{"id":21018,"date":"2019-11-07T16:07:31","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T16:07:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skydivemag.com\/new\/?p=21018"},"modified":"2021-01-26T17:01:36","modified_gmt":"2021-01-26T17:01:36","slug":"sunpathlete-spotlight-chris-geiler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skydivemag.com\/new\/sunpathlete-spotlight-chris-geiler\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunpathlete Spotlight \u2013 Chris Geiler"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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“Winning feels good” \u2013 Chris Geiler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sunpathlete Spotlight \u2013 Chris Geiler<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Morgan Mackay<\/strong> interviews WS champion Chris ‘Cruza’ Geiler, who has dominated the world of Performance Wingsuiting since he stepped onto the USA nationals podium in 2015. <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

A world champion, a father and a hard working tandem master, he has won or placed in every competition he has entered, including the FAI World Cup and Championships. Last week I caught up with Cruza for a chat about what it really takes, not just to stay at the top, but how he balances a family life in a highly competitive yet underfunded sport. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cruza grew up in Australia and spent his teenage years racing bicycles on the road and in the mountains. In 2005 he left home as a young man seeking travel and adventure. His trip never really ended and he figured out how to work his way around the world crewing luxury yachts. In 2010 he discovered skydiving, and slowly but surely his inner athlete re-emerged in a new and unexpected sport. He had no idea about competing or making a life in skydiving. He just knew he loved to fly and wanted to do it more. Like many, he had seen people fly from mountains and it became a dream he changed his life to pursue. His holidays kept taking him back to California. He loved jumping there and had fallen in love with an American girl. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt all just kind of happened naturally. I wanted to jump and I wanted to see Reina\u201d.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>Chris Geiler<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It didn\u2019t take long until he decided to move to America and skydive full time. Make a living doing tandems and playing in the sky with his mates: that was his plan. It\u2019s one that many people reading can probably relate to. But Cruza had grown up racing, and one day he found out he could race wingsuits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t until later in the summer of 2014 someone told me there was a wingsuit performance competition. I didn\u2019t know anything about competing in skydiving, I didn\u2019t even know what a FlySight was. But I thought that I could fly fast so I turned up and gave it a shot\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Cruza didn\u2019t have a FlySight to tell him where the start window was. So he took a chest mount altimeter and drew on it with a black marker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think I came 5th in that first comp. I won a FlySight\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That first competition re-ignited a competitive streak in Cruza that hadn\u2019t had an outlet since his teenage years of racing road bikes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c Everything that I\u2019ve ever done I have wanted to do it better, when I got that FlySight and could see my data, I just wanted to go faster on every jump\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Chris Geiler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

He was hooked on racing and wanted to go faster and win everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That summer I was jumping at the Parachute Center where Cruza worked and trained. I remember he was doing tandems all day and wingsuit solos all afternoon. He made closing loops and sold them in packs of 3 for $5. \u201cWhen I sell 3 packs of closing loops that\u2019s one more training jump.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He worked at REI (an outdoor equipment store) in the evenings. People sometimes laughed at his closing loop business or said he was too serious doing all those solos. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it paid off. Less than a year later he was placing in every performance competition he could enter. He was also attracting attention from the sport\u2019s biggest manufacturers. He started working with them to develop their gear, and over the next years became a part of pushing the progression of performance wingsuiting to where it is today. If you fly a wingsuit from the world\u2019s biggest wingsuit manufacturer, its design was probably influenced by Cruza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the top level, pilots are pushing suits harder than ever, going beyond the limits of what we used to think was possible. Pilots are looking beyond traditional skydiving equipment. There has been a rapid proliferation of wingsuit specific canopies and now people are starting to see the whole rig needs to change too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cruza’s journey with Sun Path <\/a>started in 2017<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was first drawn to Sun Path because they were the only manufacturer developing a Wingsuit specific container system.\u201d <\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The high performance wingsuits have large arm wings and are highly pressurised. This can make it hard to reach the BOC of a normal container. Combined with a bigger burble, deployment is more demanding and complex than ever for the pilot. Sun Path have simplified the deployment issues for wingsuit pilots by producing the JAVELIN AURORA<\/a>, the only container that has been specifically designed to maximise performance and safety for wingsuit pilots. The container is longer and more streamlined. The BOC has been moved much lower to a position that is easier to reach. The main deployment bag and tray are also totally different from what you would see on a normal rig. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“The Aurora container [left] is longer and more streamlined” \u2013 Photo Bay Area Skydiving<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cThe main comes out in a much cleaner fashion, allowing for the horizontal movement of a wingsuit and the container opens up to be flat – much more like a base rig.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n


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