The Prototype that Caught my Eye

I’m an architect, multisport adventurer and professional Speedriding & Speedflying athlete.

Born and raised in Italy, I’ve always been fascinated by the majesty of the mountains and the power of the oceans, riding and sailing both environments. After many years on the national Italian Team as an athlete for dinghy sailing international regattas, kitesurfing enlightened my possibility to play with a wing in the third dimension.

The first time I became aware of the Speedflying and Speedriding discipline was in 2005. I was in Hawaii, specifically in Maui. After a beautiful day of kitesurfing big waves in Hookipa, my friend Alex showed me some videos related to paragliding and other aerial extreme sports. To be more exact, he showed me this clip of a group of French pilots flying down Mont Blanc, with really small and super fast skydiving canopies. Furthermore, another video caught our attention - someone was flying down a mountain with a mini-wing and skis on his feet. The clip showed him landing mid mountain, on a majestic face full of untouched snow, totally inaccessible and surrounded by cliffs.

The ride was stunning! The little wing follows the smooth turns of the skier and then, just before the huge 500m cliff drop, he flies away and he’s back in the air!

That video was a blast. Unfortunately, those wings were prototypes and I had to wait about seven years before paragliding manufacturers started designing wings dedicated to the sport. Voilà! A few years later, I could really realize my dream! At the time, I was still living in Italy and decided to start from the basics. I went to a paragliding school and started flying as much as possible.

I didn’t focus on one discipline only, but expanded my flying activities with Hike And Fly and aerobatics.

Flying and riding small canopies is still my main discipline and I can share the intense emotion of what our sport is in these words:

“Every person that has ever taken off with a wing above the head knows exactly that breath-taking moment when you leave your feet off the ground!

Speedflying/riding (and proximity flying) is also the research of that super-intense moment, maintaining it as long as possible in a run that lasts only a few minutes.”

In case you are curious or you want to ask me more about Speedriding or Speedflying, I’m more than happy to share with you more info and details. Feel free to contact me or follow my adventures at my Instagram account: @giorgiotraverso