Tomorrow Red Bull X-Alps starts and Pierre Carter is on the start line. Pierre and James Braid (his support) have been in the Alps for a week already, preparing for the race. This is one of the most challenging, adventurous and gruelling races around. This is an update from James, sent this morning.
Apologies for the silence, Pierre and I have been in the Alps for one week already, but I have been struggling with internet access. Not that there’s no internet access in Europe… I’ve been trying to get a connection that will cover us across five countries, without having to purchase a 150 Euro roaming stick.
For those that don’t know, Pierre and I are team South Africa in this year’s RedBull X-Alps race, a 900km odd race across the Alps, from Salzburg (Austria) on the eastern end, to Monte Carlo (Monaco) on the western end. Athletes may either fly their paraglider or run/walk, also with their paraglider. In essence, either they carry their glider or their glider carries them. The race is tracked live via www.redbullxalps.com where the live position of all 30 entrants can be viewed.
We entered the last race in 2009 and did okayish for a rookie team. The winner that year, five-times world paragliding champion, Chrisitan Maurer, who won the race in 11 days!
Each team has an athlete and a supporter. Pierre Carter is the nutcase in our team and I am his supporter. All he has to do is to do the physical stuff, I have to do everything else: drive, cook, wash, clean, scout paths, plan routes, charge batteries, etc.
The usual faces are here, except Alex Hofer, who won the race several times in the past. He had a paragliding accident whilst training, a few weeks before. This year has 10 odd rookie teams, mostly youngsters, so it should be quite interesting. At least we have some experience now, so, if we can remain injury free, I’m sure we’ll have a good race. Most pilots have travelled the whole route (by various means: on foot, microlight, plane) at least once, so they know what they’re in for. We’ve only had enough time to see up until the Dachstein and we know the way to the Grossglocker from previous experience. We’ll have to wing the second half of the route.
Every year, the rules change, and this year is no exception. In the past, athletes were not required to rest, and many would push on for several days before stopping. This year, they have included a mandatory sleeping time from 11pm until 4am, in which time the athlete may not move. I personally think this rule has not been thought out very well and it will probably change in the future: one can’t expect someone free climbing a cliff at 11pm to just stop and sleep for five hours! But that’s what the rules say at the moment.
A better rule would be to keep the five hours sleep per day, but make the time of that flexible i.e. any time of day for five hours.
Regarding gliders, they are even more dodgy than the last: the materials used are thinner, the lines are far less, and the harnesses are basically nothing. They have been quite strict with equipment checks, anything not made in serial production has been very closely scrutinised. Following the FAI’s ban (the international airsports body) of two-liner gliders (very high performance paragliders due to minimum attachment lines) following the deaths of pilots last week, Red Bull made the same decision.
Since about five pilots are flying these things (super lightweight and even more flimsy than the originals), they objected and RedBull reversed the decision, then asking each pilot to demonstrate a full-stall and front-stall on their gliders over water! This would have been very exciting to watch, however the pilots objected again (rightly so) and Red Bull changed their minds again! Now, pilots just need a letter from the manufacturer stating that the pilot is qualified to fly their glider – a real cop-out in my opinion.
Interestingly, most pilots here who normally fly two-liners, said that the difficulty in launching them, landing them, and controlling them in difficult conditions, wasn’t worth the risk, so they are flying standard three-liner gliders. In fact, Chrisitian Maurer is flying the exact same glider he flew two years ago, saying the risks are just too high.
This year’s route is fairly similar to the last race. Attention / concern is on Turn Point 2, the Dachstein, a massive mountain about 60km into the race. Unlike the other massive mountains, which have large radii around them, for this one, the athlete needs to cross a 200m line on top of it i.e. they have to get to the top, whilst the others can be circumnavigated round the base. The Dachstein has a huge glacier on the north side, and 500m+ sheer cliffs on the south side. So, getting up it (without a cablecar) is somewhat difficult.
The race organisers are (only) now concerned that 30 athletes may be climbing up a glacier, in the dark, possibly sleeping there from 11pm… So we’ve all been restricted to one of two routes:
- either up a safe-ish 200m via ferrata (chain ladder) on the north side and then up onto a safe part of the glacier,
- or around the contour path on the southern side (much longer) and up another 500m vertical climb with a via ferrata on top.
Obviously, flying over is not a problem, but looking at the weather forecasts, I’m not sure that will happen.
At Monaco, the course takes a different route to those in the past. The original take-off at Mont Groz is now closed due to recent paragliding accidents. Instead, a temporary take-off, immediately behind Montecarlo has been made in one of the road bends (!!), so that pilots can glide down to the finish line at the beach. However, since the whole of Montecarlo is covered with airspace limitations, the pilots have to fly three-sides of a box, to get to the beach! The rules are rather interesting, pilots who are flying over the turn point at Mont Groz, must land there, walk to the new take-off, and launch again! They’re not allowed to just glide over directly to the beach, with no airspace in the way.
The logic? I don’t know: it’s far more dangerous to land on top of a mountain between houses, than to launch from there. In this case, I think the logic is that, if someone does make it, they can tell him to wait a few hours until the cameramen are ready on the beach – to prevent surprises like in the last race, where the winner beat the camera crew (in cars) by a whole day!
So, in brief, the usual Red Bull logic (or lack thereof) applies and some rules are somewhat vague.
The weather has been truly Austrian: sunny stunning one day and heavy rain the next. The forecast keeps changing, and now it looks like race day will be okayish and the second day (Dachstein area) will be pouring with rain. So there’s a good chance that 30 athletes will be walking, in the rain, on a glacier, and sleeping in the snow at 11pm.
Each athlete and supporter has a Red Bull mobile phone that we use to take pics and videos, which gets posted directly onto the Red Bull X-Alps website. It’s the easiest way for us to send news (although somewhat difficult to type on), so during the race, please visit our diary and you’ll see what we’re seeing, pretty much immediately. I managed to hack the phone (they were adamant that it could not be done) to get internet access on a laptop (so hopefully will have roaming access now) and will try type en route through the course of the race.
Despite this event being a huge Red Bull PR and marketing event, the atmosphere is quite pleasant and the athletes seem quite fired up and ready to go – that may also be because the campsite that we’re all crammed into only has two functional toilets, no rubbish bins, and the place is beginning to look like a squatter camp.
Pierre and I are quite relaxed. Pierre is not expecting to crash this time and we’ve got our routes to Grossclocker well planned. We just have to execute it now. Some minor teething problems that need sorting out, then we’re ready. Our little inverter in the van, used to charge everything, blew the comfort electronics in the van, so the CD player, aircon etc stopped working. All the fuses are fine and we’ve now hardwired the inverter directly onto the battery in the car. Porche (VW) helped with the CD player, so that’s working again now. The rest will have to wait.
Follow us online, the race starts tomorrow. Send us messages, we read all of them, and will try to reply when and where we can.
Cheers
James and Pierre
Pierre spoke at FEAT in October last year – this is his FEAT talk.