Welcome back Adrian Roper of AXIS Foils - the man who still holds the mantle for the most listened to podcast we've ever done - from 2 years ago!
We were already keen to chat to Adrian about the mountain of new innovations that seem to be hitting the market soon from AXIS - but before we had a chance to ask, he cornered us in the carpark of the Hatch to ask us exactly the same.
It was hard to miss the hype around the brand at the AWSI show this year - there was a hive of activity around the stand the whole time we were there, and its also been very apparent from the downwind race season this year that AXIS had some pretty impressive kit on the way.
So, we let Adrian bring over all these new bits to show us through. Hopefully at some point we'll put some video up from it, because as you'll hear - he's man handling kit the entire episode. Frank even joins us at the end to discuss their relationship for a few minutes as well.
Podcast aside - we've been busy squirelling away on a couple bits. You may have noticed our t-shirt selling chitter chatter on the stories. Check out https://genericfoilingpod.com/shop for access to our t-shirts.
Liams also been working to make the website work a bit smoother (like a real life professional website) and you'll also notice theres a newsletter sign up form on there...... we're doing it! The first newsletter was sent out this Saturday just gone and we'll aim to do one every second saturday morning. I'll write one then liam will write one and hopefully you'll get a bit of a snippet of anything and everything else we don't get around to discussing in our episodes.
if you like what we're doing, theres also a link to the Buy me a Coffee account on the website - where you can chip in and buy us some beers. All profits go towards those beers as well as funding our next trip and media ideas!
Where did Slingshot come from and where is Slingshot going?? A great chat with Jeff Logosz, CEO of the brand - sat in the Offices in Hood River during our trip to the states.
Liam and I loved this one - coming from a kite background we loved hearing about the days where it all began.
We’ve also managed to nab some foils off Sam Light in the UK since we got home and Liams been spending a good bit of time on the One-Lock system. He’s a big fan, even in the first few sessions - gonna be an interesting debrief in our next chat together no doubt
We’ve still got t-shirt stock in all sizes - check out genericfoilingpod.com/shop to put in your orders - or if you’d like to support what we’re doing differently, check out buymeacoffee.com/gfpodcast
This week's episode is one that Freddie and I have been looking forward to for some time. Please welcome Connor Bainbridge, fellow Brit, man of many talents, and 2024 Formula Kite Olympian.
In this episode we get a:
- run down of Paris 2024
- sneak peak into the operations of Blue Fox Boards
- An example of the power of giving designers and engineers critical feedback
- history of his long period with F-One
- understanding of what Connor is now working on at Ozone
...all mixed in with some chitty chatty you've come to expect from GFP.
If you like what we do, do something about it. Tell your friends, family, colleagues, anyone that'll listen about our episodes, give us positive reviews, send us donations to buymeacoffee.com/gfpodcast or go buy a t-shirt at https://genericfoilingpod.com/shop
A great, refreshing and honest chat with Jon Modica - Cabrinha’s head honcho. We hear the story of how Jon went from Team Ripper right up to Chairman of the Board.
We were excited for this one having heard murmurings of a connection between Cabrinha and Mikes Lab for their new foil range connection system - we had to find out the truth!
Had to put the second and third photos up alongside.....
If you're enjoying these episodes and you're happy to support our beer addiction, check out buymeacoffee.com/gfpodcast to support. Otherwise you can do the same by buying a T-Shirt from genericfoilingpod.com/shop!
The Kernow Foil Classic has come and gone - you might’ve seen a couple shots floating around the socials.
Enthusiasm is high and we wanted to talk allllll about it! A quick one to recap the time spent down in Cornwall last week
We’ll be back with our AWSI chats promptly - we just couldnt help but squeeze this one in
as always - if you like what we’re doing - have a look see on buymeacoffee.com/gfpodcast to support with beer tokens. AND we’re now starting to shift some t-shirts - if anyones interested, ping us a message on here as we haven’t sussed out a webshop yet….. Black, Blue, Lilac Wang Lordz and Black and Blue GFP logo tee’s in S, M, L, XL. £25 per tee with usually a fiver postage!
Having invaded his home in Hood River, commandeered his wifi, made cups of English tea, used his electricity to top up the airbeds, charged all electronic devices, and had a good poo, we figured we ought to sit down and do a podcast with the man of the hour, Ewan Jaspan.
Ewan has been on Freddie and Liam's radar for decades as a professional kiteboarding athlete, pioneer amongst both the freestyle and wakestyle, and a standout filmmaker. Whilst he still pushes hard on the kite, he has been as hooked by foiling as the rest of us and rarely a windy day at the hatchery will go by without him sending a few laps with a paddle or parawing in hand.
Nowadays Ewan is the lead parawing and kite designer for Naish who will soon by release the appropriately named 'Hatch' parawing. This is his baby from start to finish and is a firm favourite amongst those locals lucky enough to have experienced the prototype iterations through its development. It is a product we are excited to see hit the market.
We hope you enjoy what we do. Rate us 5 stars on the podcast platforms, subscribe to our YouTube which now has some cool videos on there and send us a few quid on www.buymeacoffee.com/gfpodcast so we can keep doing trips and bringing you content recorded face-to-face, which we think produces much better results.
Until next time, enjoy!
The big one! We've given these guys a fair bit of grief over the last 18 months after initially hearing of their release - but we were very happy to sit down with designer extraordinaire, Chris Reynolds to set the story straight and to see how the entire process had come about now the product is on the market!
Legenrdary surfer turned foiler Eric Geiselman joins in to then give us his use cases for the FliteLab now its out and how its changed his outlook on prone surf foiling.
A great sit down with these guys - and about time too!
If you like what you're listening to - this trip wouldn't have been made possible without beer tokens from the listeners - it really opened people up and got them loose lipped! Check out https://buymeacoffee.com/gfpodcast for info on how to support
The Wanglordz haven’t sat down together since Christmas can you believe! Well, last year we never really deconstructed our first trip to America with the guys and Liam and I felt like maybe we’d missed a trick there - so we pushed to get the guys up to answer any questions they might’ve had about our trip this year
We also needed time to discuss Chris’s up and coming event - now in its third year - the Kernow Foil Classic. Liam and I are really looking forward to this time of year as everyone congregates down on Cornish beaches to ride together, compete and socialise afterwards. This year, for 5 days!
Once you’ve had a listen, go check out @kernowfoilclassic , sign up and come down even just to hang out - its gonna be a 'doozy'.
1-5th October - not long now!
Please welcome, THE foil assist athlete - Paul Cooper.
It’s a wonder we’ve made it this long without chatting to Paul before, but we were very glad to finally sit down and chat all things Foildrive and surf foil.
Paul’s been around a while now in foiling, converting pretty much entirely to Foildrive use in the surf - and you must have seen his air’s in the waves by now. Freddie especially was very keen to chat about his favourite foiling movie, the Bali movie which Paul was in charge of a year or so ago - another one worth watching if you haven’t already!
There’s also big chat here about how much it would take to get Freddie to try nail a backflip on a wing. Give it a listen for the value - I don’t think it’s unachievable at all. If anyone wants to stump up the cashola - I’ll nail that backflip to a wall!
We sat down with Gabe, Designer at Slingshot. He is one of a team of designers/engineers and focuses on wing, parawing and board design. Between our conversation with Gabe and chat with Bobby not too long ago, it feels like Slingshot have an exciting mix of fresh engineers and established experience and I’m excited to see what other innovations come out in the coming years.
We talked about the following (in no particular order):
- Would a scaled down aeroplane design foil?!
- What his design process/data collection system looks like?
- How the slingshot parawing design is progressing
- Parawing and wing material science
- Long term durability and water retention potential of parawings
- The implication of Alula on wing designs
- How has One-Lock gone down?
- Production board construction
- What he is most proud of
- Artistic design vs optimisation
- Biggest screw up
- Room 101!
- and much much more!
Remember that you guys helped us get to AWSI 2025 which allowed us to bring you content. So, please consider donating some beer money on the buymeacoffee account.
www.buymeacoffee.com/gfpodcast
We sat down with Dan and Ben from Code and talked about the following (in no particular order):
- Height of foilers and how it affects their riding and gear choices
- Weight of foilers (as above)
- Why pros don't always use super short fuses
- New X series foil - who is it for and what spots is it for?
- What tails are good with the new x series
- Code/FoilDrive integrated mast
- Who is on top in the foil assist game
- Who does what at Code on the design side
- What disciplines the Code boys use to test foils
- Learning to parawing
- How the setup changes from Sup DW to para and the pros and cons of each
- Front v back foot pressure foils/brands
- Social considerations for getting into downwinding whatever your power source
Aren’t we good?! If you think so, please donate some beer money on the buymeacoffee account pretty please.
www.buymeacoffee.com/gfpodcast
We've all been running around like blue arsed fly's for the last few days while the AWSI show was on - both sets of Podcasters trying to get interviews recorded with as many people as possible while they were all in one place.
We're a few days post show now and its quietening down - a perfect time to smush our two podcasts into one to dissect our both our findings from the show and all the new products on offer.
Dylan and Walt from the X Foils Podcast and Freddie and Liam all throw their opinions into the mix in this chilled episode recorded in the Hatchery carpark, post and pre more parawing sessions
We've got another week in Hood River still and there are plenty folks still around to ride with - fingers crossed we get some more sessions once we've relaxed at least a little bit!
If you like what we're doing and you want to help top up the beer fund, check out https://buymeacoffee.com/gfpodcast - any support is extremely welcomed!
We're back for our second time in Hood River, Oregon for the AWSI event here. 2 mental days so far and lots to discuss.
The hype level here is off the charts. Its been awesome to see so many friendly faces again - the entire foiling world has been rocking up to solid head high swell and 2/3m wing winds. So many hours clocked up parawinging already in just 2 days.
The Beer chest is stocked and in full flow, we've welcomed teams from Appletree, Foildrive, Code Foils and further afield for mid arvo beers so far and the chest is well depleted!
If you're enjoying what we do and wanna help prop up the foiling worlds beer consumtption - check out https://buymeacoffee.com/gfpodcast. Rememeber - the drunker they are, the more gossip they'll chat!
Roll on the actual AWSI event Wednesday onwards
Easterlies in Exmouth, Electric pump marketing, music usage in foiling videos and Liams new board build - we covered it all. What more could you possibly want from a foiling podcast?
Its been epic at home this weekend just gone and we're all hyped up about each and every discipline on offer - even Freddies in a good mood at this point, but i wonder how long that'll last....
We hope everyone's getting out and about on the water. We're gearing up for America in a couple weeks and getting pretty excited about it again - hopefully Liam doesnt cock his board build up too much as he's very looking forward to getting it out on the water
If you like what we're doing and you wanted to support at all, we're still accepting beer tokens ahead of our trip. Check out https://buymeacoffee.com/gfpodcast for different options
Dave West - one of the guests that many of you have been waiting for. This episode contains just the right mix of foiling chat, insider knowledge, banter, and ranting. A really enjoyable episode for us to record and, hopefully, a really enjoyable episode for you to listen to.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate us 5 stars on your chosen podcast provider, and go and leave Dave a childish comment on one of his YouTube videos.
Old School strapless kitesurf pioneer turned downwind and parawing frother.
Huge amounts of content was consumed of Patricks early days strapless kitesurf riding when Liam and I were honing our kite skills and now he's churning out the videos of his downwind runs along the Oregon and Californian coastline.
Patrick was kind enough to offer us a place to crash as we drove down the coast past his town last year on our trip, and we spent a great morning chatting all things kitesurf and foil history - we knew we'd need to sit down and record eventually. It may have taken 10 months - but its a banger.
If you like what we're doing - we're hoping to do more! Check out buymeacoffee.com/gfpodcast if you want to help us along our way, we'll be back stateside in a months time trying to get as many interviews under our belts as possible!
A little catch up on the news and whats been going on in our local area for the last couple weeks
The Hawaiian races have been on and we know very little, but as always like to stick our opinions in where they're probably not wanted. Freddies had a good crack finally at paddling up in flat water and Liams Mako finally arrives.
A nice short episode to get you, the listeners back on track. And hopefully Liam and I can get ourselves back on track with some more frequent episodes.
We did talk to Matt at 'Up on Foil' very recently and his episode has now been released - maybe some more podcast related chat on there, but it was a really fun chat and we recomend it as a listen
What is this Plume thing and why should we get one? This has been the question on a tonne of peoples minds recently, and who better to answer the question than Mr F-One.
A great catchup with Julien about the newest kids on the block - the Plume and the Frigate - and also a great delve into where foil design might be going, after these new disciplines have rocked up and turned things on their head.
We look forward to catching up with Julian over a beer soon - and if you wanna help support that you can have a gander over on https://buymeacoffee.com/gfpodcast !
A brilliant conversation with Mr Starboard Foils himself, Tiesda You. There is a good dose of technical information in this episode with discussions on:
- Software optimisation of foils
- Starting a 'non-athlete' career in the foiling/watersports industry
- The potential disruption of AI
- The 'Universal Connection System'
- Traditional British dessert making
and much more. Rate us 5 stars, send us messages, support us on 'buymeacoffee' if you would like to and all that jazz.
A busy week for the social calendar and a busy week on the water!
The boys have a quick debrief on the wedding of Guy & Emma, dive more into the downwind SUP vs Parawing debate, reflect on cross-discipline technical learnings and much more.