
Competition will change your perspective on XC flying. The skills required to do well in competition - to maintain a high average speed around a route that you defined before you took off, whatever obstacles Mother Nature throws into your path - are very different to those required for flying XC. It's so much easier to say "I'll go a different way now" than to push on and do what you said you were going to do. Yet competition pilots never take the easy option. To a fault they will bang their heads against a headwind trying to make a turnpoint, while the XC pilots have long since turned back. You'll fly XC and get impatient when your friends stick with a weak climb when you know you don't need the altitude. They'll glide on trim or a bit of bar, and you, you'll fly on full bar. They will turn around while you push on. This will test your patience and your friendship.
The best way to get good at competitions is to do lots of competitions. On a typical flight you and your group of friends will try a few different things. Some will land early, others will fly far. You'll never be sure whether it was skill or luck. In a competition you'll watch 100 different pilots try to achieve the same flight. Instead of learning from the experiences of five pilots, you'll learn from the experience of a hundred. When one out of ten gets away you'll know it was luck. When nine out of ten climb out you'll know that they made the right decision. You'll learn quickly - twenty times faster than your XC friends. You'll make mistakes too. You'll get mixed up about the task, or you'll have a problem with your equipment, or you will fly into airspace, or you'll wait when you should have pushed on, or you'll push on when you should have waited. Making mistakes - and learning from them, and learning not to repeat them - is just part of the process. Beginners to competitions might get lucky, but they are rarely consistent. There is no substitute for flying lots of tasks.
You'll win when you're good enough. The best pilots are really, really amazingly good. There is no simple trick that you know and they don't. Being the biggest fish in a small pond might earn you a local fan club but when you step up to the big league you'll have to deal with being merely an average fish in the big pond. Many, many talented pilots fall at this stage. They're the kings of their local hills and then, when they step up a level they find themselves to be merely average. Ego comes into play, and those with more ego than skill stop competing (of course, they appease their local fan club with stories that start "I was there but..."). Such a shame, but they were probably not cut out for the big stuff anyway. Be patient, learn as much as you can from each task, and let the results come when it's time.

Of course, different pilots play different games, but rest assured that the top pilots can play them all. Neil "Slapper" Roberts doesn't just strategically play the field, he can also push when needed. Not only can Mark "Wagga" Watts push the bar hard on stupidly optimistic final glides, he can also scratch out in zeros when that's what it takes. You don't win by doing something different, you win by having the required skill when it's the right time to do something different.
It's your responsibility to manage your own progression. You might grumble about how "they had an advantage..." or "nobody ever told me that...". Grow up and take some responsibility. Every year there are ten new wannabes. Every year nine fall by the wayside. The top pilots might seem aloof, but it's only because they see a lot of pilots passing through and they're trying hard to work out how to spend their limited time. Make people care about you. Don't try to invent a private world in which you could be king, but instead look to challenge the best on their own terms. Set realistic goals: this year you'll finish top two in Sports Class, next year you'll be top three in Serial Class, and the year after that you'll be in the top ten of the Championships. Ask for help when you need it and play the long game.

Competition will fundamentally change the way you fly. When everybody else says "maybe we'll go that way" you will program exact turnpoint coordinates into your GPS. Competitions will test your comfort zone: you'll experience the sublime satisfaction of getting to goal on a hard day and you will also experience the frustration of landing short and knowing that more was possible. Ultimately - if you can stick with it - it will make you a better pilot.

A task setting philosophy (part 2)

2011-03-07T23:18:00.002+01:00

Read part 1 first!

Preamble: risk in competitions

A competition pilot's understanding of risk is very different from a normal pilot's understanding of risk. Normal pilots talk in terms of physical risk that might result in an them having an accident. For the purposes of this article, I will call this "safety risk", for example being blown back into a turbulent, partial lee-side. When competition pilots talk of risk it is in the context of either losing time or not getting to goal. I will call this "task risk", for example saving time by choosing not climb in a thermal and so taking the risk of more wasting time by taking more time to climb in the next thermal. Safety risk should be avoided, task risk is what makes interesting tasks.

Creating interesting tasks

Interesting tasks are tasks which are clearly achievable but have no obviously best route. They give pilots many opportunities to take task risks. New XC pilots and racers tend to prefer tasks with obvious routes: it allows them to focus on getting to goal (newbies) or climbing faster and pushing the bar harder than other pilots (racers). For this reason, it is a good idea to set an obvious route for the first part of the task and a less obvious section for the second part.

Imagine that you have the following waypoints on two long ridges (B1-B4-B7 and B3-B6-B9) with valley (B2-B5-B8) in between.

Ridge   Valley  Ridge 
        1               2 

        B1      B2      B3 
        |               | 
        |               | 
        |               | 
        B4      B5      B6 
        |               | 
        |               | 
        |               | 
        B7      B8      B9

Here the ridges can be physical ridges, or, equally, lines of reliable lift sources such as convergence lines. Classic XC routes tend to follow them. For example, the St André les Alpes to Dorimillouse out-and-return is B7 - B1 - B7. The classic XC routes from St Marcel in France are B4 - B7 - B1 - B4.

Examples of boring tasks:
B1 - B7 - B1: this follows an obvious ridge line, there are no options.
B4 - B6: this is slightly better in that it includes a transition, but there is only one place that pilots will cross.

Examples of interesting tasks:
B1 - B9: here the choice of route is not obvious: pilots can chose when to cross from ridge A to ridge B.
B2 - B8: this is a very interesting task: not only do pilots have to chose where to leave the ridges, but they also have the option of following either ridge 1 or ridge 2, or even flying along the valley.

Example areas

Ronaldino, Colombia: this area corresponds almost exactly to the geometry above with take off is at B4. The World Cup set some interesting tasks here, for example:
B4 - B7 - B6 - B2 (Task 1 at the 2011 World Cup)
B4 - B8 - B6 - B2 (Task 2 at the 2011 World Cup)

St Jean de Montclar (FR): this is basically a single ridge site. Take off is at one end of a ridge (B3). Example good tasks are:
B3 - B5 - B8 - B3
B3 - B8 - B2 - B6 - B2

St André les Alpes (FR) is possibly the best paragliding competition destination on the planet, thanks to its complex terrain and reliable weather, and has multiple ridge lines. Take off is halfway along a line of reliable lift, i.e. B6. Good tasks set at the British open include:
B6 - B2 - B8 - B2 - B6
B6 - B3 - B7 - B6

When setting tasks, don't follow ridges. Instead, set diagional transitions across ridges, or use valley turnpoints.

Elapsed time tasks

Elapsed time tasks are disliked by the majority of competition pilots, and it is difficult to set an elapsed time task that is truly fair, and as a result these should only be set as a last resort. Generally speaking, elapsed time tasks should only be set when either the launch site is so small that it is not possible for all pilots to launch within a reasonable time and when the weather conditions are forecast to be consistently weak for the entire day.

When not to set an elapsed-time task

Improving conditions: If conditions are forecast to improve then later pilots will have a significant advantage. Such a task is not fair. It is fairer to set a race-to-goal later in the day.

Worsening conditions: If conditions are expected to worsen, pilots launching early will have an advantage. This is not necessarily a problem as long as the take off is large enough that all pilots are free to chose when they launch, but normally it is better to set a short race-to-goal task with an early land-by time.

Small Launch: What makes elapsed time races fair is that each pilot individually choses when to start. Small launches stop that happening: it can happen that pilots are forced to launch earlier than they would like (and risk going down), more often it happens that pilots are stuck in the launch queue when they would individually chose to launch.

Elapsed time tasks are rarely fair. Remembering the philosophy that tasks should be safe, fair and fun, if it is not possible to set a fair task then it is better to not set a task (as long as there are other tasks in the competition!).

Pre-Start Crowding

The classic start problem is crowding. A number of techniques have been developed to diffuse pilots at the start of the task. These include:

Shot time between Window Open and Start: This effectively makes the task a ground start. The more experienced and confident pilots tend to launch earlier, the less experienced tend to hold back. Therefore, the field spreads out, reducing crowding. This is entirely appropriate for small competitions with a wide variety of skill levels, or if the launch is large enough to allow pilots to launch when they want. In the case of large competitions it is only fair if the launch is large enough to allow pilots to launch when they wish, otherwise it is unfair.

Remote starts and pre-start turnpoints: The goal of remote starts and pre-start turnpoints is to give pilots some extra distance to fly before the race starts. This spreads out the field, once again reducing crowding. As long as pilots launching up to 30 minutes after window open can get to the start line on time (see part 1 on timing) then this is reasonably fair. This approach does tend to annoy less experienced pilots who may bomb out before reaching the start line, but is a good strategy for high level competitions.

Long start lines

Often the best way to reduce crowding is to create the largest equal area for starting. Pilots will naturally spread out along the start line in accordance with their own tactics. Some examples of doing this:

Large entry cylinders: Large entry cylinders provide long, balanced start lines by giving pilots several areas in which to wait before the start opens. Ideally, pilots further from launch should have a slight advantage, for example being slightly more upwind of the first turnpoint than those starting later. This encourages pilots to spread out along the start line.

Off-ridge exit cylinders: A carefully-placed exit cylinder in front of the ridge with a first turnpoint on the ridge can provide a long, balanced start line. The exit cylinder is placed such that pilots starting closer to the first turnpoint must start further out from the ridge (and therefore further from reliable lift), and equally pilots starting nearer to the ridge must start further from the first turnpoint. This can be very effectively, particularly because the use of an exit cylinder draws pilots into the cylinder before the start and therefore away from the ridge.

Start lines on transitions: Placing a start line on a transition, i.e. where there is no reliable lift, is another effective way of reducing crowding. Some pilots will head to the start line early, others will hesitate.

Inverted days

Task setting on inverted days is tricky. There is little vertical space available to separate pilots and lift is often broken. This makes for crowded starts and stressed pilots flighting over lift. Forecasts are not always accurate; sometimes the inversion breaks early and the task - set with the expectation that the inversion would not break - becomes trivially easily. On other days the inversion is lower than anticipated, putting turnpoints out of reach and making the task impossible, ruining it.

Key factors when setting tasks on inverted days are:

all turnpoints should be several hundred metres below the inversion
avoid crowding, especially at the start
consider setting an elapsed time task with a last start time

Tasking the week

Ideally, all days should be equal - we're comparing pilots, not days. Sometimes the weather doesn't play ball and you end up with just a couple of good days in the competition week. Make the most of them.

Pilot fatigue is a big safety factor. Well-rested and un-stressed pilots have far fewer accidents than tired and stressed ones. Beyond not setting tasks with needless safety risks, setting the correct pace for the week (while, of course, making sure that no flying opportunities are missed), is one of the key elements to running a safe competition.

A good rule of thumb is that you should limit competition activities to no more than 50 hours per week, counting from morning briefing to when they have checked in, downloaded their GPS, and are free to go. If you reasonably expect to fly every day, this works out at about three hours flying per day and about 20 flying hours total. If there is enforced rest due to bad weather then you can, of course, have some longer days.

Examples:

St André les Alpes: briefing 9am, on launch by 11am, window open 12pm, start 1pm, land 4pm, retrieved by 5pm, download by 6pm. Total: 9 hours. More than five days of this (5 * 9 = 45) will result in pilot fatigue.

Piedrahita: briefing 9am, on launch by 11am, window open 12pm, land 5pm, retrieved at 7pm, back at HQ by 9pm, download by 10pm. Total: 13 hours. More than four days on this schedule (particularly if the days are consecutive) will result in tired pilots!

St Jean de Montclar: transport 11am, window open 1pm, landed by 4pm, retrieved by 5pm, downloaded by 6pm. Total: 7 hours. With a seven hour day, it's feasible to run six or even seven tasks in a week.

Generally speaking, pilots will need eight hours sleep and four hours for food, beer, tending to their better halves and generally faffing. This leaves twelve hours for competition activities. Twelve hours per day for competition activities is the upper limit: any more than this and you will be accumulating a fatigue debt that you must repay in rest/bad weather days or short tasks later.

Summary

Tasks should be safe, fair and fun.
Each task should be obvious to start, and difficult later. Think diagonals.
Limit the competition week to 50 hours - that's about 20 hours flying per week.
Make tasks interesting by giving pilots a choice of routes.

To come in part 3: creating good waypoint sets, safety turnpoints, and future task formats.

Bessans Cross Country Ski Marathon

2011-01-09T20:00:00.001+01:00

Today I returned to Bessans, deep at the end of the Maurienne Valley for a second crack at an cross country ski marathon. Last year conditions were difficult with several centimetres of fresh snow and temperatures the cold side of minus ten. I struggled round in about three and an half hours - slower than my normal running pace, but satisfied to have completed my first cross country ski race.

This year conditions were completely different. After two huge snowfalls before Christmas the weather in the Northern French Alps has been sunny but cold. Until this week when it changed for the worse: SW'ly winds brought warm, humid air and wind and rain to most resorts. Saturday was as warm as a spring day and the snowpack at all levels has suffered catastrophically. There simply isn't much snow, and what there is below 1800m has been rotted by the rain.

But Bessans is special. Deep in the mountains and surrounded by the glaciers of the Vanoise National Park, it is legendarily cold - as I had discovered in 2009. This year it is one of the few cross country ski resorts in the area that still has reasonable snow cover. Conditions today were warm and the pistes were in fantastic condition. Instead of hacking through fresh snow, it was pure glide on perfect pistes - a potentially record day.

The event is a mass start with both the half- and full-marathon skiers starting side by side. In total well over a thousand people were chomping at the bit at the line and when the gun went they launched themselves forward in a mad folly. Skis were trodden on, there were falls and crashes, and and at least one marathoner's race ended early with a broken pole in the first four hundred metres. I saw him unhappily skiing back to the start, staying to the side of the piste to avoid the swarming mass of skiers.

After the excitement of the start, normally the pace cools off a bit and people settle into a more relaxed marathon rhythm. Not this time. The glide was fantastic and people were enjoying it, hungry to break their own personal records. With so many around it was nigh on impossible to overtake and so I settled into a comfortable pace, pacing myself and knowing that I'd still be fresh for the second half.

For the first 15km the course winds left and right, making a wobbly loop through the fields up the valley from the village. Glancing at my GPS, the first 10km takes only 36 minutes, not bad given the crowds. From there, we descend gently and consistently next to the river. It's a good consistent gradient giving a good cruising speed of over 20km/h. I sneak around one group of skiers and squeeze through another, enjoying the descent and keen to make time. After crossing the river down the valley, we make a U-turn and head back towards the village. Here comes the only extended climb of the course, a perfectly wide and steady slope. The snow is good, I change down two gears, and keep my technique for the climb, occasionally changing stride to give alternative sides of my body a rest.

Cresting the top, I grab a warm sugary tea from an aid station without breaking pace. It's a flat run to the village from here, and the half-marathoners break off left for their finish. I'm in the marathon and I have a second lap to do.

With half the number of skiers and everyone slowly spreading out there's suddenly much, much more space. I'm still fresh and I know the terrain from the first lap. I step up my effort and focus on the skier twenty metres in front of me, hauling in him. Once I'm past him I focus on the next one and haul him in too. And then the next one. The glide is good and despite one wobbly moment while wolfing down a carbohydrate gel, my technique is holding together. This is the best part of the race.

With just 10km to go I glance down at my GPS watch - I've been only going 1h50m. With a quick mental calculation I realise that a sub-2h30m time is possible. Not wanting to waste this opportunity I step up my pace. Once again I'm on the cruising downhill section by the river and I push harder, tucking in behind a group of five skiers. I'm skiing into the increasing wind but that means that the wind will be with me for the long climb. Rounding the corner after the river I again gear down, not wanting to blow up three kilometres before the finish. It works. I crest the top for the second and final time, having gained a few more places on the way up.

On the flat I step up the speed again. The skis are still working well and the finish is in sight. I'll be comfortably under 2h30m, but can I gain any more time? Pushing on and counting down 800m... to go. 600m... At 400m I start my sprint - a somewhat wobbly proposition given my "English" technique - and cross the line at full pelt and 2h23m on the clock, over one hour faster than last year! Yes!

Thanks so much to Sylvain Dhonneur for organising a brilliant weekend and waxing my skis to perfection. This was great training and a real confidence boost for my big cross country ski challenge this year: the 76km Transjurassienne Ultramarathon on Sunday, 13th February. Let's hope there's some snow!

Rising talent

2011-01-05T23:09:00.003+01:00

Watch out for a new lights and rising stars in the British paragliding scene in 2011:

Long time Ozone pilot Jamie Messenger has been one of the World's top pilots for several years, but it was only in 2010 that he really stepped to the forefront of the World stage. 2nd at the World Cup in Greece and 7th at the World Cup Superfinal in Turkey, Jamie has joined legends like Russel Ogden, Robbie Whittall, Bruce Goldsmith and John Pendry as one of the elite top ten pilots in the World.

Nova-sponsored Steve Nash is a racer. Both on foot and in the air. Having convincingly won every hike-and-fly event in the UK over the last two years, he will represent Great Britain at the Red Bull X-Alps in 2011. He's proved his alpine flying skills with a top five finish at the British Open in St Jean in 2009, and, as a mountain ultramarathon runner, he's placed highly in both the Goretex Trans-Alpine Run and the North Face Courmayeur-Champex-Chamonix ultratrail around the Mont Blanc. Watch him closely in the 2011 X-Alps.

In 2010 Kirsty Cameron asserted her place not just by winning the Women's Paragliding Open in Ager, Spain but by proving that she can compete at the top level amongst the men too. She finished 11th overall in the British Championships and - even more impressively - 2nd overall in Serial Class, putting every single bloke except one to shame. Kirsty's got heaps of natural talent, but, perhaps more impressively. has carefully managed her progression in paragliding, ensuring that each new success is built upon a solid foundation of experience. Right now Kirsty is sponsored by Advance, if she can do this well on a Serial Class wing, then she'll do even better on a Competition wing.

Neil "Slapper" Roberts had a reputation for consistency but also letting others lead and being just behind them in second. Not in 2010. This year, Neil brought his skills and XC experience to the fore, finishing 29th in the FAI European Championships and 21st in the Paragliding World Cup Superfinal. He took his first 1000-point task win at the British Open in St André les Alpes, and missed out on becoming British Champion 2010 by just seven points out of 9000. Now that Neil has added speed to his legendary consistency, he's already ranked 29th in the World and he will climb higher.

Jon Chambers, no stranger to high level competition, has returned from several years in the wilderness to reassert himself in competition paragliding. In 2011 his chosen arena is the Red Bull X-Alps. Jon's tenacity and competitive spirit will see him representing Great Britain and demonstrating just what skill and determination can achieve.

Emile Van Wyk was the only pilot to stay ahead of Kirsty Cameron in the British Championships Serial Class. Except he did more. Not only did he dominate the EN D/LTF 2-3 arena in 2010, he also cast all but six Open Class pilots flying higher performing wings to the side, to finish 7th overall in the British Championships. Like Kirsty, Emile has heaps of natural talent and the mentality required to win at the highest level.

There are others with initials like CH, IB, ST and TG who will also no doubt make their mark on 2011. Bring it on!

Follow these pilots:

2010 Retrospective

2011-01-03T15:11:00.001+01:00

2010 was my most successful paragliding year so far:

The season started in April with some classic country flying in the French and Swiss Alps. At the Cat's Cradle XC competition in Annecy I won my first FAI Category 2 tasks, broke my personal best twice, did my first 200km flight, and took my first overall Category 2 win, all on my trusty Axis Mercury. Read my full write-up in "4 days, 24 hours of flying, 580 kilometres XC and 3 kilos of cheese". This was followed by two great days in Fanas, Switzerland with the Swiss League, including a stunning 138km flight along the upper Rhein valley exploring peaks and glaciers still clad with winter's snow. Just two days later, on 28 April, I finally completed Pierre Boullioux's classic 170km FAI triangle from Chamonix, and in doing so set two new UK National records: distance around a triangular course (169.55km) and speed record over a triangular course of 150km (20.03km/h).

May was wet for the large part, but I explored several new routes for me in a 108km flight from Chamonix, which, combined with my other long XCs, put me comfortably at the top of the UK International XC League. I held on to the position for the rest of the year, finally finishing 200 points ahead of the second-placed pilot and the only pilot to exceed 1000 points.

In June, I received my Ozone Mantra R10.2 competition wing and took it to the British Open in Slovenia, a competition that I helped organise in my position as Chairman of the British Paragliding Competitions Panel. The competition was a fantastic success thanks to great weather, fantastic support from the local Slovenians, and Calvo's organisation. We flew six great tasks in seven days, and I finished 11th overall and 5th British pilot, earning a Paragliding World Cup "C" letter, effectively guaranteeing my place at all World Cup events of my choice in 2011.

The new World Cup "Superfinal" format meant that the qualification events were failing to fill up and I was offered a last-minute place at the World Cup Greece two weeks later based on my "EX" qualification letters from 2009. Thanks to flexible working arrangements, I was able to attend, but the event was a disappointment with weak conditions, poor task setting, and an ambience that felt closer to an average Cat 2 event. It fell far short from the pinnacle of paragliding competition I was expecting.

The French Championships in the Chablais in July were interesting, with (as expected for the time of year) difficult weather conditions. There were a lot of accidents, due in no small part to task committee who seemed to determined to set tasks that were clearly inappropriate for the majority of the pilots present. I placed 21st overall. This was followed by the Swiss Championships in Fiesch, Switzerland, a great event but once again with tricky weather conditions, where I finished 18th.

The highlight of the year was the British Open in St André les Alpes (write up) where I finished 25th overall and 9th Brit, putting me 8th overall in the British Championships 2010 and earning me a World Cup "E" qualification letter for 2011 to add to my "C" from Slovenia.

Having flown several thousand kilometres, 150 hours, 30 tasks, seven FAI Category 2 events in 2010, I'm currently ranked 106 in the CIVL World Rankings. But more important than the numbers are the experiences: flights from Annecy, Chamonix, Fanas and St André were particularly memorable and will stay with me for a long time.

It was a good year.

My flights in 2010

A task setting philosophy (part 1)

2011-01-03T13:55:00.004+01:00

This article presents practical advice for setting tasks in Race To Goal paragliding competitions. Underlying this advice is a philosophy - that tasks should be safe, fair and fun. I explain why I believe that this philosophy is the correct one and give practical advice as to how to achieve this, as well as identifying common mistakes in task setting. The goal is to promote good task setting - tasks that prove the value of paragliding competitions and that encourage all pilots to consider the development of their competition flying skills as a valuable and natural part of their progression as a pilot.

Principles of a good task

The goal of any competition task should be to allow pilots to test their skills against each other. Pilots fly competitions for a variety of reasons. The new pilot looks for a challenge, the merely good pilot looks for an arena in which he can demonstrate his skills in public, but the very best pilot sees it as an opportunity to learn and to challenge his personal assumptions as to what is possible on a paraglider.

A good task will provide an opportunity for pilots of all levels to meet their goals. Underlying this, there are three key defining aspects of a good task:

Safe: Paragliding is an inherently dangerous sport and this is further compounded by the heat of competition. A good task ensures that pilots are not likely to put themselves in needless danger in the pursuit of achieving their goals.

Fair: The underlying principle of competitions is that pilots compare themselves to each other. This comparison can only be valid if there is an agreed-upon base, be it in choice of take off, weather conditions, route or (realistically) all three. Cross Country leagues, although they are fantastic in several respects, are a poor method of comparing pilots because they depend so much on each individual pilot's place of residence and availability to fly on the best weather days.

Fun: A good task is one in which every pilot lands having achieved his goal, be it demonstrating his skill or having learned. The sign of a good task is one in which pilots chat for hours afterwards about it using phrases like "I'd never been there before", "it was a great race" and "I never realised that was possible".

Signs of a bad task

There are many "task smells" that result in bad tasks being set. These include:

Proving the venue: Competitions are often used as a showcase for flying destinations, and all to often the locals want to prove to the world that large flights (typically measured in tens or hundreds kilometres) are possible at their site. This leads to tasks being set that are either inappropriate for the actual weather, inappropriate for the pilots present, or both. Key phrases to listen for are "we can fly as far as X today!"

Head banging: There is a philosophy that the best pilots are those able to fly in the most extreme conditions. Albeit true that only very skilled pilots are able to survive extreme conditions, the reality is that the vast majority of pilots present are at best unlikely to enjoy such a flight. Key phrases are "but pilots won't follow the straight course line, they'll go this (indirect) way..."

Doing the local milk run: Many sites have classic flights associated with them. Setting such flights as competition tasks is often an error for several reasons:

such routes usually achievable on "normal, good" days, but during a competition one is trying to fly XC every day
such routes often include little decision making and therefore provide few (if any) learning opportunities

The smell phrases are "this is a classic" and "we always do this".

Dreaming the weather: often related to doing the local milk run, dreaming the weather occurs (to quote Mark Hayman) when the task setters chose a task for the weather they want, not the weather they have. This is typically characterised by an ambitious task accompanied by phrases such as "but conditions will probably improve and if we don't do at least X then we'll look stupid." Sometimes this works, but equally often it is does not.

Drag racing: In trying to seek the balance between interesting and achievable, it is easy to set a task that demands only thermalling and bar-pushing skills, and ignores decision making.

Getting it right

Assuming the task setters have understood that a task should be safe, fair and fun there are three key factors that make for a good task:

Correct duration: A good task provides ample opportunities for pilots to compare their skills, but without overly fatiguing themselves. Often the final race to goal only starts 20-30km from the goal line, and it is irrelevant if pilots have flown 20km, 100km, or 200km before this. Scoring systems have - for good reasons - concepts of nominal time and nominal distance built into them to ensure that there is ample opportunity for pilots to differentiate themselves, but there is little reason to massively exceed these. The pilot who is ahead after five hours was probably already clearly ahead at three hours, the extra two hours add nothing except fatigue. In my opinion the optimal task length is approximately two hours for the fastest pilots, which means that the slowest pilots will typically take four to five hours.

Sufficient interest: A good task avoids obvious routes. Instead, it challenges the pilots with a several options with no clear favourite. It is worth pointing out that, as long as the task is of suitable duration and interest, then distance is not an indication of a good task. A 60km task lasting two to three hours with three interesting decisions to make is a much better task than a 160km task with three interesting decisions lasting five to eight hours. Think quality not quantity.

Increasing difficulty: Appropriate difficulty is a necessary component of any interesting task. However, a difficult part early on does little except frustrate the pilots who fail to make it. In the ideal task the difficulty increases progressively, ensuring that all pilots achieve a distance proportional to their skill.

Key responsibilities

On top of setting safe, fair and fun tasks, there are a few key responsibilities that task setters must assume:

The direct line must be safe: Pilots will follow the arrow on their GPS. Task winners win by taking the shortest route - the straight line - and not getting stuck. Put difficulty on the course line, but don't put danger. A pilot following the GPS arrow may glide to the ground, but should never be forced into unsafe conditions like lee-sides.

The task must be achievable by 75% of the pilots: This very much depends on the competition, but all appropriate pilots must feel that they have a fair chance of getting to goal on their glider. The definition of appropriate pilot depends on the level of competition. At a good FAI Category 2 competition (e.g. British Open) it should be possible to get to goal on an EN C; at a selective Cat 2 (e.g. the French Open) then EN Ds should be able to finish; at a Paragliding World Cup event it is appropriate to set tasks that are only achievable on an Open Class wing. A good sign that you're getting it right is that lower class wings get to goal, albeit much slower than the fastest pilots.

Timings

Window open: Window Open is when pilots will start to take off. Up until this point the task setters are free to adapt the task the conditions. Once the window has opened it is only possible to change the task if no pilots have taken off, pilots in the air are not able to change the task in their GPSes (this is a feature of the GPSes, and sometimes also the pilot). Ideally, Window Open should be set for a time when pilots know that they will be able to stay up, but before that they know that they will climb to base. This avoids a hectic rush to launch by pilots feeling that they're too late, but does not penalise pilots who choose to take off early. This is very much a matter of judgement, and there's no substitute for having a Meet Director who understands the site. But, as a general rule, it's a good idea to set the Window Open time to be as early as possible once you are sure that the task is correct for the day.

Window open to race start: The interval between Window Open and Start is critical. It must be long enough to give all serious pilots the opportunity to take off and be at cloudbase on the start line, but not too long that early launchers are penalised by excessive fatigue. As a rough guide, pilots taking off 30 minutes after Window Open should be able to make the start - just. A start where it is necessary to take off within 20 minutes to make the start will make the launch stressful, and requiring less than 15 minutes is effectively a ground start. The correct timing depends on the site, the conditions and the number and skill level of the pilots present.

Race start: This is when the race begins. Conditions can be weak, but they must be suitable for XC flying. As a rough guide, this is the time that pilots should be at cloudbase with the expectation of finding a good thermal at the end of their first glide. If in doubt, it should be set early to encourage maximum use of the day, knowing that the race is run in that latter part of the course.

Goal close/land by/check-in: There are subtle differences between the three timings, but the fundamental thinking is the same: this is when pilots should be either in goal or landed having tried. It's a critical safety/fairness compromise. It needs to be late enough to give all pilots a fair chance (particularly those on slower wings) but early enough that, if a pilot has a problem, there is sufficient time to launch a search and rescue operation. As a rough guide, it should be at least one and a half hours before sunset. If conditions are expected to deteriorate during the day then it can be much earlier, as long as a good fraction of the pilots have had a fair chance to complete the course.

What makes competitions different from XC flying

The key difference between competitions and XC flying, is that XC pilots will focus on the individual on the best weather days whereas, in a competition, the goal is to fly XC every day for a week - even if the conditions make flying XC tricky. Add to this that XC flying is typically focused on the individual whereas a competition task setter is sending 100+ friends of different skill levels into the air. Taken together, this means that competition tasks are generally shorter than what is achievable by a good XC pilot on any given day. This is a source of frustration for some, but the two areas - XC and competition - should be treated as two overlapping but different disciplines, and both equally valuable pursuits.

More to follow in part two, including task geometries, elapsed time tasks, pre-start and safety turnpoints, tasking a full competition week, and how to choose your task committee.

British Open St André 2010

2011-01-03T13:41:00.002+01:00

I wrote the following article for the November 2010 issue of Skywings.

The British Championships returned to the world famous site of St-André-les-Alpes in Southern France for the second and final round of the 2010 season. The venue delivered as per its reputation: reliable, epic XC flying but not without incident. With 150 pilots from 18 different countries (61 Brits) this was to be the largest and one of the most successful competitions of the year.

Day 1 - 62.1km race to goal

With a forecast of increasing wind, a classic St André zig-zag was set in the protected area around launch. The 8km start cylinder gave two options for the start, and it was to be the pilots who made the into-wind jump onto Mont Mouchon before the gun who would be best placed with a buoyant cross-wind glide to the first turnpoint whereas those starting at the antennas were faced with an into-wing leg that frustrated several. Once into the race, the first leg of the task was epic with strong climbs and fantastic mountain racing. However, the increasing westerly wind began to make itself felt and the second half was much trickier, with a few forced to double back and climb again even on the final glide. 2009 French Champion Pierre Remy (Ozone Mantra R10) won the day with an incredible average speed of 36.5km/h and Emile van Wyk finished in the top ten on his Gin Boomerang GTO. Finally, the task was stopped with about 30 pilots in goal due to the strengthening wind.

Day 2 - no task

Very strong winds all day meant no chance for a task. Instead we ran an hour-long question-and-answer session with the top British pilots before dispersing to enjoy the area.

Day 3 - 81.7km Race to goal

The winds had subsided leaving just a light SW'ly and so the classic out-and-return task to Allos to the NE was set. From the start pilots scooted along, taking strong climbs and gliding high and fast to the first turnpoint (the landing field in Allos) in almost a straight line. Heavy sink near the turnpoint flushed those who had not topped up before taking it, and many of the lead gaggle were left grovelling. Higher pilots were able to tag the turnpoint and get back over the previous ridge, saving several minutes and a lot of stress! The return from Allos would turn out to be the crux. The SW'ly meteo wind reinforced the valley wind and pilots who got low struggled to make progress. Meanwhile, those taking the high ground raced back to St André in style. Russell Ogden (Ozone Mantra R10) won the day in just under two hours, and 84 pilots made it to goal.

Day 4 - 88.3km race to goal

This day would be the most controversial of the competition. The forecast was for stability in the flats but some thermals in the mountains. Therefore, a large triangle was set, keeping pilots in the big mountains where the thermals were likely to be strongest: north to the start of the Dormillouse ridge, then south to south end of the Montagne de Coupe, before flying back to St André and goal. The terrain was epic and a myriad of route options available with no obvious "correct" one. Every possible route was flown, and every route worked - of course some were faster than others. The plethora of options quickly dispersed the gaggles but it was once again Russell Ogden who found the fastest path to take the task win. 87 pilots got to goal, as well as wind technician Idris Birch on his ancient Gin Oasis, but the day was marred by no less than five reserve deployments and two tree landings scattered around the course. Luckily, there were no serious injuries.

Day 5 - 68.4km race to goal

High cloud was expected later and pilots were feeling a little fatigued from two days of full-on alpine flying so a short but interesting task was set using turnpoints in the valley bottoms to keep the options open. The lead gaggle pushed on hard but with, once again, with no obvious route to follow they were forced to think at every step. The high cloud arrived shortly after the leaders landed in goal, but the thermals kept working and 100 pilots earned their goal beers. Russell Ogden was fastest for the third time in a row, but the lion's share of the lead-out points went to Luc Armant (Ozone Mantra R10) who had done the bulk of the work.

Day 6 - 86.4km race to goal

Once again, a new task for the area was set that would prove to be very interesting. After five days without cumulus, they were forecast for today and formed in much greater numbers than expected. The start was SW of launch, the first turnpoint NE, and the penultimate turnpoint was to the S before the classic finish. Drawn on a map there was once again no obvious route and no one on launch had a clear idea of how they would fly the task. The first leg was relatively straightforward with the pilots who chose the Cordeil having a much more fun than those diving onto the ridge at Lambruisse. The turnpoint on the edge of the big mountains to the NE did not provide any great difficulties, but the principle leg heading S to the penultimate turnpoint would prove decisive. With the cumulus clouds developing horizontally there was a lot of shade and a few big names bombed out after the Côte Longue. Neil Roberts was the man who made it through first, taking his first 1000 point task win with Emile van Wyk once again finishing amongst the top competition wings on his Gin Boomerang GTO. At the end of the day, despite the tricky conditions, 60 pilots made it into goal.

At the end of the penultimate day, Russell Ogden was dominating the Open, Emile van Wyk had extended his lead in the Serial Class, but the title of British Champion was undecided. Jamie Messenger had slipped down into third place due to a couple of bomb-outs and the title was split between arch-rivals Neil Roberts and 2008 Champion Craig Morgan. Craig had the edge, but after eleven tasks Neil was only seven points behind. The final day of St André would be critical, but the forecast was uncertain, and as only 1000-point tasks count for the Champs no-one really knew if Neil would get the opportunity to catch Craig.

Day 7 - 76.6km race to goal

There were two forecasts. The first said it would be far too windy, the second said that it would be OK where we were. We went up to launch in the hope that the it would be the second, not the first, that was correct. A carefully planned task was set, keeping pilots in the areas expected to be most protected from the wind. The start of the task was a blast, until pilots ended up on the Lambruisse ridge. Here it was windy, and behind it was even more so. The task was maintained with the leaders making fast progress. Wave bars started to form in the Durance valley and once they began to form near St André the task was stopped. Marking back ten minutes, the leader was Nicolas Treins (Ozone Mantra R10) who scored just shy of 400 points for his efforts. Most pilots landed safely in the Thorame valley, a few flew back to base, but the day did not count for the Championships and so the positions at the end of day 6 became the final positions.

Open overall

Russell Ogden convincingly won the Open, ahead of rising French star Martin Bonis (Ozone Mantra R10). Mark "Wagga" Watts (Gin Boomerang 7) flew like a man possessed to seize third place ahead of an exceptionally strong field. Emile van Wyk dominated the Serial Class - and most of the competition wings to - in a tour de force demonstration of what a skilled pilot on a Gin Boomerang GTO can do. Swiss pilot Michael Küffer took the 2nd place Serial Class and the Sports Class crown on his Niviuk Artik XP, just ahead of Julian Robinson (Gradient Avax XC2). French XC hound Bertrand Bellet (Gradient Avax XC2) claimed the Sports Bronze for a truly multinational Sports Class podium. The female winner was current French Champion, Christine Metias (Gin Boomerang 7).

Championships overall

With twelve good tasks flown in fourteen days and all but one counting for the Champs, this was one of the hardest fought Championships in years for the 66 British pilots who attended one or both rounds.

Hardcore racer Craig Morgan seized the silverware for his second British Championship title in a year with no discards, adding consistency to his blistering speed, whereas traditionally consistent Neil Roberts demonstrated increasing boldness with his first task to finish a mere sliver behind in second. Jamie Messenger took third place. Emile van Wyk not only held off Serial Class challenges from Kirsty Cameron (Advance Omega 8) and Richard Bungay (Gin Boomerang GTO) but finished 7th overall putting numerous competition wings to shame. Kirsty proved her increasing skill and maturity as a pilot, not only winning her third Women's British Championship, but also teaching most of the boys a thing or two about flying! Julian Robinson won the Sports Class and Juan-Sebastian Ospina (Axis Mercury) was awarded Best Newcomer.

Results

Paragliding World Cup Greece Task 1

2010-06-23T18:53:00.001+02:00

I'm currently in Greece for my first ever Paragliding World Cup. It's been a long-term ambition to qualify for the World Cup, and thanks to a decent result (10th Brit) at the British Open in St Jean de Montclar in August 2009 and the new selection system, I got a last minute place with qualification letters EX.

The competition is based in the sleepy village of Petrousa, a few kilometres from Drama in northern Greece. There isn't much here: a few cafés and restaurants and one shop that sells pre-packaged foods: nothing savory, but you have a choice among a hundred different types of artificial muffin. All the Brits, with the exception of Jamie Messenger, are installed in the free camping at the football club on the edge of town.

On day one we arrived at the take off to only get a brief glimpse of the village below us before we were engulfed in cloud. On day two, however, with moderate winds, the expectation of thunderstorms, and the classic route to Drama blocked by a tyre fire started two days before and still burning and belching clouds of carcinogenic black smoke, we launched a zig-zag task in the plains in front of launch.

The thermals were broken and bitty: you felt yourself lifted into a core, only to turn and find it gone. However, almost everybody was high at the start line and the mass start of 110 comp wings gliding to the first turnpoint to the east was a sight to behold. The air was buoyant with clouds already building around us, so there was little need to stop and turn.

Approaching the turnpoint - just on the boundary of sunshine and shade in the photo - it was clear that the gliders in the valley were getting good lines and so I moved across to join them. I was lifted into the turnpoint, tagged it, and then full barred back to the ridge to join a climbing gaggle. My good line meant that I joined them at the top and it was a pleasant surprise to find myself next to Luc Armant as part of the lead gaggle.

The thermals was a good, solid 4m/s and when it weakened to 3m/s I left, expecting to find similarly good climbs along the ridge. It's also not often that you get the chance to lead out in a World Cup and given the increasing vertical cloud development I thought it unlikely that the task would be completed so I pushed on and went for glory.

There were clouds forming in the valley, but before the start the valley climbs had been weak and there were good clouds over the ridge, so I chose the ridge. It was a bad decision. I pushed on, expecting to stumble across another solid climb but I never did. I pushed on lower and hit the increasing SE'ly headwind. Below the top on the shallow ridge, I was being flushed down to the valley in the lee of a spur. At this point I was trapped: as soon as I came off the bar my groundspeed dropped to single digits and none of the thermal bumps were strong enough to be worth turning in. If I could push round the spur in front there could be a good climb, but it was unclear whether I could connect.

They'd already been some chat on the radio about conditions and possibly canceling the task. I called a level 2: it was uncomfortable where I was but more prudent pilots who had chosen higher lines over the ridge and out in the valley were making good progress. However, where I was, the headwinds were brutal: on full bar my glide was down to 2:1. I'd messed up.

It was a relief when the organisation cancelled the task due the the strong winds and increasing cloud development. Just at the right time in my opinion. I pushed out into the valley to land, still struggling to make progress against the headwinds. I chose a large field and touched down gently, a Mac Para 2-line Magus proto (which looked like it was very much inspired by the Ozone R10.2) landed next to me. It was Dylan, a Slovenian pilot, also flying in his first PWC. We helped each other pack as the rain approached.

And what rain it was. A few scattered, heavy drops fell first, increasing rapidly in frequency. We ran for shelter, watching a curtain of solid water close in on us. Just as I reached the safety of a petrol station a friendly Greek truck stopped and offered a lift back to Petrousa. We picked up Dylan and one other pilot, changed onto a packed retrieve bus at a road junction, and a few moments later were back at HQ. Then the heavens really opened and as pilots sheltered in the bars and cafés the thunder rolled and the main road turned into a river. What an adventure.

Track log

4 days, 24 hours of flying, 580 kilometres XC and 3 kilos of cheese

2010-06-18T11:19:00.001+02:00

The brief was simple: take off early, fly your socks off as far as you dared and then fly back again to land back at HQ. The Cat's Cradle Trophy is a new pure XC competition organised by Dezair Paragliding in Marlens, Annecy. I joined thirty French pilots and one New Zealander for what turned out to be one of the best XC weeks on record.

Pure cross country competitions have been gaining popularity with events like the XC Open and the Czech-organised XCamp. French and PWC Champion Patrick Bérod brought the format to his home site of Méruz at the south end of the Aravis mountains near Annecy in the French Alps in April. I signed up partly for a much-needed break from the day job and partly to get first-hand experience of the XC comp format.

The organisers promised less follow-the-leader gaggle flying, less mindless bar pushing and instead more flexibility, more decision making, and the opportunity to make the most of every day - in contrast to the hanging around and three-hour stress-fest of a traditional comp. I was skeptical. I had concerns about safety (XC comps have a much worse safety record than traditional comps), logistics (how do you organise retrieves when pilots scatter themselves to the four corners of the map?) and fairness (surely the local pilots would have a huge advantage?). As it turned out, I would be wrong on almost all counts.

The first day dawned with exceptionally clear skies and an excellent forecast. The deep blue was pure: an Icelandic volcano had scattered engine-eating ash into the upper atmosphere and there was not a single jet trail in the sky. Kiwi Glen Stevens had braved 36 hours of surface transport to get to the comp from London. With the magical sensation that the skies would be ours and uniquely ours the atmosphere on launch was palatable. We all knew the day would be special and it did not disappoint.

From the start the atmosphere amongst the competitors was positive. We all realised that the battle would be fought in the air but by sharing information and route ideas we would all benefit. The task was set informally by the pilots: blast down the East faces of the Bauges mountains, do the huge transition into the Chartreuse, bar down to Grenoble to the south, tag a turnpoint somewhere near the Fort St Eynard and then race back north. Big transition back into the Bauges, and then keep going: tag Annecy and then cruise into goal on the valley winds just before the window closed at 17h30. Having launched ten minutes after the first pilot (it was effectively a ground start from a one glider launch) it took me 10km to catch him but conditions were fantastic and once away from launch I made only sixty turns in the first 80km to Grenoble, spending the rest of the time on half bar. I lead out, falling into a natural rhythm with the thermals and the clouds, until about 160km into the task. If it was good I stayed, but as soon as the lift dropped below 2m/s on the 20s averager I put on the bar and glided to the next source. Finally, bizarrely, it was at one of the most reliable thermals in Annecy (the rocks above Bluffy) that I finally fell out of cycle and was caught by Nicola di Bernardo (Mac Magus) and Sylvain Dhonneur (Aircross Usport) who had been chasing hard. After six hours of racing we fumbled our way up to base and headed in different directions to maximise our distances as the final minutes ticked away and goal beckoned. As it was we all made different decisions. Nicola claimed the longest flight but was 130 metres short of the line as goal closed. Similarly for Sylvain. Not getting to goal in time was costly. I'd blasted in with two minutes to spare to take my first 1000-point task win in an FAI Cat 2 competition. Day 1: 180km and 6.5 hours of flying.

Day two was very different. Cloudy. Over-development later. Pilots were tired from destroying their personal bests the day before. An earlier land-by time was set. Despite the tricky conditions this would prove to be the defining task of the competition.

With the forecast of big clouds in the mountains I'd planned a route that took me to the edge of the flying area during the strongest part of the day. The goal was to head towards the flats, clock up the kilometres on the lower ridges away from the main massifs, and then cruise back into Marlens on the valley winds before land-by time. It wasn't easy and I would have bombed out early on had I not been working low slopes with the eventual female winner, Christine Metais (Gin Boomerang 6 X-Alps). But it worked. In a dance of patience and planning I flew from sunny spot to sunny spot, occasionally relying on the magical lift-sniffing abilities of my Axis Mercury 08, and sometimes counting only on its raw speed and stability when jumping from mountain to mountain. Christine doubled back at the Montagne de Banges but I continued. The game was sunshine and shadow. Working large-scale weak lift I got rained on and hailed on, but it was only light. I flew into goal with just over five hours on the clock and a slow 105km on the counter. An insignificant distance compared to the previous day but hard-fought and enough to hand me my second 1000-point task win. Day two: 105km, 5.5 hours.

For day three the excitement was manifest. Almost the entire field (including me) had broken their personal best on day one, and Wednesday was looking even better. It was. The game was kilometres and everyone (except local XC hound Betrand Bellet (Gradient Avax XC2)) opted to follow the same flight as the first day but to extend it further north. I was once again a bit late to launch and it took me 80km to catch up with the ten-minute first launch advantage of task leader Maxime Pinot (Aircross U4) at Grenoble at the extreme south end of the defined flying area. The flying was fast - not dumb balls-out fast but intelligent fast - using the best lift, gliding at speed to fly. My impatience was on my side as a left Mont Granier below cloudbase for the big transition into the Bauges. This proved to be the decisive moment in the flight as I led out alone but in cycle, tagging the summit of Sur Cou at the extreme north end of the flying area before relying on raw bar speed to get me back to HQ with ten minutes to spare. I could have flown further. As it was, I ticked off the longest flight of the day with 211km in 7.5 hours, another personal best and a tidy average speed of almost 30km/h for a XC flight flown predominately alone. That day, four pilots flew over 200km circuits despite having a land-by time that still left 1.5 hours - 45km - of flying time. As you can probably imagine, the atmosphere in goal was electric. Almost everyone made it back in time having broken - no, destroyed - their personal best. Those who didn't make it in time landed in goal later, with fewer points but with even wider smiles. There was a barbecue at the HQ at the Auberge des Aravis and you can imagine as well as well as I the atmosphere amongst thirty pilots who had each just flown the best flight of their lives so far. For the third day in three, I won with 1000 points and the French were beginning to get annoyed.

The Meet Director Patrick Bérod announced that Thursday would be the last day. The accumulation of twenty hours flying in the best conditions that the French Alps have to offer was beginning to show in the eyes of the competitors. Of course, it's never easy. The beloved French President Sarko was in the area and this meant that there was an air exclusion zone around our normal playground of the Bauges until 13h30. We headed further away to take off - the ski resort of les Saises with it's south-facing slopes at 2000m - but it was still a game to make the most of the day.

Flush from three days of success, I got it horribly wrong. In my mind the goal was simple: don't take any risks, fly well enough to score 600 points which given my 400-point lead over second place Julien Senzier would be sufficient to secure the competition win. Even with this, we discussed tactics beforehand, freely sharing our information. But this day would not be mine. In the air, sensing a weakening of conditions, I took the conservative option of flying in the Bornes and Aravis mountains with a guaranteed return to goal in the Annecy valley. I got trapped under an inversion. Twice. On a weak day that would also be worth 1000 points like the others, in a four hour task I spent two hours scratching, going nowhere. I limped into goal, a few km under the belt but doubtful whether it would be enough.

While I had been stuck surviving, Kiwi Glen had been blasting up and down the East faces of the Bauges as fast as his Niviuk Peak would take him. Not bad for a non-local pilot who'd just learned the entire area in three days flat. While I'd done a mere 80km in four hours he'd clocked up 120km in the same amount of time but had been agonisingly a couple of kilometres short of goal when the time ran out. Nicola di Bernardo had got it right. He'd flown at speed-to-fly and blasted into goal a little early due to confusion about the land-by time. Having won three days in succession, was I about to lose it all?

On that final day I was 18th out of thirty. Everybody else was celebrating finally beating me. I was gutted that I'd fallen short, failing at the last hurdle. In those tense few hours before the final results came out I was not a good person to be around. My mood had changed from loving the flying and the atmosphere to playing zero-sum games of your win is my loss. It was not a proud moment.

Friday dawned cloudy and inverted. There would be no task. Despite my errors the previous day I had kept my first place albeit giving away two hundred points to second-placed Julien. I topped off the week by landing on the spot in the local stadium in Ugine to thank the local commune for letting us use the launch and adding a kilo of mature Tomme cheese to my pile of delicious Reblochons from three task wins and my first FAI Cat 2 win.

So, how were the logistics? Pretty good. The retrieve was organised using a minibus in each area. I got back to goal each day in time so didn't get to test out the retrieve system myself, but no-one was late back and everybody was happy. Safety? There was one reserve deployment with no injury, which given the 1000 hours of flying in strong Alpine conditions accumulated by the pilots was about par for the course. The emphasis on personal decision making meant that each pilot made his/her own individual decision to fly or land rather than being told what to do. Fairness? Well, the jury's still out on this one. I knew the area well and did well, but Kiwi Glen arrived with no local knowledge and nearly won the last day. As a non-local pilot you're unlikely to win but you'll certainly walk away having learned a fantastic amount.

Rumours are that they'll be another Cat's Cradle at St Jean de Montclar (site of the 2009 British Open) towards the end of the summer, and maybe a wider series to follow. See you there?

Full results.

The X-Alps: The Inside Story

2009-08-12T21:19:00.004+02:00

Judith Mole and I have just done the follow-up podcast on the race and it's aftermath. Have a listen to it on Judith Mole's paragliding podcast page.

The race was very tough but I was very happy to still be in the race at its end. The podcast covers a lot of topics, but if I've missed anything then email me at twpayne at gmail dot com and I'll answer your questions here.

Photo credit: ©Vitek Ludvik / Red Bull Photofiles

818km race to goal via seven turnpoints

2009-07-18T22:02:00.003+02:00

The glider has been relined (and the risers modified to prevent more tree landings!), the rucksack is packed (about 10kg with minimum gear), Alex has stocked and fuelled the van and we're ready to roll. Race briefing is a 7:45am tomorrow morning, we'll be in Salzburg city centre about 10:30am, and it all kicks off at 11:30am (0930 UTC).

Who's favourite? I don't think anyone feels confident that they will be the first to Monaco. So many world class pilots, several strong walkers. And of course Toma Coconea. The forecast is pretty grim: there'll certainly be a few good opportunities to fly, but with strong Westerly winds forecast for the next week at least I wouldn't be surprised to see a Coconea/Toase one-two, maybe with only Toma in goal. But the forecasts are more often wrong than right.

It's gonna be a long race. You don't really get the scale of it until you see the terrain: hundreds upon hundreds of kilometres to cover, valley after valley, mountain pass after mountain pass. The full scale of the endeavour has only really become apparent recently, but I'm really looking forward to the challenge. The past few days here in Austria have been busy but comfortable. Twenty four hours from now I'll be walking though the night and my life will change completely. Not just during the race, but I know that the Tom Payne at the finish of the race will be a different one to the one that started it.

Let the adventure begin.

Pre-race jitters

2009-07-16T22:38:00.003+02:00

Of course there were going to be a few problems immediately before the race.

Several competitors have only just received their equipment. Harnesses and gliders are arriving in plastic bags and factories from around the world. It's a bit late for major modifications, but a few grams can be trimmed here and there. Vincent Sprungli was not happy with the glider sent to him, so he's decided to use his glider (a Boomerang 5) from 2007.

I managed to get things wrong today by not noticing a tangle in my lightweight risers on take off. The line lengths on paragliders need to be accurate to within a few millimetres but the tangle meant that one set on the right-hand side were shortened by 10cm. It didn't really fly very well in this configuration, I couldn't even fly in a straight line and so I ended up in the trees below launch. Thanks so much to Alex for organising getting me out and for Jurgen (one of the safety team) for getting me and the glider out unharmed. I need to replace the lines but that's the only damage. A simple modification to the risers will prevent this happening again.

This morning we had a briefing on the rules: the Race Organisation are going to be very strict on a number of rules this year, including airspace and the number of supporters.

Fuschl am See

2009-07-14T22:52:00.002+02:00

After three days driving through the incredibly varied scenery of the Alps, we arrived at the Race Headquarters in Fuschl am See near Salzburg today. Austria is a breath of fresh air after Italy. The Italian terrain is a mix of forest, fruit trees, gorges and power lines, but in Austria it seems that every field is a perfectly mown lawn and every mountain has gentle grassy slopes on top.

The teams are converging here at Race HQ and we've already met the Czechs, the Polish, the Canadians and fellow Brit Aidan Toase. The Japanese teams' vehicles have been spotted but we haven't seen the pilots or their supporters yet. Initial race briefing is at 4pm tomorrow so everybody should be here by then.

The next few days will be spent in various briefings on safety and use of the live tracking equipment. We'll also meet the media and have a few official photos taken. There's a whole host of professional paragliding photographers present, including Ulrich Grill and Felix Wolk who'll also be following us during the race so expect some spectacular images during the race.

Approaching the start line

2009-07-13T19:37:00.003+02:00

My supporter Alex and I left Geneva on Saturday morning and are driving the first half of the route backwards to the start. We checked out the "South" route via the Sondrio valley and the Nufenenpass that Alex Hofer took so successfully in 2007. It's a commiting route, and we both have renewed respect for Alex's tactical and flying ability. The valley floors are low and the tree line is high, and with many peaks below the tree line there are very few potential launch sites. Landing fields are very scarce in many places, there are far too many vineyards, orchards and power lines. All in all it's a very committing route: if you can fly it, as Alex was able to, then it's almost a short cut, but if the weather's not so good or you make a mistake and land early it can be a very long walk to the next take off.

Today we drove through the Dolomites. The scenery is simply incredible. Once again there are a multitude of possible routes. Here there is no lack of take offs and landings, but the valleys are as narrow as the mountains are steep, which is to say very. There are several high passes to cross, which makes adds up to a lot of height gain and loss if you're stuck on the ground due to weather. It's definitely a section that you'd rather fly than walk! Martin Muller explained to me that to fly successfully through the Dolomites you have to stay high. In the French Alps where I've done most of my mountain flying getting low is not a problem: you can use the regular pattern to valley winds to find ridges facing in to wind and so find a thermal back to cloudbase. The Dolomites are different: the valleys are tight and windy and if you get to low you simply get flushed down to the valley floor. To make progress you must stay high, jumping from peak to peak.

Right now I'm typing this in Leinz in Austria. Tomorrow we'll check out the most likely route past the Grossglocker turnpoint and then up to the Watzmann and in to Salzburg. We have to be at Race HQ in Fucshl am See on Wednesday for several days of briefings and pre-shoots before the race start on Sunday morning.

I don't think that I really realised the scale of the challenge that is the Red Bull X-Alps until Alex and I started driving the route. It is simply a gargantuan challenge. But this will be the subject of a future blog post.

The harness

2009-07-10T15:55:00.002+02:00

Sup'air are kindly sponsoring me with an excellent harness. It's a lightweight version of the Altirando XP with a few minor modifications to save weight. The modifications are:

No comfort padding on the inside. The normal Altirando XP has some rather luxurious padding for your back, but Sup'air have removed this to save weight. The race harness keeps the full airbag back protection found in the standard version.

Lighter buckles. These are a lighter, simpler and a touch more fiddly than the normal light clip buckles. However, it saves a few grams!

Fewer pockets. Once again, just to save weight.

Sup'air have added a lightweight removable leg cover. This is streamlined and warm in the air, and can be removed and put in the van if there's a long walk ahead. In rucksack mode it's very comfortable to carry.

The reserve parachute is a Sup'air Xtralite Small which is a fully certified reserve parachute weighing less than 1kg. It packs in to a very neat combined front mount container which doubles as a cockpit for mounting my instruments in plain view.

These are the final pieces of gear, I'll get the scales out tonight to find out how much it all weighs.

Weather strategy

2009-07-07T21:24:00.009+02:00

Right now there's a thunderstorm in Geneva. The lightning is spectacular and the rain torrential. There's just a thin sliver of clear sky sandwiched between the towering clouds and the crests of the Jura mountains. The light has an metallic blue quality, illuminating the city in eerie surgical glow. I've never quite seen anything like it.

Despite the years of preparation, the months spent training, route planning and tuning gear, the winner of the X-Alps race will most likely be decided by the weather. Maybe the strong pilots and aerial tacticians will be able to weave a thread through the mountains, keeping them in the air and covering hundreds of kilometres day after day. But if the rain falls and the wind blows then the runners will be kings. Positions in the race will rise and fall based on each team's abilities to exploit the weather to play to their own strengths.

Alex and I have a whole host of weather information sources at our disposal. For the general long term forecasts we use TopKarten which publishes the output of the American GFS model (click on the link then click on GFS). This gives us forecast pressures and wind speeds at different altitudes, precipiation, cloud cover and more esoteric variables like CAPE which allows us to predict the chance of thunderstorms. You can click on the "+6" and "-6" links to animate through the forecast for the next two weeks. We'll use the output of this model to make the grand strategic decisions, for example do we take the north route through Chur or the south route through Bellinzona?

Here's a quick guide to interpreting the output of the GFS model so you can predict the teams' strategic decisions during the race.

The first thing to look at is the wind speed. Meteorologists prefer to use pressure altitudes rather than elevations. To first approximation, 850hPa corresponds to about 1500m -- the altitude at which we normally fly -- and 500hPa corresponds to about 5000m -- the summit of Mont Blanc. Wind speeds less than 10km/h at 1500m are "go anywhere" days and paraglider pilots can fly in any direction. Up to 20km/h pilots can still fly but it's difficult to make progress against the wind, and above 30km/h we are grounded.

If there are also light winds at 500hPa then expect some very long flights, if you see a "snake" of strong winds (Stromlinien) over the Alps then it means that jet stream is near and flying will be difficult.

The precipitation (Niderschlag) is accumulated over several hours, so a little bit of light blue is not a worry: it means the occasional shower at worse. However, once you start seeing purple on the forecast charts then you can expect a wet day with limited flying opportunities between the rain clouds.

As I'm finishing off this blog post at my kitchen table the sun has set and the cloud above is as black as ink. Out on the road and in the mountains it will be a long and dark night.

Getting geeky

2009-07-06T23:59:00.009+02:00

During the 2007 race I was glued to the internet, following the teams' progress through the Alps. Suddenly my phone rang: it was Aidan Toase: "Hi Tom, it's Aidan -- I'm trying to find a take off but I'm in the cloud and I can't see very far. Can you have a look on Google Earth and see if there's one near me?" Thanks to the live tracking I could find Aidan's exact position as he was on the phone, and was able to tell him that if he walked a few hundred metres north through a forest he'd come to a clear area where he could launch.

Technology has made an incredible difference to how we paraglide. Through the internet we have access to the latest detailed weather forecasts and up-to-the minute information from the sites. Using Google Earth and online databases like Paragliding Earth and XContest's incredible Skyways Map we have fingertip access to experience that would otherwise take years to acquire. Once in the air live tracking systems like Leonardo Live allow others to follow our progress in real time and are a great safety feature. Pilots who were flying ten years ago may remember analysing every word of the TV news forecast and somehow organising to go flying without using mobile phones. How archaic it seems now.

We'll have a whole host of technology on board to help us in the race. Here's a quick overview.

The 2009 live tracking, written by Harry Gergits, will be even better this year, with live updates every minute. Red Bull Mobile are supplying us with Sony Ericsson C702 which talk to our Brauniger Compeo+ altivario GPSs via Bluetooth. The Compeo+ collects a minute-by-minute log and packs eight track points in to an SMS which it sends every eight minutes.

Alex will use the live tracking to find me using a satellite car navigation system, and we'll both be watching the other team's movements to observe their route choices.

We'll also use the mobile phone to connect to the internet for the latest weather information and plan our moves on Google Maps and the Skyways Map. We'll make regular diary updates though MMS messages from the phone, which should be able to to text, photos, audio and video.

Suunto are supplying us with their new Suunto Core watch which includes an altimeter, compass and thermometer. All these features will be very useful for navigation in the mountains. For example, you can use the thermometer to measure the environmental lapse rate as you walk up to launch to get an idea of the atmospheric instability on the day.

I'll also be flying with the Leonardo Live tracking system created by Manolis Andreadakis which means that you'll be able to follow my flights in greater detail, it'll act as a backup tracklog in case I have problems with the official tracking devices, and will be further safety device.

Those of you who know me will know that I have a bit of a fetish for computers and have written quite a lot of software for paragliders. If you're an XC pilot then be sure to check out my XC planner and to analyse your flights with my Google Earth flight analyser (now integrated in to Leonardo). There are also a few geekier projects on my GitHub home page.

Grub's up!

2009-07-05T23:39:00.005+02:00

Eating right is going to be critical if we want to survive the race. 2007 competitor Ulric Jessop perhaps put it best, he said:

I think my greatest advantage was [my wife and supporter] Ruth's cooking. She put a huge effort into preparing a set of recipes for the race. One night, we were parked next to the Czech team. They were tucking in to their pot noodles. Ruth had prepared stuffed veal cutlets. At that point, we knew that the battle was won.

You need to be fit and fuelled on the start line, but there's a big difference between single day events and multi-week events like the Red Bull X-Alps. In a single event you need to focus on getting enough energy in to your system to allow you to complete the race, you can recover afterwards. In shorter events like marathons you'll focus on carbohydate with a touch of protein and salt towards the end. In the slightly longer events, like ultramarathons, it's more important to eat slower energy sources like long chain carbohydrates, protein and fat. But we're not on our feet for a single long day. We're going to be pounding pavement day after day, week after week, and this is going to take a horrible toll on our bodies. We need to eat not just for energy but to recover - or at least slow down the inevitable damage.

Not only does the food need to be nutritious, it also needs to be quick to prepare using easy to find ingredients and easy to eat. Strong flavours and tough textures are likely to cause upset stomachs and a loss of appetite. In the van we have two gas cookers and a fridge, that's it.

Here's my favourite recipe which I've modified slightly from the original by my friend Alice Handerson. Preparation time is about twelve minutes start-to-finish. It's delicious, nutritious and easy to make and will be my secret weapon in the race.

X-ALPS SMOKED SALMON PASTA

Ingredients (per person):
- 125g of smoked salmon (economy salmon is great)
- 100ml of creme fraiche
- half an onion
- one clove of garlic
- quarter of a courgette
- 100g of fusili (spiral) pasta
- sea salt, ground black pepper, olive oil

Start heating the water for the pasta in a large saucepan. While it is heating up you can do all the preparation. Chop the onion in to small squares. Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a non-stick pan and once the oil is hot, add the onion. To tell when the oil is hot, add a single small square of onion. When the oil starts to form bubbles around it then it's at the right temperature. Heat the onion over a medium heat for a few minutes, stirring occasionally. While this is cooking finely chop the garlic. When the onion is soft, add the garlic, keeping the heat medium. At this point the water for the pasta is probably boiling so put the pasta on with a bit of salt and a splash of olive oil. The olive oil reduces the formation of bubbles, allowing you to cook the pasta at a higher temperature for a better texture. Chop the courgette in to quarters lengthwise then cut these in to small chunks. Throw the chopped courgette in with the onion and garlic with a couple of grinds of black pepper and sprinkle of salt and fry, stirring occasionally. Chop the salmon in to small cubes. When the pasta is done (al dente is best), drain it and add the onion/garlic/courgette mix. Mix well: the oil prevents the pasta from sticking. Then add the creme fraiche and the chopped salmon. Mix everything up well in the pasta saucepan with an extra grind of black pepper and serve in bowls with a glass of freshly-squeezed orange juice. Delicious!

We're looking for other good food ideas. They need to be quick and easy to make, nutritous and simple. If you have some good food suggestions then please email me at twpayne at gmail dot com. Thanks!

P.S. Addie and Fatty Puff will recognise the title of this post.

Final stage of preparations, first glimpse of the race weather

2009-07-04T21:26:00.007+02:00

Alex and I leave for Austria next weekend. In the meantime we're frantically getting together the remaining equipment. Last night we put a lighter set of risers on the glider (thanks Martin Orlik at Axis Para) and I test flew the glider with them this morning at the Saleve mountain near Geneva before the storms arrived and stopped play. The afternoon was spent putting stickers on the glider. There's a lot of them and the Red Bull logos are really fiddly. However, by the third sticker we were starting to get the hang of it and can now put them on quickly and cleanly.

On Wednesday I'll finally be able to collect the harness from Sup'air. I've chosen to use a third generation Altirando XP. Sup'air are producing a special version for the X-Alps which is a couple of hundred of grams lighter than the standard version. It's a really nice harness in the air, nicely aerodynamic with the removable leg cover and with some excellent back protection in the form of an airbag. Equally importantly, it reverses to become a very comfortable rucksack. I've asked for a couple of minor modifications to adapt it better to my rather skinny body shape. Stay tuned for a more detailed description of the X-Alps gear towards the end of the week.

Finally, the race start is just fourteen days away now. It's scarily close and the first long term forecasts have just been published. Two weeks is an eternity in weather forecasting and you can't really believe anything they say, but I can't resist peeking! The current forecast is that Austria will get quite a lot of rain the day before the race but race day itself will be dry with light winds at 1500m, which means that we'll be able to fly from the first turnpoint above Salzburg, the Gaisberg. The winds at altitude are moderately strong Westerlies, which could be a problem for making progress in the air. We're racing from East to West, against the prevailing winds and consequently the 'hard' way. This is the Red Bull X-Alps, after all...

Who's flying what?

2009-06-30T18:42:00.003+02:00

All major paraglider manufacturers will be represented in this year's competition. There's a good mix of competition, serial and even DHV2 wings. Here's the quick low-down on who's flying what:

Gradient (6 pilots): de Dorlodot (BEL), Skrabalek (CZE), Gebert (GER), Makkonen (FIN), Pascale (ITA1), Carter (RSA)
Axis (4 pilots): Pennicuik (AUS), Payne (GBR2), Vrabec (SVK), Rejmanek (USA)
Gin (4 pilots): Ogisawa (JPN1), Geijsen (NED), Jagla (POL), Muller (SUI2)
Advance (3 pilots): Eichholzer (AUT1), Morillas (ESP), Maurer (SUI3)
Nova (2 pilots): Fanderl (CAN), Matsubara (JPN2)
Ozone (2 pilots): Wirtz (FRA2), Toase (GBR1)
U-Turn (2 pilots): Sprungli (FRA1), Takats (HUN)
UP (2 pilots): Coconea (ROM), Hofer (SUI1)
Mac (1 pilot): Susa (SLO)
Niviuk (1 pilot): Penso (VEN)
Skywalk (1 pilot): Frotscher (ITA2)
Sol (1 pilot): Gryaznov (RUS)
Swing (1 pilot): Amon (AUT2)

It'll be very interesting to see how the different wings perform. The full-on competition wings like the Gin Boomerang 6 (flown by all the Gin pilots) and the Ozone Mantra R09 (flown by Wirtz) have the best performance in the air. However, in the normal version they have a lot of heavy internal structure and semi-rigid parts to help them maintain their shape at high speed. The X-Alps versions of these wings use fewer rigid parts to save weight, but this will compromise their handling and potentially their safety in the air. It might be that the friendlier competition wings like the Axis Mercury 09 (flown by Vrabec and Rejmanek) which are designed without rigid parts will fly better in their lightweight versions.

Pilots flying lightweight versions of certified wings like the Gradient Avax XC2 and the Axis Venus 2 will have less performance in the air but this may well be compensated for by the relative ease of piloting. We'll be improvising launch sites in the mountains and conditions won't always be perfect. Having a glider that launches easily - which is most definitely not a full-on competition wing with its structure removed - in extreme cases could make the difference between a passable launch and no flight at all.

Finally, competition wings are designed for maximum performance in normal paragliding competitions. These are short, intense flights lasting two to four hours and very different from the long multi-hour cross country flights we hope to do in the X-Alps. Competition wings are extremely demanding and tiring to fly. As fatigue sets in during the race only the very best pilots, like Hofer, Eichholzer and Maurer will have the ingrained reactions to continue to pilot them at 100%. Personally, I know that I will fly better for longer and be safer on my Venus 2.

Team GBR2 in the air

2009-06-29T14:29:00.004+02:00

My supporter Alex Raymont is an excellent pilot himself, having been Canadian National Champion in 2003. We also weigh about the same so we can fly each other's wings. On Sunday we flew a wonderful XC together from Annecy, me on my Axis Mercury and Alex trying the Axis Venus 2 that I'll use in the X-Alps. As you can see from the photo above, cloudbase was low but the clouds were tall. We carefully threaded our way through the Bauges mountains to the Dent d'Arclusaz and back. Alex was really impressed by the handling of the Venus 2, and especially its climb performance: it seems to be naturally drawn in to thermals.

Back in Annecy we stumbled across the two Japanese pilots competing in the Red Bull X-Alps this year. The photo above is of Kaoru "Ogi" Ogisawa (fifth in 2007) flying in front of the Dents de Lanfon on his 2009 gear. I think he wins the prize for the most stickers on his glider!

The dreaded "goutte froide"

2009-06-23T08:27:00.007+02:00

Right now flying conditions are not good in the Alps. We're in the dreaded "goutte froide" situation. This occurs when cold air sweeps across the Atlantic Ocean and a blob on the end breaks off and floats around the Mediterranean Sea. It's visible on the temperature chart on the right as a big orange "bite" centred over the Adriatic Sea and is a low pressure system.

The winds blow anticlockwise around a low pressure system in the Northern Hemisphere and these winds collect moisture from the Mediterranean Sea and dump it as rain on the Eastern end of the Alps. You can see on the precipitation chart on the right that today is going to be a very wet day in Austria and Northern Italy. No flying there.

At the same time there's a big high pressure system over the British Isles and the North Sea. The winds blow clockwise around these and the air is squeezed between this high pressure and the "goutte froide" and accelerates, i.e., it's windy. At the West end of the Alps (Geneva) this cold NE'ly wind is too cold to flow over the Alps so it flows around them and is further squeezed between the main body of the Alps and the Jura mountains. It's the classic "Bise" wind: cold, dry and strong. Right now in Geneva it's about 40km/h at ground level and 60-70km/h at altitude. Further south, this wind blows down the Rhone Valley past Lyon and becomes the "Mistral" in Marseille.

In these conditions flying is impossible in all but the most protected areas. Plan Joux in Chamonix is one such site as it protected by the enormous cliffs of the Rochers de Fiz behind it. Further south, St Vincent les Forts is well protected by the 4000m+ Ecrins massif. At these sites you can fly comfortably all day long in bubble of light winds, but stray to high or far and you quickly hit the strong winds and things can get interesting. For paragliders, flying cross country is almost impossible.

The bad news is that such unflyable situations - rain in the East, wind in the West - can persist for several days at a time. The current forecast is for an easing of the winds tomorrow and the "goutte froide" to dissolve in to the surrounding air towards the end of the week leaving a fairly even pressure over the Alps. Such flat pressure fields usually mean storms.

The X-Alps has historically had fairly mixed weather, and if a situation like the current one sets up in late July/early August then it could become a war of attrition on the ground. It'll be tough.

Update Tuesday evening: Tomorrow (Wednesday 24 June) is looking like a cracking day in the Southern Alps while everywhere else in the Alps is pretty much unflyable. The hang gliders at the Hang Gliding World Championships in Laragne should have an epic day. It'll be very interesting if such a situation develops in the race: the runners might be able to get ahead in to the good flying conditions while the fast-in-the-air-slow-on-the-ground pilots will be stuck in the bad weather. You really have to be ready for anything in this race.

The Team United

2009-06-22T18:33:00.000+02:00

Alex flew in from Canada on Wednesday morning and it's great to see him again. We last saw each other in the summer of 2007, so we're doing a lot of catching up. X-Alps duties started immediately for Alex, with an evening at the PWC Annecy where Ulric Jessop presented the Bafta-nominated film of his 2007 campaign on a big screen next to Lake Annecy.

We've still got loads of preparation to do, everything from working out routines and tactics to buying minor bits of gear for the support vehicle. In all cases Alex has hundreds of good ideas, backed up by an incredible understanding of mountain gear. He'll be a great supporter and I'm very lucky to have him on my team.

X-Alps Podcast

2009-06-21T23:55:00.003+02:00

Judith Mole interviewed me for a podcast about the X-Alps. She asked a lot of difficult questions! You can listen to the podcast online or download it at Judith Mole's podcast page.

Three good days in Annecy

2009-06-14T23:37:00.010+02:00

It's been a pretty windy Spring in the French Alps, but a ridge of high pressure built over the France and the Western Alps over the weekend and I took a half day of holiday from work on Friday to take advantage of it.

On Friday I took off with my friend and fellow Axis pilot Damien de Baenst from the Planfait take off. It's my favourite site. It's relatively low (900m) but the aerology is fantastic, meaning that as you climb up to the Dents de Lanfon you look down on take off. It's a real escape. The other main Annecy take off - Col de la Forclaz - is higher, and is a better choice in some weather conditions, but you don't get the same sense of "climbing out" as you do from Planfait.

From the Dents de Lanfon (usually called "the Teeth") we headed north to Parmelan where great 3m/s climbs catapulted us up to over 2000m. The air was exceptionally clear that day, and it felt like you could reach out and touch Mont Blanc, over 50km away to the West.

We headed back to the Teeth and then crossed over the lake to the Roc des Boeufs. Anyone who has flown in Annecy will know that these are classic flying routes. Here it took some time to find a way through the inversion at 1600m, but we both eventually made it through and headed for Margeriaz. I arrived somewhat ahead but found that the north tip of the ridge was only working weakly, so I continued round to the west face. Which was dead. Not a single peep from the vario. Now without enough altitude to get back to the north side, and stuck in the stability, it was suddenly all over and I was left with just enough time to chose a landing field. I radioed back to Damien to warn him and he was able to stay on the north side and continue his flight, eventually landing at the entrance of the Maurienne valley.

At this point I cheated. It was late in the day and there was no time to walk up to another take off, so I stuck my thumb out. Anyone who's landed in the Bauges mountains knows that there is very little traffic and getting home can take a long time. However, I was lucky, and after just 20 minutes a young guy stopped. His beaten up Peugeot 205 barely held together, no doubt shaken apart by the thumping hardcore techno music he was playing. The tempo of the music was matched only by the speed of his driving (and he was a local who knew the roads). It was great fun (and I loved the music), he kindly dropped me off at the Revard (4 Vallees) take off, and just one hour after having landed I was back in the air again.

Here the goal was clear: get back to Annecy. It was late in the day but I knew the route. The stability was still there, but my Axis Mercury climbs and glides amazingly so, despite being a lot lower than I would have wanted for several of the transitions, I was still able to make it back. In the landing field I met fellow first-time X-Alps competitor Ronny Geijsen who was in Annecy to test his newly-arrived wing and fly in the PWC. There's no book about how to prepare for the X-Alps, so we eagerly swapped notes about gear, training and strategy. He's also a thoroughly nice chap.

On Saturday I headed, again with Damien, to a new take off for us both at the south end of the Aravis mountains. Not much more than a small clearing in a forest with magically fewer line-snagging rocks than your average mountains side, it was a real discovery. We launched, once again, in to stable air on the wild, steep SE face of Mont Chavin.

It took an age to climb out. Every metre was hard won in the 0.3m/s thermals, and ten minutes work would every now and then be wiped out by a few seconds of -3m/s sink. It was galling. After several attempts to break through the inversion at 1800m I gave up and decided to do something different. With another Mercury (not Damien) and two DHV 2s headed West over the classic site of Marlens and on to the SE faces of Tournette. This was a flight that I had heard was possible, but I'd never tried before. On this day, with the stability, I fully expected to land early.

But somehow, despite the weak and broken thermals, we were able to soar up in the slope breeze and finally broke through to more unstable air above. To get through an inversion on a paraglider you've generally got two options: either find a large and strong enough thermal that's powerful enough to break through to the air above, or tuck in tight to the terrain, kick trees, and work the slope breeze. Today, only the second option was possible. But it worked! The slope breeze gave way to reasonable thermals and eventually we popped through in to steady 3m/s climbs up to cloud base now at 2500m.

This was a new route for me, and I remembered Aidan Toase's advice for the X-Alps: "You have to be happy flying alone over unknown terrain", so I resolved to explore as much as I could on this flight. I flew straight past Annecy, not bothering to turn in a thermal full of competition pilots preparing for the Paragliding World Cup. Alone at Parmelan, I found an incredible 4m/s thermal that launched me in to orbit and used this to head north.

Despite having lived in the area for several years, I had never flown these mountains before. Sous Dine, Sur Cou and the Pointe d'Andey came up and I cruised past them. My only knowledge of this area came from driving to the ski resorts of La Clusaz and Grand Bornand, and my memories consisted mainly of narrow tree-lined valleys with no landing options.

Several pilots have remarked on Alex Hofer's flying attitude: he flies with total confidence. There's no need to worry about having nowhere to land if you're not going to land. If there have been thermals in all the south-facing bowls so far, then so will the next one, even if it doesn't have a big grassy field to land in at the bottom. So, I adopted a new mental tactic. At each decision point, I asked myself: "what would Alex Hofer do?".

It's scary at first, but it works. I chose a remote col where there should have been convergence between the southerly thermal breeze and the northerly meteo wind, and indeed it worked. Elsewhere I flew into a high a tree-lined bowl and it worked as well. When you're high there are landing options that you can't see from the ground: the glide angle of your paraglider means that you have a large search radius, and you only need one decent field in that area to be safe. But you shouldn't worry about the details of identifying an actual landing field. Instead, I think the trick is to focus not on what happens if you don't find any lift, but rather the focus on where the lift actually is.

Finally I ended up flushed through some sink and too low in the low level stability to get up again and landed out. Five quick and easy hitches with several interesting people got me back to the valley below my car, but I knew (and had planned) to walk up from the valley floor to where my car was.

1000m height gain, 15km along the road, all with 25kg (40% of my body weight) of competition wing and harness on my back took just under three hours, fuelled only by a bit of leftover couscous and half a litre of energy drink. It was a good slog and almost dark when I got to the top. Incidentally, the road has 41 hairpin corners. It's reassuring that I can do it, and the only damage was a small blister on one toe because I was stupidly wearing normal cotton socks. It'll be a lot easier with Alex supporting me: proper nutrition, moral and tactical support, and a change of socks and shoes every now and then.

Sunday was the first day of the Paragliding World Cup. It's a long-term personal goal to compete in the PWC. I went along to the competition to catch up with friends there and to meet several of the X-Alps competitors. Watch out for the British Force of Mark Hayman, Jamie Messenger and Craig Morgan. Of this year's X-Alps athletes, five are there: Toma Coconea, Vincent Sprungli, Primoz Susa, Ronny Geijsen and Helmut Eichholzer. It was great to finally meet the legend that is Toma Coconea and his supported Gigi. Toma, the poor fellow, wanted to run up to take off but had been told that he had to take the bus! My friend and 2007 X-Alps competitor Ulric Jessop was also there and it wad great to catch up with him and get loads of tips gear and tactics.

I had the privilege of wind dummying for the competition, taking off just before window open to find out if anything, anywhere was going up. Luckily for me, the inversion at 1260m was just begining to break as the competitors launched, and I got a bird's eye view by parking myself over the middle of the course and watching the race. I've got to say, these PWC guys (and gals) are really fast. It's a great ambience on the ground, but once in the air everyone is focused on maximising every thermal and pushing as much bar as possible on every glide.

Flying competitions is definitely a different set of skills to the cross country which I've been focusing on. In fast and full-on competition you have a defined task, you're flying during the strongest part of the day, and you have the world's fastest pilots around you to help you find lift. Flying XC, typically on your own or in a small group, flying all day long, and adapting your route to the terrain and the changing weather conditions is another set of skills. It's a real sign of maturity in the sport that paragliding has now evolved in so many different directions.

Alex arrives in Geneva on Wednesday for the final month of preparation. The race start feels awfully close now.

A few words of wisdom from Aidan Toase

2009-05-30T20:12:00.003+02:00

Aidan very kindly shared much of his experience of his two previous races and good humouredly answered my incessant questions.

I asked him what is it actually like to fly in the X-Alps:

You do some crazy things like taking off from the top of a mountain at dawn and landing by 6am. I did this in Davos: I left the van at 3:30am and started walking up. Then it started snowing. Just as I got to the top I broke through the cloud layer and saw that it was relatively clear on the other side of the valley. So I found a bit of snow, laid out the glider and took off. It was a short flight, but amazing. The plan was to walk up the other side and do fly XC later in the day, but it all went horribly wrong after that.

On the advantages of running versus walking, he responded:

It's not about efficiency, it's about wear and tear. And running really tears you up.

On the interaction with your supporter:

Sometimes you're so focused on the race that you don't realise what you're putting your supporter through. You ask them to buy a blister pack from the nearby town because they've got the van and it's just a short drive. When they get there they find that the pharmacy is closed but they don't want to come back empty handed so and they drive to the next town. Before you know it your quick request has caused them a multi-hour round trip.

On his application to race again in 2009:

I'd love to apply and not get in. Then I could not do it guilt-free.

Aidan also revealed the secret that won him eight place in his first ever X-Alps and sixth place in 2007, but I'm not going to share it here :-)

Aidan Toase and the Simplon Pass

2009-05-29T12:53:00.005+02:00

On Thursday I met up with two-times X-Alps veteran and 2009 competitor Aidan Toase to check out route around the area of the Simplon Pass and the valley to the Matterhorn. We explored potential take offs and landing areas, and discussed route options in the area. Although it's a classic paragliding highway, it will still be a complex section to negotiate during the race: we have to fly around airspace at Sion (the same airspace that cost Martin Müller the title in 2007), we're flighting the strong valley winds, and the area around Martigny where we need to cross to Chamonix Mont-Blanc takes the full brunt of the valley wind and is always very, very windy indeed.

You can follow Aidan's blog at www.flyingtoast.co.uk.

Wing arrives, Swiss League Cup

2009-05-17T22:07:00.015+02:00

My X-Alps wing arrived on Friday! Thank you Axis UK! She's a beauty: 6.3:1 flat aspect ratio and racing trim giving her accessible comp wing performance and weighing just 4.8kg.

No simple top-to-bottom to get to know her, instead I took her to Frutigen near Interlaken in Switzerland for a round of the Swiss League Cup. For me it was an opportunity to discover a new flying area, get to know the wing, try out the X-Bus and meet a few of the big names in Swiss paragliding.

Saturday, day 1. Conditions were expected to be tricky and indeed they were! Although the airmass was unstable, rising atmospheric pressure restricted their upward movement. The result was small, weak, snotty thermals that seemed to form randomly and then peter out after a few turns. You'd occasionally hit a 2m/s thermal, but most of your time was spent grovelling over the trees in 0.2m/s. The Task Committee set a 49km task around the local area. Most of the field, including me, bombed out at around 20km, simply running out of options at the third turnpoint, but a few pilots persevered. PWC Champion Anja Kroll won the day, getting to goal in 3h20m and 35 minutes ahead of the only other pilot to complete the course.

I was really happy with the wing. I was flying in my normal cocoon harness which put me 5kg over the top of the weight range and yet I was still able to climb well. The air was turbulent behind the spurs in the lee of the valley wind and yet on a day when two wings ended up in the trees I had nothing more than a tip collapse.

On Saturday night I got to test the X-Bus, my first night in the support vehicle. It's brilliant! Comfortable, plenty of space to stand up and cook inside, light, heating, music, and a warm night spent in my down sleeping bag. It's a home away from home.

Sunday was forecast to be marginal: sunny in the morning but with Foehn winds in the Valais and moderately strong SW'ly winds at altitude. Fellow X-Alps competitor Chrigel Maurer was here today (he lives just down the road) and I was eager to find out more about his preparations. He's designed his own wing and sewn his own harness: the combination is very compact and weighs only 10kg. As we arrived a take off the race committee realised that with the strong winds it wasn't going to be taskable and made a quick and correct decision to can the day so we could get a short free flight before conditions got too bad.

Many launched quickly (although a few decided to take the bus down) and those who did fly were rewarded with a stunningly beautiful flight. The weak thermals of yesterday had been replaced with solid two and three metre per second climbs. I took one to over three thousand metres and with stunning views in all directions, including the lakes of Interlaken and the unmistakeable 4000m trio of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau peaks, one of the turnpoints in the 2007 race: see the photo at the top of the post.

The forecast was spot on, however, and with a Foehn wall visible tumbling over the cols between the peaks, a brisk 30km/h wind at 3000m, lenticular clouds forming, and a forecast of storms in the afternoon it wasn't a day to hang around so I spiralled down to land back at base.

It was a real pleasure to meet Anja Kroll, Joerg Ewald, and Swiss paragliding guru Martin Scheel. The organisation by the local school Cloud 7 paragliding was excellent, and thanks to all of the pilots who made me feel so welcome. While I was walking back on Saturday a car full of pilots spontaneously stopped for me and I had to explain that, in fact, I didn't want a lift and actually wanted to walk back...

Update: Martin Scheel's beautiful photos of the event are now online at his site www.azoom.ch.

Vehicule aquired!

2009-05-13T18:06:00.003+02:00

I've finally found a camper van for the race. Provisionally named the "X-Bus", she's a 1992 Ford Transit Nugget Westfalia. Four seats, four comfortable sleeping places, and enough room inside to cook in bad weather. The engine (a 2.5 litre diesel) and the bodywork are both in good nick. Will do the job, basically.

Alpine flying podcast

2009-05-09T16:38:00.003+02:00

Judith Mole has put together a series of excellent podcasts on various paragliding topics and has just interviewed me about alpine flying. You can download it or listen to it online at Judith's podcast page.

First photos of the wing

2009-05-06T19:33:00.005+02:00

Axis have sent me the first photos of my X-Alps wings. All being well I should receive her next week.

Map collecting

2009-05-02T19:36:00.005+02:00

According to Cross Country magazine (edition 119, page 62), competing in the X-Alps costs €7,150, of which €750, over 10% of your budget, goes on maps. I can well believe it! You need every part of the Alps covered at 1:100 000, the turnpoints at 1:50 000, and the most difficult sections at 1:25 000. When you realise that you're likely to walk or fly 1,600km, i.e. one thousand miles, that's a lot of cartography.

The Race Organisation announced the final route recently and there were a couple of surprises.

As announced previously, we start in the Mozartplatz in the centre of Salzburg. We head up to the Gaisberg, the local mountain where we'll run though one of Red Bull's inflatable arches on to the take off. Weather permitting, we'll be taking of at about 1pm, the perfect time to start a long cross country flight.

The first turpoint is the Watzmann peak in Southern Germany. We have to get within 1km of the summit. It's a decent mountain summit and quite steep on both sides so this first turnpoint will be a challenge. If flying conditions are good the leaders might tag it in the early afternoon around 3-4pm , but if we're on the ground then the lead runners won't be clipping the cylinder until the early hours of the morning.

Next up is the Größglocker, Austria's highest peak. I say "next up" but there's a lot of mountain terrain to cover before you get there! Here we need to pass within 5km of the summit. It's high mountain terrain so actually getting physically within 5km of a 4000m+ summit is quite hard. The Größglocker lies on the primary alpine spine so it's a long climb up to it and a long way down on the other side. If you load up my Google Earth file of the route you'll see that, if you're on foot, you'll have to leave the road and follow mountain paths just to get the cylinder. There's nothing difficult about mountain paths per se, it's just that they're a really inefficient way to cover ground compared to slogging along straight tarmac roads, or, better, flying down a straight valley at cloudbase.

After that we're passing south of the Marmolada in the Dolomites, as expected and as in 2007, but it's the next turnpoint that holds the biggest surprise. We have to approach and leave the Matterhorn through a quarter-cylinder North East of the summit. After a straight run/fly across Northern Italy (it sounds so simple put that way but it's several hundred kilometres!) this rule means that we're effectively forced to cross the backbone of the Alps again to connect with the Upper Rhone Valley. There are several options here: you could cross very early into Switzerland to Chur, or later via one of the Gottard Pass, Nufenpass, or Simplon Pass. You could even head directly towards the Matterhorn but then you have to climb the Monte Rosa. The best option during the race will depend very much on the weather, and it's likely that different althetes will chose different strategies depending on their personal strengths and weaknesses. I'd expect the Swiss to cross early in to their home territory where the flying could potentially be very good, whereas the runners might talk a more direct but less flyable route. Whatever turns out to be best on the day, you'll need to have considered every possibility beforehand so you can make an informed decision.

We have to tag the Matterhorn turnpoint from the NE, so we'll end up walking or flying along the valley to Zermatt. It'll make for some spectacular images with the iconic peak in the background, but we have to leave by the same side as well. Given that Zermatt is surrounded by 4000m+ peaks in every direction except NE this is not surprising, but it does limit options that would otherwise have been open to the mountaineers.

The final part, blasting along the Rhone Valley to Mont Blanc (carefully avoiding the Sion airspace of course!) and then turning south for the sprint to Monaco, is the same as in previous years so you know it already :-)

If you haven't read it already, be sure to read Cross Country magazine's interviews with the 2007 athletes.

Preparations update

2009-05-02T18:06:00.005+02:00

Work's been really hectic over the last month so I've had very little time to update the blog. Here's a quick summary of what's been happening:

Red Bull have announced the final route, including the details of the turnpoint cylinders. I've made a Google Earth file of the route to help my route planning which you can download from here. The start is at 11:30am in the Mozartplatz in the centre of Salzburg on 19 July and Red Bull estimate that we'll be taking off from the local mountain, the Gaisberg, at about 1pm. After having run up it, of course!
The Axis Mountain Masterclass was a great success: three days, six sites and nine hours airtime in everything from snotty thermals below an inversion to screaming 6m/s climbs to magic evening restitution soaring to gentle XC conditions. Congratulations to our Axis "Mountain Master" Adam Stanfield and our two Axis "Mountain Stars" Colin Hawke and H.H. Tsai.
XC season is here and I've been out enjoying the feisty spring conditions in Annecy and St Hilare. The flying is currently best in the Pre-Alps, but come the Summer and the time of the race it's likely to be quite stable and inverted in the Pre-Alps so the best flying route will follow the high mountains. The photo at the top of this post was taken during a great XC day in Annecy with my friends Damien, Pascal and Esa.
Axis have finished building my glider and it's just waiting for its test flight. I should have it next week. During the Masterclass I got the opportunity to fly an Venus 2 RX like I'll be using in the race, albeit with normal materials, and it's brilliant: solid, fast, and despite being over the weight range it still climbs really well. Compared to a competition wing it's much easier to handle but still has excellent performance. Given that I'll be flying tired this is big advantage.
Pal Takats (HUN) and I are interviewed in the latest issue of Dragonfly magazine. You can read the magazine here.
I've found a camper van and it's just going through its checks. All being well I'll have it on the road in a couple of weeks. It's a Ford Transit Nugget Westfalia with a 2.5l diesel engine and 130,000km on the clock.
Finding a harness is proving to be problematic, but there are potentially good options from both Sup'air and Woody Valley. There are numerous comfortable harnesses, several light harnesses, a few reversible harness/backpack combinations, but not very many that are all of the above.

That's it for now, the good news is that work (real life) should be less demanding this month so normal blogging service should resume.

Australia and back to snowy Canada

2009-04-20T01:31:00.010+02:00

Last time I blogged I was on my way to Australia from New Zealand. Flew into Melbourne where apparently they feel the need to warn you about spontaneous dancing? Hmm.

Had some great flying at the newly enlarged launch of Corryong in the Australian alps. Fairly near the more famous paragliding destination of Bright. I reckon it'll be quite popular, light valley winds and we did 45 and 60km triangles at the Victoria Serial Series.

After that it was off to Manilla via brief stops in Canberra and Sydney. Nice cities but not what I came here for. The photo above is what I came here for! Lots of good flying for the first couple of weeks I was there. Got over a 100km but no personal best distances. Luckily for us we were inbetween flooding up north and fires down south. Predictably it was bad weather for the xcopen competition. After that it was good wx again and I got my best flight a 99.9km triangle! Great day out with friends, we had planned it before launching and we flew in a mini gaggle and stayed in touch on the radio. Sweet to fly to the end of the day with a big long final glide in the evening air.
Bit of flying at Killarney and then it was time to head home.

Back in Canada the snow was still coming down and in fact the best part of our snowfall happened late. Got a half dozen good days of ski mountaineering in. The flying season is happening at the same time so you have to look at the conditions and decide which looks best. Tough life!

Looking forward to getting over to the alps though. And hopefully the weather and schedules will allow Tom and I together to see more of the course up close. Seeing it on maps and the computer is not the same.

Axis factory report

2009-03-16T09:12:00.008+01:00

So I recently visited the Axis Paragliders in Brno in the Czech Republic. Brno is the Czech Republic's second largest city and has been home to Axis since the company was founded in 1990. They have recently opened a second factory twenty kilometres from Brno and manufacture some gliders in Sri Lanka.

The focus of my visit was to talk to Axis's designer František Pavoloušek about the design and construction of my glider for the X-Alps. However, the visit turned out to be much more than that. It was fascinating to learn so much about the gliders and get an insight in to the full process of design, testing and construction that results in a modern high-performance paraglider. Every detail is carefully considered: materials, profiles, processes and finish.

Axis have been using their own profiles since the beginning. Compared to other manufacturers', they are relatively thick and efficient. This means that Axis wings, for the same pilot weight, are comparatively small. Consequently the wings are solid, fast, agile and collapse resistant. For me in the X-Alps this means I'll get great performance from a small (and consequently light) wing.

Safety is a primary concern of the design team. This evident throughout the range, even in the company's flagship competition wing, the Mercury. It isn't a question of getting the hottest glider possible through the tests, but instead paying attention to safety characteristics beyond what the certification measures. For example, the profile and trimming is carefully designed to create a glider that wants to fly and does not remain in deep stall. For pilots, this means that if we're flying slowly e.g. to top land on a UK ridge or squeeze in to a small landing field then if the glider starts to stall then when we raise our hands the glider immediately starts flying forward again. Gliders without this characteristic would dump you on your back.

The design team are hard at work on a new tandem and developing the Mercury.

As for my X-Alps glider, well the specification looks like this:

Manufacturer: Axis Paragliders
Model: Venus II XR
Lines: Unsheathed
Colour: Fire
Upper surface: 36g/m² Skytex
Lower surface: 27g/m² Skytex
Risers: Custom ultralight

Without a doubt, she's the perfect X-Alps glider for me and I can't wait to fly her!

Axis Factory

2009-03-11T19:52:00.003+01:00

I'm in Brno in the Czech Republic at the moment, chatting to Axis Paragliders about the details of my wing for the event. It's great to meet the team in person and it's fascinating to learn about all the details that go into making a top quality paraglider. Axis' designer, František Pavloušek has many excellent ideas for how to make the wing even lighter. I'll post a full report when I get back to Geneva.

The weather is looking very good for XC in the French Alps this Saturday. I can't wait to get out on my Axis Mercury!

Col des Verts

2009-03-08T23:23:00.008+01:00

A forecast for strong winds and rain in the afternoon meant that flying was off the cards, but the morning was sunny. I headed for the Col des Verts (2499m) in the Aravis mountains on the touring skis with the Amis Montagnards. I'll let the photos tell the story.

Skinning up on beautiful snow.

The sun creeps over the summits, leading us upward.

A lone ski tourer heads for an unknown objective.

Refueling before the final slopes.

Natalie skins up the last few metres to the col. Behind her is the Point Percée (2750m).

Luc rips up the heavy powder on the descent.

Pounding pavement

2009-02-26T23:16:00.003+01:00

The first cumulus clouds of the season, the first sign of instability in the atmosphere, have appeared over the last few days. The first tentative XC flights of the season have been made, and soon the paragliding season will begin in earnest. For the closing moments of the ski season (for me) I'm doing my last ski tours and have increased my running distance during the week before paragliding takes priority every weekend.

I've chosen to focus on four types of workouts, plugged into my MP3 player to give me the right rhythm:

Regular runs are steady runs at a comfortable pace. They're a way of getting the miles in to the legs in a limited time. My music of choice is Annie Mac's Mashup and I aim to run for about 60-70 minutes and cover 15-17km.

Tempo runs start with a good warm-up, 20 minutes at a gentle pace, followed by 30 minutes "comfortable but hard". The goal here is to spend time running close to your lactate threshold, it basically gets you used to running at race pace while tired. This is followed by a 10-15 minute warm-down and the soundtrack is provided by Judge Jules spinning big room club tunes.

Long runs are a reasonable distance run at a slower pace. I try to limit these to 25-30km at about 14km/h. Many runners believe that these, in combination with tempo runs, are the key to preparing for long distance races. However, if you run much further than 30km without consuming food and/or an energy drink you tend to exhaust your body's energy supply and hit the infamous "wall". This is painful, but more seriously it takes a long time to recover afterwards so you compromise the following training sessions. The only music to listen to during long runs is Kutski playing hard dance and hardcore, a "runner's high" is guaranteed.

Recovery runs are shorter runs at a very easy pace. Generally I aim to do 11-13km at an average speed of 12-13km/h. You don't really even break a sweat doing these but they have the beneficial effect of clearing your muscles and are best done the day after a hard run. I tend to do these with my running partner from work, Nicolas Morisset.

Race sponsors Suunto have sponsored four competitors with a Suunto T6C watch and a customised training programme. You can follow their training on the Suunto at X-Alps blog.

Great snow, great touring, zero visibility

2009-02-15T15:22:00.005+01:00

It's snowed a lot and I've been out to play. On Saturday I headed in to the mountains with the Amis Montagnards mountain sports club to tour up to the summit of the Roc de Tavaneuse (2156m) above Abondance in the Chablais region. Conditions were challenging with piles of fresh snow and flat light, but our Chefs de Course, Mark Schaerrer and Patrice Rouiller, led us expertly on a brilliant tour with three amazing ascents and descents totalling 1700m of height gain, cumulating with the spectacular NW couloir of the Point d'Ardens (1959m). I'll let Mark's excellent series of photos tell the story, here (click on "diaporama" to see them full screen).

Matterhorn turnpoint

2009-02-09T21:54:00.010+01:00

The most iconic mountain in the Alps, the 4478m Matterhorn is part of the huge Monte Rosa massif which straddles the border between Switzerland and Italy. The only way from one side of the massif to the other is by foot or by air, there are no bridges or tunnels for the supporter's car. Driving from one side to the other takes several hours: Cervina (Italy) to Zermatt (Switzerland) - only 13km apart as the crow flies - are 232km and 3.5 hours distant by road via the Grand St Bernard pass. This turnpoint will likely be the most challenging of the 2009 Red Bull X-Alps, both physically and logistically. It could make or break several athletes in the race.

Back in Decemeber I visited Zermatt to chat to the local pilots about the flying options on the north side, two weekends ago I visited Gressoney-la-Trinite (Italy) during a freeride ski weekend to check out the southern options. The photo, taken by Sébastien Jossi, shows me looking over the Val de Gressoney from the Rothorn pass. The summit below the sun is the Testa Grigia (3315m) on the ridge between Gressoney-la-Trinite and St Jacques.

The obvious route from the Marmolada takes us in an almost straight line to Domodossola in Northern Italy and then onwards west to Macugnaga. But here the obvious route abruptly ends. On a direct line to the Matterhorn lies the Dufourspitze, at 4633m the highest mountain in Switzerland. Its imposing 2700m vertical East face, one of the very largest faces in the Alps blocks our way. Few options present themselves, none of them good.

Heading just north of the summit, the lowest pass to Zermatt is at 3400m. High mountain glaciated terrain, and the far side is flat enough that if you were to fly from the col it's unclear if you would out-glide the huge Gorner glacier (shown in the photo on the right taken by Zacharie Grossen) to reach a safe landing in Zermatt (1600m). Assuming you do make it to Zermatt, then you find yourself trapped by 4000m summits in all directions and it's another 1800m vertical ascent through inhospitable glaciated terrain to a col to regain the south face of the Monte Rosa massif. Those without mountaineering experience need not apply.

The terrain to the south could hardly be less favourable to X-Alps competitors. A series of 3000m ridges run north-south with deep valleys in between. The cols are high and the valleys are low: to get from Macugnaga to Cervina involves four successive ascents of 1500m, 1600m, 1000m and 1200m respectively -- that's over 5000m of vertical just to make about 25km of forward progress. Walkers following the classic Tour of Monte Rosa will take four days to do this, we'll want to do it in much less. Logistically it's a nightmare: the supporter has a multihour drive between each trailhead at the top of each valley.

Other possibilities include walking round the south side of the massif (about 200km from Domodossola to Cervina) or making an early radical route choice and crossing into the Swiss Vallais and approaching the Matterhorn from the north, a very long way round and risking disqualification if you infringe the Sion or Zermatt airspace.

So much will depend on the weather here and the final position and radius of the turnpoint (the race organisation haven't defined it yet). If flying conditions are good it's possible that we'll be able to fly from Domodossola to the Matterhorn in one day (it's only about 50km by air) but cloudbase will have to be very high for us to surf the south face of the Monte Rosa and safely pass the numerous cols at 2800m. The only flights in XContest's amazing Skyways map are top-to-bottoms from the summit of the Breithorn (4164m). If conditions are mediocre then maybe we'll be able to skip some of the ascent by flying from the cols and landing halfway up the slope on the far side. Should the weather be bad enough to keep everyone grounded then it's not inconceivable that the more-flying-less-walking competitors, having flown much of the way from the Marmolada, will be slowed by the steep terrain, giving the runners an opportunity to catch up and possibly overtake.

Of course, getting to the Matterhorn in the heart of the Monte Rosa massif is only half way: you then have to find a way out...

Scoping out the competition

2009-01-27T20:07:00.008+01:00

Part of my preparations is to learn as much as possible about each of my competitors. Some are amazing XC pilots, others are great runners, a few are both. It's important to know which is which.

This serves several purposes. Training-wise, it helps me understand how I'm doing relative to the others. It's hard to find training partners with sufficient fitness so comparing myself "virtually" to the other athletes helps me understand my progress and motivates me to do more. Running long and hard is surprisingly easy if you picture Chrigel Maurer (SUI3) landing a couple of kilometres in front of you!

During the race, knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the other athletes will help Alex and me understand their strategy decisions and plan ours. Come the final sprint from Mont Blanc to Monaco, you're unlikely to outpace Coconea (ROM) over the ground so if he's ahead of you you'll probably best off looking for an opportunity to out-fly him as Hofer (SUI1) did in 2007. But if it's Hofer ahead of you then you might be able to beat him by running if the weather prevents him from flying. Running can be a hard but relatively reliable way to gain places: witness how Coconea relentlessly reeled in the leaders during the bad weather in Switzerland in 2007.

Two thirds of the 2009 X-Alps athletes have competed in the event before, so there's lots of information to be gleaned from their previous performances. Of course, this year they'll be more experienced, fitter, and better prepared! The "newbies" like myself are still unproven and unknown. A few are competing in the Paragliding World Championships in Valle de Bravo, Mexico which I'm following in detail (alongside thousands of other Internet spectators) on ParaglidingForum.com. For the other competitors I'm following their blogs: see the list of "Athletes' Sites" in the right hand column here.

The flying isn't great here in Geneva at the moment so I'm compensating by training on the ground: if I can't fly then I'd better go running! After a month and a half of base training, I'm now starting to ramp up the weekly mileage. The goal here is to condition my body to day after day pounding pavement. Several athletes were forced to retire in 2007 due to foot and leg problems, including Vincent Sprungli (FRA2) who walked too hard after a 200km flight. As described in my earlier blog post, you're unlikely to win on the ground alone, but it's important both physically and psychologically to know that you can complete the course without taking your glider out of the bag. To give you an idea, I'm currently doing 30km runs in about 2h15m and am aiming to do a sub 3-hour marathon sometime in the Spring. If anyone knows Maurer's marathon time then please email me at twpayne at gmail dot com. Thanks!

Southern Travels

2009-01-15T06:17:00.006+01:00

Well while Tom is ski touring, training, and analyzing routes I've come down south and am working on my tan. Stopped in Fiji for some great island hopping and snorkelling before coming to Auckland NZ for xmas and New Years with family. The flying around the coast of Auckland is very beautiful with sites for most wind directions. Its windy at times and can be fickle but apparently experienced locals have counted more than 60 flown sites within an hours drive of the city over the years! Thats a lot more than Vancouver. Got a golden day with Michel, Hugo, Francois, and Damien at some huge sand dunes on the west coast south of Dargaville. Pacific Pyla. And to make it interesting we had to commit to be being there for a full tide cycle as the sand is undriveable at high tide. The wind was with us and it was on for the full 10hrs we were there! I reckon I flew 7 of those, everything from big to little dunes and an inch away to 300m above. A remote and wild location just made it magic.

After that I escaped the gravity well of the city and went down to go hiking among the big volcanoes of the north island. Crossed Tongariro park from west to east and summited on Ngarahoe. Colorful volcanic landscape and it was very nice to be in the hills and sleeping in the tent again. Next its Australia and some thermal flying. Maybe some more of the addictive dune flying before I leave if the wind happens! See here for more pix:
http://picasaweb.google.com/axel.ray

Axis Mountain Masterclass dates

2009-01-08T16:25:00.005+01:00

The dates for the Axis Mountain Masterclass, the advanced XC course for experienced pilots looking to develop their alpine flying skills, have been announced:

14-17 April: Mayrhofen, Austria with Kelly Farina.
23-26 April: Annecy, France with me. Backup dates are 28-31 May.

You can attend one or both courses. The Mayrhofen course is immediately followed by the Zillertal Open competition. The courses are non profit-making and are run at cost.

For the Annecy course we will meet at Geneva Airport on the evening of Wednesday 22 April. We will travel to wherever the conditions are best, and return you to Geneva Airport by about 10pm on the evening of Sunday 26 April.

There's more information about the Mountain Masterclass on the Axis UK website, contact Axis UK to register your interest.

Tactical calculations

2009-01-04T20:50:00.007+01:00

Strategy and tactics will be critical to success (or otherwise) in the X-Alps. I'll talk about strategy and flight planning in a future blog post, but first here's a quick analysis of tactics: deciding the quickest way to get a few tens of kilometres along the course line.

A few back-of-the-envelope calculations quickly show how important flying is. On the ground you can reasonably expect to average about 5km/h. In 2007 almost all competitors managed this, the notable exceptions being Coconea (ROM) who averaged 6km/h over long distances day after day and Etike (TUR, '07) who seemed barely able to walk up one mountain, let alone down the other side.

In terms of altitude gain, 600-800m per hour seems a fair average over a two to three week event. You'd certainly expect to be faster in a shorter one-day event like a mountain ultramarathon, but if you're walking hard up the slopes of Mont Gros above Monaco at 800m/hour then you can be happy with your physical preparation.

In flight, in typical XC conditions, you can cover 20-25km/h along the course. In favourable conditions you might average 30km/h but in the X-Alps were racing East to West which means that we're fighting against the prevailing winds. History has shown that conditions are rarely ideal. So, let's assume that you average 15km/h when flying, and that you've got a modern glider that glides at 8:1 (allowing for a bit of sink and/or headwinds).

With these figures - 5km/h walking, 800m/h height gain, 15km/h flying, and 8:1 glide - we can answer a few simple questions that will help us plan our strategy.

Is it worth walking up a hill just to glide straight along the course line?

Walking up 1600m takes two hours, add a few minutes on launch to get prepared, fly down, and a few minutes packing up, say three hours total. You glide 1600m * 8 = 12.8km. In the same three hours you could walk 15km, but it's close. If you can glide over a lake or other obstacle that you'd normally have to walk around, then even a fly down can be a winner. Plus you get a rest, of course!

If you're flying, how weak does the lift have to be before you'd be better off gliding down to land and walking?

Assume you're in the last thermal of the day, it's smooth but weak. On the ground your competitor will cover 5km in one hour. In that same hour you only need to gain 5000/8 = 625m, i.e. a shade under 0.2m/s, and you'll cover the same distance as the walker but with much less physical effort. To Alpine pilots, 0.2m/s barely registers as a thermal, but compared to slogging it our on the ground it's the best tactic.

These simple calculations show that you're almost always better off flying. Even a walk up for a fly down is almost worth it. The only time you'd chose to walk if it's flyable would be to get through airspace or if the headwinds were so strong that couldn't even make 5km/h average forward speed. But you have to wonder...

Would a professional ultrarunner carrying the minimum kit win the Red Bull X-Alps?

After Coconea's incredible performance in 2007, many asked if you really needed a paraglider. Would you be quicker just running? In 2007 Hofer (SUI1) took 15 days to cover just under 1500km from Austria to Monaco, that's 100km - two and a half marathons - per day every day for two weeks. The shortest route was taken by Muller (SUI2) who covered 1279km. It's likely that a runner would have to cover a greater distance.

There are road races that cover that sort of distance, such as the Trans Gaule (1150km across France from Roscoff to Perpignan), but they tend to be split into daily stages. For example, the Trans Gaule takes 18 days, an average of 60km each day. There are some non-stop races, such as the Sydney-Melborne race where the Greek Yiannis Kouros set the world record for 1000km on roads of 5 days 2 hours and 27 minutes in 1989. Multiplying up, he might be able to complete the X-Alps course in 8-9 days. However, a direct comparison with the X-Alps is hard: the ultrarunners are covering predominantly flat terrain and without a rucksack.

A minimal rules-compliant pack would probably weigh about 4.5-5kg: 2.5kg for an ultralight mountain glider, 0.8kg for a minimal reversible rucksack-harness, 0.2kg for a helmet, 0.6kg reserve and 0.5kg of tracking devices and other compulsory equipment. Such a set-up would be good enough for a fly down, but you'd be hard pressed to cover significant distance flying with it: it would have poor performance and be rather uncomfortable!

The new course for 2009 follows many classic flying routes through the Alps and this year I think the flying will be more important than ever before. Fitness will be very important, but my focus will be on the flying. In the words of my supporter Alex Raymont "No-one out-walks a 200km flight".

Winter solstice

2008-12-22T15:23:00.012+01:00

The Alps are simply spectacular at the moment. Several metres of snow have now fallen and the meteorologists are saying that it's the whitest start to the winter for thirty years. I'm continuing the base training with two good ski tours over the weekend of the winter solstice.

On Saturday I climbed the peak of La Thuile (2294m) above Albertville with a group of friends from Chambéry. We donned our skis at 800m and worked our way up though the forest, then high alpages, and finally the summit slopes to top out 1500m higher. The photo on the right shows Daniel skinning up at the moment we exited the dense forest. As you can imagine, the view from the top was stunning: the photo at the top of this article shows the view looking north over the Combe de Savoie and the Massif des Bauges. Snow conditions on the descent were extremely variable: rock hard wind slab near the top, which became breakable crust and eventually sodden wet powder. Skiing the patchy rotten snow through dense trees to get back to the cars was really quite a challenge!

On Sunday I joined up with Amis Montagnards, a mountaineering club based in Geneva, to climb Le Buet (3109m), the highest summit in the Aiguilles Rouges massif. The 1800m tour follows a remote valley due West from the Col de la Forclaz at the north end of the Chamonix valley, before climbing steep slopes to the summit. With several metres of fresh snow and blue skies conditions were simply perfect.

The summit is high and slightly removed from the high spine of the Alps so the panoramic view from the top is incredible. To the East we could see deep into Switzerland, including the unmistakable peak of the Matterhorn. The Mont Blanc massif dominated the view to the South East, and to the South we could see as far as the Meije and the Barre des Ecrins, over 150km away. The photo to the right looks over the Chaine des Aravis, one of the classic paragliding routes in the region. The descent was sublime: the high altitude wind slab quickly gave way to 1000m of vertical descent through sculpted virgin power fields. Skiing doesn't get any better than this.

It seems incredible to me that in just seven months I'll be racing through this wild terrain, literally from horizon to horizon, and hoping to take only a few days to do it! Still, with 3300m of ascent completed over the weekend with four kilograms of boot and ski tied to each foot and another few kilos on the back, the physical preparation is off to a good start.

Training update

2008-12-13T17:36:00.004+01:00

So, last Saturday was the Escalade race in Geneva, 7.25km up and down through the twisty cobbled streets of Geneva's Old Town. The race draws over twenty five thousand runners of all ages to celebrate the defeat of the Savoyardes in 1602. According to legend, the invaders were turned back by an enterprising woman who poured a pot of hot soup over them! I ran the course in 27m34s, an average speed of 15.8km/h, finishing 52nd out of over 1800 in my category.

Winter has arrived early in the French Alps and there's already over a metre of snow, even in the mid mountain. Speed training is over now and it's time to focus on base fitness for the winter season. My main activity is ski touring. This uses special ski equipment that allows you to release the heel of the binding so that it pivots at the toe. With artificial seal skins glued to the base of your skis you can ski up the mountain. Once at the summit, you peel off the skins, lock down your heels and ski down. There are no lifts so you earn every turn of the descent. Climbing up gets you very fit and you experience the high mountain at its most hostile: deep winter. It's the perfect X-Alps training.

I did my first proper tour of the season last weekend, climbing up the Dent de Verreu in the Chablais massif with the Amis Montagnards mountaineering club of Geneva. The top 300m was so good - 50cm of fresh virgin powder - that we had to climb up again to ski it a second time!

Right now I'm in Zermatt, Switzerland at the foot of the Matterhorn. Tomorrow I'm back on the freeride skis for the fun Infinity Downhill ski race: 2200m vertical metres in one go from the top of the Kleine Matterhorn down to Zermatt. It's a bit of fun but it's also a chance to check out one of the turnpoints and chat to the locals over a beer about flying and running in the area. Not all the preparation has to be hard work!

Rules version one

2008-12-11T11:52:00.002+01:00

We've just received version one of the Red Bull X-Alps rules for 2009. There are likely to be a few changes yet, but of interest is the minimum equipment that you have to fly or run with all the time:

paraglider
harness
emergency parachute
helmet
mobile phone
GPS logger
GPS tracking device
three emergency red signal rockets

In 2007 most athletes' sacks weighed about 12kg, except for Vincent Sprungli's which weighed under 10kg.

The radii around the turnpoints have not yet been decided. You have to pass south of the summit of the Marmolada and north of Mont Blanc.

Of note as well, is that this year, like in 2007, there is no enforced rest period and trailing teams will be eliminated (first one after 72 hours, then one team every 48 hours until you pass Mont Blanc or someone finishes).

Axis Mountain Masterclass

2008-11-30T14:47:00.004+01:00

As part of Team Axis UK, I'll be leading the an advanced mountain cross country course around the Northern French Alps (Annecy, Chamonix, St. Hilare du Touvet) next Spring.

The goal is to develop your mountain flying knowledge and skills so that you can complete long XC flights in the mountains. We'll be in the Alps at the best time of year for XC flying and will cover all aspects, including mental and physical preparation, meteorology, aerology, route planning and decision making. It is not a beginner's course. You must be an autonomous XC pilot with some mountain or flatland flying experience.

The course is non profit-making and will be run at cost, i.e. cheap, with a full budget breakdown presented to all participants.

To find out more visit the Axis Mountain Masterclass website and contact Axis UK to register your interest.

Initial preparations

2008-11-25T18:08:00.003+01:00

Now that we've been accepted the training can being in earnest.

For the physical preparations, I'm currently most of the way through a speed programme in preparation for the Escalade running race through Geneva's Old Town in a couple of weekends time. This is a short race (7.5km) but it's a great way to kick start my training. The goal is to build a bit more leg power and muscle around my knees to reduce the strain on them during the X-Alps. The weekly schedule looks like this:

Monday: rest.
Tuesday: 20mins warm-up (12km/h) then two sets of 10x 30sec sprints (18+km/h) with 30sec gentle jog between sprints and 3mins rest between sets, followed by a warm down and stretching on the track.
Wednesday: rest.
Thursday: 30mins warm-up (12km/h) then 6x 4min hard (16km/h) with 2min rests between them, followed by a warm down and stretching on the track.
Friday: 60-75mins slow (12km/h) on forest tracks.
Weekend: long duration, low intensity with a rucksack.

For example, two weekends I ago I climbed the Pic de Sambuy in the Bauges with my paraglider (1400m of ascent, unfortunately there was too much cloud to fly so it was a walk down too!), and last weekend I did a two day snowshoe trip in the Jura mountains, staying overnight in an unguarded hut.

Alex and I are starting to discuss gear, the route, strategy and logistics, but in these early stages it's more a question of working out what we need to work out, rather collecting all the details just yet. I've also started contacting some of the other Athletes to share information about the preparations.

Many thanks to all of you who have offered advice, help or simply best wishes for the race. Much appreciated!

Red Bull X-Alps 2009

2008-11-20T21:17:00.007+01:00

Yes! We're in!

Alex Raymont and I have been selected to compete in the the Red Bull X-Alps, one of the World's toughest and most spectacular adventure races. We start in Salzburg, Austria and race, day and night for two weeks, the full length of the European Alps to goal on the Mediterranean coast in Monaco. If the weather is good we hope to cover 100km or more each day by paraglider, but if the weather's bad it'll be pounding along the ground with the paraglider on the back.

We're a team of two. I'll be running and flying, Alex will be the supporter, driving the support vehicle, fueling me for the race and making critical strategic decisions.

I'm delighted to announce that thanks to the gracious support of Nicky Moss and Mark "Wagga" Watts at Axis Paragliding UK I'll be flying a ultralight Venus II paraglider. Les Grands Espaces, the paragliding shop and school at the Planfait landing field in Annecy, France have also pledged their support with gear, and XContest, the international cross country league will be providing valuable route information.

Up to the race start on 19 July 2009, we're be keeping you informed through this blog. We'll look at the specialist equipment in detail, cover our preparations and share with you the highs and lows of the training. Once the race starts you'll be able to follow us live on the Internet through the Red Bull X-Alps website and Google Earth, with blog updates, audio clips and video. It'll be an adventure!

Raiders of the Lost Chamois

2008-10-18T18:00:00.004+02:00

Paragliding, hiking, mountain biking and roller blading. There can be few races in the world that combine all of these sports, but the annual Raid Chamois, now in its fourth year, manages it. Starting from the picturesque French alpine town of Thônes, halfway between Annecy and Grand Bornand, this unique race sees competitors using varied modes of transport to complete a challenging but beautiful 50km circuit around Lake Annecy before the final sprint back to base at Thônes.

Having discovered and done reasonably well in the event in 2007, I returned in 2008 with my non-flying but very fit friend Stephen March to have a crack at winning it. We collected together my old Gin Bongo tandem, a couple of lightweight harnesses, mountain bikes from here and there, and our roller blades to arrive in Thônes early on Saturday morning with a car full of toys. A mixed bunch of about seventy people, in teams of two or three, bustled about on the start line. Everyone from honed ultramarathon runners to father-and-daughter teams was there, and with a quick countdown from the starter we were off!

A short sprint to the bikes, and we leapt upon them. The first stage was a 12km mountain bike section from the centre of Thônes to the village of Alex. Instructions were simple: follow the Police car through the village, and when it stops, keep going on the track following green splotches of paint! The pace from the start was full-on: clearly Stephen and I weren't the only ones in it to win it! The wide forest track soon gave way to narrow, twisting trail and I struggled to maintain speed on the muddy ground. Dismayed to see others already zooming ahead, I focused on riding as hard as I could, albeit seeming a snail's pace compared to the other competitors, reassuring myself that the bike was my weakest discipline and that we'd make time back up on the hill.

We finally exited the forest and I welcomed the smoothness of cycle path and road to the church in Alex. Here we dumped the bikes (to be collected on our way back), hastily unpacked our walking poles and set off up the first climb of the day.

Pushing hard up the back of the Dents de Lanfon, the familiar limestone cliffs perched above us were our next destination. The lethargic sunshine was slowly burning off the low cloud to reveal a perfect autumn day. We knew that our first rest would be the flight across the lake. Game on!

Stephen, carrying the heavier pack, set a brisk pace up the hill; I scurried behind, cursing the vicious cold I'd been fighting that had left me unable to eat a proper meal all week. We were in fourth or fifth place, not where we wanted to be! The focused climbing started to have effect, and we quickly overhauled one team. The temperature in the autumnal woodland was perfect and the blue skies above beckoned us up the steep forest track to the first take off. Bantering with a fellow Raider, we broke through the tree line to be greeted by a secret hanging valley, well hidden from the distant clamour of real life below. A kilometre or so ahead we could just make out the lead team with their sacks and as we chased them we glanced over our shoulders to see who was chasing us. We had breathing space, but not much.

We crested the Col des Frêtes, now having hauled ourselves into fourth place, to see the first wings inflating and lobbing off on glide. There's an enforced ten minute wait at each take off to give you time to prepare safely. So, after about 35 minutes of biking and 1000m ascent in 1h20, we were ten minutes behind the leaders. The organisers on take off handed us a welcome chocolate bar each and Stephen and I quickly set about our pre-planned tasks, Steve unpacking the harnesses while I readied the wing. We were clipped in and ready to go on the dot of our ten minutes allotted time and launched immediately.

This was our first breather, our first real moment to admire the cadre of the natural amphitheatre hosting our sport. To our right the imposing vertical limestone precipices of the "teeth" rose out of the high alpage, slowly shedding its summer greenery. At our feet the forests were in full turn, a splendid mix of fall colours from green to brown to yellow to red. In front of us the still deep blue lake waited, and the familiar silhouettes of the Northern Alps marked the horizon in all directions. Steve handed me a chunk of chocolate bar and life was good.

Here was the first strategic decision of the race. We had to fly over the old château at Dunigt, but after that we had two options. Either land at Duingt and continue to the Doussard landing field on roller blades, or try to fly directly to Doussard. Stephen spotted a couple of wings scratching at Entrevernes, but the air looked stable so, rather than risk a long walk if we landed short, we headed to the declared landing field where our skates waited.

We arrived with loads of height, and with the leaders visibly packing up below us I threw the Bongo into a deep spiral to gain time and Steve leaned inwards to help. Idly I wondered whether the skinny lightweight mallions would take the increased G-force but they didn't budge. Squeezing the old bus into the landing field I missed the 4m radius target, but put us down briskly but comfortably inside the 8m radius, thus avoiding the four minute penalty but picking up the two minute.

As planned, we split tasks in packing up the wing and harnesses, and strapping on our blades. There were refreshments to be had here, but we didn't wait. We were still in fourth place, and other teams were now landing around us, no rest for the slow! One fellow, having spot landed on the target and thus avoided the time penalty, was now ahead of us, and we were delighted and amused to see that he was going to do the next 6km stage to Doussard on a mini scooter! After what seemed like an eternity our two minute time penalty expired and we shot off. The blades were a welcome way to cover ground quickly, even with the bulky paraglider kit on our backs, and we soon overtook first the mini scooter fellow and then another team to move up to third place. Working together really helped here, with Stephen taking the lighter bag and me slipstreaming behind him. Steve had been practising his blading, having only started this year, and it was a real morale boost to gain places on this section.

Doussard landing field and time to dump the skates. We shouldered the packs and readied the poles for a 1km run on the flat before the climb up to the Col de la Forclaz began in earnest. We were only just ahead of fourth place, and second was out of sight. We learned later that the top two teams had swapped places on the blading section, no doubt partly helped by the fact that the faster team was made up of professional skiers!

The 800m climb up to the Col de la Forclaz from Doussard is about as pleasant as an ascent can be. At just the right gradient, never too steep, you gain height quickly, brushing a million fallen leaves aside as you go. Every now and then a small clearing gives you a glimpse of the lake and height you've gained. Here, for the first time in the race, I finally found my rhythm, no doubt assisted by a few mouthfuls of Isostar energy bar and a squeeze of Steve's carbohydrate gel. I must have been tired because it actually tasted good.

From the solitude of the forest you arrive suddenly at civilisation at the Col itself. Only a hundred metres or so remain, amongst farms and cafés, to the take off but those last few metres are steep and brutal in the blazing sunshine. Thinking ahead, I note that no-one's soaring around take off and so the second flight will likely be a top-to-bottom.

The Forclaz take off has just been refurbished and is now a paraglider's dream of astroturf at the perfect gradient. No time for us to admire the landscaping though, we've just seen the second place team launch so we're still ten minutes behind them. We're unlikely to make this up on the ground, but a good flight could make all the difference. The next goal is the mountain bikes back in Alex. It's about 10km as the crow flies, a trivial flight in the summer but now, it's now autumn, the thermals are weak or non-existent, and there's a high plateau to cross. Will we be able to squeak out enough of a flight to gain back a place?

The flight preparations are smooth and efficient and you don't need to tell Steve twice to run on take off. We're flying again with a perfect launch, heading directly for the bikes and the penultimate leg of the Raid Chamois. Flying straight, once again we have a moment to relax and see huge smiles on each other's faces as we continue on this magical adventure, flying though the stunning mountain scenery.

Lady Luck, however, seemed to have temporarily forgotten us, perhaps overwhelmed by the autumnal splendor herself. There are only two pips on the vario, not enough to gain height with the lumbering tandem, so the only choice is to fly straight, maximising our glide and racing our shadow over the ground. Below us on the ground I see another Raider, seemingly alone and separated from his team. I wave and he waves back, then I turn my attention back to our flight. It's touch and go whether we'll make it over the edge of the plateau, and as we approach I see that the edge is a mix of trees and power lines. No question then, I put us down in a large field on the plateau. From here it'll be a downhill run to the bikes, but it'll be a long run.

Everything packed away, I stare at the map, trying to plot an efficient route. Direct and over the hill or longer and around it? We opt for the second and we're half running half walking again. I've never been here before and despite our haste we notice scattered details: a babbling brook, an decrepit barn crammed with rusting farm machinery, a lone summer leaf caught in a ray of sunshine, green and gold against the russet backdrop. Another time I'd stop to explore but there's no time now. Our route takes us below the cliffs in front of the Planfait take off. Gliders scratch above our heads, clinging tentatively to the rare slivers of lift, but I know that the conditions in the air are too weak for us and we've made the right choice. Later we learn that another Raider, having landed near we landed, walked up to the Planfait takeoff and flew from there, for a third flight of the day. We, however, have ground to cover.

Steve races ahead, almost dancing down the path despite the ten kilos of wing on his back. Normally I'm the quicker one on the descents, but this time it's all I can do to keep up with him. We walk each uphill and jog each downhill, sweeping under the rocks at Bluffy, one of the best thermal triggers in the area in Summer, but unfettered with gliders now. A missed turning brings us out on the road, not quite where we expect, but fortuitously closer to our destination and after a quick check of the map we push on. My energy levels are zero but somehow I keep going. Steve looks as fresh as a daisy.

We arrive in back in the village of Alex, unfamiliar from this new direction. A lone volunteer has spent the afternoon keeping an eye on the bikes and we thank her as we collect ours. Those doing the short route landed near here after flying from the Col des Frêtes hours ago. We, however, are doing the long course and are still in third place.

Swooping downhill on the bikes with the wind in our hair, our eyes water after the self-propelled effort of the run. The speedometer peaks at 40km/h, and it's great to be covering ground so fast. We swap leads, taking turns to slipstream each other. Approaching Thônes, the route turns off road and on to wide track again. It seems like a hundred years ago that we were frantically pedalling in the opposite direction, but it was only this morning. My legs are empty lead pipes and I cry in frustration as I will myself to go faster and my body responds with mute refusal. There's only one stage left.

We hang hard left at the roundabout, following signs for the Adventure Park. Plunging into the park we skid to a halt at the foot of a tall tree and we're handed a climbing harness and a via ferrata kit. We haul ourselves up the hanging rope ladder and clip into a huge aerial slide that whisks us across the river with whoops of joy. A second slide takes us back across and we hand back the harnesses and jump back on the bikes for the final sprint to the finish.

Riding as hard as we can, we retrace our earlier steps to base and cruise over the finish line to third place. Waiting for the prize giving we enjoy a massage from the on-site physios and share our experiences over a beer with our fellow Raiders. What a day!

All photos courtesy of Tristana Crespo, find out more about the Raid Chamois at http://raidchamois.free.fr, and maybe see you there in 2009?!

An Incredible Privilege

2007-04-23T14:25:00.011+02:00

It was a good day. The forecast was slightly dubious: all week they had been saying that it would be more humid on Sunday and would storm. Secretly, I was quite looking forward to a day off. However, Laurence Stein was keeping a close eye on the weather and called us over for a 11am start from Chamonix when the forecast suddenly looked much, much better on Saturday night. The stated goal was out-and-return to Annecy.

Quentin King, Laurence and I arrived at take-off as the wind was deliberating between the two sides. A fast run eventually got me launched, straight into a 3m/s thermal marked by several pilots in the air. Leaving the Brevant at a shade under 3000m, the glide across and climb up to the Rochers de Fiz was straightforward. There was no visible inversion in the valley below which was a good sign, the only question was whether it would storm later in the day.

Flying across to the Aiguille de Varan, the lift always seemed to be where I wasn't. Finally I managed to climb up to 2700m, still a hundred metres from base and 400m below where I wanted to be. However, I decided that this was as good as I was going to get and so set off for the Quatre Tetes on the end of the Aravis. The slight sink was compensated for by a gentle tailwind and I arrived on the SE-facing slopes at about 1650m. It was a long slow, struggle to gain altitiude in the weak slope breeze, but finally I got enough height to soar around to the S side where a reasonable but rough thermal took me above the peak. Another couple of turns before Point Percée set me up to glide down the Aravis.

Or so I thought. The hanging valley below was still full of snow but the cliffs above were clear and I assumed they would be working. I was wrong. I flew along the cliffs, finding nothing, and I when I arrived at the snow line I knew it was all over and it was going to be a long walk out. Turning tail I flew low over the snow fields and just escaped the valley where I blundered into a solid 4m/s climb that took me back to the height of Point Percée. Laurence and Quentin, having taken off fifteen minutes after me, had now overtaken me and were gliding along the Aravis so I toped up until I lost the climb and chased after them, leaving 200m higher this time and detemined not to make the same mistake again.

But I got it wrong again. There was nothing, even above the cliffs. Quickly I had to decide whether to try to make it over the next col and around the corner or turn around again. It was touch-and-go but, figuring that the day was already over with the time I had wasted, decided to go for it. Flying through the col with literally three metres to spare I expected to be greeted by S-facing scree slopes and an easy climb. But no, it was another snow-filled bowl! Quentin and Laurence were climbing weakly on the cliffs ahead and above me, but for me all was lost. I glided around the bowl, just one metre off the snow, not expecting anything and not finding anything. Suddenly, I spotted a white glider climbing out from the bottom of the bowl and I headed over to be greated by a weak, broken, ratty thermal but it was my only ticket out of the back of beyond so I hung on.

Finally climbing above the tops I popped out a couple of k behind Laurence and Quentin and, despite the rough, lifty air above the Aravis I could finally breathe a sigh of relief and focus on the next stage.

From here on the flying got a lot easier. Good climbs on the Etale, Charvin and Sulens got the three of us to Tournette above Annecy at 2pm. We looked down onto the lake to see people starting to climb out Planfait and Forclaz, and yet we had already flown all the way from Chamonix! A bit of radio chatter revealed an uncertainty as to whether it was in fact too early for Roc de Boeufs. However, we were high, the day was looking classic, and there was already a good breeze on the lake so we went for it.

The Roc was working, but it wasn't easy. Taking one climb and thinking it was in the bag, I headed for the peak for what I expected to be a rocket launch to the forming cloud above. It wasn't working. I got stuck short of the second electricity line and got battered in the rough air. I couldn't find anything solid enough to turn in and so fled back North. Laurence had a similar experience and had to fly back the full length of the mountain to get back up again. Quentin had climbed out with ease, earlier.

Finally getting above the peak I was suddenly on my own. Laurence was now a long way behind, Quentin's radio was now dead and I didn't know where he was. It was time to start back to Chamonix but which way? Back across Annecy or south fo the Dent d'Arclusaz?

I'd flown the Dent d'Arclusaz a few times in the past week and there was a good (almost too good cloud above it). Looking to my left I saw Marlens, Charvin and the Aravis chain stretching towards Mont Blanc and Chamonix in the distance. I knew the long route home and I believed it possible.

Now on my own, 70km from home and seeing the now epic sky it was time to race. Full bar and a tailwind whisked me to the Dent d'Arclusaz with only a few turns in a stonking 6m/s climb at the Dent de Pleuven. There I was joined by a blue Sigma 6 who Laurence had told me was in fact Lucas Bernadin from Chamonix. We raced each other to base in 5m/s climbs at the Dent d'Arclusaz and then headed different ways back. Lucas crossed to a big cloud in the middle of the Bauges whereas I took my traditional line along the Albertville valley.

In the distance I saw a red and yellow Airwave glider scraping the clouds and thought it might be Quentin. I raced on, taking good climbs and gliding on the bar. I wasn't quite as high as I would have liked for the long transition to Marlens, but had always had a tailwind here and knew that Marlens worked from very low down. Arriving just a couple of hundred metres behind Quentin we were both delighted to see each other and whooped our way up in the slope breeze and thermals to base above Charvin. It was 40km to Chamonix and it still looked achievable. But it wasn't going to be easy. A storm had brewed and was dumping rain on the north end of the Aravis. Over our route home there was a large but not too tall cloud shading the entire Megeve valley. It was going to be close.

Lucas had set of first and I waited for Quentin at base before heading off together. Not sure where to aim for we saw that Lucas had a climb and we joined below him. However, it soon petered out after a few turns and we headed off to the last bit of sun on the Megeve airport, instincitively spreading out 100m apart to search for lift. Finally we found it, and we climbed together in a smooth but weak 1m/s. Suddenly I felt a few spots of water and realised that it was raining on us! We continued climbing together and as we rose the rain turned slowly to light hail. Immediately to our west a huge twisting funnel of rain was dumping on Megeve itself. The sun illuminated it from behind and it was truly stunning to behold.

Toping out just below cloudbase we set off on glide over the shaded valley, still in light rain, aiming for the sunny slopes of Mont Joly in the distance. We just made it, connecting with the slope breeze which released into a nice thermal. Chamonix was now in the bag and the three of us set off, Lucas leading the way.

We crossed the col into Chamonix valley into rough air over Les Houches. After a sinky couple of minutes over the broken mountainside above Les Houches I finally connected with a decent climb and Quentin came to join me. Together the climb took us from 2200m to cloudbase now at 3750m. This was simply beyond words. Incredible vistas across the slopes of Mont Blanc opened up as we climbed. Wisps of cloud and huge seracs clung to its flanks. The pure white snow, perfect red granite and deep blue sky made this simply one of the most amazing moments I have experienced in a paraglider.

We left the cloud at base and I looked over my should to see Quentin heading straight for the Aiguille du Midi! There was a small cloud near the peak so I headed over to join him. We soared amongst the stone pinnacles in the pink evening light, climbing above the Cosmiques hut and waving at the climbers relaxing on the balcony. Quentin climbed higher, working the lift to finally top out over the top the Aiguille du Midi itself. Seen from the air it is incredible: a modern fairytale castle built in the sky. Buildings clinging precariously to the impossible rock spires, between which arc soaring bridges. For a few moments we felt like birds, incredibly privileged to be here, now, at the one moment that it was possible.

I had now been flying for over seven hours, but wasn't quite finished yet. My final objective was the Drus and the Aiguille Verte so I headed along the Chamonix Aiguilles, almost overwhelmed by the mountain splendor. I looked down on the Vallee Blanche and to the imposing north face of the Grand Jorasses beyond, with the mighty Dent du Geant perched on its southern end. Behind me the clouds built around the Aiguille du Midi, finally closing the door on that magic moment.

Finding a climb on a spur below the Grand Montets I thermalled up, over the lift station under the watchful eye of the Aiguille Verte and the Drus next to me. Drifting over the cable car and still climbing, I decided that I and the flight were complete, and glided into the valley to land.

All photos taken by Quentin King, see the full set at http://qking.web.cern.ch/qking/2007/p_chamonix/. You can download my GPS tracklog from Leonardo.

Mountain Wave

2006-11-24T22:21:00.001+01:00

Wave is fairly common in the Welsh Borders in the UK where I used to live, and I've flown gentle wave in my paraglider several times.

But this is a different story.

I met real mountain wave in my paraglider a few of weekends ago, in Saas-Fee in the Swiss Alps. It was the closest I have come to a fatal accident in a paraglider.

A friend and I had gone to do a bit of early season glacier skiing and had thrown our gliders in the back of the car on the off chance of flyable weather. On the Sunday the lift queues were interminable and the skies were blue so we decided to fly down from the top station (3500m) to the village (1900m). Jon was flying his Baby Boomer with his normal kit and I was flying my Aspen with my lightweight harness (no reserve). There was only one cloud in the sky, a distant cumulus over the Bernese Oberland which looked a little rounded and could have been a lenticular but in our valley everything looked fine so we disregarded it.

The take off on snow was uneventful, with a gentle cross wind but nothing too tricky. Jon lobbed off first and I followed a few moments later. There didn't seem to be enough wind to soar the upper ridges near the lift station, but secretly I hoped for a gentle thermal on the far, sunny slopes above the village. However, the atmosphere felt very stable so I resigned myself to a spectacular top-to-bottom flight over the dry glacier and scree slopes leading down to the resort.

Jon was a few hundred metres ahead of me, just flying over the headwall of the glacier when he hit lift. "Wa-hey," I thought, "we can soar!". But Jon kept accelerating upward while flying straight, climbing so quickly now relative to me that I looked down at my vario thinking that it must be me in driller sink but my sink rate was normal. Still without turning, I saw Jon fold in big ears, now climbing upwards and backwards. "Oh shit," I said, "this is going to be interesting." Anticipating the strong lift I struggled to push my speed bar, but I couldn't get it to grip against my slippery plastic ski boots. Ready on the brakes, I flew over the glacier headwall and prepared myself to be catapulted into orbit.

But I didn't hit lift. I hit rotor. Pure, evil, mountain wave rotor. The glider thrashed above me and I immediately knew I was in a very bad place. The left wing collapsed 30%, then, before it could recover, the right wing collapsed 40%, then the left wing collapsed further. I fought to control the wing, but this wasn't the localised turbulence that you find on the edge of a thermal. I was in a washing machine, about to be chewed up and spat out as a tangled mess of wing, line, and pilot. The wing surged, dived, re-opened, twisted and span. I looked from my harness to the wing and saw a full riser twist and the wing at the horizon, the glacier beyond. Over the deep crevasses and exposed broken rock, cliffs and scree slopes there was to be no survivable landing, not even under a reserve parachute, which I didn't have anyway. My single thought was quite clear: "This is serious."

With no recourse but to fix the wing before I ran out of altitude I focused on the task at hand. There was only a single twist in the risers and I found the brakes still worked. The increased airspeed and wing loading of the spin had re-opened the glider so I steered it out as if I was coming out of a spiral dive, against the twists so that they unwound as I exited the spiral. The final half turn flipped me round as the wing came overhead. Without hesitation I reached up for the big ears and somehow managed to push the speed bar despite my plastic ski boots.

The wing continued to thrash, roll and collapse with the ears in, but the increased wing loading of big ears and bar kept it above my head. With suddenly a moment to spare I looked around to see what had happened to Jon. He was below me, near the upper middle ski station. Finding himself going upwards, backwards and being blown into Italy in strong mountain winds he had rapidly assessed his options: he wasn't going to make progress against the wind, with big ears in he'd still end up behind the knife-edge alpine ridges, a reserve would have brought him down in the next valley in rotor. The only option was to escape the lift before he got blown back. So he spiraled for his life. A full-on, nose-down spiral that got him down and out. He didn't stop until he was close to the ground and well away from the awful wave.

Together we limped towards the resort and the beckoning safety of the golf course landing field. My wing, with ears and speed bar, continued to collapse but it seemed somehow trivial compared with what I had experienced in the twisted spin. Jon was doing a better job of managing his wing, and eventually we spiraled down to touch down within a few metres of each other on one of the greens in light, pleasant winds.

Somehow the world of the mountain wave seemed far away as we lay in the warm grass cursing our stupidity and feeling lucky to be alive. We stared back up towards the glacier: of course, you couldn't see the boiling pot of turbulence at the glacial headwall. It was strange to have such a close brush with death and yet emerge unscathed. Above us the wave bars were now clearly visible and rotor cloud foamed from the peaks around us.

Ataka les pistes

2006-01-05T21:56:00.000+01:00

With a scream of "Ataka!" my skis leave the ground and I plunge down the slope. Skimming the tops of the bumps I pull on the brakes in search of a glide angle and I fly over the piste. As it flattens out my skis touch down in the powder, leaving tracks in the snow that come from nowhere. Raising my hands to pick up speed, I carve deep in, the wing just tugging gently from above, eliminating any fear of loss of control. Exposed rocks ahead mark where the slope falls away again, and I accelerate towards them, daring them to shred my skis. At the last moment I pull the brakes and convert my speed into altitude and sail, laughing, over the top. Below me, the slope is rocky and rough so, grinning, I raise my hands. The wing immediately picks up speed and dives downslope, and I go with it, dodging the piste markers while bemused skiers interrupt their struggle to stare upwards. Here the mountain is steep and even at this speed I cannot stay close to it. I pull on the left brake and the wing and I dive together into a steep turn, burning altitude like a meteorite. I traverse back over the piste with feet to spare and turn right to align myself with it. Flexing my knees, I begin my flare early but I still touch down at 50km/h, turning the wing into a kite to pull me to the chairlift and another go!

If you hadn't already guessed, I went Speed Riding for the first time today. It's as much fun as it looks, and not even half as difficult.

In my mind, I had planned a long technical article explaining in excruiating detail every aspect of the day, but that's not what the sport is about. Instead, here are a few bits of information.

The wings are small free-fall parachutes, with some small modifications. Long brake travel, very inefficient (especially in turns), very quick, super solid, and very easy to fly. Take off is probably the trickiest bit until you get the hang of it, but by the end of the first day you'll just be chucking your wing upslope, inflating and launching the wing from a bag of washing with the front and rear risers, and then skiing off. The better you are, the smaller the wing you fly, and the faster you go! Landing is easy, then you just bunch up the wing and get straight on the chairlift. On my first day today I did twenty flights and the good guys tell me that you can do forty if you're keen.

As far as crossover from other sports go, surprisingly skiing is probably a bit more helpful than paragliding. This is because you're spending the day on snow, and occasionally skiing down steep stuff to take off. Skiing gives you a familiarity with this situation that frees you to focus on the flying, whereas non-skiers might be overwhelmed by the winter mountain environment. Having said that, anyone who flies a paraglider or a kite will very quickly (read: one or two flights) pick up launching and flying. Paraglider pilots will have the advantage judging landings, once they get used to knocking five points off the usual glide ratio!

A word has to be said about the required weather conditions. In the video it's blue skies and forward launches in no wind. On my first day today it was blowing 40km/h on launch *and snowing*! And we flew in light rotor. But it didn't matter at all. Collapses are virtually unknown (strong turbulence just increases your sink rate) and forward speed is rarely a problem. If you imagine the wind strength in the high mountains required for an eight square metre wing to soar, then you'll have an idea of the upper limit on conditions. This is not a sport that does its laundry on windy days (although, afterwards, you might have to do yours).

What does the sport offer? Well, it's pure descent, pure fun. No stress trying to stay up in weak conditions (it's impossible in all conditions), no fear of collapses (flying in the lee? it doesn't matter and you won't care). Brief, intense experiences shared with friends, and a vin chaud at the end of the day. Perhaps Hans describes it best: "C'est du Playstation!"

Thanks to Franck Coupat, Hans Prunaretty and David Eyraud for a wonderfully warm welcome and a brilliant day! I'll be back with the Northerly wind to Atak the couloirs...