Hi there everybody. Welcome to another episode of Cloudbase Mayhem. I apologize again for being a little late with these last few shows. We will get back on track. I've just been super buried lately with this house build and everything that's going on. But I have a terrific show for you today. I just literally hung up with Baptiste Lambert. Those of you who don't know him, well, would have had to have not flown comps at all the last few years. He's dominating. He's currently third in the world. He won Macedonia in the last World Cup I went to back in July. He was first or second in five of seven days. He didn't even need to fly the last day to win it. He just got back from the Europeans and he's just taken on a new job as a harness designer with Ozone.
And we talk a lot about comp tactics in this one and strategies and headspace training. And he comes from a long lineage of pilots. And he started flying tandems with his dad and his grandfather when he was three and his twin sister. And he both have a lot of years and a lot of hours under a wing. Spent a lot many years in Reunion, a very cool island out in the Indian and a place where they've had tons of comps over the years. But anyway, a lot of fun. And Baptiste was terrific. And we just had a blast. I think you're going to enjoy it. This show being that it's going to come out here immediately after I record this opening. And we've got a few, let's see, a little over two weeks until the Red Rocks wide open.
One of our U.S. Nationals events and pre PWC. There's going to be good letters. We've got a nice field. We're going to go big. And at that time of year, the base is definitely going to be way, way bigger. Way up tall with some good weather and oxygen is recommended. And we're not doing short, sweet tasks unless everybody's just exhausted. We're going to try to go big and explore this monumentally cool zone of Utah sandwiched between a whole bunch of national parks. Bryce, Dinosaur and Escalante and the Grand Canyon and pretty wild out there. It's going to be a lot of fun and still got, I think, ten spots. So if you're interested in coming over or if you're already here. In North America and want to do some very cool racing, it's going to be a great scene.
Check it out on Air Tribune. Enjoy this really fun talk with Baptiste Lambert. Cheers.
Baptiste, welcome to the Mayhem. It's good to see you here after we raced together in Macedonia. And then I was very keenly watching the Europeans. And we're going to talk all about comps. But let's start with the comps. Let's start off with what we were chatting about before we started recording. It sounds like you've got a new job and a big new move. What have you just done?
Yeah, I changed completely my lifestyle because I went from Annecy to the south of France because I'm joining the R &D development team of Ozone. So I will work for Ozone now as a designer for harnesses.
Wicked. And what were you doing before then?
Before that, I was a math teacher. I was a math teacher in Annecy. And yeah, it wasn't totally my thing. And I had this big opportunity at Ozone and I couldn't resist. I had to take the job.
How long have you been an Ozone pilot?
I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I've been flying Ozone since ENSO 2.
Yeah, ENSO 2. So when was it? 2012, 2013, 2012? I don't know.
Okay. For those who aren't aware, I mean, you're very aware of you if you're a comp pilot these days. I think you're ranked, last I checked, you're ranked third in the world and you were dominating in Macedonia. I don't think I've ever seen something so dominating as that. You were first or second, five. You didn't even need to fly the last day and you had it in the bag. That was truly amazing. But take us through your history and give us the long version. When did you start? I understand you come from a big family of paragliders.
Yeah, sure. My parents started paragliding when I wasn't even born. And even my grandfather, he was paragliding. He stopped like two years ago, but he was 80. He was 80 when he stopped, but he just stopped flying because he thinks he's now too old. But yeah, it's a family. And even my twin sister, she was flying with us, tandem flying, but she was even flying with us. And yeah, we flew together when we were like three years old. We did a lot of tandems with both of our parents. And we flew like 300 hours of tandem, both of us.
Yeah, it's a lot. And we even flew with... Yeah, we piloted with our parents and we did some cross country already there back then.
Wow. Was this all mostly in Annecy? Are you from Annecy?
No, no. We were in the south of France at this time. And it continued until Reunion Island.
Ah, Reunion Island. That's a place that I've sailed to. I sailed across the Indian Ocean many, many years ago. And spent some time. In fact, I flew Reunion. This was way back when I was very early. I was mostly surfing... What is the left? The Lelou, right? Is it the left? That famous... Sandu, yeah. Yeah. And it was very sharky when I was there. It was kind of intimidating. But wow, wicked break. And yeah, I took some of my kind of early... I don't know. I had just learned how to fly when I was there. I was like 20, 2004 or 2005, I guess. Yes, it was.
But that's
it. Just like
me. Because this is the place I really learned to fly. Reunion Island. Really?
Oh, wow. Yeah.
My history is that like, yeah, when I was 10, even a little bit earlier, my parents gave me an old wing. It was a pink one. And I was on the same boat doing a lot of ground handling, annoying most of the pro pilots who were flying there in tandem. Because I was all day on the takeoff trying to try new stuff, just ground handling, getting used to it. And I did two years of ground handling and this was in Reunion Island. And when I was 12, it was finally legal for me to fly because in France, you are not allowed to fly too early. And when you're 12, you are.
So I did my first real flight. Like, I was in France. I was like from in Saint-Lieu. And yeah, I was 12 in Saint-Lieu. So just like you, my very beginning is in Reunion Island.
Wow. Yeah. We've got a big age spread, but I'm sure those, I'm quite a bit older than you are. But yeah, that's a neat, that's a really neat place to learn. So when did you start getting into comps and more professional flying? Was that shortly after or was that way down the road? In France? Yeah. So
in Reunion, I, yeah, the first years after my first flights there, I just tried to do some cross country, try to fly fast because I always like to fly with a goal and something to improve on. And I started local competitions because in Reunion Island, there's a competition every weekend. So that's cool to practice and to compare with friends. And this helped me improve very quickly. I think these competitions that happens every week. So I started these competitions and I had to finish my studies to finish a big part of my studies in Reunion Island.
So I stayed there until I was 20. And then I moved to France where it is easier to compete because of the price of the airplanes.
Yeah, sure. Was moving to the Alps, I mean, what did you have, was that a big move psychologically to go from flying XC and Reunion, which I, which I imagine is pretty limited. I mean, it's not, it's not a very big Island. I wasn't an XC pilot when I flew there. I launched and flew down to the LZ. I didn't go anywhere, but the, you know, I know you can do some really interesting stuff like you can in Tahiti and you kind of dive back into the deepness and Reunion and all those beautiful canyons. That's a really cool thing. Was something else something else something else something else something else something
else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something else something
else something else something else something else something else else something else something else
something else something else something else something else something This is not even possible because for me, I didn't see even like plus three, maybe the most. But yeah, it's very smooth in Réunion. We call it like the flatlands with a little angle, you know. It's a little angle.
So even the big canyons don't fly that often. Like there are circles inside the island. It's the old volcano who collapsed on itself. And there I don't fly it a lot. But this could be more close to what we fly in France. But I flew mostly on the flatlands with a little angle, you know.
Right, right, right. Yeah, I think these islands, you know, because I spent a lot of time sailing and Tahiti was like that. You know, if the island's big enough and they're in the trades, you fly in the Lee on the other side of the island. It just kind of wraps around and it's beautiful. It's incredible. It's incredibly consistent too, I understand, especially about Réunion. Yeah, you
can fly a lot of days during the year because you are in the Lee. And so the conditions are very smooth and you can fly very often. And there's no winter, so you can fly a lot. And compared to France, it's a very small space because the Lee side is quite short. Sometimes you have only like 30, 40 kilometers to do and that's all. So when you fly a lot of years... Yeah....in these islands, then you lack a little bit of space, you know. You want to do something bigger. And that's why moving to France was quite a relief, paraglidingly speaking, because I could open my area where I wanted to go and visit new places.
And were you part of the French program in France when you went to France? Did you come up through the juniors program there? And I don't even know what you call that. The juniors team? Yeah.
What charge? Yeah. What Charles Cazot did
and Maxime.
Yeah. It's called the Pole France. So a lot of good pilots came from there. But me, you know, I was... When I came to France, I was too old already. I was 20. And this is for when you are in high school, you know. Ah, okay. So I was more than... I was in a separate... I was progressing, but on my separate way.
Okay. So you were kind of doing it on your own.
Yeah. With my... With my father because we... I always fly with the goal to improve, to try something. I never... I rarely fly just to fly and without goal, you know. I just like to improve, to try things, to always push myself. When I fly cross country, I'm in competition, you know. I try to do my best. And I was with my father who used to fly the same. And this helped me a lot to compare. And I don't like to fly alone because you don't see how you're doing. So I wasn't in a good structure like Paul France, but I was still with good pilots in Réunion Island because there are a lot of good pilots.
And yeah, this helped me a lot.
How many hours would you say you get a year, say, since 20, when you moved to France?
It depends. It depends on the year because... Two years after I was 18, where I was in a school preparing for engineering school. And this was quite intense, so I didn't fly a lot. But yeah, usually I fly 200 years, 200 hours a year, I would say.
And is your main focus, Baptiste, is it mainly comps or... You know, in researching you a little bit, getting ready for this talk, you know, you do some big XC. I know that's part of your... But how does that split look? Is it 50-50 or is it 90-10 comps? What's your focus?
I would say I like both, you know. Both are... If it's preference, I like both. It's 50-50. In duration, I would say I do a little bit... Yeah, it's 50-50 everything, in fact. For me, it's a very big part to do cross country. It's the... Why we fly. It's doing big flights and pushing ourselves. And it's a good way to improve even for competitions. You know, it's not... They are very related. A good cross country pilot will be a good competitor... Will be good in competitions, I think.
I was going to ask you that because I have found over the years that it... I totally agree with you, but it doesn't seem very linear to me. And what I mean by that is, you know, there are amazing XC pilots who don't necessarily have the results when they go to comps. Right. You know, they haven't maybe linked to the connection there. I mean, obviously to fly comps, well, we have to be XC pilots, but there's a difference there as well. There... You know, we have... I've seen comp pilots who maybe just don't have the time for chasing a lot of XC in their year. They don't have much time off. But they... Maybe they don't get very many hours, but they can...
You know who I'm talking about too. They show up at a comp and you know they're going to do well. Yeah, yeah. They've kind of just learned the secret of the trade, I guess.
I think that there are things that are very related. So flying XC will help you a lot in competition, but it will not help you in every aspect of competition. And the other way around, flying a lot in competition, will help you for some things in your XC, but not entirely. There are things that are really specific to the domain. For instance, when you fly XC, you will fly mostly alone or with one or two other pilots. So you will lack the notion of control, controlling a group, a gaggle, which is a very tactical thing. That doesn't happen in XC.
But on the other hand, you will learn to center the thermic alone, to fly fast alone, to do all that stuff. Like attacking, it will improve your way of attacking alone in the competition. So yeah, there are things that are specific, things that are very related. And it also, I think, depends on the way you fly XC. There are people who fly XC. They do... They do big flights, but they don't fly like in competition, trying to do the best, to maximize every second they have.
Me, when I fly, I fly like in competition. I always almost full speed all the time. I'm really trying to maximize and make like if there's a big, big gaggle behind me and trying to go faster than them. You know, I'm always in competition.
Has flying been a profession for you at all or is it just now because you're going to work with Ozone? When you were a math teacher, was it something that you would call yourself Have you called yourself in the past a professional pilot?
No, I don't think I'm a professional pilot because in paragliding we don't earn that much money, so we can't live with that. But in France, we have advantages when we do good results. For instance, when you are a math teacher, you only work half of the hours. You have a lot of advantages when you are in a very good placement. So it was very important for me to make good results to have these advantages, but it was not financial advantages, but more time and location advantages.
That's quite neat. So you're motivated by results in that you can have more time dedicated to it. Okay, so the French government comes in and recites. Yeah, they
set a specific objective. For instance, now they have shortened it. So now you have to be top five world to have these advantages when you are over 25.
Oh, wow, that's really cool. That's neat.
Top five world, you have big pressure because it's really difficult. Yeah, especially in France. And once you lose it, then you can't compete as much. You can't have this punishment. You can't free your time for competition. So it's quite important. So I would say I was half pro because there's a big reason why I want to do good results. But it's a little bit financial help, but mostly it's time related.
Baptiste, how old are you now? You moved to France when you were 20. How long have you been at this? Now I'm 26. Okay. So I'm going to take you through some questions here that I've been thinking about since Macedonia that are very comp related. But feel free to just jump off into stories that help elaborate it or anything that you think would be beneficial to the audience. Knowing that our audience, some don't fly any comps, but many do or many are just getting into it. So we'll take this from whatever angle you want. But I thought where we'd start is advice. For comp pilots that are just getting into comps. For new people to comps, I think it can be quite overwhelming and it can also be quite humbling.
So I'm wondering, to me, there seem to be stages that we go through. And I'd like to get your feelings on what, if you're new to comps, just lower regional level stuff, not necessarily World Cups, but what should you focus on? What should be your goals when your first five, ten comps kind of thing?
So first thing I would say, try to make the parkour. So try to finish the race. Don't focus on speed. Just try to finish the race and see what it's like to make goal. You know, the first step, the first competitions is just about making goal and you will be surprised of your results because I think a lot of newcomers try to focus on speed too early and it doesn't work. So just try to make goal and step by step, you try to improve on some aspects. But first, just try to make goal. Then once you are able to make goal most of the time and consistently, you can try to improve few things.
The first one I would say is trying to fly with the goggles. The goggles is a big tool in competition and without it, you are very like naked, you know, you can bomb out very easily. And you need to fly. You need, I say really, you need to fly with the goggles to be efficient. So it will help you to go faster and to go to goal more consistently. So always fly with someone. Try not to. Don't try to attack in front when you try your first counts. Just try to follow good guys and try to follow the goggles.
And when you do it, there are certain mistakes that you can do and that you can easily avoid is when you follow the goggles. Don't try to follow a goggle when you are below. Once you follow your goggles and you know, maybe you are good. You took a bad line and you are a little bit below. Then the next thermal you catch, try to stay a little longer in it and take the second group. And if you lost the second group, then take the third group. But don't try to follow the first group if you if they are going to pass for you. So this is my first advice. Follow the goggles. Try to stay with a group that is OK for you if they are to pass. Try to stay with the second group, but never fly alone.
Talk to me about strategy. For example, when you were in Macedonia, what do you before anything even starts? What are you thinking about before the task, even the night before or the week before? What are you trying to kind of put in place? And then through the various stages before the start. So now you're off the hill, but you're before the start and then during the task. Maybe let's break that into three different things. What are the head spaces you're trying to get in or what are the things you're trying to think about and maybe not think about?
OK, OK. So it depends where you are, because every task you have a different mindset depending on your overall goal. For instance, now in the first task of the competition, I like to play it safe, to make a few points so that I have something to lay on. So like two to three first tasks, I like to take it slow. So I try not to attack because in case I bomb out, then it will be demoralizing. My mind won't be at its best if I see that I'm in the back of the competition.
So I try to take it slow at the beginning.
And what about mentally? Tell me about your frame of mind going into Macedonia, because over the years of my comp experience, I can't chalk up the really good races from the bad races mentally. It seems to be that I do better if I'm more casual and I'm more focusing on the fun, but maybe not taking it so seriously. But then there's other times where I take it quite seriously and I do well. I've never been in a situation where I'm not taking it so seriously. I haven't really found that there's a magic place to be. But do you have one that was something, you know, a kind of a mindset that you like to go into it? Do you go into it and, you know, I'm going to win this one or do you just, I'm going to go to Macedonia and have some fun?
Yeah, I think I'm trying to find a good mindset. I think there is one, but it's really hard to find. For Macedonia, I think I just found it right. And yeah, it was really hard. It was really a good experience, but yeah, there's no magical solution. It's really a very thin line that you have to find. For Macedonia, yeah, the first time, during the training day, I saw that it was very stable. So I said to myself, I wanted to fly very safe, to make a few tasks very safe in the gaggle. And if I could, I would do it. If there's a very big opportunity that I'm very much ahead, then I will try to do some stuff.
But I wanted to play safe. And finally, what happened is that when I was in the air, I felt very good.
I often was very high in the gaggle. Sometimes I could attack, but I didn't because I told myself it was stable. And I have set this objective that I wanted to stay with the group for the first task. So I did. Even if I had a few opportunities to try to escape, I didn't because I tried to be disciplined. I tried to follow my groups. And it worked out really great. I won this task just by staying in the gaggle, trying to make good lines, and at the end, being the highest in the gaggle and just pushing. And it helped me win the three first tasks.
But I didn't attack in this task. I just followed my rule and doing so the best way possible. So I finished higher in the gaggle. But yeah, it wasn't attacking. It was just following my rules and trying to fly better than the others.
How many of your decisions are based on the fact that you're a pilot? How many of your decisions are based on instruments versus gut feel?
It depends. For the glide to goal, I use a lot of my instruments. But during the flight, I don't use it that much. And in the submarine that I had, I had a bad setup for my instruments, so I couldn't see that much.
And when you say glide to goal, are you near the end of the race? Is that the main thing you're looking at? And are you more focused on glide to end of speed or glide to goal?
It depends. If it's not stable and I think there are thermal between the end of speed and goal, then I will focus on glide to end of speed. But yeah, during this phase, looking at your glide ratio, the glide ratio to goal is very important. And trying to take the... The less margin as possible is really a good thing. And you can't do it without your instruments there. They are very precise in doing that. During the camp, often I used to follow the optimized line to try to do the shortest route. But now I tend to... And this is what I did a lot in Macedonia.
I tend to follow more the lines, the clouds. Even if they deviate a lot. I think good lines, good convergence can make you go very fast even if you are not really on the axis. So yeah, instruments are a good tool. But sometimes you have to trust your guts and trust your sky reading.
How often would you say you make a decision that's... I would classify it as a little bit rash. For me, there are times in a comp where when you are in a really strong position and you are sitting on top, the decisions are very easy to make. But there are times when you are maybe not in a very strong position where it's very easy to just go, ah, fuck it, I'm going to press on. Do you try to reign that in totally or are you susceptible to that kind of... I guess that would be an undisciplined act. Because there are times where it's just, this isn't working. I got to keep moving.
I got to find something better.
Yeah, I completely see what you mean. I think rash decisions are very bad. When you do these kind of decisions, most of the times you know they are bad. You know it deep inside you. You know it, but you do it. And this is flying with your heart. You're flying with your emotions. And this is what I try to do in Macedonia also, is not flying with your heart. Your heart is for other stuff, but not for flying in competition. You need to fly with your brain and just making rational decisions. And you see, I have a very good example. It's like the task maybe four or five in Macedonia.
I started very late because I had problems with my glider. So I started 20 minutes before the start and I did the start in like the last place or something like that. And I was like five to 10 kilometers behind. And I tried to stay cool, not to make these bad decisions like, okay, all in, let's go. I tried to catch up like that. And I talked to myself. There are some things that I can do. They are very far ahead. I saw all the gaggle like little dots, you know. And I talked to myself, okay, if they make a mistake, I may catch up and do something.
And if they don't, they don't. But I can fly faster than I can, you know. There's a limit to what I can fly. And you won't go faster by flying low, for instance. You will go faster by... Taking a better line or choosing better your thermals. But you just have to fly fast. So what I did is that, okay, I'm very far behind, but I take my time. Maybe there will be an opportunity. Maybe they will not. But I'll try just to fly fast. And in the end, there was an opportunity when the gaggle did the last turn point before going to the sky.
So I was very fast. And I was very fast at speed section. I took a very good convergence that was not on the optimized route. And it was really, really great. And I did catch up at the last thermal to end up first at speed section. So it was very patient game. But I tried to fly with the head and not with the heart. So try to make rational decisions and not to go faster than I possibly can. Good
advice. Baptiste, I hear that the French team or maybe even the Swiss team, they'll practice these little things that are microseconds or maybe a few seconds. But then over the course of the race will really add up. For example, turning before you hit the cylinder. So you just barely get the cylinder. So you're coming off far maybe a little bit and getting a nice turn. And then you're getting a nice bank and then coming back on the bar. That's
a very risky thing to do.
Yeah. I was just going to say, is that something you do or is these just stories?
Because I don't do that. I think in competition, most of the pilots do it. You turn a little bit before and try to optimize it like that. But there are a few stories where the pilots end up not doing the cylinder. So it's very bad. In Italy, I did it and my instruments didn't turn the cylinder and I didn't see it. So for me, it was okay. I did all the tasks. And just before the end, I saw that I didn't do the turn point. And in the end, it worked out with the margin, but it was very, very tight. I was lucky.
So this isn't something that's a big deal. This isn't something that people need to really work on. It's more all the other things. It's not a big deal.
Being 30 meters behind because you didn't do it won't be that bad.
Okay. Tell me about strategy for each day of the race versus the week. There are the Yassins of the world that just go for the task win all the time and press, press, press. And then there are the discipline pilots like yourself and Russ who are going for the win of the comp. But how do you adjust your – I'm not asking – obviously, winning a task is really fun. But how do you adjust your own personal strategy as the days go by? Is it totally dependent on where you are going in or is it more just an overall strategy like you were talking about? Okay, the first days, I'm going to be very disciplined. I'm going to – I'm going to make goal.
I'm not going to worry about too much about being fast and I'll just grab the opportunity if I can. Does it stay like that all week or does it start really changing depending on where you are?
Yeah, it depends. If you did a bad result, you already landed twice, then you will go for the task wins and have fun. If you are looking for the comp win, then I would say it's indeed like that. You fly the best you can. You can relatively consistently and try to take a few opportunities. It's a risk versus reward thing, but you try to take opportunities if you really feel it. Yeah, and it depends on the discard you have. If you have a discard left, then you can fly a little bit more aggressively. And the more the competition goes on, the more aggressive you can fly if you didn't land or didn't do a bad task.
So yeah, it depends really on your goal and on your previous tasks.
Talk to me about strong versus weak positions. I think this is something that if you do a lot of comps, it starts to really just be naturally make sense. But I think especially for early comp pilots, the difference is maybe not so concrete. They don't really – it's a hard thing to really understand. Just talk about – Yeah, so controlling the gaggle versus being in a weak position.
Yeah, so controlling the gaggle, there are multiple ways to do it, and it's the most efficient way to fly consistently. So yeah, obviously if you are in the front, it's really hard to take the good lines. You can miss it by 50 meters, and when you will see it, it will be too late. So control is a very simple thing to do because if you are way too back, then you won't have the good timings for the thermals. Sometimes it will end up and you won't catch it. So it's a very hard thing to do.
Yeah, there are some formulas with angles that you can check on my YouTube channel if you want. I talk a little bit about that. But yeah, controlling a gaggle is very hard. For me, the easiest thing to do is being inside the gaggle, like a fish inside the gaggle, not being on the borders, just inside, not in the front, not in the back, just right in the middle. And this is the easiest way to fly in the gaggle. Then there is also a good way to fly. It's a little bit behind so you can see all the lines. If there are good lines, bad lines, then you decide to switch from one line to another. And take the best out of everyone that is in front of you. That's easy, but you don't.
You need to take care not to be too far away. So not to miss the timings of the thermals. And my best way to fly in the gaggle, it's a control that is a little bit aggressive. When you are the highest in the gaggle, you can go a little bit ahead. So you are the first on the competition. You take leading points. But if things go badly, then you can you have still have the height to turn around and take the thermals of those who catch a thermal when you don't see it in the back. So this is the way I try to fly in Macedonia, for instance, is being the highest and use my advantage to take leading points.
And if things go bad, then I can still return inside the gaggle because I can still fly. So I had an advantage. But this is really a little bit hard to pull off.
Yeah, you have to be flying very well to do that.
That's a good transition. Lead points. This has been something that has caught me out several times this year. In the past, you know, they're always tweaking it and changing things. But in the past, I hadn't been too concerned with lead points because it didn't seem to really be worth the risk. But now, I'm not. You know, several times in Colombia and Macedonia, you know, I would come in and to speed in really nice position. But my lead points were terrible. And I realized I need to put some more focus on this because it was killing me in the overall. And so the obvious is, you know, we obviously were trying to be out front. But how much are you thinking about lead points?
And as the race, you know, as that day develops. How much is that something that's in your mind, thinking about it?
Yeah. It's a very good question. It depends on what I want to do in the competition.
For my way of flying, if I want to just to make a top 10, then I won't be that much focused on leading points. I will just try to make a good place at the speed limit. And most of the time, it will do the job. But I've noticed that now there are very good pilots. And if you want to take the really top, top, top positions, you have to focus a lot now on leading points. Every point counts. So these are 160 points that you can't leave behind. So you need to optimize it. So that's it.
And that's a thing I did in Brazil with Maxime Pinot when the World Cup I won. We flew. And when we were in advantage compared to the Gagau, we used our advantage to take leading points. Most of the time, we took bad lines because, you know, when you fly alone, you are not efficient. And then we went back to the group, tried to make our way on top again. And always use our advantage. And we had the advantage to transition it into some leading points. And in the end, it did a good job. It was really nice to have this little advantage of leading points. So, yeah, it depends on your results.
If you want to go top, top results, you have to focus a lot. And if you want to do a good result but not the best of the best, then I think you can leave them a little bit behind. Because doing a good time at speed section is really more important. And if you focus too much on leading points, there's the risk of really doing a bad thing, you know.
Is your background or do you think your background in math really helps you with strategy and, you know, understanding the data, you know, the algorithms and the understanding of the data? Do you think that matters?
That's a funny question because in the European Championships, there was a new scoring system that was not ready yet and they still use it. And we had to go through every formula to see every bug that was occurring. So we had to see every formula and see the bugs and finally understand. Because I didn't take that much time to see all these formulas. And seeing that, it helped me understand when I had to, what I had to do to, for instance, for the leading points, what was important to score these leading points. And yeah, it was really nice to look into these formulas.
And of course, with my mathematical background, it helped a lot. I saw that some people, you know, they were really good at it. Some pilots felt a little bit powerless, you know, a little bit frustrated because we saw these bugs and they couldn't. So if we weren't there, it would be a little mess, you know, until the. Yeah, until two tasks before the end, there wasn't a final result yet. Everything was provisional because there were too many mistakes, too many bugs. So, yeah, looking into these formulas is. It's quite good sometimes.
Is that going to be a system that you think will be widely adopted in the end? Was it a good system?
Are you talking about the overall system? I think it's a very good one because there's a live scoring system, which means the, for instance, the coach or French coach could see live the points, the leading points, everything, the time points. It was really great.
That's cool. I didn't know that was
going on. Just
needed a little
time to be perfect. But now I think it's good.
Huh? Are you? This is more a personal question. But, you know, so you crushed Macedonia. You won there. You won Brazil.
Europeans not as successful. Is that something that, you know, is frustrating to you? Or is that and by not success, still very successful, but you didn't win it. Is that is that something that, you know, are you are you a kick your helmet kind of guy when you don't do well? Or you just just rolls off your shoulders? No big deal.
No, I'm I'm a little bit frustrated, but yeah, not that much. I'm a calm person. You know, I don't take it too bad. But I learned a lot from it. I was very hyped from Macedonia. I came. I was too confident, I think. And I told the coach, OK, if if I do, if I take an advantage. At the two, three first tasks, then it's OK. I'm I will be very, very good because if I take an advantage at the beginning of the competition, then I know very well how to to keep very consistently my advantage and not to lose points. But but taking this this little advantage is sometimes difficult.
So I wanted to do it from the beginning. And that was a little bit. How do you say? Cocky. You know, it was it was a good decision. And I learned from it. It was a bad plan. I tried to force things instead of flying well and taking opportunities if they are once like I used to do in Macedonia. I was too too confident and I wanted to to to try to win from the beginning and then OK, now I can chill and stay in the gaggle and just do good points. It will be sufficient. But now this is not the right way to it. It doesn't work for me. So I think now it's I will do my thing if I take the advantage at the beginning.
It's perfect. It's even easier. But if I don't, then maybe I will take it later. But I don't need to force things to do good. So I think it was a bad plan and I learned from it. It's good from time to time to to to take a little reminder. Like like this, you know?
Yeah, of course it is. Yeah. You had the recipe in Macedonia. Just stick with it. Make the pancakes. Make the pancakes. Yeah.
Yeah. Why change it? I just need to keep that recipe. It was very good. And like you said in the beginning, sometimes there's a stage you want to try to find and to keep it because in that stage you are very good and you are flying well. So I think I found it. I found it a couple of times. And now I just need to. To keep to to keep it. It's the it's the same stage. I was in China when I won. It's the same when I was in in Brazil. Also, it's I just need to keep that recipe and don't change anything.
Have you ever suffered Baptiste since, you know, 20 to 26 now? And now you're winning these World Cups. Have you ever suffered with just lack of motivation or, you know, do you ever come out of these things going? Yeah. I don't really know why I'm doing this.
I know. Never.
Never. You know, you don't have any trouble with getting all passionate about it and fired up.
No, no. Flying is my life. No, no, never.
Fantastic. Good. Good answer. What about physical training, diet, any of that kind of stuff? Do you do you know, hike and fly or is that is that part of your regimen at all? I
have a big dilemma because I used to make some workouts to to to be heavier because bigger wings fly better. So I did it. I went from 62 to now I'm 70. And I tried to do that to be in a good spot with with muscle, but a little bit of fat to be heavy, you know. And now I'm I have a big dilemma because I started to make hike and flies. And if I want to be good at hike and fly, so I will have to lose some weight and then it won't be as good for competition. So, yeah, it's a tricky thing to choose.
To get right. Yeah. We're all going to have to become actors or something, you know, who famously gain and lose weight for every role they're playing. But, you know, it's always encouraging to me to. To see, you know, Maxime, who's a pretty little guy, you know, he still does. He's he's proving that you can still do it on the smaller wings. But but yeah, that's do I hear an X-Alps or that kind of thing in your future?
No, not not except I will try to do just for fun some some local competitions. But it's still it's still a challenge for me because I didn't used to to hike a lot. And now I'm trying. So, yeah, maybe I will have to. To change a little bit my diet. And yeah, it's it's quite motivating. But on the other part, I wanted to to fly M size. And if I do it, I won't be able to play the M size.
Yeah, sure. Sure.
Because I always do the size and I see there's still a little difference with the M size. Like Winston's Maxime Pinot is now playing the M size, even if he's quite lightweight. He takes a lot of ballast. And I can see that. Yeah, it's it's working well. So I want to do the same. But if I lose weight on the other side, it will be even more ballast for me. So I don't know.
But the training and diet, do you do you consider that an important part of success or is that just something personal?
For success, for for the competition in cross country? Yeah. Yeah.
So I don't think it matters that much. If you. No, I don't think it matters that much. It's just if you want to to improve a little bit by flying a bigger size, then it's OK. But just staying healthy to fly long flights, I think it's it's it helps you to get focused a longer time if you are healthy. But yeah, it's not that much of a big difference.
Let me ask a totally different kind of question. One of the things that was a little bit of a challenge. A little annoying to me in Macedonia was the the shortness of the task. Do you do you like long tasks or short tasks? To me, it's God, those are beautiful days. Let's keep going.
Sure. I'm an XC pilot. If a task can go for five, six, seven, eight hours, I'm very happy with it. Yeah. OK. All
right. That's good to hear. That's good. I mean, I find
that often. I was. It's a very good question. Because I was in the committee in the pilot committee in the French Open, which took place in the in the Moulin Bay in France. And with my there was Maxime also with me, which always fly XC with me. And we pushed to make these big tasks, you know, like 170 kilometers triangle, things like that. And when we did, people were not that happy about that. Because there are there are people who want to do competition and they want the competition to be very short and to be a quick race. And they don't think that's competition and XC are related.
And yeah, there were a lot of people who weren't happy about that. But really, I think it's a good thing to mix, you know, XC, long flights and competition. I would love to have competitions where, you know, you go a week in a place where you can do a lot of things. You know, you can do big flights and like the competition could be OK. The guy who the person who makes the biggest flights in the week wins or something like that would be amazing. You know, if you are 100 pilots trying to do cross country, imagine what we can achieve.
Hmm. Yeah, we're I'm running a US Nationals in a pre PWC here in a couple of weeks out in Utah. And if we get the weather, we're really going to try to break the the race to goal distance record. And maybe one day we'll just do an open day. That'd be that'd be really fun. But yeah, you know, we're advertising it is, you know, don't come if you don't want to go big. Because it's it's really high base. And, you know, it's a good place to fly with oxygen. And we're hoping to go really big. But this is something I just find can be annoying about the World Cup scene is it's always, you know, an hour and a half, two hours. They're short. I just I want to go bigger. I
completely agree.
Yeah, good. That's good to hear.
For me, my best task was in Montegrappa in Italy in April. And we did a 170 triangle closed. It was like an FIA triangle. And it was epic. We flew longer, faster and it was really good. And when I see that we were in the European Championship. Awesome. And in the same time, there were people in France breaking the FIA. Oh, my God.
348 kilometers while we were doing two two hours task. I was so I want to go back to France. It's so good. And I think if we can do longer competitions, we won't have that feeling again. You know, we can use all the day to fly. Why are we using only two hours? I completely agree with you. We should fly longer.
That was amazing. It was amazing. Those Potele and those guys when they did that, those huge FIAs. It was it was kind of for me, it was a bit of a oh, man, because that's where my race ended in 2019 on that coal and cold is hard. It was our I don't know how you say it, but it was an amazing flying day. My I had walked all night on bare feet. My my feet were just mangled and I had no interest in flying. But one of my supporters that day took off and had a really, really good day. And I was like, oh, my God, I'm going to be a really nice triangle. So it's it's an amazing potential. And those guys proved it. That's just it's you know, it's just just over the call from unknown. Yeah,
I think they they find just the right spot to fly. It's it's really it seems all natural. You know, it's it's really good.
It all just flows. Yeah, that that's amazing.
With the ozone team, we already designed a longer version of it for the next year. It will be a will be a big
wicked. Wicked. Does that that's a good one. Does big distance record breaking type stuff interest you like coming to Texas or Brazil or that kind of thing?
Yeah. The straight flights aren't that much my thing because of the retreat. You know, it's really long and you can fly two days in a row because the retreat is too long. I like but I'm very, very interested in records breaking in FIA triangle. Out and return all this stuff. I'm very interested in.
Yeah, that that's that's fun. That's really more my focus these days, too. It's awful. Nice to come home at the end of the day. That's always
really good. And I think there's some because I have a very competition spirit, you know, and I think making your own speeds on a closed on a closed parkour and a closed way is really, really important. Yeah. I think that's something else than using the wind and not having the same day. If you are if you if you if your distance is closed, then you did your own speed. You know, it's a it's not the same for me.
Yeah, I agree. I mean, the the the record tracing record chasing, you know, downwinders is, you know, there's a real endurance side to that. Like you said, it's the it's the retrieves. But it's what it comes down to what I like more about triangles that it's really more pilot ability where as the you know, the big and I'm not knocking. I've done tons of the long distance stuff and it's fantastic. And, you know, the Brazilians have proved how to do it. And, you know, there's it's really the staying power. It's really you have to treat it like a job and you're going to do this job. And because really it's the day. I mean, you're going to get the record if the day presents itself. It's not so much. The pilot. I mean, on that good of a day, I think there are a lot of pilots in the world, especially these days who could break the record.
But they got to be there and do it. Whereas the FAI think, is a lot more ability. And that's, you know, that's where people get separated.
Yeah, that's why I think. Yeah, exactly. The straight distance is more related on the on the day. The conditions. You can make a OK day. You can make a very, very, very big FIA triangle on an OK day if you do your best. So, yeah, yeah, exactly. I think that's why I prefer and because of the retreat. But that's another thing that I love about close distances.
Baptiste, tell me about totally switching gears here, but the technical side of things. What about trimming? How closely are you watching your wing all the time? And how often are you fiddling with it?
It changed very recently. I used to check my training trimming like every 40 or 50 hours. I used to check it. And now I just if my wing is flying straight, I don't check it. And I only use my feeling. If my glider isn't turning that well, I will fasten my tips. If my glider is a little bit a little bit slow in speed or is going
a little bit faster, I will fasten my tips.
If my
glider is feeling
a little bit slow in thermals, also, I will fasten the A1 and the A2. Now, I think with experience, I'm measuring less and just flying more with the feeling. Yeah. Because measuring, you can see differences. But in the end, it's all the feeling that matters.
Yeah, sure. I find that too. If it feels good, I mess with it. Yeah. Okay, last one. And I haven't prepared you for this one at all. So if you take some time to think about it, that's fine. But craziest thing you've ever seen in flying ever? Okay.
And crazy is defined by you. But the funniest thing or the craziest thing or the scariest, whatever, something that just when you're having a beer with your friends, you tell this story.
Ah.
Yeah. I think for me, craziest won't be the funniest, but just the more epic feeling, you know. It will be the craziest feeling for me. It's after a big, big, big flight, like 11 hours flight when I have the sunset and I was with Maxime and John flying. And it was so beautiful. The sun was going down. We were just making it. The glide to goal was very tight. And I stopped a minute. I stopped because I'm in very, I'm in a tense competition when I'm flying in ICSI. And I stopped a minute and just looked around. We were very high on the last glide. There were no more thermals.
Just snow everywhere and the lights of the red light on the snow. And it was. And we were gliding. And when we went down, we went on the shadow. It was such a good time. It was really great.
I can visualize it. Of course, I wasn't there. But that sounds that sounds beautiful. Nice one. And a good place to end. Baptiste, thanks, man. I really appreciate it. What a joy. And what a joy to watch you fly, man. That was really flown a lot of World Cups. And, you know, I'm used to watching guys like Honor and just, you know, do that kind of thing. But, man, you were dominating. Holy smokes. That was just unbelievable. And I was just above you when you bombed out on that last day. And I thought, man, I would like to be in that position where I don't even have it doesn't matter. I've still got the win.
That was great. I bet you thought, oh, you know what? I don't need this. I'm going to go have a beer. But fantastic, man. We'll keep crushing. And I can't wait to see you at the Superfinal. And congrats on the new job. And the new living accommodations there in Gourdon. And say hi to the crew. And, yeah, man, see you soon.
Thank you very much. See you soon. Appreciate it. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
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