Second training day in GV, different conditions. The sky looked good in the morning but during the bus ride to the take-off it changed dramatically. Almost totally overcast. And after one hour spent drinking and eating and chattting at the Bar da Rampa, rain curtains appeared upwind, east of the Ibituruna peak. I repacked by precaution.
Almost all the French team has arrived, so everyone minded his own business: Antoine goes airborne first, then Jojo, then another one… well, let’s look how they manage it. Some raindrops fall, Antoine flies away with ears, Jojo hids to come back a bit later. OK, let’s go now before the real rain arrives. In fact, it appears I took off to go meeting the rain personnaly. I experimented a new technique: after years of practicing turning on the edge of Cu’s with the wing-tip a bit in the fog for half the turn, now is time to try the wing-tip a bit in the rain for half the turn. Not easy, not pleasant, I go away. Wings are scattered all around the peak, let’s find a dry route and not drift too much with the wind.
After 20kms or so, a low save, a slow recovery, time has come to make it back to GV. My intention is to cross the blue cell towards the peak, Laurie wishes to experiment the cloudstreet terminating in rain pour. OK, girls first. Once under the dark cloud, over its shadow, I cannot grab her bubble and here we go again. An opportuniy to check that my bright R-Team Orange is not fading with the 30° washing program. I push the bar to escape, goes visiting a white but wet friend, checking how dry or wet is my gear before releasing the bar and touching my brakes. Strange how these seconds seem like hours.
I like to comptemplate rainbows. Watching one a bit too close and from above, I turned my head away and headed for the landing place. A 50km out-and-return was the right flying dose for today. Tomorrow, first official unofficial traning day for the 2013 SurperFinal!
