The Generic Foiling Podcast

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!