1st day in Piedrahita

After a 10 hour flight 3 days in Shanghai another 10 hour flight 3 days in Germany one flight of 2 hours and 1 day in Madrid, I finally arrived in Piedrahita after a short bus ride. Got my accomodation sorted and a lift up the hill straight away in a BMW, it was good to arrive in style. hehehe
The french team is here and several other pilots are training for the worlds, yesterday we had a light westerly breeze and we set a 100km task out and return.
I was so excited to try my mew wing, I received it at about 6 weeks ago but the crap winter in Sydney didn't allow me to try it out. The sky was full of Ozone wings, and the R11 are really the best wing around.
we had a gaggle of about 10, 15 pilots and the only non R11s was myself with the new Tracer and a polish guy with the UP XR and and the black icepeak 5 of Jean mark Caron.
Piedrahita is amazing, powerful thermals and big air. it only gets dark here at 10:30 and yesterday at 6:30 we still had thermal of + 5.
Our task started with a ridge run, a turn point over the flats one turn point 44 km at west and them goal in Piedrahita.
The R11 are the wings to be beaten but the Icepeak and the UP are not too far behind. I think the Icepeak 5 climbs really well. My wing is completely different from last years, it's heaps more stable and easier to fly, more collapse resistant and when on glide I didnt feel the R11s had an advantage.
We flew for almost 4 hours and I was always with the leading gaggle, the begining of the flight on the flats we had super rough stuff, I think the thermals weren't well defined and I just couldn't find a good core, I think no one could really do. On the way back it was a differnet history, nice big well difined climbs.
It was hard to go down and land due to the abundance of lift.
All in all it was great to be in the air again and having the cofidence I have a good glider, from now on the plan is to train a bit more, rest and concentrate and be ready to the real deal.
We still have a few more days of training to get to know the area better and get to know the infamous convergence lines of Piedrahita.
The rest of the Team will arrive in Piedrahita today. It will be good to catch and hear the stories from the Nordic Open where they did really well.

Stay tuned.

Felipe Rezende