Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. My guest today is the legendary Robbie Whittall. I have been dying to get Robbie on the show for years and years, and it finally came together really as a result of the Kiwi tragedy. Those two were very, very dear friends and had many, many adventures together over the years and a lot of history together with Ozone. And unfortunately, I didn't get to meet Robbie on it. I was there for the first few days of the search, and then he came in afterwards, and then, of course, came back when they found Kiwi, and I didn't get to meet him then either. But we did get to share a lot of texts and some laughs and some tears and finally got together to do this show.
So really excited to bring you this. Robbie is, of course, one of only three people. Two have won the world championships in hang gliding and paragliding, along with Judy Levin and his mate, John Pendry, all British pilots. So we talk about why the Brits have been so dominant in this game from the beginning. We talk about his crazy racing for a few years in the Isle of Man race, widely known as one of the most dangerous motorsports races in the world. It's held every year. It's been held almost 100 or maybe over that now. And just... In 2016 alone, they lost five people in that race. So it's crazy. You got to Google it. There's some links up in the show notes and with some of that racing, pretty wild stuff.
We talk about him starting, being one of the founders of Ozone and all kinds of stories and his dominance and why he got out of the sport really at the top of his game, what he's doing now, what he plans to do in the future. And this was an emotional one for both of us talking about Kiwi. Of course, talk about that a little bit. And, but just great. And it was just so awesome. I'm so thankful and grateful to have Robbie on the show and share his, some of his incredible history. Before we get to the show, the top of the show tips are actually two stories that I came back to. We recorded this podcast a couple months ago and I just recently had a fun flight out in the desert.
With Bill Belcourt and Revis and Thad and Bill shared some of the stories, some other stories that I hadn't heard in the podcast about Robbie. And I went back to him and said, Hey, can we, can we slide some of those into the top of the show? So please enjoy these two rather wild stories about Robbie to kick things off. And then we'll get into the podcast.
Okay.
Oh, well, it's, it's funny that these stories get remembered and that Bill has remembered that one. Obviously when it's your own life, a lot of things get forgotten and I totally forgotten about this, but it was quite an incredible story. It's happened once upon a time, a long time ago when I was a much younger man, but we just started Ozone. And what had happened was we were, we were in the middle of a crisis. We were going virtually every weekend to Italy because at that time I was kind of a bit of a bit of a hero in Italy and we needed to kickstart the business quick and the easiest country because we were living in France and developing the gliders in France was to go to Italy every weekend and do a demo weekend. So we were literally every weekend work during the week, nip to Italy on the weekends, do our demos at various sites around the country and drive back again.
Anyway, this particular weekend, uh, we were having a debt. A demo meeting in Como, uh, with, uh, with our distributors there at a corner solo.
And we, you know, we were a young company, so we, we needed to make things happen. Unfortunately, it was, um, North wind, very strong Fern wind. So there was no way to fly. And when I say it was very strong, it was howling, absolutely howling over the back of the hill. Uh, you know, 50, a hundred kilometer winds up high. Uh, so there was not much we could do, but we had all these people there who'd come to see us. And, um, you know, the draw card for that weekend was myself and John Pendry. And so everybody wanted to see the products and, um, well, what are we going to do? And I said, well, I've got an idea. Let's go down to the landing field for sure. It's going to be an absolute mess down there, but I can just quickly get the wings up and let at least let people see them, you know, just quick, boom, up, have a look, drop in, drop it down again, pack them away.
So, uh, we just released, uh, the tandem wing at the time, which was the cosmic rider. So, I mean, the tandem wing was 34 meters. I don't know what I was thinking, but, uh, I was particularly lucky on this one. So I got the, the tandem out, put it up, let everybody see it, dropped it down, packed it away. It was like, my God, that was lucky being, you know, I didn't get dragged into a fence or something. Uh, then we had the octane. Uh, I think it was a little bit of a mess. I didn't know what I was thinking. And it actually happened to have the extra small octane with us. And I thought, oh, well, that's perfect because it's actually, you know, even though it's so strong and windy, it's the size you'd want to be handling in these kinds of winds. So, you know, there's a crowd of our dealers there all watching and I put the, the octane up and, uh, John is actually just stood in front of me at this time.
I've clipped into the wing backwards because I'm just doing a demo on a flat field, you know, in the landing field. So, uh, I've clipped into the wing backwards because I'm just doing a demo on a flat field, uh, literally just going to pop it up, show them the new octane and drop it down. Anyway, I popped the wing up and it comes up beautifully. And you know, the wind's a bit all over the place and you can tell it's turbulent and we're in the lee side of the hill of the, you know, of the Alps basically, because this is a, uh, area, um, Como is basically the, the, the pre Alps. We've just got the flatlands and then the first hills go up. Um, so we're literally right in the rotor of the whole Alps.
And uh, so I popped the wing up anyway, and she comes up good looking good. John stood in front of me. I'm flipped in backwards. Remember? So, uh, it's for me, it's no problem. I used to do that a lot when I was just trimming wings. You just, it's easier to look at the wing without the harness trying to untwist you, uh, if you've got cross risers. So, um, I pop it up. It's looking good. John happens to be stood in front of me and I just get this sort of weird gust that lifts me off a meter and mine and John's eyes, me, John Pendry, this is our eyes meet. And at that particular moment, we're both smiling because it's just as if I've been, you know, lifted off the ground a little bit and it's obvious I'm going to come back down any second.
Anyway, I don't know. I don't come back down. I get a sort of second boost that takes me to about three meters high, maybe four meters high. And now I'm looking at John and John's face has changed. Mine's still smiling, but John's has now changed to a sort of a face of disbelief and kind of like, Ooh, this looks like it could turn into something anyway. Then I get another boost. And before I know it, you know, I'm sort of 15 meters high, uh, with now the wing starting to collapse each side. And it, it, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just,
it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, literally just get um puppeteered around the entire landing field getting taken up a bit higher sometimes maybe you know 20 meters 25 meters then down again to 15 meters back up to 30 meters down again and the whole time this is happening i'm clipped in backwards okay i've got i've got tips collapsing on me and i'm trying to work out what interwind is because hopefully sooner or later i'm going to come down anyway so i do this tour of the landing field with the tips collapsing and i'm you know this is a totally uh the i was totally out of control of where i was going but i was at least in control of the wing and uh so i'm just trying to keep the thing inflated i'm not looking at the ground anymore it's just like whoa holy crap what the hell's going on just getting rocked from side to side it's totally intense anyway
suddenly i sort of find myself out of that bit of turbulent air that had picked me up and sent me around the landing field i'm just oh my god right i've got to get this thing down so i'm come i'm flying forwards but i'm clipped in backwards so i've got to look over my shoulder to work out you know how to fly this thing back to the landing field anyway it just turns out that by total coincidence my glide path and everything leads me back to where the crowd of people are all just literally mouths gaping and look of fear in their faces as i come down land right next to them flare perfectly and i'm clipped in backwards still well at this moment you know the entire place just erupted into clapping and cheers and and mass uh what would you describe that just sort of jubilation yeah well jubilation that i wasn't smashed up or anything like that and i'm just kind of dead or you know broken somewhere on the other side of the field because you know and um that was that you know even i was rather satisfied that i brought this one home um but it was amazing and it took me to another level of stardom in italy because this story went around uh pretty quickly and you know no one could believe that you could get you could actually take off on a flat field that you could get slammed around and you could get slammed around and you could get slammed and hammered and still come down and do this perfect landing clipped in backwards right next to everybody so this was uh yes it was definitely one of my lucky moments that's for sure oh
my god that's crazy it
was totally crazy and the good thing is and this is one thing i do always uh like to you know when when i tell a story it is 100 percent truthful i'm not i'm not trying to extrapolate it to sound bigger or better that is exactly what happened there was probably 50 witnesses john penry john penry was right there we've actually got it we've got photographic evidence because there was a photographer there and he was taking photos of this whole thing happening and you can see this this uh you know a sequence of this flight with my tips closed and you know clipped in backwards and the whole thing yeah
any kind of do you have any kind of protection or a reserve or anything are you just in a little bikini harness no
i was in a bikini harness no protection no no nothing just good god oh my god just doing the old seat of the pants thing but it came good you know and i went down as a bit of
that's insane you know the only i can't i don't have any anything like that but i i think that until you really experience
like that it's the one time i i really really got myself in a pickle was uh from belen zone i was doing a big triangle and it was a pretty strong north bone day but there was a couple other swiss guys that felt pretty comfortable about it you're kind of protected there and and so we we do the out leg and we do the the top of the triangle and that's up by the arolo pass and and it had just been four thousand meter base like it was just incredible no wind it was amazing and and i'm just on the on the leg back it's just going to be a nice big triangle and i'm super excited and uh and there hasn't been a twitch of bad air and uh and and i'm just cruising along on the south side of what i call the big c it's like at the top of the lagomashore there's that big uh valley that goes from belenzona up around and then there's the arolo and then there's the newfoundland you know that go into the rhone and the arolo ties into the rhine and as soon as i get about halfway across and i was on the south side so the roll i'm looking up and i'm looking at the arolo pass and i'm just cruising by it and all of a sudden i'm in it just this it like the dam broke and i was high it's four thousand meters and it was a four thousand meter SIV to the ground and i mean i landed in 60 kilometer an hour winds backwards of course and and uh and it was just it went from so nice to my god there's the bottom of my wing again wait there it is at the top you know it was just it was like i was doing the infinite and i don't know how to do the infinite
just all the way to the ground it was like jesus and uh yeah so you i i don't think people understand what burn at the phone is like until you're in it like that you must have just been like you said a marionette just getting played
by the i was just oh my god i was the puppet on the end of the strings just oh my god you know i was i was in control of like i say only the wing to keep it open where we were going and what was the thing was nothing to do with it
yeah you had nothing to do with that ah
terrific just a passenger along for the ride but yeah the old the old fern thing is something that um the fern wind up this is when it's basically normally something to do with a high pressure and low pressure situation between the north alps and south alps and so you've got italy on the south and then you've got germany on the north and one of those will be in high pressure and the other will be in low pressure and basically normally what's happening is you've got this air mass that is being trying to be equalized and so you get these very strong north winds and uh my funniest story for the for the fern is we were flying at the world championships in fiche 1989 hang gliders last day of the event i was in the lead all i had to do was bring it home and it was happy days uh we take off on the first glide it's forecast north wind it's we're in switzerland uh in the uh rowan valley place
on the last last task all climb up together it's pretty gnarly it's already a bit bumpy we go off on the first glide all the top competitors are together like i say i'm in the lead all i got to do is bring it home um and uh head off on this first glide everyone together massive squadron and i'm just flying along and in the middle of it for some reason i don't know what happens but uh my wing just turns upside down on the hang glider so i just tumble the wing in front of everybody and literally the bar goes past my face once i let go of the bar because i i'm not a guy that hangs on tight to the you've got to let the thing fly so you don't want to be hanging on you just you're just controlling fingertips the bar gets ripped out of my hand i do some tumbles
uh this is in front of the whole you know lead gaggle i do a couple of tumbles somehow the glider doesn't break the bar goes in front of my face i grab it radio hanging off bits and pieces of the glider and i'm in the lead all the way up to the top of the glider and i'm in the glider and i'm in the lead all the way up to the top of the glider and the glider is hanging off everywhere vario broken anyway i'm just like oh my god and people are on the radios going oh my god rob's just tumbled you know blah blah but i'm still flying so i stick the radio back and pull everything together and get everything going um i flew 160 kilometers that day there were only three people at goal and i was the second person at goal no way yes is that That never happened.
You tumbled twice and you won? Oh, my God.
Yes. No, I don't think that's happened many. I believe I might have been the luckiest person alive. And again, I would just like to say that, you know, that that is not a story that's been embellished to sound better than it is. There was a mass of pilots that saw this happen. And when I landed at the goal on this particular day, it was a super gnarly day. The rest of the flight was horrific. For the first hour and a half after this had happened, I was shitting myself the whole time. But I knew I had to just get a move on. And I'd lost everybody because when I'd done this tumble, I got low, stuck in a gully and had to spend sort of 20, 30 minutes getting back out of this gully.
By the time I got out of there, I couldn't see anybody or anybody anymore. So I just, you know, got the bit between my teeth and went off on this crazy route on my own. Flew around the whole course expecting to come in last and found out I was second.
That is so awesome. Oh, my God. You tumbled twice and kept going. Yeah.
So then when I landed in the landing field, you know, most everybody was sort of totally jubilant. And I was. I was more just relieved because it was, you know, can you imagine the stress you're under anyway on the last day? And then this shit. And anyway, so that all happens. And I'm packing the glider up. I've got the battens on one side are all bent. The empty dive rods are broken on one side, cross tube bent, keel bent. And I flew one of the gnarliest days that has ever been in competition on a glider that was completely knackered. And I made goal. I was. Oh, yeah. That was.
What
a story about hanging in there.
Yeah, that was
definitely when I was young and impetuous. And it was I needed to get to take that one home. That's for sure.
Did you did you see Robbie? Did you see the the footage of Rick Brazina, who I competed with, I think, in the 2017 race, I think. But Canadian pilot who was. He got he got lifted off the ground in a dust devil in Manila. And it was immediately in a sat configuration. And he sat it up about a thousand feet. Just I mean, just totally out of control. I mean, he wasn't even planning on launching yet. You know, it was just this thing just boosted him like you get used. We get it showing all the time. You've seen that land. And and then he went flew like one hundred and eighty K. He got up and he was like, well, I guess everything's OK. It wasn't a competition. That's not nearly as cool as your story. But the footage. Is crazy. Oh, my God. I'm going to scary. I'm
going to have to look for it. Rick Brazina. Google it.
Rick. Rick Brazina. Dust devil. Just Google it. It's freaking terrifying. Oh, my God. That's unbelievable. I've never heard of anybody tumbling and not throwing, let alone winning.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, me neither. These are. Holy shit. These are those things that accidentally somehow.
Sort of skyrocket you towards notoriety or some. Yeah. Oh,
yeah. That's that's one of those. Did you hear the story about Rob? Yeah.
OK, so hope you enjoyed that little taste of things to come. Now, please enjoy the rest of the podcast with Robbie Whittall.
Robbie, this is pretty exciting for me. I have heard all the amazing. Amazing stories about your past and your your world championship wins and hang gliding and paragliding. I don't think it's too much to. I'm sorry. This is this will make you blush a little bit, but you are truly a legend in our sport. And it's just a real treat for me to be able to see you here on the screen and have a have a talk with you. Let's just dive in with with where you are and what you're doing. It looks awfully nice out through that window there.
Yeah. Yeah. Yes, it is. First of all, Gavin, thanks for asking me to be on the show.
Probably should have done something sooner. But here we are now. So it's obviously the right time. I'm currently in Raglan, New Zealand, West Coast, small, small town, surf town. And I'm here fundamentally because wind and waves. Good for my work, which is still developing, like surfing, still doing speed wins as well.
Yeah, I was going to just let's start there. I don't often think of, you know, my background is a bit in kite surfing as well, but never from the designer side. I don't have that kind of mind. I know you've been designing wings, which are kite surfing or wings as well for decades now. But speed wings and kite surfing seem odd. Do you find they really tie together?
Tie together. I'm not sure they tie together, but it's definitely what I do. When I moved out of the. The paragliding development and into the kite surfing or the kite and development.
I was doing the speed wings at the time and I just carried the speed wing thing on because it's a little bit more dynamic. And to tell the truth, the guys were busy trying to fulfill their requirements just to keep the paragliding lineup up to date. So I just carried on doing. And I just carried on doing the speed wings. And as it happens, they work very well together. You know, when it's too windy or when it's nice and strong for kiting, I can have a good session down here, then nip up the hill, which is a two minute drive and go soaring on the coast, which is also good for testing because I've got a landing and a nice, smooth airflow. Yeah, makes it semi-safe in the beginning.
Yeah, I mean, that's interesting. I mean, your design background. Was this. Something you studied or you just learned back? I believe when you know, was your first designing job with Adele? Do I have that right? Is it kind of early 90s? Was that something you studied in school or you just kind of learned the trade?
No, I learned the trade basically since I started my hang gliding career. Very quickly, I was picked up by a company back in the day called Airwave. And I just became a sort of test pilot. And a little bit of a problem solver because, well, in all honesty, I have, I think I still have quite a good feeling and a very analytical mind when it comes to feeling. But the rest of my whole development of my designing career has just come about through.
Certainly not through education in the normal terms. It's just been sitting on designer shoulders and watching how they use the programs. And then slowly I just worked my way into a position where we got rid of the link in between, which is normally the designer. So to me, it would appear to be a good thing to have a designer stroke test rider who is actually feeling the sensations. And able to self-evaluate the nuances of what makes a good wing or a good kite. And so I literally just sort of grown into the job and found myself in a great position. I totally enjoy it. But I do not consider myself anything other than an artist.
I'm not a mathematical mind. I'm a feeling and sensation. And yeah. Visual kind of person.
So, Robbie, take us back. What was the catalyst? How old were you? When did you take your first flight? How did it all happen?
Well, I was very lucky. My father was into hang gliding from the very beginning. And so I grew up on the hills watching, occasionally getting a piggyback ride. And this was from the age of sort of four onwards. Piggyback tandems back in 1975. Where they just. Sling a little harness on my dad's back. And, you know, back in those days, you were just flying top to bottoms. But yeah, it got me back then. And then we watched for lots of years because every weekend my dad would be going out flying. And we'd jump in the car, me and my brother, and mess around on the hill with kites and some radio models. And basically we just, we grew up around flying.
But my father was also a motorcyclist. And I can safely say that. I was more interested in motorcycles than I really was the flying part.
And, you know, I used to sit on my dad's bike in the garage and pretend like lots of kids do.
And when it came to being 16, that was when I could have a motorcycle. And, you know, I was banging on the door of one of the motorcycle like crazy. And my father said, look, if you don't get a motorcycle and you get into, you know, basically I'll buy you. Lessons from a hang glider so that you can get into this avenue because he knew that I was a little bit reckless when I was young. And I was very involved in BMX riding. And he knew from the way I could crash a BMX that I could probably crash a motorcycle even bigger. So he got me into flying and I had my first lesson with a friend of ours and, you know, it was just beaming from here to here.
And I knew straight away. I was like, oh, my God, you know, I found I found my thing. This is this is what I want. And so from then on, it was just step by step progress. My father's a firm believer in steady progress where you learn each stage rather than just jumping to where you would like to be. It's to mature through the through the learning process and get each level. And I absolutely sorted before you move on to the next level. It always kind of worked out fantastically. And, you know, as my soaring capabilities increased, my desire increased and then you can keep me out of the air.
Yeah, it was a full mainline addiction.
Did you did you see it then as a potential way of life or as a way to get paid, make a living? Or is it? It just it's just such a blast. You had to do it. I mean, was there a was there a progression in terms of were you seeing it as a progression? I can make a job out of this.
No, absolutely not at all. This was and my life is like this anyway. I'm purely passion led person. And I had a very hard time at school and sort of left feeling very unsuccessful because obviously it's a success based system. That we have. And I wasn't very successful. And then, you know, I started hang gliding and that just all evaporated. And the joy and the passion that was put into my hang gliding was was life. You know, that's that that's what made me wake up every day.
That's what drove me. It was just God. This is so fantastic. And. You know, when I was at school, I remember sitting in classrooms watching the seagull soaring the building. It was a four story building. And I just watched the seagull soaring the building. And I would dream to be one because here I am trapped in the school room, not understanding, not even understanding what they're trying to teach me. And I'm just looking out the window at these birds going on. Amazing life they have. They're not answering to anybody. They're not responsible for anything. They're just flying. And. When they've had enough of flying in one place, they just fly up to another place. And that's pretty much how my life has been really. You know, I. Yeah, that's what has has made me.
You know.
Is there any kind of a you know, back then that I mean, certainly when I was we're not too different in age, I don't think. And back back then, you know, I never heard of ADD or ADHD. Nobody talked about that. But do you do you looking back, was there any kind of dyslexia or ADHD? Or any kind of thing like that that you felt was maybe a because I've I've often we come across that a lot with pilots. There's there seems to be, you know, there's a lot of engineers that do it, but there's a lot of folks that get into flight that seem to.
Watch the goals and can't keep their eye on the board.
Yes, I am very averse to the labeling of anything. I think that that would give us the understanding that there's some form of normality. There is no form of normality. There's a form of being pushed through square holes when you're around, but it doesn't make you normal. And so, yes, I did have sort of I would call it acute dyslexia. I couldn't really read very well and I can't I still can't read and write very well. And and also, I guess.
Having I've been diagnosed with this, which is, again, something that's probably not a good thing to be diagnosed with because it gives me an excuse. But I do know this is a reality. I have an incredibly bad short term memory and an even worse long term memory. But the beauty of that is it makes me live in the now because I'm not I'm not interested in the past. I can't. Remember most of the things that have really happened because I can only do now. And I do look forward a bit, but my forward planning is probably a couple of days. And people ask me, oh, when are you going there? When are you doing this? And oh, I don't know, March sometime. I never put a date on things until I need to put the date on it just before it because. What is only here and now, so it's better to be present.
And I think that's also what happened. Why I was particularly good at flying. Yes. Because it is a form of meditation. And the more connected you are to that moment, because you're flying in a fluid, a natural fluid. And the best way to be connected to it is to be present. And, you know, one of the things that happened in paragliding that turned me off was the advent of all the electronics because it took away from my skills, which were to be able to. Yes. To understand and connect and read the sky and the conditions and the wind naturally. And so once all the GPS came in, instead of being five guys in the league group who were all exceptionally feeling natural pilots, suddenly there was 15 people in the league group and 10 of them were reading computers and five of us were flying by the seat of our pants.
And unfortunately the guys with the computers started to beat us because. They were. getting information that are gathering information that you could say was broader reaching than ours so you know we we'd be trying to finesse a final glide from where we where we dared to do it but now you've got an instrument telling you you can do it yeah so there's
an alarm that goes off yeah
yeah and that uh that for me was the end of my flying career because uh i'm not interested in that i'm interested in the pure heartfelt connection to the environment that that's that's what i was oh that's what i was living through you
just answered a question that was way down my list that's why you got out of flying no no no it's fascinating i mean in some ways your brain is is like a uh is a is kind of a lottery ticket i mean to to to live in the now and to be present is i mean people have to go into caves meditate for 20 years to do that and it sounds like that's just a natural inclination inclination was that something you worked on or is that's just how you've been um
no it's definitely just something how i've been but i didn't recognize what it was for a long time um how you say uh i i believe and again you know this is this is only my point of view and uh nobody has to agree with it but um i believe one of our biggest problems is that we've separated ourselves from true connection uh to the natural powers of the universe um and that this is why if we're in the you know don't get me wrong the world is beautiful what happens is just part of the human development process regardless of whether we go fully electronic or whether we go fully naturally it doesn't matter in the end but i think we would have a much more harmonious world
when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when to be able to nurture ourselves properly and the environment around us. And I am also guilty of exploiting for my living and for the companies that I work for, of course, the natural environment. So I do have my own mental battle to be able to balance these two things, but I'm also fully aware that we're not nurturing enough connectivity.
Yeah, amen. Amen. Let's get back to your learning, you know, that you, as I understand it, you know, your two hang gliding world championships, and then pretty quickly after that, paragliding world championships. I know we'd all love to understand better how, you know, there are exceptional athletes, you know, Kelly Slater and others. And, you know, it's always some comparison. That's really hard work, but it sounds like you really, truly had a talent and a gift. What, what, can you identify that? What, where did it, where did it come from? How did it, did it start with your dad and his approach?
It's quite funny that your, that your father tried to save your life by getting you into free flight.
Yes, it is very ironic. And there are people that, you know, raise their eyebrows at that one. But, you know, first thing is my father. My father is a very good role model in terms of many of the things that he's taught us. And fundamentally, it's always been around respect, you know, respect what you're doing, because especially with flying, you know, gravity takes no prisoners. So you need to be on top of that game.
But honestly, Gavin, if I look at these things now, retrospectively, I think what it was more than anything was that I was lit purely by true passion. And somebody who is lit by passion is virtually unstoppable. Because when that passion is absolutely the burning desire within your heart and in your head,
the noise stops. You are connected. And literally, you know, I can remember, I remember when I was in the competition, I was in the competition where I could be flying with 10 other guys, and I would just have the feeling that I need to be over there. And the 10 other guys would sail off that way. And I'd go off at right angles, and they'd all be thinking, oh, yeah, where's he going? He's going to blow it. Lo and behold, they'd all sink out. I'd climb out and be at goal. It was just allowing the free flow of the air. And being in those moments and lit by passion, as I say, drags you to the right place to be. And I never entered the competition.
In fact, one of the reasons my career was a little bit up and down is while you're lit through passion, everything comes to you very easily. But the minute you start trying, everything disappears. And the problem with winning anything is that you try and maintain that. And then you take away the passion, and now it's a maintenance thing instead of a passionate thing. And it becomes very hard to be as successful because you're not as connected because now you're worried about the result.
It sounds like when you were allowing yourself to kind of go into flow state and fly intuitively, you would do really well. And then when you would try to do really well, you would screw it up. Is that basically it? You'd let your conscious brain take over and try to win, and then you'd bomb?
Yeah, I'm afraid that's about it. And I see it today. In virtually every sport, it's really interesting once you are at least my perception of these things is you see absolute fantastic talent coming, and they go all the way to the top, and then they disappear again. And they disappear because they started trying. They stopped flowing. They started wanting instead of accepting. And when you want something, the chances are you're going to have to work to get it. And if you just let these things happen, then the fruits come to you naturally. And I watch you in the motorcycle race, and you see such great talent coming up. You're like, oh, yeah, fantastic. And they make it to the top, and then they start taking it too seriously.
The fun is taken out of it. The joy is taken out of it. And then your passion is automatically dwindled because of that, because now it's not about you expressing yourself. Now it's about the result of your expression. And lo and behold, many people drift by the wayside.
I've been working with Thomas Thirlo a bit this time around before this X-Alps. He was Kriegel's coach and supporter for the first four, and then they're doing it again together this year, which is really exciting and scary. But he talks about that, that you can't think about placing. That's a stupid goal. You have to think about process. You can think a little bit about performance, but everybody's going to be within 1 % or 2%, both on the ground and in the air. So process goals are important, packing your bag fast and that kind of thing. But he said that there's very often in the race where he has to – I don't know if he has to. I think Kriegel's gotten pretty good at this himself. But hey, man, do some wing overs. Yeah. Don't be so serious.
Relax. What would you normally do right now if you weren't in the race? Yes. And let's just take you out of the race for a little while and just have fun. In other words, remind – this should be a game.
Exactly. We're human beings. We're taught to take – we are taught and indoctrinated to take everything too seriously. We need an answer for everything. It's just no, no, no, no. Turn it all back. Plug into the flow state. Let it happen. I guarantee you success. But while you try too hard, I can guarantee you probably more failure than success.
Robbie, I was talking to Bill Belcourt, your good friend, yesterday to get some ideas and stuff, talk to you. And he had some really funny stories about – he said, well, when Robbie would come to a comp – usually you'd go to a comp, like say it's in the Rocky Mountains. You're thinking pretty hard about conditions. Is it going to overdevelop? Is it going to get too hot? Is it going to get too windy? Am I going to get my ass kicked today? Because it's always big. And he said, but when Robbie would show up, you were actually more stressed out about the days where you weren't flying because you had to go hang with Robbie. He said, one of the things you used to say was half of the comp was won on the ground. And I was like, what does that mean? And he said, well, yeah, because you would have to go four by or race motorcycles or do something and party like crazy.
And then show up the next day. And it was just kind of expected. So was that really part of your game plan? Is that how you also kind of won? Or was that just who you were? And you just – it sounds like you kind of lived full throttle or live full throttle. We're going to get into the Isle of Man stuff. So obviously you haven't backed off too much.
Well, yes. I like – it's very nice that Bill remembers me like that. And yes, it probably was the – I think it was the case. And I definitely do maintain that competitions can be won on the ground just by your presence and your ultimately – and I know this is adverse to what I said earlier – but ultimately your lack of respect for virtually everything. Because also when you're in flow state, you don't need to worry too much about anything else. Just go with the flow. It'll all be good. But also at the same time, you're not going to be able to win.
And when you've got to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when it comes to elegant when The rougher and gnarlier it used to get, I knew that I was the best equipped. And so where everyone else is slightly nervous on takeoff, I was just yahooing because, holy shit, yeah, right. No matter how bad it is up there, I've got the best equipment. I've got me underneath it. So if I'm shitting myself, they are absolutely crapping it. You know, so here we go.
Robbie, where did that confidence come from? I mean, is that a question you can even answer? I mean, because that's, it's exceptional. And there are, I think people can get to that level through a lot of training or they're just incredibly competent people. You know, probably a combination of both. But was that something you just had? That's something you had in your back pocket or is that something you developed?
Well, it's something that's also been developed. It's something that I had. I believe it was also one of the positive results about being a failure. You realize that the world is judged by other people's standards. But inside, you know that you're a fully functioning human being that has potential. You just haven't necessarily found it. But obviously, I found some of my potential with flying. But... Yeah.
I don't like my life to be restricted by archaic ideas and methodology.
Because other people have drawn those limits and those lines. And those other people I truly don't believe were as talented at drawing those lines and those limits as I am. I'll draw my own things and I'll find out what my potential is rather than someone else defining the limit. And when I dideren'terenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenerenereneren my my fields i i could probably be a brain surgeon if i had to but i'd struggle to do that and it would take a lot more work whereas in the things that i'm comfortable in the sports and things that require um the skills that i have then i i just find it easy to to challenge myself and then that brings you confidence because when you challenge yourself and you prove yourself right
guess what carry on next time do the same thing next time do the same thing don't be limited by other people's fears and lack of determination just because they can do something
i want to get back into kind of the precision of some of the sports that well the precision that's required by some of the sports you undertake like the isle of man and base jumping that kind of thing but before we do
the brits the brits come from an island that doesn't have awesome flying and not a lot of mountains and yet year after year after year there have been people like you um pendry and goldsmith and ogden why what is it about the british program the british mindset the what is it uh i mean because you guys on a world scale can often step in with the swiss and the french who have the juniors programs and the alps and you can get paid doing it and you know i obviously there's a lot of history here but it is quite fascinating uh
it it's something that uh you know for sure i was so proud at the time i still am proud uh we had such a good run in our day we were fundamentally the team to be revered and one of us would normally take home the individual title and it was uh normal for us to take the team title home whether that was yeah virtually all the handwriting events we were just on top but i believe that comes from a certain british tenacity that is a culture-based thing um and you know you can see in the history of our tenacity whether right or wrong by our uh crusading and land grabbing around the world and then when it comes into the context of paragliding and hang gliding let's face it
good conditions are easy to fly it's just go out there and do it because there's thermals everywhere and there's mountains showing you you know literally telling you that you're going to do it and you know you're going to do it and you know you're going to do it and you know you're going to where to go and in england the conditions are terrible and every flight is not not terrible they're very inconsistent so every flight is a struggle and if you get good at struggling then when it's turned on for you it's just kind of a walk in the park it's you know you're you're struggling over low flat lands with a low cloud base and weak lift and then you get thrown into the alps where it's high cloud base massive mountains and you know you're you're you're going to get thrown into the mountains and strong lift this is like let's go you know this is a piece of cake there's thermals everywhere look i'm just going to glide to that ridge boom another massive strong thermal i'm just going to glide to that ridge boom another massive strong thermal yeah so i truly believe you know there's there's nothing better than uh than to to practice in
difficult conditions because that's what makes it easy and when the good stuff comes along
what do you credit your so many wins to you had the you had the i believe the two hang gliding world championships the two paragliding world championships you're one of i believe no no no no
it was only one hang gliding one paragliding a
one-on-one okay the the but you're one of i believe three uh that have done that one and both what what's what was your approach what was your what where do you credit that to uh
there was never an approach back in those days again that was when i was in the flow and not trying to achieve anything other than my best uh that's another thing i think is very important uh when you turn your competition against the competitors you are guaranteed to lose when you turn the competition to oneself you have your best potential it might not be to win because people often have more potential than you but you're elegant when it comes to when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when to the question, I was surrounded by great people.
Fantastic. John Penry was an amazing friend, mentor.
Pepe Lopez, the Americans. I was so lucky that a lot of the good pilots saw my ability. And one thing that often happens is the not-so-good pilots always have a knee-jerk reaction to immediately sort of try and vilify the young guy who's coming up as reckless and dangerous. And yes, I'm reckless and dangerous by your standards. But by my own, I was not even reckless or dangerous. I was just doing what I needed to do. And the good pilots, they recognized what they were dealing with. And they just brought me in. Yeah.
And enjoyed my progress and success. And you can learn so much from these people because they're open and they want to offer. And yeah, so basically it was rubbing off, even from club level. You know, some great people took me under their wing. And just before I could drive, I had a guy. I was a young guy by the name of Colin Ryder who would, with his wife, pick me up, stick my hang glider on their roof. I was stuck because, you know, my dad was working on something. They'd pick me up every weekend and take me up and look after me. It was just. And again, I think that was also because a lot of these people just saw this pure passion.
And let's facilitate the next level.
Tell me about the kind of early years with Adele. Just anything that kind of pops up that was kind of funny. You know, I know you started it, Adele, I believe in the paragliding. Well, actually, let's start there. What was it like to transition from hang gliding to paragliding?
Well, for me, it was amazing because I was super gung-ho and still in my element. It was a new craft. But I was still in my element. And so it was just learning to fly this new wing.
And yes, it was slow and it was rubbish. But like everything, I absolutely love to learn. You know, for me, everyone's trying to accelerate the learning process. And I want to do this and I want to do this. No, no, no. Slow it down because the learning process is the most satisfying, enjoyable part of anything. Once you become moderately okay at something, the big bus is gone. And everyone's trying to get to this next level. Now, just accept where you are because it's the best way to learn anyway is to draw yourself back, be totally self-critical and enjoy the learning process because, you know, it's like a flower blossoming. You don't want the flower to go from a bud to a flower instantly.
You want that thing. You want that thing to slowly grow in front of you and each petal to slowly unravel itself. And that's like each step of the ladder or whatever. And that's the process to be enjoyed. And yes, I just got on the paraglider and enjoyed it tremendously. And it seemed obvious that that's what I should be doing next. And I'm a very next thing kind of person. Once I...
Got to the level of ability that satisfies me, nobody else, just me, then I'm looking for the next hit.
You know, sitting here talking to you that I would have expected maybe not more recklessness, but more... I mean, the stories are that you were so aggressive with life experiences, but also just you're clearly... You had that mind frame of test pilot, which is, you know, a lot of confidence and also, you know, just willing to blow it up over and over and over again.
But I just gather, I haven't talked to you very much, but I just gather you're very calculated. Is that right?
No, I am more calculated now because the filters of life have been slowly drawn across because that's one of the things. It happens when you get into business and you have to make a living and those associated responsibilities. I was definitely...
And also immature. You know, I was young, immature.
I definitely was the reckless, crazy, pushing the limits, instigator. All kinds of stupidity because...
And I'm not saying that maturing is either a good thing or a bad thing. It's just something that naturally happens. You know, like a good wine as it ages, hopefully becomes better. And, you know, the sharp edges that you could taste earlier. Yeah, you know, you could deal with them, but long term, probably not the best way to live your entire life. So I just feel that... Maturing into a, well, hopefully a continual path of it. Maturing whereby I can still... And I am still totally reckless and lunatic regularly, but it was reflected a lot more in my personality then, whereas now I just turn it on for when I need it rather than
wind people up and generally be a lunatic all the time.
because the the 90s you know as i kind of understand it there was you know open class was the big thing and it wasn't just firebird and adele it was you know that was everybody showing up on prototypes everybody's racing open class uh you know as you say many of them are rubbish and sounds like you know the carnage was was pretty high and they they called you at some point you know the father of the serial class was that about when you and kavanaugh started ozone ozone give me the timing of that and what was it's kind of funny that the kind of the godfather risk in a sense is also like the godfather like you know hey we gotta we gotta trim this back a little bit
yes uh well it came yeah okay so this is the uh late 90s and we've got into a situation whereby the competition scene yes at the well it was only open class then and the wings were performed better but they were getting or they weren't particularly safe and the ability that you needed to be able to fly one safely was literally the ability of a test pilot and what we could and a factory pilot so what we could see was the testing factory pilots basically had an unfair advantage over most of the field because these wings were a handful and people were unfortunately hitting the ground far too regular
and i recognized that
my advantage was my test piloting and you know the frequency with which i was flying and flying those hot wings and i just didn't think it was fair and i also didn't really enjoy seeing people that i shared a camaraderie with being splatted on the ground because you know for what you're meant to be in this for fun and enjoyment and i saw the flying and flying and flying and flying and i still was totally in for fun and enjoyment i still am and uh yeah so when you when you see your friends being injured and in some cases dead this becomes a certain futility to the whole thing it's like this is pointless and and what for what are we what are we measuring here um it's it's not something that is measured on parity with the rest of the field i fly almost every day you know i fly every weekend well i should be better than you so why are you spending all this money to come to a competition to then end up in an ambulance going to a hospital in spain and being dealt with not particularly well you know it's just like this absolute madness so i uh tried to rally the the troops to into the idea of basically certified power riders for competitions that everyone could fly for another reason as well um i truly believe in a level playing field i don't like the equipment race i don't think it brings out the best in anything or anybody uh including the manufacturers in a way because um it's it turns the business into a fashion business or not a fashion but a a rapidly successive improve or performance improvement business
instead of making better pilots and at the end of the day we're trying to measure the pilot really i thought rather than the wing so the idea of zero plus was to level the playing field and let's see who the best pilot is because we still don't know who the best pilot is nowadays because one's on an ozone one's on a gym one's in a nivia whatever and you know the requirements for certification are so open that it's not really certification so it's still a performance race between the manufacturers
when when when when when when when when when when when when
when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when when there but we are now removing the human element and putting the technical and the technological element in there as you know literally the prime factor if you look at moto gp or formula one they're mapping the car or the bikes for every corner so you know that the the track map is put into the bike and if you're coming around this corner you can smash the throttle to pull the traction control knows it's corner number four and only delivers this much power going up to 100 as you come out well once upon what once upon a time that's crap that well it's the same as a gps it's doing the same thing it's giving you it's giving you the or it's taking away uh that sensitivity on the throttle where you'd have to wind it on so carefully because you know you've got 200 horsepower at the back of the island if you wind it on too quick boom you're off whereas
nowadays and that's why a lot of the crashing is stopped and you hardly see any high sides because as they're as they hit the apex they know that at this point boom flat out the engine only the mapping only gives you a certain amount of power until you've got the bike upright and then you get it all back again but i
had no idea these things were being driven so much by computers oh god it's crazy
yes but like i say paragliding is no different look at everybody's flight decks now i used to have one little tiny davron vario but i often used to switch off as well because i like silence when i'm flying i just go with feeling and that was it and now it's massive flight decks and you've got your spare battery pack and this that and the other and before you know it oh
yeah you know
it's like
two loggers two screens two yeah the whole thing and
and we're still actually trying to masquerading under all the that we're trying to find the best pilot
what are you doing exactly you're now you've now almost eradicated the pilot you know you could fly one by drone with you know autonomously um and probably win a competition nowadays oh not win but certainly plays very well because you don't need the pilot in that so that yeah but hey that that's only my personal thing
but again it comes it comes down to this epoch in time where we're we're masquerading the human element and it's the human element that needs to be prominent because until the human element becomes more connected again all this um detraction from the human element is basically leaving us further away from our natural path and the further we go from our natural path well i can assume that's the way it's going to be but i think it's going to be a lot more difficult to do that so i'm going to go back to the show you the harder life is going to get well
said it's interesting to hear you were talking about your own risk profile and you know getting older and learning as we all hope we do and then i mean i didn't you just get pretty busted up in the aisle so tell people about the isle of man race and maybe i have this wrong but isn't it the most dangerous race in the world in terms of just numbers is that right
um i i don't know if it's the most dangerous race in the world uh i wouldn't like to categorize it like that um what i can tell you is it's ultimately it sends goosebumps you know whenever i think about this thing uh for me personally everybody's different it was the ultimate challenge i was a little bit older than most people take up that kind of thing but i'd always love motorcycles as i told you earlier and uh eventually i got into motorcycles and then i got into a bit of track day riding and then i got into some racing and then i did some street racing here in new zealand and i realized oh my god i'd love it on the street you know road racing proper on the roads um and the next level was to go to the isle of man which is a 60 kilometer course 37 miles uh around a small island off the coast of the island and i was like oh my god i'm going to go to the isle of man and i was like oh my god i'm going to go to the isle of man and i was like oh my god i'm going to go to the isle of man and you know there's brick walls trees it's just a regular road that's closed off um and it's insanely fast and for sure very dangerous uh there are a number of deaths each year um but that has to be expected and you know it's these there's not a person that doesn't line up there knowing full well the risks that they're taking them they are the risks that you're prepared to take because the uh the enjoyment of the road is going to be a lot more difficult than the enjoyment of the road is going to be a lot more difficult than the enjoyment level stroke addiction level stroke addiction is so compelling and
fulfilling but uh yeah it's no problem that's what we're doing now just uh keep your eyes down head forward and yeah our eyes forward and head down and uh try and try and keep it lit as much as you dare and you know i was never very good trying to stretch your imagination but um
in in my latter years and we're talking i started this at 45 which is i started racing out of my 45 and was definitely one of the oldest guys there by a long way but um it brought me back into the focus and the flow state that i've been missing for a lot of years because
i've been concentrating probably a little bit too much on work so it was just a beautiful thing for me and uh ultimately just i can't think of anything it's very hard to describe how
totally consuming this is because well
for the first week you're having practices in the evening and you're getting about two laps maybe four laps if you're lucky practicing for the first week then the race week starts you've only got two races um or i only have two races and each one of you is going to have to do four laps so you've got uh 37 miles to do four times takes about an hour and 20 minutes total and it's an hour and 20 minutes of absolutely in the moment meditation motorcycle riding you know you are you're trying to nail everything as good as you can nail it um as fast as you possibly can there's no there's no warm-up on a race day at 10 o 'clock the race starts everybody's let off 10 seconds apart so it's a time trial and basically you're sat on the start line at zero miles an hour having no warm-up in the morning not nothing and within a mile you're doing 160 miles an hour down a hill with a big kink at the bottom of it and you're absolutely pinned flat out maybe maybe if you're good you're making 180 miles an hour down there and you hit the bottom of it and you're doing 180 miles an hour down there and you're literally less than a mile ago you were sat on the start line pole now you are thrown 100 percent neck deep into this and that's only the beginning it just it gets it almost gets crazier and as you warm up and get into the flow of this thing so you have to gather you know can you imagine what that start line is like you have to gather yourself and
you're sitting up having breakfast having no warm-up no nothing you know i've done a few exercises and things to to get my body warmed up you're sat there at zero miles an hour the next minute you're doing 160 180 trying to hit trying to pin this machine and wring its freaking neck you know and all your lines that you've learned uh you know that everything is so 100 committed and i loved and i found it so empowering that there was something in this world that dangerous but also totally within your control because it's up to you how fast then it's you have to again it's one of those moments where if you misjudge your ability you're going to be dead and i love that it's where you have to be brutally honest with yourself i would love to go as fast as i can but i'm not going to do that i'm not going to do it as fast as the fast guys but i can tell you right now i don't have those skills no problem right so whatever you got rob let's go out there and do your best but and you're never turning it down to 99 you are giving it 100 but 100 of what i got isn't close 100 of what these good guys have got so you still give it your absolute best but you know to not try harder because if you try harder it's not going to end up a whole
so yes that was it's the
variance no
just to say it's the it's it's jeff shapiro talks about you know it's the it's the teeter-totter where you know in family it's really wide the fulcrum is you know and then it just keeps getting narrower like wingsuit base jumping the fulcrum is is a microscopic dot where you know if you're if you're proximity flying you can't screw up a little bit that that's dead you know that that line is just so tiny and it sounds like yeah
so you see
even maybe it's even tinier in the isle of man this
is why i can sort of uh and i'm not trying to big it up because i don't need to big it up this is what this is what it meant to me and nobody else even has to really be able to understand it's just what it meant to me but um if you think of proximity flying for one or two seconds you might be close to the ground and you're not going to be able to see the ground and when i say close to the ground you might be a meter a meter and a half off well at the isle of man you're a meter off the ground because that's maybe how high the seat is or less than a meter 800 centimeters off the ground and you're doing
phenomenal speeds way
faster than term yes
you're doing phenomenal speeds for an hour and 20 and proximity proximity flying lasts for what two seconds this is this is this is what i'm talking about so you have an hour and 20 of not messing up um wow if there's anything how do you how do you
mentally how do you mentally train for that that i mean it's quite it doesn't work to go on a racetrack to do that i mean how can you just go out and drive you know and and race at 180 miles an hour on a windy road and train for that for an hour and 20 minutes that's insane focus i guess it's just flow it's not even focused right yeah
yeah well it's focus and flow all together um how do you train for that well i did do a lot of circuit racing obviously to train for that but also i was riding the roads around here uh like the lunatic that i can be from time to time so uh there's a lot of very good roads here in new zealand very small population there's only sort of about five and a half million
it means that um the roads are not particularly busy although they are a little bit dangerous so they're not the best kept roads in the world but that's good too because the other man is very very bumpy and uh and undulating and very rugged on the bike so i would just go out here and uh terrorize the local farmers i guess and be very reckless and throw caution to the wind and ride like an absolute idiot
well can you describe what it's like you said you know you imagine showing up at the starting line you have you know you've had some breakfast can you describe what that's like you know mentally to fly your stuff over the aisle man and go through this i imagine it's pretty wild there must be some pretty heavy emotion well
um remarkably for me i i don't know why it's uh another skill i've managed to pick up on the way uh i can just drop everything apart from what i need to be doing and i normally understand that um being nervous or being on the back foot is the worst place to be you know you've got to be on the front foot and ready to go so i was always very calm on the start line never it was just literally you have to also understand that there's not many people that can qualify for it can afford it and all these things i just saw every time that i rolled up there to just be the privilege i'm about to race a motorcycle around put it this way
that i i don't know of any unleashed fun like that anywhere else in the world that exists and if there if i did i would be doing it but there isn't for me that was the ultimate and it's it's brought me a certain amount of um clarity and calm now because i was always searching for the ultimate buzz the ultimate buzz come on rob next thing you need more you need more like the the consummate addict that i am to adrenaline it uh it was just such a privilege to be racing there because man who else is getting this intensity nobody you know the percentage of population who have done this or who are going to do it or who do it is so microscopic and i'm privileged enough in my life to now manifest myself on this start line with a beautiful machine under me the only thing that's
between me and the finish line is myself you know it was each time was amazing and in actual fact finishing the races was super emotional you know because i made it you know i did it that was a
surprise yes
that was well it's not even survive i think you know you're going to survive but the accomplishment was just incredible incredible something very difficult to describe
is it was it is it hard for you to end these like when it's over is there a you know you're you're in that flow state you're driving 160 180 miles an hour life doesn't get any better than that when you're done is there a dip is there a i gotta go home i gotta go back to work is how do you deal with that side of it
um i'm just very lucky i know a lot of people do have sort of withdrawal symptoms as such and for sure uh you know you you you you you you you you you you you you you you
the nostalgic side of me does have withdrawal symptoms because I would love to keep doing it. But the first thing is it costs a fortune. You know, you just piss some money to the ring. It's not particularly environmentally friendly, although most of my life isn't anyway.
You know, I basically produce large items for landfill and in between some humans get some enjoyment out of them. But still, it's not exactly very wholesome.
So, yes, I could leave those places very easily, actually, and just pack up and be on for the next thing because also I'm the guy that is living in the now. That's finished. Now what am I doing? Oh, now we're backing up. Now we're going home. Now I'm flying back to New Zealand. Now I'm getting on with work. So it was just, yeah, it was all relatively easy. But if there was one thing I would like to have been able to continue doing, it would be more Isle of Man. But again, I understand that that's just an addiction. And there's a point where you have to be more powerful in your addiction.
But that time has come.
I'm going to bring up something that we may not have to see how this goes. I don't know if this belongs in the show, but our mutual friend, Kiwi, you and I both went through that in some ways together. We didn't see each other there. You came just after I left, and then we missed after they found him. But a lot of people reached out to me with very serious, real condolences. And I hope people have sympathy, of course, right? And I miss Kiwi, of course. And I love Kiwi. I loved that dude. But of all the people I have known, he certainly seemed to have the best relationship with death of anybody I have met.
And it seemed to me like that guy lived so many lives, as you have. And I never felt this like, oh, poor Kiwi. I always felt like, man, what an awesome way to go. And I... So my question is, what is your relationship with death? I mean, it seems like you must be pretty comfortable with it.
Yes.
Yeah. Once upon a time, you know, in my younger years when I didn't really understand everything. I didn't understand much. I still don't understand much, but it's a little bit more than I did.
I had a very much more altruistic view. And I was obviously trying to save the parrot lighting competition for fraternity from themselves and from, you know, market forces and wanted everyone to be alive and kicking and such.
And, you know, I... Yeah. Yeah.
Not necessarily easy things to talk about. But I lost a couple of my good friends when I was younger.
And that affects the way you relate to death. And for a long time, I didn't want death to happen, especially to friends. But now I just...
Yeah, it's part of life. And it's just something you've got to get on with. And I... I have absolutely no fear of death because, again, because of Kiwi. And our... How would you describe this? Our mutual enjoyment of the psychedelic realm. Then I believe I visited the place that could be a passing point towards so-called bodily death. I'm not going to... I'm not going to... I'm not going to... I'm not going to... I don't have to imagine each to their own. But spiritually, I think there is... Our connectivity continues.
And so I... The fear of losing my physical body, there isn't any. I just... I don't even care. You know, it can happen today, tomorrow. I've lived such an incredible life. I've had so many unique experiences. Beautiful experiences that I don't need to cling on to the physical realm anymore. And, again, through that psychedelic venturing, I can be comforted in the fact that, you know, if nothing else, I will go on and be a part of the universal force that is all around us. So, yeah, there's nothing to fear. In fact, I'm almost looking forward to it.
In a very positive way. Not in a milder kind of way. Just in a very positive way.
Yeah. And the reason I brought it up was that I want that to be a comfort, actually, to people that miss Kiwi. Because, you know, I sat in a hot springs with him in the middle of Nevada six days before he disappeared. And we talked about this very thing. You know, we talked about other stuff, too. But he was a fascinating individual. And that's what I miss. Is talking to somebody who is so... Fascinating. So smart. And so world-traveled. And so amazing. But he wasn't scared to death. I mean, he was ready. And in some ways, you know, he would say he'd seen it. And experienced it. And not by a near-death experience, but also through psychedelics.
And I think that, you know, I mean, to me, it was... He brought us on this beautiful last adventure.
And what a way to say goodbye. I don't know. I mean, you know, I'd rather do it that way than being hung up in a cancer ward or something. I just thought it was really beautiful. And it
was fitting. Well, yes. It turns out to be fitting for the man that he was.
Obviously, it's very... It's still difficult.
It's... It's... Yeah. It's maybe a bit too difficult. But...
The reality is, it's only my ego that is mourning his loss. Or our loss.
And it
is our
It is totally all good. I am totally good with it. I know that I'm just catching it up later. It's not a problem.
We still, like you, I just miss having somebody with that potential to be able to see into things in a different way that my mind sees into things. I think that's why we harmonize so well because basically he was a genius.
Like I say, he was too big for this world. His thoughts were too big. I do also know, regardless of what anyone thinks, his books and his writings in the future will become a milestone in our understanding and perception of things. The human potential, shall we say, or the human existence. Because I believe that he was one of the first questioners to study and self-experiment into DMT and the effects of DMT to the level that he did.
And combine that with his intellect.
There is something incredibly powerful happening there. I can't profess to understanding it all. I've been there with him on some of these journeys into the DMT realm and obviously the other psychedelic mushrooms and LSD, mescaline, pretty much all of them. And I know what they brought him. And I can see that this transformation,
with his intellect and his perception of the human being as such, was something not ready yet to be accepted by our very restricted spiritual society at the moment. But I'm sure in the future people will be hailing him as some kind of revolutionary, I hope. Because that's pretty much what he was. And inspiration.
Yeah, and there's real movement in that realm recently that I think he was such a big part of. And like you said, I don't know how to articulate this or tackle it whatsoever. But his energy, I mean, from the first time I met him, he had this energy that was so compelling. And he made sense. He made so much sense. And everything he, the way he looked at the world was bold and truthful and exciting. He's the most fascinating person I've ever met. And I didn't explore any of these sides like you're talking about.
That's just, that's something I don't know hardly anything about other than, you know, college.
Well, yeah. I
didn't know much about him until I met Greg.
I didn't know much about him until I met Greg. And we got on like a house on fire from day one.
And he was already, you know, an experienced psychedelic practitioner with, you know, LSD and mushrooms and mescaline and such. And he opened my mind to that side of things. And then DMT came along. He opened my mind there as well. And he was a great guy. And I just feel in a way so privileged.
My psychedelic guru as such was the greatest of our time. I don't know anybody else. And I've met lots of his friends. And we went to Burning Man a number of years together. We lived together. We got a house in the Dominican Republic together. You know, we were friends.
And I was just, you know, I was this running mate lunatic for quite a number of years. And I just, you know, what a privilege.
Yeah, exactly. What a privilege. His book, I got from him. He had just finished it and, you know, self-published Under the Influence, 20 Tales of Psychedelic Noir, which is just such an awesome title. And he, you know, he was a great guy. And he was so proud of this thing. And he gave it to me when we were down in Texas. We were trying to fly in some distance down there. And it is freaking brilliant. It's so fun. And again, because I knew him from flying. I went out to see him one time at Halloween. And you know, for me, it was a big night. But for him, it was probably the best. And you know, so I got to see a little bit of it. But that just wasn't, you know, kind of like you. I'd heard a lot of stories. But I didn't know that side of him.
And that book really gives a window. I got to encourage our listeners to get this thing. It's just so fun. Well, the funniest thing. I'm going to have to laugh out loud. It's fantastic.
The funniest thing with that, Gavin, is when we used to live in the Dominican Republic together, I'd go down there for the summers to develop snow kites, believe it or not. And so we had this, we've got this crazy property down there called The Tower. And it's three stories, octagonal buildings, totally unique. I mean, it's... It's classic, Greg. You know, just it's not like anywhere else. Anyway, so we had this place. And he'd be writing these stories. And he'd be passing them to me to read. So I don't know how long I've been pushing him. Come on, Greg, get the book finished. Finish the, you know, finish the short stories. Finish yourself. And so I've read all these stories through numerous iterations.
And I've been reading them. And it's sort of affecting them as such. Yeah, putting the final touches to them. Come on, you've got to get this thing out there, man. These aren't going to be anything when you're dead. They need to come out when you're here. He'd always laugh at, yeah, you're never a famous author until you're dead anyway.
Finally, he gets the book out, which was very satisfying for me. I know how much it meant to him.
And, you know, I get a little bit more out of it. I went back down to the Dominican after I'd dealt with breaks of affairs in New Orleans. And I was sat in the house up on the third story balcony. You're at canopy level. So there's palm trees and beautiful green fauna and flora around you. And I was reading through the stories again. Oh, my God.
Just emotional. And again,
I bet I'm sure. And again, it helped me with his death because reading about stuff, it's like, Jesus, this guy has lived so much. I mean, he's just the stuff he did. Because, of course, it's quote unquote fiction. And he and I had some great talks about Walter. And I was like, dude, you're in every story. You're real easy to pick out. You're the big bloke. You're the big Kiwi who's constantly maybe getting in a fight. But you don't know how to fight, but you're real big. I mean, I know who's you in every one of these stories. But yeah, it's a lot of fun.
Well, we should get back to flying and the other stuff. It's great to talk about him with you because I know you guys have a lot of history together. You're living together in Driggs and Sun Valley. I mean, you guys have combed the world together. And I'm sure had a lot of pretty incredible. Adventures. One of the adventures that has kind of reached legendary status is your A4 with Othar and those guys in Slovenia. I wonder if you could tell that one. Because Bill said that would be his quote from you is give it more gas. You know, as you guys are going on. So what's this one?
Oh, it was. Yes, it was a PWC in Slovenia. And. This is Ozone. I just started. And basically I was broke because I wasn't saving money during my career as a competition pilot. Because there wasn't any to say I was just I was just doing it. And then we started Ozone. And yeah, I've thrown everything I had into that box. But I think we had the first gliders out and so needed to go make a bit of a showing. And we went to this PWC in Slovenia. And Othar had shown up. He'd landed in Italy, rented a car. It happened to be an Audi A4. And he was there.
Bernie. Secondly.
Canada was there and a few others anyway. It was back in the day when some people still sort of held me on some kind of regard and put me on some kind of pedestal. And this one of the pilots, his father just opened. A museum. And he wanted us to go and sort of Chris and the new restaurant. And each year they're allowed to shoot a certain number of bears in the region. And he had shot one bear and he wanted to prepare the bear for us that night. So well, it was mainly admittedly for me.
Um, but I said, oh yes, but I'm with this crew because you can't leave. You can't leave your crew behind. So we took the whole crew, whole crew up to the restaurant. And going up there, it's this beautiful windy road switchbacks. And I'm already wishing I was driving because, but it's so fast. So we're driving up there and it's like, oh my God, this deserves to be torn apart. I used to love to drive like a maniac. I really was a man anyway. So we're driving up there. We get to the, uh, to the restaurant. It's a beautiful side of the mountain type ski lodge restaurant thing. And the owner. As soon as we walked in, just took a shine to me in terms of right.
We are having a good time tonight and the Slovenians had to have a good time. So he was flying me with alcohol from the beginning. Yeah. Just, and I'm a lightweight, so I was totally, totally lit already. Then we had this absolutely incredible meal there, which I haven't eaten. I hadn't had before or since. And it really was. Beautiful. Divine. The meat was incredible. Um, and we have this big night. Everyone's pretty lit by the end of it because the owner was, you know, there was no bill to pay. The owner was just. Blindness. And Bernie was the only guy left who wasn't drunk, which was lucky. So Bernie jumps in the car to take us home at the end of it.
And I think there's five of us in the car. So there's three in the back. And I think I was in the back. Um, Oh, phone burning. I know we start driving down. Come on, Bernie. You're driving like a pussy. Give it some gas. And then I stopped. I stopped coaching him through the gears down into second. Yeah. So that why Laura, come on, more gas, more gas. And anyway, these are really steep switchbacks. It's on a very,
I've driven those roads. I know exactly what you're talking about. They're winding,
but Slovenia as well is quite poor. So there were no crash barriers on any of these corners. Anyway, well, it wasn't those days. Uh, this is probably 19, 1998 or 99 or something like that. Could have been 2000. So what we're going down this road, come on, Bernie, faster, faster, more gas, more gas. Nail it. Nail it. Come on. Great. Nail it. You know, anyway, he's doing well until at one point on one of these tight switchbacks, he loses his bottle. And, uh, instead of. Following the instructions, he kind of freezes and we literally just say a lot. The edge of the road and we're passing through the canopy through the trees. All right. There's leaves going past us and I'm still so late.
I'm in the back going, but anyway, the story gets more and more ridiculous. We fly through the trees. We managed not to hit any trees. And. End up. Crashing into this big rock. Cause sort of on its roof on the side. It's a bit of a shock. Is everyone okay? Everyone's okay. Oh my God. Everyone's okay. Oh, wicked. Okay. Right. Let's get out. So we get out, climb back up to the road and it was a crop of flying back up to the road. You know, we've covered some serious distance anyway. Uh, then we mobile phone someone and they come and pick us up and we're like, yeah, we'll be able to do that in the morning. So we go back up the next day. You can't even see the car. It's so far gone.
You know, it's, it's down and yes. Oh my God. Like, what are we going to do here? I know if that goes well, uh, I rented this thing in Italy and they said, you can't drive it in Slovenia because it won't be insured. Oh no. Okay. I've got this great idea. Let's take the license plates off, take the stereo out and, you know, make a few things and let's pretend
it was
stolen.
Well, this is, this is. This is what silly minds do, you know, immature, silly minds like mine. And so then we made the police reports and did all that shit. No, I went back and said, yes, it was stolen, but not in, not in Slovenia. And of course it's an Audi A4 in Italy. It could have been stolen because those things, those kinds of things happen. Anyway, of course, what you forget is that the seasons change. And so it was all covered in foliage and God knows what, because it was down in the ravine. And there was trees in the way, but in the middle of winter, it probably started out like a sore thumb. So about a year later, I would, I'll get this call from some, uh, Italian investigation Bureau saying, yes, we have reason to believe some kind of fraud going on here.
Oh, yeah.
So you basically have two choices. One is to stand up against the fraud charge or the other one is to pay the bill for the car. So, uh, the bill for the car was paid. Yes. But I have to thank you. How
much was that?
It was, that's not a cheap car. It was 15 K actually at the time. It was obviously rental rates. So it was actually a cheap car, but I have to thank Oca for the juncture in time because I was broke, you know, I didn't have any money. So, uh, I think Oca.
And you were kind of the instigator.
As I often was. I'm sorry. Sorry. But I have, I have spent loads of my money on, on everybody else. You know, I was never, I was the guy buying the ski boat for us to have fun. I was the guy, you know, just get in, let's go. Cause, uh, you know, I was being paid more than they were. So I never went shy on petrol and food and all that kind of shit. So it all, it all evens up in the end, but oh my goodness. Total stupidity, total craziness. But everybody. Okay. You know, that was the main thing.
Yeah. Great. Great. Robbie, if you could rewind the clock all the way back to the beginning, would you change anything? And if so, what would it be?
Oh, yes. I wouldn't change much. It would only be, um, my personality in those situations. I would have liked to. Well, I wouldn't.
I could have done it with more decorum. That's all.
Can you, can you put some more on that? What, what do you mean? You could have just been more of a gentleman or what do you mean? Yes. I
could have been more of a gentleman. I was young, aggressive, impetuous. Uh, you know, the fact that I was totally loaded with energy, wasn't the problem. The problem was the delivery sometimes. And that. I definitely ruffled some feathers and caused some shit. Uh, nothing that I regret to the point that it stays with me, but when you asked me to rewind it, then yes, I could have, I could have been more of a gentleman. I could have been slightly more accommodating to other things. I was very, um, uh, me and us orientated. It was me and my crew involved anybody else. So.
I could have been. I could have been slightly more open now.
What's the craziest thing you ever saw either you or something you saw in, in flying something that you think back? Is that, isn't there a story about you going backwards at like 90 K an hour or something and jumping out? Or I don't know if that was you, but there's, there's gotta be some in your.
No, actually this is a, this is a good story for people as well to listen to and maybe remember because it's, it's not a particularly a nice story, but. It's. It's very poignant in terms of, uh, your own longevity.
And we were at, we've gone to a competition in Telluride.
Um, it was the usual crew plus some new people that we didn't know. And we went up to launch on the first day and it was pretty windy. And, uh, there was a guy pulling ring overs on launch and they were, they weren't particularly good. We know this and you know, tell you ride launches a high launch. I simply thought it's a. This is a nine. 9,000. Yeah, it is. Yeah. So the nine, my memory has actually worked for something. Uh, those aren't really the kind of altitudes that you want to be messing around with wing elders and stuff close to the ground, you know, especially in the type of conditions that tell you I'd be lovers. And, uh, it's actually terrible, but, uh, I turned around to our crew and I'm like, this dude's going to be fricking dead.
If he carries on. I'm doing that. Boom. Hit the ground. And was that.
Holy fuck. It's just, oh my God. Literally. And first off, he didn't really have the skill. Secondly, it was in the top, the worst place for doing it. And I thought, you know, unfortunately now I look back at that and I just recognize how important it is to. Yeah. Yeah. Always be present, recognize your own level, recognize where you are, have some respect. It's like, my God, that there is the quintessential example of when you don't have those three things. And, uh, yes, that's actually stayed with me ever since because it's, there it is.
You know, it's all there. You just got to play it, play it by the book instead of. You know, wanting to show off or needing that feeling so bad that you're prepared to risk everything for it. You know, you've always got to recognize the balance. I'm sorry if that wasn't quite what you're after.
No, no, no. That's, that's great. That's a great lesson. How has flying those years that you flew a lot. I mean, you're still kiting. I'm still
flying too. Yes. Yeah.
How. Yeah. Are you? Okay. Are you, how, how has flying, when you kind of look back, uh, how has it changed your life?
Oh my goodness. Uh, well, um, yes. Without a shadow of a doubt, it was the ultimate gift. You know, it's, uh, how's it changed my life? It has been my life. You know, it's, uh, meeting exceptional people.
And when
I've elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant elegant
was uh this has been a real joy and it's it's nice to have these because you know like with kiwi recording this summer it was i'm so glad i had that just as a little you know something so it's it's great to it's it's great to share this time with you and thanks for sharing a little bit of your life uh with all of us uh
thank you very much gavin for having me it's awesome and uh i hope that uh you know if if it inspires people or it's a it makes people think you know i'm an idiot and do it a different way i don't care so long as there's some form of inspiration that can come from it then that's fantastic and thanks for having the time to uh to talk to me
thanks robbie well good luck with everything there with ozone and building kites and racing bikes and and having fun and uh one of these days i hope our paths will cross you
i'm sure they will i really hope they do in fact i'm going to make a point of it happening
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Well, I'm lost behind.
The world's out there. I'm left behind. And I'm left behind.
As the seasons roll on by. Yeah.