BANGKOK, THAILAND (Team Geared Up) - BBC Scotland followed Ulric Jessop on the 2007 Red Bull X-Alps paragliding challenge. The X-Alps race is an 850km flying and mountain climbing race across the European Alps where competitors armed only with their paraglider must scale high enough to jump and get the maximum distance before repeating. The route goes from East to West along the main rib of the alps.

X-Alps the documentary is showing on TV tomorrow.

The documentary, X-Alps, The World’s Most Extreme Race, will be shown on BBC Scotland on Tuesday 30th October at 7:00pm.

It will also be available on the BBC IPlayer service for those in the UK. Thanks to Paratiger for the email to tip us off about this.

-Robin-

LONDON, UK (Team Geared Up) - The Red Bull X-Alps challenge has started. The race requires athletes to travel as fast as possible from Austria to Monte Carlo by foot & paraglider only. Effectively they run/walk up mountains then jump off and fly as far as they can. Land & repeat.

There are no Irish entrants this year, but the photo above I took of the London Metro shows the UK entries. One UK pilot ‘Aidan Toase’ is currently in 2nd place.

I recommend you check out the live tracking it’s fantastic to watch as they all choose different peaks to climb, different valley’s to fly down. If you import into Google Earth you can see their altitude too and their updraft spirals are easily identified in the GPS tracklog.

Closer to home, the Red Bull Air Race takes place on the stretch of Thames outside my office this weekend.

-Robin-