Hi there, everybody. Welcome to a very special episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. I'm recording this about three weeks post-race. I'm sitting in a hotel beneath Antholz in Italy. Had a great day of flying yesterday with a couple of upcoming guests, Alex Roby and Primo Sousa. Aaron Durogati was also in the sky and also a whole bunch of other really, really good pilots. Finally got a shot at that beautiful triangle here that they do down into the Dolomites, which has been on my hit list for many, many years. But this episode is, uh, I went to a whole bunch of the athletes, so this is just a few of them, and asked pretty much the same questions: best day, worst day, advice for people thinking about doing the X-Alps, uh, biggest mistake, will you do it again? I changed it up a little bit.
You know what we hear from Maxime and Chrigel and Paul Guschlbauer and a whole bunch of the athletes. This one is Nick Neynens, King of Master Alerts, Arunder, Gotti, and Gaspard Piteo. A bunch of the, you know, they are all big fan favorites. Thought we'd kick it off with them. We've got about seven, at least, hours of content here with all the interviews. Today's is about 90 minutes. We're going to put this one out and listen to the feedback and decide if we should put the other, break the other ones up in at least two more episodes. episodes. And, but you know, I'm obviously way into the Red Bull X-Alps, and I know many of you are, but many of you probably aren't. And this will be redundant in some ways, so we'll either put the other ones out as like bonus content or as regular shows, depending on what we hear.
So, uh, but for now, I think you'll really enjoy this get these folks' perspective on, uh, what is most definitely the greatest game on earth this year was. Uh, was physically unbelievable with that stability at the end with the last three days, and in the middle days we had all those thunderstorms and never really heard a beep out of Barbarios, uh, but an exciting race, a very cool course. Although, you're here, you'll hear some thoughts about how it wasn't, uh, with so many more waypoints, it didn't allow us a lot of freedom to make big moves. We basically followed each other around because there wasn't enough distance between the waypoints, uh, to, you know, get very creative with our, with, with our route. So we've given that feedback to Red Bull. Hopefully that will change.
We'll actually do zoom. Hopefully that'll change in the future, but yeah, it was a, it was an epic race as it always is. Uh, tons of fun, a little bit of heaven, a little bit of hell, everything in between, as I've said. So I hope you enjoyed this show. Let us know what you think, uh, ping me afterwards after you listened and, and let me know how, what you think we should do with the rest of the content. We've got a whole bunch more, like I said, At least seven hours of content here with a lot of the different athletes. So, and I know you want to hear from from Chrigel and some of the others, so we will release it, just not sure how we're going to do it. But for now, enjoy this show and, uh, give you a little relive of the rebel x house, okay?
Now, and everybody's fan favorite, Nick Manans, uh, the guy who claims he doesn't train and does it in jandals. Everybody loves Nick, me included. We've had him on the show before, of course, and uh, Nick is just awesome. He had a really, really slow start. And this one had a, had a, had a rough first day. And, but we, I kept saying to my team, like we, you can't count Nick out. You can't count Nick out. He's going to make magic moves. He always does. And he did, he fought from the back and, uh, had some good days there and kept moving up and kept moving up and kept moving up, ended up in 15th place, uh, did really well. He does it, you know, most of us have these big RVs and creature comforts and he does it in like like a little Subaru with his mom and his brother in tent.
So, uh, hats off to Nick, uh, incredible to watch, super fun to watch and, uh, does a great job with social media. So I'm sure you all saw a bunch of his posts and stuff, but here's Nick Neynens.
Uh, Nick, so cool to talk to you, man. I appreciate you taking some time out on one of your, uh, your transfers here. I understand you're in Bangkok with mom and, uh, but it's been, I think three days now. Uh, I'm sure you're like Like me, you're still pretty tired and recovering, but congratulations on yet another epic race. You and I got started in all this madness the same year in 2015, so this was your third one. As I knew you would, you had a slow start this one, and I knew you'd make some terrific moves, which you did. But congratulations on another race.
Thanks a lot, Gavin, and same to you, too. It was good racing with you. Next time, I'll try to race a little bit closer, I suppose.
That's probably the main thing after the race is just catching up on sleep. I didn't feel super tired during the race, but afterwards, as soon as it's over, you realize that you do need to catch up on sleep a little bit.
Yeah, you're gunning it hard for 12 days. At one point, I remember, because you've done the X-Pyr, I haven't, but I remember at one point I was thinking it was like day seven or something, or day eight. It was like, "Oh man, we we still have the distance left of the entire X-Pyr." I was like, "Oh man, this is this is a big slog, yeah."
Yeah, I, I guess that's what I like about X-Alps because X-Pyr was fantastic adventure as well, but, but like, especially if you're coming from Australia or New Zealand, you're coming so far to, to have the whole race. Like, once they did X-Pyr basically in three days, it's like, like, yeah, X helps at least. You, you can get your teeth stuck in and, and really, um, yeah, have a good, good slog, um, besides all the briefings and transfers and, yeah, airplanes and all that kind of stuff, sure actually get some time, sure, on the ground stuff, uh
Nick, I'm gonna ask you the same questions I'm asking everybody else. I'm not sure this first one is all that relevant because you have done it twice before, but is there anything you underestimated about this race in retrospect? Uh,
Well, I guess it's basically what happened. This race is, I slipped behind at the start. I made a few mistakes that just sort of got me off the pace a little bit, and then really sunk the boat at Kronplatz, where there was like afternoon storms, and everyone else had a really long flight towards Silkspitzer, and I just got way behind because of those storms. And the next day, it took ages to get going again as well, so it's, um, getting a bit harder to catch up again. And these days, everyone's, the quality, the standard is pretty high. So if you make mistakes, they get punished pretty hard.
What was your biggest mistake?
Yeah, so, well, on the first day I bombed out, but that didn't affect things greatly, I don't think, because it was really cloudy and most people had to land a bit further anyway, but it just meant I walked quite a bit and I still was a little behind. behind, so I just lost maybe because I maybe lost a couple of hours. So the next day I was under pressure, and then I lost a couple more hours scratching away somewhere, uh, but then I was lucky with a low save. But really, what I should have done better is, uh, flying all the way to our shell turn point. I kind of, I didn't top up with height, and I should have, uh, basically, I I landed short of Kirsten and I had to – yeah, if I – the leaders tagged our shower that night and then flew with the valley winds and that's what I wanted to do.
Like they did the easy part of the flight where you had the valley winds behind you and you just racked up some easy caves and mountains. And because of that, I was just, you know, several hours behind the pace and that meant that the window closed with the storms on Kronplatz and I couldn't get through Kronplatz basically. So that the the biggest um setback was not getting through Cron Plots, and that's because I made a few mistakes that just put me a little bit off the pace. And maybe if I'd been one hour earlier to Cron Plots, I would have got through before the rain, you know, and it would have been fine.
That was a critical day because it was really good getting to cron plots, uh, for you know, the top kind of 15 and and uh, and escaping there, leaving there was, was it was starting to get pretty scary. The skies were getting big and, you know, those that were about an hour or so behind me really got hammered and they were, uh, and they got pinned on that side and that was, that was a, that was a big difference in the ball game because it was, it was quite good still on the north. So yeah, it was, that was, that was one of those areas where the speed thing was really critical and then
Yeah, and it's one of those things where because I was a little bit behind, I was trying to sort of cut a few corners and fly fast and catch up. And because of that, I took a few risks that basically put me even further behind.
Right, right.
Best day and worst day?
Well, I'm not sure. I guess the first day was one of the worst days because I only – like I didn't fly long enough on that first flight from the Geisberg and it was a relatively short day, so not that much happened. But it was still nice. I had a few glides and I don't know. Maybe the best day in terms of tactics for me was the last full day because I started at Mont-Joli close to Mont Blanc. That's the day that everyone top landed on Mont Blanc, and I managed to stay in the high mountains. A couple of times I had to land and walk over the pass to the other side, but it was a lot better than the guys who were struggling out on the Chartreuse and the Bulge, further out to the smaller hills to the west, who ended up having to walk a lot.
And that was sweltering heat that day, so that was my best day tactically in terms of gained a few places, but I think most of the race I was slowly clawing back, uh, places. Uh, and most of the race I felt pretty good about the whole thing. It was just that I sort of mucked it up at the start, as as I did in 2015.
Yeah, you had a rough, rough start in 2015. You came roaring back the same. I, we, we certainly did not write you off, Nick, in the beginning. I was like, we, we know, Nick, he'll be back right back here in the end, which you were so, uh, nicely done. Um, you know, it, it even said this, I think on your, your bio and that, you know, that kind of map of all the athletes that we get, but you, you know, you, you famously quote unquote, you know, don't really train for the race, which you talked about in the last podcast that we did. But, uh, if you could, If you could rewind the clock, knowing what you know now about the race that just happened, is there anything you would do differently?
Any preparation or strategy or stuff with your team or anything that you would change? change yeah
I think if I had, you know, if we had better weather in the pre-week, it would have been fine. I just would have got all the gear sorted and, but yeah, my very first flight on that harness was during the prologue and, uh, yeah, that day before I flew for a couple of hours, but still sort of adjusting things and sorting things out. So I was thinking maybe it would be cool to do a little Vol Bibi before the event starts and just get everything sorted, so I'm sort of hitting the ground running because basically every day through the event I felt better and it was just the first few days, A few hiccups on the first few days that let me down, and other than that, I thought I was pretty efficient and productive. And maybe it was just because the people I was around weren't as fast as the lead pack, but it felt—I felt like I was, you know, getting the most out of the day, generally speaking.
You kind of already answered this at the very beginning, but it sounds like you will do this again. Will you do it again?
Yeah, I mean, I like it. And if I get the chance to do it again, I'd be pretty keen. It just depends on what else is going on in my life, I suppose. what
Advice do you have to someone who hasn't done the x-outs, uh, who is watching this race as millions of people were, uh, they get inspired and you know, like the idea of it? What, what advice would you give to somebody who hasn't done it that wants to, well...
You're saying I don't train, but I do a lot of vol biv, which I think is really good training. And like, the last thing, well, vol biv, it prepares you for a lot of like a huge part of the experiences that you face in XLs. Probably the thing it doesn't prepare for that I was lacking is just the competition flying aspect where you have to, you know, keep up on those classic good days as well.
I think fitness for me wasn't really a problem, them, but you need to be able to make sure that you can get yourself to take off, you know, several times each day. Um, so there's lots of other hike and fly events that I would definitely want to try before signing up for the X-Alps. People get, you know, glassy eyes when they think of the X-Alps and they just want to sign up and do it, but you're better off making sure that you're ready with all those, uh, smaller races first. That's the way I did it. I did xberg, then xp, and, uh, that was on top of all my vol biv years of vol biv experience. Sure, yeah. So the thing about xelps, especially now, the pace is so fast that if you have a crack, you might not get another chance at it, so you want to have a pretty good crack.
So like, it's, it's one of those things where people want to do it one day and they probably just take any chance they can get. But, you know, I guess sometimes you might only have that option because later you're going to have kids and family and you're not going to have time or the circumstances aren't going to line up. But, yeah, You don't really want to have a go before you're ready and then do poorly and then try it again in two years later, and maybe there's just too many other people that are on the waiting list ready to go, I guess. so yeah
yeah just
Do lots of high comply stuff before you sign up for excels, basically, yeah.
That's good advice. I, I can offer some insight there too. Is I, I spent some time with folks that are not like on the committee or in the race committee—I mean, not Christoph, but that kind of know how the whole selection process works, which I still don't really know, but they did offer some, some, some advice or, well, they, they basically told me that you're absolutely right. If you do it, you know, I think a lot of people, you know, sign up, you know, not really expecting to get in and, but just, they want to go through the process and they sign up, but then they do get in. And if you're not prepared very well and you don't do very well, um, you will most likely get skipped the next time, you know, if you get eliminated or, uh, you don't do very well, Or you make a decision that they see as kind of dangerous, um, then your chances of getting selected are, are pretty low.
Um, you know, they're, they're definitely looking for people that can, can threaten the eagle, which I don't believe many people can do, but yes, we just saw you again, but
There's just so many good people from for them to choose from that it's hard to justify, yeah, giving you another go when there's so many other people that you know are qualified as well, yeah.
exactly exactly
and you're gonna enjoy it a lot more if you have a good crack at it, like, yep, uh, you know, I say I do it for fun, but it's definitely more fun if you're doing well. So, yeah,
Absolutely, totally. Um, what's the most critical or vital support you got from your team?
Oh, they were so on the ball this time. I mean, they were on the ball last time as well, but... But the first couple of days, I mean, they were asking me before the event, saying, oh, what should we do? What should we do? Like I would say, oh, don't worry. We'll figure it out, and I'll tell you everything you need to know. But then we just sort of fell into place, and it went fine. So I said, this time, when I say I don't need a battery pack, ask me again at least four times. And there was one time during the race where I said, okay, Mom, that's right. You asked four times now. I still, I don't, I don't need it, but I won't, I won't complain that you didn't ask me enough. But yeah, like, so that was really good. Like, I was always topped up with power, and they're always really, uh, fast and efficient finding me.
And, and, um, I probably got more assistance this race than I did, um, the last race, partly because there was a lot of turn points and there was a lot of stop upstart because of that. Um, but yeah, the support was really good. Um, I also had a team on WhatsApp. Uh, you know, a couple of different time zones that I would just ask for information, um, every now and then. Like, sometimes it's good to know what the other pilots are doing, especially on those hot stable days, to see if anyone's managing to stay up and people have decided to take off and and uh, uh, yeah, how high people are starting and stuff like that. So, uh, it's really hard to get that information because a lot of the time the reception on, on, uh, was hopeless.
So if you can just get someone to send you a screenshot, it really helps. And, um, just give you a little bit of commentary on what's going on. That was, um, good as well.
And you and I talked about this a little bit. Yeah, totally. Um, you and I talked about this a little bit before the race, but, but, uh, I, the whole race, I don't even look at the weather. I never pull up, you know, windy. I don't, I don't do, I mean, that's totally in my team's hands. Um, and that, you know, I get like a weather briefing every day or I get it when I'm in the air. Um, but you, you're a meteorologist and I'm assuming that your, your brother and mom don't have, you know, Nearly the weather knowledge that you do, how do you guys handle that on your team? Are you doing it, or are... are you have you kind of taught them enough that they're passing it on to you, or are you not even worrying about it? You're just looking at the sky and figuring it out? Yeah.
A lot of the time, I'm just looking at the sky, I'm figuring it out. I'm looking at Windy a lot because it's got a lot of what you need sometimes. I was asking the guys to send me, uh, you know, the radar, the latest radar, which, which I get on Windy now, or what else was I asking for? Often I would just look at the upper winds on the meteogram on Windy
and I had some – because, yeah, I didn't really have time to look at all these different things, but, yeah, someone on my WhatsApp group would often be sending me like an enneagram, like a sounding, the forecasted, which is basically all you need to know. No, and you can get, I was getting that myself off windy sometimes as well, so that just shows you how much moisture there is and what stability there is and what kind of mixing like heights you can expect, like thermal heights. So, I, I didn't look into it in a lot of detail and I can get a lot more detail out of all the, um, different paragliding specific weather apps, but I just didn't really have time for it and also I don't think it made that much difference because you didn't really have that much root choice, you just had to do the best you could anyway.
And yeah, for example, when I went up Titlis, just looking around, you could see all the, the valley haze and it just sort of looked stable and then when I took off it felt stable and then, uh, scratching on these huge big bluffs facing the sun later and I couldn't get up, so I was like, "Yep, it is stable." So you can kind of figure it out anyway, but I guess where weather makes, um, a difference is if it changes your decision making. So I was actually really lucky on one of those stormier days where it was raining fairly heavily in the morning, so I slept in for a couple hours, then I hiked up when it was basically stopped raining and flew just before it started raining and then, um, I got up to that pass just before Davos and there was some really heavy rain when I was walking up to the pass, but as I got to the pass it started to clear and it was perfect just to fly down and I timed it perfectly that day, but I think that came down a lot to luck.
We were looking at the radar as well. Oh, there was another day where I just squeaked into Zugspitze just before the storm storms came, so yeah, that day we were looking at the radar and that was like a system that was moving through, it wasn't storms that were developing locally, so, um, yeah, a bit of now casting, checking out what's like, I guess the, the one of the main things is whether you've got to decide whether you've got to walk up the hill and fly, or just keep walking on the highway, because there might be a storm that makes it impossible to fly and shuts the whole place down for hours and hours, and you'd be wasting your time if you're sitting on the side of the hill. So, uh, yeah, I didn't get any weather holdups like that this time and I was, yeah, yeah.
I found, I found that, you know, I was when they announced the course, I was really excited about it. And I think it was a great course, it was an awesome route, but I would totally agree with you that with the with the shorter, with the more turn points and the shorter distances, you know, there was the big decision point leaving Kronplatz. You could go east, you could go west, or you could go to Brenner and walk. You know, there was, you know, you basically had those three options there. And then leaving the Zugspitz, you could go the Northern route or the South Southern route. And other than that, there really wasn't, you just kind of had to put your head down and keep moving. There wasn't, there wasn't the flexibility in the route or the creativity that we've had in the last couple that I really enjoy.
I, I, I hope they back that off in the future because it's, it really was, you know, there, there were a few little option option changes going up the Rhine in terms of what pet, which pass you walked over, whether it be the Oberalp or one of the earlier ones, which most people did, um, you know, there, but there wasn't really like, like flying wise, uh, you know, I mean, nobody really flew Davos to, to Titlis except Chrigel, but, but you know, there, you know, there, you could go up the Rhine or you could go to the Northern side, but it really, there wasn't that many options, uh, like there has been. And I like the big gaps where you can really see some creativity in what people do.
Yeah, totally. I think for the fans, that's one of the really exciting things too because you see people take different routes and you try to figure out which one's better. Some of the most exciting parts of the race for me were still route choice related. So there was still some route choice even though they had so many turn points close together. The worst turnpoints were, uh, I mean, having Auger and then Titlis with the airspace directly in between them and no way around it. That was, I hope they don't do that again, yeah.
Yeah, that was the
closest standpoint to the race, and they got airspace wedge right between them, and it just depends if you're there in a weekday or before or after hours whether you can get through or not.
Yeah, and that was—that was really luck. I mean, God, you know, I was there on a Sunday, I didn't have to to worry about it at all, you know? And, and, uh, yeah, it was just terrific. You know, I got up there and I waited through a snowstorm and then I got a little window and got the fly. I didn't have to worry about it, but yeah, that's, I tried to do that when it was on in training and it's basically impossible, you know? And so, yeah, that was, I hope they changed that as well. Although I think they're a turn point partner for a while, so I'm not sure, but. Well, Nick, thank you very much, man. I'll, I'll let you get back to your, uh, uh, your sleep before your next flight and give your best to your, your mom and your brother. It was great to see them again. And, uh, congratulations on yet another epic race. I felt like this year was, was epic in every way.
We just, we had a little bit of everything. It was fantastic. So much fun. And, uh, it was good racing with you again, man.
Yeah. You too, Gavin. Thanks for the interview. And yeah, it might be time to hit out for some pad thai.
Yeah, there you go. Cool, bud. Talk soon. See you at cloud base. Yeah.
You too. Cheers. king
of Master Alerts New Zealand two, another fan favorite, uh, one of the female athletes this year along with Dominica. Unfortunately, she was eliminated, uh, near the end and after a really epic battle with the Korean. Those two went all night, and she talks about that and making a little mistake in the morning, which cost her the elimination, but, uh, a great first effort from this rookie. I'm sure we will see her again. She has not been flying very long and share some really cool thoughts about the race and the future. Here's Kinga. Kinga, welcome to the Mayhem. Really excited to have this conversation with you. We didn't see much of each other in the race. So, you know, I was watching on live tracking whenever I could in the mornings when I was walking and stuff, and I watched your epic battle at the end.
And so I can't wait to hear hear about that, but I'm sorry the ax man man got you there after a few days. But I, I know it was still an epic adventure, and and no matter where we place in these things, uh, you know, you're, you're owed a huge amount of, uh, of congratulations. I know it's an, it's an awesome effort, and, uh, so, so yeah. So, first off, just congratulations and in your, uh, Red Bull X-Alps campaign, uh,
thanks gavin that's It's awesome to talk to you here. And also, it was awesome to be in Red Bull X-Alps. It was quite an adventure. And yeah, we didn't see each other much because you were just way too ahead for me, too much in front. So, you know, but, you know, it was the first time I'm relatively inexperienced pilot. So even being there and learning from some of the best pilots in the world, it was an amazing experience. and seeing all the lines that other pilots choose and in different conditions, the decisions that others make. It's such a steep learning curve. It's amazing. I've learned, in a week, I learned probably more than I would learn in a year of flying solo somewhere, you know, cruising through the mountains.
So yeah, it completely blew my mind. What you can do with the paraglider, what personally, even what not only what better pilots can do, what I can do with paraglider, how much capacity I have, which I don't usually use. And you need this particular surrounding and logistics and support and safety net and on the pilots around that Red Bull X-Alps gives you to just dig deep and get access to 100 % of your capacity. So it was a super inspiring experience for me.
Yeah. There's a, my, my buddy, Nate scales, who, who is really a mentor of mine and a guy I fly with at home and just an exceptional pilot. He did the X-Alps in 2007. And his saying is always there, there's only one way to get to that place. And in the X-Alps, you're going to get there guaranteed. It's like, it's, that's hard to describe to people that, that who haven't done it, but you're going to get to a very special place in your, in your mind and your body that you just, you almost can't even train for, but well, let me, let me run through, let me run through these questions and, uh, you know, you don't have to answer them quickly, but I'm just kind of asking the same questions of every, of everyone and seeing where we go. But, um, what was the number one thing you underestimated?
And when you, when you look back at the race and your training and the preparation, what, What was the biggest thing that caught you off guard that you would have, you know, maybe done differently? I would say that
First thing that comes to my mind, there are two things. First thing that comes to my mind is, um, uh, it's a team, how important it is, and, uh, because usually we just think about the, um, what, what athletes do and what kind of decisions they make, and then the team is there to, you know, to follow with the car, to feed you, and help you to make some, some decisions potentially. But there's so much more and dynamics of the team, especially after a week into the race when everybody get tired, you really see in this race what you are made of. And it's not only about us athletes; I, this race really pulled out all the best and all the worst, uh, of who I am, uh, but also, uh, but also the whole team changes and dynamics, dynamics changes and, um, and yes, now I understand better what I should have, what I shouldn't have, maybe, maybe which type of people is, is good for this adventure and which not, necessarily, because after a week under pressure when people get tired, it can become a little bit difficult.
So I didn't appreciate enough this part; I kind of thought that as long as we are just, you know, a bunch of friends, it will unroll itself, and suddenly it didn't, because I guess maybe I, I didn't brief him precisely enough, maybe I thought that the dynamics will sort itself out, but after a week of being tired and under pressure, nothing sorts itself out anymore. So maybe, yes, maybe the fact that I was inexperienced in such a long race and, and with so much pressure and, uh, and the team that I have chosen and that I'm very grateful they decided to, to go through this adventure with me, but all dynamics didn't go as well as I hoped for, if it makes sense.
So this is definitely, I didn't appreciate that it's such a, such a team race, such a team adventure. We usually just think about the, um, about the athlete and supporter, and I just didn't appreciate how many, how many people are involved into, into the success of or failure of particular athlete. And I also saw it during the race how some, uh, other athletes, how especially like that you have done it a couple of times already or a few times, how well sorted is everything around them so they can focus on, on what they should be focusing, not on all the logistics.
The real key for me is that I don't have to think at all, that the team does all of that. I mean, obviously, when I'm in the air, you're trying to kind of go on autopilot and just fly your glider and make good moves, and that's certainly thinking. But, yeah, your support team in this race is just so critical. In a lot of ways, they're working harder than we are. So
I think now maybe it was a little bit of my own insecurity that maybe I thought about people who would be really suitable for my team. But maybe I was too shy to ask. I thought, oh, you know who I am to ask them if, you know, I'm just like, you know, I'm just a tourist here. And now I think it was completely silly because the better it's like, you know, like failing to prepare is preparing to fail, basically. And and it has, it had a huge impact at the end of my overall performance. Obviously, it's not—I'm not, I'm not saying at all that, you know, that I, I don't know that my performance that's anything for the fault of my team. I'm just saying that I myself might have prepared better around this kind of team logistics and and, uh, and yeah, now I, now I know, yeah.
I mean, there's a lot you don't no as a rookie team. I mean, in 2015, when I did it my first time, it was... there was pages of stuff at the end of the race. I mean, it was my best placing, but it was still, well...
For your first performance we did, but it was flyable, you
know, yeah, we did. But you know, it's, it was, uh, it's, yeah, it's, there's, there's a lot you don't know. Go ahead, yeah.
second thing that I would think that that kind of maybe, maybe it didn't surprise me, but it's something definitely to work on. For me, it's this kind of consistency that you need to have every single day in this race. Because you have one day that you are out of focus, something happens completely that puts you out of focus. And then the race is basically running away. All the field is running away. So it's relatively easy to keep this focus for a few days. But here we are racing for 12 days and, uh, it's a long time. I think I didn't appreciate how long this race really is, you know, because it's a bit different when you do races, you know, other races, let's say that take up to six days and here after six days, you are just halfway into the race and it's just kind of getting started, you know?
So, uh, so I, for sure, I didn't appreciate the, the, I think it was like, Oh, it's still a little bit overwhelming. It's a long race. It's a bloody long journey, and there's so many things, things that will happen that at the end of it, you feel like the beginning was a, you know, a month ago because so many things happen. Everything is so intense. So, yeah, this intensity for many days in a row with the lack of sleep, yeah, I didn't appreciate how big it really is. But I guess you can't really imagine it unless you do it because, yeah. Well, I can also, I can
also tell you just from my, you know, this was my third campaign that the pace, you know, got a lot faster in 2017 and then it just got a lot faster in 2019. like everybody's getting more pro, more fit, better in the air, better organized, better support crews. It's, you know, it's gone from a proper adventure race back in '23, 2003, where everybody's carrying pots and pans and you'd wait 10k for your buddy to catch up and you were just having one in the mountains to like a real you know, Tour of France type pace but with paragliders and so it's you. You know, it's, it's, it's really hard, I think, for people to come into it now without a lot of experience and a lot of background because it's, the pace is vicious.
I've never seen, I mean, it was so fast this time. It was just mind blowing. I can't believe how some of these, how fast these teams are moving. So, well, hey, next question, which you maybe have already answered, but what was your biggest mistake?
I guess my biggest mistake was on the maybe fourth day, I have to say right now, fourth or fifth day. I, I listened to the advice of a very good cross country pilot, very experienced pilot who lived lives in the area where I was at this moment, and I didn't really listen to my guts and and I was first, I was thinking about it for too long, just kind of wasn't able to make this decision and instead against like what I thought against, uh, against what this very experienced pilot who, who really should know better in every sense. So I finally listened to him and it was a disaster. I ended up wasting the whole day running around in circles, a lot of energy and I put a lot of energy into it and didn't make much progress.
And this was a very interesting lesson for me just to really start trusting myself more because you try to always, it's a difficult, difficult part in this race that you, you have your own feeling and your own, you know, look at at the weather conditions and the topography and everything. Then you have some, some, some, some, uh, some support that tells you to do something potential that advises you the best they can, and then there's, uh, there's the other athletes doing particular things that may think that maybe it's a good idea or maybe it's bad, but But you just have to center yourself in all this. And for me, it was quite a tricky part. And then once I made this mistake and actually made this wrong decision, which completely screwed up the whole day, which was actually quite a good day, and I might have made quite a progress, I digged myself in it a little bit, started stressing out.
And then, you know, it influenced the next decisions and a couple of next days. And the cascade begins. Yeah, exactly. And this one was the biggest part of it because once you make a mistake, okay, it's done and you have to just cut it off and think about the future. And this is also something that we, I mean, we learn with experience. Some people are born this way. I'm rather born in a very, like, I have this very analytical approach that like to really learn from mistakes. mistakes, so but it also means analyzing these mistakes, and it's like there's no time for it in this race, so we have to just cut it off and and keep going. And I, I dig myself in this hole for way too long, and uh, yeah, so it was totally kind of rookie mistake, but also I, I guess, you know, this is something that you're learning with experience.
That's, that's who to trust, and basically trust yourself. First of all, there's a reason why you are participating, not some, you know, other advisors, you
You know what though, I mean the other thing, uh, I mean I would, I would like to say to you is that they, you know, the mistakes are so inevitable and they're, and they're just part of the game and, you know, without them you can't learn anyway. So it's, you know, your attitude's great, yeah? You just, you, you're, you're gonna make mistakes, that's inevitable and, uh, absolutely. And the main thing is just to learn from it, you know? And so they're all, I, I found, you know, like in, in 2015, we made more mistakes than the other campaigns by far, but I found that they were all acceptable mistakes. They were all like, yeah, I mean, how could we have known and how would we know differently if we didn't do them? Exactly. Hey, so let's keep things moving. Just briefly, best day and worst day and why?
uh
best day was probably the my last day, um, when, uh, when I, I, I was flying for upper upper in valley and, uh, and crossover to Davos and was chasing, uh, the Korean Korean athlete and, uh, all the way, basically, all the, all the, all the day, all day long, and it had, uh, I finally, after, after you know, digging myself a little bit into misery and stress, I, I, um, I came back to the light and, and, uh, and, um, and it was, I finally felt how it should feel, I guess, uh, how this race can feel, uh, when you, when you just, Just race and keep going on the high pace and good energy and, uh, and have this, this direct target of, uh, chasing someone in this case, the, the Korean athlete.
It doesn't have to be necessarily about ranking, about winning, about this or that; it's just there's particular energy created around it that finally I felt like, wow, wow, this is like how X-Ups feels like. It was so high-paced and so such good flying and good energy. And I was so motivated. And after the last flight, I was three kilometers behind the Korean athlete. And I started chasing him on foot. And I felt like I can run forever, you know. And I was laughing before the race. Oh, we don't usually run. We just hike during the race. And then off I went, running, you know, 10 kilometers per hour for the next three hours.
And overtook him and felt like nothing is impossible. So that was definitely, definitely, yeah, the fight for definitely the very best, this moment. And I finally felt, yeah, this is how X-Ups should feel like. This is how it feels for our top guns somewhere that are already in front. But, you know. Beautiful. and and was your worst
day, the getting cut, or was it one of the other ones?
Yeah, the worst day, I mean, getting cut, uh, it was obviously heartbreaking, but I, I, it was very short, you know? It was just an hour in the morning, and uh, getting cut obviously was heartbreaking because I, I just had it, but I also felt like I did everything I, I could have done, and the rest was just, you know, my supporter was next to me with a phone, uh, staring in this phone, life tracking, etc., so it couldn't, it would never come to my mind that he would take me to the wrong ballet that will get lost on the, on the, on the road. So, uh, so I just had impression, you know, it was a mistake, of course, and I don't even think it's his fault because he, during all the, the days before, he's, he's been managing so much and trying to put all this team together.
It was so stressful for him that I can understand that he made this very simple and silly from outside mistake. We all make mistakes. So I wouldn't even say that that was the worst because, of course, it was eliminated and it was heartbreaking. But at the same time, I felt that, you know, I got it. I did what I could here. And again, another lesson, always double check. And I always do double check after my support or whoever. I always, I actually always choose my route myself. It was the one single time when I didn't, because he just, okay, I got it, you just run it's like, okay, no problem, I run this is straight, straight road, we can't get lost here, right? So with it, I say I would say that the, the worst, the worst day was probably, I don't know, there was quite a few lows, you know, it's like so intense, there's so highs are so highs and lows are so low.
But I guess, uh, I guess maybe this mentioned the day, the day that I mentioned when, yeah, when I listened to wrong advice and then I started like digging myself deeper and deeper into this rabbit hole instead of just, uh, yeah, just like shaking it off and it's like, hey, okay, let's, let's, let's, let's act like nothing happened. And I started getting a little bit stressed because I slipped in this ranking. I was doing quite well until, until this moment. So and then it's just like everything got a little bit nervous and, you know, so yeah, probably, probably this day. But I would say that for me personally, the, the amount and quality of positive moments is completely like incomparable. Like there was a few, few very low lows, but at the end it was such an amazing experience that, you know, even at the, at the, in the, in the worst moments, I was saying, oh my god, I would love to do it again.
You know, it's, I was, I was completely like somewhere in the, in the rain when I can't take off because I completely screwed up before and I'm just completely like freezing my ass off and, and, and completely miserable and it's just like, yeah, I would love to do it again because I'm learning so much and so awesome experience. So that's
That's actually the next question, and and I know that you know we've only had a few days to to process this, but it sounds like, yes, you will, you will do it again, or you'd love to do it again.
Oh, if I have a chance to do it again, absolutely. And I want to do it again. This is completely addictive and I, I absolutely love the experience and I learned so much and also understood how much I can, I can on some, you know, I've been playing on the five years and it's intense, it's been intense, but it's a really short time if you compare it to, to, to some, some other athletes that you play with during this race. And to understand all these areas where I can progress and the ways I can progress and get better as a pilot, as an athlete, as a person, I mean, it's mind-blowing. I'm completely stoked with the whole event.
Of course, I would love to do it again. And I will be better prepared. and I think it will be even more fun because of it, because I won't be stressing so much because I will also be able to solve team dynamics and logistics better, and you learn so many things on the way, and then you have another two years to use these lessons and progress, I guess in two years it will be even more fun. so
Last question, what was the best fan experience you had along the way? Or, you know, like just person on the side of the road, or you know, people come out
there was quite a few, quite a few awesome, awesome moments with people cheering me up. I guess, I guess the most beautiful was when I was um, in the um, this like Like during this day when I was chasing a Korean athlete in the evening, when I was running after him, he was like still a few kilometers ahead, a couple of kilometers ahead. I was running, he was hiking, so I was closing this distance. And then some people who saw it on live tracking just came, drove in and joined me in running. And I, after a while, I had a whole, whole awesome team when running with me.
It's like a free, free, free guys, you know, running and cheering and protecting me from cars and like, and it was, it felt so magic because they just, you know, they just left their cars, uh, behind and just, just went on running with me for kilometers and, and yeah, and there was so much energy in it. I, I wasn't even working anymore on, you know, I wasn't even burning sugar or anything. I was burning pure energy, pure magic, you know. And then there was this moment when we were overtaking a Korean athlete going uphill and he was very tired. He couldn't do it with a response, so he was just hiking. And he yelled, you're crazy, you're completely crazy.
I was like, yeah, respect, awesome fight, awesome day. So much energy in it, and they—and yeah, and they, they fed on it, and I fed on their energy. And yeah, pure magic happened there. So I think that was a beautiful, beautiful, um, yeah, beautiful, fun experience. And finally, when we got to the place where we—and when we were about to spend night, they just realized, "Oh, our car is like 20 kilometers behind." Wow, that's so cool. And like, awesome. So yeah, so one of my supporters just just took them there, so it was like, yeah, it was very special, very special, yeah.
and hats, hats off to the Korean. We keep saying that because his name's so hard to pronounce, but uh, God, he showed some tenacity. I mean, a couple days before that, the pictures of his feet were just, oh, they looked so bad, and he just kept marching. I was, yeah, he He showed some real threat there. Yeah, absolutely.
He's a warrior. He really is. I even thought at this point, I even said it while running that he's such a warrior. I have huge respect to him and losing with him wouldn't be a defeat, but winning feels better. And at this point, I thought, oh, of course, right now I'm winning with him because I'm already a kilometer ahead and I can't lose it. It's just an hour in the morning. I just can't let it slip of my hand from my hands.
Yeah, it's an awesome lesson. I'll just, you know, keep, keep focus, stay focused, and just don't trust too much and to others, you know, make your own decisions, even if it's, if it feels simple, and if it feels, feels super straightforward, especially I guess from, uh, from, uh, life tracking, what the hell are they doing? Because it's so obvious, but we're in the middle of it, like running on the road and five o'clock in the morning, you know, everything can happen. So it's a good, everything's foggy then, yeah. So, so it's a good humbling lesson of like staying focused till the end and, and, uh, and just keep pushing, yeah.
Copy, Kinga, thanks so much. I really appreciate it. Uh, and thank you so much to you. Yeah, thank you, and best of luck. And, uh, I, I wish you great rest and recovery, and, uh, hope to see you in 2021 for the next one, if not before. But thanks very much for your time. Thank
You, thank you. Cheers, one.
of my favorites had an incredible run in 2017 until, uh, he had a little crash and got pretty injured. Gaspard Pedio, uh, amazing pilot, definitely one of the best pilots in the race consistently, and he came back furiously this year and had a really good race. I was hanging on to him through day eight and, uh, he was one of the one of the 10 who got to got to Monaco, had an incredible race. He talks about it being his best. We don't know if we'll see him again; he talks about that in this episode, but a great little little chat here with a good friend of mine, an amazing pilot, amazing ex-ops pilot, Gaspard Petio. Gaspard, it's a real treat to talk to you, man.
It's just been a few days since the end of the race. Thanks for coming on the mayhem. And I was terribly disappointed to lose you guys day eight. I was just behind you and Tom. And I think one other person, When you guys bumped into the roan, and I had a really bad day, and that kind of first stable day, and and went nowhere. So, uh, sorry to to lose you guys. That was a fun pack for quite a long time, but, uh, congratulations on an epic race, man. I know that was, uh, we had a little bit of everything in this one, and also very physical for for you and I, the older guys that have bad knees and stuff. Uh, but we got to walk a little bit together. I think that was day one or day two, but, but, uh, yeah, congratulations. Nice job, thank
You very much, but you did an awesome job too, huh?
Yeah, no, it was a terrific race, wasn't it? I, I really enjoyed this one. It was a lot of fun, yeah.
It was very alpine and very... it was, I, I think it was, uh, the most beautiful one in a sense that we were always in the alpine range, always, uh, uh, walking, walking in the snow and, uh, with the glaciers and it was super nice.
Yeah. Yeah. I wish they hadn't put the St. Hilaire turn point in, but that one was a bitch. Jeez. It was stable when we got down there, but you took a really deep line going in there. I think you were the only one in the air that, that evening I was watching as I was walking through Chamonix and that was a, that was a good move well
Actually, I was, I was trying to to find some um unstable air in the altitude, but uh this day, I think anywhere you would go, it was a stable everywhere. So my didn't work the way I, I expected to to work, but at least I didn't. And I mean, for me, there was no way I could work on this concrete for all day, especially with this heat. So it was a way to avoid this, yeah.
no that was that That was smart. Have you ever seen – I haven't asked anybody else this yet, but have you ever seen stability like that? Because I – you know, we just – that's not something we deal with at home at all. We never get stable days. You know, we get more stable than unstable, you know, like it's all on a scale. But I've never seen anything like that. That was just unbelievable.
Yeah, it was pretty unbelievable. It happens sometimes, especially in Saint-Hilaire. But usually, we get a lot of stability down there. there, I mean, on the lower, uh, uh, uh, yeah, on the lower, lower basis. But then when you go up, I mean, up to 2,500 meters, normally you have some unstable instability. This was very special in a way that it was stable everywhere at every altitude. And I mean, even, even, even Chamonix was stable and this is very, very uncommon.
Yeah. Yeah. That was, that was crazy. It was like flying in soup. I was just, I just couldn't wait for my Vario to make some noise other than and going down. Yes. Well, Hey, so I'll, I'll, uh, I'll go through these questions, answer them however you like and, and, you know, take your time. If you, if you want to jump into a story or something, go for it. But, uh, you know, you've done the race now twice before this, the same years as I did, but did you underestimate anything coming into this one? Anything, anything really catch you off guard?
Actually, when we came to this one, uh, it was, uh, We wanted to end this race again, and we wanted to go to the end of it. And, I mean, we stopped the last one on the injury, and we wanted to end this race. But I was really scared about my body, about my ability that physically I would be able to end this race. And so we were a bit scared when we started the race. And actually, yes, fortunately my body could keep up and could make it, I mean, all the way, because we had this race was really hard in a sense that we had the really weak thermal weeks condition for, for the Alps, I was expecting, I mean, huge thermals and a lot of wind, and we had almost no wind and really, really smooth moose and, uh, and in weak conditions, yeah.
What was your... what was your? I was, you know, I was watching you guys on that final leg into Monaco, and I remember that one from, from 2015. And of course, I wish I was sharing that with you, but in that heat, and the—oh, those are slogs down there with those windy roads. But, uh, yeah, anyway, congratulations. It was, it was, it was fun to watching it in, well...
Actually, even getting to Monaco, um, I mean, we were probably in the most, uh, the most exciting, uh, peragliding, um, area near Saint Andre, which is usually a huge place with a lot of great thermals, and I mean, it's really unstable there, and this year we were there, uh, it was really hard and weak, and, uh, and I mean, it, yes, it was not usual conditions, and we had to be really patient and take her time, and even flying in gaggles was not that easy because the thermal wear is too weak. So even getting to Monaco was hard until the last beat of flying and this is quite unusual.
And actually I chose, when I had to choose the wing this year, I had, you know, My weight, it's just between the two ranges, uh, between a small one and a medium small. And I, and I said, "Okay, I'll take the small wing because, uh, it's usually super strong with a lot of wind, and I want to be secure with the small wing." And I, I mean, it, it happened totally the contrary. It was really weak with no wind at all, and for sure I got the wrong wing. I, I, if I had to do it again, I would probably take a big one or a huge wing to be able to, to use those really weak thermals. It was, was like competing in Brazil, like very, uh, in flatlands. I mean, it was really unusual, yeah.
Yeah, and you were on the zeolite as I was, correct? Yes.
I was on the zeolite, but it was really small. And, for example, in day two, we were flying in gaggles, and I could couldn't keep up with the gaggles because I couldn't fly, I couldn't, I mean, lift myself in the thermal, I mean, with the right amount of speed, and I was always left behind. And that's why I, it took me a long time to come back from the back of the ranking.
Yeah, well, we can talk about that in a bit because I was watching you keenly on live tracking on the walks.
Gaspar, what was your biggest mistake in the race?
I don't think that I made a big mistake. For me, probably the big mistake was to, yes, it's that one. It's probably that I believed that the condition, I thought that the condition would be really strong. Usually I'm a pilot that is, uh, usually my, my abilities, my, uh, my, my, my, how do you say that? My tricks, my, yeah, my, all the things, what I know how to do is flying in the wind and in strong conditions. I, I'm not, um, I'm not a super good PWSU pilot because I don't like it when it's really smooth and weak. And this year, I mean, it was, uh, it was not a race, uh, designed for me in the sense that we had to walk a lot.
We had to hike, uh, 4,000 meters every day, which I'm not—I mean, as good as the youngest guy we have in the in the field—and we had to fly in this really weak thermals, and this is not what I'm super good at, but in despite all this, we could stay with the group and we could keep up and make a good race, and I think after all, we believe that the race was was pretty pretty nice for us.
Yeah, actually, absolutely, um, best day and worst day, uh
The best days, for sure, they three, I think, when I come back from the back of the ranking. I'm, when I, um, I think I'm 22 or maybe 20 at the beginning of the day, when I'm, uh, near, uh, near our show coming back from our show turn point, uh, one, two, three, or three or four, and I'm, uh, and I'm heading to Kronplatz, and I'm really back in the ranking. And I choose, um, when I'm heading back, back north from Kronplatz to, uh, Zugspitze, I choose a left line. Yeah, yeah, and this allows me to come back in the ranking, and I end the day I'm in third position. And this is, uh, this is a great, uh, this is great because I believed in this option from the beginning, but I was the only one to choose it, and at the end it works.
So, so it was, it was really, um, it was fantastic. Yeah.
That was, you know, it's so amazing how people can influence you. But I, I, that was my first option was going the route you did. I really wanted to go that way. And, uh, and then of course, the second option was to go the east line, which is, you know, Mayrhofen, which is the way I ended up going. And then the third option, of course, is going the Brenner if the weather was terrible and walking across the airspace. But right before the the race, I was sitting chatting to Chrigel and I was asking him about that. And he said, Oh, you know, if you, I really liked the West line, it's a little bit shorter. I like that. But the problem with that is you always run into the Bavarian winds and the way they have the Zugspitze line off to the Northeast, it's going to be really hard to get up through there after you leave the Solden.
And so I, I like the East line and it was crazy. You know, When I left Kronplatz about 15 minutes, I was in good position. I left, it was just starting to blow up and getting kind of ugly, you know? And I left in good, like, 15 minutes behind those guys, and it was very easy crossing the spine again and getting them to kind of Zellum, Zeller, and Meyerhoff, an area, but it's a area I don't know at all, and I got completely stuck there in the valley winds for a very long time, and I didn't land. I, I stayed in the air, but then a big cell blew up off to our east, uh, down the the Pins Gal, and uh, in the gust front, the dropout just, just got me, and I, I sat on the top of the mountain trying to get off. It was blowing over the back hard, and I couldn't get off, couldn't get off good enough, and I, so I was watching you on live tracking going, "Oh, I should have gone that way," you know?
And you were flying, I think, with Willie through there too. Yeah, yeah.
But I mean, at the beginning, when we got in Crown Platts, uh, Willie arrived, arrived in complex just a few minutes before, and when I got here, he said, "Okay, Gaspar, I'm gonna, I'm gonna fly with you. I want to follow you a bit." So I said, "Okay, let's go on the left side." And so Willie and I started to, to aim the west side, but here, for sure, it was not really engaging because the first part was just blue sky with no, no cumulus at all. So we knew we, we had a lot of valley wind coming in, and it would be, be tricky to go through, but I was confident, and I, and I was leading, uh, with leading, um, yes, Willie was just, uh, behind me, and when I started really to engage myself, he, I think he didn't trust it. Yeah, he said that, he said that.
To me on Facebook a couple days ago, he said, "I don't know why I left him," and I said, "You never leave Gaspard, ever, never leave him." Yeah,
he made this mistake and then he He got stuck in this valley wind, and I think he – I mean, this was a bad decision, but luckily for me, it worked pretty well.
Yeah, it worked great. Okay, so worst day?
Worst day is probably – even if you won't believe it, but it's probably the day when we started at 3,000 meters on a glacier near Sion Valley, and we tried to reach Chamonix.
Yeah, because it was slow for you guys. Exactly. It was not
that bad because at the end of the day, we reached finally Chamonix. But I mean we planned – we had planned so many – we had so many plans in our head and we decided to aim this valley. I mean chatting with the forecast and we were sure to do something really right and we – I mean we fought for it really hard. We hiked this huge glacier. We found a takeoff. It was super hard and then we took off and it was really stable and we fought for hours to reach the Martini Valley. And here I landed, and suddenly I could see many of the wings that were far behind me, like Toma Kokonea, Manuel Nubel, and Simon Oberhauser, and they just passed me over my head.
I was like, damn, I did everything I could. I planned so many ideas, and it's not working. So I was really pissed off down in the valley. And uh, yes, I was, I was really, I mean, I think I was really, uh, really mad. And, and even with my team, I mean, they could feel that I was, was not really happy about what was, what was happening. Fortunately, um, I didn't let go and I came back, and, and the, the second part of the afternoon was much better and we could land far away, uh, but for, for a couple hours, I was really, really down there, uh, you know, uh, you know, feeling really bad and, uh, and, and really annoyed.
And, and I was even not really nice with my crew.
Yeah. Well, I, when I was in the air, I was right with those guys at the Shilthorn and, uh, and Revis kept calling me because I really thought you guys made a magic move that night, getting up to that coal and getting high. And, and, uh, and it, it wasn't, it was stable where we were as well, but he kept calling and he was saying, saying, Hey, those guys are moving really slow. Just stay in the air and you're going to get them today. Stay in the area. And then I didn't, of course I got to, I got to the Neeson Ridge too low and I just struggled in the stability for hours. It was just a nightmare. That was my, that was my worst day for sure. But
yeah, I think it's the, it's, it's, it's, it's our worst day because these place usually works super well. Yeah. This day they, we could see huge cumulus, beautiful cumulus cloud. I mean, all the signals were green, and I mean, actually, when you were flying actually in this area, it was, it was hopeful. And, and this is why I think it's, it was super annoying. Is that why this place are not working today? I mean, this should work, and it's not working, and that's what really annoys, um...
If you could prepare again, you know, kind of rewind the clock for the last nine months, would you do anything differently knowing what you know now?
Um, well, I choose a different wing, I mean a different size. That's the only thing. Um, I mean, the preparation was really hard for me because of the all the injuries I had, and I, I have to say, I, if someone would have told me that I would ended, uh, to Monaco in the seventh place, I would have signed. I mean, I would have signed with no, with no, no, I mean, for sure, I would be happy. So, I think I cannot change many things, for sure. The guys in front of me are stronger, they were more trained, they are younger, they fly better. So, I think that I, I would, it wouldn't change a lot if I, I mean, I couldn't do much better, I think
Um, you told me before the race there was no way you'd do it again, but what do you think now? Is anything changed, or are you done? Yeah,
For sure, um, if I mean, if if I was 25, or I would do it again for sure. I mean, my mind is is fully into it, and I like really the adventure and all what happens around the race. But now I'm I'm not 25, I'm 38, and I have two kids that are now pretty old, are seven and nine, and I have a lot of injuries, and it's every time getting worse and worse. And I mean, the preparation is always a nightmare, so if I'm smart, I quit, uh, but then we'll we will see if I'm smart enough, but I sure if I'm smart, I I shouldn't be there in two years, well
If you need some inspiration, I'm 47, buddy, so you've still got plenty of years, yes.
Yes, but I, I'm probably not train like you do. I don't know, but my body is not, it's not, um, it's not in a good, good shape, I think was
That was the injury in the 2017 race. Was it quite severe, uh?
No, it's not about the crash I had in 2017; it's more about, uh, all the stupid races I've done since I'm 16, like, uh, I've done a lot of um, running in, you know, this kind of, um, uh, ultra trails and, um, all kinds of races that many different kinds of races and biking and, and skiing and all this stupid thing I did when I was a kid. So I think my knees are just a bit, uh, old now. I mean, all that training and, uh, and it's, it's like, I mean, when you're a football player, you quit when you're 25 is when you're you're 35 so that's pretty logical that that my body is now a bit a bit old yeah
i think
it is yeah
It takes, takes a lot more time to recover as well. Um, what advice you've done? You did 2015, 2017, 2019. Uh, what did you know? Millions of people watch this race, pilots all over the world, and they get really inspired by what they see. Uh, what advice would you give to someone thinking about participating in the Red Bull X-Ops, well...
The first, the first uh advice, and I do quite a lot of conferences to explain this, is that usually people that watches the race and they that want to do it believe that it's that you need to be a good pilot and uh you be, you need to be trained to do this race. And this is true for sure, but it is not the only, the only thing that you need to be to be a to be tough in this race. I think it's a lot about thinking and a lot about strategy and about planning and preparing the race. And I think it's, it's, it's a really good thing to train to do some um, you know, maybe some smaller race, but uh some kind of races that are just hike and fly races, just like this one, to be able to train how to make decisions and not to make stupid decisions.
Because you can be the best pilots in the world and you can be the most trained guy in the world, you can still do a bunch of mistakes and and your race can be, can be destroyed just, just with, with one little mistake. So I think there's a lot of thinking, a lot of strategy. It's a sport like, like, like uh, like I mean, it's a really um, it's a, it needs to be learned. It's not, it's not, you just cannot you
Can't just tough your way through, yeah.
You just cannot, yeah, you cannot just imagine this. I mean, you have to learn it, and I think, and I think that's the best advice. Usually, when you're too trained, when you're too tough on the ground, you—this is where you make the biggest mistake, because you believe that you'll always be able to keep up with your legs, which is totally wrong. Sometimes you can, you can do really smart moves with, with, with a lot with a little hiking and, and a good flying, and even if I believe I'm not, I'm by far not the best pilot, I'm by far I'm not the best runner, but I can still play in the front because I think that I try to think as much as I can to make the smart moves and try to make some economy, I mean I don't know how to say this but to preserve my body and my strength
What's the most critical or vital support you got from your team, actually?
I think that my team is, I mean, I'm saying this, it's it's one of the best in the in the field. It's the team that I've been I've built for the 215 race, and it's almost the same team, uh, that I had for three races, and they they know perfectly what they have to do. We have, uh, we I have a full team with a lot of people, and and they all have very precise tasks. And there's a lot of teams that were depending on mine actually during – for example, in the glacier, we could – I mean, thanks to us, Thomas de Dolodo and Marcus Anders could cross the glacier because we had mountain guides. For example, when we got to Monaco, it was super hot.
And when I landed in the middle of the plateau before Nice, and we were almost dying with the heat, my team was there with water. And I mean, Simon Oberaner could drink because of my team in Alpe d'Huez, the four athletes. I mean, at least the Swiss guy
Patrick Van Kenel, Thomas Adorno, and I—I mean, where we could eat and drink. Thanks to my team, I mean, they were always there when I needed them; they knew perfectly what they had to do, and they know where—they knew perfectly where to be, where to settle, where to—where to be at the exact time. So that, I mean, I almost never hiked alone; I was always with one of my partners. I mean, and it helps a lot mentally to keep your motivations okay. I could, you know, avoid carrying liters of waters, so my team was really always there when I needed them, and and it's and it's remarkable. I mean, I I have I I give give them a huge thanks because they were just, uh, marvelous.
What
was the best fan, or uh, you know, locals experience you had along the way?
Um, I had plenty when, when we came to Saint-Hilaire, I, I mean, my brother has been living there for five years and I know a lot of people there. So we had a lot of people coming in and a lot of kids. It was super nice to share this with them. We had also many people during the race that, that, I mean, opened their doors and to give us, you know, just a shower or, or bring some food or some water. Or, I mean, during the whole race, we were like pushed by all those, those guys, all those persons that, that, that would just, uh, encourage us. And this, this was just a marvelous.
I Gaspar, I haven't asked anybody else this, but I would like to get your take on it. Um, you, you said before the race that, you know, the, the French this year, and I know some of the French that applied that didn't get in are incredibly strong. Like Damien Lacaze, who did the Pakistan trip with, with, uh, Antoine and this, this last Last year, Maxime showed that he's definitely just an unbelievable pilot and really, really good at this game. He had a little bit of practice with the X-Bear last year and did incredibly well there, but still Chrigel's way out in front. Do you see that anybody really has a chance? um
To be honest, I've been racing with Chrigel for four days, um, on a Swiss, uh, competition in September, and I had the opportunity, or the chance, to follow him and to see how this guy works and how we, the, how he manages to be always in the front. And I have to say, um, that there's no way for me, um, that this guy would be beaten, uh, in the next few years. Um, why? I mean, I think that a guy like Maxim is, is, um, is an extremely good pilot, and I think it's even, it could be even better than Chrigel's, uh, but the problem with Chrigel is that he doesn't have any weakness, yeah? So he's probably the best pilot, one of the best pilot, but is also, uh, one of the best, uh, on the ground.
We could see that the prologue, for example, is, uh, is, is even better than Coconia on the great days. I mean, he's, uh, he's a machine now, and he's training for this. And what people don't see is all the preparation and all the knowledge he has. I mean, this guy knows the ops just like, you know, you're a gardener, he knows, he knows everything, every, every, um, yes, he knows every, all the places. When, for example, he has an information like there's 20ks in this valley, well, he can, he knows exactly that. That means that on this other valley it would be 18 and not on the other one it would be 25, and he knows the ops like you would know your, your, your paragliding site, your personal paragliding site, and is also so that's, that's the, the, the field knowledge.
But he also knows a lot of people inside those areas, so he knows like local specialists everywhere. He knows, um, all the, the parameters that you have to watch, watch out, like, for example, the, the winds values, he knows where to pick them, uh, what do they mean? And, uh, so it allows him to make the good decisions far ahead, far in advance. And all this, a guy like Maxime, that is probably one of the, the only one that could keep up, uh, Is far from getting all this knowledge for now. Yeah, so that's that's why for me there's a huge gap and, uh, and and it will continue for for some for some years, uh, as long as Chrigel stays really focused into that.
We have to say that Kriegels spent his whole days, I mean day after day, in how to be better in hike and fly flying. I mean, this is his whole life. And he spent all his time checking every parameter and, I mean, giving his best on every parameter, which is really different from you and me. I mean, we have, I have kids, I have a job, I have many things to do. And I mean, his only, his only, yes, matter is just to be a better hike and fly, hike and fly pilot every day. And he's, for sure, in this sense, I don't see how in the next few years he could be beaten.
Yeah, I agree. I agree. Kaspar, thank you, man. I really appreciate it. We're going to have to do a real show, a mayhem show, just with you one of these days and get all your thoughts on this and a lot more. But this will be great to put all these little pieces together with a bunch of the pilots. So I really appreciate it. uh thanks for your time and and and again man god dude you'd crushed it congratulations a really really good race well thank you very much
Thank you very much for, for asking, and um, hopefully we can, we can fly a bit together in a race, or uh, or, or not, I mean, in a naval baby stuff, or something more softer, yes.
Oh, softer, softer. Sounds good right now. My feet are singing.
Thank you very much.
can't run anymore and ended up doing something crazy, like only 18 kilometers on pavement, which in this race is, is remarkable. But, uh, so really kind of took it more as an adventure and a mountaineering objective had a great support team. And he also said this was by far his best race, not his best result, but he got to, uh, he got to Monaco. He was in ninth and, uh, did some some really cool flying and some made some amazing moves in the air. Please enjoy this talk with Aaron Durogati. Aaron, uh, thanks for coming on the mayhem. I've been excited to talk to you. I'm sorry. I didn't see you in Monaco. I didn't want to go down and bear the 40 degree heat after those last, uh, those last three stable days. So I hope you had fun at the party, but, uh, congratulations on an awesome race.
I was cracking up a couple of days ago.
Maddie in Mozart Platz and, you know, everybody ran by and then there you were walking, you know, and, and, and she said, he, he didn't even look like he was trying. And I said, no, no, no, that's, he was, he was the first to take off at the Geisberg, you know, he, he, he can't run anymore on the pavement, but you trust me, he's really fast up the mountains. You're incredibly fast, man. It showed in the race, but a great, great job. Yeah. Thank you.
It was a little bit hard for me to accept the fact that I don't run with the others, because usually I used to be really strong in running, but now I have to save my knees, so I just don't run. The whole X-Alps, the prologue, and the start of the X-Alps, which was somehow not easy because this mood in the people and everything you want really to run, but I was focused on my strategy and I say, I don't run. So I was kind of walking and everyone was kind of laughing about me because it was far the last and they was thinking I'm going for a holiday or something.
But yeah, as soon as the the mountain gets deep, then I know I can push. And yeah, then I overpass many athletes and in the end I arrive up, I think I don't know, five, six, seven, I don't know. I just prepare myself and I took off and then I was, oh wow, I'm the first, yeah.
That was, that was great. Well, and and, uh, you had quite a scary moment this last year, right, with the doctor? You went to a very, very good doctor, and in Italy, you were telling me, on when we were hiking up to that launch, and who basically said, and you're like, "Aaron, you're done. You can't, you can't keep doing this stuff anymore." Yeah.
actually it was a austrian doctor okay um yeah it was in innsbruck they sent me there from the red bull training center to have uh yeah some feedback from him and And yeah, it was pretty shocking because after a kind of half an hour talk and checking out my MRI and stuff, he basically say, yeah, search a nice job in the office because it's over with the sport.
Crazy. And then you got another opinion and that one said, well, no, I think it's okay? or no
Well, anyone told me it's okay, but uh, I mean, after uh, yeah, I mean, after I was to this doctor in Austria, it was um, yeah, for sure I was having one, two weeks really, really hard, um, but then I, I was thinking, OK, it can't be that bad or I mean, it should be something I can do. So I find another doctor pretty famous in Italy, which, well, he say for sure your niece has done a lot and they are not as new. But he decided to do a surgery to me last year in June.
And then I did some plasma therapy, like plasma infiltration in the knee and some other treatment. And then I started to do some very specific training in Innsbruck on a training center to build up some more muscle, which can give me more stability. Then I was working with the doctor, which I'm used to work in Marano. Um, then I did another kind of therapy here around home, so basically my last, uh, one and a half year was, uh, working on my knee, basically. So for the week was focused to to get my knee in a in a better shape, well
Obviously, it worked, so congratulations. Uh, but you know, I mean, the exhalts to put your knees through hell, and you, you, uh, you made it, so congratulations. And I know your, your, your strategy and your attack was, was quite a bit different than it'd been in the past. You know, that instead of, you know, running and doing a lot of ground game, you really tried to fly as much as possible. And it, it really, really paid off. Um, well, let's get into these questions, Aaron, and these, these go pretty quickly, but, uh, the first is what, if anything, thing, you know, you've done this race now four times, I believe before. Um, what, what, if anything, did you underestimate about this race?
Uh, well, actually this time was for me far the best X-Alps, um, because I was basically enjoying every single day I could be in the race and I I was able to do that what I like to do, which is basically flying and being in the mountain. So this time, for me, I mean, it was kind of perfect. I mean, I'm, I'm also somehow happy with my result, because I was the one which was hiking
less as everyone and in the air, I was flying, I think really really good. Um, yeah, I'm really happy with my, my exile. I just a little bit fucked up the last day in a way, but I, I'm still happy. I did it like I did because, um, I was, I want to try to get to Monaco on flying also by flying. And so the route I choose, it was was the one which gave me the biggest chance to be in pale on my glider by flying. But it turns out to be pretty bad because I have a thunderstorm behind me, which was giving me a lot of headwind.
And that was for sure like my worst fly in the X-Alps because I was getting many collapses. I was very low. I was about two hours flying without having any landing spot, just three below me, and uh, yeah, it was a little bit, uh, not super cool, but other all I really enjoyed the whole time, and I did a lot of vertical meter, but I almost never walk in the flat, and I did all in all less than 30 k's on the asphalt on the all X-Alps, so wow, that's amazing, geez.
I did that just on the morning going to St. Hilaire. That's amazing.
18 kilometers on asphalt in Santiler, and I did a bit more than eight-nine kilometers towards Monaco the last day when I get on the on the on the goal on Pale, and that's all the asphalt I did, so wow
that's amazing god God, that's, that's incredible. Um, well then you said that you had this kind of fuck up on the last day, but my next question is what was your biggest mistake? Was it that one? Or was it, uh, what was, what was the, what was the worst mistake in the whole race? um
I did a big mistake on after Davos, but um, I was in a way lucky and um, after the bad luck, I was lucky, let's say, because when I did Davos, I was third and I hike up really fast on the takeoff and where Maxim took off, it was already in the shade for me, so I couldn't take off. So I went all the way up to this valley, which is leading to Kour. And I was basically just missing one little reach. So maybe 20 minutes to walk, to fly basically this valley, which is going straight to Kour.
But I mean, there was the thunderstorm coming. But on the basically on the east a little bit, it was blue sky clouds on three thousand five hundred meters. So I was hoping and thinking that maybe the thunderstorm will be just staying in that area of core. And so I decide, OK, fuck it, I'm going to take off and fly basically 90 degrees from the route I should fly. But my idea was to fly on the on the sunny and blue sky spot, wait there in the air, be high and then fly back direction.
Cool, but what's in in the end happened is that I took off and I got like about minus four to minus five, minus six basically till the ground of the valley, and I was thinking, okay, now I'm super fucked up like a part of having done thousand vertical meter in 50 minutes for nothing. I was like 25 kilometer or out of the, but then I was lucky because, uh, basically I was a hundred meter above the valley floor above a church. And I was pointing this church in the last 10 minutes of my super sinking, uh, flight, and exactly there where I want to have the thermal, where I expect the thermal, I got it.
But I was 100 meter above the valley, and I went from 1000 meter above ground, which was the valley floor, till 3300 all the way
And then, yeah, and then I climbed there to the cloud. I make one transition on the same side of the valley, and then I mean, it was visible. The fucking thunderstorm was just going in my direction, so then I had to fly towards the thunderstorm and land in the mountain waiting that the Thunderstone Pass. And then I was again on the on the on the right valley, let's say, but that was—I mean, you can see my track log in Davos. It's pretty stupid from the other side. I was thinking at the moment it was a good idea, and I sure not expected four to six meters all the way down to in the valley floor, yeah.
I had one of those as well, that I think day three, that's the worst. Um, okay, maybe that's your best and worst day together, but best day and worst day, well...
The best day was, for sure, the third day when I flew from Kitzbühel to Kronplatz and to Lermos and a little bit further also. So I think it was—I never really check it, but it should be more than 200—and I crossed basically the the main reach of the Alps twice. Um, yeah, there I start in the morning, I think I was like 20-something or something like that, and I finish third um in Lermos. So that was for sure the best day and it was actually a beautiful flight and I was flying really smart.
Like once I passed the valley of Innsbruck. It was a thunderstorm in Carvendale. So I fly a little bit more north is fair I see there was a convergence I could follow it. And yeah, that day I I flew really well and both the worst day, I don't know, like for sure, the worst flight was my last flight. Um, but also that in the end turns to be cool because I mean, I, uh, like I told you, I was in this valley without any landing chance for two hours. I was pretty sure I'm gonna land in the tree. and then, um, basically by fighting, fighting, fighting, um, I see one little landing field on the lee side of a little village.
It was like 30 meters, time 30, or something like that. But then, um, just before I managed to get there, I, I have to pass one little reach and I got a huge collapse ups, which, uh, there I was almost sure to crash because I was like 50 meter high and basically the old glider disappeared. So I was already thinking, okay, I have one second. If the glider open, good; if not open, I'm throwing the rescue and I, and I hope it's gonna open the rescue queue. But with 50 meters, it's pretty sketchy and in the end the glider just disappeared, but two seconds after it's reinfilate without having cravat, so that was really good.
I mean, I was lucky, I was maybe doing everything perfect, but I think the border between nothing happened and And being crashing in the tree was very, very tight.
And anyway, I managed to land in that field, in that kind of a field. And then my supporter came and I was still like 700 meters high. So and for sure, the worst for me is to walk downhill. So that's really bad now. So my supporter told me, "Okay, let's try to hike really on the top, and then maybe we can cut some tree and in some way you can take off again." But then we start to walk, and on the street, I see like the chance to take off from the street, so I took off again. But my supporter was telling me, "Aaron, what are you doing? You know it's no landing field here." He was almost crying the last two hours, so what do you want to take up again?
And I say, "Yeah, because I don't want to walk down." And I see there was like two reaches which I couldn't see in front, and basically I'm an optimistic guy, and I was, I was sure that behind the third reach, it's gonna be something to land. So I took off, hope of finding something, and basically after the third reach, it was like 10 times 10 meters landable. So I land there. Then again, I was still 500 meter high from the valley floor, so I walk two kilometer and then I did the best ever took off of the all X-Alps because I from a castle, like, yeah, a castle.
It was the only thing which was, I mean, it was not even to think about it, but the street was full of cable and there were three everywhere. So my supporter went on the castle and there was some little wind and so, yeah, I say, okay, let's try. And then I went on the castle and I took off from there and I fly all the way down till, uh, yeah, before nice
Ah, it's awesome, Aaron. You know, you're—you're kind of in a similar position to me now with your little one. You had a—you had a little boy, I think he's three now. Um, you know, I had a little girl right after the last X house. How has that affected your—because I see, you know, you're doing these huge expeditions to Patagonia and tons of ice climbing and, uh, you know, and I know you're very, very good at what you do and careful, but, uh, how has having a child changed how you approach these things that we do and things like the X-Alps?
in a way it didn't change And in a way, it changed just in a better way because when I come home, I know I have my little kid and it's my nice girlfriend.
I feel more peaceful, but I'm not doing less of the thing I like to do because of a kid in the end. um, I think to be good for them, I need to be happy. And, um, if I don't do those things, I'm not happy, so, so I'm just following that. What's my, my passion are? And right now, now it's, um, still flying and And climbing, I'm really more and more into climbing.
And yeah, probably from a normal point of view, it's not really good at what I'm doing. But I feel okay and for my girlfriend, it's okay. So we are happy.
Yeah, and she's a pilot too, so she gets it. It, um, okay. If you could prepare anything differently, you know, and again, you've—you've done the X-Ops now a number of times, so you know how to prepare, but if you could do anything differently than what you did, what would it be? Yeah.
Probably, I will have to go back maybe 20 years and a little bit saving my knees, okay?
and the question you, well, go ahead, what
Sorry, a part of this, um, yeah, you could always prepare a little bit better. Like, um, this Google Earth and knows even better the valleys and the stuff, but I'm not the guys, which, which like so much to plan and to be in front of the computer. So I think I did this time way more than what I did the other years. So I was not so much lost like the other years because normally I was really lost. This time I was lost, but not that much.
Aaron, do you find, you know, you and I now have done it together three times and you did it once before that you did in 2013 as well. all, but the, I found the pace this time, just unbelievable. You know, I mean, we had, we had in a lot of ways, pretty good weather. We weren't dealing with a lot of wind and we definitely had plenty of thunderstorms and stuff, but I found that this was the kind of the easiest flying weather of the three that I've done. But the, the, the, the pace of the, of the teams I have found just so much faster than it was in my first one in 2015. I mean, in 2015, I made so many more mistakes and still got to Monaco in good time and a better place than this time.
But this time I felt like, you know, at least for me, I was really doing better than I've ever done. And still there's, you know, 10 people out in front. I just found that the pace is getting really fast. Is that something you're noticing as well? yeah
Yeah, definitely. I think, I think this year, except the weather was, um, it was not a difficult weather because we didn't have to deal with, um, uh, strong wind or, um, super ugly thunderstorm stuff. But in, in, in the average, the weather was, was not that good. I mean, we have a—a very good day was the day where I flew Kronplatz and Lermos. And then we had like three good days. And then we have really kind of bad days in a way, because like when I was in Swiss, it was raining.
When I was in French, it was super stable. Yeah, and even of that we was covering like, um, about 90 to 110 k's air distance a day, which was really impressive like, um, or like I say I didn't walk at all on the asphalt, but I was doing a lot of vertical meter like I think I did, or I didn't check it exactly, but But roughly, I will say I did like 45,000 vertical meters. So it means I was doing like more than 4,000 a day.
Yeah, I
think that's kind of where I came in as
well. That's a lot. It's really a lot. And yeah, I think that the level was at least of the first 15 was like super high. Because exactly, if I think back at 2013 or '15, by bad days, there was a day I think in 2013 I did all in all like 40 kilometer, which is less than half of of of a bad day, uh, of DC, this, uh, Red Bull X-Alps. So, um, yeah, I think, uh, everyone become faster and, uh, way more efficient, like in the, in the way of choosing the route in the way of hike and fly, never landing really down and again, hike a bit and then fly again, whatever.
So yeah, the level is definitely super high. I mean, I, if I think with the weather we were having in 2013 or 15, we might have finished these X-Alps in seven days or eight days. Yeah.
I agree. I agree. Um, will you do it again?
Um, I think so, depends what my knee will say about it, but for sure motivated, yeah. Like, like I said from the beginning, this time, um, for me was, uh, excellent, and I really enjoy, and my team was also really cool. It was the first time I was having, um, uh, alpine guide, a good friend of mine, which was walking a lot with me, and, um, we was doing, we were sometimes really enjoying, like, the first day we went up on this, uh, taking gebirge, and we were sleeping in the tent, and in the morning having a super nice sunrise, taking off at six in the morning, um, we was having really some, some nice mountain experience.
And the general approach of the team was really in a positive attitude because I was very, how to say, like, I didn't promise them that I'm gonna win or whatever I say. Look for me, it's, it's, it's amazing that my knee let me start again this race. So let's try to do our best and let's try to have fun, yeah.
And you guys were having a heck of a battle down there between Monaviso and the end. It was—that was really fun to watch. I was in the soup going into Saint Hilaire, so I had plenty of time to just watch and watch live track. You could see, see the battle going on. It was a lot of, a lot of changing places. It was fun, yeah.
but I didn't realize because I took off with them and then, um, we had to top land and I top land differently then I was alone and then I see Gaspar and Tom. I flew a little bit different and I got really good, so then I overpassed them and I didn't saw anyone till, till the no, till the next day. Basically, I was flying alone and actually that day it was, it's happened something really funny because at the beginning it was really stable and it was super difficult to climb, but once I climbed on the before the Galibier, the day was good.
It was some headwind, but the day was not too bad, so once I was high, I was feeling safe and I was cruising pretty fast toward Brienzon and, and then I start to be tired and I'm start to almost fell asleep in the air. I was thinking, what can I do? And I start to sing, but that was not enough, so like internet connection and I basically went on YouTube and I start to watch a music video of the 90s
And I was singing like 90 songs, and then I was again awake. That's
Good, I've never heard that one, Aaron.
Well, hey man, thank you very much, uh, again, enormous congratulations. Uh, you really overcame a pretty serious knee issue to, uh, to finish in style. That was, that was awesome to watch and awesome to witness. It was so fun racing with you again and sharing some of that time with you the first day and, uh, yeah, man, that was a blast. But I, I wish you the best and Renata and your little boy and, and, uh, good healing with the knee and, and who knows, maybe we'll see each other again in a couple years at this crazy wacky race.
It'll be nice, Kevin. Thank you very much. Thank
you and
See you soon, okay? If you
Find the Cloudbase Mayhem valuable? You can support it in a lot of different ways. You can give us a rating on iTunes or Stitcher, or however you get your podcast; that goes a long ways and helps spread the word. You can blog about it on your own website or share it on, on social media. You can talk about it on the way up to launch with your pilot friends. I know a lot of interesting conversations have happened that way. And of course, you can support us financially. This show does take a lot of time, a lot of editing, a lot of storage and music and all kinds of behind the scenes costs. So if you can support us financially, all we've ever asked for is a buck a show. And you can do that through a one-time donation through PayPal, or you can set up a subscription service that charges you for each show that comes out. We put a new show out every two weeks. So for example, if you did a buck a show and every two weeks, it'd be about $25 a year.
So way cheaper than a magazine subscription. And it makes all of this possible. I do not want to fund this show with advertising or sponsors. We get asked about that pretty frequently, but for a whole bunch of different reasons, which I've said many times on the show, I don't want to do that. I don't like having that stuff at the front of the show. And I also want you to know that these are authentic conversations with real people. And these are just our opinions, but but our opinions are not being skewed by sponsors or advertising dollars. I think that's a pretty toxic business model. So I hope you dig that. You can support us. If you go to cloudbasemayhem.com, you can find the places to support. You can do it through patreon.com forward slash Cloudbase Mayhem. If you want a recurring subscription, you can also do that directly through the website. We've tried to make it really easy, and that will give you access to all the bonus material, A little video cast that we do and extra little nuggets that we find in conversations that don't make it into the main show, but we feel like you should hear.
We don't put any of that behind a paywall. If you can't afford to support us, then just let me know and I'll set you up with an account. Of course, that'll be lifetime and hopefully you'll be in a position someday to be able to support us. But you'll find all that on the website. site. All of you who have supported us or even joined our newsletter or bought Cloudbase Mayhem merchandise, t-shirts or hats or anything, you should be all set up. You should have an account and you should be able to access all that bonus material now. Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate your support and we'll see you on the next show. Thank you.