Le Tour

After the competition finished in Annecy, we had plans to go with Dave and Kathryn to see the Tour de France.  Dave is a big fan and he knew the best place to go see it in person.  Mt. Ventoux is the longest climb they do during the race and if you go near the end of the climb, the riders are fatigued and slow enough that you get to see them for more than just a split second speeding by.  Dave has seen the Tour in person before and his goal was to run alongside the top hill climbers for a couple hundred meters getting it all on his GoPro, AND to get on TV doing it.  

We spent the night before in the town of Orange down in the flats and then drove up the next morning to get a good spot before the riders came through around 4 or 5pm.  Although you can't drive all the way up there, we were able to drive around the backside of the mountain and get within about 6km of the top.  The rest was just a nice hike on a French mountain (with 2.3 million other people, as Mart pointed out to us). 

We arrived about 4 hours early, so there was plenty of time for picnicing and napping and most important, jockying for the best position.  For about the last 2km of the race there are barriers to keep the spectators out of the way of the cyclists.  But, below that, it's anyone's game and it's really just a wonder that more people don't disrupt the race.  Although plenty of people are probably a nuisance to the riders, it's surprising that more crazy people don't just jump in front of it all and cause a lot of chaos.

Dave's strategy for getting the attention of the cameras was (1) look as dorky as possible in a purple and blue metalic wig and no shirt; (2) choose a spot that was steep enough that they were going slow enough to keep up running along side them; and (3) choose a place between cops so that he could run without being arrested ;-).  

Once that was all squared away, it was just a matter of sitting back and enjoying the parade while the competitors worked their way up the 20km front of Mt. Ventoux.  

To say Dave's endeavor was a success is an understatement!  Within minutes, friends were texting, tweeting and Facebooking Dave that he was on ALL the tv channels.  By pure luck or plan, I don't know, Dave managed to get beside the leader Fromme at the key moment when came out of the saddle to make the break 1.1 km from the finish line.  Every major news channel in the world aired the footage of Dave running alongside Fromme over and over again.  Even days later, they were airing that same video in highlights of the previous racing days.  There's a video coming next post that brought tears to my eyes from laughing so hard!

Meanwhile, here are a few shots of the cyclist finishing up the last 2 km of the stage.  It amazes me how close I could stay to them as they passed by.  It was super exciting!

Annecy Wrap Up

CONS:

• Scenery is distractingly beautiful - you might forget you're in a competition.
• Paragliders are annoying in the landing area.
• Bad traffic in Annecy (but it's easy enough to stay around the area of HQ and avoid the traffic most of the time).

PROS:

• Gorgeous scenery.
• Really nice take-offs - both launches we used had nice steep ramps.  The less used launch site has a much bigger area for setting up, but the actual launches are equally as good.  Each launch site has 3 launch corridors so it's easy to get everyone off the hill quickly.
• Hot comp officials with sexy French accents.
• Organizers are very open and receptive to suggestions.
• Reasonably priced accommodation.  We had a great apartment about 3km from HQ that cost about 200 Euros each (for 2 weeks) with a full (albeit small) kitchen, big dining area and giant terrace.
• Excellent food - especially in Faverge, a little nearby town where we found a wonderful French chef that made the worlds best risotto.
• We didn't have the time (flew all but one day), but there's heaps to do at the lake - swimming, kiteboarding, etc.
• Plentiful landing areas in most places where we flew.  Most are beautiful and grassy for flying barefoot if you like.  There were some iffy areas, but I'm hoping that for the women's competition next year, they won't be sending the girls in places where landings are scarce.  On the bright side, it is confidence inspiring to see that I could land in places that made me quite nervous from the air.  
• There's a free 6030 waiting just below launch for whoever wants to scramble down there and find it ;-)

BOTTOM LINE: I loved Annecy and can't wait for next year.  I'm trying to gather up a full US team of women, sport class pilots and rigid pilots!!

Annecy Day 2

Had a fantastic flight yesterday.  Only flew a bit further than Day 1, but I enjoyed every minute of it.  It's really interesting to find lift in the most unexpected places here.  I was low hugging the mountain at one point and not getting anything when I noticed all of the PGs out over the flats, just next to the lake. If I hadn't been desperate, I wouldn't have flown over to them, but it turned out to be the best decision I made all day (probably the only good decision I made all day).  I came into the bottom of a PG gaggle of about 20 pilots and ended up in a 600 up, wingtip to wingtip with an awesome, well behaved, friendly PG.  Not only did he thermal exactly as one would expect (and I mean that in a good way), but he waved and smiled and all.  What a shocker!  We found the better part of the core just off from the rest of the gaggle and went up together as high as I got all day.  I'm starting to nearly feel guilty about all the worrying and whining about the PGs.  At least this one guy was a joy to fly with.

Anyway, we had a 80km task.  Glen said it was the longest 80km he has ever flown.  I wouldn't know....I only flew about 15km ;-).  Glen made goal of course, relatively fast - I think about 10th in.  The Frenchies are dominating this place, as they would.  I think the top three were locals again.

I'm really happy to be here checking out the place and making all of my usual stupid mistakes a year in advance of the real thing.  Two down over the last two days and hopefully not many more left to make.

Today's task was cancelled as the forecast called for thunderstorms in most directions by around 3 or 4. They did arrive eventually, but later than expected. Many free-flew from the beautiful new launch we went to. I hope we get a chance to fly there again.

Kathryn really wanted to get in the air today ;-)

Glen didn't just want to, he DID!

;-)

Annecy Day 1

Nothing sucks here in Annecy...well, almost nothing.  This place is not exactly as I expected - it's much, more more.  I was initially worried about the paragliding traffic because I've heard many European pilots say that they "used to" fly here, but hangies don't come here anymore because it is totally overrun with paragliders.  Well so far, although there are plenty out there, they haven't been a problem for me at all...and for that, I am very grateful!

The mountains and the lake are spectacular.  The landing fields seem plentiful, although I haven't ventured out enough to really make that judgment.  We had two nice practice days where I just spent the time getting my nerves in order and worrying entirely too much about traffic in the landing field.  There is heaps for sure - I think around 70 pilots in the French Nationals and probably another 35 or so between the girls, rigids and sport class.  But, the French seem to have a nice system worked out for landing approaches and lanes and such.  And, if there are 5 rigids and a sport class glider coming in at the same time as you (as was the case for me the second practice day), you can just bail off to the adjacent fields no problem at all.  I'm actually surprised more people don't just land next door.  Anyway, the things that were making me nervous at the start seem to be no problem at all, so that's a good thing.  Combine that with the gorgeous scenery here and this place really is something special.

I think the French organization will be great and totally up to speed for the worlds next year.  Yeah, things aren't perfect just yet, but they're making a real effort to listen to pilots and fix the issues that do come up as quickly as possible.  I heard from Ben, the British team leader, that they actually got the police to escort a couple of PG pilots off the field when they refused several requests to stop kiting in the middle of the landing field.  Raymond Caux is the safety director and have so much respect for him and his passion about safety.  He gave us the best mandatory safety briefing I have every seen.  Instead of the usual, pointless speeches about keeping the nose down on launch and drinking enough water, he gave an interesting speech about human risk factors.  Good stuff and I think people were actually listening!

Yesterday was the first real task and I screwed it up big time. I had replaced the lost screw holding my 6030 in my instrument pod.  The screw never felt like it was in there quite right.  Obviously, it wasn't because no more than 30 seconds after launch, I reached over to tip the pod down into place only to find that it was empty!  Oops....that was a $1000 cock up!  I flew around for a bit thinking, hey, I can still stay up and just follow people around the course....but then I started to think if I landed, I would have no idea of my coordinates and getting retrieved might be a bit of a pain.  Also, I'm sure I was overestimating my ability to stay up without a vario given that many others were landing even with one.   Lucky for me, little maria is loaning me her 6030 to use for the rest of the week.

I don't know where scores are up yet, if at all, but Glen had a great day - he didn't make goal, but landed with Pedro and Tom Weissenberger - two top dogs.  Apparently, 4 did make goal, but that's a pretty small number in this crowd.

Getting There

It's always fun arriving somewhere in the middle of the night with 24 hours of grime on you.  Sometimes travel can be so glamorous ;-).  The trip to Annecy was looooooooooong.  We started with a 4 hour drive to Ft. Myers to catch an Air Berlin flight because they're great about taking hang gliders.  Next leg was 9 and a half hour of flying to Duesseldorf, followed by an intentional 4 hour layover to give the baggage handlers plenty of time to get our gliders from one flight to the next.  But, when we boarded the flight to Munich, the plane was so tiny and the door to the baggage hold was so small that we knew there was no way the gliders would be coming with us on that flight.  Thankfully, we were very wrong - I don't know how on earth they got into that plane, but happily, they did and they arrived all in one piece in Munich.  We made the 6 hour drive from Munich to Annecy on a single tank of gas and a lot of fumes.  We realized we needed gas at nearly midnight and got a full tour of all the little streets of Annecy looking for an open gas station, preparing ourselves to roll the seats back and sleep in the car if we finally ran out.  Again, lucky for us we found fuel before the last of the fumes ran out.

But, enough whining.  We're here now and it's gorgeous even if the sky is full of clouds at the moment.  It is meant to clear off late this afternoon and hopefully we'll get our first fly in.  A day of light rain gave us time to un-short-pack the gliders and get settled in to our little apartment we're sharing with Dave and Kathryn.  A nice French dinner and one too many bottles of red last night and we're good to go!!

Take me away, I don't mind....but you better promise I'll be back in time!

It's been a busy couple of weeks!!

Forbes in Autumn

The worlds ended over two months ago and I'm just now getting around to posting something.  It has seriously taken me this long to recover from that marathon of a hang gliding competition.  Anyone who has been to Forbes knows what it is like: briefing at 9:30, straight to the tow paddock for setup, launch around 1 or 1:30, fly for 4-6 hours, spend the evening getting retrieved and back to Forbes by 9 or 10pm on a good day.

In addition to the grueling daily schedule, my attitude, in light of my terrible performance, didn't give me much fun stuff to talk about by the end.  Well I guess a few months of reflection has improved my attitude (although now, I'm told, the my problem is a mid-life crisis ;-).  But, as I tend to do, looking back now I'm only remembering all the good stuff - and there was plenty of it.

What a difference 2 months makes though!  After 12 days of flying in sometimes insane conditions at the worlds in January, it's been fantastic to come back and fly under much more relaxed circumstances.  Easter weekend here is like another world.  Instead of 45 degree heat, 20mph wind and 10,000 ft cloudbase, we're all in long sleeves flying light winds, topping out at 4500 ft and then landing back in the green, green tow paddock.  I'm loving it!!

 His and hers RX's ;-)

Damien looking for a new home

Damien, my beloved Litesport, is looking for a new home.  This has been an incredible glider for me and will be terribly missed.  It's a Litesport 4 with carbon outboards and a brand new (white/blue/grey) sail with zero hours on it (literally zero - it hasn't yet been test flown).  The frame is in excellent condition and with the new sail, it's virtually a brand new glider.  Currently, it's in Australia (NSW), but it can be brought to Florida in about 4 weeks or to Europe in mid-June.  $6000 OBO.  Just email me if you have any questions. 

Forbes Worlds - Day.....something or other??

I've lost track of the days and I've run out of good stories of my own.  The last few days have not been my favorite and all I can do is hope for a few more nice flights before the comp is over.

But meanwhile, Frances from Switzerland had a hilarious story from yesterday's 250km task.  The story was fantastically told in French and then translated into English by Christian Vioblet, so it won't be as good here, but it is worth retelling.  Apparently Frances landed short of goal in the middle of absolutely nothing.  He pulled out his mobile phone to call his driver, only to find that he had no coverage.  No problem, there was a grain silo nearby with a ladder up the side.  So, he climbed it and at the top had coverage.  Unfortunately, his driver simply couldn't find him.  Frances waited on the silo until after dark until he started to see headlights coming his way.  Very excited to be found, he started flashing his camera flash to get his driver's attention.  But instead of continuing toward him, the car suddenly stopped and started shooting at Frances!!  When they car load of kangaroo hunters finally realized that most roos don't carry flash cameras, they were kind enough to give him a ride out to the main road, getting him past about 8 locked gates and out to his driver.  The Swiss team then slept in the car at the gas station.  They arrived home this morning after sunrise.

Task 3

Lots to tell about yesterday's task, but no time.  Instead, here are some photos for now.

All the fighting roo pictures from yesterday...

Dude! She's not Worth it!!

My former father-in-law used to say (very sarcastically, of course - he had an amazingly good attitude) that "there's always something to take the joy out of life."  I tend to have the opposite view.  There's always something that can so quickly put a smile on my face.

Today's flight was complete crap.  The wind was again much stronger than I am comfortable towing in, so I waited (again) until late in the day when conditions appeared to mellow a bit.  The story of my flight will be as short as the flight itself -  Uncle Rhettski towed me up into the most beautiful 700 up right over the field.  20 minutes after topping out in that, after not hearing a single beep on my 6030, I was standing in a field just down the road holding my nose wires hoping I could keep control of the glider in the gusty wind while I waited for Mike to come get me.  

(On the really bright side, Kraig's moving the hangpoint forward one hole on my glider made a world of difference in the bar pressure and I was thrilled with the way it flew...and it still landed like a dream.)

But, the real highlight of my day, and the thing that brought my smile back was an incredible spectacle we saw driving out a little dirt road to retrieve Linda.  Right smack in the middle of the road we found two male kangaroos acting like they were on center stage at Caesar's Palace in Vegas, throwing punches and kicking in the gut mostly like two ultimate fighters - but occasionally like two drunk girls in a dive bar.  For some strange reason, I laughed hysterically the whole time. They eventually danced their way out of the middle of the road and paid no attention as we creeped the car closer and closer until we were right beside them.  I suppose it was that they looked like they were right out of a Warner Brothers cartoon....they just looked so animated and nearly human-like.  It was a fascinating and highly entertaining sight.   I didn't get any good kicking shots, but Mike got most if it on video on his iPhone. 

Long (or Lawn) Bowling Day

At last some clouds in the sky today!!  Unfortunately, they came with 30 knot winds.  The task was cancelled early and Vix organized a lawn bowling/BBQ day.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better, but I'm hearing grumbling already that it will still be quite breezy.  But at least cloudbase will be low and lift will be weak and broken ;-)

Forbes Worlds - Day 1

Well this is very strange for me.  For the first time in a long time, I'm competing so I can't do much in the way of tweeting and blogging about the comp gossip and results and such.  Not being in the thick of things at goal every day means all I can do is write from my own flying perspective....which can be rather bleek much of the time.  But, oh well, here goes anyway.

Yesterday, as forecast, was quite windy.  The truth is, it was too windy for my comfort level.  Linda and I stood around launch all rigged, watching the wind increase and the tows looking rougher and rougher.   I definitely have a tendency to talk myself out of flying much earlier than I ought to.  I did exactly that yesterday.  Giant thanks to my great teammate Linda!  She convinced me that we ought to at least suit up, get the gliders on a dolly and just see what it was like.  About an hour after everyone else launched the wind started to back off and we got airborne.  Having my favorite tug pilot here from home is so comforting.  Jim gave me a beautiful tow in the super rough air and dumped me right into a beautiful mellow thermal.  

My little RX (Maggie, she's named) handles like a dream.  Surprisingly, in many ways it feels so much like my Litesport, that it's like flying with an old friend....but one with much much lighter handling.  Although I have some issues with quite a bit of bar pressure (the opposite of what the other girls are experiencing), Kraig and I are working on that.  Meanwhile, I blame the landing characteristics for me being short yesterday....the problem is that it lands so magnificently that I just want to do it over and over again ;-).  It's amazing how it makes a flight so much more relaxing when you aren't nervous about landing.  In the end, I only flew 45km, but I was happy to be up in the cooler air and to actually get away from the airfield.  The lift was somewhat weak (for Forbes) and base was low...I don't think I got above 6000ft all day, but the first day jitters are out of the way and it's goal for the rest of the comp....ha ha ha ha!

On the girly end of things, we only had 7 girls flying yesterday as Lisa was sick with the stomach flu.  But, 4 of the 7 were in goal with the lovely Chisato from Japan first in for the girls.  Awesome job Chisato!!!

The US men's team got off to a rough start with Zippy landing very short.  I can say for the first time in history (and I'm quite certain the last) I beat him!!!  But they'll be fine.   All of the others American boys were in goal and the scores are all quite compressed for the top 30 or so it's still anyone's game.  Christian Ciech (Italy) officially won the day, but apparently only because Scott Barrett's instrument died and he had to use his backup Garmin which isn't set at a high record interval.  5 or 10 seconds difference is all it takes to lose the day win.  

Opening Ceremonies

Team USA

The Heat is On

Each day I think to myself that this is as hot as it can possibly get without my skin spontaneously combusting.  I obviously miscalculate because each day proves to be a bit hotter than the last and so far I haven't burst into flames.  A few more days though, and I'm quite certain it's gonna happen.

Many flew today after finishing registration.  Unfortunately, a lot of us also missed out not realizing that they would stop the towing at 3:30.  Here's Grant Crossingham from the UK enjoying the 42 degree heat of the paddock.

Yves and I had fun with the Redbull DJ station.

Rego

The Redbull Spotlanding contest was cancelled because we had high winds again this morning.  So, we're all at HQ getting registered up!

Feels Like Home

The comforts of home have started to arrive....nothing nicer than having your favorite tug pilots to ease you mind at a big stressful comp.

Apparently, it was quite nice this afternoon.  But earlier we all sat around the hangar waiting for the wind to mellow a bit.  Lots of standing around and catching up in the hot, hot, hot weather.  The last two of our US teammates - Robin Hamilton and Kraig Coomber arrived late yesterday.  It's good to have everyone here. 

She's Like a Smooth Stretch of Highway

Maggie and I seem to have a bit of a love-hate relationship.  Today, it was definitely more love than hate though and we spent a nice evening in the sky over Forbes getting to know each other a bit better.  So finally, after moping around - just me and my bad attitude - watching everyone else fly, it's finally starting to feel like a world championships!!

Here are a few pictures from the last two practice days.

New Year, New Hemisphere

Had a lovely and relaxing holiday season south of the equator.  The holidays sure do feel different in the warmth and sunshine.  Although we didn't have particularly summer-like weather on Christmas day itself, it's been gorgeous most every other day.  Christmas was spent BBQ'ing, slacklining and walking on the beach with good friends from far and wide. 

The fireworks for New Years Eve in Sydney are spectacular!  We enjoyed them from Frasiers dock - what an awesome view of the Sydney Harbor Bridge!!