Hike and Fly 2015 !

This saturday I had the chance to take part to a very new kind of wingsuit competiton, the first "Hike and Fly" !

The new thing with the "Hike and Fly" is that it's not only the flying part that count but also the hiking. Over here in the alps, on most jumps we spend more time hiking than flying. With the time we are getting more and more used to big hikes and a lot of height difference. The goal of this event was to see who is the fastest but all of this in a very friendly and relaxed mood. 

Busy day at the exit.

28 hikers/jumpers run the trail that had a +1000m altitude gain under a perfect sunshine. The winner Julien Millot from the Flying Frenchies made a time of 1h03. I ended at the 10th place with a time of 1h18. I'm really happy with this result for a first try. It was pretty fun to see everybody at the top of the race. It's not ussual to have that much flyers on an exit. We jumped in small groups. I jumped right after a slider down jumper and made a cool flyby on him.

Flyby with the Mont Blanc as background.

Back view.

At the begining the competition should have been in Samoens. We wanted to jump the Criou. Unfortunately the local mayor was against it saying "wingsuit base isn't a sport, it's like russian roulette". It was pretty dispointing to realise how our sport is seen by most people. The good thing is that Aurel, who is the organizer, didn't wanted to abandon the event like this. He found another jump and the event went on perfectly ! We hope that next year we can jump the Criou. I also hope that this event will help to change people opinion on our sport.

Posing in front of the Criou (and Samoens' administration)

Thanks again to Aurel and Val for this perfect event ! I'm already waiting for next year's edition !

Finally back in the air and online !

Sorry for the too long time since my last post ! It's now the beginning of spring in Europe and the start of a new wingsuiting season.

As always for me, winter was much too long and pretty boring. I don't do any winter sports so I spent most of my time in the gym or just chilling around. After my KL trip I only did a few jumps. Then I took a kind of forced 3 month break of jumping. Most of my days off work had a shitty weather. I wished I was travelling around tropical countries like last year. To keep my mood good as I wasn't jumping, I bought some new equipment ! I'm now the proud owner of a Vampire Race by Phoenix-Fly and a really nice looking Hybrid LD3 by Adrenalin Base.

The weather started to be good again around a month ago. It was time for a few recovery jumps to get back into it. I went a few times in Magland  to  jump the Belvèdere and Panorama. It was really good to have this feeling of flying again. After three months without jumping you lose part of your flying habits. Once I had good feelings again, I decided to get back to serious things and headed to Chamonix for some Brevent sessions !

Last week on my second session there this year I spent the whole day in Chamonix. I joined some of the local boys and had some really great jumps. Did my first 4 ways jump off the Brevent. That was definitely a great beginning of the season. 

4 way exit off Brevent.

In order Sam Hardy, Nathan J. Jones and Laurent Frat.

This week I went to Samoens to join my buddy Aurelien Chatard. We did the two first "high" jumps of the season from the Criou. We were really happy to see that nearly all the snow melted. Hikes were really nice and the weather was perfect. Usually I try to do some smaller hikes before starting the season, but this year no time to warm up straight into serious things !  

Messing around with my buddy Aurélien Chatard.

Messing around with my buddy Aurélien Chatard.

 

You can watch the video of this great jump with Aurélien on my athlete page on facebook : https://www.facebook.com/GuillaumeBeck

Kuala Lumpur Tower Base 2014 Video.

Here my video of the Menara Tower Base boogie 2014. Reviewing all these videos was really nice. We had such a good time. I would like to thanks everybody who shared jumps with me and made this event unforgettable.

Another big thank you to Inglewood Burgers and Stay X Cold Clothing for the support on this trip.

Enjoy the video !

Kuala Lumpur Menara Tower Boogie Final Report

I'm sorry that I didn't write anymore report after the day 3. We started to jump on day 4 and I have to say that the motto of the event "Eat, Sleep, Base Jump, Repeat" was tottaly right. We made nothing apart jumping, eating and sleeping. Ho yes one thing, packing between jumps.

It would be too long to tell you about every jump as I made 34. This boogie was incredible form the begining to the end, the organisation, jumpers, staff, viewers even the object it self, the Menara Tower, was perfect. I could try many kind of stuff that I never tried before like floater and back exit, gainers, two way, three way, hanging exits and even Extreme Barbichette (see video) !

We are really lucky to have an event like this where we are treated like kings to jump a building. I would like to thanks all the organisation, staff and my jumping buddies who made this trip unforgettable  . It was a kid dream for me to jump form this tower and now I realized it. I hope to make it back sometime !

Here are some pictures and the first short video out of my footages. I will edit a longer video later with all the crazy stuff I filmed. 

Gainer exit !

Gainer.

Trying a "High five to gainer" with Jean-Phi.

Two way gainer with Luc.

Back exit.

Head up / Head down.

The crew !

Kuala Lumpur Menara Tower Boogie Daily Report : Day 3

Third day, briefing day. 

We arrived at the Menara Tower at 9am this morning. Everybody was pretty exited to climb to the top of the tower and have a first look of the place. The view from the top, on the city skyline and the  Petronas Twin Towers is incredible. I had some memories of my visit as a kid in the tower but in reality it's much better. 

Kuala Lumpur Skyline

After everybody registered and got their event t-shirts we started the briefing. Gary Cunningham an Australian base jump veteran gave us all the informations we need to jump safely. We had a review of different incidents that happened in the past years to try to avoid the same errors. 

Briefing

The press was also there. A good part of the day was also dedicated to an official opening ceremony with different authorities. We had a small "press conference" and group photo. It was pretty funny to see all this photographers here for us. 

Official opening ceremony

Feeling like a rockstar !

The afternoon we had two briefings, one about aerials and one about the pendulum rope. As I want to try some gainers, it was really interesting to have tips from Douggs. I don't know if I will try the pendulum rope jump this year as it seems a bit tricky. Maybe after a few days of practicing gainers. 

Everything ended around 4pm, I decided to show the biggest mall in town to my buddies. The mall is so huge that it even has a roller coaster inside. We couldn't resist to take a few ride on it and on some of the other attractions. We definitely know where we will go if we can not jump next days ;-)

Feeling like kids !

Thanks for reading and sorry if there is some spelling mistakes. I'm really tired and tomorrow is a big day so we are all looking forward to go to sleep. 

Tomorrow is jumping day !!

Kuala Lumpur Menara Tower Boogie Daily Report : Day 2

Second day in Kuala Lumpur.

I had a nice "grasse matinée" and woke up around 10am. I decided to go for a big tour in town. I started by going to Butik Bintang. It's a crazy street full of malls and shopping centers. 

Butik Bintang

I spent a couple hours around there then realized that I never visited the area called Brickfields. It's a small part of the city near the Central train station. I discovered a nice neighborhood full of life with many indian shops and restaurants. After a small lunch in a great vegetarian restaurant, I had a nice walk around and met two indian guys who want to open a backpacker hotel. They invited me to visit the place and asked me what was my opinion on it. It was pretty funny to play the "expert". After that I went to the big mall next to the train station to take a bit of fresh air. As the weather is really warm and humid, malls are always a good plan to refresh yourself. Even if most of them have the same stupid shops. 

Brickfields

A good vegetarian restaurant in Brickfields if you ever go there.

On the way back, I passed by one of my favorite street in KL, Lebuh Ampang. The street has beautiful old houses all painted in different colors. It's also another part of the city that as a lot of indian influences. You can find there many good vegetarian restaurants. 

Lebuh Ampang 

A nice old house

Tonight I wanted to join other basejumpers in chinatown to eat something but it started to rain like hell so everybody went back to their hotel. My friends Bras Noir, Jean-Phi and Luc should arrive soon. 

That's it for today, tomorrow is briefing day ! 

Thanks for reading and sorry for the bad quality of the pictures my phone is not really good at it. 

Kuala Lumpur Menara Tower Boogie Daily Report : Day 1

I'm going to try to write a short report everyday of my trip to the KL Menara Tower boogie. I will stay brief on my report as I don't know how many time I will have to write them.

 I just arrived today at 3pm. The flights have been good. No bad surprises, good food and I could even sleep well on the second flight form Dubai to Kuala Lumpur. I was happy to see that all my baggages followed me. I checked in at the Hotel, had a shower and went for a walk in Chinatown. It feels so good to be back here. I really like KL, it's one of the most multicultural city I visited. You can feel influences form all asia and people living together no matter where they are from or what god they believe in. I had a nice veggie noodle soup and now I'm back at the hotel. I'm going to chill a bit and go to bed early. Tomorrow evening some buddies from Switzerland and France will arrive. I will take the day to walk around the city.

More pictures tomorrow !

I would like also to thanks Inglewood Burgers and StayxCold Straight Edge Clothing for the support !

The view from the Hotel with the Menara Tower we are going to jump from.

An Indu temple in Chinatown.