Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the CloudBase Mayhem. A couple brief little things of housekeeping here before we get into the show with Veso, one of my favorites, and you're going to love this one. I don't typically, I get contacted by a ton of people asking if I could put their event into the podcast, and I'm always very resistant to that because so many more people would do it. I don't like to use the platform for advertising, so I apologize in advance to all of you who have asked me to do that, and I've just said no to because I'm about to do it for myself. But I guess if it's my own events, then I get a pass. Just two quick things. We're doing the second X Red Rocks this September.
Applications are now open. That's the biggest purse, prize purse, second only to the X-Alps, 5,000 for first in the pro class, and down from there. We had an awesome event this year. It takes place at the end of September. This year, it's September 30th through October 1st. If you want to find out more, it's kind of a three-day stage race modeled after the Iger, Verico, Borns to Fly, and those. But it was by far the biggest in North America, and it was a blast last year. And we're already ramping things up with a whole bunch of new sponsors and some cool stuff this year. So check it out if you want to take part in that. We're going to be bringing a bunch of the big-name international athletes over to this one, and it's going to be a hoot.
Monroe is an amazing place to fly and just awesome that time of year, super reliable. XRedRocks.com is where you can find out more information about that. And the other one is we've got a U.S. Nationals slash pre PWC all lined up. Same place, Monroe, Utah, September 10th to 17th. That just went live on Air Tribune and Civil, and registrations will start for that April 1st. So if you're wanting to fly some big, high, huge distance tasks in a race-to-goal format in a beautiful part of the world, and by far the most reliable place we fly. Out here in the Intermountain West. It's just kind of sandwiched in between Bryce and Escalante and Dinosaur and all those magnificent national parks out there in Utah.
Check that out. The Red Rocks Wide Open. This is, I guess I'm becoming an event organizer without planning any of that. So check those out. It'll be a lot of fun. My guest today, Vesso Offgerout. We haven't done many shows as a repeat. But I had to get Vesso back on. So back onto the show. His history is, of course, Acro. That's what got him on with Red Bull. And he's got a fantastic website, Flying the Earth. He is the inventor, creator of the, what is the harness? 3RS base harness. So it's got a base harness, but Acro harness where it has two reserves and a cutaway base rig. It's really forward-thinking and fantastic. And the Acro pilots are really loving it.
We're hoping we talk about that and hoping to get some crossover with that into Carp. And then we'll talk about the Vesso Cross Country. But I reached back out mostly to talk to Vesso about his XC. He has really been chasing that lately. He won X contest this year. No small feat with all the pilots around the world chasing it so hard. And an awesome stint down in Brazil this last season, which got him on top of X contest. And he's just smiling, awesome energy. I just love Vesso. And he is more articulate than I am when it comes to his second language in English. So we had a blast. We talked about cross country and Acro and his infinite world record and a whole bunch of other stuff. And his harness, which is amazing. And a lot came out of this.
We dove into some fun areas. And I think you're really going to enjoy it. So enjoy this chat, this second chat with Vesso Off-Grov, Red Bull athlete. Cheers.
Vesso, man, it's good to see your smiling face. Thank you. And catch up. It's been a while since our first show. I've been wanting to do this for a long time. And the timing is perfect. I just had to watch you guys do all these epic racing and jumping off buildings in Dubai. You know, I was supposed to be there with you all. And I had to pull out at the last minute. And, man, I had some serious – at the beginning, I was kind of – you know, when I saw that first ramp with all the gaps and I saw a pal's comment that, oh, God, someone is going to die. I thought, oh, okay, I made the right decision. But then, man, you guys made it look good. That looked so nice in that evening flight when it wasn't the race anymore, when everybody just went for a boat around the sky in Dubai. Man, that looked good.
And I had some serious FOMO going on last week.
Same, same, Gavin. It's so nice to hear you, to see you. And it's been a long time. I'm also very inspired from all the adventures you've been doing and following them closely. It's – what a ride. I mean, we're still lucky to can follow this dream even with all the restrictions nowadays. And according to Dubai, that was definitely one of the craziest and most funny things for the year for me. I was also not sure, especially for the physical part. I had a little minor injury, the first one after more than 20 years of flying. It came so silly for me on a simple landing. Simple landing. I hurt myself from the bush. It was a metal there.
Get to my leg, you know. Was that down at the Worlds? Yeah, that was just the end of August, actually in the end of the summer. And I missed the World Cup in Turkey. And then I was barely ready for Dubai and was like, wow, I can fly with this leg. Let's see. But in fact, it was not the leg, you know, which troubled me. It was the breathing because even the part of the physical part was so short, was so intense. I'm not used to the sprint version of exercise. I'm more of a long, slow walk with a weight on the shoulders. Like we used to hike, you know, but that was really a sprint discipline most of the time. And I almost fear for a heart attack.
It was so intense in the stairs. And it was like, you know, I hear the alarm in my head like, and almost blacking out like, oh, nobody around even to help me. Some people behind. I was not last, but still, I felt like so alone there, so in danger. And then the takeoff was… Yeah, you know, and I mean,
some of you guys who really aren't, you know, all the time in the really hike and fly racing space, you guys held your own. You know, Miki, Sigel, and Seb, Ospina. And, you know, I was impressed. It looked just viciously fast. This guy sent me a guide that listens to the… He was on the podcast all the time who was there, I think, helping with media and stuff. He sent me a video. He was running along with Chrigel one day. And I don't think I've ever seen Chrigel look that winded. You know, he was… He wasn't smiling. He was throwing down hard. And it just looked… I wouldn't have done well there. I mean, I think I would have enjoyed the flying and the building stuff and that kind of thing. But I don't have that move either. You know, I'm close to 50. I can't sprint with those guys.
It looked fast.
Actually, it's incredible. Chrigel was not top performing in the first two days. But… But he outstripped overall everybody. And, you know, I think it was… For me, it was very entertaining because even with the serious difference between the ability, the physical part, I could still be around these guys, you know, and share the moment with them, which was very amazing. And he made a smart move. He made a suggestion to the organization not to put the takeoff of the building as a competition part because someone will rush it and we will see something really nasty there. The potential was there. And they all agreed that was really a vital moment that made the flying way more pleasant and way more acceptable even with the crazy conditions because there was no competition element there.
And it was really funny. And there were some hard moments that I turned my head and I was thinking to catch the elevator when people were just running with basically no wind or really back wind and hopping into the leap, you know. The glider works, you know, but they use it more of a jumping device than takeoff device.
I was lucky. What I attempted was kind of okay.
Oh, man. Some of those launches, I mean, it was fabulous. The media they did was really incredible. You know, you could see a lot of it. And then, you know, following all you guys on Instagram and seeing the videos and the launches, they're still coming out now. It just… Man, it looks pretty tense. I mean, you know, I don't have a huge fear of heights, but standing, you know, a foot from that drop off doing a cobra was… You must have had… Your heart must have been racing, buddy. That just looked dicey.
That was actually the biggest surprise when we thought we are done with the sketchy part and we see the condition get better and was kind of coming front from the building and was clear that we're going to soar there. And we're like, okay, let's go and just take off. But it was a pretty nightmare. Because the rotor was so strong, it was not allowing you with a few steps there on the short takeoff to pump the glider. You know, we were trying and trying. And the only option eventually was just taking off from the really edge with the cobra style. I was shitting my pants there because I'm normally on the edge with a parachute that it's folded and it cannot be compromised. But the cobra launch there, it could go wrong. You know, there is a case that can go wrong. And it was very emotional and very exciting.
It was very special to be part of this event for sure.
Yeah. And the dune flying out in the desert. You know, one, I'd love to get some clarification if it's not too uncomfortable. I didn't understand. I was on your guys' WhatsApp group. So I could see all the back and forth that was going on that the public wasn't privy to. What was the negativity stuff that was going on? And what happened with Kriegel's last day? He put up a post that, you know, because he was really, he and Tange were really in the lead and he was in good position going into the last day. And from what I could tell from the live tracking thing and the media thing, he got a little jump on him on that second flight. And then he ended up last.
And it sounded like it was a decision of, I didn't understand it. I don't think anybody else did either. He put up a post that said, hey, I just, I wasn't really, I didn't really understand it. I didn't understand how to, how to absorb. And because you guys were taking some heat for running, having an event in Dubai, but I, I, I never saw any of that stuff. I dug around. I couldn't find the comments that you guys were talking about. What was happening there?
I would like to start from the early on a bit because that was the last day. In general, we were all very impressed and surprised and pretty loaded with the challenge every single day. Because the challenge was tough. It
was different.
And we thought that the building is the most difficult one and the sketchy one. But then we had the canyon before the dunes, before the place you mentioned for the goal. And the canyon was also pretty interesting. And we thought it's going to be kind of boring and really simple. But everyone have choose different strategy and was very interesting, very entertaining, very, very difficult to, to hike this mountain twice. I did this mistake to attempt. I was hiking it twice. But it was amazing. We could do glides like over 20 kilometer in a lee side over incredible ridges. It was very exciting because everyone, almost everyone reached the goal and was a really good setup of the locals.
Then with the, the moment with the mountain, which is kind of rising from the dunes, but we are more or less flying in a small mountain, which is very sharp actually. It's even tricky to walk there. That's the stones are. Sound like a glass. When you drop a small rock there, it's very kind of volcanic, strange mountain, very sharp. And we were basically soaring in this mountain with a pretty mellow condition. But sometimes when the wind is more from the left or more on the right, all these small ridges create turbulence. And we were in fact racing full bar for our sometimes even more across these ridges, really low. Sometimes you realize you don't have time to recover from a major landslide. You know, and it happens to have two accidents there.
Two guys had a crash. But as well was was a personal decision. No one is telling you to do that. But if you want to follow the herd movement or your blind eye, it could be bad card, you know, and it plays bad for some of us. Steve hurt himself. And I think the Mexican guy as well. Yeah, that was pretty dicey and spicy. And yeah. We had a challenge with too many points. I also get lost in the last day. I didn't realize what's happening. And I was just 50 meter lower than the first group with them. And then I realized we are not landing there. And I have to go back and clear a high voltage like 10,000 volts. And I think I did a pretty good decision. But still, I cleared it with less than 10 meters.
So there was a lot of things that can go wrong there. And they went wrong for some of us. Like Aaron wrapped the tree that took him hours to take just the glider out of the tree. He lost the leadership. He could have win the event. And then the last day with the thing that happened with Krieger. We can judge different ways, but we never really know exactly. But I had the feeling that he just give a chance to the youngster to take their best position. Which was very supportive. Because he see the ranking was changing very hectic. And he was in fact appearing on top of the ranking by some lucky circumstances as well.
And I thought he just want to keep it that way and not winning it. He's such an
ambassador, isn't he? Yeah, he's amazing. It doesn't surprise me. He's really amazing. He's so giving. He's so open with all of his information. He really wants everybody to be good and better. Yeah. He's really a
fatherly figure.
I think he's become, isn't he? I mean, even people who are older like me. He's just so helpful. Every time I've ever reached out to him, he's always accessible. I get more and more impressed with Krieger every year. Exactly. He's
a stellar athlete. Especially one of the days when I got lucky to get in a heading position in front of everybody. Because the first group were a bit more aggressive and they just bombed out in front of us. And then I was leading for kind of 20 minutes or something. I was like, wow, these guys have to hike and then try to catch me. And then I suddenly, after a few waypoints, I see Krieger from below overtaking me. I was like, how is that even possible? I'm on full bar constantly. And I didn't bomb out. And he had to hike a mountain and take a better line and fly faster. And he did that. And he won that day. It was amazing. And the other way that we could read that I hear comments that,
you know, I'm not going to be able to do it. And I think it's a good thing that he
made a mistake as well. He made a mistake to tack one of the turn points. But then I don't know. I don't know what's the real reason. There were some people telling me there were many bad political messages to the French team, why they are there and contributing to this event. I didn't get any of this negative feedback. And in general, I think these guys had a very positive intention. And they did really expand the vision of the sport and the experience of these athletes, including me. I was really, really lucky and very grateful to be part of this. But of course, there is always political power that can, you know, throw a shadow on everything. I try not to focus on that part.
I hope his decision was not based on political aspects. And I believe that his act was more of a sportsman.
I think
he put some of that in. I think he put some of that in.
I think he put some of that in. I think he put some of that in. I think he put some of that in. I think he put some of that in. I think he put some of that in. I think he put some of that in. I think he put some of that in. I think he put some of that in. I think he put some of that in. I think he put some of that in. I think he put some of that in. I think he put some of that in. I think he put some of that in. I think he put some of that in. I think he put some of that in. I think he put some of that in. I think he put some of that in. really strong crew. And it just looked like the vibe was amazing. And I would imagine
you got to see some of those guys, I mean, even in a very different environment, obviously, than the Alps and the X-Alps, but just how these guys perform. This last X-Alps,
they're all an eye-opener, but this last one for me, I trained so hard for this last one. I knew it was going to be my last one. And I really put everything into it. I have with the other ones too, but from the physical side, because I knew I can't catch up with these guys from the flying side. They fly all the time too. Anyway, my point is, especially these young guns, they're so good and they're so fast and they're so capable on the ground. I mean, Tange is a beast. And he did that 13,000 something plus meters in a day this, year. And he's a really good pilot. Chrigel told me in the, right after the prologue this year, that he saw him do things in the Bourns to fly that he and Maxime couldn't do.
He was pushing into wind, a crazy amount of wind and just kind of fish up streamed, lost his glider, threw his reserve, landed, packed it up in 10 minutes and kept going. It was just a total non-event.
Definitely was a humbling experience to spend time with these, guys because I only follow them online. I didn't really get to know them in the near years. And for me, it was impressive to see how next level they are in everything, in every aspect of the flight, of the preparation, of the strategy, all the moves they did and the energy they had is just, you know, incomparable. I don't have, I think the chance to measure the physical part. I just should play better. You know, with the combination of these two. And that was the reason I participated. If it was X-Helps, I would not have any chance. I would not really sign. But this was a small, small physical part that allowed me to mix up with these giants.
And for me, it was very humbling, very humbling experience.
Since last we talked, Vessel, you were pretty hardcore and accurate last time we talked. And since we talked, you broke the Infinity record. But your focus seems to have switched more heavily into XC. You know, you won X-Contest this year, which is an amazing feat. You know, you spent last fall down in Brazil and had a whole bunch of big ones. And you just were down at the Worlds.
What's happened with this transition? Is that just kind of the natural flow or was that, did that just happen kind of? You just had more focus on XC? Because it was fun? Or tell me about it.
This interesting transition, I can just call it life. You know, it was not really planned. It was kind of a natural thing because as more as I was obsessed with the accro, as less I had the time and access to practice it properly. And then I started the company as well with the harness, which is just hanging here behind me. You know, and it's as much as I really wanted to train. There was no time. And, you know, I'm based in Sofia, so I have to be always on travel. And that was kind of the reason that naturally shifted me to cross country. Cross country is more accessible without such a big demand, you know, to spend the time. You know, I can use the experience from the past to help me to fly good XC.
And I did that in Brazil. We were so lucky with PAL to explore the possibilities once again in Corona time. We were there having the time of our life. You know, the world was almost shut down. We were welcome, warm from any from every family there. We land in the middle of nowhere. You know how it is there. That was so special. Yeah, the Surtau is special. There was a couple of good pilots, but not many pilots. So that was also one of the reasons probably allow me to go on the top of the ranking of XC contest, which was still not a plan back then, but just happened. And I was very happy. You know, my dream was to cross 500. And it was so hard that year was not easy. We didn't have the winds. It was just few days and I bombed out in the most beautiful day of my life ever since I fly was like so good.
We were moving with a better checkpoints than the world record. So it was logically that we're going to have something big in the basket. But then I bombed out in the best looking sky in 12 o 'clock, you know, in 300 kilometer. It was so painful. And my buddy Paul and Maurice, the German pilot, they continue, but way more conservatively after this bomb out. They get stressed a bit and they keep a different line to score a declared goal as well. So they missed the 600 probably that day, which was possible. And I had to overcome mentally this trauma and go exhausted on the way back almost in the middle of the night. Have just few hours sleep and try again on the next day completely alone.
It was so funny. Nobody wants to take off with me was getting late was almost eight o 'clock really blue. No wind. It was like what the heck I'm doing, but it's my last day of really a chance that then the forecast was shit and everyone was leaving. So and my myself as well and I try and I think that's the example of how powerful can be the human brainwave of desiring something. I believe them. Sometimes we have a little part. Part of this creation because the day was really no sense was pathetic day and in and I was crawling over the ground super slow with the late takeoff and then suddenly the condition just explode explode like in the fairy tale and I could go so fast like like a like angry dog, you know, like full gas leaving leaving every term, which is less than six meter and I'll just serve the Convergence.
See with the very little turning. Thank you. For more than 200 kilometer and then suddenly I compensate the late start and all of that and I realized find myself in a proper position to have a 500 and it was very emotional very rewarding because many people believe in me and send me positive messages and and I think all that create the magic and I got my best flight in the last day of the staying. I was like, it's crazy because he's the three time in the row. I've been three time chasing. Big. I got some
of them.
I got some of them. I got some of them. I got some of them. I got some of them. I got some of them. I got some of them.
I got some of them.
I got some of them. I got some
of them.
Larry Tudor, the dark prince, taught me something years ago. Before I went down to Texas, he said – I was asking him because he'd spent a lot of time in Zapata and trying to break the record there. He'd done it from Hobbs way back in the day. I said, hey, what's the secret? Because it's such a waiting game. It's not like Brazil. Texas is – there's a lot more waiting around and it's brutal. It's hot and there's nothing to do and it's tough. It's a tough waiting game. He said, you have to try every day. Don't pay attention to the weather. You have to give it a shot. Give it a try. I still kick myself. Our very first attempt there, again, like you said, first day, I was with Donajete and he's the king, right?
He's the king of baseball. He's been with those guys, the Brazilian team, to break the record, I don't know, three or four times. It was just a little bit slower start than what he would have liked. We were 160K out and, man, the sky was epic. He decided, nah, let's save our energy. Let's go land. It took over an hour to get to the ground. It was just hoovering and windy and it was sketchy trying to get to the ground. I just kept thinking, man, it'd be awesome. It was a lot easier to just – and we had some overdevelopment to windward. We would have been getting chased by that, but it was dicey. We ended up landing next to a prison and we almost got arrested and it was just traumatic.
It ended up taking more energy to just get to the ground than it would have been to just fly another 200K and had a pretty good day. Would we have broken the record? Who knows, but I still kick myself for that. You never know. You never know. When you read Will Gadd's – the day before or was it the day after? The day before he got the record was even better apparently. The day he got the record, he was late and he wasn't really in a very good headspace and it wasn't very good conditions and it was blue and all these things and then boom. Nine hours later, he's got the record or wherever it was. Yeah, I don't know. I think we have to hang in there.
It's hard because you're always balancing this. Well, if I go and I get back late and then tomorrow, it's going to be tough, but it seems like you just got to give it a try.
Yeah, I mean probably logistically in Texas, the situation is different and that can make you choose this strategy. In Brazil, it's quite easy to try almost every day. First, the weather is way more consistent and the retrieval is getting more efficient every year. These guys are getting bigger cars, faster cars. It's actually crazy on the way back. Sometimes you feel in a greater danger than the flight. Yeah. But we were trying like this, you say, every day. I had two times, like three days in a row without sleep, more than 400 almost every time. I remember in one of the landings, I land and I couldn't make step. I fall like a bag of potatoes. I was like, what? I was looking for some dark force which pushed me on the ground, but it was just no more battery.
I think only the desire for such an adventure can drive you through such an exhausting phase. Otherwise, if you have to be paid to do that or any other reason, I think you wouldn't make it. We were like mad junkies about this. It was a crazy experience.
Yeah, I think that's maybe one of the misunderstandings about chasing these records. You really have to, or at least for me, I found that you have to go in with the mind. You have to have a mindset that you're going to work. It ain't going to be easy. It's tough. It's long days, long nights, early mornings, a lot of wind. There's usually a lot of stress involved with the launch and stuff. I've never done the Keiko, that area. I've never done the towing. I've only done Tesima. I'll tell you, Tesima was hardcore. That was back when they were usually using that as the start. The weather reports, the forecast. The forecast meant nothing, literally. You had to try every day. You're getting out there in the dark and the launch is sketchy.
It's really windy. The chance of getting blown back is pretty high. It's just brutal. You see a lot of carnage. That's stressful. Then you get up and if you get established there, you wait until you get a little bit higher. Then you got to clear a 40K plateau right on the deck. It's just super low. The cloud base early in the morning is never high. You're quite close to the ocean. It's just 90. It seems like I think when they did the record in 2015, they were there for 39 days and flew three. Most of the time, you're back at the hotel by 8 AM. Even if you had a flight, you're back at the hotel at 8 AM. There's no internet. There's nothing to do.
The food's not great. It's like, man.
It's brutal. The future there is too big. As you say, the statistics. It's really not fun. I think even now that the number is raising to 600 plus in the States, which is amazing. Huge respect, head downs for the guy and for everyone who helped him. It's really amazing. Now, I think the Brazilians and all the foreigners that go there, even if I go there myself again, I think we should try to fly something between Quixada and the towing area around Rio Grande and Norte Azul. And Caico. Because starting closer to the sea, you have to pass the plateau still. Because the 600 plus is over the plateau, even starting from the ocean, from the Seaman.
So, meaning that you're arriving with the last bit of conditions in almost in a pitch black with a thousand-meter plateau is very complicated. I think it's way better to use the plateau as a trampoline. You know? To use it to arrive. Like around 2 o 'clock, 3 o 'clock when it's really still pumping and then continue 200K or after the plateau. This is, I think, the better chance for Brazil to believe to cross 600. But don't
you, if you start further in, won't you run into the jungle?
No. A friend of mine, Leonardo Padua, he flew, I think, with the Aspen 450 and from the Quixada and also with Enzo too. He flew 485 from the takeoff of Quixada. So, there
is plenty.
So, there's still some room to work there. So, if you come like
200K east and start, I see what you're saying. So, between Quixada. Instead of
making 220K before Quixada, you have to make just 110 maybe. And then continue with a really high altitude cloud base and really sweet conditions rather than surviving early morning. Close to this madness to the sea and then still arriving with uphill terrain. That's, I think, the only trick is you will need a really windy day because the first, the big bonus starting close to the sea that you have the strong wind, which is from one side terrifying, but from other side gives you the kilometers. So, you have to have a really strong day that is having wind already from the inland, pretty serious wind. But there are some days with such a condition.
You said before we started recording that this last year, I don't know, probably because of some of it, because of Corona and just travel and that kind of thing. But you kind of went inward. You had the Brazil stuff last fall and then you, because it was hard to do comps and stuff this year, you spent some more time just jumping, which you called very stress-free. I find that very interesting. I find that hysterical. So, jumping off cliffs is just kind of taking it easy? It's a
therapy for me. It's like, you know, my kind of, you know, meeting the service that straightens your mind. For me, jumping is doing this job. But yeah, in general, I felt realistically quite distant from my normal schedule and from my goals to compete on a world level in the few disciplines, but mainly acro. I didn't have time to train. And because of the development of the harness, I lose a lot of, you know, training hours in front of, behind of the guys. And I didn't try to catch up. You know, I just like the stage I am. And I decide to give some peace, peace of mind and just hike the mountain, not use thermals, use my own legs because I'm getting older, not getting younger.
And I wanted to earn every meter in the mountain. So, I climb the mountain with my two legs and then, of course, take the cherry and jump from the mountain. That was my therapy for months. I was very inspired and ready, standby to fly cross country. I had my Enzo, spent like two months almost in the car, but couldn't register on time for the comps. And I had to move through the schedule somehow still, and I couldn't catch the good days for flying. I was about to catch up with Timo. Which is, by the way, the most impressive cross country bird rising so young and so good already. Who? He was doing some with Timo, who is now winning the XC contest by a record number.
This year he smashed it completely. He makes so many big flights and he's so young. So, I was about to join him last summer there, but there was always some complication with the travel, with the corona. I was trying to stay closer to the, to the Accru gang. You know, I sponsored him. I support them a bit with the harness. They helped me with the R &D. And I just start to feel a different center of gravity for me now. It's not about proving anymore anything. It's more about contributing and enjoying and sharing with the community.
And how does it work with Red Bull now? If you're not competing in Accru, is that part of the contract or they don't really care? Is it more just, you know, because you're still in the game? Yeah. You're still out there capturing great content and where you get all these great pictures from. You've got somebody in your back pocket taking all these cool shots all the time. You're awesome to follow on Instagram. I love it. I'm not a big social media fan in general, but I sure like following you on Instagram.
Thanks for the last, Gavin. Yeah, definitely. I'm lucky to have some friends with a really good eye and motivated to hike all these mountains. Some crazy friends from Bulgaria with strong legs responsible for the good images and in general for Red Bull. Yeah.! There is no really direct pressure, but of course they are requiring you to be on a high level and to be engaged to a competition scene. And I'm trying to do that as a shift to the cross country. But I present myself very poorly this year because I come with no training straight from Brazil, like more than one year, almost no flying before Argentina. You know, it was a bit naive to expect the high result because you need to tune up your head. You know, technically. Yeah. But just the way of the competition flying is very specific.
And I was a bit down from that, that I couldn't rank myself properly. But I see that my skills are enough to rank myself good if I don't make silly mistakes, you know. And that was still very good motivation for me and believe that I can shift my career more to cross country. We're just less demanding and the flight is kind of a bit more rewarding. Yeah. When you don't train so much and you receive such amazing flight, you know, for Akro to receive amazing feeling, you need to train. Otherwise, you will scare yourself or hurt yourself.
Yeah. It's just a bit more easy for me to keep up, you know, with the world class. And now I get this new inspiration from the hike and fly. I don't know if I will ever join the elite, but I'm really trying to keep myself more fit and paraglide in a world class level. At least for distance flying, you know, for projects. And we'll try to do some high mountain now in combination with flying. It's all about exploring new territory and mixing it up, capturing it good with the story inside. I think in the end, that's very important for Red Bull and for all the sponsors I have, luckily.
Yeah, it'd be fun to see you in some of the, you know, the other hike and fly races. My buddy Ben, who's supported me in all the X-ups thus far, four of them. He's just signed up for the Dolomiti, you know, in August. And, you know, some of that stuff, I'd like to, you know, the X-ups, I think, is just too much for me now going forward. But I'd love to still participate in some of the smaller, shorter events. They're still very intense, but they're, you know, the Eiger and the Verco and that stuff just looks so fun.
Exactly. And the vibe was different as a newbie there. I could see the difference because I've been joining. So. Yeah.!
!
I got some.
I got some. I got some. this experience together. We're having very different experiences, but you're all in it together. And most of the time, the X-Ops, you're alone. You're very rarely with anybody else, but it's, yeah, it's special.
Yeah, I can say the same. For me, it was absolutely the same. Very inspiring and everyone is engaged and looking after each other, as you said. And I'm very looking forward to join some future smaller events like this that will enable me to keep up at least a little bit with the best because they're so ahead, man. They're like machines. I cannot even understand how the body can work so well, but I guess they've been practicing before.
Yeah, the level is just, it's on a curve that I can't keep up with. It's really impressive. Tell me about your harness. I got a good look at it from Dylan Benedetti. I did a bunch of acro training with him this spring, getting ready for the race out in California. And he showed me your harness. It looks wicked, but describe it for those who aren't aware of it yet. It's sitting next to you there, but a cool piece of kit, man.
Yeah, this harness was born purely from a desire to have the perfect seat, the perfect harness for what we do for the safety, for the comfort, for all the special parts that the industry was kind of negligent about because they're not really... necessarily related to any profit. And that puts me to this naive project. It took me almost three years with the hard work of four or five friends around me, countless hours of R &D and testing and making prototypes. And now we can say that we have something very complete and still improving, but now the harness, you can see it hanging here.
It has a really solid structure, very comfortable, support from every side. It's not going to hurt your body from pushing any hard maneuver. And you can customize it in a different style of flying that normally conventional harness will not support. And of course, having the three rescue parachutes was a dream. Not only having three of them, but also having them in a different position because sometimes, you know, when we're in the lines, in a dangerous situation, you don't have access if you're wrapped around your legs. Even if you have two under your legs. So we have all the parachutes in different positions, which give additional safety feeling for the head, you know, it has a good, better balance distribution of the weight, better protection, because if you hit without the rescue deployment, it's still like a protector.
They have many, many extras. It's a long talk to involve every extra, but in general, it was something created from a pilot to the pilots without any commercial intention. And of course, now we're trying to sell some of them to support this project further on. The idea is to support these athletes, the acro athletes in a real level, like giving them the best equipment and being able to use their knowledge and expertise to expand the functionality and safety of this product. Because many times, you know, the industry sometimes support athletes, but they can't do it. They can have kind of a shallow relation, you know, and the development is not really boosted properly by the athletes, which can happen.
You know, we see that in all the other sports, which are with more money involved, of course, somehow it's easier for these guys. But for us, it's been always a gap between the industry and the needs, you know, and the knowledge in that list. So now we want to merge these both and be on an infinite journey for improving this kind of equipment, spreading it in a different discipline, as well as making it for the athletes.
And we hope that we can sustain financially this project going.
And it's got the whole cutaway system, correct? The one in the center is kind of a base rig?
Yes, we really experiment a lot. But now we come back to the conventional three-ring mechanism, which is actually patented from the 40-something. Now it's free for everyone to use. The only thing that this system is lacking is the special ring carabiner that doesn't exist yet in the industry. We use this kind of good looking shackles that are fitting well, but they are still thicker and too much strong that we don't need to be so thick. You know, we're preparing to have our own carabiner, especially made as a proper ring with a separate shoulder for the riser on top. That will really give the icing on the cake.
We have many things to polish.
You think you can cross this technology over into a pod setup too? It'll be a cross country option as well?
Yes, definitely. For the peace of mind, I think it's good to have it in the cross country. But I think it's more of a cross country, like when you're pushing on your own. Not really to give you additional power. It's more of a cross country safety for a gaggle flying, because I was thinking so much about the risk and the safety of the gaggle flying. But then it's very complicated to have a clear deployment if you're in the middle of the gaggle and so on. It's more about your own safety when you're taking risk in a sketchy line, in a lower altitude with some rough terrain that you want a clear deployment as fast as possible and a way to steer away from the terrain. That will be a real safety bonus. And we believe we can develop it in the near future.
What's the name of it?
Of the pod? No, your harness. Oh, no. The name of the harness is 3RS. We give this kind of technical name because it's communicating with the 3 Rescue Parachute and with the 3 Ring system. So it's just giving a name for the extras inside. Yeah, we make many, many amazing features like the custom-made buckles. We designed them. We designed them on a CNC machine, cut them from aviation aluminum, and they're really strong. They never release the grip. We used to stitch our harness doing Acro and taping it with duct tape to keep the position. Now it's all set. But we have many things to improve on the track, to make a color code, custom mix webbing with Dyneema.
Many details that just require time and a lot of money. In the beginning, I was like, oh, we're going to do it. We just pocket money. So far, I don't want to say big world, but we've been throwing money almost for an apartment, you know, and three years of working with no salary. And this thing can take hundreds of thousands easily. It can slow, you know, the development is so much.
Harnesses are so complicated. I look at them and go, how in the world? I
hope I will manage to keep the crew because it's difficult without financing. There are some interest people want to finance the company in the company, but they're just pure quack. I'm not really keen to share yet with them the company. And maybe at some point we will even talk to the community as an open investment, like how you say, not Kickstarter, GoFundMe or something, you know, just to keep the spirit. Because I think it starts like this and will be very speedy to disappear or to be sold to some commercial company that just looks profit.
Yeah. Good for you, Ian. I got you. I got a chance to sit in it and play with it when I was out with Dylan. It looks a beautiful piece of kit. It's gorgeous. It's
getting better every time. So hope you can see some of the latest version. It's a constant improvement. I thought we're going to do harness because you do one model and you can keep it 10 years on the market. This is what I've seen, you know, from the industry. But it's not like this because I'm never satisfied. And I don't want to keep even two months the same thing because you can improve it every day.
Sure. Of course.
It's like growing my own kid, you know. I'm still not a biological father. So this is my kid.
You snuggle at night, talk to her nicely in the morning. I get it. I do that with my new ways.
Hanging together, talking about this and that, you know, finding unique extras and relation between.
Hey, Rene. Rewinding to the worlds and XC and competing and race to gold type stuff. You mentioned before we started recording that, you know, you weren't really tuned up going into this because you hadn't been competing that much. But you found that, you know, for the most part, you could hang with the lead guys just until you made a mistake. Talk about mistakes because I think a lot of folks struggle with that. You know, what kind of mistakes are the ones that get you repeatedly? You know, are they up in here? Just talk about mistakes a little bit.
I think in these events, I really refresh my mind and re-educate again on the same topic that is being so painful in the past when you do the same mistakes. Basically, the biggest and the worst mistake that can ruin your flying and your score is just trying to be too aggressive, you know. Just trying to believe blindly that it's going to work, you know. It's not going to work. It's not going to work without a clear sign that you're choosing the better option, you know. And I get told in these events. Sometimes I was choosing completely different decisions from the main group, from the gaggle. And we even find ourselves with Pal in one of those moments just like, what the heck, Pal? Why?
Why you're here? Why you're here? Why? Why we're not there? Like, yeah, because they're going in the shuttle, right? This is not good. And here is a sun on the left. It's off course, of course. But then we start hooking four-meter thermal and hopping from cloud to cloud and just overtake the main gaggle by far. Easy. But that was one good decision. But bad decision was just trying to run without a plan. Just going, you know. Just going because you feel like you're thermaling good, you're gliding good, you don't feel upset about anything today, and just keep pushing and pushing blindly. That was the thing that really put me on the ground, slowed me down, and then I had to survive and crow after the last guy on the go.
That was a really stupid mistake. Don't try to push without a plan. You can push when you see a clear, clear path, you know, and explaining yourself why. All you have to ask yourself why. If you're just pushing because you blindly believe, it's not going to work. That's really nice. And the other advice is we have difference in the process. The performance of the equipment according to sizes and stuff. And sometimes I was upset to see that I'm just slightly bit, you know, in a disadvantage because I'm flying small size. But, you know, even though I make a stupid decision to change completely the course and try to fly in an individual line just to feel better, you know.
But, okay, you can feel better for a while because you're not gliding worse than anyone around you. But if you don't have a plan why you're going there just because you want to feel better, you're going to end up bad again. Everything is just come to the discipline. What is good, what is bad, you know. What is risky, what is stupid, what is good to do. And simple things, nothing genius, you know. Simple. I
think, you know, watching Russ win that is immense for me. You know, his word is discipline. He always talks about that. You got to have discipline, discipline, discipline. And that's immense for me. It seemed like especially there because it was, I flew there the year, whatever that was, two years ago for the World Cup down there. And I think we had pretty similar conditions. It was a lot of rain, a lot of cloud, a lot of really slow climbs, just painfully slow. And that's not the kind of flying that I experience here in Sun Valley. You know, everything here is always really strong. And so it was really tough. And it was really a total, you had to almost meditate on just slowing down and not taking a lot of risk and being disciplined.
It's a different kind of place to race.
It's a really essential spectrum word that can really describe the whole blah, blah, you know, discipline was something that when I was applying, I was doing really good. Maybe not really ahead of in front of the people. But I was doing really good. And if I sustained that every day, I was going to end up really good. As the moment I turn emotional, things go to heck. And he proved that because he catch me one of the days he won't task after a poor experiment to escape from the gaggle because I was on top and slightly in front. I was like, okay, see you guys. Bye bye alone. Missed the line of the lift. Find myself on the floor. They flew over me with a little zigzag.
And I was like, whoa. What I was thinking, you know, and I end up alone behind. And then I see, okay, Russ is coming from even far behind me and even lower. I was like, okay, let's keep with this flying God, you know, just keep up with him. And then, then I told because he starts really catching me and eventually catch me and climb better than me in the thermal, which I kind of kind of break my concentration or like how this is possible. I was really trying. I was really trying my best. But of course, he was better somehow. And he did that. And then on a glide, he won a bit better altitude as well. So our separation start to be, you know, kind of visible. We're not really in the same air mass.
But still, if I keep discipline and just following the good line, not trying to find another, you know, invisible much better, which was obviously not existing. I just did that. I tried to find another line to get ahead, you know. And then keep up again with him. And I get again super low and he won the task with few moves after that. Just keep discipline. The best guy. Don't compare as well. Sometimes comparing can really break your mind. You know, don't compare. Always just do your best and stick discipline to the best plan according to the picture you're seeing. Don't try to be emotional. And if you can do that over and over again, you'll be probably very good.
But again, flying is related to bring us emotion. And controlling these emotions is kind of a controversial reason why we're in the sky, you know, isn't it? So that's the big challenge.
Yeah, it
kind of works against the whole point of what we're doing, isn't it? I know. It's a hard balance, Scott. It's a hard balance.
So, yeah, it's something that we would try to master our life in any aspect of life. You just discipline, you know. Imagine that. Imagine what is more important, you know, to prove in that certain moment that you can do it or just be emotional and believe that you can do it anyway. But then this can hurt you because that's what happened with me and with many pilots. They're like, anyway, we bomb out. It's no big deal. But when you do that a few times, you feel bad, you know. It hurts.
It is an emotional roller coaster. That's for sure. It's so easy in 20-20 hindsight to look back and go, yeah. Yeah. The whole thing. You just got to be calm and not kick your helmet and, you know, and it doesn't, you know, you always see the really good guys. They bomb out and it doesn't seem to bother them. But when it comes down to it, we're humans. We got an ego and it can be hard to get the beat down, especially when it's, you know, a few days in a row. I did that down in Roldo a few years ago. I had a really good year one year there. And the next year I went down, ah, I'm going to crush it. And boom, boom, you know, oh, it's just, oh. Yeah. I got to do this again tomorrow. Yeah.
Also get a few very, very strong lessons in Argentina. Surprisingly, the good one, the good one was in La Rioja where we were flying beyond my experience. Even when I fly in Brazil in the strong condition, following the wind over these wild territories was in a way more comfortable what I experienced in La Rioja during the World Cup. Because we were flying like 40 kilometer almost. Yeah.
And we were flying over this enormous
square, really vast area with just bush. Not very life threatening, but bush and spikes and small trees and nothing, no landing. And you're going to walk like a wild pig for probably days to get out of there. And we're flying over this territory with a 40K headwind, not following the wind. And I thought this is insane or completely impossible. When we close task like this. And I thought I see strong condition in one of those days. I was really emotionally exhausted. And in the end, I start my final glide 500 meter minus, you know, 10K from the goal. Like, oh, anyway, it's going to work somehow. I arrived 2,500 meter over the goal.
It was impossible to go down. And on full bar, 10 kilometer on full bar, I gained 3,000 meter up straight. Jeez. People were sucked in airspace. And disqualified this day. Pitoco missed to lose to win the competition that day because he get zero points. It was brutal. And I didn't have collapse. We were handling this condition somehow flying in the lee side of a big mountain over these bushes. No problem. Just concentration, being an animal turned to a beast. You manage somehow. And then the opposite. I go to Tucuman in this kindergarten jungle, you know, flying tralala over the jungle. Very low, very smooth. I almost die in the training day. My Enzo, for the first time, I changed my B4, 5 Enzos so far, flown them in any kind of condition, rough condition.
I never get this ugly collapse with no shoot. Normally, I fly with the mentality that if my glider move, I'm going to get it. I'm like a black mamba. I have the reflex like putting something in your eye and going to blink before, you know. For sure, I believe in that. And that's why I go to fly every day with no stress because I believe in that. But the glider disappear without moving forward. Just go down like a domino. It falls to my head. Really big frontal moving to the side, getting an instant cravat while folding. You know, the slack of the brakes back then is so big. You don't have six-meter arm to control any of this, you know. So you just do something, but it's nothing.
And then you just wait to land. And then you load the glider when it's already with a huge cravat. I didn't even look on the side. Just barely with my periphery, but I knew that I'm low and I'm not going to save time looking down. So I stole the wing immediately. And I recover it as fast as I can. It was really like a cascade, bam, bam, bam, and open. No waste of time, but I was 20 meters over a huge area of power lines. Oh, my God. I could have died there without doing anything extreme. Just cruising smoothly over the jungle. So my message to the fellow pilots and all the people there that might listen to us, just never put 100 % confidence in your gear for no reason, you know.
If it's like maybe the reason that you evaluate is enough, okay. But if you are just not expecting it, that's a problem because I was not expecting such a collapse in a place like this with no serious damage. Turbulence. We know nothing, you know, to prevent, to alert. Paragliding in the end can be a dodgy sport and always give yourself some room from the ground, except if you're not shooting on sunset and if you're really mentally prepared. And the terrain has to be chosen. You know, this was the ugly part of the terrain with no rescue backup options. If you throw rescue or no rescue, you're dead over this power line. So choose your terrain when you're close to ground, man.
Jeez, man. I mean, that's a great point. I
mean, I hate that story,
but I hate those stories. I know. You just
told me to. I was affected hours after the landing. I couldn't get scared, but when I landed, I was like, gee, I could have died.
It sucks. I hate, I just, I don't like that part of our sport and that there is that randomness that, you know, there's nothing. It's small. I don't know if you heard, but I had my first crash in May. It was two weeks before the race. And the listeners who listen to the show, I'm not going to lie. I've heard about this. I won't go through it again, but it was the same thing. I took off and it was early in the morning. It wasn't that thermic yet. And I had no, there was no red flags, nothing. There wasn't, you know, I was, except that I was flying in Sun Valley. It's always, you know, a little rowdy here, but you know, it was, I was way overloaded on my glider. It's kind of the only thing I could think, but I hit some weird air and, and I was a hundred feet off the ground and the wing just disappeared instantly into a puddle.
And then I was like, oh, I'm going to have to do an auto rotation. And I had just done all that work with Dylan and I'm on my light, light kit, you know, I've got one reserve and I just thought I can't throw my reserve until I get this straightened out. And anyway, I, it, it worked out. I hit the ground incredibly hard, you know, I, the reserve popped and I hit the deck and so it did enough to save my life, but it was, you know, it was really, it was the, the head scratchy part was just what the fuck just happened right there. How did that? all the hours I've flown and all the rowdy conditions and four X-Alps and what just hit me, what, what just did that to my glider? And, uh, yeah, that's what I don't like about the sport is just the, you know, when you're ridge soaring and you take a collapse on the inward side,
not a lot you can do, you know, you heard about those guys in the, in the dissentist or in the, in the Superfinal this year, you know, they all said the guys I talked to just said, you know, it was pretty dicey just racing right on these cliff edges, full bar, uh, you know, even Chrigel would have a hard time recovering if something went wrong in that situation. And yeah, that's what gives me the heebie-jeebies about the sport. It's just, there's, there's that factor too. We've got enough factors.
I heard that he had a spicy situation there, actually similar to what we described, you know, last minute, last second call. I think this is the factor of bad luck and this is existing every aspect of life. And of course, you're more, more likely to meet this factor when you're doing every day, what you love to do, not like on the street. It's, it's accepted part of life, but it sucks.
Yeah, it does suck. There's not much more to say about it, is there? I mean, just, it's just part of it.
Yeah. Like the snowboarder, there was an article a few weeks, a few days ago, I think a very good snowboarder just passed. The way on the ski piece, like Schumacher just hit his head, but you know, boom. And he used to be a guy making thousand, you know, big rotations over his head and doing this on the icy blue jumps. No problem. And he just, you know, it's, it's, yeah, it's a, it's a tricky one, but if we be beware and be more caution on the situation that doesn't require our attention, I think that's the best. Yeah.
Yeah. And a good place to end. That's so, it's so awesome. Always catching up with you. We should, we should make this a yearly event. At least I, I have really enjoyed, you know, kind of getting to know you via your posts all these years, since we had our last talk. And where did we see each other the last time we were, we were at that event in near Garda, you were the king of the air thing. I think it was the last time I saw you, but I hope we catch up with, with one of these hike and fly races, maybe in the future. It was so cool to see you on the, on the roster for Dubai. And I was really looking forward to catching up with you there and having a beer with you and watching those young guns go to, go to town. But congratulations on all the success this year and the X contest win and, and having some fun.
Well done and good luck with the harness.
Thank you, Gavin. For me, it's a great pleasure to hang out with you and deeply inspired by the stuff you do. And I'm sure you'll be happy to be here. And I'm sure you'll be happy to be here. I'm sure you're far from done and I look forward to see you in the States or somewhere in the skies. Really. Sounds good.
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