Is someone listening? Okay.
Let
me tell you the story of that guy. First you loved, then you promised. Hi
there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem.. I apologize again that we are still running a little bit late. I got kind of behind there in Mexico working on the episode with Jeff Shapiro and Will Gadd. Hope you enjoyed that one. That was one of the more important shows we put out there, but I just got back from Columbia trying to put together a couple live ones. When I was down there, we had a couple days of pretty bad weather, but that also did not come back together. But just got off the phone with Seb Espina, an old friend of mine, uh, who's been crushing. He's from, uh, Armenia down in Columbia, got started when he was 14, and he's been, uh, crushing it on comps. He won the open and and the British last year, and he was, I think, second and second in both RCA. I think he won the Open this year, and then he was just second this last week.
And the British Open is very much the same speed or even faster, I think, sometimes certainly was than the Argentina PWC this year. There's a lot of talent that go down to this thing, a lot of big names, and he's been doing really well. But he also does the whole tandem thing and interlocking seasonally, and he's been chasing the big distance flights down in Sertão in Brazil. So we had a lot to talk about and we hit on a lot of topics and I'm sure you're going to enjoy it. He's a real bright light in our sport. I've always loved Sam. He and I met when he was guiding out for the boys, Mike and Stu Belvis, out in Verbier. Great, great friends of mine who were real instructive also for me when I was getting into flying. That's kind of where both Sam and I cut our teeth was there in Verbier. So you're going to enjoy that. That before we get to the show, uh, I also promised several weeks ago that those of you who were aggressive about sharing these shows would be rewarded.
And so, I've just drawn... I couldn't, I can't reward everybody for this because I don't have enough stuff to give away, but I just drew a bunch of names out of a hat for those of you who have been sharing the last few shows. The blue fly varios, I've got two of those. Thanks, blue fly, for sending me those almost a time ago. Go, these things are awesome, great little audio, uh, varios you put on your shoulder and, uh, real low maintenance, great little tool. But those go to my buddy, Dave Hanning, out in Tennessee, and my buddy, Stein Volstad, from Norway. He's been a fan of the show from the very beginning; he always shares it, and just wouldn't be right to not give him one of these various. So, thank you, my man. Here you go. And those for those Patagonia friends and family cards. This is 40 off, uh, anything the Patagonia of sales with some exceptions and during sales and stuff, but like wetsuits aren't in in that, but most things are.
Those go to... I've got a whole bunch of those, so I'm giving a bunch of those away, and I'll contact you all. You don't need to, yeah, but I just want to put it out there that these people, I really do appreciate it, and I have seen it. And like I said, I couldn't get everybody that shared, but these are going to go to Viv Four Acre, Vivia Gill, Strap Yan, Gallon Bowen, Dwell Ben, Netterfield, Old Andy Reed. And I don't know how to say this name. I'm sorry, but Anze Priestov. I hope I'm saying that close to correctly, but thank you all. We'll do more of these in the future. I'll get some more of these cards from Patagonia and spread the love a little bit from them. But thank you. I really do appreciate it. And it goes a long ways when you spread these shows and just gets more people listening, which I think is a good thing. It's good for our community. So thanks Thanks very much.
And let's get into it. This is, I'm coming off maybe the worst couple of weeks of racing I've ever had. Got a lot going on right now with my boat life, my other life. And I think that stress was certainly playing a role, but who knows. But I certainly did not have one down at the Monarca and down at the British. Another thing I just wanted to say about the British Open is this is the first comp that I have been involved in. And that was, they were doing carbon credits to make it carbon neutral, which is amazing. Imagine 130 pilots flying in from all over the world and then taking these gas guzzling buses up to launch every day. It's always been something that has driven me crazy about paragliding in general, hang gliding, you name it. But also just flying in general is, you know, our carbon impact as a community on the earth is massive when we go to these comps.
And the British have taken it on themselves to make that part of their deal, and I just hope that they—that other comp organizers around the world would be really encouraged. Like, I was really encouraged to see down at the Venarca in Mexico this year. Miguel, good years, they are not allowing any plastic; they're not doing any water bottles up at the start. You got to bring your own container. They're supplying water, but and that's what they were doing at the British down in Columbia as well. So, I thought that was really cool to be able to offset that whole massive carbon load there with these comps. And it really doesn't end up being a ton of cost, but when they've learned that when they put it on the pilots to do it, it just doesn't happen. So they're just making that part of your fees.
A little bit of your fees are going towards offsetting the travel down to go to these comps. So I hope that sinks in with other comps and with other organizers everywhere. That's a very cool thing that they're doing. But thank you guys for doing that. It was tons of fun. It was awesome to be flying in the sky with lots of colored wings and all of my friends. It was a terrific few weeks and a good trip, even though the scores didn't add up. But they certainly did for Seb. And I tried to ply from him as much as I could how he's doing it. So here you go. Enjoy this talk with Seb Espina.
Seb, really bummed I couldn't do this with you personally, which is just ridiculous considering we had a couple of rain days down there. I should have made it happen a couple of days ago when I was still in Columbia, but you're still there. So half of us is right. And I'm back here in my very cold sound room in Sun Valley, but happy to be able to do this anyway. I've been wanting to actually connect with you on a podcast for a long time. You and I share, actually, quite a bit of background together with the whole Verbier connection, uh, which is kind of fun. But dude, congratulations on another excellent showing. Roldo seems to be, well, you're crushing it all over the world, but Roldo seems to be—you've got that place, uh, lined up, man. Hey,
Gavin, thanks a lot for the invitation, and it's an absolute pleasure to be on your show. A total honor. Hey, I'm glad we got to to make it, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, this will be—this will be a blast. I've wanted to kind of ask you about you, and I had pretty much opposite races this time around. Uh, last year I went down there coming on off the tails of Monarca, and and Monarca went okay, and then, uh, Roto went great. I had a really good race down there. You won it, right? You won it last year. You were crushed, yeah.
I won, I won both the Nationals and then the the British, which, uh, you were there on the top 10 with me, yeah.
That was, that was fantastic, and you were second a couple days ago, correct? Do I have that right? Yes, I took off before the awards, dude. That's just, I, I think also, you know, people need to understand that the British Open is, uh, very much PWC or even beyond level. I, I just came back; my last PWC was down in Argentina. And, uh, the, the level of pilots and the speed is, is certainly world cup at the British. There's just a lot of talent there. So congratulations. I want to talk about, um, kind of how you've pieced together these, these puzzles, and we'll talk a little bit about your history, but, um, let's just start with just this race. What, what kind of headspace do you try to get in, uh, before it starts?
You know, you, you had the open right before it. Do you even need to think about that or are you all kind of warmed up or what are you trying to kind of think about going into the first day
Well, Gavin, that's a good question. Actually, initially my thought was to completely forget about the events until they happened, so I did some other stuff. I did some coaching on my tandem, I spent time with family, I went to the beach, I went kite surfing. I just, I tried not to think too much about these two events since maybe there was a little bit of pressure having won both events last year and being the local whatever, the local guy who wins.
So I tried to not think too much about it until the very first day of the task. In fact, I hadn't flown my ENSO since my Brazil cross country trip. So, yeah, I tried to keep it cool. And at the end of the day, what I decided to think, how I decided to see it is that I don't need to prove anyone anything.
Yeah, just to try to stay as cool as possible. My wife, she knows that and she tries to help with that kind of headspace.
What does she do?
Well, she just moved to Interlaken with me. She's working at a hotel. Before that, she has a master in business administration. She was working at a university here in Colombia. But yeah, now we are making it work in Switzerland.
But what does she do to help you with your headspace? How does she help you kind of prepare? She
knows when, let's say, particularly my ego, you know, like all pilots have big egos and so on. And she knows that. And when she sees me kind of going off track, she tries to remember, to remind me of that. And it kind of works. And we just talk. We just talk about how I'm feeling. And, you know, just discussing that, it creates some sort of, how can I say that, some awareness into what might be happening inside my head. So, yeah, it's pretty good. one
of the things I, I, you know, that made me feel a little bit better because I, like I said, I, I had the opposite week. I just, I literally couldn't do anything right this week. It was really bizarre, and that was a funky place for me to be, so it was kind of bizarre what was happening in my head. But, uh, it helped me the last day when, you know, like Guy bombed out, and he's, he's pretty, you know, he, he's very good at being consistent. And, you know, his comment was like, ah, that's just, you know, that's paragliding, that's the game. If you had a comp where you've just blown it? You mean blowing it right at the end? No, just like the comp just didn't go. It just, you know, it wasn't clicking, wasn't working, wasn't happening.
Oh, yeah, yeah, I probably have several. But the most recent memory was the World Cup in Portugal last year. Yeah, the first day, I was really not flying how I should have been flying. And I started pushing hard from the very beginning of the first task. And basically, I was all over the place and ended up landing in first place, but not where I should be landing, which is gold.
And, uh, the second day, yeah, I flew average. So yeah, it's pretty easy to blow a comp, especially if it's only a two day comp as well. Yeah, sure.
What, um, we're getting into this earlier than I planned, but I know you've been working as a lot of other really top pilots are, you know, Patrick Von Cannell and Chrigel and Charles Cazot. You've been working with one day coaching, uh, with Thomas and I guess his team, right? It's not just him. Yeah, mainly him.
He has a big team of several coaches and so on. But they also do more on the corporate side. And Thomas is the one who pretty much has all the experience, especially initially with Chrigel and now with Charles Rousseau, Seiko, Jael Marguelis, a bunch of other top athletes from other disciplines, such as skiing and sailing and so on. and so he he's the one who kind of has all the all the experience with uh top athletes uh yeah it's pretty good and
Is that, is it pretty much 100 psychology, or take me through what you're—what are you learning from Thomas and what you know? Uh, how long you've been doing it? What do you—what are you learning? Um, how has it affected your performance, uh?
well well, it's not only psychology. He also kind of put things in perspective and lets you see the little things and also the goals that you may have and small changes or even big changes that you can make to get to those goals. It's not only on what's happening with my mind, but also perhaps other technical things which I can do to improve my results or help me get to my goals. So since he has all the experience in preparation with Chrigel for the X-Alps, I think he can translate that onto, you know, normal competition flying or acro training or whatever.
And also the good thing is that, you know, He doesn't have a standardized way of working, is my impression. He just sees what you more or less need and what your goals are and who you are. And if he has anything to say coming from another athlete's problems or ways of solving things, he will kind of give you an example that might not work for you. So yeah, it's pretty good. Can you give me
any specifics? I'm just thinking about the folks listening and I'm one of them for sure.
You know, if I could, if I didn't have access to Thomas, what would be some of the kind of tips and strategies that you've learned from him that we could pass on? You know, is it, are you, are you going to him and go on, listen, I, you know, I think I'm gliding pretty well, but I could be a better climber or, or is it more, gosh, I, you know, day three of every comp, I start getting nervous and anxious and I, I need to learn how to relax. You know, what, what kind of stuff do you take to him and what would be his solution?
Perhaps, you know, perhaps he would ask you, how ready are you for the next cross country racing record trip? And I would say, okay, I'm ready this, this, and this way. He would say, okay, what percentage are you ready? Are you 80 % ready, 90 % ready? I would say, okay, I'm 95 % ready. Okay, what would take you? What do you need to do to reach that 100%? And then you start thinking and it's like, okay, it's probably I'm not 95% ready, I'm probably a bit less, maybe just 80% ready. And then you realize there is a whole lot of stuff to do that you still need to prepare and such things, and then normally just write it down.
Also, something that is very important, kind of just write it down and feedback. You know, like you learned, you have to be writing down what have you done wrong, what went right and why you took certain decisions. And if you have like a notebook and you write down all of these things, even if you don't look at it back, I think it has some effect. So a little bit of that.
Maxime talks a lot about that in his book. Maxime Bellaman talks about the importance of journaling, you know, that just having a little notebook in your flight deck. So when you land, instead of kicking your helmet and getting all pissed off, you just take a few moments and write it all down. And like you said, actually, you said the same thing. You don't need to actually go back to it. But it's just a matter of kind of cataloging, you know, what you've done right, what you've done wrong, kind of developing that growth mindset to get better.
Absolutely. I think so. Also, another point, you know, I guess you've already talked perhaps to Hugh Miller about the concept of what the monkey is and how it affects you and how, you know, mindfulness and all that helps them. So, you know, Thomas also likes to teach you about that concept of mindfulness and, you know, controlling the bloody monkey.
Is that, are you doing that through meditation or some other way?
I kind of talk to myself a lot. Yeah, I sometimes get my headspace up. I fire it up and use it a little bit, but also I just kind of talk to myself a lot, and I try just to, you know, like if I'm feeling angry, I tell it to myself, "Okay, I'm feeling angry. Why is that?" And if I'm being, you know, a little bit of an angry driver or something, I try to be aware of that and control it, you know? So it's just that. And when I'm flying, I'm very aware when my monkey's out. And sometimes I let it get out to play, but sometimes it needs to stay in the cage.
What general mindset are you looking for going into a comp? You know, I've heard all kinds of things. You know, some pilots really like going in kind of hungover and being kind of tired because they're not so wound up. You know, other other pilots, you know, the mostly what I hear is, "Oh man, the best thing is just to be relaxed." You know, it's just to be calm and relaxed, and um, you know, but I still see, I come from a background of really short duration, high-intensity sports, so like the opposite of the X-Alps, you know, it's like ski racing, that kind of thing, where you know, my recipe back when I was ski racing was like Metallica, you know what I mean? I wanted to get as ramped up as I possibly could.
I like, I did not want to be calm. I wanted to be like, I could just reach out and crush somebody. And because it was a downhill, I was going to be skiing at 75 miles an hour and taking huge air. And I just needed to be, I needed to be, you know, I don't know, like, like a metal hatch is like, that's where I needed to be. But now I, I actually don't know, you know, Um, like a lot of my, my, my bigger flights have always been when I'm really, you know, either tired or really calm. Um, but racing, I haven't really figured out, you know, like I, I can't identify what was different about last year at the Brits and this year, uh, you know, I just, this year didn't work last year did, but I haven't really figured that out.
Hey, that's a very interesting question. I think after talking to Thomas, one of the things we did, we wrote down in my cockpit kind of, well, I don't know if you call it my mantra or my priorities and so on. In this cockpit, I have what I should be thinking about, let's say. First of all, it's safety. Have a safe takeoff and safe landing. Fun. Make sure I'm having fun. Um, also ideally be making good decisions, have a clear mind to make the decision.
Um, also very importantly for me, the mindset in which I want to be is to be sane. I think of, I don't know, like Yoda or something like, I want to be sane. I want to be cool in the, in, in, in these situations, even for competitions. And when you think about, you know, all the top racers in the world, they're pretty chill. And I mean, someone like Russell, he's a pretty chill guy and he just crushes it, you know, in the races. So I think that's, as you say, like it is a pretty long game, you know, it's a two, three hour race. If you're all pumped up, you're probably going to get tired pretty soon.
Yeah,
duh. And I think you're a lot more, you're much better at observation when you're really calm.
Absolutely. I think just to try and have a clear mind and, and yeah, because it's hard, it's hard. I mean, it's easier said than done, but yeah, I mean, I don't, I'm not always cool, but that's where, what I aim to do, to be. being
These mantras, um, that you have on your cockpit, do you also have stuff that you just kind of generally repeat in your mind? Um, you know, Nick Neynens, I think, Adele, quite a few people have been on the show, actually. I've had had some really good ones that they use when things are real stressful, but I don't often find comp flying very stressful. I find it more—it's better to just, you know, my mantras are along the lines of like, you know, just breathe, you know, just look around, just relax, you know, especially if I get dropped, you know, then it's, you know, Mitch Riley said, you know, the best thing when you're behind is you, the worst thing you can do is just keep piling on the mistakes.
You know, that's just going to keep putting you on more. Like if you start, if you start trying to fly differently because you've gotten dropped, you're just going to hit the dirt, right? You know, you have to, you have to, you have to just like do what you do best.
Yes. I don't have anything in particular that I say to myself in this situation. I just, as you say, I just try to remember to breathe. I think it's pretty easy to be out of breath, you know, and, you know, the mind needs oxygen, just bring it in and try to breathe. So, yeah, I think I always, you know, before takeoff, everyone gets a bit nervous and pumped up and I can see, you know, my heart rate going up and so on.
The one thing I just try to do is to breathe really deeply and to get all the oxygen in and to cool myself down. So, yeah, I agree.
Let's switch gears a little bit. It, the um, when I, when you and I met initially, you were guiding for the boys, Mike and Stew, uh, Belvis in Verbier and, uh, you know, I know that I don't even know if you were into comps yet, then I think you were, um, but, uh, what, you know, that was quite a while back. Now you've been at this game for a long time now and you're, you're kind of, you're flying, you're around, you're doing the tandem thing real intensely out in Interlaken, you know, you've been chasing the big distance down in Brazil and the Sirtal last few seasons. Um, you're doing comps as much as you can, obviously. What advice would you like to pass on to the pilots just getting into comps, you know, and not stuff like even the British, you know, but you know the BGD Open and the waitlist, the lower level stuff?
Um, what would you like to pass on to them, some of the things that you learned to help you get to where you are now?
I think one thing is to, let's say, fly the shit out of the glider which you have. So, if you, if you're flying a B, fly the shit out of it, and until you're making at least 100 k's on it, then you move on to the C. And you know, you need to really fly the shit out of your glider before you move on to something else. And maybe for you and for me, we made the mistake of moving up pretty quick. Um, I flew quite a lot my first glider, which was a big. I flew 300 hours on it, but then I moved up into, uh, this straight away.
Uh, I did 30 hours on it, and then I moved onto a comb glider, and then my flying went back like, I don't know, maybe a year or two while I managed to get the hang of this level of comb gliders protos or whatever. So, yeah, just do your process, don't rush it, and
make sure you are the best in your class before you are actually moving on to something else Yeah,
Jeff, the last show we just put out with Jeff and Will, we talked about that quite a bit. I think when people get into comps and you just see the performance of the CCC gliders, obviously that can be pretty discouraging. But you know what? What you just said is so true. That, you know, the glider is not going to make you a better pilot; you know, it's the hours that are going to make you a better pilot. And, you know, just jumping on that better glider isn't gonna, isn't gonna bring the results. You still have to get really good. We just, you know, the Monarca this year was, uh, it's always so eye-opening to fly with Josh Cohn because last year he flew it on the Omega and got second, and then this year he flew on the Z Alps and got, I think he got second or third.
You know, he's just like, you just can't drop the guy, and and and he flies so little. You know, he's, he flies that comp maybe one, another one in a year, and doesn't get many hours anymore, but he's been at it so long. And like you said, he has flown the shit out of every glider for, for decades, and, uh, you know, so he can just show up, up, and crush. And it's, it's very inspiring, but I think it's also, I think it's a great lesson for all the, all the pilots out there that are like, "Man, I gotta get a better glider." No, you don't. You need to, you need to be rad on the glider. You got, yeah.
Absolutely, that's the best lesson I think. Um, yeah, I mean, uh, when I got my first chrome glider, it was a Airwave FR2 or something like that, man, I was afraid of pushing bar on that thing. It's like, what's the point? What's the point of flying something I'm scared of? So, yeah, someone like Josh, who is a total flying legend, he is there to prove that point.
It's the pilot. Yeah,
totally. It's the pilot. You're doing some guiding coming up with Pál Takáts. Tell me about that. What's, uh, you know what? What kind of level are you guiding and, uh, how do these things work? And, you know, I'm just curious how you and Pal take on the the subject of teaching, yeah?
it was originally a pulse idea you know he moved into colombia he's spending pretty much a half of the year here in Columbia. Um, me also, I spent some months here. So, um, he had the idea to start bringing our pilots from Europe who are, you know, like looking to improve their cross country skills. And, but also, you know, we have to push them. We want to push them to make their personal best to, it's, it's not only a holiday, but you know, we, we want to make them better and safer pilots. So of course, Pal has, you know, so much knowledge about safety and cross country that people are happy to come.
And, yeah, we work more or less in average three pilots per instructor, which is a good ratio. Normally, people, if you already know how to take off and land okay, we will teach you everything. And it's impressive how within two weeks people can improve so much. We had a guy last year who had learned to fly less than a year before, and he was already flying 65Ks on an A glider with us. So that's just so rewarding to see, Gavin. To see someone who just learned to take off a few months back and already crushing it in the Valle del Cauca, it's so cool.
So we had other people definitely, well, pretty much everyone came out a better pilot. So we're looking to do that again this year. Hopefully the weather helps. Yeah, working with pilots is also so interesting because we also learn things from each other when we are giving these talks. We also learn little tricks that we didn't have, so that's also quite cool. yeah
What glider? What glider will you each fly when you're doing that kind of guiding? Well,
Um, we we try as much as we can to also use the tandems, okay? And so, you know, like a paddle has a swift max and my magnum three, and that's good enough to fly cross country here in to keep up with them with the clients. And it's it's a very good tool, Gabby, to take someone else and so that they can see your your thinking process. And also, when you are vocalizing that, when you are, you know, pretty much saying what you're thinking about the day and about your decisions, it it kind of helps you understand yourself a bit better as well. So, so, so yeah. Yeah, that's pretty good. And for when they don't go on the tandem, we use Bs and C gliders.
It's better. The least performance, the best, because we have to come down a lot on spiral or in Paul's case, doing helis or whatever.
Good chance for him to practice some acro coming down from cloud base. Absolutely, yeah. That's great. Great. Um, if there's three things that you see over and over again that you know, in in this, in this kind of group of pilots that you're, you're teaching—so lower-hour pilots, you know, folks that are pushing for their first 50 and 100k kind of thing—what are the, what are the three things that you and Pal tend to bring up the most in terms of, "Here's what you got to learn"? Well,
that's a good good question. Let me, let me think about that. Um, you know, normally one thing we, we, we, we see with all newbies when they start to thermal up is that they're a little bit afraid of, you know, making the turn a little bit tight. They turn a bit wide. That's kind of one thing that we have to keep repeating on the radio, you know, crank it up, go on, go on, go on. Um, what else? pitch control that's also super important and that's something that people can practice you know like in the ground you know like with a little bit of winds
So we kind of push them a little bit to do a lot of ground handling, just simply because that's a way to improve in so many ways—to make your takeoffs better, to your landings, and also your or just to be able to fly efficiently and safer, you know? So we want them to do that a lot, actually.
And what else would be the third one that we try to teach them while we are flying? Just observation. Observation is a very important part of cross country flying, Mainly because what we have very often is two people in different thermals; one is going up higher, you know, stronger than the other, and and the other one is not even noticing that. We have to keep on telling them, "Please observe, look what's going on around you," and when that when someone is climbing better than you, don't be afraid to go and join them, and you know, then then you fly together. And so to observe, like in Guaya del Cauca, we have many free flyers around.
You can use them even for competitions to show you the thermals. And yeah, I mean, that goes a long way. Observe for birds and for, you know, maybe you are close to a terrain and you see the grass is shaking or whatever. So observation is a big part of this kind of progression. but very often the mind is a little bit clouded with you know keeping the glider open and so on so it's perhaps something that also comes with ours as well has
There been any like breakthroughs in your when you look back the last 10 years and look at comps, was there something you could kind of throw a dart at and go, "Yeah, that was the thing that allowed me to consistently break the top 10"?
Yeah, that's a very interesting question. Well, first of all, unfortunately, I didn't qualify for Superfinal, but one thing that I think improved my flying a lot and perhaps is the reason why I did well last year and I did well this year, it is having spent Spent so much time flying cross country in Brazil last October, you know, because it's like a proper, let's say, I don't know, a boot camp or something. You know, you go there and you are flying your ass off and then you spend a long time in the car and then you fly again.
But perhaps the hours are so intense and the flying is so intense and you are doing it, you know, not once a month. You're doing it three times or four times a week.
That perhaps it kind of comes into your subconscious or somehow, you know, it's like a proper training. Like what the boys do in Organia with the acro, perhaps is what happens in Brazil with the cross country. So if you look into maybe when Michael Siegel, when he won the Superfinal here in Colombia, He had just spent a couple of weeks, two, three weeks in Brazil chasing records. So, you know, when Honoran won here in Colombia in the World Championships, he also spent some time in Quixadá just before that. So perhaps, you know, like I did feel like after that Brazilian season,
that I had way more confidence, you know, like diving in low. And, you know, when I was maybe 100, 200 meters off the ground, I'm still cool. I'm still zen because I had to deal with all of that in Brazil. Not once, not twice, but maybe 50 times. Yeah, you do a lot of low
saves there.
Jeez. So perhaps that just like thermal finding or finding the core. You've done it, you know, in a single flight in Brazil. I don't know how many times you have to do it. Maybe 50, 50 times or whatever. Um, so perhaps that I think one of the breakthrough, yeah, perhaps realizing that all these hours somehow translate into my competition flag
I'm curious, take any of the days that we had this last week, um, how does your mind, how does your mental approach change as the The day goes on. So, yeah, let's call it 100K task or maybe like the task down to Pita Chinche, which is like 130.
Are there times when you're different or are you trying to stay level-headed the same all the way through? I mean, including the final break.
I wish I had stayed level-headed on that task all the way through. Because initially Pal had again kind of a gap on us, and at that point I was very clear with me. I tried to stay level until the moment, until the moment when I caught him up like after I don't know 80k or whatever he was, so fast. And then I overtook him, and then I tried to fly as a team with him, but I think our minds went kind of weird. Like Pal was confused somehow by the decisions I was making, and I was, and we wanted to fly as a team, but we couldn't kind of coordinate, and that was a bit of a distraction.
And also having the, you know, such a top goggle chasing us. put on some pressure on us at that point. We, our decisions were clouded, and yeah, we lost a little bit on the the final
But normally, I wish I could stay level-headed all the time, just to use the logic mind as much as I can. Had I used it on that day, maybe Pal and I would have won the day or something, yeah.
because I often what gets me a lot is often the first day and then then late on in a race where I'm doing well and I get too excited for both of those. The first day I get too excited. I'm just so excited. I'm in the air and I'm doing well and it's fun. And I'm like, Oh man, I'm with Lee Gow. This is great. This is great. It's great. And I just start pushing too hard. And then the other one I do, and I've done it a lot. So I, and I've journaled about it a lot.
But yeah. And then the other one is like, you know, as the, Is the day is closing and it's like, okay, 20k, 18k, 16k, and I just get so excited, you know? I just the level head, it goes right out the door, you know? And, uh, so yeah, maybe maybe the question should be not, not really that day, because a lot of the listeners weren't down there in Columbia. I have no idea what we're talking about, but just, do you have, uh, do you kind of have a recipe for or sticking with the, you know, here's my, here's my, do you have it? Do you, I mean, like when you take off, it's like, okay, this is my game plan.
Yeah. I mean, on an ideal day, Gavin, I want to make very few decisions. And the few decisions I make is because I know I'm going for sure. So in Columbia, like flying down the reach, I know it pretty well. So I know when to dive, when to push, when to slow down. Right. Right. But ideally, in an unknown place, I want to use not so much my knowledge, but just kind of other people's knowledge until maybe 20k is out. And that's when I have to get creative somehow. But it's hard because everyone else needs to get creative. Right. Right. But, you know, for instance, on the last stage of the bridge, everyone headed on the way where you would normally head.
But I didn't see clouds on top that were promising. And I saw a cloud that was looking promising, but out of where normally people go. And that's where the good climb was.
So, so, yeah, I tried to get creative right at the end. but you know, that can come back and bite you like it did on the first day for me. But yeah, but mentally I want to stay cool the whole time, even because in the past I've had many moments when I thought I had never won a task, you know? Like, I don't know, like five years ago, and whenever I came close to winning a task, I would get so excited. I would, my heart would start pumping, and I'd be like, "Yes, I'm gonna nail this." One time I was about a glide, a 6 to 1 glide to goal to win a Superfinal task, and I didn't get there.
So I had all these crushing moments that made me realize, okay, I have to cool it down on finals, and just, yeah, maybe if, maybe I will win a task, time will tell. But, but I want to stay cool when I'm on final, even if everything is looking for sure. So if I'm on final and I'm first and I have a glide to goal of 4-1, okay, I'm still not celebrating early or getting excited. I'm just looking at my glider and my leading edge and making sure it doesn't close. And yeah, it's mainly that I try to... And then I save the celebration for the end, for after I make it.
Your main job of the year, and I imagine this is what provides most of your funding, you're doing the tandem thing and interlocking, which is no joke. I know you guys are doing a ton of those every day, and it's very hard work. But before we started recording, I asked that, and you were like, Oh, man, I love it. It's great. Do you think it's, it's, I've heard a lot of people say that they don't think flying tandems is good for their own personal flying. How do you feel about that?
Yeah, I think that's, uh, that comes to each individual. In my mind, I kind of separate what tandem flying is from flying my Enzo 3, you know? So, you know, I do, you know, like every job, it can become a little bit dull after doing doing it several times, but I'm still craving flying my ENSO for a cross country flight after that. I do get, I do have maybe some colleagues that, you know, don't want to see a paraglider after the season. So that's totally respectable. I don't know how that would feel, but perhaps it's trying not to overdo it. I mean, the tandem thing is very attractive when you have You know, a lot of customers coming through and you want to save up a lot of money for your holidays in winter and so on.
But also, perhaps if you are overdoing it, it's also not so healthy. So, for instance, my tandem season, nearly each month I have a week off to do competitions or something, you know. On my first tandem season, I remember I was getting pretty fed up. But that was simply because I was working. I wanted to work, only work. And I didn't even do many comps that year. But at the end, the motivation went down quite badly. So I realized that I had to slow down a little bit with the excessive work and also take some time to enjoy the beauty of normal flight, solo flying or flying with my wife or, you know, not something that doesn't involve money for sure.
Yeah. But for me, I stay passionate with or without tandems.
So you're, you're down in Armenia now, which is about an hour from, uh, from world to Neo, uh, rewind the clock way back. How did you get into all this? What was the catalyst? How'd you start flying? Did you start flying there? And then how did, how have you gone from there to be in, you know, chasing records around the world and comps and doing the tandem thing in Switzerland yes
I started to fly, and when I was 14, and at the time I didn't have any other hobbies, I was not a sporty boy. I didn't have anything I really, really liked, so my mother kind of saw that, and when she saw that I sort of like paragliding, she went all in, and she let me do it, which is kind of scary for a mother to see their 14-year-old child going into it, but so it was a good thing. And yeah, I started to fly right here with a very old glider with an airway drive, which was from the year '92. Oh man,
You were flying a parachute, yeah?
That was interesting, but I... I grand handled the shit out of that glider, and my instructor really made a lot of emphasis on that, on that, and that I should grand handle a lot. And I came to really like it, so whenever I could, I would, even in, you know, in the football pitch where I live and
So yeah, I flew that year, not so much. Then the following year, every weekend I will be flying. I would be saving up my my lunch money to go flying, and then on the third year, I started competing. I did all the local leagues. I had a massive glider, I had an aqua alegra later on, which was 29 square meters, and I used to weigh 65 kilograms back then. So it was a huge glider for me. I was lucky that that year was really weak in all the competitions, and I would manage to be in the top 10 in the overalls in all the competitions, just simply because I would be like in a balloon
floating around
so that was a funny one, flying with boomerang fours around me and I was on my little balloon on my huge balloon out climbing them
So, so yeah, that was. Then I had to move on to to the UK to study English and do my university and so on, and that was a bit tough because I didn't get to fly much. I spent nine months without flying, which I think it was because of that and some other things. It was the darkest nine months of my life. Is your dad British? And my stepdad, he's Colombian and British. Okay, so thanks to him, I, I get to to fly in Switzerland and all that. Okay, yeah, so, so yeah, then I, I met Mark Watts down in the UK, and he really encouraged me to go fly and kind of mentor me out there, and what a great mentor he is.
And you know, I used to fly also without burial even in competitions, and I was really, really kind of against it, and it was Mark who basically handed me a burial, and he told me, "No, you're giving" You're in disadvantage, man. Like, you should have with a—you should fly with a burial. So, thanks to him, I also fly with burials. And so, yeah, those flying in the UK is very interesting. I didn't get to do many hours. That's why I moved to Switzerland to work with the boys. You
worked with Mike and
Stu. Yeah. And then I got to fly a lot. That was the first year when I got to fly like so many hours. I don't remember how many, maybe 300, 400 hours. That was cool.
Yeah, and it's a beautiful place, and it's kind of protected. I think we both kind of cut our teeth there.
Absolutely, yeah. I would say so. I learned so much over there.
Cool. And then I remember like the last, I think it was the 2015 X-Alps, which brought me right through Verbier, you know, so after the race I came through and, uh, I might have the year off by a year or so here, but I remember one of the times I saw you, you were really excited because you'd just gotten the Swiss sign off with the, uh, the tandems and you were going out to Interlochen.
Yes, I was, you know, that's kind of a process. It took me a full summer to do the license. And the idea originally was to work with voice. But then I got offered the gig in Interlaken by a friend. And I couldn't say no, you know how it is. It's a lot
more tandem.
It's Interlaken, yes. So, so also the opportunity to be around so many really good pilots who live there, you know, it's, it's, it's like a hub of champions, you know? So I wanted to be there. I wanted to learn from them and I'm still learning from them. So, yeah, that's so good.
Yeah, that is good. Are you able, when you take these week breaks in the summer, when you're doing that, when you're in the full on tandem season, do you often, you know, jump in the car and go you know just go wrap out some big xc flight somewhere in the alps or is that just downtime you just go kite surfing do something else
Um, I think it comes down to the weather, like, um, and I mean, the comps are the comps. I go, I go there no matter what. If I see a good day coming up, going XC, and I can manage to get the day off, a wood last year I only managed to get, uh, in the season, apart from comps, two good XC days. One was when we top landed the Mont Blanc and then we took off again and flew to the Matterhorn, and the other one, yeah, and then the other one was 260k triangle, which we did, yeah. I needed it for the XC contest. Apart from that, I didn't really manage to get the days to go for more XC like that.
Not so much, mainly, yeah. When the weather would be allowing, I would go kite surfing as well, yeah. Will
You keep doing the Sertau thing. Is that kind of yearly? Because I think you've been down there the last three years, haven't you?
I skipped, I did 2016, I skipped 2017, and then 18 and 19. I did it again. I will try my best to do it this year; perhaps I'll try a different place. I want to mix it up. Uh, yeah, we'll try this year, but perhaps the following year I will, I will chill, because it's, you know, it's kind of exhausting and expensive to go there as well. It
Is exhausting. I did the whole Tasima thing on my own, uh, before those guys. Oh man, it was brutal. And, uh, in Tasimas, you know, they did it, you know, they got the record there this year, but they towed there and back. Back then, when we were there, uh, you know, we weren't towing and so it's, you know, barely light when you launch and most of the time you can't even launch, you know, it's raining or it's just too windy and it's pretty dicey. And the launch, it's not, I mean, it's, it makes Keisha to look like a block in the park. And then, uh, and then you, you have to ridge soar for quite a long time. You know, it's not on yet at all. And then you get enough height to bench back to this, you know, 3k ridge behind it. And that's a little bit higher. And then you bench there for a little bit, and then you got to clear like a 40k plateau, and it's just ripping, and there's lots of power lines, and the cloud base, you know, you're right on the ocean there, so your cloud base is like right off the dirt.
So you got to clear this like 40k gap before, and then it drops away, and then you can start getting established. But man, I mean, most of the time you're back at the hotel before eight, and you know there's no wi-fi, there's no food in this little town. It's, man, it is bleak. It's not the experience that I think a lot of people are having in, like, ASU, and certainly not like he should have. And it was work. It was like, man, I'm obviously here to do a job. It was, it was tough going, yes.
I have lots of respect for the record Brazilian guys, oh man, those guys, because they did it from there. Yeah, they had to endure you all of that, yeah.
When, when I was there, those guys were there, Rafael and Marcello and Samuel and, uh, you know, the year before was when they got the 564, when they got the record, and it was 39 days, and they flew three. Can you imagine? I mean, they like, so when they showed up that time when I was there, they were there for three days. Samuel kind of had a hard landing and hurt his shoulder and a bunch of wind and, uh, and they were just like, "God, you know what? Fuck it, we can't do it." But this year, we just don't have the mental aptitude to deal with it. And they took off and I was like, Oh man, I need you guys around. No, wait a minute. But, uh, 39 days, they got three. I mean, it's, man, it's, it's tough work.
That's proper resilience. That's why, that's why they're the record guys because they fight for it. They
fight, they fight hard. Were you guys doing ASU or Keiko? This year. Last year, you mean. You did it this year, yeah?
Again. This year, I think as soon as I might not do it, it's a really good place for doing 400 plus. Okay. But I feel that it's a bit difficult to do the 500 because when you get a little bit of southern influence on the wind, basically you have to overcome to our space. to airspace, so we have a Mosoro and then Fortaleza. So when the wind is pushing you towards airspace, it's not efficient, so I might try somewhere up in Mosoro or maybe even Kaiko. I have to discuss that with with them with them with maybe Fly With Andy or whoever is operating there, but then
yeah maybe Kaiko maybe we try and find our own place who knows where Yeah,
that's a very interesting game. So for listeners that haven't been down there, what would you say or kind of, you know, what would you want to tell new people that are thinking about going to the fly to Sertau to be kind of ready for? I think that sounds like towing is a much safer way to get in the sky than, you know, than the typical launches there, whether that be Patu or Quixadá or Tesima or whatever. But it's also pretty for real. I was amazed like the, you know, the terrain is not, you know, it's not Australia where it's just nothing. It's, you know, it's not like flying Dinelequin, which I did for a few weeks back in, I think it was 2014. But, you know, there it's more like the lack of roads.
And if you land out somewhere, you really literally could die from the heat. Whereas the Sertau, it's like cactus, man. There's some really serious stuff that you would not want to land in.
Yeah, the Sertau has some really unlandable areas. I would say in the case of Azul, we were kind of okay. Yeah, I mean, with the towing, it's certainly much safer than going to Quixadá and getting thrown about in the compression. The towing just takes away the pressure of takeoff and the pressure of gaining height so that you can lift.
So you can already feel it in your heart, you know, like you are not so scared, you are not so anxious, you are just ready to go, you see.
And the landing options are generally quite fine from Azul.
And also a cool thing, as you probably already know, Gavin, is the local people. You land and they will take care of you so well. So that kind of helps when you're landing out. People will come and help you. As a recommendation, as usual, treat it. You know, you have to treat these kind of long flights also. So how would you treat any endurance sport, you know, like when you go biking for six hours or when you're going to a marathon or something, you have to stay hydrated, to stay, you know, nourished and to eat well and to stay healthy, to stay fit.
It, yeah, don't treat it like a normal flight where you maybe have a sandwich in the morning and then go and fly for five hours. This is a bit more serious, and you can get easily very dehydrated over there. And then, yeah, you need to be prepared. Carry less water and have a plan. Force yourself to eat and be prepared for emergencies. We all have to carry an emergency kit as you, you already know, it's very important to carry the alarm or a spot, and that's, um, you know, an essential piece of kit over there. And for sure, to have a good team, a good ground team chasing you, it's very important.
Yeah, yeah.
for sure we
We were really blessed with the team we had this year from from Flight Track Expedition. They had this massive four by four chasing us around the, and they have this system where it's a bit like it doesn't go through the Internet. You have like satellite, I don't know, sort of positioning that allows the truck to see where you are without needing. Wow. Yeah, it was developed by Martin Portman. I don't know how, but it was pretty, pretty good so that the trucks, they don't need internet connection to find your spot. Um, it just, it's just on the go wherever you are and that allows for some pretty cool rescues, pretty sparse rescues.
And, and also you, you feel a bit safer, don't you? That's great.
That's super nice to have that. What a, what a cool development.
Yeah. Yeah. You should talk to Martin. That's pretty interesting.
I don't know
if, if, um, where, where else they could have it, but that was amazing.
What have you learned about flying the flats that's different than flying in the Alps?
Yeah, flying in the flats, you know, it's a bit more of a gamble, right? You see a cloud, maybe the cycle is on, maybe it's dying already. So you need to observe a lot what's going on with the clouds. And the more you fly, the more you learn how to read when a cloud is dying or growing. For me also, a new cloud is actually better than a big cloud. You know, like a big cloud might be already dying and you don't know. A new cloud is always like a more sure bet. And and also, you know, perhaps I don't know if it works with all gliders, but perhaps, but I know with my Enzo, when I'm flying low, I just let it guide me to the thermal and and it works pretty well.
I just let the thermal pull my glider into it and obviously find an area where you know there could be some thermal activity, and when you're kind of searching and you're getting little bubbles and so on, I let my glider do the work, which I don't know if it works in the mountains so much. In the mountains, it feels like you go more for a short thing, and you can plan out your route more precisely because you know exactly where the thermals are coming. But in the flats, you know, it's all cycles and you need to learn to read them. Yeah.
One of the things I learned from Jeff Shapiro when I was down in Quichida a few years back is about sink in the flats too. That, you know, often when I'm in the mountains, You know, if I, if I enter, you know, really pretty strong sink, I won't necessarily be nearly as aggressive about getting out of it as I am in the flats, because I know it's going to change pretty quick. Whereas in the flats, because you've got all that wind, uh, especially in the surtau, that you know, you're beyond the ground, if you stay in it like that, you have to be radically aggressive about getting out of the sink, you know? So like, you know, because we're always kind of taught when we first learned, you know, you know, turn 30-45 degrees and hit more speed bar.
And, and Jeff was like, "Yeah, that's not enough. In the flats, in the surtout, it's 90 degrees and, and hammer speed bar." You know, like, be really aggressive about it. And, you know, it's, it's hard to visualize, but he seemed to be onto something with that.
Yeah, I mean, certainly, you have to get out of there. I often, I don't know, in my case, I feel kind of encouraged when, when, when I feel that I'm thinking out a lot, I'm like, I get this feeling that, okay, something good is coming, something good is about to happen. Yeah, so I try to push through that a little bit, but it's, it's mentally a little bit challenging because you're also thinking a lot and you don't know when is it coming and the ground is coming closer and closer, very fast. And sometimes it kind of works, sometimes you just bump and, but normally with sync, I just try to push really hard through it and get out of it.
I
learned something. It was just I hadn't heard it phrased this way, but we did this bonus episode recently. I was down at this Red Rocks fly-in in, uh, in southern Utah this fall, and there's a guy, legend instructor here, Ken Hooten Jorgensen. I never say his last name, right? But been around a long time. In fact, he told a story at this thing about how he was—he's pretty sure he invented the reverse launch, at least in North America, you know? So that was—I'm sure it was probably happening in Switzerland and France about the, the same time, but um, he was certainly the first one that did the first one here, which is pretty cool. But anyway, he's been around a long time, some fantastic instructor, and he was talking about, you know, when you're on glide, if you feel something, go towards it.
It doesn't matter if it's sink or if it's a thermal, you go. You know, let your, let your wing go toward—like our wings, I think, the really higher aspect two-liners kind of do. Like, I often do that often, especially if I'm kind of struggling, I'll just close my eyes and let the wing do the work and just let it go, especially in the X-outs. You're kind of tired, taking a little cat nap, you know? But just let the wing go to the lift. But, uh, you know, because around most lift is, is sink, and so if you, if you just, if you feel, if you're feeling something, it's probably good. It might not initially be good, it might be sink, but then it'll be a thermal. So yeah, I was not that this week was representative, cause I was flying so, so poorly at the, at the British, but I was, I was trying that a lot and it almost always worked just, I feel something I'm going to go to that.
And, and it's almost always something good.
Yeah. I think he might be onto something really. I mean, if, if the air is moving is for a reason, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
If it's
moving down, it's gotta be moving up closer. I'm like you, Whenever I feel like strong sink, I'm like, ooh, there's a goodie. There's a goodie coming here. It's going to be a good one.
Just got to find it before I hit the deck.
Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of the race, finding it before you hit the deck. Yeah. I think the gliders help. I don't know if all gliders do it, but I know mine likes to help with the thermal. And I remember two years ago, like my glider was a bit crooked, It, I think, with the lines or whatever, so I would approach where I would think the thermal is. I would approach it on the right, and I would let my glider, kind of with with the tone that it had, to the left, kind of guide me into the core, and it was actually quite funny, but it worked. That's great several times, so yeah, so Seb
Uh, you, you, uh, you gave us that great history of, you know, coming out of Columbia and learning there, and then coming over to the UK. Uh, you've been chasing it pretty hard now for a bunch of years. You're doing the tandem thing and interlocking, which is, you know, definitely a very real job, and that's, that's a lot of flying. Uh, you're doing the surtout thing, you're doing a bunch of comps. Um, I'm experiencing something for the first time in my flying career, which is kind of, uh, I don't know if I'd call it a lull, but there isn't that spice that I've always really enjoyed with flying, and there's, and there's a lot of kind of personal questioning, especially this happens more when you don't do very well to comp, so I'm coming off that, that a bad week, but, uh, you know, a bit of a, just kind of like, what's this all about?
You know, what does this all mean? You know, why is it important? Which is, this is new. I haven't experienced this before. I'm flying, I'm just wondering if you ever been through a lull in this, you know, and you're because you always seem pretty psyched about flying and pretty enthusiastic, and I don't know if I've ever seen you without a smile, so, um, but I'm just wondering if there's, you know, if there, there have been lulls that you've had to push through?
Yes, Gavin. There was, I mean, my first lull was when I moved on to the UK, but I had to stop flying, not because I wanted, but because I couldn't. But I remember later on, once I was in university, and it was right about the time when they stopped allowing competition gliders, Well, sorry, I don't know, uncertified gliders into the comps. Well, I had one, and that was the only glider I had. So I ended up myself not being able to compete. So I remember doing a pre-workup in South Africa with a borrowed Air Design Pure and doing kind of badly there.
And then going to the Brits, British Open, and also with an Air Design Pure when everybody else was flying on Enzo's and Ice Peaks and Boomerangs. And I'm just doing really badly. At the time, I thought that I'm just such a crap pilot. Obviously, also the gear didn't help. But also kind of financially, I didn't see a way of being able to keep doing comps, you know, and, you know, it's kind of an expensive sport. I couldn't afford to buy a brand new Enzo 2, Enzo 1 or whatever. So, and my results were not showing, so I, I was definitely thinking about giving up at least competitions and just keeping paragliding as a hobby. And I remember my, my sister had a wedding here in Colombia, and it was in December, and I thought, okay, maybe I, I can go and squish into the Colombian Open.
And um, I had a talk with Mark Watts, and he told me, well, basically you can, and take my end, so I'll lend it to you. He was going to Colombia anyways for the Superfinal, so I could give it to him after And he gave me kind of a pep talk about how to fly, you know, with the group and how to control a little bit. And then I went off and went to my sister's wedding, then with a marks board and so on, I won the Colombian Open, which was pretty high level that year. I finally felt what it was to fly with a proper glider and not to have any disadvantage.
and kind of the spark came back a little bit after that. I was certainly motivated to keep doing it, and Cross Country approached me and they said, "Is there any way we can help you?" and so on, and they kind of helped me pay the registration fee for that year for the World Cups. And yeah, but that was certainly before that. There was a law, and I was about to give up competitions and focus on my career, and yeah, but thankfully that didn't happen.
well Seb I'm glad we got you back man it's good to have you in the game and again huge congratulations for another epic week week and actually two epic weeks with the open on that too. So can't wait to fly with you again, man. It's always just such a pleasure and it's been fun being wingtip to wingtip with you a few times as the years go by. And thanks, man. I appreciate it. It's good to have a chat with you.
Hey, Gavin. Thanks a lot for the invite. I hope maybe I see you in Europe this year and the wingtip, the wingtip to wingtip. Yeah, that's a very interesting one. I remember doing a pretty full-on synchro spiral with you in the pre-walls in Colombia a few years back. That's right. That's
right. I forgot about that. That was cool, man. That was cool.
Yeah.
Yeah, bro.
Cool, man. Well, yeah, we'll talk soon. Thanks a lot. And I appreciate it. Thanks, man.
Cheers, Gavin. See you next time. And thanks so much. If
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