Author: Alan Perlman

  • RIP Antoine Montant, French Extreme Sports Star

    RIP Antoine Montant, French Extreme Sports Star

    The extreme sports community lost one of its own this week.

    Antoine Montant, a French extreme sports star, was killed in a tragic accident in the French Alps, where he was BASE jumping. Local police found his body on Sunday and are investigating additional details.

    Antoine Montant grew up just outside the French Alps and is one of those guys who learned to ski as soon as he could walk. At age nine, Montant learned how to paraglide from his older brother Valéry, an experienced hanggliding and paragliding pilot that helped pioneer the sport of speed flying — paragliding with skis down steep, snowy slopes. Valéry was killed in an accident in 2006.

    Montant was a certified instructor in skiing and paragliding and certainly one of the world’s top athletes in both sports. He was an avid extreme skiier, BASE jumper and speed flyer.

    To give you an example of what Antoine Montant could do, below is a clip of the first-ever speed flight along the cables of Chamonix’s old cable car:

    [youtube id=”_yKU03F1f2A” width=”600″ height=”350″]

    Nerve Rush HQ’s thoughts are with Antoine Montant’s friends and family.

  • Skating on Thin Ice (Literally)

    Skating on Thin Ice (Literally)

    Don’t really know how to describe this video clip. Just a guy, doing a bit of thin ice skating, some cold water swimming, but a very well-composed clip. Looks fun. Would love to have a drink with this guy. Filmed in January 2011.

  • Canadian Death Race [Race Profile]

    Canadian Death Race [Race Profile]

    O Canada!
    Our home and native land!
    True patriot love in all thy sons command.
    With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
    The True North strong and free!

    Canada, land of gravy fries, gun control and ice hockey. It’s also got this wee little all-terrain adventure challenge called the Canadian Death Race, and it’s one of the more intense obstacle races I’ve read about.

    [youtube id=”VYNtFx391Gk” width=”600″ height=”350″]

    An annual course held in and around Grande Cache, Alberta in August, the Canadian Death Race, which was first started in 2000, boasts 125 km of hiking and running within a 24-hour time period. As a racer, you’ll cross a major river and wind through the Canadian Rocky Mountains, covering over 17,000 feet of elevation change.

    The Canadian Death Race is influenced by Greek Mythology, specifically the myth of Charon, the ferryman of the dead. Each racing team–you can race individually or in a team of up to five people–is given a coin which must pass from person to person and summit to summit. Only when the coin is presented to the ferryman at the end of the course is the race completed.

    Longer obstacle races and adventure races typically have cut off times, specific times of day that you have to have completed a portion of the race by. This is to ensure the health and safety of racers and event coordinators. At the Canadian Death Race, the segments and times are:

    First leg, 19 km: The Downtown Jaunt [CUT OFF 12PM]
    -this is the shortest leg of the course
    -features several creek crossings and one significant downhill

    Second leg, 27 km: Flood & Grande Mountain Slugfest [CUT OFF 6PM]
    -the most technical section of the course
    -steep rocky drop-offs and unstable footing
    -long sustained climbing, lots of elevation gain

    Third leg, 21 km: Old Mine Road (or “City Slicker Valley”) [CUT OFF 7PM]
    -the easiest section of the course
    -big descent, expect knee-deep water crossings
    -stunning views of the Smoky River valley

    Fourth leg, 36 km: Hamel Assault [CUT OFF 4:15AM]
    -the longest section of the course
    -mostly dirt trail ad packed gravel
    -many racers admit defeat on this very remote and strenuous section

    Fifth and final leg, 24km, The River Crossing [CUT OFF 9AM]
    -for most runners, this leg will be completed in the dark, with much of the trail under a heavy canopy of trees, so eye protection is required

    As you can see, the Canadian Death Race is pretty brutal. Kudos to anyone out there who has completed it.

  • Guillaume Néry’s Underwater Base Jump at Dean’s Blue Hole

    Guillaume Néry’s Underwater Base Jump at Dean’s Blue Hole

    A beautifully composed video of Guillaume Néry, a French free-diver that specializes in Constant Weight free-diving, exploring Dean’s Blue Hole, the deepest blue hole in the world. Dean’s Blue Hole is located in a bay just west of Clarence Town on Long Island, Bahamas and plunges 202 metres (663 ft) deep.

  • Inside the Red Bull Flugtag

    Inside the Red Bull Flugtag

    So, you drink Red Bull, the nectar of the adrenaline gods.

    But have you heard of the Red Bull Flugtag? “Red Bull gives you wings” takes on a whole new meaning. Flugtag, German for “airshow” or “flight day,” is a Red Bull annual event where competitors launch homemade human-powered flying machines off a 30ft high platform into a body of water.

    The vast majority of these flying contraptions don’t fly more than a few feet from the platform. The event is mostly for entertainment and show—a promotional event for Red Bull more than anything else.

    Here are a few images of the event, taken in my hometown of Nashville, Tennessee back in 2007.
    Red Bull Flugtag NashvilleRed Bull Flugtag Nashville 2Red Bull Flugtag Nashville 3

    Red Bull Flugtag History and Rules

    Brainchild of Red Bull owner and billionaire Dietrick Mateschitz (he holds 49% of the company’s shares), the Red Bull Flugtag started in Vienna, Austria in 1991. Due to its success, it has been held every year since and also in over 35 cities around the world.

    Anyone is eligible to compete in the event—to participate, each team must submit an application, and their homemade contraption must meet Red Bull’s event criteria. In the United States, for example, each flying machine must have a maximum wingspan of 30 feet and a maximum weight of 450 lbs.

    Ultimately powered by “muscle, gravity and imagination,” the aircraft ultimately end up the water, so they must not have any loose parts and must be constructed with eco-friendly materials.

    Teams are judged in three categories: distance, creativity and showmanship. Back in 2007, I witnessed the U.S. record for the longest flight in Nashville, Tennessee. Today, that record is held by team “Major Trouble and The Dirty Dixies,” who flew 207 feet in St. Paul, Minnesota in front of more than 90,000 people in 2010.

    Bottom line, if you ever have the chance to attend a Red Bull Flugtag event, go for it. You’ll laugh, you’ll be energized and you’ll walk away with a whole new appreciation for gut-wrenching adrenaline, something we at the Nerve Rush HQ value highly.

  • Experiencing Human Flight in Melbourne

    Experiencing Human Flight in Melbourne

    Part 1 of a surreal look at what extreme skydiving is all about–floating effortlessly at the upward limits of our Earthly atmosphere. Shot in February 2011, watch world champions Fred Fugen and Vince Reffett from Soul Flyers demonstrate a bit of 3D coaching to some of Australia’s leading adrenalinists.

    Shot on a GoPro camera.

  • Floating Soccer in Ko Panyi

    Floating Soccer in Ko Panyi

    Based on a true story, this short film features an island south of Thailand called Ko Panyi (Koh Panyee). In 1986, a group of innovative youngsters build their own floating soccer space. What a well-shot film. This needs to be made into a full feature movie. Anyone?

  • Reporting Live: 2011 Reel Rock Film Tour

    Reporting Live: 2011 Reel Rock Film Tour

    A few weeks ago, Nerve Rush HQ received an email:

    I bought two tickets to the Reel Rock Film Tour…The six movies being shown look incredible.

    I hopped on over to the website and found this trailer:

    Boom goes the dynamite–I was in. Waiting in line, I realized I should have gotten there earlier. The theater was packed.

    Reel Rock Film Tour 2011 line

    History of the Reel Rock Film Tour

    The first Reel Rock film tour premiered in 2006 in Boulder, Colorado, featuring two new climbing movies. Founded by Josh Lowell and Peter Mortimer, both who have been producing and directing adventure films for more than a decade, the Reel Rock film tour is organized annually and promotes films about rock and ice climbing, mountaineering, BASE jumping and other adventurous mountain sports. The tours often include gear raffles, athlete appearances and signings and fundraising for non-profit organizations. The tour is put on by Sender Films and Big Up Productions, who team up with North Face and Windstopper as primary sponsors.

    Reel Rock Film Tour 2011

    Reel Rock Film Tour 2011 screen

    This year, the 6th annual film tour kicked off with two winners from a filmmaking competition. The judges picked one winner, and online votes (or “the people”) chose the other winner.

    The judges choice, “Crash Pad Test Facility,” featured a comical sequence of tough situations, all of which were handled miraculously by the bouldering crash pad. The people’s choice, “The Climber Kid,” was a climbing parody of The Karate Kid.

    There were six other films:

    Ice Evolution
    A beautiful film shot at British Columbia’s Helmcken Falls, maniac ice climber Will Gadd, a 30+ year veteran to the sport, shows us his dream climb–a heinously difficult but perfectly aesthetic overhanging climb behind a waterfall. Gadd and Tim Emmett dodge 30 foot icicly bombs and climb undoubtedly the hardest pure ice climb in the world. My favorite part of the film? When Gadd and Emmett used a metal detector to hunt down ice-covered bolts from the previous season. It was hilarious.

    Cold
    “What the fuck am I doing here? We have to get down.” Over the past 26 years, 16 expeditions have tried and failed to climb Gasherbrum II, one of Pakistan’s highest peaks (over 8,000 meters), in the winter. In February 2011, Simone Moro, Denis Urubko, and Corey Richards became the first to achieve this goal, surviving -50 degree temperatures and a massive avalanche. In this first-person look at modern super-alpinism, Richards captured both the glory and pain of the trip.

    Project Dawn Wall
    Tommy Caldwell, one of the world’s best rock climbers, has devoted the last decade of his life to opening free climbing routes on Yosemite’s El Capitan. Three seasons into his ultimate project–the seemingly impossible Dawn Wall–Tommy documents his first big ground-up push, showing us pitch after pitch of 5.14 first ascents. Eventually, an epic storm shuts the team down for the season, but boy did they come back with some nutty footage–imagine what it looks like to sleep on a completely vertical face. Ever heard of a portaledge?

    Origins: Obe & Ashima
    One of the more inspiring adventure films I’ve seen, Obe & Ashima profiles nine-year old Ashima Shiraishi, a New York City bouldering prodigy under the tutelage of her passionate coach, Obe Carrion, a former professional. In part of the film, they head to Hueco Tanks, TX, seeking out the highest concentration of boulder problems in the U.S., where Ashima tears it apart. After climbing the notoriously difficult V12 Martini Right, Obe says to Ashima, “This is how psyched feels.”

    Race for the Nose
    It’s the wildest competition known to man, the speed record on the Nose route of Yosemite’s El Capitan. For 50+ years, the world’s best climbers have been one-upping each other, racing up 3,000 feet of vertical granite rock in under 3 hours, risking life and limb to shave mere seconds from the climb. In this film, we follow Dean Potter and Sean Leary, who duke it out with other teams for rock climbing’s ultimate prize.

    Sketchy Andy / Slacklife
    Andy Lewis is a nutty guy who, among other hobbies, enjoys BASE jumping, naked slacklining and aerial “trick-lining.” This film showcases someone who is pushing the limits–some might think too far–with some pretty gnarly feats. Below are some highlights, not from the film tour, of Andy’s best.

  • The World’s 10 Most Dangerous (and Extreme) Sports

    The World’s 10 Most Dangerous (and Extreme) Sports

    From TermLifeInsurance.org:

    Defining the world’s most dangerous sports remains a tricky subject, mainly due to limited data and a reluctance among organizers and participants to publicize deaths in their sport.

    If an activity involves being exposed to the elements of using special equipment on an inherently incontrollable and unpredictable environment, we’re classifying it as a dangerous sport.

    Here are ten of the most dangerous:

    The World's Most Dangerous (and Extreme) Sports

    I discovered this infographic when researching the world’s most dangerous and extreme sports. I’m not sure when it was put together, or how the numbers were culled, but regardless of the validity of the data, it’s an interesting list to think about.

    A lot of thought put into this, but I wouldn’t necessarily agree with the list. White water rafting? BMX? What about mountaineering, or free-climbing? The latter is particularly daunting.

    What do you think?

     

  • HD Storm Skimboarding on the Beach

    HD Storm Skimboarding on the Beach

    Cool footage of a skimboarder playing around in an approaching beach storm. His buddy captured the footage on a GoPro HD camera rigged to a broom pole–points for innovation–so we’re left with some pretty cool angles. And I thought skimboarding was kind of lame, boy was I wrong.