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. 

StayxCold X Guillaume Beck

Documentary filming.

Last week I've been filming with David Wagnières. He is realizing a documentary about base jumping as final project for his studies. The two days he was assisted by a couple of his friends. I decided to bring them first to the Croix de Fer, the great jump with an amazing end over a waterfall. It's a nice place to bring people who can hike a bit and would like to watch us jump. The hike takes about 1h30. We were also joined by Don, an american base jumper traveling in europe. The conditions were perfect and the jump was great. During the flight I spotted two people on a bench and I couldn't resist to offer the a little flyby. I would like to apologize to them if they were scared ;-) Here is some screen shots of what we filmed.

Ready to hike !

Briefing

On the exit.

Ready to fly.

Relaxing hikers (bottom left on a bench) and a wingsuit flyer.

After Croix de Fer we went to Chamonix hoping to film one more jump. Unfortunately the wind was too strong so we decided to film the interview part. We came back the next day to film the jump. David edited a short video of the exit, check it out ! 

I m nearly done with the editing of another short video filmed in Chamonix. A kind of "presentation" of my new sponsor StayXCold, it should be out in the beginning of next week.

Thanks for reading.

Trying to look serious during the interview.

Jumping the Brévent with the Mont Blanc in back ground. 

New sponsor and rainy days.

To start with a good news !

I am glad to introduce my new sponsor, Stay Cold Straight Edge. A great straight edge, vegan clothing brand from Germany. I chose this lifestyle more than ten years ago and I'm proud to represent it with them ! Go and check their stuff !

Stay Cold Straight Edge

On another hand the weather has been really bad those last two weeks. I could only jump on these last few days. 

First I went with my friend Stephane to the Vuardes. I think last time I made this jump was last spring. It was good to jump it again. We flew the left line and I could realize the evolution I made in my V5 comparing to last time. 

Vuardes' left line.

Yesterday I made a couple of jump off the Brevent. The conditions were perfect on the morning. I could keep working on some lines and trying to be more aggressive in my turns. The wind started to pick up in the afternoon and clouds arrived. No more jumping for that day. I hope the weather will be better this august.

Brevent flight with a nice view on the Mont Blanc. 

The end this article I just want to let you know that I started a facebook profile, if you wanna check it out it's just HERE. Thanks for reading !

Wingsuit in Chamonix

This is a short video edited by my friend Erwan Madoré. We worked on some nice lines on the Brevent  last week. He made a really great camera work ! Here is what came out of the session !

Enjoy and don't hesitate to tell me what you think of it !

Tallinn !

Back from Tallinn it's time for a little review of the trip !

I arrived in Tallinn late night on the 8th. The arrival was quite strange as at 01:00 I could still see some sun shinning over the horizon. I never experienced the night sun before. When I arrived at the hotel the people I was sharing the room with were already sleeping. I had a bit of sleep to be in shape for the beginning of the event the next day. 

Waking up I met the guys that shared the room with me, Sepp and Tobi two germans. Sepp was the boogie safety officer. We head to the tower through the street of Tallinn to get a bit outside of the city. There we discovered this great 175m high tower welcoming us in the sun. The place is perfect for base jumping, great overhang building and big landing area. We had a safety briefing by Sepp and the organizer. Everybody was feeling like little children with a new toy I guess, at least I was ! 

The tower !

After the briefing we finally took the elevator to the top, a thing I'm not used to. I usually hike for hours before a jump, here you just have to push a button ! The top of the tower is really nice with a restaurant and we can jump from different direction depending on the wind. We could jump from 11:00 to 17:30 on the first day. I made 4 jumps, 3 solos to get into it as I'm normally not jumping a lot slider down (low stuff) and a nice two way in the end of the day !

Waiting in a line.

On the edge, ready to jump.

Just landed. 

The second day was unfortunately too windy to jump. As Tallinn is close to the sea the wind can be really strong. At 12:00 the decision was made to cancel the jump for today. We spend the day visiting and relaxing in the city. 

Estonian tuk-tuk ride !

Tallin old town.

The third and last day was also announced windy but with a window to jump in the morning. We arrived at the tower earlier than the other days and started to jump at 09:00. Everybody was trying to jump as much as possible before the wind comes back. I could jump twice. A Two way following Schidi doing a gainer exit and another two way with Leo. It was fun to feel the difference in comfort between me and most of the guys that were jumping there. For me 175 meters is low as I mostly jump off cliffs but for the others it was high and it was nice to see them doing aerials and crazy stuff. 

Two way with Leo (Photo by Leo)

This was my first base jumping event and it was a blast ! Meeting all these jumpers from all around the world and sharing some great time together, I'm already looking forward for Kuala Lumpur ! 

I would like to thanks all the organizers and Inglewood Burgers for the support on this trip !

Here is a short video I made of the event. I hope you will enjoy it !

From sad news to good news.

The last month has been quite strange. It started with a sad news. I lost one of my closest flying friend in a wingsuit accident. We started base jumping pretty much in the same time and now from one day to another he is gone. This is the dark side of base jumping. It's one of the sport that gives you the most but can also be really hard on you, your family, friends and relatives.  

Rest in peace.

After an event like this there is always thousand of questions that pop up in your head. Is it really worth it ? Should I quit jumping ? What will happen if .... ? But after all that questioning I always comeback with one feeling. A feeling that is too hard to describe and that many people can't understand. I can't quit, at least not for the moment. This incredible feeling you have when you spend all this time in the mountains, jumping and flying with friends, it's freedom. Base jumping and wingsuit flying are the two moments when I feel totally free. No rules, only your limits, no body to tell you what to do or don't, total freedom. 

After the bad news, I decided to keep on jumping as soon as possible and spends some amazing days in the mountains. The summer is finally here ! It's so good to spend hours in the nature again and flying over some green landscapes. I went to many different jumps, Sans Bet, Varan, Criou also Croix de Fer that I jumped three years ago and that didn't let me a good feeling. I was quite worried on the top of the jump but this jump is actually incredible ! There is a beautiful line to fly over the cottages and that end straight over a waterfall. That was definitely one of the most epic view I had in flight. 

Erwan M. , Roch M. and Julien C. on Croix de Fer exit.

One of the most epic view I've seen in flight. 

All those jumps, all those feelings, all this time spend in the wild with friends reinforced me in my decision to keep on flying and jumping. I'm sure my friend is still flying and keeping an eye on us. 

Fly free brother.  

After that tough news I also got an incredible news. I sent my application to participate to the famous Kuala Lumpur Tower Base Boogie and I've been accepted. I visited the Menara Tower (the tower we jump from) when I was a kid while traveling with my parents. Since then it has been a dream for me to take part to this event. The dream will come true this september ! 

A dream coming true ! 

Check out this great video of the 2012 event by the Soul Flyers !

Next week I'm heading to Tallinn, Estonia for the TV Tower boogie. I will write a report when I'm back.

Until then, take care ! 

California !

The two weeks in California were a blast ! Let's have a little look back at it.

My skydiving school organized a trip to Perris Valley, California this year. I thought I would be a good thing for me to go there and train on my new wingsuit. Skydiving is not the best place to work on performances but the best environment to play and get comfortable with a suit. 

We flew to Los Angeles and drove a few hours to get to Skydive Perris. The place was a bit lost but a nice friendly and welcoming dropzone. I meet there Josh and Darren the wingsuit load organizers. We had a lot of fun chasing each other and flocking in the sky. I made around 55 skydives on this trip. A few of them were also tracking jumps and funny RW jumps with friends from my club. 

Some 3D flocking over California.

Dave Eaton exiting right before me.

Sunset load with Josh Sheppard.

A few tracking jump.

Some funny RW.

Californian sunset over Skydive Perris.

We had a few too windy days so we could have a quick road trip to San Diego and Oceanside. This part of the coast is amazing. I really felt like in a movie, surfers and great beaches all the way. We also spent the last day in LA. We had to take our plane in the end of the afternoon so it was a really fast visit on Hollywood Blvd and Venice beach.

--

Back home, we could make two jumps in Sans Bet last week. I was feeling much better in my suit. The USA trip was definitely worth it ! In another hand the weather sucks right now around Geneva. The snow is back in the mountains and there is so much wind. I hope for a better weather next week and I will send a few days around Samöens. 

I also had a nice invitation last week. I will participate the the Tallinn TV Tower Boogie this year. I've never been in Estonia so I'm really looking forward for it !

To end this article here is a short video form a local TV. They followed my friends Bras Noir, Pierre F. , Jean-Mi and myself for a jump in Magland just before I left for the USA. The result is really nice !