Episode #144 - Mike Raper & Nico Hopp

[00:00:00] Hey everyone, welcome back to the show. On this episode we sit down with Mike Raper and Nico Hopp to talk about, you probably guessed it, the foil drive revolution and much more. So we do hope that you enjoy this episode. As we catch up with Mike and Nico, we haven't had a chance to talk to them in a while so it was a really fun conversation. So we hope you enjoy it.

[00:00:24] Next we want to give a big shout out to Carl from the Launchpad Windsurf Academy. He is live from AWSI and will be covering the event with us this year. Make sure to follow our Instagram and YouTube channel closely as Carl is going to be showcasing all that new gear that's coming your way soon from your favorite brands. So we do hope that you enjoy that content.

[00:00:46] Next, we want to say a big thank you to our team. We have Frank, Stefan, Pam and Carl. Thank you for your hard work behind the scenes that makes this show possible. Lastly, thank you to our sponsors for this year. We have North Foils, Mystic and On Kiteboarding. Please visit Foil Life Podcast dot com forward slash sponsors to learn more about them. Now I hope you enjoy the show.

[00:01:08] Welcome to Foil Life Podcast. Whether you wing, kite, peril wing, downwind, pump or e-foil, thanks for being here. Alright Mike, Nico, thanks for joining us. No worries. Nice to see you again Luc. It's been a while my friend. And Nico, how are you bro? Good to see you. Ah good, yeah. It's 6 o'clock in the morning so don't expect too much. Have you got a coffee? Yeah, I got it. Happy to be here, to be honest. Like always on the Foil Life Podcast.

[00:01:38] But it's not as hot as last time, right Nico? No, it's not. It was like 40 degrees for you last time. Yeah, thank God. That's over. No, it's heaps better. What a summer Europe's had, hey? It's been crazy. Crazy. It's like they're actually predicting another heat wave for September. So this is peak season for foiling right now. People are just coming back from the holidays. So a lot of people just got into foiling, doing a wing foil course or getting into foil assist, foil drive. And now they're back and they're still stocking up on gear. It's crazy. It's, yeah.

[00:02:07] And with those heat waves, are you getting like the thermic, big thermic effects in the mountains and stuff? Yeah, not really. We didn't have much wind. It's just like a dome, like a heat dome. And then it moves very slowly and it's like trapped in its position. So it's actually pretty bad. With those big highs sitting over the top, don't you get the thermics in the morning or the evenings? Or is it not? Not much, apparently. It's like everything's heated up.

[00:02:34] It's like there's not a big difference in between land and water and all the rivers are super hot. So the fish are dying. It's a really awkward situation. Yeah. Oh, shit. Wow. I didn't know about that. Yeah. Yeah, it's like the river is up to 30 degrees. It's like a warm bath. Yeah. Wow. Have you been able to get away and escape it or? Yeah. Yeah. Heaps. Yeah, nice. Very big.

[00:03:00] Went a lot to the Baltic Sea, which is up north and did some foil drive cams. It was pretty hot, but it was good. At least people can go on a demo session in their 40s, which is nice. Yeah, nice. I like the Baltic markets. It's good fun. It's cool. Sorry, Nico. I was pretending I was a host there. Oh, no. It's in Luke. I was pretending I was being a host there. Sorry. I was just curious what Nico had been up to. You never know. Yeah, yeah. That makes sense.

[00:03:30] Well, you've been writing, Mike. You've gotten a ton of writing in the last little while. Yeah. Yeah, I've been super lucky. How was that? Super lucky. Really good, hey? It's not often like I've just been working my ass off for a long time. And I'm showing my age probably. But yeah, many, many years. And it's been so nice just to have a complete break, honestly, and just get a bit of time to refresh and reset and kind of look at what's out there.

[00:03:58] And basically, to be honest, chase wind and surf as well. You know, we had an option to, you know, this six-month period. It's like, right, should we go to Europe? Should we go to, where should we go? I'm like, can we just stay here and can I just go and chase the wind and the waves? And between New Zealand and Australia, we're pretty much, we're really lucky because you just get all the Pacific Ocean swells. You get all the big roaring 40s down south of us. So there's always swell. There's always wind. So we're, you know, we're pretty, pretty lucky. We haven't got many fish dying, and I wish it could be a little bit warmer.

[00:04:27] But it's, yeah. I'll send you some. Take some heat from here. Yeah, please. Thank you. Okay. Sounds good. Okay. And my health has been good? Yeah, yeah, good. I mean, yeah, I mean, I had that. What was that? I had a brain hemorrhage, was it? In 2024, in June. And it was pretty life-changing, to be honest. It was, it was, just gave me a real kick up the bum to prioritize what's important

[00:04:56] and really kind of focus and appreciate, you know, every day we've got on Earth. I get a bit holistic here, but when you have a, you know, near-death experience, you kind of go in that direction for a little while. But it's, you know, I've always been, I've always been, I've always been an optimistic, happy, relatively happy person. But, like, just going through that, it just makes you realize every morning wake up. It's like, right, okay, what are we doing today? Like, and appreciate every moment that you've got. So, it's, no, it's been nice.

[00:05:23] And it's, and to be honest, of the, you know, the time I've had just been in with family and friends and going on loads of adventures and scored some sick sessions in Australia, went up and down the coast, East Coast over there in Adelaide, and sort of getting their coastline. And then also New Zealand, just going from Raglan to Ahipara to all over. It's been, it's been awesome. Just every, just, you know, it's the ultimate dream. You sit there and go, right, what's Fulcast doing on the ocean? You know, maps within sort of a few thousand K radius.

[00:05:53] Right, I'm going to go there for a couple of weeks. I'm going to go there for a week, go there for a few days. So, yeah, I've just been chasing as well. A little bit of power winging, but to be honest, I must admit sort of 50, probably 50, 60% of it has been four driving or tow-filling, but on the really, really big stuff. But, but most days when it's, you know, head double, double overhead, I'm just enjoying the four drive, being able to get out and get into those, those brakes that we haven't been able to get to before. And it's just been, it's been so exciting.

[00:06:23] And obviously with the four drive getting more efficient, you're kind of down. I'm like, I'm a big dad bod, you know, your typical sort of demographic. What are you talking about? You got some. Well, I'm 93, 94 kg. So it's, I'm pretty up there, you know. Yeah. And I'm able to ride a 35 liter board and, and small wings. So being able to get sort of 680, 700, 800 wings means you can get some speed. And I think with the four drive now, with the amount of power and thrust we're getting,

[00:06:51] you're able to get out to those and onto those bigger waves you weren't able to get before because you just, the wings were too big and they had too much drag. Now with the smaller wings, you can really, you know, once you're up, you're pumping. You can actually go faster when you're pumping than when you're on, on trigger. So just being able to pump into those bigger swells and, and maximize that and actually ride it fairly aggressively. It's not, for sure, it's not as good as prone or small sort of small wings and prone or towing. But, but it's not far away, you know, it's getting closer and closer.

[00:07:21] So I've been enjoying that. You've been ripping on that thing for a while though. I remember last year, even before you were getting a lot of waves on foil drive. Yeah. Well, with the old, with the old brand, we used to, um, we used to do a lot of testing, um, that way. It was just a, if it wasn't windy, it's not windy every day. Um, we haven't got perfect conditions. Yeah. Um, Nico, you know, it's like just for, for benchmarking, testing and, you know, writing competitors products, our products, just going backs and forwards and feeling,

[00:07:49] you know, the, the role, the, your, the pump ability, the pitch and like all of that stuff is just, you can go out a quick sesh, come back, tweak, change, adjust, go out again. And, and just means you're able to, to get through a lot more work or I wouldn't call it work, but for me, it's fun. You know, it's like, same as Nico, it's just like testing lots of different gear to, to try and tweak it and find what's working. So what works for you specifically, I guess. Hey everyone.

[00:08:14] Sorry to interrupt this episode, but it is time for the AWSI trade show once again. And we are live at the event. Thanks to our good friend, Carl from the Launchpad Windsurf Academy. So make sure to keep an eye on our Instagram and YouTube channel for event coverage, including gear presentations from your favorite brand. All right, let's get back to it. All the small parts. If you're testing a phone and you want to just swap the stabilizer and do it back and forth, it's super convenient.

[00:08:43] You don't have to wait for a swirl or wind. You just go in and out, maybe swap a chimp, a go out and you can, Foil drive goes pretty fast these days. I can go almost 40 kilometers and then just go into a glide and just glide. So the pot is out of the water. I'm in an assist position and I'm just gliding, feeling the foil and then pumping a little bit, feel the resistance and then go back, swap the stabilizer, swap the chimp. And that's, it's like, just like Mike said, it's super convenient and fun at the same time.

[00:09:13] Yeah. It's crazy. It's super efficient. I, it's a, that's the bottom line. It's just the efficiency. Um, I mean, at four drive, they just produced a video. I don't know if you guys saw it with, um, um, with Jerry Lopez. Did you guys catch that on, on YouTube? Goose bombs right here. It's really interesting. Yeah, man, me too. Yeah. What a legend. Um, he's just, you know, see the legend of surfing pipeline and, and the history he's had in snowboarding and all these different sports. But in fact, he's, you know, he's a 77 year old ripper.

[00:09:43] Um, and he's, he's, his go-to at the moment is, is, is full driving just cause he can get to those breaks. None of the surfers are at and he's, and he's riding these beautiful waves and just say, um, yeah, I mean, he's in his happy place. You know, it's, it's, uh, I think that a lot of people are finding that, um, you know, the electrification of foiling in that, that area. You know, we look, we go back a couple of years ago and it was like, yeah, yeah. Um, you know, we, some, you know, some people poopooed it for sure. The purists maybe still do.

[00:10:12] But from my perspective, I've been in all these different sports from the beginning and, and, you know, watching windsurfing come through and kiting, you know, some first, probably handful of people in the world to, to kite surf back in the day and watch that sport develop and then see SEPs and then all the different aspects of, of that. And then wing foiling and foiling and all the different disciplines of foiling. And suddenly you look at it and go, well, you know, one of, one of the easiest ways now to get into foiling is with foil assist and specifically for drive products.

[00:10:42] So user-friendly it bolts onto anything. It's, it's, you know, you've got all different weights and sizes and shapes, and you can just, depending on where you are, your conditions, your riding characteristics, the type of sport you want to go into, um, you, you can pick and choose and, and teaching now is on the fusions, basically like a lightweight efoil. You know, you can run for 90 minutes, two hours on a, depending on your skill level on, on, and a phenomenally powerful system, which gets beginners going on big boards and big foils.

[00:11:10] And, you know, it's just opening up this, our sports to more and more people. And that, that's what's got me excited about it for sure. I guess a congratulations is in order as well, Mr. Mike. Yeah. Yeah. Congratulations. Well, I don't know if it's congratulations. I would have quite happily been unemployed for the rest of my life. I know. It's pretty nice, isn't it? Yeah. It would have been good. Um, if only I could retire. I wish I could. Yeah. Um, no, yeah.

[00:11:41] I had to go back to work at some stage. So, um, I was very lucky to have the freedom to be able to do that. Um, and sort of take a step back and look at the industry and say, you know, where, where do I see the growth coming for the next years? And, um, as much as I live in sports and I've been in it since, you know, since I was a child, um, um, I, I just see the opportunities that are here for, for, for assist and powered foiling.

[00:12:07] And, um, there's just so much opportunity, um, for so many more people to get into the sport. And I'm really excited specifically with four drive. You know, the big attraction to me was, um, it's kind of mates with Paul and, and just meeting Ben and, and the team that are, that are at four drive, just a beautiful bunch of humans. You know, there's, there's a great crew. Do their own manufacturing. I mean, Nico, you know, they're just, they're good people. Um, and that, that, you know, people as, you know, people, as you know, people goes a long way and it's people is really important.

[00:12:37] So if I figured for the next stage of my life, um, I was, I was pretty excited to have the opportunity to come work with them and, and, um, and take on a role as, um, um, global brand director. So basically responsible for brand marketing, look, feel, taste, color, that sort of thing. And then also working with, um, the product manager will report to me as well. So just working with how do we bring new products to market? Um, how do we introduce them? How do we make them easy to understand? Cause it's quite a technical sport.

[00:13:07] Um, and the team's, you know, we've got a great team there already and, and looking on just trying to add to that and help build, build on that. And, and, um, just keep, keep on doing what the four drive team have been doing for the past few years. It's been amazing to watch them grow and succeed. So really feel privileged to be part of that crew, you know? Um, and, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's going to be fun. It's going to be good fun. And it's a product that you love and we're using all the time to begin with. And you're right.

[00:13:34] Like the growth of the industry of where you're, where it's heading, it's kind of cool to be at the birth of something new. You know what I mean? Once again. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, totally. I mean, passion when look, look, we're all the same, you know, every single one of us here in this conversation and most people we talk to on a daily basis, this is our passion, you know, we're so lucky to be in the age that we're able to do this and, and to be able to, I mean, whoever thought would be out there foiling for as long as we are on, in the conditions we're foiling.

[00:14:03] And that's, it's pretty amazing way to experience the ocean and, and, you know, ride waves and do downwinders and, you know, wake, uh, wake thief and lakes. And like, it's just, you know, there's, there's so much opportunity. Um, and just, yeah, so exciting. And I know it sounds kind of cheesy, but it's this surface for surface, but I think this is what Ford Drive still feels for me. Like you might just say, um, Ben, Paul, they're just in the whole Ford Drive team.

[00:14:33] They're just amazing people. I met them and this is why I'm with Ford Drive too, because sort of really like the people and the mentality and Ford Drive is a growing company, but it's still, if we are having events and we work 12 hours a day, it's still everybody throtting to go for a Ford Drive session in the evening. And then it's like, okay, are we going to pack down first? Are we going for a session first? And then we just check the forecast and, and everyone's happy to jump in. And I think this is really important for me. It's, it's a growing company.

[00:15:03] Things are getting a little bit more complicated, but it's still surface for surface. And this is still the mentality with Ford Drive. And that's, yeah, that's nice to see. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you, if you go back to the reason, um, Paul specifically sort of started tinkering and designing the products, it's because he, you know, he had a bung shoulder and he was struggling with the paddle and he was like, I, he just wanted a solution. You know, it wasn't, he wasn't designing it to look at a market share or he wasn't analyzing it of how can I make profit out of this?

[00:15:33] He was looking at it as how do I solve a problem? Um, and then he, to be fair, he took it way too far and said, how can I get it? The lightest weight, the highest performance, you know, but that's, that's just his, isn't Ben's mentality. Yeah, exactly. And Ben's the same. Like they're just looking for every little millimeter and every, you know, 0.1 of a kilogram. It's like, it's, it's, um, yeah, a milligram.

[00:15:57] It's like, it's insane watching them chase weight, um, efficiency, power, runtime thrust. It's, it's, it's pretty, pretty crazy now that sort of had sort of three weeks on the inside just to see the level of, of knowledge. Um, and it's pretty phenomenal knowledge, like their background of where they come from is if you, if anyone hasn't, uh, watched the video, just go to the Ford Drive YouTube channel and, and, um, and there's kind of a story on the history of the company.

[00:16:26] Um, and then the other one I think I mentioned before was the, was the Jerry Lopez video. They're definitely two videos well worth watching. Um, yeah, grab coffee or beer and have a sit down. It's pretty inspiring stuff. It is. Were you able to see anything behind the scenes that surprised you? Cool. Shit. That's a good question. Like, I like that one. Thanks, Mike. Um, oh no, honestly, how, how, what surprised me was the level of knowledge at, at all levels

[00:16:55] of the business. Um, I think everyone's just been, they're so. Like the customer service and the, from, from manufacturing to everywhere. It's just, just blows me away by, by how passionate they all are and, and how much more importantly, I think, no, it's a knowledge. Like it's just really good experience. Like, um, I mean, I've thought there's going to be new companies coming along to sort of compete, I'm sure over time. And, um, there's, you know, there's a few out there, but I think what's always going

[00:17:25] to win with four drivers is, is their knowledge and their experience, um, you know, supported heavily by passion, but passion can only take so far. But I think the knowledge and the experience is what's going to really, um, really help make better products. And at the end of the day, we're all looking for the lightest, fastest, most powerful ride. So we can just keep going smaller on the boards and smaller on the foils and go further. You know, it's like, so that's, that's, that's pretty exciting to see some of the, some of the stuff in the pipeline as well, which is pretty cool.

[00:17:55] Not that I can talk about it. No, that's fine. We, we, we know that now. I finally got to foil drive in Ecuador in May. I don't know if I told you, Mike and Nico, but I think it took me about, yeah, it took me about half an hour to get up. And mainly because the board was slippery. So like, it didn't have a good deck on it, but it was pretty cool to get up and, and finally try that for the first time. So that was quite fun, actually. Nice. Yeah. I mean, if you can, if you can get like, if you get one or two sessions on flat water,

[00:18:22] if you're like as an experienced foiler, like you already, you need one, two sessions and then you can start chasing downwind lumps and bumps, or if you're close to an ocean, grab some swell. So, um, and I swear you're having just as much fun in waist high surf as you are in double overhead, triple overhead. Well, not quite as much fun. Not far off. It's a different kind of fun. Yeah. I was just supporting a, a, a, a she surfs camp in, on the Baltic sea was foil drive. It's run by winger of the sea and racer of the sea.

[00:18:51] And it was 25 girls getting into wing foiling, uh, wind surfing, wind foiling. Um, apparently we didn't have wind for four days, so it was more or less 24 seven foil drive and it turned into a foil drive cam. But it was amazing to see the progress. And some girls were like beginners, not, not used to foil and they got into proper foiling and the other ones maybe struggling with a jibe or just a little bit more experience on foil.

[00:19:20] They were having such a good time and a very steep learning process. And this was so nice to see most demos we run are just 20 minutes, half an hour people sending out and there's a lot of foil drive demos all around the world, but this one was different. And it was sort of a mind blowing experience to see how fast people can go from zero to a really like nice degree of foiling with a foil drive. Yeah. That's so cool. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm blown away.

[00:19:48] I'm relatively disconnected on the, on the coaching, the teaching side at the moment. Um, just cause I've been out for a little bit, but I'm really curious how people get into that and, and more importantly, where they can go to do these camps. Cause I think it's saying, same if you go on a skiing holiday, you know, you, if you go for one day, what are you going to learn? But if you go for a week, 10 days and you're with coaches and teachers and instructors every day, your progression, as you say, your, your, your learning curve is so high. It's like, how do we get more people to get good coaching with experienced people like

[00:20:18] you? Um, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's so critical of these camps, but I'm curious how they get into it. Yeah. It's like a, um, a sort of a event running company from Germany and they do races for everyone. So they used to be windsurf professionals and, um, now they're on the fun side, still racing, but more for fun. And, um, yeah, they just asked for drive if we would like to come along. And it was a sort of a side effect, but, um, this event was like for drive only.

[00:20:48] And the funny part is the first session now, everyone who's watching this on YouTube is in a little bit of a favor. I've got the remote here. I'll take in the new one. Let's see. So the first session I always say is about the trigger. It's like, if you've got like one of these little toy cars you're running, it's, you need to know how much you push that trigger. And first session is pretty much for everyone. It's just getting to an old foil drive and how much I have to push in what situation. And from there on, it's just steep learning curve.

[00:21:17] It's so crazy. That's super cool. And then coaching wise, like learning these sort of camps, do you have them in other places in Germany or? Yeah, we do. We do like some mainly, um, demo events. This one is a bit different than the ones we run. Usually, um, people just show up. It's advertised on Instagram and on the foil drive website. And they can just show up and do a demo for free. And if there's space, they can have a second run.

[00:21:43] But this one was, it wasn't intended to be like a proper foil drive camp. It just turned into one because we didn't have any, any wind. And they were, the girls were, we were like sitting in the evening, we would just sit in a circle and say what's good and what wasn't the whole day. And everyone was like, oh yeah, it's a foil drive was good foil drive. And then we decided like, usually we started at 10 in the morning and they're like, we good for a early morning birdie session. And like when the water's like super flat. And I was like, yeah, sure. Nice.

[00:22:11] If we're already foil driving 12 hours a day, let's make it 14. No problem. Don't worry. I hope you have enough charges. Oh yeah. Heaps, heaps of batteries. We had four boards, so we could swap batteries out fairly easy. And it's such, it's so quick, like, because you just undo the latches, you're changing batteries. Yeah. I think there's a lot to be said about having, having these sort of camps where you can,

[00:22:35] you can go with someone for sort of three, four, five, seven days somewhere. Um, I know Ryan does it, Ozzy does it, and Josh is doing one in Hood River this week, I think. And, you know, there's some, these, some of these camps are amazing. Um, I'm looking forward to sort of meeting the whole wider four drive network, which I don't know at the moment, but getting to meet everybody. But it sounds like, um, there's, you know, the, just spreading the word about these, these

[00:23:01] group camps and, and being able to go away and learn all this seems pretty important. Yeah. I think Mike, how much, how much fun is it, Mike, to be able to learn and geek out? Cause out of everybody that attended AWSI, we can, we can say that your product presentations and your knowledge of your product was, it's like you and Adrian, right? Like how much, how, you're welcome. How much fun is it to like, to be able to geek out on all that stuff?

[00:23:31] Thank you. But I think all, I think all the, all the brands do, you know, it's, it's, it's, it wasn't, but that, no, I appreciate the comment though. Um, but yeah, I think everyone just, we, everyone gets into the materials, the manufacturing process, the, the aerodynamics, fluid dynamics of, of everything. And, um, and it's just, I guess it's just through natural interest and, and inquisitive, you know, being inquisitive and wanting to know more.

[00:23:59] Um, and then you kind of, that's when the ideas start coming and the more, you know, the, the more you're able to sort of apply it and discuss it and debate it and try new ideas and stuff. So, but I think that's what I'm attracted to with, with Paul and Ben and the team. It's like just, man, I, I mean, I still haven't been schooled properly yet on power and thrust and amps and watt hours and current and all of this, this, I'm learning it slowly. Um, and, but I, I've got so much to learn.

[00:24:27] Um, so, so much to learn. So, so yeah, it's been exciting to answer your question. Really exciting to learn something completely new, um, which I knew, which I hadn't done before. So it's, yeah, it's, it's been, it's been good fun, um, soaking it all in and, and looking forward to understanding a lot more. And, and I, I, I think this, as we said before, you know, there's, there's just so much opportunity for improvement from a performance perspective. Um, you know, batteries are getting better every six months. There's a new type of battery.

[00:24:57] There's a new power to weight ratio. There's, um, you know, how you get more thrust out of a battery and, um, how you get more power. Because the reality is all we're trying to get to is three main things that I look at, which is power and, and arguably thrust, um, runtime and weight. So if you can, those, those are kind of the three main factors and you can, you know, there's trade-offs at either end. You can have lots of power and lots of runtime, but your weight's going to be quite heavy or vice versa.

[00:25:25] Um, you can get phenomenal lower weight, um, with a reasonable amount of power and thrust and, and, but not a very long runtime. But then if you're a good pro rider, you know, maybe you don't need a lot of runtime or if you're a beginner, you do need a lot of runtime. So it's trying to tailor and communicate that with our customers. Um, that's, that's going to be a challenge, but it's, it's exciting to, I think the market's learning pretty quickly. You know, there's a lot of people like Nico and, and the crew out there kind of sharing

[00:25:52] their knowledge and their experience and, and helping educate people. Um, but it definitely takes an army of people to, you know, you look back three years ago, this wasn't, it wasn't even, it wasn't, it just didn't exist. The four drive created, uh, the foil assist market like as the original brand. Um, and they've been kind of, you know, going in a direction that, that, you know, didn't really know where it was going.

[00:26:18] Um, and it just kept, kept going and moving forward and progressing as, as those three factors became, um, um, prevalent and obvious. Uh, they would, they would chase it. So I'm, yeah, I'm excited to see, see where it's going to go and, and getting more knowledge. So you're going to book some meetings with NASA or SpaceX and get down into battery development and some of that stuff? Honestly, Paul is at that level already. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's next level.

[00:26:48] I don't want to call anyone a geek and Paul is not a geek, but there's the geekiness to it. You know, there's a, there's a certain level of, of, uh, real incredible research. You know, you've just got to go so deep down the rabbit hole to, to, to understand it all. Yeah. And it's the small things like Foil Drive just recently released. I've got it here for those who are on YouTube. Um, the new mini pod, it's, it's, it looks like a minor thing. Things about that. Oh my God.

[00:27:16] It's, Paul went down and he engineered this for such a long time, but in the end he managed to make a tool list. So all you have to do is like a little flap on the side and you just put it on your mask. So Foil Drive used to have the universal master that there. And then we saw all these companies, Foil Drive works with pretty much every brand releasing, um, the integrated masks. And now we do have the mini pod. And for the first time ever, I'm actually taking the mini pod off if I go for a pump session.

[00:27:42] So I just came back from one event at Lake Garda, went to a little lake in Bavaria, Germany, and it was perfect pumping conditions. There was like a little dog and I had the foil drive set up on an Indiana mask. And previously with the universal master adapter, because it was only just a, a 20 minute sessions with a family on the beach. And what I said, I'm, I'm not really bothering taking the tape off and unscrewing the universal master adapter. But with the mini pod, I actually made it real about it. I just had to cut it with a mini pod.

[00:28:12] It's like, literally it's two seconds to put the foil drive retrofit into your wing folding gear or pump gear. So I was like, uh, to my wife, I was like, give me, give me a couple of seconds. I'm back in a minute. Took off the, the full drive, turned my full drive gear into a pumping gear. I'm on a tiny board. And then I went for a pump session. And that's, I think that's amazing. And, and the effort, the effort that goes into something small, like the mini pod, making it absolutely slick and toolness.

[00:28:41] And you can feel the performance in the water, but it's not only performance, it's convenience at the same time. And these are like minor steps, but for me, it's a really big change. So there's, there's heaps of development pretty much every day. Yeah. And it's incredible. Like I'm just starting to get into the pipeline of products or ideas. We call it the, the product development pipeline and just seeing what, what is, what's on the table. Um, you know, we've only got limited certain amount of resource.

[00:29:10] So it's, it's where do you, where do you put those, that energy effort resource into? Um, and there's so many good ideas. So many. Yeah. Um, we, I wish we could do it all, but it's, it's, yeah, it's really frustrating seeing all these ideas and going, Oh, love that. But you know, maybe it, it's, it's a small market or it's, it's not, doesn't justify it or it's just a nice to have, but there's, yeah, there's some pretty cool ideas that the team have got.

[00:29:35] Well, Robert from foil Ecuador, they're hosting a camp with Paul Cooper and Mizo, uh, the F1 rider. Yeah. So they're going to do that end of February, early March. And Robert has saying he's been loving the mini pod because of the, the weight difference compared to the other system I think he was riding. And, uh, cause he was just proning all the time, but he said he's put in so much time because of that mini pod. He loves it. So that's a cool thing coming from him cause he was just diehard prone and just wanted

[00:30:04] nothing but the lightest setup possible. Well, I think, I think that's the difference is these, these products like the mini pods are just, you're bringing in those diehard prone surfers who sort of didn't otherwise previously think about the, the, the assist, um, concept. And I think they're all more and more coming across, you know, there's less animosity between the two. And I think people are starting to see the opportunities and possibilities, but just a note on that on Paul Cooper is amazing as, you know, as a coach, he's, he's got, so he does some pretty cool camp.

[00:30:33] So that'll be a shit ton of fun. Yeah. I'm coming. Jumping and flipping. Oh yeah. Do it. You're welcome. You're welcome. Come down. It's a beautiful spot. Um, it was my first time towing boogie. Yeah. It was pretty good. And I had to prone. So I proned in and out for the first time. I was exhausted, but proning is not for the week. Unless you have a photo of challenge. Yeah, I didn't bet.

[00:31:03] But, uh, the tow boogie and all that stuff is so fun in Ecuador. It's a beautiful place. Yeah. It's definitely up there with surfing the old prone, prone foiling. It takes time, fitness, energy, dedication. You gotta, you gotta really, you gotta work hard at that. It's terrifying. Yeah. Yeah. It's not nowhere near as easy as the assist for sure. No. So I think that's going to be a fun time. They're looking forward to that.

[00:31:29] And I think Nico was going to bring down his sup as well to do some sup foiling down there would be pretty sick. So anyways, we're going to start promoting that camp coming up. Um, but yeah, Mike, super stoked for you and happy that you got some time with the family. Cause I know every, all of us need some time to kind of pull back and just chase and get to, um, play a little bit. Cause life is pretty short. So it's kind of, I'm happy that you're able to get that time and so fascinated to see where you're going to take this.

[00:31:58] Cause I know you're going to be thinking of the different ways. I'm really, we're looking forward to watching this evolution. Yeah. Yeah. It should be fun. You know, we've got, um, hope most of the teams coming together next week. We've got the AWSI event coming on. And, um, so it's always a really good time of year to bring all the industry partners together and, and sort of review where all the brands are at. And, um, obviously we know we're in a, it's quite different for me, you know, it's different situation.

[00:32:26] I'm going from being, um, with one of the wind brands to competing against all these brands now actually working with them. So I'm sort of taking off one hat and I think it's going to take a while for the brands to get used to that. But some, some have already gone wicked looking forward to working with you. Can't wait. Um, other brands are kind of a little bit more on the fence over time.

[00:32:44] They're just going to, they'll have to trust me and, um, you know, cause you, you're, you're basically interacting with these brands and trying to help them, um, progress their products to, to really work super well together with, with the four drive products. So it's, it's quite a, it's going to be really exciting just, and we've already done a few meetings now, but, um, looking forward to some more meetings where we get to work with all the different designers, engineers, and brand managers and, um,

[00:33:11] and stakeholders and stakeholders and each of the brands and working out how do we work with you to get, to, to, to, to make sure our products are, our four drives really well integrated, um, into their products. So it's, it's an exciting time. It's, um, it's going to be fun. And I think just bringing everyone together and, and riding again, it always helps, you know, it's always end of every session as Nico was saying, you know, everyone's always frothing at the end to go riding.

[00:33:36] So, um, it's always, so I just hope we get the right conditions because it looks pretty cold and wet at the moment. So I'm hoping for the wind to come get stronger and hopefully it's not like that for the show. AWSI should be in July. I think they should change the day, to be honest. Yeah. Yeah. The challenge is middle of holidays and, and, you know, it's, it's a tough one. It's a tough one. You know, September, I guess the benefit of September is kind of nearing the end of the season. Um, sort of Northern Hemisphere starts to slow down in sort of late September, early October.

[00:34:06] So it's a good opportunity for everyone to get together at the end of the summer, sort of regroup, um, have a look at where the products are. And especially for the retailers, you know, the cherry picking from different brands, what they think is going to be hot next season. Um, so it's always a, it's a good opportunity to see what the brands are bringing, new products are bringing and, and how that can, you know, who, where they think the consumer is going to benefit and what types of consumers are going to benefit from the different products. Price points, performances, materials, all that sort of fun stuff. Everything.

[00:34:36] Nico, are you heading down? No, next year. No, I'm heading, heading, heading down to, um, Nice next week for a foil drive race. We're actually competing with the foil drive fusion. We're competing in e-foil races now. Um, quite successful here, to be honest. Yeah. It's, um, I'm not an e-foil guy. What's it I'm using, Nico? I'm using the, the fusion, the foil drive fusion set up on a, I started off on tiny boards because I'm, I'm usually on a,

[00:35:04] more of a pump board, but with the, if you're using, uh, something like this right here, you're using an e-foil mast. It's funny how the motor position all the way down, changing your takeoff because it's on, the motor sits on the leverage. So it's lifting you up quite a lot and therefore you need a longer board. So I'm actually taking a 45 liter Armstrong mid-length, the MK2, just because of the length. It's an amazing board. It's, it's the new X-Pont construction works for the first time ever.

[00:35:34] Um, Armstrong works really nice now with the signal. Now they used to be half carbon tracks, but they change it now. It's working perfectly fine. Um, tiny, tiny foils, probably something like 600 square centimeters, tiny stabilizers. And the improper e-foil is still a little bit faster, not much, but it's a little bit faster than the fusion. But you have much time. But it's amazing. I mean, you, you look at the difference between how much money you're going to spend on e-foil. Versus giving a fusion.

[00:36:04] Like these e-foils, the, the, the, the, the, the, the small ones, if you put it on the smallest sides, you're still talking, let's say 20 to 25 kilograms. And a fusion set up the way I do it is roughly maybe 11 kilograms. So it's, it's just on another level. It's half the weight. It's less than half the weight. Almost. On the straight. They're a little bit faster on the straight, but then when it comes down to turning, they do like a big radius.

[00:36:31] They have like these huge stabilizers and I'm doing a tight turn catching up. So, um, came second in the runner up section in Lake Garda. So yeah, you can, you can use, um, the fusion. You cannot only use it as an e-foil. It's a proper e-foil to be honest. Unika, you're just going to make sure it's a real slalom course. There's a lot of corners. Yeah, yeah. And then you'll be solid. Yeah. Don't go in a straight line. They had an, in Munich on the Munich water days, they had like a final.

[00:37:01] Going dead straight 1.2 kilometers. I think, no, it was less, but, but it was really long into the finish line. And that was really hard. And then riders were complaining that they're going 50 kilometers over the finish line and it was only five meters to break. So they put on another Buyu giving you a 360 circles just in front of the finish line. And, and that was perfect for us again. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense.

[00:37:27] I mean, I'm actually talking racing and it's, it's interesting to see the racing, but for me at the moment, I think the biggest growth area coming up, especially at the higher performance level of the sport is the downwinding with four drive. I think so much fun. It's just, it's just growing so quickly. And I, and I think, you know, with the downwind global downwind, um, four race circuit starting up now, I think they've got six or seven events confirmed this year. So, um, it's going to be, that's for me is going to be the exciting part.

[00:37:55] It's like how many people are doing those open downwind sessions and in open ocean and trying to make most of just riding the endless wave, you know? We've got last coming up. The, the sale, the St. Tropez, um, early October. Then we've got the Croson Festival. There's another foil assist and four drive downward race. And that's just, just epic. Lake Garda, we went out early morning. Um, it was the power wingers that the proper downwinders with the paddle and the foil assist all starting at the same time.

[00:38:25] Um, and that was so much fun. It's, it's, you're just getting up. You're just using, and, and Mike, you said it before. And a lot of people think if you're on a foil drive, you could cheat with a foil drive, but you're actually faster. If you're not, if you're on foil, if you let go of the trigger and you're getting higher on the mast. So I was chasing Dominic head of foil drive Europe. And my goal was to, at least in one of the races, beat him maybe once, just once. So I'm not getting fired.

[00:38:51] But, um, yeah, I, I realized if there's, there's no way of cheating with a foil drive because you're faster on foil. And that was a good learning experience. And that was so much fun. Yeah, I agree. I think that it's the big one for these downwinders. It's literally, you know, you're on trigger, you're on, on lithium just to get out into the, into the, into the swell. And then once you're turning around downwind, you know, all you're doing is getting up onto, onto foil.

[00:39:18] So it's only a short, you know, it's a five or six second power on. And then, then you're just pumping and it's like any downwind racing, you know, you're, you're able, and the benefit of the new powerful units is you can go smaller and smaller on the front wings, which means you're going to be going fast. And you can go for smaller boards. So ultimately you're just, you're starting to wrap it up in the open ocean.

[00:39:38] And instead of having to take a power wing board with a wing, um, or a downwind longer, downwind sub board, you know, the paddle, you're able to do it on a super small board with, with super small foils. And, and the smaller the foil, the thinner the mask, cause you haven't got as much leverage on such a wide span foil, which means the thinner your mask, the quicker you can go. And now with the, the new pod designs, um, the mini pod, you know, you can use your 73 masks.

[00:40:05] You can use your super, um, thin, um, uh, smaller masks. So it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's going to be interesting to see whether, I think there's a long way to go there. Yeah, for sure. The purists a hundred percent agree. You know, it's, it's paddle all day long. But it's, it's, it's, it's changing their minds. Like I usually, because I'm a light person, I get away with pretty much everything. I can still on the first gen two motor, um, the short one, I can still easily pretty much get up any foil.

[00:40:35] So my equipment is always on, on the light side. It's normally not the demo equipment we give out to beginners. But last event, we had a lot of professionals, um, coming, asking me if they could try that one. A more performance setup. The slim? Yeah, it was, it was a slim or a max. So I was swapping within, um, the demo even. But I was on a 14 liter board set up on a 700, I think a 770 Armstrong foil.

[00:41:05] So quite small, quite performance. Um, 14 liters of volume. So that's not big. So you do need a little bit of technique. And if people are not used to the foil drive, it takes them a little bit. But all the professionals came back with a performance setup. And it was like, oh, now I get it. This is fun. Like, this is where it's going. Like they, if you go to a demo event and they have like a 105 liter mid-length with a massive foil on it. It's easy to learn, but that's what, not, not what they want.

[00:41:33] But writing my setup, they came back and was like, oh yeah, can I take it? Can I keep it? It's, it's fun to see. Yeah. So a lot of the downwinders don't need the max unit. So you can just get away with the slim. It's basically, I don't know if your listeners know, but it's basically three, three different systems. You've got the fusion, which is this kind of 90 minute, 120 minute, um, power. Or are you going to go, I see it here. I'm just pointing out. There's a, this is the fusion. This is the max and this is the slim. I'm not sure if anyone watching on the video.

[00:42:02] Nico's pointing out a fusion, a max and a slim right behind him. Yeah. It's basically three systems. Fusion's your big, powerful unit, uh, gets everyone going, you're foiling. And then the max is kind of that all rounded, do everything. Um, and then the slim's just a super lightweight, um, high performance. But what we're finding with a lot of these riders is going out in the slims now. They're able to do pretty big, long downwinders because they're on foil, you know, 95% of the time. So you just don't need that. It's just when you fall off, you need something to get back up on foil. Yeah, that's it.

[00:42:32] I think the slim is still highly underrated. It's, um, if, if we're talking battery capacity, it's 20, maybe 25 minutes runtime, depends on what size of foil you're running and your weight. But if, if you do exactly what you just said, if you want to get up and you were talking 15 to 20 seconds of power, that's a lot of get ups. And if you're doing a downwinder, that's all you need. And still you do have a certain amount as a safety level to maybe get back on shore or something. So I think that the times.

[00:43:01] And if you worry, you can always throw a, throw a power wing on your backpack. Yeah. And you know, you can always take body drag back to land. It's like, it's really good safety feature if you need it. I think full driven power wing is a, is a podcast by itself. I think it's a really good combination to be honest, it's a battery, it's two safety levels. Um, it's a battery extender at the same time. It's perfect for beginners. You can size down on, on your front wing, you can size down on the board, you can size down on the power wing. It's such a, such a nice combination. Yeah.

[00:43:31] And that's what I think a lot of people don't realize about four drive. It's, you know, if you're a, you're a mag keen winger, foiler of all these different disciplines, um, four drive isn't taking away from that. It's just adding another tool in your quiver of toys. It's just such an amazing tool to have and to, to pull out on those conditions when you want to make most of it. And, um, and once you get, once you start getting into it, you realize the possibilities of all the different areas you can get into.

[00:43:59] And, um, just kind of opens your eyes to, to so many options and possibilities. Pretty cool. Not sure about the rest of the world. I sound like a salesman. Not meaning to. You are now you are. Now, me too. But, um, for, for those who were just talking budget and in Germany, not sure about the rest of the world, but we're seeing a very good secondhand market slowly coming up. People may be upgrading to the fusion. So there's, there's Maxxis and Slim showing up slowly.

[00:44:28] And because of the build quality, like, um, I would not be hesitated to buy a secondhand full drive. Um, you can, whatever might break or have some tear or something, you can change it. It's interchangeable with a new one. Like the, the plug is still the same and the, the unit itself is rock solid. Like nothing's going to break. So. Yeah. That's, I think that's one of the big selling points is the modularity of the system.

[00:44:57] Me, meaning everything's pretty modular. Everything can get replaced pretty inexpensively. Um, and if something does wear out, you know, products wear out over time, it's the same as tires on a car, you know, over time it's going to wear. Yeah. It'll replace them. So it's, I think those wear and tear items, it's definitely really affordable to replace them, um, over time. And, and that durability thing, I think that was one of the key parts with Paul was, you know, it's, is this shit's got to work. So it's, um, yeah, I think he worked pretty hard on it, to be honest.

[00:45:25] And it's less, it's, it's overall, it's not much maintenance to keep your foil drive running pretty much every day. Like this is, I'm just showing this for all the ones on YouTube. This is my first foil drive. I'd say this one has 200 sessions on it. I mean, if you look at it. No way. It's, it's still in perfect condition. Have you replaced the bearings? Not once. I think that like some people are never. Wow. If you, are you on freshwater mainly? Mainly. Yeah. This is probably 75% freshwater.

[00:45:55] So it's different, but it's like, if you, all it takes, if you have a little PET bottle of water, half a liter or a liter and you just like rinse it a little bit and put on a little bit of lubrication once in a while, um, that's pretty much it. And they just run forever. And this is so cool. And so I'm very, like some of my friends, they've always been holding back because of that price range and price mark. Like looking at me saying, oh yeah, I, I see you.

[00:46:22] I see you catching tanker waves, but I just can't afford spending that much on a forward drive. And now they are buying secondhand units and perfectly fine because it's, it's, it's built to last. And this is pretty amazing. And I think this will bring a lot more people into the foil assist category, growing the sport and then growing things like foil assist downwind races, which it just, for me, it's just amazing. It's so much fun. Yeah. Couldn't agree more. Well, fellas, Mike, congratulations.

[00:46:50] Once again, we are looking forward to seeing where this all goes. And it's going to be kind of, kind of cool to see you at the head of, uh, just something new, something new that's pushing, helping more people access the sport. I couldn't see it being any better. Yeah. I'm looking forward to being part of the team and, and going hard as always. It's going to be great. Very excited. Very frosty. All right, Nico, what's next on your list? My friend, it's still early. Um, I've got a sales team, sales team meeting at 10.

[00:47:17] So I've got a few hours now working, replying to emails. It's no wind today. I might, I might just jump in later on for a photo of session, catching some tagger wives. So on the slim. Yeah. Nice. What do you got planned late? Getting on the water? Uh, yeah, I got a coaching session at 1130. So we're going to head down to the school shortly. And, uh, yesterday I got to ride with a client for a couple hours. That was pretty fun. And I had, I was forced to work on all these maneuvers that I hadn't done in the walk.

[00:47:47] They wanted to progress. So it was pretty fun actually. It wasn't too bad. Sailed from three until five into dark. And, uh, yeah, today might be a beginner class, but I think it's pretty fun. Nice. Oh, I hope you get some good conditions. Yeah. Yeah. I hope so too. Yeah. It's cool riding over, like there's coral and it's such cool water. It's so beautiful. Colors. Nice. That's what makes it so cool. Where are you riding most of the time? It's Point Destiny. So it's Blue Bay kind of area. Yeah, yeah. So it's the Southeast. Southeast. Yeah. But it's a massive lagoon.

[00:48:16] There's a, I remember there's a big, it's a big hotel in Blue Bay. Hmm. Is that, was it commercial? I can't remember. It's been a while, but it's been, it's such a gorgeous spot. It's nice. It's one of the nicest swimming beaches, Blue Bay, that I've been to because there's, on most days, there's no current and it's so clear and it's really good place for laps. So there's a lot of nice stuff. And the sugar cane is pretty tasty. If you go sneak a piece or two, it's not too bad.

[00:48:43] But anyways, guys, looking forward to having you guys both back on and chat times to come. And yeah, thanks for, thanks for joining us. Cool. Thanks, Luke. Cheers, Nico. Have a good week, guys. Bye, guys. Hey, everyone. Thanks for tuning in. We do hope that you enjoyed this episode. Once again, we are covering AWSI. So make sure to follow our Instagram and YouTube channels. Over the course of this next three or four days, we're going to have a lot of content coming out. So make sure to follow us, like, subscribe, all that good stuff.

[00:49:13] If you have any questions, comments, or if you want us to talk to a particular company while we're there, send us a DM and we'll do our best to cover it. Thanks again for tuning in. And we will see you on the next one.