At only 27 years old, the young sportsman from Drôme is one of the best speed riders in the world. He recently caused a sensation by racing down the slopes of the Hautes-Alpes mountains without waiting for the first snowfall. An impressive performance, in the image of a booming discipline.
Valentin Delluc's speed riding videos fascinate the world. The general public discovered him in 2018 with the superb "Moonline" sequence, in which he flies over Chamonix at night in magical silence. A ski instructor in Morzine (Haute-Savoie) in winter, Valentin Delluc is a microlight instructor in summer. So he was predestined for speed riding, an outdoor sport that alternates flying and gliding by combining mini-sailing and free-skiing. It's thanks to this 11 to 12 m2 paraglider-like wing that Valentin Delluc soars above the summits. It's a way of pushing one's limits by taking on slopes inaccessible to skiers...and even defying death. A few years ago, Valentin Delluc sent shivers down the spine of the Web when he posted a crazy sequence in which he flew at 125 km/h to escape a terrible avalanche on the north face of the Aiguille du Midi. Once again, the speed rider had set the bar very high, starting at an altitude of 3563 metres, with a 1300-metre vertical drop, a slope flirting with 45 degrees and immense, unwelcoming cliffs... Because it's in the great vertical drops of the high mountains that speedriding really comes into its own.
A clever mix of disciplines
More recently, Valentin Delluc has shown that speed riding can be perfectly practised in the absence of snow. Shortly before the second confinement, he skied the rock, grass and dirt slopes of the Hautes-Alpes and Écrins massifs, before taking off for a superb landing on Lac de Serre-Ponçon. We also see him perform a few tricks in the air, winched by a boat. Valentin describes the incredible sensation of floating above the water, making him forget the painful pins and needles in his feet caused by sliding his skis over the pebbles. With a background in downhill skiing, freestyle, freeride, paragliding and kitesurfing, the rider is never short of ideas for mixing disciplines. To the delight of all thrill-seekers!