VÃ¥gÃ¥ put up some great flying and real race conditions. Well rock’n roll race conditions to be fair.

Four days of full on flying in fantastic enviroments with happy people! Not much more to ask for.

Even Marcus King was there

And AK B was in the house too

The two first tasks was held at Juvass sommerskicenter, and it was breathtaking to fly there. Soooo scenic. The days were quite different, the first was strong and tactics was needed to stay out of the cloudsuck. I made goal and felt realy good Though the last 20 minutes trying to get down through the conversion at Lom was rough, hard work.

Day two was abit slower and with two headwindlegs it was alot of bar needed. I ended up making a silly decision that day and landed short of goal. If i had stayed with Seb Bochet i could have reached goal. He did together with some locals who knew the way…

Seb under his UP Edge before i glided off from him as he went to goal.  

Third day was from Vole just above the freeflycenter of VÃ¥gÃ¥. It was a nice task in good conditions and it was fast. I could not “quite”;-) keep up with the fast crew on R10-2s.

I did not get to goal. Landed 2.5 km short. Very fun flying. I want more of this!

Fourth day was different. To say the least. Stronger wind was to come in during the day, there was lentis in the sky. The first pilots to thermal at Skagsnebb said level2. I waited awhile on takeoff, there was zero wind for awhile. When the sun returned i launched and got high over Skagsnebb quickly, no probs. Flew on to star tgate and cruised on, rather fast according to my gps. Above 70km on trim…

I hit some strong thermals above Sel, abit turbulent but not bad. Got high again and heard that people said it was turbulent down low. Over Otta i started understanding what they were talking about. It was superturbulent, i got two collapses of about 50-60%, the air was aggressive. I worked it as best i could and gained hight and moved on. The convergence over Otta it to take serious. It’s evil.

By now i was in the lead, Ronny H, Anders B and the rest of the R10 squad was behind me!!! hmm, now what? I speeded(this is where i should have slowed down)on towards Torgeirkampen that was shaded by clouds. Silly me! The wind got the best of the thermals and i landed in Kvam in calm conditions. All i could do was see the top pilots flying above me on their way towards goal. Damn i was on it there. But still a fun flight that alot of pilots hated because of being in bad spots along the course. Some pilots went backwards on landings and one reserve was thrown. No one was hurt. The task was cancelled for awhile then counted again. I ended up on 28th place this day.

Nordics was won by Ronny Helgesen of Norway, second was Larsa Jonsson from Ã…re, third was ozone teampilot Anders Bearheim from Norway.

In the Swedish championships Larsa won, Fredrik Lindholm in second, Matts Eliasson third, Ulf Nylander fourth. Just points ahead of me

In total i ended up on 22nd place in the Nordics and proudly i got fifth place in the Swedish Championships. Not bad huh? Happy Fred!

Going back home to Åre after a saturdaynight party in Vågå, we were enlighted about the weathersituation in Åre. It was utter kaos at home. Landslides caused by very heavy rain. The village looked like a big mess.   The paragliding club had abit of work to do with the landingfield.

PÃ¥l who had been in charge at Skysport had a hard week at work… Teaching paragliding in crap weather is hard work. This is how happy he got when the sun came back!

When i got back weather went good and last weeks students were ready on friday lunch. Perfect timing for midsummer festivities Swedish style!

Today i was hoping for some hardcore soaring with my little cloud miniglider but it was not to be, so insted i went skateboarding in the local miniramp. Good fun was had and my gopro got it on pics.

backside grind for fun and pleasure

Some of my friends are here, Marcus King, Sebastian Bouchet, all the norwegians, Finns and Swedes. A big happy bunch of funloving maniacs! Just like me

Frode and Matsa.

Tobbe Hinas, R10-3.

Seb Bouchet, Frenchie.

Kingy is going bananas from parawaiting

Hypoxia Editor Wramen is here, doing an article about the comp.

Today was looking 50%/50% but it fell out. No fly today, sadly. Only groundhandlingpics…

Kingy brought a new glider from the crypts of Ozone, the brand spanking new Delta.

I had a short groundhandlingsession with the Delta and also with the U-turn Thriller24. Soo i have had a bit of a workout today…

Now we are chillin in the center and drinking beer. I guess we are parawaiting.

Emmeline Lundström took the photo.

Nick Bisson took the photo.

May has not stod up to my expectations. To say the least. It’s been not soo fantastic…

But i have tried to squeeze the most out of it.

Hike and fly at any given chance, yesterday was no exception. Me and my good friends Lasse, Brett and Fredrik walked to the Olympia plateau, Lars Hedström drove us to Rödkullen. Since the windmeter on hummeln said southwesterly winds it should be perfect. It was lying. It was northwest to north. Hmmpff, well the sun was shining. We felt lucky to be out together having a reather good time. After catching our breath we got our kits out. Possitive thinking.

Iphone pics.

Water along the hike… 

It was not at all easy to get the glider up and the short periods of westerly thermic activity was hard to spot in time to pull the glider of the ground and run off…

Fredrik tried 2 times, unsuccesfull. I tried 2 times unsuccesfull. We rested. The wind was bad. Very bad.

Brett and Lasse waited and checked me and Fredrik. Smart.

Then Fredrik tried again and somehow got of the hill and into the air! Some sort of timing pulling the glider up in the last of a thermic period and running off in zero wind and hucking off into abyss…

He glided of and caught a thermal. Climbed out and flew around while i was struggling on the takeoff. I tried 3-4 times then i gave up. The thermals was not helping to steer the wind direction to my advantage.

All i could do was pack up, while watching Fredrik having a good time in the air.

Me, Lasse and Brett walked down to Rödkullen where Fredrik picked us up with the minivan.

Fredrik was dancing the famous chickendance… I will practice more starts in crap wind.

Yesterday the Downteam Raft had escaped it’s leash. Anders Hedström got it back in custody.

Today the raft did a jailbreak again.

Me and Fredrik got it back with some help of Anders and Lars.

In the sunny evening me and Jonna enjoyed the last hours of sunshine sitting in chillchairs up in Björnen. Hera the dog came along. It was a good calm evening.

It’s already high water in lakes and rivers here and the authoritys are warning for extreme levels… Yihaa.

Whitewaterkayaking is on the menu soon…

The tiny whitewater spudboat was parked in our garden so we tried it out. Very comfy boat. Good footroom. But it would sink if i tried it on the river…

Tomorrow i start this summers first course of paragliding. Basic training for a week. I hope we get good weather.

Lars at the wheel.

http://vimeo.com/11227681

Here’s some pics from life as it is…

Happy fred

making place for newer stuff…

new bushings on indys…

Coppers eh…

i bet U havent seen a scullcandy loggo on a panncake before?

The last two weeks was finally giving us some good flying and even some xc’s was had. Sadly, the planned funcomp Ã…recupen was let down by crap weather.

So me and Jonna took a couple of lastminutes tickets from Trondheim to Nice.

Driving to t-heim was an adventure, snowstorm before Storlien almost put us off… Though we got all the way safe and sound.

On sunday afternoon we enjoyed the picknick in Greolieres. It was Charlotte Kings birthday.

Though the clouds were low. Very low. Russ and Kingy flew tandem with kids, Dav came down from the clouds flying his ultralight19…

The forecast for the week was utterly crappy. Sadly the forecast was dead right

Dav at kennedy.

No flying at all. A first for me visiting Alpes maritimes. but we had loads of fun thanks to good friends and the fact that we had a good rentalcar.

Some days we stayed in Greolieres and just chilled, drank wine and ate cheese.

Some dats we drove around and checked things out.

St Paul.

The Simpsons new house.

One day we drove to Italy to get some parmesancheese. Spent some time in Ospedaletti, were they have spent alot of money rearranging the beach. Later that day it was destroyed by the mediteranian Tsunami:-/

These photos are from the same day…

Nice was trashed as well.Scary meteo. El nino year.

Later in the week we took a trip to St Martin de Vesubie. We did not see the big mountains because of low clouds. Scenic village with friendly people.

Airdried ham with herbes de provence. Fantastic!!! Get some if U go to St martin de Vesubie.

We also spent an hour at the wolfpark at 1500 meters altitude. It was snowing up there… Wolves are beautiful.

On a late day we drove to Antibes for some lunch and beach. Got both

On the way back to Greolieres we ran into this monster of a skateboard ramp thangie. X games style in Opio… Courtesy of Basti from Vendetta skateboards…

After a week of fun we returned to Nice and flew back home. To sunshine…

Now we are back in Ã…re.

I have flown a couple of days. Little cloud and one with my X-light.

Kim resting.

Cool dog.

Beautiful xc skyes

Ended up getting a short xc. Very windy flight, but still fun!

Remember splitboarding?

I did a couple of articles awhile ago. Found them in a backstash…

Little Clouds tandem BIDULE is now tested and ready… Looks sweet!!!

Photos by Olivier at Parapente-max.

Last week has been, bad.

However life goes on even when flying is not possible.

My lovely UP trango x-light has got a Aclima sticker in middle. Looks good. BIG thanks to my sweet friends who helped.

My good friend Mickael Kjellman has bought a Gin Boom 5 and has flown it too. He seames to like it alot. Babyblue and fast looking. Micke is going to fly big xc’s this summer…

‘

The other boys here in Ã…re have invested in new hotships. Fredrik Lindholm/R10-2, Tobbe Hinas R10-3, Larsa Jonsson R10-2, Martin Kjellman R07 and the xc season is just about to start.

Jon Olsson was in town and held his JOSS and JOI. I went to the JOSS filmshow at Holiday Club and there was some very nice films from Ã…re. The Team Downunder had the best film in my eyes. Their editing was superb. They did not get a point from the judges…;-)

Jon has a nice car. Lamborgini Murchielago 670/4 SV. Sounds fantastic. As good as it gets. Price U ask? about 400.000 euros… without the skibox, thats an extra

This year i have signed up for the Swedish Distance league. I want to go xc. The posse here in Ã…re are getting ready to break the old Swedish records. All of them…

An old picture(-07), northwest winds and cloudstreet…

Jonna in partymode                                               Me and my wheels…

Well i have been flying and that has taken alot of time and effort

Hmm, ok, i’ve been lazy… Done some short films and taken very few pics.

But,

I have had a few fun things on my agenda lately. The most fun one being schooling nine 15 year old students in paragliding. It has been a cooperation between Skysport, the local pg club, Idrottslyftet and Duveds school.

PÃ¥l Rognöy jumped in and “helped” me with the indoor theorylessons…

On monday they had some groundhandling, tuesday was theory indoors and on wednesday they did shorthillflights and then finished the day of with their 2 first flights from the mountain. http://vimeo.com/10820737

Thursday was a full day of mountainflights and friday was theory and the theoreticaltest.

It was a joy to have them around! and now some of them are realy trying their best to come along as much as possible to get P1 before the lifts close in may. Imagine how cool it will be with a new generation of pilots. Young ones…

Also i’ve had a few nice flights myself. With my Little cloud

http://vimeo.com/10759839

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMY9ylXBwno)

and my new UP trango x-light. No xc flights but some good thermaling. Photo by Nick Bisson.

Afternoon flights from the actual top of the mountain has been a joy for body and soul. More hike and fly is on the menue.

Marcus, Charlie King and their small monsters + Nicole and Belle was here for a week, we took them out for some touristic stuff such as a superb lunch at Bergstugan,

a trip to the moosefarm, the kids liked it but i think Nick and Jonna liked it even more…

Jonna also took the girls out for a winterbath. It was actually very appreciated by the the posse of skinny pale british/swedish girls…

We had crap weather for most of their stay but the weekend was perfect. Kingy got to try the Little Cloud, he and Nick Bisson got some sweet thermaling high up and there is two films from their fun…

Marcus film.

http://vimeo.com/10796779

and here’s Nick’s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieCiN3c9k1o&feature=player_embedded

So if You ever doubted that it’s possible to thermal with a Little Cloud. Here’s film with it…

Last sunday we flew along the RudbullHomerun race on Ã…reskutan. I was supposed to be in the race but i was to late for my bib…

Got some nice pics.

Hans Olsson 40 meters below the Redbull goalgate. I was as fast as the winner! taking pictures hanging under my Little Cloud Spiruline 18…

Also i have managed to get a Aclima sticker on my Octane flx. Now plan is to get one on my UP trango x-light too.

Later i will also have a tandem with Aclima logotype over the whole glider.

The Swedish paragliding magazine Hypoxia published my article on flying in Marocco and chosed my picture for cover!

http://hypoxia.se/hypoxia/2010.html

Soo yeah, i been doing lots of fun stuff lately. It’s springtime and life is coming back in fullspeed. Sunshine and play!

Today my new glider arrived with UPS. I now fly a UP Trango X-light. Green and white. Since i tried it in Brazil in october i have wanted one.

But no fly today, it’s raining and that’s actually realy good. Get rid of the snow, and then some sun and thermals will be the way i like them… Going UP!!! Â

The glider is open class but said to be EN D-ish. Aspect ratio 7.0. Topspeed 62 km/h. This is the model Alex Hofer flew to Monaco and second place during the 2009 X-alps.

Right now there’s a bunch of UP Trango X-lights crossing the Himalayas with Brad Sander under one of them. You can follow them on http://www.himalayanodyssey.org/

And now i have one here in Ã…re. Sooo please bring on the thermals!!!

Happy Fred

Me and Jonna went for some powder skiing/boarding and found some good stashes of the white fluff. The last snowfall was good but the wind transported it to the eastsides. Abit unstable but nice as long as U avoided steep stuff. Oh yeah, the sun was shining too…

After some hiking we met up with Jonnas parents and after some more skiing we had a coffe and chilled in the sun.

I took this photo of Jonna with my Iphone using the Hipstamatic application. Fantastic! Soo nice colours. Oldschool in a new way.

At the end of the day my legs were tired and we went home for sauna and beer

But where is the flyingweather??? I’ll get my new glider anyday now… Thermals, please come!!!

Sponsored by:

But the seasons real news is the new Shamane, a racy reversible harness. Finally!!!

A new generation harnesses is about to storm the market! Light and fast! Advance Lightness is another superlight racy thang.

I’m shure this is the future of harnesses. Light and reversible.

So i will update my blogg.

me and Jonnas crib.

The most important coffe. The morning one…

During the last week we have had bbq on our veranda twice! Spring is here finally. Thanks, i had enough of winter.

The last two days we had nice weather and some good flying. On friday i did 6 tandemflights and alot of people flew from the mountain. It’s been week 9, the schoolholiday for the people of Stockholm. Highseason for Ã…re.

Me and PÃ¥l finished the day with tandemflights from tha actual top of Ã…reskutan. Two very happy girls got the pleasure of taking of from the fantastic backside of the mountain. Very scenic indeed. Check out these pics:

Yesterday the meteo promised at least morningflights. So it was to be. I did a tandemflight with my good friend James Holm. We had a nice little flight from Valvet in sunshine and ok conditions. He got som nice pics from the flight. Larsa also flew with us. Though he took a different route…

2 Photos above by www.jamesholm.se

Later me and James took a Audi A5 Sportback for a spinn down on the icetrack on the lake. Needless to say we got stuck aside the track… haha. Good fun was had.

Earlier in the week i went for two evening skateboardsessions. On wednesday i started out realy lame. Managed fuck all… Then i had a sweet slam on a frontside boneless, and wips, i was back on track doing my stuff nice and easy. Happy Fred.

Micke at SvartstÃ¥l.se needed a hand to lift a gearbox out of a pickup. So now i have done that too. Intresting for me to see how it works. It was a 4×4 car soo an extra piece on it. haha…

Other things that have happened this week is that i got a parking ticket. That sucked. 60 euros.

Still havent sorted xc glider for 2010, all i have is an old Gin Boomerang3.

Today i chated with the Swedish dealer for Gin and he told me he’s about to recive the 3 first Gin Boom GTO in a week or soo. Intressting. He also told me he’s been flying a proto for the up and coming Gradient Avax xc3 and he says it rocks!

Here’s an old picture of Pierre flying in Hammars backar, Sweden.

Here’s a photo i really like from a trip to the south of Sweden. Beautiful huh?

On the Little Cloud side of the world, we are still waiting for the classification of the Bidule. The Bidule is a 31m2 small tandem that will be perfect for alot of pilots. For us big boys it will be both single and tandemglider since the weightrange will be 100-200 kilos. The weight of the glider is 6 kilos. Easy to carry when traveling. So perfect for tandemcouples traveling around. Remember, two gliders in one… For the price of one:-)

Nick, Micke, Brett have been up flying their Spirulines lately and all are saying the same. It’s soooo much fun!
Lars at Skysport has tried it in Schooling for groundhandling. Worked perfect!

I have a Spiruline 18(2009) demo in mint condition for sale. Send mail for price and info.

Take care and see U in the air

Fred