Rome and beyound

After saying goodbye at the airport to Claire, Katy, and my mum ,The flight into rome on Easyjet was EARLY!!! and gave me a good shot at getting across the city for the 10-45pm bus to Reiti.
So with 40kg of luggage split between 3 bags I headed out into the 35 deg evening air,and turned into one huge sweat glang,I swear water was sqwirting out of me like a shower.
After a pleasent air conditioned bus ride into the city center I plundged into the even hotter underground system, found the correct line and headed for the Turbutina Coach station on the other side of the city, jumped on the Coach for Reiti and hey presto at midnight I was getting onto my carry mat in a city center car park for my first night away.
I woke at 6am for the 6-40am bus to Poggio Bustoni and the base for the first Paragliding World Cup super final ,but after being sent by the bus inspector from one end of town to the other with 40kgs of luggage,then back by the coach driver,then back by the inspector I phoned for a Taxi(mistake)who was delighted, in a very missarable way yo relive me of 42euros for a 12km taxi ride,but I had arrived I put up my tent and fell asleep.
That afternoon I met up with some of the Brits had a pleasent afternoon and now after two showers a lovely evening meal and a good nights sleep I am ready for the Practice day with the event actually starting on wednesday.
Next update coming soon B4N


Ps I cannot spell check on the hotels pc so please excuse.

testing testing

it is the day before I leave for rome and I am sending this post from my mobile phone,as you can see I cannot suss the caps function or the spell check but I have a long journey ahead to figure it out.next stop sunny rome

A few days to go

In three days time I should be in Rome trying to find my way too Poggio Bustoni,I will drop you all a line or two when I am in my tent and online in the field which will be the center of the competition and the landing/camping/headquarters for the first PWCA Super Final.

PWCA Super Final

The top 100 pilots in the world have been selected for the Paragliding World Cup super final,along with the top ten women and many of the past World, European and PWC champions who have also been given discretionary places.
This is likely to be a very special event so I have decided ( because of time restraint problems)not to go to the final round of the UK championships ,but instead take my place in the PWCA final.
It will be held over 12 days from the 1st of September, in the southern Apennines,based at Podgio Bustoni,about 100km north of Rome and is one of my favorite flying areas in Europe.

link to pwc web site
http://www.paraglidingcup.com/

PWCA Super Final

I have just found out that I have qualified for the Paragliding World Cup Super final in Italy in September by finishing as one of the top 100 pilots in the PWCA this year.
I now need to decide if I can Justify taking two weeks holiday to go to the first true world championships ( you can only qualify for it through your previous comp results unlike the FAI events when a team is selected by each country and the pilot quality can be very poor) .
I will let everyone know what I am going to do very soon.

piedrahita

Sorry about the lack of post,I am not at work and could not access my account.
old news
Piedrahita was Ok its not my favorite venue but I was 19th overall and third in serial class,yes I was flying a Niviuk peak,which was very interesting after years of flying comp wings,unfortunatly after a good 1st task and a fantastic, most of the flight secound task, I was gliding into goal with Craig Morgan in fourth position when I realised why people fly comp wings,I left higher than Craig and Kia but on the final 5km into wind could not compeate with thier glides and decked it a couple of km short,in the next task I flew 4.8km past the first Turn Point and had A painfully long into wind push to retrase my flightback and then had to fly back getting to goal 1/2 an hour latter than I should have taken BUGGER the final task was a short downwing dash and I was 10 mins behind the winner.
So all in all a pleasent week with a good bunch of guys in our peaceful village retreat,not a great result but not bad in the UK Championships I ended up as 2nd serial only a few pts behind the winner and 400pts behind Adrian who won this round of the championships.

Piedrahita

So the big one for British pilots arrives ,its Wednesday now and on Friday all the UK comp pilots are on our way another British championships in Piedrahita.
I am keeping my fingers crossed for epic full on conditions and not to much of the famed sink that decks so many good pilots,it is the only place in the world where I have had solid 5-8 mps sink from 3000mts to the ground AHHHHHHHH.