191. A Walk (and Fly) down memory lane - Gaspard Petiot

Hi

there, everybody. Welcome to the Cloudbase Mayhem. This is your host, Gavin McClurg. We're doing another walk and fly down memory lane, this time with Gaspard Petio. He and I both were rookies in 2015. He competed again in 2017 and 2019. So, had three great events. In 2017, he was actually leading for a pretty short stint, but he was out in front of Chrigel, I don't know, day six, end of the race, and then unfortunately broke his wrist. But as with all the others, there's some great stories here, a lot of laughs, and we had a lot of fun with this one. And a tiny bit of housekeeping in this one is that my book, Advanced Paragliding, is now available in an e-format.

So, it's available on Kobo, Google Books, Kindle, and you can get it through xemag.com forward slash shop. You'll find it there. The book is in three different volumes. They're 10 bucks a piece, so cheaper than the real book, and you can take it with you wherever you go. If you've been wanting to read Advanced Paragliding, or if you just want to have it on your phone, then that's the way to do it. Again, xemag.com forward slash shop. Huge thanks to the cross country team for making this all happen. Please enjoy this walk and fly down memory lane with Gaspard Petio. I think he was France. Oh, so many French. He was France, too. But anyway, incredible pilot, really fun human being, and we'll enjoy it.

Cheers.

Gaspard, awesome to have you on the show, my friend. It's like we were talking about before we started recording. It's been a minute. I haven't seen you in a while. What have you been up to? Before we get into the X-Op stories, what's life been like since the last I saw you in 2019?

Well, it's been... I had more time to do some things I wanted to do, something I wanted to do. I wanted to try. I spent a lot of time, three years sailing, and also taking more time with my girls because my girls are growing now. They're 11 and 12, so they can practice sport with me now. It's a different story, but it's fun. Do they fly? Not alone yet, but we usually fly, the three of us on the tandem, and we do a lot of small adventures like rock climbing, and then we take off from the summit, or we can cross country ski and then fly together.

We do small adventures all together. That's fun. Neat.

And you did a big trip last year to the States, right? Where all did you go?

No, not two years ago. Three years ago, I've been to... Oh, is it that long ago now? I went to Canada.

That's right. I've done a great trip over there, and I flew a lot, but we also hiked a lot with the girls. We saw a bunch of animals, and we traveled. It was really fun. Did you get a van? Did

you get kind of an RV?

Actually, I was really not really good at preparing the stuff. I rented a big car, but when I got to the airport, they gave me like a sport car, like a Mustang racing car. So we traveled with this sport car. But it was fun, though. We went all the way through Canada with this, and we had a bike on it, so on the carbon... It was a carbon design sport car, but we put the bike on it, and then a paraglider bag, and every kind of stuff over it. It was fun.

And the sailing, where did you go? Three years, were you sailing around the world? Were you keeping it more local? What were you doing?

When I ended 2019, I was kind of tired. Paragliding was all my life for 10 years, and I wanted to try some sailing. So I have a lake just near my house, so I started competition sailing on a small A-class catamaran, like a race boat. And then at the same time, I had a friend who... He was sailing like long distance races on the ocean and on the Mediterranean. So I've sailed with him for several races, like a tandem. They're like six or seven days races, long distance.

And also my brother, a really good paragliding pilot that helped me for the three X-Ups, he traveled

from France to crossing the Atlantic and then back, so I had the opportunity to fly a bit with him. So I made a lot of sailing, and it was fun.

This is an interesting thing that so many of us are sailors. What do you think? Damien Lacaz was doing a big one this last year with his family. Tom Ladoix has obviously done a lot of sailing. Paul just bought his boat. He's planning on doing a bunch of sailing with us. his family and there are others what do you think the what do you think the connection there is there's a lot of you know i i get the kite surfing and the foiling that's very flowy sport like paragliding is but you know sailing was something i didn't i got into sailing way before i got into flying i was a sailor for a long time but it's an interesting connection yes

i think the main connection for for the four of us that you've said it before is that um the main difference between sailing and paragliding is that you can bring your family with you

and in a

paraglider it's not that easy so it's easy to share an adventure you can bring a lot of gear you can go on beautiful places and you can share the idea of um of traveling with the elements but together as a family and that's that's the main difference i think is

this something you've been doing for a long time yeah i've been doing a lot of things for a long time take on as a is a big family endeavor in the future would you go you know offshore or maybe do a circumnavigation or you know live on a boat for a period of time

um i guess not because um uh after three years of sailing i i decided to stop a little bit uh for two main reasons the first one is that it's very uh complicated to sail it's very expensive it's very it's a lot of gear a lot of research and a lot of things that i've been doing for a long time and i've been doing a lot of repairs a lot of um logistic and i'm not really i don't really like it i mean that much um the second reason is that my wife is not really fond of it so that's a big one the main problem so we usually um i think we will continue to sail like uh i don't know several weeks per year but i'm not i don't think we we will travel long distance i mean long periods because she's not fond of it so forget it she's more she's more into um climbing summits and uh i mean light climbing and fast climbing climbing okay and you are as well yes before uh prior gliding i was um an alpine guide so uh i was into um rock climbing and um mountaineering and i'm kind of coming back to this because um i really like it and my my my children loves it too so we're starting to climb

ski again and of course paragliding but we we do many things and it's and that's fun in

my mind you're you're always you've proven in your three xops campaigns because your knees you know you've got worse knees than i do and you know i always i've always tried to be patient with you on the ground but there are times when we've been together not many you're usually out in front of me but where i just i can't i gotta leave them i can't go that slow and yet you just do so well in the race and that's you know you've proven your your flying capability you you've told me privately that a lot of that's your brother he's very good at kind of routing you through the sky when he's on the ground and and kind of helping you out with ideas and stuff which we'll we'll talk about but you're not someone that i see you know really

chasing the world cups and all that stuff where where does the is it talent is it is it because you're dedicated privately uh where does it come from and that's a hot seat question but uh

i i am i think um i it comes from the fact that i didn't have a lot of time to um to train and um and i had my way of training was uh a family training i was always uh we usually spend the summer with my whole family and my wife is um uh she she bikes because she practiced triathlon so in the morning she would bike to a path in the ops and then we would um have lunch with the kids at this path and i would have to take off there because i had no choice i mean i the only way to fly was to to take off on any path it's not the kind of flying flying where you're free so it's it's really similar to the exhausts in a way that

really accurate timing to fly because we had to meet at four o 'clock for um for uh switching with the kids at the lake so you have to take off on a special place and you have to land on a special place at the exact time so you can go wherever you want and sometimes i would go on really ugly places but i knew i had to come back and on a certain timing and it taught me um this idea of uh make it whatever happens and this idea of uh of being able to respect a certain timing and this is really helpful later it helped me a lot because at the exalt it's exactly the same you don't really choose to take off and you need to be on that exact ridge at this timing because if not i mean the sun won't be at that time or the the valley wind will be too strong or and it and it's i think this uh

this way of flying that taught me uh day after day uh this this timing stuff and this this uh and and it also taught me that it's uh it's not going fast going fast it's not about pushing about pushing fast it's most of the time going fast is about thinking and and taking time when you need to go up to the thermal to the top of the thermal because this one is really important and glide really well on that one because this one is really important and it's not about really important but maybe the the next 40k's you can push hard because it's it's not uh really i mean it won't it won't bother it won't make difference and then while all this just thinking about being at the right time at the right moment this is what what uh what really helpful for me i think because i'm not uh i've i've paraglided i've i've also practiced walker paragliding just for fun but i'm not really good at paragliding i'm not really good at paragliding i'm not really good at it because it's about flying with others flying in groups and um and i'm not really used to it i really i'm really used to flying alone on dirty places

dirty

places i like that and where is home um

this is another um really important question because i moved uh i moved uh several in several towns lately and so i had the opportunity to fly fly on different uh area and different spots i i have lived in the really high mountains i've lived uh on the pre-alps i've lived on the north of the alps south of the alps so i've i've met really different kind of style and different kind of conditions and this helps too and now i live in ex-leban which is a town between annecy and grenoble it's just near annecy on the south part on the lake and it's um it's it's a soft kind of flying because it's pre-ops it's it's not in the high range had

you done other hike and fly races before the 2015 race yes

this is a really important question because um i learned many things uh in uh for the ex-ops uh practicing races before ex-ops i've done uh a really interesting race that called that is called air tour that is a really interesting race that is called air tour which is a race near grenoble and it helped me understand uh all the tricks all the um mistakes that you can do and and this is why i probably didn't make that much mistakes in the in the ex-ops you

said before we started recording again before we kind of rewind the clock here but you said before we started recording that each of your three races 2015 2017 2019 which you had great results in all three were very different what did you mean by that you said that you had great results in all three were very different what did you mean by that well

on the first excelps um well

on the first excelps um well on the first excelps um

i was here to to discover i was here to

i was here to to discover i was here to

fly fly fly a lot uh but i wasn't ex i was not a lot

uh but i wasn't ex i was not a lot uh but i wasn't ex i was not

expecting any results expecting

any results expecting any results

my only goal was to reach monaco and uh my

only goal was to reach monaco and uh my only goal was to reach monaco and uh

and do my the best i could and

do my the best i could and do my the best i could

um it worked really well and we had a um it worked really

well and we had a

second exap on 217 it was totally different the idea was to be efficient and to fight with the best so the idea was to fight in the front and uh so i was more into i was more accurate more prepared i had um a really um uh fast wing and really um powerful win win wing and um yes i was i had prepared everything to be fighting with the with the first top leaders and since in 217s i i ended injured at the end of this race um i didn't know if i would come back uh i was like i was kind of um i knew that after this race i i couldn't do much better than that i was uh it was hard to beat um the best of the the race

and uh i came back in 219 uh to end this experience with um with um a race that would that i would um control that i would i would be proud of a race uh that would bring me to monaco the last time and in the right way and not i was not uh i knew i was not the best pilot but i wanted

last time before saying goodbye to this marvelous adventure so

you knew going into 29 and i remember you telling me this before the race that that was going to be your last yes

i for me um i was i i've never thought about doing exhausts um more than two or three times um because i i didn't want to to be i wanted to be a full-time a full-time investment i wanted to be fully into it and i know that if i i know myself if i if it's the project is a really long time project probably um my level would would not be uh strong all the time i'm not uh committed like i have plenty of other things that i want to do my girls need me also for other things so i knew i had few opportunities and i wanted to uh i wanted them to be really uh really strong but still in 2021 it was hard for me not to apply i

imagine you know i didn't apply this year and i'm starting to get the uh you know i i'm curious your girls if i have the math right we're kind of four five six somewhere right in there for the first one you know my little girl's five now and that's that was a big part of my decision to not compete this year and other things you know 50 the race is getting i mean back in 2015 we could make it we could make it we could make it we could make it mistakes and still you know be in there with the with the top guys and now i don't find that that's the case you've just you got to be on and it's it's a different race it's just faster which is great it's that's super exciting but so but a big part of it was just the time required it doesn't sound like you know it sounds like you're you had a more relaxed approach because you had to it was just practical to spend time with your family so two questions it seems like that is maybe a little bit more of a challenge for you but i think it's a little bit more of a challenge approach that really helps i'm sure it would help a lot of people including myself to be

maybe not take it so seriously and be more relaxed as i was in 2015 because i had no i my only objective there was to not get eliminated i had no idea you know and get to monaco of course we all have that objective but i didn't have any expectations and i think that's a really good thing but so that's one question and the other question is how has have things changed for you with your daughters getting older from the 2015 race to the 2019 race as they as they become became adolescents how did that affect your approach um

well for sure during the races uh having the girls was always um it was always inside your head uh when you take some risks and especially when you fly against the wind so you have to think about it and then sometimes you you are uh hungry you are about yourself because you you you've taken risky decisions so so it's it's kind of uh there's there's like a voice telling you that this is wrong and you should be careful and then so this is a kind of a small problem that you have to take take into account um when they were small it was easy to to to train because i could share half day with my wife she would train in the morning i would train in the afternoon and we would switch like this and i could spend half day with my girls and it would i mean it was okay and the more they grow the more they wants to do things i mean they they can run they can hike they can ski so they want they want to share the stuff they want to do things and you want to share things with them uh i mean i i i enjoy i really enjoy to spend time skiing and to to to train climbing so for me it was clear that the more the older they they would go the the more time i had to to to give them and and that's why i knew that my my window for the except was quite quite short what are your goals now for

paragliding uh

my goal in paragliding i don't have any goal in paragliding no uh i i i have to say that for three years i almost i didn't fly most didn't fly i didn't fly i didn't fly i didn't fly uh i i i totally i made a big break uh and now i've sold my boat and i'm i'm starting to fly again uh but but i'm not expecting uh for now i'm not i don't have any expectations because i don't have i don't have that much time and um maybe later when the girls will go away i'll probably start again probably i have i'll have some more uh some more objectives some more targets some more objectives but now it's it's it's not um i have some small like small ideas but it's i'm i mean it's not like uh huge objectives but it's not my time it's it's their time now i'm i'm i'm here for for them for the girls good for you okay

well let's go back and relive a little bit for the 2015 race each race is dictated by the weather of course the 2015 race the route was the geisberg as it always is down to the doxtein which we had an amazing first day it was very hot but really good flying and uh you and i were out in front as i recall and and we made it down to the kimsey and then from there we went to lermous and then down to the brenta and then up to the matterhorn and then around montreal and then down to the doxtein and then down to the doxtein and then up to the mont blanc and to annecy we had some fun flying into and out of annecy and then down all the way down to pay down to monaco and 2015 was was dominated by wind and we had a lot of heat and big storms early in the season from you know heat lightning and heavy heavy rain at night from just being being so hot uh including in the prologue which i believe 2015 was the first year

incredible amount of wind we there was a lot of injuries a lot of accidents a lot of withdrawals it was a very you know i think for you and i being rookies it was a good you know wow this is what this is all about because you you you just got used to it and you just kept doing it but looking back there was some there's a lot of wind a lot of lee flying and a lot of pushing into wind we were we mostly had westerlies and we were we were heading west so some pretty dicey stuff but you and antoine and aaron had an amazing battle for for fourth uh down at the end you were you were just hanging on to paul and and creagle as i remember and and sebastian huber that was his rookie year and he really had one i think he got second didn't he so yeah there's a little recap of how the race was but you and i had some fun together early and then you got out front and never saw you again but i see you smiling uh what was a highlight from that race and what was maybe something you would have liked to change um

the um the highlights uh for me it's it's it's uh like you say it's it's weird because on my memories i only keep the good memories isn't that funny isn't that funny that's why we keep doing it that uh yes as you said the wind was uh was really strong and i remember some landings uh really scary landings um i remember uh one of my worst memory of paragliding was on on simplon path i was um i i was thinking as uh as a pilot that um if the wind was strong i would i could i could um be safe landing on the on the top of a mountain i would be safer so i went on simplon path and uh i made this huge mistake because all the the west wind of switzerland would would go in that path and and i was just at the right really the right or the wrong place i was on the hill and the wind was just was just pushing me up the mountains like like a soaring but but uh but uh not soaring but going backward and i was like oh i'm gonna jump over the mountain and scratch myself in italy over there and i stayed like like uh fighting against this wind uh for about a year and a half and i was like oh i'm gonna jump over the mountain and scratch myself in italy for about 30 minutes and uh wondering where i would end this uh this this this this very moment and uh and yes for me this this this is a really strong um souvenir and uh this i i didn't know what to do i was pushing the bar and couldn't move and i was looking uh turning my head i was like oh no please please please i need help and i don't know i had and this for this fortunate thermal that came and helped me to get out this place and saved me just um this was um yeah i forgot i had forgotten this this this uh moment but now that you speak about ween i can remember the the hell i was in and uh and it was and i survived this i survived this but at this very moment i was really really scared and i and i remember that when i landed i was in the i was like oh i love to walk i love to walk and i walked all the night all the all the afternoon i walked and i walked and i could probably fight fly again this day but i i was mentally destroyed

so yes it was a hard race and uh and it's the wind was really strong i

believe that was probably the day if you were pushing into the simplon that was the day i was back with with tom and ferdy back at it and i was like oh my god i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna trying to get into bellinzona and that was when tom went in the tree and had to be helicoptered out and uh the german pilot michael dropped out of the race and toma i believe that same day was the day that he had the terrible accident they never published they never talked about that but he he basically had his face ripped off uh landing backwards in really strong wind and that might have even been the same day michael vichy went in the lake now no michael vichy went to lake yeah

because we landed that was the day before when michael vichy landed in the lake i landed like 500 meters next to him so we would i was almost dying i was i was um flying backward over um a wedding a wedding feast and the people saw me like going like the wind threw me over the wedding and i landed between two um two uh buildings in the middle of of a town and i i survived this again i didn't know how but which vichy 500 meters in the front land in the lake so yes i had several memories and uh and um those those two were really really bad but i had also extraordinary memories for example one memory i was fighting with uh aaron and we were um trying to find a clue to um to to cross um uh a special point near um near lake lake major major lake i don't remember the name of the place but we couldn't um we couldn't reach the place because of the breeze and we didn't know how to do it and and we crossed and we saw a paraglider like um a beginner a small red wing and the wing was shouting at me like and i was like oh this guy is really happy to see us coming from the ixops and i tried uh i tried to see him and i tried to see him and i tried to see him and i tried to see him i tried to cross this this valley by using the right side and then i was totally destroyed on this this this um my my my idea was stupid and then when i came back uh i could see this paraglider and he was shouting at me and i could hear the voice later and he was like follow me follow me and then he showed us me and aaron he showed us uh the way i mean he was like uh i don't know i he had like a beginner wing but he showed us the way the way to cross and aaron had done exactly the same mistake and at the end this this little guy showed showed us uh the way to cross so so it's like we had magic memories together with aaron because this uh without this guy i think we could we would have land maybe 10k before or 20k before that

was down in the maritimes that was after anisee when you're pushing south i assume no no

it was uh it was before it was uh after uh berlin zona i don't i don't remember the place um before coming back north to um to to to reach the swiss swiss valley um we were fighting against the breeze coming from lake major major lake and um and we didn't know the place at all and ah okay okay gotcha

that's right we had saint moritz as a turn point didn't we yeah yeah yeah okay okay

that makes sense okay and he and and and this guy i mean he he totally changed a race and it was fun because he was he was just a normal guy and i think he enjoyed it i mean to to share this with us it was it was it was cool cool uh cool memory but i mean we have plenty of the of those memory i remember uh uh fighting with aaron when we flew over um the places i knew really well uh in in the french alps and uh we would we would share the flight with aaron and antoine for 10 hours uh you know whole the whole day together we flew over and and it was like magic we were we were racing but it was like a family like a friend uh a friend flight and it was it was magic i

remember sitting on the pass into the west end of the chamonix valley and you guys were all heading up to the i believe you all three were together that morning maybe one was slightly up at the going up to the brenta you know the top of the gondola or the tram there and and getting ready to fly we had a great day to anisee and it was you know the forecast was for crazy strong north fern and i was sitting on the pass ferdy didn't even try to fly he just walked off the pass and walked down into chamonix and but you guys were going up and i kept telling bruce you know they see something that we don't they're they're going up to fly it must be okay and and he kept going i don't know north fern and shaman and passy's fine but in chamonix it's really dangerous and and i kept saying no but the the sky looks okay i think the forecast is wrong and it was it was an amazing day and but i think if you guys hadn't been there i also would have walked but i kept saying they know something that we don't bruce let's just let's just sit here and watch and as soon as you guys took off i took off and and it worked it

was great yes

sometimes the forecast is

wrong sometimes the forecast is wrong

or scary yeah

sometimes sometimes you you you don't know that it's that it's dangerous and you take off and you and it works sometimes it's because you're stupid or and you don't have the information that you try it and it works but and sometimes you'd better have the information once it was funny in this race i was um i was uh before um madonna before the brenta before madonna di campiglio we had a really strong storm i was before Aaron Durogati and i we hiked to um to a summit um and we wanted to glide and to fly to madonna di campiglio and we were here and we had this terrible storm with really strong winds i was like we were at the top and it was windy and we were waiting and waiting and then aaron arrived and uh with his supporter and uh and it was really really uh windy and um

reporter that he's competing uh this this year he's andre andre yeah and he's and he told aaron okay let's take off i mean uh i propose you to go down 50 meters down and we take off and we're like those guys are completely crazy and they they start to go down and we were like those guys are gonna kill themselves and five minutes later they took off like in in uh totally i mean it was hell it was crazy and and it worked i mean and they they took off and then they they directly glided on the lee side of it i was like those guys are crazy and and it worked and i had a lot of french guys that were here to to watch the race and they're like sometimes we spend they were usual paragliders and they say uh sometimes we spend two two hours analyzing the conditions before takeoff and those guys they don't care they just take off

and they're like oh yeah they're not gonna let us go yeah aaron

i mean andre is obviously with all his acro background is is an amazing pilot and it's going to be interesting to watch him in the race and i got to see aaron this year after his exploits in pakistan this this summer which were extraordinary he came and did you know we have this three-day hike and fly race here called the the global rescue x red rocks and man he's operating at a high level i mean he's always been fast up mountains you know he's really a gazelle up going uphill you know has knee problems like you and i do and so the flats are not his favorite but wow he's moving fast right now it's just extraordinary i think he's really preparing well i think he's going to be one watch you know the x-ops has always been he's done very well but for him it's not very well he he'd like to you know obviously he wants to win he wants to be up there in the top in the podium and he's had trouble striking that balance but he's i think this he could be very dangerous yeah

he has improved a lot uh yeah i saw him in 215 217 219 and he has improved a lot of his different skills so he's going to be he's every every race he's better yeah

2017 was marked by a lot of bad weather i think it was the first time in the race that no one flew one day i know Chrigel said that in 20 the first day we all walked up to the geisberg and it was so wet i ruined my phone and we all walked off the geisberg and walked all day which uh again for you and i is pretty hard to do that was a hard day and then it was earmarked by this the second day you had an unreal flight and showed what was possible flying in really strong fern i you and i have talked about this i watched you know i walked all night which was a mistake and then i was in that canyon to the south that you all you know Chrigel took a different route there but you launched on the north side hopped over the spine of the alps and i watched gliders coming down that canyon and i got on the phone with the safety officer saying you better get a helicopter in here someone's going to crash it was wicked dicey uh you know ben wall went in the trees and yeah any but but some of you had a had an amazing day and yeah and then it was a pretty exciting race and i think i think it was a pretty exciting race at one point i don't want to spoil 2017 but at one point you were leading the race well into the race down at the guard at turn point you were out in front and then sadly you had a hard landing so but the the race course was was longer than it had ever been i believe and hopped back and forth across the spine of the alps more than it ever had it was a pretty exciting course and then a lot of wind at the end but anyway that that race was dictated by storms and thunderstorms and rain and gust fronts and quite a bit of wet weather well

for me this race um it was um it was it was the perfect race for me um the the first day was was horrible because i couldn't um run on the flat so i ended uh i was the last one on the at the end of the first day i was pointing at the last position and uh it was kind of scary but i knew um that every that a lot of making a mistake because um i knew that we'll have we would have a north wind and when you have some north wind uh it's always better to be before the spine than after the spine i mean because uh the fun is always stronger when he comes down after the after the the the up so i knew that it it if if i could fly uh the north wind would would help me to to come back

and i you could that's i knew that you you could not i mean you could probably not take off on the south side because of the this down this downwind coming down so uh actually taking this day taking uh taking off on the north side was really calm and sweet we had really tiny conditions on on the north side and uh and uh the idea was to take as much altitude as i could so that uh when you when you jump over the the spine you you survive the you know the wave going down and um and uh i knew that uh 50ks from the spine maybe i could find some normal conditions so i had to survive those 50ks uh of downwind and uh and it worked it worked i mean luckily uh it worked perfectly and i had this incredible flight uh almost to the to the turn point of mongart so it was um incredible it was an incredible way to to begin the race uh to to to start from last from last to second and uh yeah and after that i i was into the race and i had

luckily i had this chance that every day was flyable so i could um i could you know um play the game because if it's right with my knee i couldn't with um rainy day i cannot really play the race i couldn't play anything so with good flyable conditions i could play the game and the day and like this i could reach um i could reach uh Chrigel bit by bit but i i reached Chrigel uh because he he was not on the really good timing and i was on a good timing and coming into

garda yeah

and i reached regal but i reached regal uh getting tired so that explained maybe part of probably the fact that i got injured i i i've never been uh as good as Chrigel and i will probably never be as good as he is but it was fun to to i what i realized in 217 is that i understood the way he played the way he he he he he thinks the way he he reads the the forecast and i understood could feel things and that's this is was this is this was really interesting and the main difference between 215 and 217 is that uh i could understand the timing is that at the beginning of the day i could tell my crew uh at 215 i will be there at at three o 'clock i'll be there at five o 'clock i will be there i could plan the day and i could um and this changed changed really a lot of things because when you can plan the time when you will be uh landing and where you will be landing then you can it's easy to it's better it's it's easy to get to go faster because how did you

do that how did you how were you able to map it so well in your mind how it would happen well

totally 215 helped me a lot and um and and then after after that when you fly a lot which was the case in 215 i i really flew a lot i i also competed to the to the international world cup um in brazil and in uh so i i really flew a lot on different style so i was really confident of what i could do and i so i could i was able to say i can fly 30k per hour 25k per hour today and i think i can reach here i will land over there and then i can hike this bus and i will take off over there so i could plan my day and this was the main difference and this is why it worked pretty well but i have to say that the end of this uh race was really tricky and the bad weather was was horrible the the terrain i mean the italian side of the end of this race was really difficult and i think i can say that the end of this race was really difficult was horrible and i i have to say that if i didn't break my wrist i i could never win the race because it was the end of the race was too tricky not not to not as flyable as as i needed to to be to win to win or to keep going with Chrigel do you understand what i'm saying

yeah totally i mean just to remind everybody listening what what was unusual about that race is what what typically happens is that the leaders are often which is Chrigel will get out in front of the bad weather and and and will have better weather than those in the back and in this case i was in the back uh early and because of it that terrible mistake early on and and then the weather for the leaders actually got worse not you know going through garda and all that it was still pretty good but once they got up to kind of the matterhorn the the wind was you know on the on the prognosis was purple yeah i which i you don't very see that often and it was it was what you had to walk and they were doing a lot of walking and you know that was where Chrigel famously got blown out of the mountains going 100k an hour and had to land out in the italian flats and go around the airspace and yeah he talks about only making 18k or something that day and still won but it was it was pretty brutal at the end and where for us coming into garda then and and making the turn and heading

was actually really flyable it was really nice and in good conditions and so you could make you could close the gap you weren't going to catch anybody but you could close the gap which was nice it didn't happen that often but

but it people must understand that we got the during those those races we we keep flying landing flying landing and flying landing and when Chrigel does that he flies he makes a perfect landing then he takes off perfectly and then he flies again when i do that i fly then i literally crash then i hike up and then i take off as i can and then i crash again and then i so at the end of the day it's it's hard for me not to get totally destroyed you see it's not it's not a perfect uh Chrigel and i mean Chrigel but you can also say patrick von kennel for example those guys they control whatever they do it's it's beautiful to watch

if you could see us at the at the back it's not the same we we're not that precise yeah

my my highlight reel in the 2021 race was just a series of crashes i basically just crashed my way all the way across the alps and i thought at the end i thought looking back at it i thought you know it's a good thing i'm a wombat because that's unacceptable this was not pretty at all i just kept crashing you know i started doing the whole from watching those guys videos of their whole upwind down down you know upwind downwind downwind downwind downwind downwind downwind downwind downwind sorry downwind uphill landings you know i started seeing maxine doing that in annecy oh i really need to start practicing that and thank god the first 50 i did was in the snow because they weren't landings they were just crashes and then i started to try to deploy those in the X-Alps but i

i mean i can do that when the conditions are okay but most of the time i land on the lee side and the wind is is going down when super strong and i'm i want to land on the rocky and i know i have to land it here because if not the worst the the the race is over so i have to land it right there and it's rocky and the wind is totally strong and it it's not landable but i have to do it so i literally crash i i'm not precise enough and and with the when you're tired it i mean you're you're not as accurate as when you are sure fully recovered how

did you break your wrist what happened well

that's strange because it wasn't on a crash it was on a really easy landing for that this is always what happens when you have an accident it's always on the easy stuff but i was landing on a small um in a small hill because i wanted to hike up just a little bit and on this hill the you had a small road and a house with a little brick wall like a one meter wall between the garden of the house and the road and i was landing really smoothly and i was landing really smoothly and just at the moment i would probably put my feet on the ground a huge thermal blew this hill and it and it took my my left side of the wind the wing and it just like bubble like uh i don't know how to call that in english but like a strong uh little bomb and it's just um made me fly a little bit and i swung uh onto the wall but it really smoothly but the wall is kind of strong and uh and i broke my wrist yeah well i imagine

i imagine that was the low point of the race or not was there was there something else that was lower well

it was a low point though uh i had a low point the day before i was i i it's it was really strange i got stuck onto a hill because of the breeze um when i was leading the race for about five minutes maybe uh i took a different option a Chrigel took right and i took left and my option didn't work and um uh i didn't i didn't i should have land and start i mean and to go up uh up and because we had a great inversion so you had to fly really high and i should have learned to keep high but i wanted to fight a little more and i got stuck uh on the on the hill inside the breeze so i it was impossible to go up again because of the wind blowing everything and i stayed there for probably two or three hours trying to to pinch this breeze and it didn't work for the whole day so this was uh probably more annoying than the than the than the next day and the next day well it was for sure not really fun but uh uh the first thing i i told myself is okay man it's just a wrist it's it's not a back or it's not uh it's it's not a big deal so just uh okay keep calm and it's okay

yeah well what a what a race did we i i can't remember did we was your highlight the day getting down to titlis that that second day or was there something else that we missed a real high point from the race now

the high point the high points of the race and the it's the high point of all the excels for me it's a marvelous flight from lermos to uh no from um kimsey to lermos and um it was a fight against uh west window so against the wind and it was really technical so it was probably my best flight ever um technically and i could reach lermos at the end of the day with all of my friends all my family and it was like the sunset going i mean it was a perfect day uh and i remember it uh i will probably remember it all my all my all my life because it's it was it had everything uh the fly against the wind uh the the good vibes with the team um the turn point at the end the um the fact that we were going into the timing to reach gregor so we had everything it was incredible this

was okay now i'm starting to remember this you were in the air was that the year with you were in the air with willie uh or is that 2019 i'm getting my no that was 2019 okay we'll come to that because you made a move in 2019 that was unbelievable that was you you approached lermos from the south and uh yeah we'll get to that okay so okay so yeah you're in second place break your wrist and uh you were you were fighting at the front man we were all that was i think the whole world let out a sigh of oh no that day in 2017 you were having an amazing race and then okay so let's jump to 2019 2019 was again weak was weak yes i know you you you're you're one of your low lights is going to be your wing choice i remember that but it was uh yeah it was 2019 was incredibly

stable and hot at the end unbelievable we of course had the oh my gosh i'm the angle angle bird torn point the uh the only one that creagle top you know he was the only one that top landed and you hugged the sign that was a highlight yes yes and uh i'm sorry before i said titlis before i met tree glove but yeah so the titlis turn point was was incredible and the middle of the beginning of the race was was great weather the middle of the race had lots of shade and not many thermals but we had no fern in that race we had no wind and it was by far the easiest conditions i had raced in and in all my X-Alps campaigns especially compared to 2021

but it was you could just go up anywhere and launch and and it wasn't very i would say 2019 was not very dangerous uh and it had some but it had this obscenely hot and god that was miserable where you'd hike you know 2 000 meters and it would be the exact same temperature at the top as it was in the valley bottom and there just wasn't a burp of a thermal unless you got really tall that was when people landed on top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the of mont blanc when all that was going down and i recall a couple of your flights being just

absurdly awesome and down through the maritimes you had a really good one with uh manuel you guys you guys had a really good day together and then we just had him on the show and he talked about that being very special you had an amazing one kind of a you were i don't believe you were much up in the front you were kind of in the back early i was in the back incredible flight you went from the back to third going into laramouse do i have that right yeah

well on this um edition i it was really hard for me because um um i'm probably not the best um pilot when it's really weak and i had a wing that was really small so it was hard to keep up at the beginning and i probably made mistakes too so at the beginning i was really at the back and uh fortunately we had two good days of one really good day for me from um from kitzbühel near laramouse near uh near um kimse uh to we had to go back um to the dolomites and then back up to laramouse and and um i was in the good timing uh to try another another option uh on the west side of of the of the i mean you had two main you had two options uh either on the on the east side and so it was an an option really good for the morning in the morning and you had this option crossing the the ozal um mountains uh on the west and since i was really at the back i i i i like to try other stuff and it was the perfect timing to try it so

and i remember i was this i was with your friend with the american willy willy and i told him come on let's go and he didn't he didn't want to come and he got stuck

there for two days that was the end of his race in some ways he got shin splints and i said you were with gaspard and you left him you idiot uh but you know just to paint the listener a picture so when we you know i was in pretty good position that day flying from we'd gotten kimsey the night before i was with paul and and a bunch of the guys we were we flew we had a beautiful day to get over the spine of the alps and top landed chrome plaques i was on the ground for less than five minutes relaunched was heading north uh up to moringan so i took the traditional route so that's east of uh insbrook or sorry uh interlocking no say insbrook and as i was heading north and you all were still heading south the sky was big i mean really big huge i mean lightning thunder rain uh you know to our to our east i mean it looked really pretty scary and that's when you were heading the wrong way i mean you were going we were going kind of in a sense away from it although it started getting big everywhere they were getting it up in laramos and that you know so that to to do what you did took some cojones i'm just in terms of weather i mean just in terms but you were i guess heading west which was okay no

because um i landed uh in i was just on the just before the storms i i landed in um complex and in the dolomites it was all dark and then i could um take off again and and on the west side um i could see that um the cloud base was really high and it wasn't that um it wasn't uh really dangerous i mean it was not going into storm so that's why i chose the cloud base and i was just in the to go west and i knew that to cross west i needed a 4 000 cloud base so i needed to cross over the over the glaciers so i needed a lot of uh so it was like a gamble but um it was worth the try and and i had uh worked a lot of maps and of all the

the innsbruck area which is really tricky with the with the airspaces and i knew that i had i had a way to to to do it on the west and it was yes and i and i and i i remember i was on the thermal with will i said okay that's it let's try it let's go that's that's you know when one of my favorite pilots in the x-app my one of my um my uh my mentor i would say on my uh the best pilot i've ever seen on X-Alps is is not probably criggle the one i like the most is um is martin uh which is uh swiss pilot and what i like with martin is that he tries uh he always tries stuff and even if even sometimes he he wastes a lot of time but he tries and that's that's what i told myself let's let's do it let's let's do something else and it was really fun to try this and uh and i had a great time yeah

so that's you took basically the the beginning of the anthel well the second leg of the anthels FAI where you fly down to stersing and up over the glaciers and into the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the into the solden valley and then it's just a straight north run and once you got there it was fast and man you crunched some kilometers and i looked at it afterwards and it was quite a short way to go you also you know you didn't have to go all the way around the airspace and make the hard move over the end valley and and it really made sense and that that is a route that you know we fly it works and it was boy that was beautiful i mean like you said to make it over the glaciers you had to have the base but otherwise you would have gotten kind of stuck up there but it was that was a neat move

but then the next day was tricky because um we had to do this turnpint on the north side of um of uh what's the davos now on on lermos the turnpoint is uh the summit the big summit of i don't remember the name and uh you had to i had all the zooks bits the zooks bits i had to go north of it so i had um a technical ferrata to climb and then uh glide just to put the waypoint on the north side of the zooks pizza and this was a tricky was a tricky part and that's right it wasn't just

getting to lermos you had to get around and you were so you were coming in from in a sense the wrong side then but exactly yeah but you went you went you got into third so you're good at those in in 2017 you went from last to second and then the yeah these big flights which is really neat because one of my issues i guess with the X-Alps since 2015 is that the distances between the waypoints they've been they've added a lot more waypoints and the distances have gotten shorter and so it takes away a lot of that ability to do the martin mueller nick nanan's like that too he just goes into crazy places or what the hell is nick doing and sometimes it works and sometimes it's great but you've proven that you can still you know you can still make those kind of moves which is really nice to see

well that's that's fun for me i totally agree i think the more waypoints you put the less adventure you can try uh but but um that's the way it is and you have to you have to do uh you have to do the best with the rules um but this 2019 race was uh was great because it was a lot into the mountains i remember titlitz climbing up to titlitz uh was um just beautiful i mean just uh nice for the eyes and uh we had this beautiful summer and summit over there we we we flew we slept uh in the restaurant at the top of titlitz so i have wonderful memories of uh high mountaineering we we also had one of my best moments uh sharing um um a glacier traverse with tom le dollodo uh and um and uh i forget got his name the german guy um manuel uh no the other one oh the other one no no that wasn't i forgot i didn't um well but we had a great time together sharing the i mean the all the the crampons um traverse over the glacier and finding a takeoff and all this sharing i aspect of the race is great i mean we we've shared many days with um with tom i've shared um beautiful flight with uh manuel um so 219 was more about sharing and uh having this uh you know taking um all the beauty of this race uh the beauty of the of the the landscapes but the beauty of the friendship the beauty of the flights so i ended this race uh with big smile on my face just um having a great time of paragliding and uh it was more than competing it was it was um and and even at the end when we landed on the raft was uh we landed uh all the all the um i mean all the finishers together and uh we had this this moment on the raft uh sharing and smiling and and you know it was really really a nice french uh friendship um experience and that i will remember your

brother has been part of your team all three events and he like said a really good pilot i'm curious when you're when you're flying are you talking to him has he given you are you on the phone together has he given you how much is in your own instinct and your own doing your own thing versus getting help from from your brother

so um in 215 he could fly with me so we flew part of it together um but he's always on the van and he's really important because um at the beginning of this uh recording you said uh we i told you that i had made races before xops and we've made the races together and the only rules we applied together was to always land together and to always do the whole race together which is quite hard but we were really good at it uh flying as a team and um so i know he knows me perfectly and i know him perfectly and it's and we can um understand each other really well and i'm really happy to be here with you and i'm really happy to be here with you well so even if he's in the van and i have an idea i can feel the way he answers me i can feel if my idea is good or if it's if it's stupid uh and sometimes he calms me down because i'm a bit uh i'm a bit um dynamic too much dynamic i would say i'm a bit speedy gonzalez and sometimes he calms me down uh but yes when i have an idea and he tells me okay i think it's it's a good idea then it's it's for me it's easier to to go fully into my idea it's easier for me to follow my ideas when i know that that he can he confirms that that's a good idea so maybe sometimes i probably you can yeah you probably experienced that you have an idea during the xops and you you're not sure of yourself so probably if a pilot crossed your routes you will probably

follow him a bit because you're not quite sure and then uh with with this uh asset on my team i could be sure of what i uh my ideas and trust my ideas uh to the very end and not um not be not follow other pilots the

one theme for a lot of teams seems to be to have a mountain guide on the team you are a mountain guide how important is that aspect

well i am a mountain guide and one of my supporters is also one uh it's important in a sense that i'm i don't care about landing anywhere i don't care about landing on the glacier i'm not scared about it so and i know a bunch of huts so i know that i can go up to that hut it's also easier uh on the tactics because i know that i can land at the very end of the valley and then my crew will come with crampons and we can cross with the crampons and then i can land at the very end of the valley and i can so that helps a lot and when we share this this uh crossing with the crampons with satoma and and um i forgot his name um i i called um i called uh the race director to tell them that i um i am an alpine guide and i will take care uh we will we will take care of the whole group so i could also help the other guys to cross this this was nice for us marcus marcus anders marcus anders exactly yeah sorry marcus

who who kind of got injured at the end of the 2019 race i don't believe we've done a we're gonna wrap things up here i know you got a hard out but you we we've talked a lot about the good sides of 2019 you had an amazing race was there a bad was there a down yes i was

um i i like i had kind of a nervous breakdown at the middle of the race uh when um well i made some bad choice in the middle of the race before chamonix and uh and people were coming back and um uh i was i was in too much maybe into competing at that time and i was um i was maybe i was not really nice i'm not nice enough with my team i was uh a bit of an asshole maybe i could say at that time so that's that's what's really not the the best moment of this race fortunately um just after that we uh we we calmed down and we focused about uh about what was important in the race and and things went much better but i had this this major breakdown maybe a lot of i was really tired and um i had a lot it was the first time that many of my plans were not working as uh as i expected because i was really tired and i was because i'm really used to fly in the ops so i'm really used to fly in big conditions and strong conditions and this this year nothing would work i mean the it was weak everywhere even at high altitude so none of my plan would work the way i would plan them and and i had this huge break breakdown in the middle of the race and fortunately um because thanks to my team and then and my mom was there too my mom was there too and i was really tired and i was really tired and i was really my sister my brother they all um they all helped me a lot to to to to stay confident and come back to to end this race properly yeah

and that that must have worked really well because i remember watching on live track and i was walking in some miserable heat somewhere i had a pretty hard day getting into chamonix and you were you were having an epic flight on the east side from chamonix to

the east side of the world and you were having an epic flight on the east side of the

world and

you were having an epic flight on the east side of the world and you were having an epic to

saint hilaire where you really you spanked a lot of people in front of you you made a nice move there that was yeah yeah

it was a nice um a nice gamble again in the middle of the mountains rather than in the pre-alps another gamble it didn't work as well as i thought but it worked a little bit yeah

well you were able to stay high that was the key that was the key and you kind of pieced it all together okay final question because i know you got to go how hard was it and what can you teach me about not doing it in 2021 well did you watch every second or did you just totally ignore it to

be honest um normally after 2017 i wanted to stop and i came back on 219 because of my injury on 217 so it was already like an extra an extra um uh edition for me and it was clear that i had to stop and i wanted to stop in 219 because it was hard for the family and it was a lot of commitment so when we when we stopped in 219 it was clear and i wanted to try some other stuff too so it was easy at the beginning but for my supporter it wasn't that easy because i i could uh my supporter would just um you know put my computer on the right page at the right moment just to be sure i wouldn't miss the reply you know on on on summer at the end of the summer um but but it was clear on my it was clear for me that i had to stop and um and and i had a great time watching the race on the screen um

two years ago i mean yes two years ago now and um and um i also helped a lot of people on the phone when they came back to france um i was um uh you know i was following maxime and um and laurie and many french pilots and congratulate them i mean it was it was not my time anymore and i'm really proud to see that those guys are super strong and they're doing super well so it's it's normal for me to to move on and to do other things i mean the younglings are are strong enough to and probably they will probably probably win and beat Chrigel hopefully at last

i remember you you telling me in 2019 which i think was maxime's first year that that you really thought maxime was the was the biggest threat who who is it i'm putting you on the spot here but who's the who do you think's the biggest threat we saw maxime gave him a hell of a run for his money but Chrigel still just slaughtered it at the end that was an incredible move yeah

last year it's for me i didn't i don't think Chrigel was um far ahead uh Chrigel had a lot of luck last year i don't think Chrigel had a lot of luck last year i don't think Chrigel had a lot of luck last year i don't think Chrigel had a lot of luck last year um and maxime could have beaten um easily he bitted him several days in a row so i think if maxime the problem if maxime stays uh strong in his head that's his main um it's that's the main issue if it stays strong he's he think he flies better i mean he's i think he can beat him but i mean there are plenty of great pilots on the list so it's going to be fun to watch and um and uh but for sure when i see um you know old guys just uh that were fighting with me in 215 217 and 219 i'm saying i just tell myself that it would be nice to to share the race together but that's it we have to we have to change we have to do other things i agreed agreed

gaspar what a delight it was great connecting with you and uh we miss you buddy and and but love what you're doing with your family and i hope to grab some thermals with you here someday but thanks a lot appreciate your time and thanks for coming on the show yeah

thank you very much um it's been a pleasure and hopefully we can travel and see you uh and see your little girl how old is she two years five she's five and five years i know

man okay as you know it goes fast yeah

okay hopefully we can meet be great that'd be great see you soon

if

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