The Cloudbase Mayhem podcast is where you will find fascinating and educational interviews with the best free-flight pilots in the world. If you fly a hanglider or paraglider, if you fly acro or cross country, the Cloudbase Mayhem podcast is where we glean how the great pilots of the world get there. Hosted by Red Bull X-Alps pilot, National Geographic Adventurer of the Year and current holder of the North American foot launch record, Gavin McClurg. Follow me on Instagram @gavinmcclurg or on Facebook @ facebook.com/gavinnmcclurg or Twitter on @cloudbasemayhem.
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Episode 95- Willi Canell and wrestling with the Risk
Willi Canell will represent the US in the 2019 Red Bull X-Alps, the 5th US athlete in the history of the race to call Sun Valley, Idaho home of the 10 US athletes who have competed. He’ll be lined up with me in Salzburg June 16th in the greatest game on Earth as a rookie. He’s my neighbor, flying partner and consistently surprises me with the way he thinks about this crazy sport we all find so compelling. I invited Willi onto the Mayhem because he recently shared his private journal with me and I found his thoughts and ideas about paragliding, risk, training, fitness, and the ultimate question- why we all do what we do not only fascinating but informative and thought-provoking. I know you’ll find this entire episode the same. We recorded this before we left Sun Valley in early May but it will be released on day 10 of the race so should be interesting to hear his pre-race thoughts and see how it aligns with what’s gone down!
Show Notes:
* First aid and XC Kit.
* The Nevada big line
* Willi’s short but fast history of flight
* Rivers and flying
* The Sun Valley Phenomenon- 5 of 10 of the US X-Alps athletes in the history of the race have been from Sun Valley
* Fly the line
* Why do we do this?
* The attainment conundrum
* Red Bull X-Alps- the biggest experiment of my life
* The chess analogy
* What is scary about the X-Alps?
* Flow sports
* With an empty mind the higher you get
* How to stay in the air
* Fear- good fear and bad fear
* The most important non-flying thing you can do to make you a better pilot
Mentioned in this episode:
Chris Weigel, Rick Heatley, Superfly, Mike Pfau, Chris Santacroce, Maxime Bellemin, Cross Country Magazine, Cody Mittanck, Ben Abruzzo, Rob Curran, Dave Turner