Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. I have some very brief and fun housekeeping, a little promotion of an event I'm running this fall. Actually, two events. We're running the Red Rocks Wide Open, which is the U.S. Nationals and I think soon to be announced Canadian Nationals. It'll be firmed up this week and pre PWC, September 10th to 17th. So be on the lookout for that. Registration opens April 1st. It will be on Air Tribune. And at the end of that month, September 29th through October 1st, three-day stage race and kind of the style of the Eiger Tour and Barraco Fly and Dolomiti, but an each-day stage race. So each day is its own race and it's scored cumulatively.
We had the first one of those this last September. It was a huge success. There's awesome prize money in the pro category. We've got pro and adventure category, 65 pilots roaming around one of the most beautiful places in the world in the Rockies, uh, throwing down hard. And I'm excited to announce we've got a whole bunch of the X-elps legends joining Patrick von Cannell, who's second this year, is given a presentation Wednesday night. Uh, Paul Guschlbauer and Aaron Durogati are both given presentations Tuesday night of legendary Red Bull athletes, and Paul's done it six times, the X-elps, and and Aaron's done it five times, and a whole bunch of other races, of course. And what else do we have? Tenge Rino Gude, who has the current most meters climbed in a single day and flown down thirteen thousand three hundred forty meters, or something crazy, absolute beast, and won at the UAE I can fly championships.
Tim Roches, longtime PWC pilot, and Niviuk test pilot, so and we've got some other other ones joining, which I'll be announcing in the next show, so some other really big names. So this is exciting, and uh, check it out, it's gonna be a lot of fun, and that's xredrocks.com. You can find more about that, and the application for that race closes April 20th. So a couple of dates coming up that are a lot of fun. This show is with my buddy Steve Bramfitt, who competed in the X-hops this year for the first time, had a crazy wild race as everybody did with the nutty weather and pretty gnarly accident near the end of that, which really slowed him down, I think the day before the end.
So he's building a house right now in Interlochen and tandem pilot there and does a lot of wingsuit base jumping and very interesting individual, really good acro pilot, amazing cross country pilot, it obviously, and had a really good race this year. So uh, we talked a lot about the X-Alps and we had a lot of fun with this and talked a lot about risk and future and goals and just some fun stories. So enjoy the show with gbr1 Steve Bramford
Steve, welcome to the mayhem, man. I, uh, we've been trying to do this for a few weeks, but happy new year. And, and I understand you've been repairing a little bit since the UAE. We'll talk about that, but welcome to the show, hey.
Yeah, cheers Gav. Thanks for having me on the show. It's, uh, I'm stoked. I always listen to your show and really like it. I think it's great what you do to share the knowledge. So yeah, thanks for having us on, yeah.
Let's start off with the UAE. You were just telling me before we started recording there, uh, you know, I think a lot of of us around the world were watching it. I was sad to not be there with you. I had to pull out right before the flight over as I'm building a place here. Sounds like you're doing the same, and uh, we were pouring our footings and foundation and stuff, and I just couldn't get away. So, it looked exciting, man. It was, it was, uh, quite a trip watching you guys fly off the building and cool sunset session and the over the city and and then racing out in the desert. It
looked like a lot, lot of fun. It was, man, I really, really enjoyed it. I mean, normally it's the last place where you go for a hike and fly event or competition. Yeah, you
didn't know they had mountains.
Hey, it was cool. I had a rad time. It was like we did, it was like competition and day off, competition, day off, competition, day off. So yeah, I took my kite surfing equipment as well and, uh, on the days off, oh cool, I went foiling with, uh, paddle and a few of the boys and, uh, yeah, it was awesome. It was real cool jumping off the building. That was, uh, that was a lot of fun. That looked hairy. Yeah, the first day we went up there and, uh, the, the actual platform wasn't down. It's just like a bunch of wooden planks and we're like, "Holy crap, I think everyone has the same sort of idea like this, this is like do or die." And even when they put the board sound and stuff, it was like, it was a bit sketchy because like you'd be in the rotor a bit of the actual building, so the wind would come in, blow up, and and then it would kind of, so you'd have to time it right for, get the right pressure in your wing before, you know, doing the leap of faith, I guess, you know.
Yeah, it was definitely a leap of faith. I was glad that all worked out, but yeah, that looked really exciting. But then I think it was the third race, or maybe it was the last one, I can't remember, but you and Eduardo both had hard days. What happened to you there?
Yeah, so that was, I think it was the third one, yeah. Um, it's interesting, you know, like, like we had the course, it was in, uh, Alfaya, and yeah, we, it was quite a short course, but we did it twice. So, um, it was like a run up a 200 meter hill to the takeoff, and then it was like sore and kind of climb up and out, uh, and then take the first turn point, come back in, we had to land, sign the boards, hike back up, take off again, and there's a few like hops down to the other term, uh, signboard, and then the same again. So, I got a feeling that the day, it wasn't, it wasn't really juicy. It was like, um, yeah, I mean, it was like plus four, plus five, but it wasn't like, like a hard day in the X-Alps, like it wasn't no big alarm bells going off saying, "Hey, you know"
This is, this is quite juicy. And yeah, coming back into the ridge after the—what was it?—the second into last turn point, um, I came in and then I was just kind of pulling myself up on the rears as I was coming on more bar and got to the top of the ridge and this three-quarters bar and yeah, I just had a full blow out of the wing. Everything full, full frontal from nothing. I wasn't hardly any warning signs, like I was holding on and then before I knew it, my hands on the rears under my ass and then let go and then ditch the brakes right down and the whole wing was—yeah, it was gone.
Super, I... I was, and we were talking about this before. It, uh, you don't see that much on two liners; that must have caught you as a hell of a surprise.
That's it, yeah. That's kind of what did, because I pushed, you know, way harder lower on bar, and you generally catch it like you, you box it out like, like you're hanging on and keeping it open. But yeah, I think it probably a combination of the sea breeze coming in and a bit of rotor, but um, but yeah, I wasn't high. I was like 25 meters, and I knew as soon as it happened, I was like, I can't fix this. This is like, no. So when my hands were down, I had half a twist, I've been my reserve. I didn't think it was going to open, but I thought, just get it out, because if it does, it's going to help. Um, and I thought if I let my hands, this all happened in like a split second, if I let my hands up, then with half a twist, it would have pitched, and then I would have spiraled in, and that would have been it.
So yeah, pitched and then kind of braised for impact, so you threw, but it didn't deploy. It just, it fell out to the end of its thing and didn't have enough, yeah? I got to line stretch, yeah. I was hoping maybe, because I glanced down and it was the ridge, and I thought maybe I'm a bit more further out, and it just, just, it was so quick, Gavin. It was like boom, boom, boom, and uh, yeah, kind of hit the ground pretty hard, and uh, yeah, man.
I, I, this is a great lesson for everybody listening. I had a similar, not totally different circumstances, but you know, if you, it's instructive to keep that wing over your head at all costs in those situations, you know, to keep those hands buried, isn't it? Because if you'd let that wing restart, I don't know if I'd be talking to you today. Yeah,
It's if it would have restarted with half a twist and that height, it would have pitched and then you would have gone in with the pendulum with a bit of spiral, maybe. So, yeah, I think you know they say in Swiss Gluck, among Gluck like luck in bad luck, so I'm pretty stoked. You know, I broke my back, I broke my L1 in two places. Um, yeah, it was interesting. So, after I landed, then, uh, Tommy Federer was above and he's seen it. He went to land, um, and at the same time, Eduardo had a crash as well. So, he they like the landing field, people were going to Eduardo and this was like the same time.
So, yeah, he got in a dune buggy with this other guy and came up and got round, got to me and then kind of took it from there. It was really interesting. So we asked, the idea was to get an air ambulance because I knew my back was broken or like it felt pretty hard.
I checked myself, my feet, my legs, like I didn't have any tingling. And I've had a few knocks before. So I was like, yeah, I'm not badly broken. Like I can feel everything, like self-assessment. And then, yeah, like an hour and a half, a few hours went by. And this other guy came and he says, yeah, it looks probably not like the air ambulance is going to come. And to navigate over this terrain at night, it's quite tricky because it's quite hostile and steep. deep, and then he says, "And also, night time, the snakes come out." What? Yeah, so that was like, oh, that was like, okay, all right, let's try and like scramble. Yeah, it's like 200 meters to to this kind of track, and as long as like I had a Tommy on one side and Abdullah, a local pilot, on the other side, like as long as they took my weight on my shoulders, then we kind of like got to the tune buggy and then lay down there.
Then it's down to the tunes and the ambulance is waiting on the road. Yeah. wow
Yeah, it's a tough end to a cool event, but it sounds like everything's going well. This is what, a little over a month later now? Something like that, more than that I guess, but six weeks. You got, you, you got medevaced back and you're back home and interlocking
Yeah, yeah, that was real cool. Um, so I was in there for a few days, and then with the insurance, so I got a Rega app, and that's like a local Swiss insurance. It's super. It's like 40 bucks a year. Every Swiss pilot, every Swiss person's pretty much got it. And yeah, they came, they picked me up. Uh, the private jet flew me back straight to burn, straight to inhospital. Um, the painkillers in Dubai, they're not really that good. The ones that gave me, it was like a paracetamol on IV and this other one. And, uh, yeah, the ones back in Switzerland, I think, is on morphine and ketamine, and I was, I was flying
Yeah, it was good to be home. Yeah, that
A good segue into your life a little bit: you're a Brit, uh, but you're living full-time now in Switzerland. And, and how, how long has that, how long has that been though, uh?
In Switzerland now, just I think a little over 11 years or 12 years now. Yeah, yeah, back and forth. Do you speak German a little bit? A little bit. It's, it's really hard to learn Swiss German here because everyone speaks really good English, but uh, yeah, right, it makes it. And generally, you know, uh, all the clients are American or Chinese, Arabic with the tandem, so so, yeah, I can get by for sure with Swiss German, but definitely got to do some more work on it.
And did you move there originally for the tandem work or was it jumping?
It just kind of fell into place. I came here originally because when I learned flying back in New Zealand, I wasn't so – I was only interested in flying acro, like tandems and cross country never really appealed to me. I was just like, I've seen this guy from the gondola do these spinny things. And I was like, man, that looks super cool. And then this guy, his name's Craig Taylor. He kind of took me under his wing. And, you know, I learned super quick within, I think, two months of having my license. I was flying off the gondola trying to do, yeah, helis and stalls and stuff. Like I had a real quick progression, not one that I'd recommend. mend, um, and a lot of those kind of naysayers was, oh, you know, and looking back I fully get it now.
And Craig was like, "Hey, if you're going to do this, you know these are the golden rules which you've got to do and you know stick with these, you know wind drift and altitude and things like that and um and then yeah." And then he says, "You got to go to Lautabunnen, there's a place called called Mirin and that's the place to train and do laps and um yeah." I was working as a raft guide in New Zealand and I said, "Can you raft there?" And he's like, "Yeah, yeah, there's a place called Outwind." And then contacted them, got a job, and then went there for the season and then back and forth for quite a few seasons, back and forth to New Zealand and back and uh and yeah, I thought, "Wow, New Zealand beautiful, like I live there in a heartbeat." But it's, it's so far away is one thing and uh here in Europe, in the Alps and Switzerland's, yeah, it's a right place to live.
It's uh my gardens do you
Is it, uh, I mean, I know Interlochen gets a lot of expats and, uh, you know, it's a pretty touristy place. A lot of people go there for, you know, it's just, it's incredible. Grendelwald and Mirren and and the, the Eiger and I mean, everything is there. It's just awesome. Awesome flying, awesome jumping, all the things that I know you'd love to do paddling. But is it, is it hard living in a, in another country? That's, that's not your own, you know, do you feel like a Swiss? Do you feel you've been absorbed into the community or, you know, I've always felt like when I'm living somewhere else that you're always kind of an outsider, you know?
Yeah, I know what you mean. Mean, quite like the biggest thing I miss, I guess, is the native tongue. Just, just kind of like the banter, the Kiwi banter. Just have a good sort of yarn. But now, it's they're awesome here, they integrate. You're really nice and, um, yeah, I mean, obviously I miss my mother tongue, but, uh, yeah, it's, it's super nice and they're cool people and quite soft on the inside, hard on the outside, but as soon as you get to know them, they're real nice.
Steve, you and I had a good chat down at the British a couple years ago, or was that three? Now I can't remember if it was right after the 2019 race, I think, right?
Yeah, yeah, I think so, yeah.
And you, you had—I didn't know this, but you had gotten into that one, you've gotten Wild Card or the invite kind of late, right? Do I have that right? And then you decided, yeah, no, I'm not going to do it. Was that right? For
the 2019 race. Yeah. That was the combination because I bought my house here at the same time and I wasn't super fit and just had a lot of other things going on inside my life. So, yeah, I applied to get in.
And then I got in and then I couldn't really give it 110%. Um, so yeah, I talked to—what's his name—the mid-director and Christophe, Christophe, and he was fully cool with it and understood.
So the, I, I remember you know talking to you on the way to launch that day that you know, you were asking me a lot of questions about the race and you know, you were clearly, you had it on the docket for the future, you know, for 2021, which you did, and we'll talk about, but you were, you were, as I was going into 2015 race, man, what am I taking on here? And you, you know, you seemed pretty concerned about it in a way, you know, just can I do it? Am I ready as you know, all the things that I think all rookies have. Um, I'd love to know what, what about the race met the reality, you know, the expectation, what about it was, Oh yeah. You know, um, versus cause you had, you'd done the Iger, You had done some other the hike and fly races going in?
I went into 2015 having done none. That was—that was my first hike and fly race was the X-Alps, so I didn't have any. Just, I had no idea where I belonged, you know? Am I going to get eliminated right off the bat, or am I going to do okay? Uh, I was terrified going into the first one, and I'd love to know just what—what of the race was? Yep, I was kind of ready for that. And what caught you by surprise? What was different about the race that you didn't anticipate? Speed, um...
The tiredness, like I knew from the expert and stuff, that like you get tired after like day four or five, but I think that was a thing that was super hard to cope with. Like after day six, seven, you're just a zombie a little bit, and then you kind of warm up and get going. Um, yeah, but I mean the whole thing was just such a rad adventure, and uh, yeah, just going and seeing the places where you see, and uh, I think the anticipation before doing it, you kind of like, uh, "Am I good enough? You know, am I going to be eliminated the first? I'm a... I'm ready for this. You know, have I got any right doing this race?" And then, yeah, just with the previous races, then you kind of say, "Okay, I did this, I did this, I did well in that race, well in this race." I'm just trying to...
I think self-confidence, I think more the reason the first time, but I didn't do it as well because I wasn't... I wasn't ready, or I was doing it for the wrong reasons. I was doing it to kind of like, in my head, to... to prove to myself. And then this time around, I did it more because I wanted to do it, and... and see the Alps, and... and do it with my team and have a fun adventure. Yeah.
you seem like your approach was was just that it was I don't know. From the outside, we didn't get to spend any time together during the race, but from the outside and watching the wrap-up video and stuff, it seemed like your approach was very much, let's just have one. Let's have a good time. I've been watching your daily, you know, you've done these video posts of each day. And the first couple really struck me as, you know, God, he was just having fun and it was really working for you. You know, you were in the top 10 there. You were, you had a, you had the total opposite of my, I had a terrible start and just, we just couldn't get our act together. And it wasn't the team. The team was awesome. It was just as I've said before, I was really out of sync with everything.
It just seemed like I was constantly in the wrong place at the wrong time, and after watching your videos, I've questioned like, maybe I was just taking it too seriously, just putting too much pressure on myself. You know, you were doing a ton of filming and and just seemed like you were having a good time, and it seemed like that was really working.
Yeah, yeah, it was cool. I mean, I think one thing that affected me, which you found out during the race, was if I would know whether people were in front or behind. And I was asking my team like, "Oh, where's such-and-such?" Then my flying would kind of go worse. But and then we found that after a few days. And then, um, and then I just said, "I don't want to know where they are, um, or who's in front or who's behind. I'll find out in the evening." And then the less information that I had from them, the better I was flying. The more kind of decisions I was making not based on who was in front or which line such-and-such tech could yaddy-yaddy. And yeah, that helped me a lot.
What if you could have done something differently in prep, what would it be? When you look back on it or if you've had a talk with your team, Mark and Ollie and the boys, what did you guys blow or miss? yes i think
That one, which is a good one, like not to, uh, for me, the team were awesome. Like, they, they did so much behind the scenes that I didn't see, and if there was like problems behind the scenes, like I wouldn't know about them. Like, if it was from whatever, from not getting fuel or food, or, um, it was just like, "Okay, Steve, such and such, this is where you're gonna hike now. Go up there, enjoy, have fun. That's the course line." Yeah, the prep, it was really good, man. I had such a good team, you know. In the expo, um, a few years back, I just had Tom Payne, and it's, it's too hard just for one supporter and one, one athlete. Um, so I really learned a lot from that race was saying, right?
I, I need, you know, the driving, so the guys driving to have a rest, you know, and this is kind of like leapfrog the whole day. So everyone stays charged and that worked really well. You know, I can, I think, yeah, I participated in the X-Out, but it was kind of a team that kind of made us get to where we got.
Yeah. The team dynamic is, is crazy good. And that when you got a good team, I think I like that more than anything else, right? There's a lot of things to like about the race, but man, you laugh a lot. It was so good. Yeah. What has it been like for you on the backside of the race since then? Is it, are you thinking a lot about the next one? Are you, is it hard to kind of, I've had a hard time after all of my races in the post, just kind of, you know, you're, you're living at this insane level for a whole bunch of days. I mean, then life doesn't get much better than that, and pretty hard to match, yeah.
I mean, like, I've heard on your podcast about this and, uh, I was prepared for it, but what I wasn't prepared for was to be, you know, I had a thought after the race, then I'd, uh, I'd keep training and do the agator and and keep this kind of like level of fitness because, yeah, it's the fittest I've been in my life and it was a A super cool journey getting there. But I got injured on, I think, day 11. So after the race, I was hobbling. I couldn't move. So I just had to rest and not move so much. I think it was harder because I couldn't get out and run and keep fit and start work tandems again. It was like everything just went to a complete stop. off, and it was like, you're used to this super high level of like boom boom boom go go go, and then it just stops, and it's like, whoa, okay.
This is, this is, uh, this is where we are now. Did you
Get help with the training? Did you? Did you get a trainer? And yeah,
Yeah, so just do
it on your own, I
Got a Ben Ben seven, he was Kruger's original trainer, and he did me like a proper training plan with the the craft training the first and endurance, and then the building up, and then the tapering, and that was awesome. You know, that was like as fun as the race, maybe not quite, but just having this progression in the body and just getting fit and fit and fit and having time to train was just the whole prep to it was an adventure. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. What
Was the—what was the accident at the end? I've heard a little bit about this from one of your supporters, Mark Simpson, but uh, sounded pretty intense, yeah.
So, um, it was around we took off. We like, we had a long hike the day before through Aosta Valley because the weather was super bad and, um, yeah, we took off from, uh, just up from Aosta, one of the hills, and was flying across. It was around about 20 kilometers before Domodossolo and I was leapfrogging quite a bit with Mamar Newball during the race and then, um, yeah, he was like, I think 5k in front or 10k in front. We're always kind of jumping each other and the cloud cover came over, so I thought I'll come in and land here, uh, I'm a hike up to, to the top of the ridge. I forget the name of it, what the actual divide, what it was called, and when I
Were you, were you trying to get up into the Makinaga Valley? I think it was. Yeah, it had that big, you know, almost had a road back there. It was a pretty cool, um, World War II, uh, not a road, road not for cars, but for that's it, you know, it was a proper, yeah, zigzag on coming into the back of the Makinaga Valley. Yeah, because I was there. Yeah, right, I know that's I
taught land in the same place exactly. So when I come into top land, top landed all good, um, and it was really quite windy. And then it was on like a boulder field, and as my wing came down, I got like a gust from above and it just picked my wing up and just dragged me down backwards down this boulder field and, uh, yeah, it was like landed okay, good. And then as the wing came down, it's like, like boom, and then I thought I broke my leg. It was massive, my thigh. And oh yeah, I was sick twice and then I was like, right, let's let's get a rescue. What do you mean you're
Sick, you threw up.
Yeah, was it a laceration? No, it was just a real hard impact. Um, so like, it, it picked me up and dragged me down, and then I whacked my leg on the side of a boulder or something. I'm not too sure. Um, um, and I was sure it was broke. I was like, "I'm done, that's it." And then, yeah, I kind of got my breath together, pulled up my compression shorts, and had a look and did some pushing. And well, first I told my team, I was like, "Yeah, I've had a crash, it's not good, yada yada." And then my tires was like, "Oh, okay, should we call for like an air ambulance?" And I was like, "No, no, no, do not call just yet." Um, and then, yeah, like I had like 10-15 minutes and then stood on it.
I was like, "Okay, it's not broken, I've just, I've just battered it." Um, and yeah, it turned out it was a big like hematoma. I'm a, I'm a right thigh, which was, yeah, yeah. So, so you were, but you were able to
keep going
So yeah, that's where that's where one of the adventures started. So by that time, the team were already around in Domodossolo, so they had to drive like, yeah, like it was like two hours back around to where it was. And then I managed to pat my wing inside my harness and then kind of hobbled down. I think 200 meters down took me like an hour and a half, like super not moving fast. And I knew like, I seen this hut on maps and I was like, okay, that hut's cool, I'll stay there the night, I'll see how bad it is. And then if it's really bad overnight, then I'll have to pull out the race and, uh, I'm going down to this hut. And then Ollie and Mark come up and they meet me around about, I don't know, a few hundred meters before the hut.
And then we go down to to this hut, but it's like a private hut and we were looking around for keys and stuff. I'm like, ah, you know, because if I went down to the valley floor, it's like an extra thousand meters or something, 1500, yeah. Then then that would be me done. I'd have been out of the race. There would be no way that I could get back up the next day.
Yeah, that's a story. So, yeah, Oli and Mark are looking around for this key, and then we can't find a key, and Oli comes around with this rock, and he's like, oh, I found a key in the shape of a rock. I found a rock in the shape of a key.
So, yeah, how can we say it? We, we entered, well, Ollie entered into this, into this private hut, and it was perfect. There was beds, there, uh, kettle, food. I was like, "This is, this is spot on. I'm saved. We'll spend the night here. We'll leave like a 100 bucks, 100 euro, and like a note saying, 'Hey, sorry, broke into your heart. It was an emergency, yada yada.'" So it was all good. It was getting a bit dark, and then, um, and then we hear this motorbike, and Ollie's like, "This, this, this, this guy's coming up towards the hut on a trials bike. He's got a helmet." Uh, yeah, I'm pretty sure he's coming towards us, and we had the lights on inside the hut. Uh, anyway, this guy gets up there, man, and, uh, he's got this blue machete on the back of his bike, and he's like, "This is my hut.
This is my hut. You're broken to my hut." We're thinking, "Oh, oh," man, this guy is pissed. Like he's super, super angry at this point. And Ollie, this guy, hey, he can sell water to a duck. He's like, oh, yeah. Ollie's the
one you want on your team in those situations. Oh,
man. Yeah, he's like, oh, you do trials riding? Oh, you've got like a trials Scottish badge on your bike. You know, you do competition. Completely redirecting this guy. And he's like, "Yeah, yeah, I, I do trials. I, I Scott, but you broke into my heart." You know, he really wanted to be angry, and he's got this machete in his hand. I'm like, "Oh shit, man, I can't move. I'm gonna get chopped up." And uh, I'm inside in his bed, and he's looking in like, "Oh man, what's this guy doing in my bed?" Oh my gosh, you guys are
Goldilocks, you've just taken over, yeah.
And then, anyway, he's talking to him, he's like trying to de-escalate the conversation as much as he can, and then he says that we're in the ex-alps and and this, and he's like, and then he's like, "Ex-alps?" Okay, yeah, yeah, he says, "I know Gushabauer," and I was like, and then he's like, "Oh, cool." He's like, "Yeah, he stayed in one of my Airbnbs two years ago in the race."
Perfect, and then we showed him on the live tracking and he was okay. Then he came in, he turned on the gas, he turned on the water, and he was fine. We give him a—we give him a red ball cap and, uh, 70 euros for the door, and he was—he was fine, he was happy. So, uh, yeah, it was really good to have Ollie. That's just—that's
Hysterical, man! That's amazing. Yeah, that's—that's where you want Ollie on your team, you know? He—you're right, he can't sell water to a duck.
Yeah, so yeah, and then from there, then then we said, "Okay, we'll we'll spend the night, see how how bad it got." Um, I phoned my brother because he's a paramedic and told him what I had said, like my legs, the whole my legs the size of my upper thigh. And then um, he said, "Yeah, just keep checking on it through the night, see see if it gets worse," because he was scared of like bleeding if I got like a ruptured vein or a ruptured thing in there. Um, and then yeah, uh, it was all right in the morning, and then I could kind of hobble hobbled up to the um, to the to the top of the ridge, and uh, it was all in snow and then took off, and then it was tricky. I couldn't push, I could push bar, but just under one foot, um, so it was really hard to push bar, and then uh, yeah, and hard to walk.
So I wanted to try and stay in the air as long as I could, but crossing over Domodossolo, low, it's like super strong wind, and then landed on half bar, kind of going backwards, and then landing, hobbling, and uh, yeah, hey, yeah, every day was an adventure.
Yeah, the tell me about Andermatt. Uh, Ollie said to ask you about how in the world did you pull that off? There was wires everywhere. I'm—I'm always nervous of Andermatt because the big wind generators and you've got the Arolo coming in and whatever the one from the north coming in and, uh, it can get pretty spicy in there. But you have a story to tell from that, yeah?
I've always said in Switzerland, there's there's one place where I don't want to land is Andermatt in um Bassam, yeah, because it's just cable galore and uh, yeah, I ended up landing in the middle of Andermatt going under and over cables like it was tricky. Like I came and then there was strong like north fern up high and it was like the strong south wind that down low. Um, so the first time I tried to go, I just got completely sorry, a strong south wind up high and north low. Um, I got smashed by by the south wind and then I come back and then landed on the not quite sure where it was hype back up and I thought, well, I'll try it again, but I'll first go low with the north wind and then try and climb up into the south and then soar up and keep going and yeah, it didn't work.
I landed like right in the middle at the bottom with all the the roadworks and the river and the cables and the the cable alarm was like this singing when I was going down and I was like, yep, I know. So there's another one
Yeah, how do you—what do you mean? Your cable alarm? You've got something in your device that has all, all the, all the swiss cables, yeah?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just like on xe tracks, and then it shows you like most of the cables, uh, in Switzerland—not all of them, but kind of most of them, uh, which is really handy. It doesn't have all of them on like some of the old hay cables, yeah, um. But then, hey, it was also really funny. After that, we had to hike up the pass, and I was hiking with, with Matthias, and exactly at the same time, there was this Chinese tour group of like 200 people. It was ridiculous on this single track, and I was like, "This has got to be a joke, man." This tiring to like, and Matthias is going in front, and he's like, "Move out of the way." I'm just coming behind him, and these people are super pissed like, "No, wait, your turn." You know, I was like, "Ah,"
and uh yeah he kind of like battered through like a way and then uh I followed him and then We climbed up to the top and then could fly and land in fish.
Tell me about flying off Mont Blanc. It sounds like you were having this pretty good battle with Manu. Manu is the king of the comeback, which we saw again this year. I was with him and Theo day one in literally the back. He ended up really rallying and having a great race. I think he ended up fifth. You flew off Mont Blanc. that your team lost you and he ollie said he camped under a tarp that night in a thunderstorm and he said it was the best night of the trip
Yeah, it was awesome. I mean, it was quite coming around after the don't dosh to Mont Blanc. That was ridiculously strong winds, that was. Yeah, it was so windy that I landed, and it was going—I was going, I was on full bar, going backwards at probably 10, 10k an hour, and it was real tricky because there was the airspace, so like you had to thread the needle next to it. And yeah, landed. I was happy to be on the ground at that point. That was before, actually, Mont Blanc. And then, and then we hiked up to the top, and it was like, it was a full lightning storm, and Manuel was, I think, a little bit, bit in front at that point. And uh, then took off. After that, we went to the top of the hut and had had like rosti in there and some food, and then the storm kind of passed over, but it was still like gusting 70k.
It was super strong. Then we hiked down and, um, and took off in the lee somewhere. and flew down course line and lost all comms with the team. Then, because it was quite like in the middle of nowhere, I thought, well, I'll keep walking course line because, yeah, the the team will see me on the live tracking and, uh, yeah, it was right at the back of this track in the middle of nowhere. I thought, well, I'm not going to go too much further because this is the end of the road, so I'll just, I'll just wait here. And then, yeah, in half an hour, the team were there and we spent the night there. It's super rad. It
Sounds like Ollie said that was the funny. Just there was so, so much laughter that night. He said, he said, "Your sides were hurting, you guys were laughing so hard, you were probably asleep." Maybe, yeah.
I was super tired, but I had my friend Carlo and Danny for that part, because you need a mountain guide to go up over the glacier. So we had the the one car it was, and Danny's car, and it was Carlo and Danny, uh, and then Mark, myself, and Ollie. So there wasn't enough space to everyone be inside the van, so yeah, Mark, Mark just no, Ollie, captain atop underneath the side of the van, and then Mark was in the tent in a right blizzard. It was a hell of a storm, yeah.
It was rowdy up there. I got there the next day and, holy cow, I had a couple of scariest flights of my life I've never taken off and stuff like that that ever. It was, uh, well, you know, it's a big
mountain. Big winds, yeah. Let's follow on, hey? But the next day, I seen you had a real nice flight because we, I think I was the day ahead, and then we had to walk through Aosta Valley. I think I was talking with Tom's daughter and like we were kind of very, very close, and he's having a yarn. So, yeah, let's go up and then we'll like fly this part together. And then he was, he was high and I was a bit more lower down. It's like, okay, we'll see. And then we, we both ended up walking, um, Manuel, Tom, and myself in different parts through Austin. It's like 70k or more. Yeah, that was quite a, a long, boring hike, yeah.
I, I, uh, I don't know if you heard my story about that, but we got up to the coal, you know, at at Mont Blanc, where everybody did, and you know, you, you, you hopefully fly from there. You're right at the edge of airspace, and it was just, you know, it was blowing 50 to 70, ripping. And so we kind of ski, you know, just foot skied off the back where there was lots of tracks. Obviously, a lot of the people in front of us had done the same thing. And we kind of got around fully in the lee. And, you know, it's, if you walk, I could see the next coal where I'm trying to get, you know, that's leading to the Aosta Valley. And, you know, if you walk that, it's a long walk. And I thought, man, I, I got to make this work and just try to fly over to that coal. And so we sat for quite a while just feeling the wind because we were proper in the lee and in the gut of where this wind was swirling around like crazy.
And the takeoff went fine and the flight was fine, but very hands-on. And I immediately got up. There was weird, I don't know if it was a thermal because it was just totally cloudy, but there was a lot of air moving around. And as I got over to the other coal, you know, there was a big group of people down at the ground and and I forget what pass that is, but it's it leads, it's where everybody else went and uh and I was kind of pushing, I just really read it wrong. It was a really strong north fern day, so I'm on the south side, and I'm expecting to take kind of a beating at the coal, and so I'm pressing into the wind getting to the coal, and I get over the coal with a good 300 feet you know, I had some altitude, altitude.
And, and I thought, okay, well now I'm going to be on the windward side. This will be better. I'm now on the North side and completely read it wrong. All that air that was dumping, I think from the Coteens Valley into that one I'm talking about was flowing. It was reversing the fern or something. I don't know what was going on, but I just, I went from 300 feet to the deck straight down with a wing completely open. Just, just, it was, it was, it was worse, worse. Way worse than being under reserve, it was just, you know, when you just can't steer your glider at all. You've got no forward motion and it's the hand of God's just coming down on you. And as I was plummeting, it was—it was a plummet. It was—it wasn't. There was no control over this at all, and I thought, okay, God, I gotta—I gotta at least do something to hit the snow.
You know, there was dirt under me and snow under me in various places, and right before I hit, I thought, thought, ah, shit, I'm not going to hit the snow. I'm going to hit the dirt. And I just fully expected both my legs to buckle. The only thing I had in my head was just to PLF and, uh, and save my ass somewhat, but I thought for sure, this is going to hurt really bad. And the, and the dirt was, it was six inches of soft mud, you know, it had just been melted out and it was basically landing in a shallow pond. It was totally soft. And, but the scary, what did my head in was, you know, I landed in just nothing. It was, it was a non-event. And then the wing almost kind of like when you got hurt, the wing almost blew me off the hill.
It was blowing that hard down, you know, towards the, the Aosta. So I had that in my head and I packed up and I had this very very easy hike over into another Valley. That's more towards the East. That would be towards the, that led down to the Aosta. And I think other people had gone that way as well. And I hiked over the little coal and around into the gut. And again, I know I'm fully in the lead and I thought, okay, I'll just sit here and see how this feels. And I was getting reports from my team down in the Aosta of, you know, white caps on the little lakes and ripping. And it just sounded pretty pretty scary. And I didn't really have anything to gain at that point. You know, you were too far ahead, you know, but I did have, uh,
Yael and, and Latcher, they weren't really moving too much. And I thought, well, you know, it'd be nice to just, I hadn't really had, I had a really good flight out of Fiche and that was about it, the whole race. And I thought, man, it'd be nice to, so I hadn't really given up, but I thought I don't, I don't have to kill myself. I don't have, have any, you know, like getting hurt or killing yourself now would be really stupid. I'm not, you know, there's nothing to gain here. I'm not getting to the goal, and so I, uh, anyway, I, I sat for a long time listening to Revis go. Man, it's pretty hairy down here, but I think if you get in the air, you can use Mont Blanc as a shield. You know, this wind, you could fly in the lee of Mont Blanc. I think it's doable, and I was looking at the clouds and hearing these reports of the valley winds just, just ripping in the North.
Fern was really real that day. It was honking. And I said, I don't know. And eventually where I was sitting, it just was, it was just too strong and too light and too weird. I thought, nah, this, this is an accident waiting to happen. So I actually hiked up higher and I got more around into the Lee and had by far the strongest launch of my life. I've never launched in that strong winds and the flight was glorious. I made it to where you're talking about just on the backside of the Makiknaga and just having one, it was a really, really good flight. And the reason it ended there was some cell had dropped out in the valley you're talking about that you walked up and, you know, it was beautiful and sunny and perfect getting there. It was perfect. And it was, it was totally working.
It was West facing late in the day. I would, all I had to do is just plant myself on this stuff and bridge source slash thermal up and keep hucking. I mean, I, I felt like I had Belenzona easy that day. If I could have kept going. And then suddenly I got to the peak height, looking into the Valley that leads that the one before Makiknaga. And I don't know how long it had been dark. It had been dark for a long time. And so I, I couldn't keep going. And then, uh, so that was, that was it. You know, that's basically where, you know, we, I had some little flights the next morning out of the Makiknaga, but, um, yeah, it was, it was glorious. It was, it was interesting too, too, because it took me about an hour to calm down. You know, I had this crazy launch and it was just, holy cow, this is going to be such a battle. And it wasn't that much of a battle.
It was just like Revis said, once I got in the lee of Mont Blanc, it felt very Chrigel-ish in a sense, because it was just, oh, this is what he does. You know, he uses these big mountains for shelter. And it actually, you know, it was really strong west with North Fern on the ground. and uh you know as long as you didn't go low it was okay yeah
And I think that I think day 10 and 11, they were probably the the best flyable days for where we were during the race, like the conditions were strong, but they're like like you can do more distance because the base was quite high. How
Do you think about it looking back? Uh, you know, you—I saw that wrap-up film, you were totally stoked. But looking back, you know, because this, in my experience, this was my fourth, in my my experience, this was by far the gnarliest. In 2015, we had winds that matched this one, but we didn't have the fern as much and we didn't have the thunderstorms and the hail and just the craziness of this one. This one was pretty wild, total opposite of 2019. Is it, you know, at the end, were you, I can't wait to do this again? Or were you, man, I don't know, that was pretty on on the edge yeah
It was, yeah, I know what you mean. There were some days you're like, "What am I doing in the sky?" Like heading in towards a storm from Lemus to Santis, I had such a an epic flight that day. But it was like during the day, like I had a full-on disco dancing landing. I caught it with yale and then had a real juicy time when I come into land, like just keeping the wing open and... And then after that, I could just stay in front of the weather. I could do a hike up and then a few little flights. And then I took off just as it started raining. And then it started raining hard and harder. And then it started to, what do you call it, hail was coming down.
I was like, oh, man. And my vario at the same time, my vario was screaming. On full bar, I was like, this isn't a good place to be, Stevie. me, but um, then I got out close to Falkirk and, uh, my wing dried off and then I was in a nice like beep beep, I thought, okay, I'm just gonna keep taking this all the way up and then flew across the valley and landed and I was freezing, but all my stuff was like, my wing was dry, my harness was dry, but I was soaking and then my team come up, my team come up and see me like, oh, Steve was like, freezing my ass off. I'm like, oh, I need some clothes, like why everything's dry? I was like, no, no, I was like, oh yeah, you're soaking. So yeah, experience it sounded
like that flight, that that flight, uh, Eduardo talked about, that you know, he was with that group, but you know, uh, Cody
Laurie, sounds like there was some pretty heavy PTSD for some folks that day, and I got to learn almost that day, a few hours after you guys had left and walked. It was just, I looked, looked at the sky and went, "This is not, this is not flying, this is not flying weather," just lightning bolts.
And hail, yeah, holy shit, but it's interesting because you kind of, you just get in that zone, which you wouldn't, you know, you just wouldn't get in that zone if you're recreational flying. You wouldn't put yourself in those places, but uh, I think like even though you put yourself in the places, you kind of zoned in so much. Like, the risk is there, but it's not as high. So, for instance, if you're flying like, you know, most of the day, but there's a few times where you've got to be like 100 concentrated on getting over a ridge, or getting through the storm, or getting around the storm, or something. Um, yeah, then it's more controllable.
Yeah, it's a... it's... it's a strange one, isn't it? I mean, I... I can't get there in the training, you know? I... I purposefully have gone out on days that I know are like the X-Alps, and they're just terrifying. And you know, I just... I don't enjoy it, and I just think, "What am I doing?" And then in the race, you... you get to this place where I just... it's almost anything is possible. It's a weird one. It's a weird one. Yeah, tell me... me about the... the... the disco dancing landing. That sounded interesting. What do you...
mean, so that was interesting. Like, I caught it with Yale and then, um, like, she crossed the valley and I was just behind her and I was just like, "Why is she crossing?" I was like, "Oh, because she's getting flushed by this other valley coming on that side." And then, as I got up, then I just got in the downwash or from, from this kind of valley system blowing out and up, so I crossed over to, to Yale and then we climbed up and it was honking, it was honking and we pushed over, um, I don't know the name of the valley exactly and kind of just creeping forward but into like a low, like tight canyon. Um, Yale landed then and I thought, "I'll just try and get around the corner and climb up." Um, but there wasn't a climb and then it was just getting more lower, more lower and the wind was getting stronger and stronger and there was just this, this main road to kind of land on, so I was like, "I've got to, I've got to get to this part with no trees to, to get it in there." And, uh, yeah, coming in and it was just like, I filmed it on GoPro but it really doesn't do it justice.
Yeah, it was super tight and I was like, "Poof, got on the ground, kissed the ground." I was like, "Okay, there we go, this is a bit of disco go dancing." Um, then, yeah, just carried on walking and then did the same again.
Yeah, it's funny. Then you look back at the end of the day like, "Holy crap, like it's quite a bit of distance and quite some moments," yeah.
Yeah, crazy. You, I don't know, yeah, just past that, you get to Lichtenstein. We had a little tiny segment in there in Lichtenstein, and sounds like you had—you spent a bunch of time with buddies. They were mountain guides who maybe weren't very good city guides. Ollie said he wasn't even sure if you were aware of that. You were so tired, but your—your team took a break, your mountain guide friends took over, and it sounds like they took you off, yeah.
Yeah, they didn't take you very direct. There was two cases. Yeah, there was one where they were like, I said that I had to go to to Santa's, and I'm pretty useless to my team saying, "Hey, walk that way, we'll send you a track." Um, but there was two occasions. There's one where a bunch of locals come and they're like chewing you out. Yeah, yeah, we know the shortcut this way. I was like, "Cool, this is the way." That um gush about came and I was like, "Cool, yeah, I'll just follow you, I don't want to think." And it was a detour by not much, but probably 150 meters and And, yeah, probably 900 metres off route. And then the same after that, like a minute with Danny and Carla, and it was just like, if you look at the track, it did like a little kind of, yeah, a little C shape where we could have just gone directly.
It was 4K, 4.5K difference, but Mark and Matt were having a look at the track like, like, what's Steve doing? You know, where's he going? Why is he going here? here, um, but yeah, I think there's a case of getting tired and listening to other people. Yeah, there's a few, just a few, a few little moments like that, you're like, "Oh yeah, I'm actually not, I've got to go there and not here." Yeah,
Just wasted an hour—an hour in a race with that kind of pace is... there's a lot of time, isn't it? Yeah, those are... they add up.
Damn it, the pace a few times I was like, right, there's there's no one gonna... I've definitely got a gain here, you know? That was terrible conditions. And then, and then you check back in, then you look and like, nope, you haven't gained. Everyone's like, got closer or like right behind you. Or you're like, wow, you know the pace and the level is is ridiculously high. I
Was I'm wondering, how are you thinking about that? Are you, are you going to do it again? Oh,
I've got until June to decide.
yeah, I mean, I wanted, you know, it's the best adventure adventure race I've done. You know, it's like you say, like you can't get there any other way. Like, the hardest moments of this, they're the best. They're the ones which you remember. The most, but it takes so much time to... I mean, the fitness you can get there, I think anyone really can get there as long as you have like a structured training plan. But just to like, if you look at the top 10, top... five that they're all test pilots, like I'll fly tandems, that's my full-time job. I'm not out there flying every day in these conditions, and I think to have that extra kind of sensitivity, you just need to be doing it every day, day in day day out and yeah, yeah, it's it, it also takes like for the nine months leading up to it, it was just x out.
So from a partner, Samira as well, like she, she was awesome with it; she's really, really good, but it just everything, like life stops and it's just training. It's like, and it's awesome ski tour and everything else, but like the whole period up to it, it's—it's not just—it's cool and fun for me, but everyone in your family, it's quite you know, okay, it's excellent, it's intense.
for them too, yeah.
Yeah, it's a, it's
It's a very, it's a big undertaking for a lot more than you and, but
Yeah, yeah, like I say, it was the best adventure. It was so much fun, and uh, the places you go, the people you meet, bringing your food and giving you bananas, and just chewing you on like the energy that you get from from the people as well. It's, yeah, it's incredible. Do
You feel like where you live, uh, you know, I mean, I know your job is tandem, so maybe I don't, I don't know how much pure time you get for XC exploration and that kind of thing. You know, I know you race, uh, but do you, do you feel like living there really helps, you know, going through that part of the course was? Was that beneficial? you know, going down through the, the, the, the Rhine and the Roan and, you know, having that kind of be your backyard, you know, there's always been, you know, gosh, if the race goes through Chrigel's backyard, we're all toast, you know, which it really did this year. It was, it went through an area that he knows really well. I'm wondering if that you feel like that helps
hurt. It's an interesting question, Gavin, because I would think it would, but say, for instance, When we got to Fish, you know, I go to valleys when it's a good day to fly, and when we were there, it was like 10, 10 hectopascals, fun, and like not the conditions I'd ever go there normally because you go there on a good day. So yeah, I think for sure it helps being in the Alps and having this in my garden. On a good day, I can just go and, you know, pick the good days and fly on the good days and do some nice triangles and stuff. But it was interesting, like I was like, "Yeah, I'm in my home home territory now," you know, Fish, and it was just like completely different way that have flown the valley. Like normally, it's just ridge bashing down, and it was just like using the lee and just climbing up with the wind.
Yeah, but yeah, for sure it helps, I think. Like living in the Alps definitely helps best.
and worst moment of the race, oh
That's a good one. So, I think the best moment was day four. It was, um, I was halfway between Kimsey and Lamouse and we hiked up—I hiked up with Mark—and it was fully cloudy and I thought, I thought, "Man, today is not going to be... it's going to be a hiking day." And then it was incredible. I could take off on the other side, on the, on the south side, and climb up with the clouds on the north and just going next to around and, yeah, the clouds and just pulling it off. And two, like, probably the lowest save my life, and it was like, I think, like eight o'clock in the morning, and I got this, this, this climb, which was two meters, and just took me all, all the way up, like clouds next to me and under me, and I was like, "Okay, I don't know where this is coming from, but I'm just turning." And then across the valley and then, and then the same again, there real low.
I just came into land, I thought I'll put it on this forest path and hike up, and then beep, beep, beep, and I was like, "Oh, let's do a little circle." And then, uh, yeah, that, that for me, just that was a beautiful day. That was like, "Wow, this is... I didn't think it would be possible to move that much distance in that day." And, uh, yeah, in the evening got to La Mousse, just, just past, just past La Mousse, and, uh, yeah, that was a standout moment. The flight coming into La Mousse, that was also like super, uh, euphoric with the, with the clouds and the storms just got in between a storm and then could come around. Yeah, that was, that was super rad. And, yeah, the worst day, yeah, probably the day that I got injured, uh, was probably, was probably like the hardest.
And it was more, it was more the thing like I broke myself and I can't go on and the kind of like pain, thinking that I've trained so hard and I've, I've, I've just ended it now, not before the end of the race. Like, I really didn't want to get a DNF, and um, that was like a hard moment to realize, eyes, and then after the, okay, yeah, I can, I can keep going, but just there's a day and a half to go, not so just at a real slow pace, how about
You've already spoken about some of these, so maybe you've already talked about it, but what about scariest moment? Yeah,
I think, I think that one with, uh, coming to just before Andermatt, disco dancing, yeah. That, oh, Andermatt, there was lots of disco dancing moments. That's the whole, every day there's some disco dancing moments. I just managed to get the one on film. Uh, and the mat was super, super sketchy with the cables, and I think around the back of Mont Blanc, getting blown backwards like four bar going backwards in and trying to dodge airspace flying backwards. It was, uh, that was like, man, I just want to be on the ground.
yeah that's
Never, a very comfortable feeling, is it?
Steve, tell me about the the tech that you guys used during the race. What worked, maybe what didn't? Would you change anything? Yeah,
We used the uh Zello and Zenly app, that was really good. Zello was like, um, I pushed a torque over over cellular, and I had like a uh a button toggle on my brake handle so I could just talk to the team, yeah, such and such, and they could just feed straight back. And with my headset, I had aftershock uh headset, so it's just like those bone
conductor ones yeah
And that's super good, that with the buff round I could hear crystal clear, and they could hear me really good.
Yeah, we'd use the, uh, we used the Zenly and Zello as well. It was, I hate Zenly as an app, but I really like it in the race, you know? Yeah, using it, it's just all these things popping up all the time and stuff, but it's, uh, you know, that was really handy for my team because they could see my battery level, you know? So they know, okay, it's another battery, uh, they knew exactly where I was all the time. I didn't use it so much for them because it didn't matter, but they, it was, it, it was great for them tracking me, you know? Faster than the live tracking, and then Zello's just wicked, yeah, yeah.
Zenni is super good because I think with the XLS they've got the that's a five minute delay, isn't it? Or something with the live tracking, so exactly, Zenni is pretty, pretty accurate are
You gonna be planning on doing many other? Are you gonna keep doing a bunch of hike and fly races between now and potentially the next one? Is that still pretty hot for you? Or, you know, I don't know how much it sounds like tandems are the way you make a living. Is that—does that really dominate your time, or do you have plenty of time to play and do this other stuff? Yeah,
I mean, it was a bit tricky last year with corona, but uh, hopefully this year is going to be better. Um, yeah, so mainly flying tandems and then try and get the times off to do like the short hiking flies, uh, the The Bornster Fly, the Agator, the VercoFly, they're really good.
How much do you feel – I see in your films you do quite a bit of acro training still. How much importance do you put on that in terms of your training? Are you doing acro for fun mostly, or has it really become part of your this is what I need for these kind of races?
Yeah, I do a lot of acro. or in the training plan, I was doing like two days, three, three days a month training acro, not just with the acro wing, but also, you know, the store and spend an SIV with, uh, with competition wing, and I think that helps heaps just to get that intuitiveness, the feeling, uh, and I enjoy doing acro. I don't do as much as what I used to, but it's, it's also in the winter, it's a lot of fun to train acro because you can go higher from moving to short grab, it gives you like an extra 800 meters, and it's, a yeah, it's a blast do
You, how much are you jumping these days? Is that still a big part of your life?
Yeah, I really enjoy it. Um, so after the race, after I got better, I was jumping a bit more. Um, did some... I mean, it's more the... it's not just the jumping, it's more the kind of get in there, the whole process. Like with, we jumped the Jungfrau and it's quite a big thing to plan with the weather is a massive thing and getting up there the right time, and then also, you know, taking the ropes, the axes, the harnesses, and then the actual jump itself. So the actual process to get into the jump is kind of also a reason why I do the jump. Like, it's... it's the jump's a rad place to get down, four-minute flight or three-minute.
But, yeah, it's super, super fun, super, super fun.
And are you just wingsuiting or are you basing as well?
There's wingsuiting and tracking. So I just wingsuit because to do both of them at a good level, it takes too much time. So generally it's only wingsuit base. Okay, yeah, to get to the the level, it's probably... it's probably one of the most expensive hobbies I've done because, you know, when you learn, you've got to do a bunch of skydives. Like, I did over 700 skydives, and then you start with a small suit, and then you work your way up in the suit. And then the same when you bring it to the base environment, you've got to start tracking and jumping off power lighters first, and then go to Barrento. It's a good place to do your first few jumps, and then a few hundred, and then get onto wingsuits. And then small, small wingsuit, small problem; big wingsuit, big problem.
So, it's kind of like a progression, which you work your way up. You can go up quicker, but it's way safer to do the steps.
And are you still paddling quite a bit? I know that that was your background.
Was no, I really, I really wish I was. Yeah, I really miss, miss paddling, but uh, I should get back into it. Yeah, I'm super keen.
Yeah, I'm wondering where you feel like you're, uh, you and I have pretty similar backgrounds with the paddling and the flying and and, you know, taking on these kind of crazier end of adventuring, I guess. Um, do you, do you know where that comes from? The paddling? No, just the, you're, your approach to risk, your, your love of, of pursuing these types of activities, uh, that are pretty high consequence, you know, you're obviously pretty comfortable with it. I've wondered if you ever, if you've ever kind of done a deep dive on your own psyche to, you know, where does it, where is, where do you think that comes from? Does it come from your parents? Does it just, was it natural, was, Was it nurtured?
Good question.
It's, yeah, I mean, I got the kayaking from my dad. And that kind of got me into boating and kayaking. And I think it's, you know, it's some form of a drug when you look at it. With the kayaking, when you're paddling big rivers, big class four or five, and you know that you've got to have the skill, like, to get down it, it requires skill. And it's the endorphins and stuff that it releases. And I think it's the same as paragliding and jumping. And like, it's like I wouldn't say an addiction, but it's, you know, why do we fly? Because it feels good, and then this kind of like progression, or like, how can you get the next feeling? And it's just the—it's just feeding it a little bit, yeah.
I find it really interesting that a lot of us come from a paddling background, and that a lot of people who get really good at flying, flying fast, are paddlers. Yeah, they seem to have the right understanding of of risk. It seems to be a really good fit for pilots because, like, in piloting, we can't stop. We can't hit the pause button and go, "You know what, I need to reassess." You know, you're in the air, you got a Denali...
was gonna say, I think it's the same with the water because it's, it's the same dynamic flow, and that's the same as the boat, and it's, it's the flow which you get into. And I think when you look at the mountain, and if it's windy, I just picture like a bunch of water coming over it, and where's the eddy going to be? Where's the hole going to be? What's, what's gonna, so I think they kind of like translate, yeah.
I think they do really translate that, and like you said, I think that it does give paddlers have an innate ability to read the air, uh, because they've learned it from the water. Does does the same thing, like you just said. And I think, you know, probably a lot of paddlers don't even recognize that when they start getting into flying, but it was, you know, my time sailing and my time paddling have certainly, you know, even though I can't concretely look at something and give you an answer, you know, articulated, I think first, you know, it's embedded in who I am, just all those years of doing it have really helped me, like you said, understand, okay, okay, this is not a good place to be, or this is a good place to be.
So let's, let's rally through some of these questions. What, what was the biggest aha moment you've had with flying, say in the last year or the last, you know, in recent memory, you know, something that really clicked that has changed your approach or your ability or how you're, that's impacted your success as a pilot. it you
know the whole thing with the monkey on the shoulder, and like knowing when to push and when not to push, and just trying to like really listen to the monkey and when not to listen to the monkey. Like, sometimes a push, push, push because if someone's out in front or want to fly fast, so more gearing down and just using, using the whole day rather than just changing modes of really trying to be worked. I've tried to work on a lot more, not when it's coming to the end of the day, just really try and gear down, and a few times I was like, "Ah, okay, yeah, that's a bit of an aha moment."
If you could only make one more flight, this is kind of a dark question, but it's interesting. If you could only make one more flight, where would you go? What's—what's the place that you dream about at night, mostly about flying? Wow.
That's a good one, Gab. Uh, the Himalayas, I haven't done yet. I'd really like to go to the Himalayas. Yeah, that looks super rad. I'm actually planning a Volvo trip with, um, Jeff Shapiro, Mongolia this June. Cool. So that's on the cards, but I think the Himalayas, that just looks... when I was in Dubai, I looked at, um, Antoine Girard. He's got like this 3D movie thing, which you put on the headset, and wow, man, I put it on and it's... it's incredible. Yeah, so I really... well, I haven't seen that. That'd be neat. So it's kind of a VR type thing? Exactly. It's a VR thing, and you put it on and you just look like you're flying in the Himalayas. Wherever you look, at the wing or down or behind you. Yeah, it's right. Yeah.
He has been, uh, what an adventurous guy he is. He has really ramped it up, and he's been doing some very cool stuff. I need to talk to him again on the show. Here's a hard one: Does free flight make other aspects of your life better or worse? Better.
Hands down, yeah, because free, because you're just out there doing it, seeing the world. It makes me a better person if I'm blocked inside all day, or I don't know, working on the house. Then, as soon as I'm out and I'm in the mountains, it's you kind of open, and yeah, I love it, yeah.
This, this is a good one. Tell me, how you manage? And this is probably, you know, kind of of a continuum; it probably changes as the years go by, but do you have kind of a mantra or a playbook for managing risk?
playbook for managing risk, yeah.
It's you're talking about the monkey on your shoulder, you know? Yeah, I think we all try to tune into him, but is there—I don't know—anything more you can say about just how you, how you approach risk?
analysis and stuff
yeah i
think we're flying, yeah? It's more of my gut feeling, how I'm feeling, and if I've got a real strong gut feeling if it's flying or jumping, or then then I won't fly or I won't jump, I'll be like, "Nap." And the more that I listen to my gut, is generally nine times out of ten, it's it's more right. So just listening to myself more, I think, and like my inner feeling, I really try and with flying and other air sports, that's kind of the biggest thing I try and pay attention to.
Okay, last one. This one just popped into my head: what do you think is the—the biggest misconception from the viewing public of the X-Alps? And what I mean is, you know, people, millions of people watch this race, and they watch the live tracking, and they get totally embedded in it and kind of sucked in. What do you think is—what do you think they have wrong about what they're watching? You know, whether it's, you know, are we all just total nutters? Are we, you know, or the weather? Yeah, you know, I don't—I don't get—we don't get to watch it. Yeah, it's an interesting thing, isn't it? I don't know what they're seeing.
I think with the live tracking, like, sometimes you go, you do a detour off route, and they're like, "Why is he going that way?" In the sky, he should be flying straight, but in front of you, there's a big storm, or, or like, it's all shaded over. So, and how hard it is, like, it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's pretty hard, yeah.
That's an interesting one, because I think they all know it's really hard, but it's actually harder than they think they know. Yeah, and
I think with the sleep deprivation that, for me, like I said before, was the hardest. There's a few times, times that I actually fell asleep, like straight asleep during a flight. Um, once was in fierce and it was, I got the turn point, I went up and then took off and it was just this nice beep, beep, beep, and I just kind of went to one side and just closed my eyes. And then the next thing I know, I was just like, "Whoa," like a few raindrops. Oh, it wasn't long, it's probably 20 seconds, 30 seconds, but I was, I was gone. I was fast asleep and I was like, "Oh, okay, totally out." I
think we've all, uh, we've all experienced that. That's got to be shocking to hear from, you know, people watching the race. Wait, what? You fell asleep? But there are times I had one of those, uh, between Dente and, and Mont Blanc, uh, sounds like kind of similar conditions, just ripping wind. But, and, and the wind was coming from right where I was trying to go, you know, heading towards, uh, Passy and before the crossing into the Cotines Valley. And, but I'd learned that, you know, at the Denta Ocean, you know, turn point, in that coal, it was just super unreasonable. It was really ripping, but I learned, I'd learned that if I could keep my head down, kind of below the peak tops, I could make these, these little hops, and that's what I did all day.
I made these little hops. Some of them were successful. Some of them were not to say the least, uh, really terrifying crash at one of them, but going across Passy, you know, it had been dark for hours and it was just, yeah, there was no, there hadn't been any sun. And I got one of those, like you're talking about just this tiny climb before leaving the train and going across the city and going across the city. I found this, this crazy good glide, you know? It's just ding ding ding, you know? I was actually going up and I was, where is this? It must have been a little mini convergence, you know, at the end of the day or something, and I totally fell asleep just out, just because I thought, you know, my body don't know what to do. I'm just going to take a quick one here, and I actually don't know how.
I mean, it wasn't that long because I mean, when I woke up, I looked down, I'm still over the city, but just a really nice sleep. Oh, that felt good. I want to do it again. It's
Always, when it's weak, when it's juicy, then you're awake. But, but when it's like a nice weak climb, you're like, "Oh, I'll just lean, I'll just close my eyes for a few minutes, seconds, I"
Don't know if you heard, uh, I did a podcast with Aaron after the 2019 race, and when he was going down the, uh, between Saint Hilaire and Mona Viso, that, that LaGrove heading towards Brianne Sohn. He was so tired. He started watching YouTube videos. Yeah. That was terrific. That was good fun.
Steve, great to have you on the show and, and really fun to chat with you. It sounds like you're heading in the right direction with your, your back, which is great. So happy, happy healing. And can't wait to race with you in the future. I hope you'll, Maybe you'll be in Columbia or something this winter, but um, good luck to everything. And, you know, maybe before we close here, uh, let's hear—let's, I know you want to give a shout out to your team and maybe any sponsors, so anybody we should be aware of, go for it.
Yeah, for sure. So, thanks heaps. Uh, without the team, you couldn't do the X-Alps, and like, they, they did a lot of the hard work. So Matthias was my main supporter. Um, Danu, this like 75-year-old dude, we called him the Godfather. It's my, my girlfriend's, uh, mom's partner. Um, Lance, Lance actually, he broke his foot in just before the prologue, uh, so he remember that, yeah, which was that. And then, um, Ollie took his place. He was super good. He was like the heart and soul of the party. Uh, Mark Simpson, he's super... He was like the physio, did a really, really good job. So, yeah, big thanks to those guys.
Yeah, it's mainly Advance. Working with Advance is a real pleasure. They're really, really good to work with. The wings I'm super happy with. Yeah, they look after me.
So I lied. That wasn't my last question. How did you put your team together? That's always kind of an interesting journey.
Yeah, for me, It was to have my mates with me, and I learned I live with Mark in New Zealand, and he was like, "Yeah, if you ever do the X-Alps and back," then I thought, "No man, I'm not that crazy to do the X-Alps." And then I was like, "Give him a call." He's like, "Are you keen to come this year?" He's like, "Yeah, definitely." Um, so he flew from America. Matthias is a work colleague, and I got him into flying back in New Zealand.
Uh, and I've been doing most of the training with him, and he's like the backbone. He's done all of the helping with the planning, with the food, with the everything that goes along with the with the prep work. Dan, who's the godfather, like I said, you know, he's a 75-year-old dude. He's the oldest guy in Switzerland to get his paragliding license. Whoa, yeah, so that was just cool, having him like, you got like the young pups on the team, youngish pups, and then this old dude just to kind of keep the balance, right? Lance is my best mate from from back home, and he knows me when I'm rock rock bottom and knows the things to say, or the the things that we used to do as kids, you know, because when you're a psychologist, for sure, when you're down with the demons, and you just got to have that redirection, and it says something that you did in in your early days.
And yeah, he was awesome. And my mental coach, Tony Clutter, he really helped me just with my head, just to kind of work out small goals and process the whole thing to get to the actual race, and also through the to come on a few days and kind of help me out. So yeah, I'd
Be, I'd love to hear more about that. Uh, can you take a little deeper dive into the coaching, the mental coaching you did with Tony, and what you learned from that, yeah?
So with he kind of just broke it down, like when I knew that I was doing the x-elps, it was like this massive boom, deer in headlights sort of like, "Oh, what am I doing? How am I going to train this? Is more than what I can handle." And it was talking with him and just breaking it down into small bite-sized pieces and, "Okay, if that happens, then we do this," or, "Let's think of a strategy," or something to to work on what we need to work on, work on the strengths and on the weaknesses. And we do lots of ski tours together and just, just general talking, just like bringing up situations and scenarios and kind of working around more how my head can deal with it, like knowing if I'm at the back and having this kind of fear inside the head, how to work with that and to say, "Well, it's just a game, isn't it?
Just at the end of the day, it's a game." And then as soon as I was working with this game approach, like, "Who cares? You know, there's a lot of other things going on in the world." In this race, then I'd be more relaxed with the whole flying. And you know, when I found myself getting stressed, I couldn't get over this thing. It's like, "Okay, okay, option A, option B," and just kind of trying to not zone in and get like tunnel focused. That helped a real lot to kind of like bring it out and like broaden the view. "Okay, different options, what can I do?" Um, so he really helped me a lot with that, great.
Stuff, thanks bud, appreciate it.
Nice one, cheers. Somewhere, yeah, yeah man, that was a real
pleasure if
you find the cloud-based Space Mayhem valuable. You can support it in a lot of different ways. You can give us a rating on iTunes or Stitcher, however you get your podcast. That goes a long ways and helps spread the word. You can blog about it on your own website or share it on social media. You can talk about it on the way out to launch with your pilot friends. I know a lot of interesting conversations have happened that way. And of course you can support us financially. This show does take a lot of time, a lot of editing, a lot of storage and music and all kinds of behind the scenes costs. So if you can support us financially, all we've ever asked for is a buck a show. And you can do that through a one-time donation through PayPal, or you can set up a subscription service that charges you for each show that comes out. We put a new show out every two weeks. So for example, if you did a buck a show and every two weeks, it'd be about $25 a year.
So way cheaper than a magazine subscription. And it makes all of this possible. I do not want to fund this show with advertising or sponsors. We get asked about that pretty frequently, but for a whole bunch of different reasons, which I've said many times on the show, I don't want want to do that. I don't like having that stuff at the front of the show. And I also want you to know that these are authentic conversations with real people. And these are just our opinions, but our opinions are not being skewed by sponsors or advertising dollars. I think that's a pretty toxic business model. So I hope you dig that. You can support us. If you go to cloudbasemayhem.com, you can find the places to support. You can do it through patreon.com forward slash Cloudbase Mayhem. If you want a recurring subscription, you can also do that directly through the website. Website, we've tried to make it really easy, and that will give you access to all the bonus material, little video casts that we do, and extra little, uh, nuggets that we find in conversations that don't make it into the main show, but we feel like you should hear.
We don't put any of that behind a paywall; if you can't afford to support us, then just let me know, and I'll set you up with an account. Of course, that'll be lifetime, and hopefully, and you're being in a position someday to be able, able to support us. But you'll find all that on the website. All of you who have supported us or even joined our newsletter or bought Cloudbase Mayhem merchandise, t-shirts or hats or anything, you should be all set up. You should have an account and you should be able to access all that bonus material now. Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate your support and we'll see you on the next show. Thank you.