Speed rider Valentin Delluc filmed one of the strangest lines ever ridden on a ski hill: a slide along the cable of a chairlift, with a small speed wing over his head and skis on his feet. His Vimeo film, Slide a chair lift cable SpeedRiding, is shot from his own onboard camera, so the steel cable runs straight out in front of the viewer above forested mountain terrain.
Valentin Delluc's chairlift cable slide
According to Delluc's own description of the video, the lift was a three-seat chairlift more than 30 years old. It had been out of service for a year and was due to be dismantled a month after the stunt, and he states that he caused no damage to it. He also writes, in French, that the slide is very complicated and dangerous, that nobody should try it, and that he attempted it only after thousands of hours of practice. A longer cut of the film is linked from the same Vimeo page.
Delluc rides for Völkl, Marker, Dalbello and Rab, the sponsors listed with the video.
What is speed riding?
Speed riding is a hybrid of skiing and paragliding. The rider skis down a mountain under a small, fast wing, touching the snow on some sections and flying over cliffs, rocks and steps on others. Its summer twin, done on foot, is called speed flying.
- Wing size: speed wings range from about 4.7 to 18 m²; speed riding typically uses 7 to 10 m². A normal paraglider is 20 to 35 m².
- Speed: roughly 30 to 150 km/h, much faster than a paraglider.
- Glide ratio: about 3:1 to 7:1, so the wing stays close to the slope.
- Weight: only 2 to 4 kg, easy to carry in a backpack.
A sport born in the French Alps
The sport's founding moment came on 7 February 2001 at Valfréjus in the French Alps. With the wind too strong for paragliding, Frédéric Fugen suggested flying a small parachute while skiing a steep freeride face. It worked. Fugen, Frank Coupat, David Eyraud, François Bon and Antoine Montant formed the first group of pilots and coined the name "speed riding". François Bon later helped develop the first dedicated speed wing, the Gin Nano.
France's free-flight federation, the FFVL, recognised speed riding as a sport in its own right on 2 February 2006, and the first annual competition, Speed Flying Pro at Les Arcs, followed in January 2007. Today there are an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 pilots worldwide, and riders have flown from summits as high as Aconcagua in the Andes.
How to learn speed riding
Learn it at a recognised school. Instruction combines advanced wing handling with solid off-piste skiing, and riders wear a helmet, back protector and padded harness. Switzerland treats skiing with a speed wing like paragliding for training and insurance purposes, and the national hang gliding and paragliding association sets its safety requirements. In Britain, the BHPA's speed flying pages explain how pilots progress.
For more mountain footage shot from the rider's point of view, try BASE footage and perspective and an action-camera snowmobile sequence.
Related reading
- IMAGINE: Wingsuit Flight and Skiing Share the Mountain Frame
- Let Me Take You to the Mountain: GoPro’s Andes Adventure
- A Teenager’s Chairlift Fall: The ABC News Account
- Mount Baker Road Gap: A Backflip Attempt and Its Landing
- Dub Roots: Dubsatch Collective’s Alta Ski Film
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