Tag Archives: training

#207- Behind the Scenes of the Red Bull X-Alps with Tarquin Cooper

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Tarquin Cooper has been the voice of the Red Bull X-Alps the last few editions and this year was joined by your host and four-time X-Alps competitor Gavin McClurg to add some commentating and live footage from the air. In this episode the two of us sit down to share our own unique perspective of the race as we chased the athletes and teams around the Alps and had our own adventures (and misadventures!) in our mostly frantic attempts to keep up.

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Bonus Episode! Leaving the Nest with Calef Letorney

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Right after Calef and I recorded the #201 Podcast he reached out to say he thought he’d missed an opportunity to talk about instruction, namely that very fragile time in a pilot’s career when they first get their license and are sent off on their own to figure it out. So here it is, a veritable primer on leaving the nest.

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#201- Calef Letorney and Community, Confidence, and Cloudwhispering

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Calef Letorney was a professional paddler back in the early 2000’s who made the switch to flying and has never looked back. When you think of places to fly in the world you don’t often put the North East US on the list. There’s a lot of trees, cloudbase is low, weather if fickle. But that’s where Calef found himself after learning to fly in the Colorado Rockies and his desire to send meant the first thing that had to happen was to get good at flying, and it’s hard to get good without other good pilots to fly with, so he had to get others up to snuff as well. So Calef became an instructor, then an SIV instructor, then a guide…and the rest fell into place.

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Episode 194- The Spring Tune up with Nick Greece and Russ Ogden

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This week we dive into spring with the current World Champion and long-time Ozone test pilot Russ Ogden and multiple US National Champion Nick Greece. Year after year we see accidents in free flight spike in spring. Spicy conditions, rusty skills, new unfamiliar gear, heightened stoke, another year behind us, lack of confidence… we explore the many things that might have an impact on why we see the spike and what you can do to make sure you’re not in the data set.

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Episode 192- Questions answered with Myles Connolly

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Our Mayhem editor Myles Connolly is about 350 hours into his flying journey and is leaving soon for an SIV course with Jocky Sanderson in Turkey. We thought it would be fun to connect and have him fire questions at me about all the things he’s currently curious about as his XC skills and training progress. Hike and fly; risk related to big events like the Red Bull X-Alps; how to approach Vol Biv (gear, locations, top landing, distance, etc.); Wing and gear developments and the new 2 liner C wings, gear choices and a lot more.

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Episode 190- A Walk (and Fly) down memory lane with Manuel Nubel (Ger 1)

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Manuel Nubel has competed in four Red Bull X-Alps, starting in 2015. On Team USA 1 we call him the comeback kid. He often starts in the middle or back of the pack but gets stronger and more crafty as the race goes on. We rewind the clock to 2015, his first race and find out the back story of landing in a tree on his way to Monaco and the hilarity that ensues, the ups and downs of his campaigns, (for example having to quit due to exhaustion in 2017, and making a series of magical moves in 2021 which saw him climb from 16th to 6th in the final days of the race) and his decision to not compete in 2023, but why we may see him again in 2025.

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Episode 188- To the Archives!

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ve got a head cold and hoarse throat this week which makes interviewing pretty hard, so we’re diving back into the archives to bring you a show that was great then, and better now and an excellent tune-up before spring. “Mastering Autonomy” with Manu Bonte. And a couple important topics in the show opener that I’ve been meaning to hit for weeks. Enjoy!

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Episode 185- Eli Egger and gearing up for the Ultimate Race

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Elizabeth (Eli) Egger is one of the rookies in the 23′ Red Bull X-Alps. She’s also a paragliding instructor, Niviuk team pilot, high-level competition pilot (we sat down after the Superfinal in Mexico to have this chat), has supported Simon Oberrauner (2017) and Aaron Durogati (2019 and 2021) in the X-Alps, and has a very interesting professional background in earth mapping and engineering. In this wide-ranging talk we discuss her training for the upcoming race and what she’s learned from supporting Simon and Aaron, preparing for comps, progression, instruction, and going to bat against the best in the world.

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Episode 179- 119 years of experience to pack in

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During a weather day of the Red Rocks Wide Open this week, a US Nationals and Pre- PWC race to goal competition in southern Utah we held an panel discussion with some of our most veteran competition pilots- Evan Bouchier, Matt Beechinor, Josh Cohn, Bill Belcourt and Reavis Sutphin-Gray. Between the five they have 119 years of experience. The opening topic was competition strategy but the talk wandered into all kinds of fascinating areas including strategies for dealing with gust fronts, team flying, planning for going huge and a lot more.

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