Sidekik

· Bernhard Fercher

Sidekik Peak Hunt 2025 — new rules, smarter scoring, simpler submission

Sidekik Peak Hunt Challenge 2025

The last months were full of useful lessons. We tried different concepts and scoring systems to see which Peak Hunt ideas work and which do not. Above all: what motivates pilots to fly more unusual paragliding and Hike&Fly adventures — experiences that might never have happened without Sidekik?

That led to a new, consistent scoring system that takes more factors into account. Later it should also allow leaderboards across challenges and clubs.

The concept

3 waypoint types

A waypoint (WP) is a point on the map with coordinates and a radius. That makes a vertical cylinder. There are three WP types.

Hike (can only be tagged on foot) — Launch inside the cylinder. The pilot stays below 10 km/h for at least 20 seconds inside the cylinder. Walking in, out or through also counts.

Hike & Fly (can be tagged on foot or in the air)

Fly (can only be tagged in flight) — Recommended for points in a national park, or where landing/launching is generally not recommended.

Scoring

There are 4 difficulty levels for waypoints

  • Easy (blue) — 8 pts
  • Medium (red) — 10 pts
  • Hard (black) — 12 pts
  • Very hard (black with a yellow edge) — 14 pts

Extra points

You get the waypoint points only once per challenge. You can still improve bonus points by flying or hiking it again.

Flight bonus: 1 bonus point for the flight. Per submitted flight, per calendar day, one extra point if at least 1 WP is tagged. Also on repeats. If several WPs are tagged in one flight, you get +0.5 bonus points per extra WP. So a flight with 6 tagged WPs earns 2.5 extra points. That applies to new WPs and WPs you already tagged on earlier flights.

Proximity bonus: 2 bonus points for “Proximity”. Entering a cylinder awards the full WP points. You can earn up to 2 extra bonus points by getting closer to the centre. Bonus rises linearly from 0 at the edge of the radius to 2 for flying exactly over the coordinates. On Hike&Fly WPs, reaching the WP on foot awards the full proximity bonus — so a mid-landing is rewarded, and so is hiking. Pure hike WPs have no proximity bonus.

Launch-site restriction

From 2025 it will no longer be possible to restrict launch sites. The reason: that gave experienced XC pilots a clear advantage over less experienced pilots. Sidekik should not become an XC championship — there are already platforms for that.

Private challenges

Challenges are not meant to be club-only so that nobody else can join. All challenges are open. For the club ranking you can still filter the leaderboard to your club.

Submitting flights

IGC and GPX files: As before you can submit .IGC files. You can now also upload .GPX files with timestamps (for example from Garmin watches). That does drop some of the validation an .IGC file provides. Sidekik is not a national championship — it is a motivating challenge. We rely on sportsmanship and on “community validation”.

How do I get to my club challenge?

With the rules above you can already think about which challenge you want to run and which goals make sense. A few recommendations:

  • Number of challenges: You can run several at once or one after another. We recommend at most 2 in parallel — and 3 in sequence per year.
  • Duration: It can help to split one year-long challenge into two or three.
  • Type: Hike&Fly and peak-collecting do not have to be separate. The leaderboard can filter to hike-only WPs, fly-only WPs or the overall score. You can still build a pure Hike&Fly challenge or a peak-collecting challenge where goals can only be flown.
  • Number of WPs: The challenge should not overwhelm, but it should not be over in a week either. Depending on duration we recommend 15 to 30 WPs.
  • Hike WPs: Easy launches that you can only reach on foot, or where landing is relatively safe.
  • Hike&Fly WPs: Goals you can fly over — a mid-landing is not required — that also work as a launch.
  • Fly WPs: Goals where landing or launching is explicitly not recommended. National parks, or summits that are not recommended for Hike&Fly.
  • Radius: Experience shows a larger radius is safer. Pilots are not pushed close to the terrain just to score. On a better day, with a higher base, they can come back for the bonus. We recommend a minimum radius of 400 m; in difficult terrain 600–800 m. The maximum is 1,500 m.

Creating the challenge

Please fill in the form if you want to create a challenge. You will then get a link where you can place the points on the map.

Closing

With these expanded rules and simpler flight submission we hope for more exciting challenges in 2025 and many unique days.

A big thank you to the clubs and pilots who tried a challenge in 2024 and sent back so much feedback.

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