Tomorrow, October 14th the world finds out who’s going to compete in the 10th edition of the Red Bull X-Alps, which kicks off June 20th, 2021. We’ll find out which 33 athletes from around the globe get to spend most of their waking hours over the next 9 months getting physically and mentally prepared for what’s billed as the toughest adventure race on Earth.
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You don’t come for the views. You don’t come for the cultural experience. You’re going to suffer quite a bit. You’re going to wait around a lot. You better like meat. And be able to deal with extreme heat. And you better have a smooth tongue when confronted with big dudes with big guns. Like David Prentice says “chasing records in Texas will drive you crazy.” He’s right. Is it fun? That isn’t the right word. But it’s…compelling, in a weird sort of way. And for some reason that I can’t articulate…I’m excited to go back.
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As 2019 comes to a close I’m trying to wrap up some loose ends. One of them is to fulfill a request from many of our podcast listeners to review and talk about the flying gear I use and why.
Read More... The Red Bull X-Alps is a year of serious endeavor. Physical training. Flying as much as possible, especially in tricky conditions. Tightening up the game. Packing fast, moving fast, thinking fast. Assembling the team, getting all the tech dialed (this is endless in itself), the preparation and planning never ends. And then FINALLY 11 am arrives on the first day of the race in Salzburg and all of that is behind you and for the next 11+ days you have an adventure that is nearly impossible to articulate. It’s heaven a lot of the time and it’s also hell some of the time. And it’s everything inbetween.
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In summary- if you’re like me and keen to learn some of the more technical acro moves and also like me and have a limited playground, do yourself a favor and get the right kit. It’s sexy getting a bad ass acro wing, but you’ll pay the price trying to tame it. Everyone I’ve spoken with who has helis dialed says it takes hundreds and hundreds of attempts just to get close. You can get lucky every once in awhile, but to really nail it you’ve got to have a lot of time, a lot of patience and the right tool.
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After 30+ years of testing and innovation I imagine the climbing community is getting pretty giddy. I recently received Niviuk’s new Skin 2 P single surface wing. At a measly 1.9 kg I figured it was going to feel and fly pretty weird but when I learned from Fabien Blanco at Flyeo during a recent podcast that pilots were doing 100k triangles on these certified wings I was pretty excited to give it a try.
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In the past couple years it’s been really heartening to see pretty much every pilot on launch use an InReach or a SPOT satellite tracking device. And I’m seeing them more and more in the backcountry with skiers, mountain bikers, climbers and people playing in remote areas. This is a very good thing. What isn’t great is that many people are not really familiar with their device and not utilizing them properly for messaging, maps, and hardly know how powerful they are, and this can become a serious problem when things go wrong, which is when an InReach immediately becomes the most valuable thing you own.
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Today is the day. With less than 40 days to go until the gun goes off in Salzburg it’s time to pack the bags and head to Europe, where I’ll have a full month to keep up the physical training and fly as much of the course as possible with Bruce Marks, my air-support guru in the race. I’ve got a quick stop at the Mountain Film Fest in Telluride this weekend with a couple screenings of North of Known, then Monday I’m on a plane. The flying in Europe all spring has been epic which has frankly been tortuous to watch. Sun Valley has been kind to us after a massive winter with a lot of flyable days, but we haven’t had a big day or an easy day yet. Ratty thermals, lots of wind, low base- ie perfect training!
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I’ve been getting a lot of questions about what the physical training looks like for what is known as the “toughest adventure race on Earth”, the Red Bull X-Alps. As it says on the X-Alps website: It’s a bold claim – but one it surely deserves. It’s difficult to think of another race that demands such a high level of fitness and technical skill – or lasts so long. The combination of trekking and paragliding is one of the most exciting hybrids to emerge from the ongoing convergence of mountain sports.
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If you go in hard paragliding, hangliding, speedflying or skydiving are you covered? Many, many people find this a very murky subject. Traveling abroad? What about medivac? What if you need a heli rescue? Repatriation to your home country for care? This article should help you out.
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