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Speed Riding (Again)


rob_jones

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Guys,

This time of the year I ditch the PPG and PG and opt for Skis and a 14m Speed Wing. I am on the eve of my last night out here in Chamonix and thought Id let you know of the adventures todate.

Firstly speed riding is such a young sport and I had heard in the UK only 10 or so active riders are out there. From the small internet world we live in 4 of that 10 managed to arrange a trip to Chamonix to apply some liberal peer pressure and extend all our flying abilities.

Day One - we are on the mountain for no more than an hour when our most experienced rider "Dan" pops his 11m wing up trips and twists his knee, one pop and cruciate ligament is a thing of the past. He was quickly taken off the mountain and sent to hospital, flying home the next day.

Day Two and onwards - consisted of greater and faster runs with some 6000ft descents being cranked out by the remaining three. I have plenty of footage and will upload it when I get home.

We had an incident whereby one of the guys skied blind into a crevasse (all launches are done off piste so it comes with the terrority) firstly I thought it was a small hole but after dropping ropes and abseiling in to retrieve his Go Pro it opened into a large and deep ice cave. Temp was minus 20 degrees.

Tomorrow is our last day so the plan is to nail the ultimate run, North Face off the Aquille du Midi. This is a 2800m vertical descent and the launch is full pretty full on.

some photos and a quick write up here.

http://alpineflyer.com/gallery-4/

http://alpineflyer.com/

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Hi Rob

Good to see your having a good time!!!! love to photos by the way... I feel for buddy i have done my ACL in the past and its not nice put me out from kiting for two years i hope he make a speedy recovery..

If you like we can swap places you come here and hump roof tiles for me and i will try my hand at speed riding "what do you say?"

Your not missing much back in blighty cold strong northly winds fit for nothing...

Take care

fly safe!!

PS why did you put this in the aus tip to tip 2010 section??????/ :?:wink:

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heres my cut of events.

Story behind this video is that one of our team managed only a 25% success rate on his launches. Now unlike PPG some of the speedriding take offs are pretty committed and normally finish off with a cliff or trees that you need to clear. Pedro always managed to cock it up especially when we had an audience.

[youtubevideo]

[/youtubevideo]
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Yeah I figured the crashes added a little extra, the problem comes from flying and skiing - if you compress to much the wing looses pressure and your now doing about 30mph with a sack of washing flapping around.

The guy who hit the rock was a very good skier and when trying to do a chase cam on me was like he was stood still.

The trimmers, I put them on fast to test them out. My Fusion has trimmers and of course theres alot of play on the webbing but on these wings its no more than an inch between on and off.

But yes you really do feel a difference, the speed increases as does the angle of bank once you crank a turn in. But even on slow its still plenty fast enough and I had mine on slow 90% of the time.

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ref reserve - nope, your ass is scraping the ground most of the time so a reserve would give you zero help.

I did hear last year alone 9 speed riders died, most are just found alone at the bottom of a run with no explanation as to what may have gone wrong. The wings are un certified and you are pretty much testing them for the vendors.

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