The Red Bulletin_0011_USA

Brazilian beach volleyball / Diplo / The world’s toughest horse race / James Blake / Surfing’s new stars

March 2011

an almost independent monthly magazine

+ MUSIC

50 CENT

sports food travel art

‘Artists are becoming like race CARS’

New York’s

world champion

bike messenger BASE-jumping

in Antarctica lady gaga

Inside the mind of a pop princess

THE NEW AMERICAN IDOL Thierry Henry Soccer superstar

Bullhorn

mind over matter Where will your commute take you today? The anonymous box at the end of the corporate park? Down a four-lane highway in bumper-to-bumper traffic? Maybe sandwiched amidst the throngs in a packed subway car?

This month ours is taking us to the deserts of Chile in a rally car; to tasty 6-foot curls off shorebreaks around the world; into the mind of the Chinese artist and disappearing act Liu Bolin and, finally, tailing behind one of New York’s top bike messengers.

Oh, and let’s not forget our cover star.

There’s been a lot said about world soccer star Thierry Henry’s move to Cover star Thierry Henry talks frankly the MLS from Barcelona. Ignore it. with The Red Bulletin’s Bernd Fisa The New York Red Bulls striker has and Werner Jessner his own take on it. And we’re most likely to believe him (page 38).

Speaking of forging ahead in unknown territory, we’ve managed to catch up with Curtis Jackson II, who most of you might know as 50 Cent.

He’s 50 only part of the time now, preferring his birth name as he powers his way into the film industry and big business. He goes back to his roots at the Red Bull Recording Studio in Los Angeles, where we met him (page 64).

But it’s not all marquee names. We like to escape as much as you do on the way to work, or on the way home. That’s why we’ve headed out to the ancient streets of Siena, in Italy, to capture the tribal atmosphere and breakneck racing (often literally) of one of the world’s oldest sporting events. Or to the skies above Antarctica, where a brave—some might say insane—Russian plunges into the deep freeze in a wingsuit.

The magazine you hold in your hands trots the globe and heads to the show because you might not always be able to. It offers escape, but also inspiration. Plenty to ponder as you wait for your stop.

Cover Photography: David Clerihew. Photography: Lozzaphoto

Your editorial team

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contents

welcome to the world of Red Bull Inside your top-scoring Red Bulletin this month

Bullevard

14 here is the news What’s happened; what’s coming 17 me and my body Brazilian heavy-hitter Maria Salgado loves to work out ... like a lot 18 Diplo Skating genres with the mixmaster 20 Gear Evolution Making nice with the ice, thanks to those crazy Zambonis

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23 Where’s Your head at?

This Lady’s not Gaga

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24 WINNING FORMULA Why it’s ‘waximum’ attack in ski racing 27 LUCKY NUMBERS Too much Carnival? Blame it on Rio

Action

28 siena’s palio Passion and drama make this Italian horse race a ride you’ll never forget 38 thierry henry He’s given us goals, a handball and a lockerful of soccer magic. So what next?

Why, conquer the USA, of course

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44 jordy smith The South African star is at the vanguard of a new generation of surfers pushing their sport to new heights 54 America’s cup Three sailing superstars muse on the rule changes that will forever change the grand sport of competitive sailing 58 courier king In the fast-paced city of New York, this bike courier extraordinaire has the fastest wheels of all 64 50 Cent He’s been out of the spotlight, but with film business and music projects, he’s about to retake center stage 70 flying the antarctic OK, so this one really is crazy: travel to Antarctica, climb mountain, BASE-jump off it. Like, obviously 04

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Photography: Niels Ahlmann Olesen, Rutger Pauw/red Bull Photofiles, Getty Images, lozzaphoto, Emily Shur, Predrag Vuckovic/Red Bull Photofiles, Thomas Hoeffgen

More Body & Mind

82 MONGOL HORSE RACING Billed as ‘The world’s longest horse race’, The Mongol Derby is an adventure for only the (fool)hardiest 84 eat, weigh, love Shaking off the winter doldrums with three menus designed to activate your brain, change your mood and turn back the beauty clock 85 FEAST YOUR MIND Michelin-starred Marcus G Lindner tells of his obsession with culinary detail 86 GET THE GEAR If you want to run across Antarctica, you’d better get dressed like this. Ultramarathon man Ryan Sandes tells all 88 Hot spots What’s on when, where to see it and why you’d be a fool to miss out 90 NIGHT SPOTS After the sun sets, here’s where you’ll find the bright lights in the world’s greatest cities (and a few more obscure) 92 NIGHT LIFE Artist Liu Bolin tells us how he goes about disappearing; The Go! Team tell us which five albums influenced them most; a chat with 22-year-old soul sensation James Blake; plus one of the down-’n’ dirtiest clubs in Berlin: Week End

Every Issue 06 Kainrath’s calendar 08 pictures of the month 98 mind’s eye

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illustration: dietmar kainrath

K a i n r at h

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Photography: DANIEL GARCIA/Getty Images

PHOTO OF THE MONTH

Atac a m a D e s e rt, c h i l e

sainz storm No matter how many stages you lead, no matter how much of a pre-event favorite you might be, there’s no telling what the Dakar Rally has in store for its competitors. Last year’s winner, Carlos Sainz, learned this to his cost, as despite being the dominant driver for much of the two-week challenge, he only finished third after getting lost in sand dunes on stage 8. That allowed teammate Nasser Al-Attiyah through to a lead he never lost, ahead of 2009 winner Giniel de Viliers and Sainz. A dominant 1-2-3 for the Red Bull VW Touaregs was as good as team results get, and all three of its drivers can now claim to be “Dakar masters.”

Photos, videos, and driver blogs at en.redbulletin.com/dakar2011

PHOTO OF THE MONTH

Ya n g s h u o, C h i n a

moon walk

Photography: Adam Pretty/Getty Images

About 500 miles northwest of Hong Kong, China’s most renowned climbing area presents an otherworldy vista. Shaped by rain and wind over millennia, ancient limestone karsts dominate the horizon. The most remarkable formations have been named, giving the thousands of free-climbers who visit the region each year an idea of what to expect: The Wine Bottle, The Egg, The Thumb. But the best known is Moon Hill, a 1,248-foot-high rock containing a natural arch, which, when viewed from the river valley, resembles the moon. The late American free-climber Todd Skinner equipped the first route in 1990, starting a flourishing tradition of sports climbing here. But conquering the 165-foothigh arch is no easy feat: only the best climbers even attempt it, usually watched by hordes of tourists and native street vendors.

Navigate to www.rockclimbing.com for more information

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Photography: juan luis DE HEECKEREN/red bull photofiles

FOTO PHOTO desTHE Monats OF MONTH

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Bullevard Sporting skills and cultural ingenuity from around the globe

Step 1: Séb 2 Sébastien Loeb, the most successful rally driver in history and star of the Red Bull-backed Citroën Total team, will have a new teammate this year. Making life easier for fans and commentators, he’s also a Sébastien: Ogier. The Sébs will contest the 2011 World Rally Championship in the all-new Citroën DS3, which is designed and built for shaken-up worldrally regulations that demand smaller cars, smaller engines (0.4 gallons with turbos) and fewer driver aids. The aim is to make the series cheaper, more driver-focused, and even more spectacular. But will the changes switch the identity of the world champion for the first time since 2004? With Loeb having won the past seven WRC titles, few would bet against him scooping an eighth when the season starts in Sweden on February 11.

surfing’s dark side Old hands versus young bucks for 2011’s world wave-riding title A few South African surfers planning a night out on the water: nothing unusual about that. But when one of them is Jordy Smith, noted wunderkind waverider (for more, see page 44) , it was no surprise that thousands of fans showed up at Camps Bay Beach, south of Cape Town, to watch Smith and pals take part in Red Bull Nightshift. After they were

towed by Jet Skis into the best offshore swells, the gang of eight gave themselves a single goal: to pull off the greatest height above the ocean.

Eventually, it was the master himself who got closest to the moon, on his ballsy last attempt. No surprise, actually: Camps Bay is Smith’s spiritual surf home, by day or by night.

Catch the action at www.jordysmith.co.za

Ricky Basnett takes a shot in the dark at Red Bull Nightshift

PICTURES OFMonats THE MONTH Bilder des

every shot on target

Moment mal!

Email your pictures with a Red Bull flavor to letters@redbulletin.com. For every picture we print, Szenen aus dem abenteuerlichen Alltag you win a pair of adidas® Sennheiser PMX 680 unserer Leser. Einfach hochladen auf: Sports headphones. With a Kevlar-reinforced, twowww.redbulletin.com part cable (it can be short when running with a music player, or extended to include a built-in Unter dencontrol), Einsendern der veröffentlichtenheadband Fotos wird stripe, volume reflective-yellow eine Trinkflasche desand Schweizer Herstellersparts, SIGG they’re and 100% sweatwater-resistant im speziellen Red Bulletin-Design verlost. perfect for sports.

Visit: www.sennheiser.co.uk Gewinner aus Heft 1/2011: Alfredo Escobar Email: letters@redbulletin.com

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Chicago

The Windy City Roller All-Stars and the LA Derby Dolls at Red Bull Banked Jam Cody York

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Hero Blogs Tweet relief from the daily grind

Photography: Nicolas Zwickel/Citroen Press (1), Kolesky/Nikon/Red Bull Photofiles (1), Getty Images/Red Bull Photofiles (1), Gabriel Authier (1), Garth Milan/Red Bull Photofiles (2), Marcel Laemmerhirt/Red Bull Photofiles (1), Ernst Lorenzi (3)

Kahne Can Once listed as one of America’s Top 50 Bachelors, a noted charity campaigner, race-team owner, fisherman, skier, snowmobiler… Kasey Kahne can— thankfully—drive a bit, too.

The 30-year-old from Mooresville, North Carolina (above) is a busy guy, but his veins bleed petrol, and a devotion to motorsport—kindled by his father in his teens—has taken him to a full-time Red Bull Racing NASCAR ride for 2011.

Kahne, part of the NASCAR scene since 2002, started driving for Red Bull Racing Toyota last season in the number 83 car, switching from Richard Petty Motorsports last October, for the last five races of the season. At the Homestead finals, he finished sixth, having started from pole position, and he is hoping for similarly strong performances this year.

The team’s general manager, Jay Frye, has set the bar high this season, so the pressure will be on Kasey and teammate Brian Vickers (returning after an illness curtailed his 2010 season) from the Sprint Cup season opener at Daytona on February 20. “We are going to make every effort to win races, get into the [season-ending] Chase, and go compete for a championship. We have very high expectations,” said Frye.

Gentlemen, start your browsers: www.nascar.com

Al Ain An obstacle race on two wheels for four-wheelers at Red Bull Shall in Abu Dhabi Ammar Al Attar

James Stewart Motocross man “Out trying to fish, but my boat battery is dead.

I hate fishing anyway”

Daron provides some Swift generosity Daron Rahlves was crowned Super-G World Champion in St. Anton in 2001: 10 years on, and the 37-year-old won the first Red Bull Hüttenrallye in the same place. The Californian (right) prevailed in the final of the Freeski 6-Cross competition and promptly awarded his winner’s prize – a new Suzuki Swift – to second-place Lukas Hübl. “Lukas definitely needs the car more than I do,” the generous Rahlves said. The 20-year-old qualifier could barely contain his joy: “I could never have dreamed that I’d be standing on the podium alongside Daron Rahlves today.” www.daronrahlves.com

Snow & Sand

Reggie bush NFL’s finest “Is it weird that there’s a guy cleaning hotel windows outside the hotel and it’s pouring rain?”

Drew bezanson Rides a BMX “I ride all day, then I can’t sleep because I’m thinking about BMX... is that bad?”

Graz

The Hannibal Classic Rally is some adventure. From April 15–30, car enthusiasts will follow in the elephantine general’s footsteps, conquering the Alps in 15 stages over a total of 2,148 miles. The trail leads the competitors from Sölden in Tyrol—where a multimedia stage play of Hannibal’s story will be performed on a glacier on the eve of the race—via Rome, and after a ferry ride and a swift Saharan excursion, to Carthage in Tunisia. www.hannibal-classic-rallye.at

A two-week driving holiday in Europe: the Hannibal Classic Rally

Bumping into Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner (second right) at the movies—you know, like that’s normal Soundportal

Florianópolis Brazilian skaters remembered to drain the pool for Red Bull Skate Generation Helge Tscharn 15

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A night out over the town: freeski event Red Bull Playstreets

Jamie Woon, Red Bull Music Academy grad

If ever a city possessed the energy to inspire young musicians, then surely it must be Tokyo—neon-scorched venue for the 2011 Red Bull Music Academy. Following two successful residences in Barcelona in 2008 (attended by BBC Sound Of 2011 poll pick Jamie Woon, above) and London last year, the Academy is now on the lookout for fresh creative talent. Hopefuls can apply for residency through its website from February 2 to April 4, and the lucky 60 artists selected from around the world will head to Japan for one of two two-week-long sessions in October and November.

Apply now: www.redbullmusicacademy.com

Young Gun Goes For It Watch out Valentino Rossi: there’s a 17-year-old who is aiming for your ride. Danny Kent, left, from Wiltshire, U.K., will take a major step toward MotoGP this year, graduating from the Red Bull Rookies Cup series, which he narrowly failed to win last year, to a full season in the MotoGP 125 championship.

Kent made the jump to the more senior category last season, competing with Lambretta in the final five rounds, and this season tackles the championship with the Ajo Motorsport team alongside Germany’s Jonas Folger. His talents have already caught the eye of former MotoGP rider and world superbike champ James Toseland, who has passed on a few tips, although the teenage tiger notes: “James is my hero, but I still try to do my own thing and not copy anyone’s style.”

Look into the future: www.redbullrookiescup.com

Rottnest Island Kitesurfers prepare for an 12-mile race from the former prison island to Perth Paul Krne

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Istanbul

peak performance in urban areas Who needs mountains: a free-skiing contest that takes place in the middle of a historic spa town Russ Henshaw plies his trade in all four corners of the snowy world, and in all spectacular points between. Yet the Australian free-skier will tell you without hesitation which port of call is number one on his list.

“Bad Gastein is my favorite,” he says of the Austrian spa town.

“The course is pure fun, there’s a huge crowd of spectators, and the after-party is just amazing.” So far, it sounds like any major free-skiing event, but the Henshaw refers to takes place not on the slopes, but slap bang in the middle of the town.

The fourth Red Bull Playstreets will take place on February 19; Henshaw was champion of the third event, in 2009. He will be defending his title against the likes of Oscar

Red Bull Breaking brings the biggest players from the Turkish hip-hop and breakdance scene together Nuri Yilmazer

Scherlin of Sweden, PK Hunder of Norway, Bene Mayr of Germany, Swiss ace Elias Ambühl, and three Austrian contenders fighting for a home-country win: Tobi Tritscher, Fabio Studer, and Patrick Hollaus.

On one of world skiing’s trickiest and tricksiest slope-style courses (think: downhill obstacle run), skiers compete two at a time, with a panel of judges scoring them in terms of the complexity of the tricks performed, the height achieved during those tricks, and their overall execution.

As well as a free pass at the town’s bar well into the next morning, the winner receives a Suzuki RMZ 450 Motocross bike.

Read more: russhenshaw.squarespace.com

Kuwait Life’s a beach for the Red Bull Kiteforce Team as they prepare for an aerial display Claude Stephan

Words: Anthony Rowlinson. Photography: Getty Images, Gold & Goose/Red Bull Photofiles, Richard Walch/Red Bull Photofiles

Music’s Next Star: It’s You

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me and my body

Maria Salgado

She’s one half of beach volleyball’s Brazilian super sisters, and where she finds the time to eat popcorn, make faces and train 15 times a week is anyone’s guess

Don’t call her babe

Shouldering on

“In beach volleyball it’s tough to make the decision to take time out because your partner needs you. About three years ago I got a bad shoulder injury, and before I admitted defeat and stopped playing, I took painkillers for an entire year as I was in so much pain. In the end I found it hard to brush my teeth, to drive, to do anything, it was so bad. The tendons and muscle behind my right shoulder blade were really stretched and sore. I rested it completely for three months and still have to work to keep it feeling right. Each year we get one month off and I need my weights with me if I go somewhere without a gym, to stretch it out every day. I was young then. Now at 27 I understand my body better. I do a lot of exercises to prevent injuries, by building my strength and stretching.”

photography: Norman Konrad

Down sizing

“This year is the first time I’ve thought seriously about what I eat—I’ve never had problems with my weight—but I wanted to get stronger. Now, a nutritionist visits me once a month to check my body fat percentage and help me improve, and I feel better. It helps me to recover easier and quicker. Thing is, I really love French fries and fatty food. For two months I went without red meat, fried food, all that, which was really difficult. Trying not to eat popcorn was the worst —I love it. Now I just eat it, and once a week I’ll have fried food too. I eat salad, rice with beans and meat, lots of vegetables, grilled fish, pasta.

My perfect night is going to a good restaurant back home for dinner with friends. You have to have a caipirinha or two—it is Brazil!”

“Beach volleyball players can’t help but be in good shape as we practice so much. We’re all pretty skinny, but strong. I understand why beach volleyball has a reputation as a sexy sport with some people, because we are women in bikinis, but the reality is different. We’re diving in the sand and sweating, making faces and shouting. We are all very focused on our game, we’re athletes, we’re not trying to be sexy. I like people to come and enjoy the sport.”

Pain in the knee

“As an athlete, I think if you didn’t ever experience pain it would be very strange, but injury is something else: you need to stop and treat it. Right now I’m treating a knee problem.

We’ve recently started doing power training in the gym, with higher weights and fewer repetitions, and we always jump a lot during our ball training, so I’ve got mild knee tendonitis. I’m just avoiding certain exercises to rest it. But before this I hadn’t had to see my physical therapist all year.”

Family business “My younger sister Carolina is my teammate, and we do all our training together. We’re very different and argue sometimes, but as players I think we fit well. She’s stronger than me so she plays forward; I’m quickest, so I play in defense. We practice with the ball 8-10 times a week: Monday to Saturday mornings for two hours, then some afternoons for an hour or so. We also go to the gym four times a week for two hours, for weight work and stretching, and I also go running. Right now we’re doing circuit training twice a week, too: 40 seconds running, 40 seconds jumping, 40 seconds hitting, and repeat. It’s a lot of training, but I need it to be at my best. It’s nice having my sister there for when it gets tough.”

Follow the Salgado sisters on: en.redbulletin.com/mariasalgado

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Sounds of Success

DIPLO From favela funk to dubstep and on to unadulterated US pop, there are few genres producer Wesley Pentz hasn’t grabbed and mashed up in his talented hands

The well-regarded and animated beat maker known as Diplo is sitting, crunched up, in front of a little table, big headphones on, beavering away on a laptop covered in stickers, moving his head in time to whatever he’s playing through them like moorhens do when they’re swimming. It’s backstage at the Red Bull Music Academy party at the Notting Hill Carnival, London’s annual mega-party in honor of the West Indian immigrants who lived there long before Hugh Grant arrived.

Cutting a fine figure in a tight-fitting black shirt with a gold tie, Diplo abandons his laptop for only 30 seconds to extend his hand to dub legend Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, who is due to make an appearance later in the set. A few moments later, after dashing to the side of the stage to get a snapshot of the crowd with his laptop photo booth, he steps up to the decks with Switch, the other half of his electro dancehall project Major Lazer, to give the crowd what they’ve been waiting six hours for.

Against the backdrop of colorful Major Lazer cartoon artwork, the pair start dropping everything from hard dubstep, old school jungle, Ayia Napa dance anthems and dancehall, to fast hip-hop and throbbing electronica—all united by one thing: A bassline so heavy, you can feel it in your femurs. It only takes minutes before members of the crowd start throwing CDs at him— demos of their music—hoping that he might hit them up as his next protégé.

Given the American’s seemingly unquenchable thirst for new beats and genres, their enterprise isn’t totally misplaced. Diplo has travelled the world DJing, producing and making music for the likes of Roots Manuva, Kanye West, Daft Punk, Radiohead, Gwen Stefani, Santigold, and Madonna (really only scratching the surface of an exhaustive CV), and is never not in demand.

For a lot of artists, he is the conduit between the sub-terrain and proper 18

Name Wesley Pentz Artist name Diplo Born November 10, 1978 Occupation Songwriter, producer and DJ Mega hit ‘Paper Planes’ by M.I.A., which he co-wrote and co-produced

musical success—which is, no doubt, why people are lobbing their music at him while he plays. His remarkable ascent in recent years is tied to an undying curiosity—of places and people and the sounds they produce.

“It’s a matter of being creative,” he says, rolling his drink around. “You have to take bits from everything you do and apply them to different things.

I love doing the pop thing, but always try and do something cool with it, bring edgier stuff in that people might not have heard before.”

Born Wesley Pentz in Mississippi 31 years ago, Diplo (an abbreviation of Diplodocus—referencing his childhood fascination with dinosaurs) spent his formative years in Florida. Though hoping to become a paleontologist, he ended up studying film at Temple University in Philadelphia instead. He took up a number of jobs to support himself after graduating before hooking up with DJ Low Budget to start the now quietly legendary Hollertronix. What began as a fun club night soon bloomed into fully fledged underground subculture, drawing in fans from up and down the East Coast

and pricking the ears of DJs across the pond. Using the Hollertronix moniker, Diplo and Budget released a mixtape called Never Scared, which the New York Times named as one of their top albums of 2003. The Diplo sound, which skates over every genre of dance music imaginable—Dirty South hip-hop to ’80s pop dancefloor mashup—was born.

It would be Piracy Funds Terrorism, the 2004 mixtape collaboration with M.I.A. that caused the most ripples, introducing M.I.A.—who was already becoming successful in the UK—to American shores. The two were romantically involved for some time and contributed significantly to one another’s careers at various stages—Diplo DJ’d her 2005 ‘Arular’ Tour, and produced a number of tracks on 2007’s Kala.

When Diplo turned his attention to the Carioca, or Baile Funk, sound of Rio de Janeiro, he found the catalyst that pushed him out of the underground and in front of a wider audience. After the critical acclaim of his Baile Funk mixes, Diplo produced a documentary on the music, Favela on Blast (2008).

In 2005, he signed the funk Carioca group Bonde do Rolê to his new record label, Mad Decent. Already an internationally recognized artist and taste-maker proper, the signing signified Diplo’s now unparalleled knack for finding new music and, more than anything, his genuine enthusiasm for it.

And the crowds he attracts seem to share it. The reaction from the throngs at Carnival certainly borders on rock-star territory.

“The kids here have such an appetite for underground music, and support it,” he says in the backstage area ahead of his high-energy set. “It seems like an exciting new artist emerges each week, and that’s amazing to me. The major labels end up signing some of them, and the pace is right. It’s fast. The subterranean stuff reaches the masses so much quicker than in America.”

People warn you that Diplo can talk— really talk. They’re not wrong. He’s clearly on a roll now. “In America, the major labels don’t know what to do anymore,” he continues. “It’s harder for amazing kids there making underground music to scrabble out of where they are, because everything is so cheesy—you have to make so much more effort. And that’s also why I like to do pop stuff, to mess up the overall sound that’s reaching people.”

Check out Major Lazer at Notting Hill Carnival on redbullmusicacademyradio.com

Aled Phillips, far right, of Kids In Glass Houses, is judging Red Bull Bedroom Jam

From back room to stage front The amateur garage band of today could be the festival surprise of the summer, with Red Bull Bedroom Jam

Words: Ruth Morgan, Anthony Rowlinson. Photography: Getty Images, Wojtek Antonow/Red Bull Photofiles

Words: ELEANOR MORGAN. Photography: Gary Wolstenholme/Getty images, Fabrice Bourgelle-Pyres/Red Bull UK

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Neighbors beware: Red Bull Bedroom Jam is back, giving bands that rock hard the opportunity to do so from the comfort of their own homes, while the world watches online—and judges.

Up-and-coming bands based in the UK and Ireland can upload a video to the competition website, and from February 21, the weekly Bedroom Jam Buzz Chart will reveal which acts have been the most popular in terms of video views and comments. Social media activity, such as YouTube and Twitter also counts in the chart.

From there, 15 bands will be filmed

live, performing at home, for the website; from those, eight bands will be chosen to actually get out of their houses and play at festivals this summer, including Download and T in the Park.

Four judges, including Aled Phillips, frontman of Welsh band Kids In Glass Houses, who toured with last year’s winners, will be there to pick three acts for a live final. The deserved overall winner will then support an established band on a tour through the UK before doing a recording session at Red Bull Studio London.

Post now: redbullbedroomjam.com

Keep it Simpel Befitting its name, the Simpel Session is driven by a straightforward notion: bring together the cream of the skatepark and BMX crop for a fusion of styles, tricks and quarter-pipe vibe.

What began as friends hanging out has become one of the world’s largest joint contests for BMXers and boarders, and this year there’s a cultural twist. The event, in Tallinn, Estonia, on February 5-6, is part of the city’s European Capital of Culture festivities. That means film screenings, photography exhibitions and music will accompany the ceaseless flurry of furiously spinning wheels.

Top teen Axel Cruysberghs, the 2009 Simpel champ, is sure to be a star attraction. The Belgian skater, still only 16 years old, has already been European champion, and is a hot tip for more Simpel honors this time around. Simplify your life at: www.session.ee

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Gear evolution

Freeze Company

Cold Start Zamboni Model A, 1949 Frank J. Zamboni, a first-generation ItalianAmerican, ran a nice little business in Paramount, California, in the 1930s, making ice for fruit and milk deliveries. The spread of refrigerators soon put an end to it, but Zamboni and his brothers channelled their chilling skills into the production of an 20

ice rink. However, keeping the rink smooth was more of a problem. It took four men using tractors, hoses, and scrapers over an hour to resurface it—too long, in Zamboni’s view, and he got to thinking. His Model A ice resurfacer used army-truck axles powered by a Jeep engine. The hydraulics came

from a Douglas A-20 Bomber. The mechanism was ingenious: a blade peeled off the layer of rough ice, which was then shoveled into a tank on a conveyor belt, and the resulting surface was cleaned, sealed, and smoothed with water. One man could do the job better and faster than four.

Words: werner jessner. Photography: Garth Milan

From frozen lakes to Olympic arenas, to your friendly neighborhood ice skating rink, one family firm—thanks to an enterprising ancestor—ensures ice sports run smoothly

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Smooth Ride Zamboni 545, 2010 Over 50 years after the Model A, there’s hardly an ice surface that isn’t prepared using the machines from Paramount. In all those years, the basics haven’t altered much: improvements have come as tweaks rather than wholesale changes. The blade is applied to the ice with greater force,

and powered by a 78 BHP Hyundai gas engine (as in the case of this 545 model) or an electric engine. Fast-rotating brushes, rather than lip seals, remove the snow, which is then lifted into the tank via a shaft rather than a conveyor belt. The 545 holds 72 gallons of water for cleaning and 195 gallons

of water for making fresh ice. Thanks to Zamboni, the process of cleaning ice has become an attraction in itself. Crowds rise in NHL arenas around the country when the Gear Daddies’ cult song is played over an arena’s PA: “I wanna drive the Zamboni.” www.zamboni.com

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hard & fast Top performers and winning ways from around the globe

Hawaiian 18-year-old Kai Lenny became the youngest-ever Stand Up Paddle world champion when he won the final event of the series on home waves.

Formula One Wor Sebastian Ve ld Champion ttel adds to his trophy collection, be ing named Eu ro Athlete of th e Year and Ge pean rman Athlete of the Year w ithin one mon th.

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Champion skier Lindsey Vonn chalks up her fourth victory this season after recovering from a bad start to win the FIS Alpine World Cup women’s downhill in Zauchensee, Austria.

Words: Ruth Morgan. Photography: Getty Images (2), Brian Nevins/Red Bull Photofiles (1). Illustration: Dietmar Kainrath

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where’s your head at?

LADY GAGA

With the first song of her new album due out this month, Lady Gaga will once again return to the world’s headlines—is she ever anywhere else, poor lamb?

But how does she keep those Great Danes from eating her meat dress?

Born This Way: 1

Shot To The Top

The guy issuing birth certificates for New York state never used so much ink as on March 28, 1986, when he typed out Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta for proud parents Joe and Cynthia. Li’l Stef was playing the piano aged four, and gleefully took part in musicals at high school.

It’s easy to forget that it was only in April 2008 that Lady Gaga released her first single. Back then, when she asked the world to “Just Dance,” she was just another burlesque Barbie with a catchy hook. When that song became one of the 50 highest-selling singles of all-time (7.7 million copies; follow-up “Poker Face” was in the top 25, with 9.8 million copies), a new star exploded.

All We Hear Is, Lady-dy Gaga Is one of pop’s all-time catchiest names: a) derived from the Queen anthem “Radio Ga Ga,” as sung to her by a producer during early recording days; b) the nickname given to her by scenester pals on New York’s Lower East Side; or c) a cannily thought-out moniker, dreamed up by industrysavvy associates? All three explanations have been offered; the first two by Gaga herself.

She Wears It Well

“The difference between style and fashion,” designer Giorgio Armani once said, “is quality.” It’s not entirely clear what he was getting at, but one thing is for sure: Lady Gaga likes dressing up. To wit: the metal dress in the “Paparazzi” video, the Fame Ball tour’s bubble coat, and the dress made from the side of beef she wore at last year’s MTV Video Music Awards.

Words: paul wilson. illustration: lie-ins and tigers

Call Girls!

There had not been a top pop duet like it since Bowie and Jagger danced in the streets for Live Aid: “Telephone,” released in January last year, was not merely a collaboration between Gaga and the equally stellar Beyoncé. Its epic, nine-minute, Tarantinoinfluenced promo led to a world shortage of lipstick, hairspray, and sparkly ladyclothes.

Ivo rie s Tr ad e

At a Lady Gaga concert (her second world tour, 201 dates strong, ends in May), the less-celebrated highlights are her turns at the piano.

She’s a fantastic keytinkler—however, when her pal Sean Lennon Tweeted a pic of her playing his dad’s white grand Steinway, angry Twits said she wasn’t fit to lace John Lennon’s boots. Imagine .

Born This Way: 2

The Billio nai res s

bite YouTube hits? Just get your baby to ns. another kid’s finger, and you’ll get millio more little a thing some To get billions takes graphy special, and Gaga’s collected shor t filmo hits. n billio a to on pers first has made her the falls out of That monkey from the clip where he but the a tree said, “Look, I’m pleased for her, great.” tree and I are working on something

Mutt-See TV Astute music video enthusiasts may notice common themes in those of Lady Gaga’s: wayout wardrobe, crack choreography, and a love of all things shiny that would shame a hundred Gollums. And yet, only those truly madly Gaga will spot the Great Danes that crop up in almost all of the vids, most notably in “Poker Face.”

Later this month, LG releases “Born This Way,” the first track from her second album. The long-player itself, which is also called Born This Way, debuts in full on May 23, but on February 13, the Gagarnival comes to town.

It’s the night of the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, so expect her to wear something special. A puffy vest made of helium, perhaps?

Like she needs more hits...: www.ladygaga.com

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On the edge: Olympic medal-winning skier Aksel Lund Svindal attacks the giant slalom in the World Cup race in Sรถlden, Austria, last year

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winning formula

WAX POWER

The dark art of ski waxing can make the difference between a skier being on the podium or off course. Here’s the science behind the slip and slide

Words: Professor Thomas Schrefl, Ruth Morgan. Photography: Erich Spiess/Red Bull Photofiles. Illustration: Mandy Fischer

waxing lyrical “The way the ski slides over the snow is 100 percent instrumental to your performance,” says British downhill ski legend Konrad Bartelski. “Conditions change so much, and each will require a different setup, plus the smallest piece of dirt or a greasy fingerprint can make a difference to your speed.

“Wax helps improve the surface. There are different waxes for different humidities and snow types, and to a certain point, it’s a science, but really, it’s an art form. Different conditions will demand a mix of waxes, and no two technicians will create exactly the same mix. When you’re on good skis that are working for you, it’s like becoming part of the gravitational pull. Entering that third dimension is quite a remarkable feeling.” wax works Going down the hill, skiers generate heat. The force of friction is F = µN, where µ is the coefficient of friction and N is the normal force on the slope. The force times the distance is the energy created during the slide down. Dividing this equation by time gives the generated heat power, P = µNv or P = µ mg cosα v. The normal force N is the projection of the force due to gravity, mg, onto the normal to the slope. Here m is the mass of the skier, v is the velocity and g is the acceleration due to gravity. Putting in some numbers for a downhill racer we see that the heat power on one ski easily exceeds 800 W. This is half the power of a strong hair dryer, and the heat will melt the snow in a thin layer at the surface. The water film acts as a lubricant and reduces friction.

The preparation of skis through waxes strongly depends on the temperature of the snow: at low temperature, dry friction dominates—both the ski base and the snow surface are not completely flat, and surface roughness induces friction. At low temperature, ski wax is applied to create a smooth surface that will reduce friction.

At high temperature, there might be too much water. Droplets that form between the ski base and the snow create water bridges that increase the friction. Now the wax has to be hydrophobic and reduce the adhesion forces between the water and the ski base. Intermediate temperatures around 22° F are the best for a low-friction coefficient.

FIS Men’s Ski World Cup: March 3–6, 2011 Super G and downhill. Tarvisio, Italy

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Life Without Limits

TIM SHIEFF

Once a hyperactive kid, the self-styled “Livewire” sees boundless opportunity where others see concrete walls

Age 22 Born Derby, England Best results First place, Barclaycard World Freerun Championships; Second place, Red Bull Art of Motion Claim to fame Has collected more than 4.5 million hits on YouTube with freerunning videos

Balancing act: Shieff traverses the rooftops of his home town of Derby, U.K.

“You should see the view from up here,” Tim “Livewire” Shieff shouts from a rooftop more than 10 yards above us. Just a few seconds earlier, he was down among the shoppers on the streets of his home town, Derby, before maneuvering his muscular frame with feline dexterity up a series of walls— finding unlikely footholds, twisting around corners, and balancing on thin ledges—to reach a rooftop world invisible to the rest of the city’s residents.

Then, with a leap, he’s over a 11-foot gap to the next building, landing on a flat roof with a neat roll, pausing for a one-armed handstand that leaves his legs dangling over the crowds below.

This is nothing out of the ordinary for Shieff.

The 22-year-old is a world champion of freerunning, a sport defined by its ability to reinterpret the landscape using urban acrobatics. “Freerunning is creative movement through an environment,” he explains. “It’s the way you create a path without following the normal options presented to you.”

Freerunners combine moves from any number of other disciplines, such as gymnastics and capoeira, to create their own individual style of movement.

“People always think I have a death wish when I’m hanging off buildings,” Shieff says, “but no one takes into account the years of practice. It’s a calculated risk, and I’m always in control.”

The discipline originated as “parkour” in France, gaining its first exposure in Luc Besson’s 1998 film, Taxi. The term “freerunning” was coined in a British TV documentary called Jump London, which aired in 2003. Shieff, then a young break dancer, was inspired to take to the streets. “ ‘Livewire’ was my breakdancing name, as I just didn’t stop moving when

“Up there it’s just peace. You’re in the moment. You look down and watch people walk their set path” I was a kid,” he says. “When I saw Jump London, I thought, ‘I have to do that.’ Since then, I’ve been out all the time, pushing myself and trying new things.”

After discovering the rooftops of Derby and Birmingham with other budding freerunners he met online, Shieff found himself at the forefront of a young sport quickly garnering international attention. High-profile exposure in movies, advertising campaigns, and music videos for artists like Madonna have brought the sport to the fore, combining with a strong online community to offer a real chance for freerunners to turn pro. “I put a video of me on YouTube, and got offers of promotional work, stunt work, and appearances,” he says. “I’ve travelled all over—Iceland, Russia, and Dubai; I lived in Los Angeles for three months last year for an MTV series, and presented Samuel L. Jackson with an award in Las Vegas.” International competitions have also sprung up, pioneered by Red Bull’s Art of Motion in Austria in 2007 and followed by the Barclaycard World Freerun Championships in London in 2008, in which Shieff came second, winning in 2009.

The young sport is now starting to mature. Shieff, with the four other members of his team, Storm Freerun, has new videos to shoot, more international travel planned, and appearances to make. But today, he is content in his rooftop world.

“Up there, you’re in the moment,” he says. “You look down and see people walking their set paths.

The first person to spot you is always a kid, because they’re still open to the world’s possibilities—and that’s what freerunning’s all about.”

Catch Tim “Livewire” Shieff at Red Bull Art of Motion on March 20 in London. For more info, jump to www.redbull.com or watch the Storm Freerun team in action at www.stormfreerun.com

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words: ruth morgan Photography: richie hopson

Name Tim Shieff

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Lucky Numbers

The Rio Carnival

Words: Ulrich Corazza, Valerie Rosenburg. Photography: DOUGLAS ENGLE/picturedesk, O Globo, ANTONIO LACERDA/picturedesk, Martin Mejia/AP, Celso Pupo/Getty, Song WEIWEI/picturedesk

The world’s largest carnival parade allows millions to become the figures of their own fantasies through “the transformative power of samba”

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The Rio de Janeiro carnival is one of the world’s largest happenings; almost 12 million people live in the urban districts of Brazil’s second-largest city, and they all seem to know how to party.

This world-famous riot of human expression officially celebrates “freedom from work and studies,” and is held 40 days before Easter for four days, ending on Ash Wednesday.

But for those in the know, the fun begins just after Christmas with the first trial demos.

120 Fat boys only should apply for the Carnival’s lead ceremonial role: King Momo. Why? Well the man honored with the keys to the city for four days on the night before the Carnival starts has to weigh 265 lbs. This “son of sleep and the night” was created by the newspaper A Noite (The Night) in the 1930s, and a new Momo is selected every year. He’s supposed to be a jolly figure, but in these healthconscious times, organizers go easy on the lard requirement.

7,400

The human hordes thronging Rio’s streets present quite a logistical challenge to the city’s keepers of public order. For example, 800 traffic checks will be done daily, while one million Carnival guides will be printed. Around 7,400 port-a-lets along the route should ensure that you’re never caught short—but God help you if you are, as last year, police arrested 200 people for taking a public pee. This kind of “tough love” gets a mention in the Carnival program and has inspired some bands to perform samba classics with revised lyrics such as: “Hey, don’t pee here!”

Oscar Niemeyer

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The most recent project undertaken by 103-yearold Brazilian star architect Oscar Niemeyer (left) is the Pelé Museum, in honor of the Brazilian soccer star, to be built in the coastal city of Santos. Back in 1984, his Rio Sambadrome (left) was built in just 120 days. The most expensive box in this 765-yardlong stadium on Marquês de Sapucaí Avenue in Rio costs 85,000 Real (about $506,807), whereas the cheapest tickets are available for just 10 Real ($5.97). Marquês de Sapucaí ends on the Praça da Apoteose [Apotheosis Square], where the 2016 Olympic marathon will end.

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The Grupo Especial competition gives the 12 best samba schools—each with anything between 4,000 and 5,000 members—precisely 82 minutes to make their way through the Sambadrome.

Anyone who strays from the time limit loses points.

Fifty jurors judge the Escolas de Samba [samba schools] in 10 categories: percussion, samba, harmony, coordination, best master of ceremonies, best female flag-bearer, costumes and decoration, orderliness of the procession, floats, opening presentation and subject matter.

3,000,000 Carnival infrastructure is overseen by Rio’s tourist board, Riotur (no jokes, please, about putting the “riot” into Rio), with help from the League of Samba Schools. Sixty-four Escolas and more than 460 casual carnival associations will wiggle their tushes down Rio’s walkways this year, while 3,000 street vendors have been accredited to work for the duration of the carnival. Riotur estimates it is expecting up to 3 million revellers for this year’s über party.

You can find the guide to the 2011 carnival at www.rio-carnival.net

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And they’re off‌ horses and riders begin their circuits around the Piazza del Campo

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SIENA

THRILLER Every year, the Italian city of Siena hosts a spectacle known as the Palio. On the surface, it’s a bareback horse race; underneath, it’s a battle between the city districts, in which centuries-old rivalries erupt, with vast sums changing hands and reputations at stake Words: Norman Howell Photography: Niels Ahlmann Olesen

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S

iena, Piazza del Campo, July 2, 2010. It’s 7:20 in the evening and 20,000 people are crammed into the magnificent shellshaped square. Nine horses are jockeying for position at one end of the square, pushing, buffeting their bareback riders, and using their elbows and knees to bump and strike their fellow jockeys and the horses. Two ropes delineate the start area.

Behind the back one, a 10th horse and rider are moving nervously. The crowd watches, tense and expectant.

The front rope is the charge of the Mossiere, who will only start the race when the last horse’s neck is through the gap alongside the rear rope, and the other horses are lined up correctly. But it’s chaos in there, so he orders them all out. They circle, then file back in. More bumping and pushing ensues. Out they come, and again. Five times, the Mossiere orders them out.

The crowd’s noise rises every time, echoing around the piazza, as does the tension. Last year, it took two hours to start the Palio.

I can see why. The Mossiere is in charge, but until the 10th horse enters the starting area, he is impotent. But there is another very important factor that influences the start: the

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Horses and riders line up against the front rope. The gray, called Fedora Saura, is kicked and bumped. Above right: The crowds wait. Right: Two Alfieri hug in relief after their flag-waving display

jockeys need to have done their deals with one another. Until these have been agreed, they will not line up properly, and the last horse will not ride past the back rope. Each time they are ordered out they pair up, talking, heads shaking, shoulders shrugging, money promised, lots of it.

Roberta Ferri is head of communication for Siena. Standing next to me on the Town Hall balcony where the media view the race, she points to the riders, as they file past us on their way from the warm-up area in an inner courtyard of the huge Town Hall to the start line.

“Ten assassins, 10 mercenaries,” she says. “They each have a borsa.” A borsa is a bag, and people have told me that in this imaginary bag, each jockey has anything between $137,273 and $411,943 to do deals with the other riders. “You see them talking,” says Ferri. “They are on their own, and no one else can hear what they are up to. A tourist might think they are just talking, but they are selling their souls in order to win, to make a rival lose, or to make a lot of money for themselves. And we have waited a whole year for this. Believe me, this really matters

to the people of Siena. Look, I have goosebumps!” She did indeed, and I could see she had tears in her eyes, too.

So, what is the Palio? It goes back to 1260 A.D., when Siena’s army–20,000 strong and reinforced by German knights and Saracen archers—was attacked by 35,000 soldiers from Florence. When Siena counter-attacked, dissident Florentine troops hacked off the hand of the Florence standard-bearer, causing it to fall to the ground.

In those days, the standard was positioned near the commander of the army. If it was raised, all was well.

The sight of the falling standard filled the Florentine troops with panic. Siena won, and 10,000 died. The Palio is therefore an expression of martial prowess, of victory in war by all means, and of unity in the face of adversity.

Siena is a small city in Tuscany—it only has 54,000 inhabitants, and it is very, very beautiful. It is mostly pedestrianized, and is blessed with awe-inspiring architecture, soft light, and money. It boasts the second-oldest university in the world, which was founded in 1240 and was publicly 31

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funded. The local bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, was started in 1472, and since then it has devolved its dividends to the city.

The city is divided into 17 contrade (districts). It elects its own Priore (mayor), and, crucially, a Capitano. The Priore looks after the running of the contrade, and the Capitano is the military leader in charge of the contrade participation in the Palio.

Belonging to a contrada is for life. Children are baptized in the contrada fountain by the captain. They are looked after by older children and teenagers, and belong to sports clubs. They join the drumming and flag-waving fraternities that keep the traditional martial spirit alive. Outsiders are not welcome. It’s their world, not a tourist attraction.

Our photographer, Niels, and I were introduced to the Contrada della Giraffa. We were allowed to take photographs at the dinner the night before the Palio: 1,200 contradaioli sitting outside the church of Santa Maria di Provenzano—four generations all sharing wine, pasta, and meat. Children running around, lining up to get the jockey’s autograph, constantly watched over by alert teenagers and the benevolent eyes of poised, elegant older ladies.

All around, young men were chanting and singing: unfamiliar rhythms, words, and old tunes from the battles and fights that have defined this contrada’s history. They are slow and quite chilling. And though our presence had been cleared, a few of the younger men gave us the stare. This scene was repeated in the

nine other contrades running in this Palio, with all of them turning inward to recall their history and pride, and gather strength for tomorrow’s battle.

Meanwhile, the horses are hidden deep in each contrada, guarded by men fanatically devoted to their well-being. These men don’t conform to the stereotypical image of the smart, suave, sophisticated Italian. Instead, they have tattoos, bulging forearms, and hard eyes. I had my first glimpse of them while walking around the backstreets on the evening before the Palio, in Selva territory. Suddenly, from within a small side courtyard, some men emerged, followed by a beautiful gray horse, slight, muscly, and nervy, with alert eyes and a noble carriage. I and a few other passersby were roughly shoved out of the way by the horse’s escort. I was moved by the beauty of the Anglo-Arab gray horse. Called “Fedora Saura,” it has done six previous Palios, one win. At nine years old, many felt it was out of the running. Its jockey is Silvano Mulas, who has had 700 wins on the flat, but finished fewer than three laps over two Palios.

The Capitano of each contrada will choose the jockey, based on his performance in past years and how much they cost, for the race. For the July 2 Palio, the horse was chosen and assigned on June 29 in the following way: it was made to gallop around the Palio course, three laps of the square, equal to 1,094 yards, watched by the Capitani. Even though there are 17 contrade, only 10 of them get to race each Palio (the second Palio is in August).

So the racing Capitani choose the 10 best horses. These go into a hat, and in another go the names of the 10 contrade. Then each horse is paired with a different contrada, by chance. This is all done in the open, with many thousands of contradaioli watching.

Joy and anguish follow: this year’s overwhelming favorite was the Nicchio contrada: the jockey had won 11 Palios, the horse won last year. That combination could not lose. And, I was told, Nicchio was a very rich contrada.

So, each contrada has just four days to get its horse and jockey acquainted. The grooms and stables will be unfamiliar to the horse, and the jockey will have to work out how to get the best out of the horse, testing its speed, courage, and cornering ability.

This is done in the prove, morning and evening. At each prova the horses will be positioned differently, some on the inside of the track, others further out, and the “outside” 10th horse will also vary. Deals are being done each time the jockeys get near each other. Then, on race day, all the contrade go into a bottle-shaped device, which, when turned upside down, will give the final starting order. These are written on a piece of paper and handed

Above left and right: Giraffa contradaioli gather to eat and sing battle hymns. Left and right: The marching bands gather to the sound of drums, while the horse is blessed in the Giraffa church

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over to a policeman, who holds his hand high so the whole 20,000-strong Piazza, which has gone totally silent, can see the envelope at all times. He then hands it to the Mossiere, who reads out the starting order.

Once the names are read out, the horses file in between the ropes in their new order. Many of the deals that have been done are now void—thus more talking, pushing, and hitting.

Selva is lined up right next to Nicchio: there is much bumping, and the gray horse is unwilling, or is not being allowed to, line up at the starting rope. It has half-turned, with the jockey keeping an eye on the 10th horse outside the ropes. They go in and out for about 25 minutes.

Most people have been here since 4 p.m., and it’s now 8 p.m.

It has been a long day already. Some contradaioli have been in the square since 5 a.m., securing their places. At 6 a.m., Niels stumbled on a horse being walked out in front of his secret stable, guarded only by two steel barriers. A man approached, his arms laden with breakfast for the groom and the other stable lads.

Niels helpfully started to move the steel barrier aside, but the man angrily shouted, “No! Don’t touch! You don’t belong here!

Go away, you just can’t understand!”

A couple of hours later, Siena’s archbishop blessed the jockeys in Piazza Del Campo. It was noted that he made no mention of the Palio, not as in the race, but as in the banner that is given to the winning contrada. These are newly commissioned for each Palio: the artists have some connections to Siena, and it is such a great honor that they do it for free. The silk banner is later kept in the contrada’s own museum. Siena, therefore, has 17 museums, full of inestimable gold, silver, and paintings bequeathed by loyal contradaioli.

This year, the painter is Ali Hassoun, a Lebanese artist who came to Siena as a refugee, and is now famous after studying art in the city’s academy. His painting shows the Virgin Mary with Middle Eastern traits—and above her is a verse from the Koran, praising her. Below her stands St. George slaying an evil dragon. The saint was the patron of those Teutonic cavalrymen in 1260, and the presence of the Saracen archers is shown in the keffiyeh (traditional Arab head scarf) St. George wears instead of a helmet. The archbishop was not happy about this nonCatholic approach. The mayor, who commissioned the Palio from Ali Hassoun, rebuffed the archbishop, and the whole town has been abuzz over this.

At 3 p.m. we are back at the Giraffa contrada, pushing our way into the small oratory where the horse will be blessed by the parish priest. Outsiders are decidedly unwelcome, and the small church is packed as the horse is led in by the usual posse of bodyguards. The horse is then solemnly blessed by the priest, who commands it to “Go fight, and come back the winner.” The horse seems unperturbed by the noise, the smell of incense, this strange man whispering to him, and by the subsequent roar and chanting that accompany it back to the stable. Outside the church, two flag-wavers, the alfieri chosen by this contrada, are about to start the last practice for their routine. Dressed in costume, they wave the flags in intricate patterns, following the rhythm of the drum, and finally hurling them in the air, each catching the other’s flag. As soon as they finish their routine, they are buried by the crowd, where women are kissing, men are bear-hugging, many are crying, and others are shouting.

And so to Piazza del Campo, where, at 5:15 p.m., a group of mounted carabinieri canter into the square, beautifully aligned, and riding erect and proud. One lap, two laps—the noise rises, and something is about to happen. The lead carabiniere unsheathes his sabre, urges his horse into a gallop, and charges ahead, the saber held straight ahead of him, with the tip just 34

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Top left: Jubilation as Selva has won. Top right and left: Earlier, the carabinieri paraded and then charged, roared on by the crowds

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Top left: Residents of the Selva district are filled with joy and relief as the Anglo-Arab gray sprints to victory. Below left: Horses round the tight bend, the only spot with soft barriers. Top right: The winning jockey is carried shoulder-high. Below: Every bar in Siena is tuned into the Palio

ahead of the horse’s mane. With 20,000 throats roaring, the Piazza is alive with the sound of war. The other carabinieri follow. It’s a full cavalry charge, magnificent and fearsome.

The historical cortege starts at 5:20 p.m., and marches past for two hours. The costumes are magnificent, and the flag-wavers, horses, drummers, page boys, archers, and swordsmen all march to the sound of the bell being struck by one man at the top of the Torre del Mangia, which dominates the Piazza Del Campo, rising 111 yards and 500 narrow steps upwards.

Now the flag-wavers come out again, each with their own drummer, doing different patterns that require concentration.

Roberta Ferri is still beside me, and as the alfieri line up with their flags, she tells me, “Now it really begins.” I ask why.

“Because the alfieri know what deals are going down, and you can tell from how they wave their flags if it’s good for their contrada or not.” I say that the drumming is really powerful in setting the scene. “Drumming,” she says, “is the sound of war.”

Finally, the jockeys and their horses come out from under the Town Hall courtyard. On their way out, a policeman hands each one an ox-hide whip. There are no rules—you can hit and be hit.

They go to the ropes. I am watching the Selva horse, “my” horse, the one I met the evening I arrived in Siena. The Nicchio horse, the overwhelming favorite, is right next to it on the start rope.

The noise is deafening, and eventually the rope drops and they’re off. Down one side of the square, at a sharp-right bend into a short straight, then comes a 90-degree turn. This is the only

place where there are protective barriers. Once they get around this corner, it’s a long, straight run uphill to the corner above which I am standing. It’s another tight right corner, and one of the horses doesn’t make it. Horse and rider crash into the waisthigh wooden barrier, behind which hundreds of people are sitting. The horse gets back up and carries on racing. The jockey is stunned on the ground. Dozens of hands reach out from the crowd and pull him over the barriers—just in time, as the horses have come around once more, and they are about to negotiate the same bend. The first four get through unscathed. Selva and Nicchio are there, but the horse without a rider clips the inside barrier and goes tumbling head over hoofs. The Giraffa horse ploughs into him, and two more behind him also go down.

It all happens so quickly—there’s horses, jockeys, reins, and hooves everywhere. Again the hands from the crowd grab what they can. Two horses get up, but the third does not. It lies there, legs in the air, head and neck bent at a strange angle.

People around me are screaming: “Noooo! Not the horse!

Please, not the horse!” And again the remaining horses come around, thundering past the stricken one, which still has not moved. A man jumps over the barriers, horses thundering past him as he grabs the tail of the prone horse. He yanks hard, and amazingly, the horse springs up, shakes itself, and is led away.

Meanwhile, the Selva horse is second, and attacks the leading horse down the starting straight, which is downhill. Silvano Mulas eases the gray Anglo-Arab alongside the leader. The other jockey, who has been in front for most of the race, is not going down without a fight. And fight he does—hitting the Selva horse and Mulas over and over with his whip, stopping only when the gray thunders past him.

The race is over, and thousands of people jump over the barriers to cheer, commiserate, and protect their horse and jockeys. There is still so much tension, and there are bloody noses and flying elbows as everyone is running to capture the moment when hundreds of hands lift the winning jockey from the horse and then carry him all the way back to their contrada, where the celebrations will go on all night. And that’s it. Well, until August, when the Palio starts all over again.

It has been a great, great spectacle with depth, drama, and skulduggery. Not a sport, that’s for sure. Not fair play, that’s also for sure. But then again, to quote John Lyly, a 16th-century English writer: “The rules of fair play do not apply in love and war.” Siena agrees wholeheartedly.

For details of the Palio, including the schedule of the second race in August, visit: www.ilpalio.org or www.aboutsiena.com

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Move over, Beckham American soccer has a new idol. Not that Thierry Henry sees it that way, exactly. The former Arsenal and Barcelona star sets the record straight on his transfer to the New York Red Bulls, underestimating the growth of the sport in the US and why it’s more difficult to play for his father than a stadium full of rabid fans.

Words: Werner Jessner and Bernd Fisa Photography: Gian Paul Lozza

Big stars have a reputation for being unpunctual and unfriendly. And the more famous they get, the greater the distance they put between themselves and the real world. So what to do when one of the most successful soccer players of the day not only arrives bang on time at the Skybox in the Red Bull Arena in Wals-Siezenheim, Austria, but is friendly and engaging, has nothing of the diva about him, and is a paragon of professionalism, from his head to his toes? You throw your carefully crafted script out the window, and end up asking the questions you always wanted to ask…. red bulletin: A survey carried out by U.K. newspaper The Guardian says two-thirds of its readers consider Major League Soccer (MLS) to be a pensioners’ league for former soccer talent. What do you say to that? thierry henry: I don’t read the British press, and with good reason. And I don’t care what people think.

But what I will say is that we beat Manchester City at the beginning of the season, and we should have beaten Tottenham, too—and would have done if we hadn’t made so many substitutions at halftime. This discussion gets on my nerves. What’s the best league in the world? In England, they say it’s the English league; in Spain, the Spanish league; and in Germany, the German league. It doesn’t bother me.

I came to America to win the MLS. We have a host of excellent players in the MLS. Of course, my name gets mentioned most often, along with the names of a couple of other guys who played in Europe.

You’re the MLS’s ambassador to Europe….

I’m not an ambassador for MLS. At best, I’m an ambassador for soccer, like all the other guys out there playing or training, who happen to like making their living out of playing the game. MLS is just as much represented by those professionals who play in Colorado or Dallas as it is by me. There are a lot 38

of local players here in America whose names we might not know, but who are really good. If they made it to Europe, people would be surprised by what they saw. The next thing to say is that in Europe, it’s almost impossible to watch MLS matches on T.V. The public often haven’t got a clue about what they’re badmouthing, as they’ve never watched a single match.

But would you say it’s easier to score goals in America than in England, Italy or Spain?

It always depends on the team. It’s easier to score goals in world-class teams like Barcelona or Arsenal than it is in teams that aren’t of the same quality. It’s not the league. It’s the quality of the team you’re in that determines how tough things are for a striker.

If you’ve got good teammates, you get a lot of good balls; the rest practically happens by itself. I’ve played with a lot of wonderful players, and then it wasn’t always that difficult to score goals. In the MLS, we really haven’t played well away from home on some occasions. It’s been almost impossible to score a goal because I’d only get three or four balls per half. But it works the other way around, too. If as a striker I don’t work for the defense, my defenders get stressed, mistakes happen, the team suffers, and the result can only be bad.

Can you at least say that the level most European teams play at is more consistent or more predictable than in MLS? Let me give you an example. When I moved to Barcelona, we didn’t win anything. Then [coach] Pep Guardiola appeared on the scene, and suddenly the goals started coming by themselves—and that was with the same team and the same players. Things just suddenly clicked. That’s the most important thing in soccer, to give a team confidence and to make things click. Then players who’ve had a tough season can suddenly find that confidence again to help the team and strengthen the team spirit. Good managers can set an upward trajectory in motion.

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HEADY DAYS 18 YEARS ON THE BALL France 1997–2010

AS Monaco 1994–1999 Discovered by the Monegasques at 13, Henry first played on the outside left for the senior team at 17. League champions in 1996–1997, UEFA Cup semifinalists the year after. Manager: Arsène Wenger.

Celebrated his national team debut on October 11, 1997, at the age of 20.

In 1998, he won the World Cup on home soil, and could duly call himself both a World Champion and a Knight of the Legion of Honor. In 2000, France were also crowned European Champions.

Henry scored 51 goals in his 123 games for Les Bleus. Only his handball, which cost the Republic of Ireland a place in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, casts a shadow over the career of an otherwise unblemished sportsman. After the fiasco in the French team camp, when Nicolas Anelka was suspended, and playing the role of super-sub in controversial manager Raymond Domenech’s squad, Henry announced his retirement from the national team at the age of 33.

Even though he wasn’t technically team captain, he was summoned to the Élysée Palace by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to discuss the situation.

FC Barcelona 2007–2010

Additional photography: Action Images (4), Imago (1), David Clerihew/Red Bull Photofiles (1)

So when the New York Red Bulls lost in the MLS semifinals after winning their home leg, was that a missing “click”? Even you couldn’t help the team.

I was injured for the return leg. I’d twisted my knee in training. I shouldn’t have played at all, but I told the manager that he could use me if he needed me. He brought me on in the 85th minute, but it was already too late. But that’s soccer.

Maybe we got too confident after finishing first in the regular season and winning our first leg in the play-offs. You won’t get anywhere in soccer with that sort of attitude. The other team put three goals past us and won the series, and rightfully so. But there’s always a next time.

You’ve already won everything there is to win….

I haven’t won everything. I haven’t won the MLS. And that’s why I’m here. I don’t see what I’ve already won. I see what I want to win.

OK, but allow us to look back for a moment.

Of all the great teams you’ve played for, is there one you’d rate above all the others?

I was talking about exactly this subject with a friend yesterday. We couldn’t come to a definite conclusion, only something more vague. Monaco will always mean something special to me because that’s where I started my career and I won the French title with them. Juve was fantastic too….

Even though you didn’t stay long. What actually happened between you and former Juve general director Luciano Moggi? You once claimed that he should be the one to say what went on back then between Juventus and you.

Indeed. It shouldn’t be me that says what happened back then. He should do that. But I will say that I’m not the kind of guy you can mess around.

I have my personality. A tough one, actually. So after everything that happened, I decided to leave Juventus. The good thing about all that is that it made me tougher and stronger. My career hit another level at Arsenal. I became a man in London.

My daughter was born in London. London is an important part of my life. We went unbeaten for 49 games one season. That such a thing could have happened in modern soccer is a miracle, as was being part of the team that achieved it. I didn’t really get into the flow of about one game in three back then, but you just give it your all. In retrospect, it was crazy what we achieved back then. And my love for the club grew proportionally to the fans’ love for me. When I had to leave the club—I’ve explained why that was many times [Henry has said he left because of the shock departure of Arsenal vice chairman David Dein]—it didn’t affect my love for Arsenal in any way. I’ll always be a Gunner as long as I live. And how could I fail to love Barcelona? I won everything I could with them, all six possible trophies. That team rewrote history, and I was part of that. But as a lover of soccer, what is even more impressive for me than the number of titles we won was the way we won them— by playing beautiful soccer.

For many people, success justifies any style of play. Some managers even seem to be

Juventus 1999 The reigning Italian champions took on the 21-year-old in January 1999 to strengthen their left flank. The young World Cup winner scored only three goals in just 16 games for La Vecchia Signora [The Old Lady]. Infighting hastened Henry’s departure from Serie A.

arsenal 1999–2007 Arsène Wenger, Henry’s old manager at Monaco, decided to give the rough diamond a second chance at his new club, but this time as a straightforward striker. In spite of some teething troubles, Henry scored 26 goals in his first season.

He won two league titles, two FA Cups, two Golden Boots, and more accolades than we can go into here. The 2003–2004 season was particularly remarkable.

Arsenal went the whole league season unbeaten, the first team to do so since 1889. A year after losing the 2006 Champions League final to Barcelona,, the team captain moved to Spain.

The Catalan club managed to lure away Arsenal’s most prolific-ever goal-scorer —Henry scored 174 goals in total—for a transfer fee of €125 million ($170 million). Although Henry complained he was having trouble settling in in Spain, he was Barça’s top scorer in his opening season, with 19 goals in total. In 2009, FC Barcelona won everything there was to win: the Spanish League, the Spanish Cup, the Champions League, the Spanish and UEFA Supercups, and the FIFA Club World Cup. By the time the 2009–2010 season came around, Barcelona had so many excellent strikers they were almost tripping over each other. In July 2010, Henry signed for the New York Red Bulls of Major League Soccer.

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NEW YORK red Bulls From 2010 Henry is one of two “designated players” at the New York Red Bulls, which means the salary freeze doesn’t apply to him.

After a dominant pre-season, finishing top of the Eastern Conference, Hans Backe’s team fell in the semifinals to San Jose.

downright proud of the fact that they can win with any style of soccer.

Yes, that is the way some people think. But not me. Soccer is to be played. Yes, played! Ideally, the way they play it at Barcelona.

That sounds a bit like a declaration of love for the game of soccer. But isn’t that too much of a luxury in a society that demands success?

I know! Performance is what counts. “Show us what you’ve got.” And then people judge you for that. And as a sportsman I say, yeah, I want to win every time I play. And as a lover of soccer, I want to play and see beautiful soccer.

Does that desire we had to play as children— the desire that made us run across a field after a ball in the first place—ever shine through at the top level of the sport? What does it mean to play soccer?

Playing soccer isn’t at all about doing tricks.

Showing off with the ball isn’t the same as playing soccer. Playing soccer means doing the right thing with the ball at the right time. Take Barcelona or Arsenal—their critics say that they pass the ball too much. But they’re wrong! They play because they want to move the opposing team’s players around.

That’s when gaps open up, because it’s impossible to be in two places at once. That final pass, the one when everyone understands that there’s a chance for a goal, wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for the passes that had been done before. With the exception of Leo [Lionel Messi], for the last third of a game, Barcelona play one-touch. Arsenal do likewise. There are no tricks. No showing off. The key is a simple pass. You can tell a good team because their opponents have to do a lot of running.

Good soccer looks easy.

So does that bring us back to a more childlike understanding of the game, after all?

Yes, but with a plan. The joy of the game is indeed the same as what children experience. But you have to factor in precision and mathematics. It’s like chess, move for move—like high-speed chess.

Has your attitude toward soccer changed over the years?

I love the game, and I always will. When I started playing, I never thought of becoming a professional player at all. I just wanted to play. Plus the losers had to buy the winners a pizza. I get annoyed today when I lose in the same way as I did back then. In the past, I wouldn’t speak to my opponents for a week after losing one of those winner-takes-pizza games. I can’t do that anymore because a certain level of behavior is expected of us professionals, and everything gets caught on camera. But I still feel just the same. If someone kicks you, you want to kick him back—not because you’re a bad person, but because it’s in the nature of the game. People are always shocked when they see me playing with my friends or with my father and brother.

Why’s that?

Because we play so hard. When we play, you can forget all that father–son–brother stuff. It’s all about the ball. You want the ball? Then try to take it from me. That’s the nature of the game.

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“you grow up quickly. At 16, you’re at home. at 19, you play for your country. at 20, you win the world cup. it’s a brutal adjustment. ”

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Can you enjoy an ugly win?

Everyone’s always happy to take three points home.

But I’ve never really been happy after ugly wins.

Are you a perfectionist?

I try to be. But I know it’s impossible.

Nobody’s perfect.

Say there’s a match where you’ve scored a hat-trick but missed one chance. What are you going to think about after the match?

About the missed chance, definitely, and what I could have done better.

Do you think that comes from your father and growing up in the Paris suburbs?

I’m sure it does.

Do you remember the moment when your father first told you he was proud of you?

I don’t think he’s ever said that to me. My father doesn’t say that kind of thing. At most, you might see it in his eyes. I think he must have been proud of me after we won the World Cup. My father brought me up never to be satisfied with what you’ve already achieved. You might not be able to achieve everything you want to achieve, but you can always try to get closer to your ultimate goal.

Is that a desirable character trait?

I’ve never had a problem with my father, if that’s what your question means. He wanted me to play soccer, and I wanted the same thing. It might have been a problem if he’d wanted to get me into gymnastics. As a child, I wanted to please my father. That’s completely normal. The father is every boy’s chief idol.

Did your father urge you on?

I don’t think I’d put it like that. He was just there for me. Always. But I didn’t need my father to put me under any pressure. I can always do that by myself. When you’re a child, you want your family and father to be proud of you. That was the heaviest pressure I ever felt. The pressure I felt to win a match when my father was watching on Sunday afternoons when I was eight, nine, or 10 was greater than any pressure I felt later in a packed stadium.

Can you remember the first match you watched together?

Of course. It was Paris Saint-Germain versus Rennes at Parc des Princes. I must have been about seven.

There are some things you never forget.

How has the sport affected your personality?

You grow up really quickly. At 16, you’re sitting around at home. At 19, you play for your country with thousands of people shouting your name.

At 20, you’re a World Cup winner. It’s a brutal adjustment. So there’s no other choice but to grow up quickly. There’s no fighting it, even if all you want to do is play soccer.

Soccer players are simply modern-day heroes.

I’m not a hero! I’d be a hero if I’d saved someone’s life.

But you’ve made people happy….

That’s different. For me, heroes are people who’ve saved other people or fought for their country. Maybe I’ve given some people pleasure, but that definitely hasn’t always been the case. You can’t win every game. Yes, people come to a soccer game to forget themselves and to experience happiness, joy, beauty,

and passion for 90 minutes. Does that make me an entertainer? Yes, perhaps it does. But a hero? No. You’re definitely a hero to some people. You do charity work, but don’t brag about it….

Because it’s not the sort of thing that belongs in the public domain. Some things are just part of the job. Keeping the sponsors happy, giving interviews, meeting the fans. And other stuff is private. If I help out, it’s because I want to help people, and not for publicity. I try to be honest and to be myself.

That isn’t always easy, even if I did have the privilege of a good upbringing.

What would your father say about you in an interview?

He’d never give an interview.

That’s saying something in itself, isn’t it?

That’s my father for you. My father. Our relationship is between me and him. It’s private.

You speak a lot about your father, but hardly at all about your mother. What about her?

My mother is an absolutely normal, loving mother who always took care of us. She’s a very straightforward person. Very relaxed.

I imagine you can now walk unmolested down the streets in New York for what must be the first time in years. How does that feel?

New York is a pretty cosmopolitan city. There are always people who recognize me. Europeans underestimate how quickly soccer is growing in America—now Americans recognize me, too.

Mind you, I can ride the subway to training here.

That would have been unthinkable in Europe.

Do you really ride the subway to training?

I’ve done it three times.

Is it a luxury being able to take the subway?

Normal life isn’t a luxury.

What’s normal life?

I do what anyone else would. I go to Central Park and sit on a bench, and don’t talk to anyone if I just want to sit and think. I wander around. I go and see a show on Broadway or watch a basketball game.

Where will you live once your career ends?

In New York, for as long as my contract here lasts. In the long term, I see myself dividing my time between New York and London. But who can say what might happen and what opportunities life might hand you?

Would you like to remain involved in soccer when you stop playing? A lot of your fellow soccer players are fed up with the sport once their playing careers have come to an end.

I can understand that. You can get very tired of professional soccer after a while. But I have no alternative. I love the game too much. Whatever my life ends up like once I’ve finished playing, it will still be tied up with soccer.

Are you a workaholic?

Yes, with all the positives and negatives that entails. When you have an idea, you’ve got to go with it. You can’t just sit around. You’ve got to do something. And when you do, do it with 100 percent commitment, regardless of what it is.

New York Red Bulls versus Seattle Sounders FC, March 19, Red Bull Arena. Game info, updates and tickets at: www.newyorkredbulls.com

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PHOTOGRAPHY: Brian Bielmann/Red Bull Photofiles

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Generation Jordy Jordy Smith is firmly in the vanguard of surfing’s new wave, but he’s not alone…

Words: Craig Jarvis

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Born February 11, 1988 Durban, South Africa A bit of both “I think talent and hard work go hand in hand, and complement each other. And I think I have both.”

Nearly lost it His nipple. At 15, surfing Teohupoo’s notorious slab in Tahiti.Hitting the reef, the wave sucked dry.

“I went flying on to the dry reef. I had roasties all over my stomach and chin, and it pretty much took my nipple off.”

Web www.jordy-smith.co.za

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World Tour 2010

ure, American legend Kelly Slater might have claimed the world title again in 2010, but last season marked a sea change, nonetheless. For the first time, it became clear that the door is well and truly open for the next generation of young guns to storm through. And leading the new blood is 23-yearold South African Jordy Smith. This surfer from Durban is blessed with unbelievable talent and drive, but he is not alone. Another three surfers—the enigmatic Dane Reynolds, goofy-footer Owen Wright, and the dynamic Julian Wilson—are matching his strides. These four are discovering new moves and new parts of the wave to ride, and are expanding what the human imagination thought possible on a thin sliver of glassed, high-density foam.

Jordy Smith Thanks to an unusual combination of brawn, balance, and vision, Jordy Smith has redefined what radical surfing is all about. It’s the kind of surfing that has seen journalists exhaust their barrel of superlatives.

We’re talking about the kind of surfing that slips the sport into a new dimension. His moves are big, powerful expressions that explode into outrageous gravitational experiments. His surfing is exciting and

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easy on the eye—fluid yet radical, powerful yet graceful. And to this he has added consistency. Jordy Smith has something no one else has, not even Slater.

A rare quality you can’t quite put your finger on, but you know will change things.

Last year was a landmark one for Jordy in terms of competition surfing. It was the year he became The Contender. It got off to a good start, with a second at the Quiksilver Pro Snapper in Australia… and then he landed the big one. In front of a roaring, vuvuzela-trumpeting local crowd, Jordy went one bigger and won his maiden World Tour event at Supertubes, Jeffrey’s Bay. At that midpoint in the tour year, he was leading the ratings, and expectations were high. It was a determined and scarily focused Slater, however, who slowly made inroads into Jordy’s lead. At the death, Slater made his move, winning in Portugal and Puerto Rico—two of the final three events. A historic 10th world title was his.

But significantly, Jordy’s performance got as much attention as did Slater’s title feats. There were no signs of the usual suspects at the top of the rankings —Taj Burrow, Joel Parkinson, former world champion Mick Fanning, and evergreen Bede Durbidge were all blown away early on. It was quite simply the Jordy and Kelly show. New school vs. old school. Experience might have seen Kelly

photography: Hugo Silva/Red Bull Photofiles, Kolesky/Nikon/Red Bull Photofiles

Name Jordy Smith

Jordy at the ASP

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take the title, but he knew that he had a game on his hands, and was the first to acknowledge Jordy’s talent and versatility.

Jordy finished the year second. An inspired performance that only has one more rung for improvement. We talked the year through with him.

RED BULLETIN: That was an amazing 2010— what are your thoughts now, looking back?

Jordy Smith: I took a relaxed approach to competing this year, and it seemed to have worked for me. I was able to put myself into the top five and maintain the pace. I also had a great support team, which counts for a lot. My aim was to just have calculated fun with my surfing. I wanted to keep my focus on surfing relaxed, fun heats, and trying to adopt a more freesurfing heat approach.

RB: That big win at the Billabong Pro in Jeffrey’s Bay must have felt good.

JS: Yeah. It was from this point on that I knew I’d be in a good spot for the next events on the calendar.

I also knew that the new format (the World Tour cut down from 45 surfers on tour to 32 midway through the year) would allow me to hold my second seed, as long as I surfed myself into the quarterfinals. That was my challenge, to make quarterfinals or further.

RB: You must have known then that it was going to be between you and Kelly for the world title?

JS: Kelly and I had a good lead ahead of the other surfers. We had pulled ourselves away from the pack.

Eventually, I needed Kelly to lose in Puerto Rico.

Instead, he went ballistic and secured his 10th world title, which was pretty incredible, actually. I was just really happy to have been a part of driving him to his victorious finish.

RB: Were there any valuable lessons learned from the 2010 season?

JS: For sure! Sometimes it’s quite hard to quantify, as there’s always so much to absorb, and the variables are always changing. My semifinal heat in Jeffrey’s Bay was a perfect example. I was in deep trouble against Bede Durbidge, yet I managed to pull myself back into contention. With two minutes remaining and two high scores needed, I managed to get the heat win. So I learned to keep fighting until the last second. The crowd’s reaction to that result was really incredible.

RB: Looking forward, you must be pumped for 2011. Are you planning anything different in your approach this year?

JS: I honestly can’t wait for the whole thing to get started again! I have noticed that every year, we all seem to get a little more comfortable with our surfing, and it’s a bit like being on a racetrack. You have to have a good grid start, but you also have to keep your foot flat to the floor, pedal to the metal, because if you’re not slipstreaming in the top five, you will be trying to keep the smoke out of your eyes.

RB: Are there any training specifics that we should know about?

JS: There are, but if I told you, I’d have to kill you.

No, fitness and a good eating program will definitely stay at the top of my roster, as well as working on new surfboard equipment through the year.

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Julian Wilson Of the 22 years Julian has been on this planet, he has been surfing for 19 of them. In his younger days, when he was only three years old, his dad was surfing two-up with him on his longboard out at backline. His mom was in on the action too, pushing him into little waves on the inside when the rest of the family went out on the big days.

Despite coming from a strong surfing family, it was Julian who was always going to be destined for greatness. As soon as he was strong and competent enough to surf alone, he was recognized for the

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photography: Agustin Munoz/Red Bull Photofiles, AFRAMEPHOTO.COM

He has invented a new move, the Sushi Roll, a backside aerial that’s part Superman boundless talent he possessed. Quicksilver picked him up at 14; Red Bull have been with him since 2008; and, with the departure of Quicksilver last year, Nike have also added their support.

This year—2011—is the biggie though and for the first time Julian will be representing on the World Tour and, along with his mates, is sure to make a massive impact. Said Julian on his blog just after he qualified: “The final result that secured my spot was Pat Gudauskas beating Tommy Whitaker in round two. It’s hard to cheer against a friend like

Hole to whole He stepped into a hole on the beach last year, dislocating his ankle’s peroneal tendon. He was unable to surf for three months. “Of all the ways you can put yourself out of action, I had to do it that lame-ass way!”

Web www.julianwilson.com

Tom, so I wasn’t getting all fired up. I definitely had a big smile on my face when Pat won, though.

Thanks, Pat.” Julian is small in stature compared to Jordy, but he still manages to exude power while performing his wild moves. He has also invented a new move, the Sushi Roll which is a backside aerial that’s part Superman, part inverted 360.

Julian will sit very comfortably alongside Dane, Jordy and Owen, and has the ability to rise quite easily above all of them at any given time.

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Name Dane Reynolds Born September 7, 1985 Long Beach, California Other name “Bro.” It’s his nickname.

Not rare among surfers Tuned in Hard garage-punk band Hot Snakes are among Dane’s faves, and he particularly loves their Automatic Midnight album

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Whether he likes it or not, Dane has been described as the next big thing in American surfing. He is seen as the heir to King Kelly’s throne, and a full-time rival to Jordy. He feigns indifference, though, and claims ignorance, too. All Dane wants to do is focus as hard as possible on pushing the boundaries of his sport. Sometimes his radical surfing fits into the World Tour judges’ criteria, and he scores big points… and sometimes it doesn’t.

At the Billabong Pro in Jeffrey’s Bay 2010, Dane came up against top Australian surfer Taj Burrow in the quarters in somewhat bumpy but very contestable conditions. Taj surfed a good heat, while Dane went for a huge air-reverse on every single wave he caught. He came close to making some of the moves, but not close enough, and at the end of the 30 minutes, he hadn’t pulled off one move in the

entire heat—resulting in a heat total of 3.66 for two waves out of a possible 20-point total.

It was a complete lack of contest strategy that saw him fail miserably in his quest to advance from the quarters. But is that his quest? His nonconformist approach is what makes the surfing public love him.

The real new-school moves belong to him and Jordy, and to no one else, and that makes him one of the most popular surfers on the planet.

Dane’s contest antics might mask his incredible talent somewhat, but underneath his veneer of a surfer who’s not taking himself too seriously and a façade of looseness is a ridiculously talented sportsman who has the opportunity turn the world of professional surfing upside down. It all depends on which path he decides to concentrate on— world-title campaigner or free-surfing prodigy.

photography: brian bielmann, Jason Childs/aframephoto.com

Dane Reynolds

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Owen appears ready to take on world champions

Owen thrives on the big stuff. When the surf is big and gnarly, he’s ready to charge

photography: Tom Carey/AFramephoto.com

Owen Wright He’s the best junior surfer in the world, hands down. In fact, so much so that Owen has neglected his junior surfing events recently because he’s been too busy competing with the big boys on the World Tour. Owen comes from good surfing stock, with all of his family members being top surfers in their own ages and divisions. But Owen’s the one who appears to have the nerve, skills, and abilities necessary in order to beat world champions.

He has all the new-school moves under his belt: big alley-oops, reverses, airs, flips, and grab rails— plus he has all the stock power turns that encompass a professional surfer’s arsenal: the big rasping cutback, the vertical backhand-lip bashes, the standard rail turns, and the re-entries.

Owen, or “O” as he is known in surf media, has one other very important talent—he thrives on the

big stuff. When the surf is big, gnarly, and scary, and most top surfers are nervously pacing the sand, he is absolutely ready to charge and pull into the biggest, thickest slabs.

“I cant wait for the Pipe event,” said Owen in a recent Australian Surfing Life magazine article, referring to the Billabong Pipeline Masters that take place in Hawaii every year. Pipeline is without a doubt one of the scariest waves on the tour to surf.

At his young age, his big-wave drive is an incredible skill, and it will remind many people of someone else who used to thrive on the big surf when he was younger: Mr. Kelly Slater.

While O might not have the best backhand approach in big rights, he has enough talent in other areas to make up for these minor shortcomings, and his trajectory into the top five is imminent.

Name Owen Wright Born January 16, 1990 Culburra, Australia Big splash At the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach, in Australia, Owen dramatically punted world champ Kelly Slater out in round two. “It was one of those things that not many people get to do.”

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Generation Grom

Then we have the groms—the kids who will be the next wave of professional surfers.

They’re young, loose, light and brave— and they’re ready to take on the world

ndino is

follow

tsteps

of his fa

ther

Kolohe Andino Son of surfing standout Dino Andino, Kolohe is so new school he exists somewhere in the future.

The 17-year-old enjoys incredible sponsorship deals, riding for Target and Nike 6.0 along with Red Bull as his main labels. He is rumored to be the highest-paid junior surfer in the world, but he backs it up with fast, hard surfing and crazy aerial tricks. He has 52

proved to have a sensible head on his shoulders, and he rolls with the hard questions in interviews like an old pro. Like the big dog, Jordy, Kolohe has something special going for him, and again, it’s not something that can be easily identified. And like Jordy, Kolohe is going to show us all exactly what that something is in the next few years.

photography: Jason Kenworthy/ Red Bull Photofiles

A Kolohe

e foo ing in th

photography: chris straley/ aframephoto.com

Conner’s “can do” attitude is winning him a legion of new fans

Conner Coffin An interesting surname, especially as this 18-yearold has made a name for himself by charging when the waves get big and dangerous. Indeed, “completely fearless” is the most common descriptor attached to Conner, and his escapades in the serious water of Hawaii have been turning heads these past few seasons. The young American is well-travelled, and

‘Completely is the most c fearless’ descriptor a ommon to Conner ttached has impressed surf-watchers the world over. He has all the pieces of the puzzle that will make him a major player on the international surf scene.

He already receives great media exposure and enjoys good support from his sponsors.

More on Jordy Smith at www.redbullsurfing.com Keep up with the competition at www.aspworldtour.com

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America’s Cup 2013

Match Me

If You Can

The grand sport of competitive match racing is about to undergo a sea change, with new rules set to reinvent the 2013 America’s Cup in San Francisco. Three sailing stars, four gold medals and one America’s Cup victory between them, gather on the placid waters of a lake in the Austrian alps to discuss the revolution.

Words: Wolfgang Rafetseder Photography: Kurt Pinter

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First, the time frame: Jimmy Spithill, the enfant terrible of America’s Cup racing, met with top Olympic duo Roman Hagara and Hans-Peter Steinacher in mid-August.

Spithill had wanted to make up for a missed opportunity due to bad weather a couple of months earlier, when the international Match Racing World Championship visited Traunsee, Austria: namely, to take part in a helicopter aerobatics flight with Hagara and Steinacher at the invitation of Red Bull’s Flying Bulls.

It was still a month before the new regulations for the America’s Cup would be made known, and talk soon turned to the pending decision and the big question: single or multihulls?

A press conference in Valencia on September 13 revealed all: the 2013 America’s Cup will be sailed in 72-foot catamarans with impressive ‘wing’ sails (imagine something like a vertically positioned airplane wing). Together with a number of other progressive innovations in and around the America’s Cup, this move will probably lead to a revolution in sailing as a whole. Thanks to this bold new format and the advent of the World Series, which will start with 45ft catamarans in 2011, sailing should be more spectacular and closer to the public than ever.

But back to August, when Spithill duly appears on the jetty in front of the

How the other half live: Sailing a 1960s wooden Lacustre yacht on Lake Zell, with Roman Hagara at the helm and Jimmy Spithill the figurehead. Allied to a healthy respect for tradition, these guys want a progressive, action-packed future for sailing

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Grand Hotel Zell am See in sneakers and apologizes for being late, with a winning smile and an explanation that a run around the lake had taken longer than expected. The proud owner of the Lacustre wooden yacht Spithill will be sailing forgives him the faux pas of wearing his rough, black soles on the polished deck, until the Australian maestro senses the anxious glances and decides to walk around in his socks.

America’s Cup winners look different from the rest of us. More sophisticated.

More dignified. Which perhaps isn’t surprising. We’re talking about the oldest sporting trophy in the world here and the financial outlay that comes with trying to win it is more than most Formula One teams spend in a year.

Furthermore, the pride of a whole sailing nation can rise or fall with victory or defeat. So responsibility for the cherished America’s Cup yachts lies traditionally with the admirals of sailing and not the smart, young cadets.

At least that was the case until the 2010 America’s Cup, when the American BMW Oracle syndicate took on the 30-year-old Spithill as its helmsman – and he won the coveted trophy for the Golden Gate Yacht Club in San Francisco, making him the youngest America’s Cup skipper ever to win the event.

He is seen as the most talented man in match racing – a type of sailing that pits one yacht against another and in which the pre-start period, featuring tactical skirmishes for a better starting position or forcing the opposing yacht into violating the rules, is often the high point. His aggressive starting tactics have earned him the reputation of a killer. “I started out down the classic path, sailing dinghies and triangular courses, but it got too expensive for my family and we couldn’t afford a new boat,” he says. “One advantage of match racing is that the yacht clubs provide the boats and when you reach a certain level, you can win really good prize money.”

In Austria, starting out in competitive sailing usually means taking the same classic route and then graduating to Olympic categories mapped out for you – unless you’re called Roman Hagara or Hans-Peter Steinacher, who both came to sailing from other disciplines.

Hagara arrived from windsurfing and sailing for fun; Steinacher from skiracing and the School of Natural Talent.

“We had no tradition of match racing which, back then, wasn’t necessarily a bad thing for a career in Olympic categories such as the Tornado,” says 56

America’s Cup winner Jimmy Spithill, flanked by Austria’s double Olympic champions Hans-Peter Steinacher (left) and Roman Hagara. As regards the future of the America’s Cup, they’re going with the flow, and Austrian participation hasn’t been completely ruled out…

Hagara of Austrian sailing. Thanks to the Extreme 40 sailing series, which he’s been sailing in since last year, he believes he can capitalize on the smaller starting line-ups and gain even greater match-racing experience.

Even as Hagara and Steinacher learned the ropes of racing as they went

Multihull power: high speeds need greater control along, Spithill was able to garner support from the two Austrians as he prepared for the last America’s Cup. Once it became clear that BMW Oracle were going to enter the trimaran for the Cup, Spithill, the perfect match racer, was left with a particular challenge. Over the course of his career, he’d taken charge of pretty much everything that floats on water and is powered by a sail, but most of those boats had been single-hulled.

Now he was welcomed to another sailing world: multihull boats react very differently from single hulls, are

a lot faster at full steam – a helluva lot faster – but they’re more cumbersome when manoeuvring and are particularly sensitive when a float or, in the case of the trimaran, the middle hull and even a side float, come out of the water.

The multihull looks swifter on the outside than it feels inside, but the juggling act still ends up creating speed.

In theory, the BMW Oracle trimaran, with its 190-foot wing sail, was probably the best boat in the last America’s Cup (the syndicate’s rival, the title-defending Swiss Alinghi team, raced a catamaran with a normal sail) – but that still had to be confirmed in practice.

Recalls Hagara: “It was our job to make the BMW Oracle crew better multihull sailors, because they were all from the monohull scene and didn’t have much multihull experience. We were able to compare speed using two Extreme 40 catamarans. The guys were quick to understand what they had to be aware of and how to make the most of the speed potential.”

But making the transition from singlehull sailing to Extreme 40 catamarans and then to the uncategorizable America’s Cup trimaran must have been daunting. “Roman and Hans-Peter made it clear how hard we’d have to push it to make the huge, lightweight trimaran go fast,” Spithill says as he describes the lengths the BMW Oracle

Additional Photography: Kar Fai Tong/Red Bull Photofiles, JOSE JORDAN/AFP/Getty Images

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crew had to go to. “But if we overdid it by a tiny fraction or damaged the wing or capsized – whether during trimming, training or in one of the races themselves – it would have been an early bath.

Rolling over a multihull boat that size would smash it to bits.”

At the 2010 America’s Cup, the BMW Oracle team (BMW has since bowed out of the partnership) didn’t just win, they gained a massive advantage by better understanding how a multihull boat with a wing sail ticks.

And that didn’t just apply to the crew.

It was the same for everyone involved in the project, from designing the boat to building it, and from sitting behind computers to looking after the boat once it was in the water.

A taste of what’s in store when the America’s Cup arrives in San Francisco Bay in 2013 has been provided in the last two years by the successful Extreme Sailing Series, which has pitted lightning-fast 40-foot catamarans against one another in ports around Europe and Asia. Hagara and Steinacher have headed up Red Bull’s team.

The race courses are designed to stick as close to the shore as possible, creating a stadium-like atmosphere and allowing the spectators to always see what’s going on. “It’s like Formula One on a karting track,” Steinacher explains, expressing the sailors’ feelings precisely.

Spithill says: “Whatever boat the next Cup will be contested in, the most important thing is high-quality TV broadcasting. That’s essential for the commercial success of a sporting event and for a sport’s image. The viewing public has to be captivated by what it sees and be able to link faces and emotions to the participants’ names.

Think of the Tour de France. Watching cycling for five or six hours at a stretch isn’t exactly gripping viewing. But a great TV event has been built up around expert commentators who explain team strategies, heart-rates are shown, and that keeps the viewers involved. Sailing has to do the same thing.”

Spithill adds: “Future America’s Cup yachts will have to deliver high performance, whatever the wind conditions. Live TV broadcasts at set times can’t wait because there’s too little or too much wind. The wing sail is proving very good from this point of view. But what interests the viewers on the technical side is also important.

I think the wing sail is the coolest thing people will have ever seen in sailing.”

Extreme 40 For the world’s best multihull sailors, racing this catamaran shows sailing in a comprehensible, spectacular format.

When the decision was taken to cut the Tornado catamaran class from the 2012 Olympics, a number of professional sailors had to find a new challenge. Alongside all the political wrangling about which boats would maintain or achieve Olympic status in time for 2012 (oddly, a lot of older boat types have been accepted), a new and exciting catamaran class was quietly establishing itself.

The Extreme 40 catamaran is about twice as long as a Tornado, state-of-the-art and manned by a crew of four for the race (plus a guest, usually someone from the sponsors). Ports in Europe and the US will host stops this year.

America’s Cup It’s the world’s oldest sports trophy and fraught with emotion: it’s not unusual for a court to decide who’s won and who’s lost.

The announcement of new regulations on September 13 ushers in changes that will affect more than the America’s Cup itself.

For the first time, a kind of premier league for professional sailing will be established, with a clear set of rules. The

current Cup-holder, the Golden Gate Yacht Club and its challenger, the Club Nautico di Roma, made the announcement during a joint press conference. Without going into too much detail about the roles of defender and challenger outlined in a complex

transcript, the press conference heralded a revolution for sailing as a whole and a break with several traditions.

“This is to make the America’s Cup fit for the future,” said Russell Coutts, head of the BMW Oracle team, as the changes were unveiled.

For news, videos, photos and blogs from the 34th America’s Cup, visit www.americascup.com

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a man called horse New York’s bike messengers live life at warp speed.

And one man is the speediest of all: Austin Horse Words: Anthony Rowlinson Photography: Thomas Hoeffgen “ When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race.” H. G. Wells BAM! He arrives like a lightning bolt, right next to me. Note to self: better reset my ideas of “now,” “in a minute,” and “pretty fast.”

Austin Horse—“the world’s fastest bike courier”—does time differently from you and me. His sense of how long things take is compressed and intensified. He lives life on permanent fastforward. Two or three minutes ago, we had tried to fix a meeting point. “I’ll be with you real soon,” he said, from an unspecified nearby New York spot where he’d just completed his latest delivery. Enough time, I figure, to buy and drink a coffee.

Buy, yes; drink, no. By the time I’d purchased said beverage and walked outside NYC’s Grand Central Station to meet him beneath the Park Avenue overpass, Austin has arrived, skidding to a perfectly positioned halt a couple of feet from my feet. He hops off gracefully, unclipping his clip-in shoes and trotting the last couple of steps toward me in a single fluid movement.

He looks the part in such an unshowily cool way it’s hard to stifle a smile: a workhorse, street-beaten, fixed-gear bike; courier pants that look like regular jeans, but with threads of stretchy Lycra interlaced and a reflective strip inside the turnup; a discreet black bicycling cap, and, of course, a massive bag, containing who knows what, strapped to his shoulders. The kit’s all there and it’s all cool stuff, but if you didn’t know what you were looking for, you’d miss it. He’s no Lycra-Nazi “roadie,” but a street-hip road warrior, prepared for pretty much anything this endlessly exciting metropolis can throw at him. In squarerimmed black Ray-Bans, there’s a whiff of Clark Kent to his style, and he’s a twist of nervy energy, with a quick smile, a handshake, and a glint in the eye that’s always saying, “C’mon, let’s go.”

Our scheduled liaison, when it comes, has been fast—as most things are around Austin. But getting to this point has been far from easy. He’s a very, very busy guy, and fitting media time into a life lived under constant dispatch-deadline pressure is

H e rInotheefast s lane: Austin Horse weaves through New York’s streets on his way to his next job

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Life in motion: Austin can cover up to 100 miles through New York City’s traffic every working day

somewhat tricky. Meeting up with The Red Bulletin is one of maybe 20 to 30 requests he’ll manage on this hot, working Friday in the concrete-steel forest that is New York City. His mind has to spin as fast as his cranks to shuffle constant conflicts of time, geography, and logistics. Meeting us at Grand Central Station is fine if he’s in, say, Times Square, and needs to deliver to the Waldorf Astoria on Park Avenue. But to go via central Manhattan if he’s already in the East Village and needs to get to SoHo would be nuts. So we fit in with his schedule, go with his flow—and the importance of this quality soon becomes apparent.

A day earlier, Austin had stopped by to drop off a spare bike that would allow us to ride the city with him. The machine was in storage a couple of blocks away, and Austin’s means of getting the Bulletin to bike was—obviously—to park this journalist in the well of his cargo bicycle (those 10-foot-long, low-loader things that look incredibly unwieldy, but which, Austin assured me, are benign to ride) and weave through the traffic to the storage unit. For a New York street virgin, this was a relatively terrifying experience: never before—in any city, let alone carchoked New York—have I looked at a taxi face-to-fender. Yet while this experience was unsettling for me, for Austin it was no more than a supremely logical—and fast—solution to a minor logistical problem: A to B through NYC? Just stick the hack in the front, and off we go.

Time is money for Austin, as it is for any bike messenger, and working for a six-man profit-share cooperative, Samurai Messengers (“Definitely the best messenger service in New York!”), the team ethos is strong. “We’re a co-op, so if I take a day off, I’d be concerned about my fellow employees. In any one day,

“ On a good day, There’s a sense of connection, of everything around you, like a fish in water” 60

five of us will be on the road, and one of us will run the dispatch.

So it’s in all our interests to work as efficiently as possible.”

What that means for a hard-grindin’ courier is a life of perpetual motion. The demands and discipline of this life—all weathers, all hours, between 50 and 100 miles each day, no job too big, none too small, and regularly with a 50-lb. load—have honed Austin over the past five years into a lean, dense figure; a power-packed, but not bulky, 27-year-old; mentally sharp and constantly operating in the “now” while always tuned to the future. He’s the courier equivalent of a Duracell bunny—still drumming when all the rest have ground to a halt. And when he wants to move, man can he go!

GOING WITH THE FLOW Everyone who has ever breathed city air knows how couriers operate: a cool-looking bike running reds, hopping on and off the pavement, treating “One Way” signs as mere street decoration.

All true… but never, ever like this. In this city, Horse, a one-time mountain bike racer, appears able to bend the infinitely mutable streetscape to his will. To follow him is to get a masterclass in bike handling, economy of movement, and the courier mindset.

He’ll routinely ride head-on into traffic, only to pitch the bike hard left or right down a side street or into an access passage, or pass through a gap at unabated speed, with barely three inches to spare on either side. Sometimes, because it helps his balance or a cornering line, he’ll brush gently against a bus or truck to ease himself from left to right, like a ball bouncing at a shallow angle off a wall. Maybe he’ll spot a car running at a perfect pace to give him a “tow” in its draft. A dozing driver sticking their car’s hood too far into the line of traffic may get a cautionary stroke of the hand as Austin slices by, but it isn’t confrontational or aggressive—just a reminder that faster, smaller vehicles are working these streets, too, and they also need some space.

A virtuoso courier’s passage through traffic can be beautiful and elegant, yet it lacks the hauteur of grand bicycle road-racing, as epitomized by a Coppi, a Merckx, an Indurain, or an Armstrong.

That’s classical; this is punk—street riding that’s loud, fast, dirty, sweaty, in-your-face, ruthlessly direct, and sometimes over

CROSSTOWN TRAFFIC There’s no such thing as a “typical” day for a New York bike courier. But the first few hours of a shift usually look something like this for Austin Horse: 1. 8 a.m. start, Brooklyn.

2. From home in Brooklyn over the Manhattan Bridge to SoHo. Often a “triple rush” here— our most urgent clients.

Could be very busy.

Sometimes on standby.

3. Madison Square Park—our biggest client, a PR agency.

Could easily be here four times a day with various items: adverts, editorial, post-production, proofs, randoms.

4. Upper Midtown, just below Central Park. Lots of media companies here.

86th Street

5

Union City

5. 86th Street—our furthest regular client.

6. West Side: 601 West Houston.

7. Down the West Side: workshop in Chinatown.

8. Back to SoHo, often for another triple.

9. East Village bike shop (if I’m lucky and I have time).

10. Avenue B between 12–13 Street 11. Coffee: my favorite coffee shop on 29th, between Broadway and 6th.

12. RBNY office, to top up with Red Bull Cola.

13. Time’s Up offices: 9 South 6th Street.

Hells kitchen

4

Upper Midtown

11

3

West Side 6

SoHo 2

8

9

10

East Village

12 Little Italy

Chinatown

7

Tribecca

13

Brooklyn Brooklyn Naval Yard

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Road warrior: A c t“When ion you get a good day on the road, there’s a sense of connection,” says Austin

almost before it has begun. The fasest courier drops may mean only a 90-second or two-minute hop between addresses (even the longest are not more than 15 minutes apart), yet those vivid segues will be cranked out at near-sprint pace, and always, always, through the teeth of some of the world’s gnarliest gridlock.

Austin talks about feeling and using “The Flow” of urban movement, and of how going against it spells peril: “If you ride, you get to be in the flow,” he explains, “You don’t want to be contentious, you want to read the flow, feel the flow, and use the flow.” A courier colleague, Josh Godar (aka “Sweets”) echoes: “On a good day on the road, there’s a sense of connection, of everything around you, like a fish in water. There’s a sense of flow. It’s like cooking—don’t force it, just relax. There’s a natural pace to it. You have to let go of your ego on the road.”

Lest this sounds like some hippie babble, you only have to witness these guys in action close up to understand the truth of what they say. Austin is a dizzyingly fast rider, who’s able to blend outright speed with a fine-tuned pocketful of skills that allows him to bunny-hop up and down pavements as if they’re not there; to track-stand (hold the bike motionless, standing on the pedals) until he gets bored; and to skid-stop his steed to a perfectly judged halt, using only the strength in his thighs to slow down. His confidence is such that during one brief moment of traffic-free riding, he’s able to grab his BlackBerry, turn around, photograph me in vain pursuit, then Tweet that he’s “spending the day riding with The Red Bulletin.” If it weren’t so easy for him, it would almost be showing off.

“The times,” he says, “when I’m going really fast through tight traffic, and you see how depressing it is for people in their cars going just a foot every minute, with no idea of whether it’s getting better or worse… just a combination of factors coming together that’s making them unable to move or do anything about their situation… I realize I don’t have any of that. Instead, I feel responsible and in control of everything that’s happening 62

to me. I make decisions and go between the cars. It’s my decision to speed up and make it through a gap. It’s nice to be in control.”

The lyrical quality of his sentiments shows the light, romantic, almost-spiritual dimension attached to courier riding through a capital full of wonder and magic, and it’s obvious that Austin enjoys an intense relationship with this very storied city.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK “Sure, New York is an amazing place, with incredible opportunities. One of the things I love is that, in a way, it’s the center of the universe. Things begin and end here. And if they don’t come from here, they come through here, and I’m able to participate in that because I have a job and a mode of transport that unlocks so many of the closed doors. It allows you to do so much—for example, being up on the Park Avenue overpass and looking at the amazing view from Grand Central: you can’t walk on it, and it’s nothing like as good from a car.”

He’s quick to share his unique perspective on this unique place. Hammering down Broadway toward Union Square and the Flatiron District (keep up, keep up), weaving and flicking to avoid the cracks, ruts, and potholes, he points out this week’s cultural treat: U.K. Artist Anthony Gormley has adorned a scattering of New York’s high-rise blocks with life-sized figures of himself perched precariously on the lip of their concrete, brick, or steel edifices. For the city forever scarred by 9/11, the resonance of these “jumpers” is as unsettling as it is needless to explain.

Moments like these—free, fleeting, but recurring and constantly renewing—take Austin’s work life way beyond a job: “A good day,” he says, “is when you go to a lot of unique places, and I feel challenged by a diverse amount of work. All these different places that everything has to go to—it keeps you thinking and moving.”There is, however, darkness and it’s never far away. Only weeks earlier Austin was knocked from his bike and his ankles driven over – remarkably without fracture – and

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more recently a Samurai colleague was targeted by a hostile New York cab driver in a callous hit-and-run. The Samurais’ entertaining blog (http://samuraimessenger.blogspot.com/) tells the story: “That seasonal bully, early spring, teasing bike messengers with the promise of the summer’s warmth, only to repeatedly smack us across the face with cold rain, near-freezing nights, and this year, a glut of road-rage focused at cyclists. One of our founding partners, Dan G., was sideswiped on Bleeker St. on his way home from dinner. The cab hit him, and tried to drive away before our friend Bill successfully chased him down, got in front of the car, and called the cops. Dan’s wrist is broken. Really broken.

Surgical-repair-required broken.”

This is what a courier’s life can be like. Police, Authority, The Man, while lenient more often than not, and usually too busy to worry about the blatant illegality of a biker blazing through “Stop” signs, are less friendly when or if confrontation comes: “Cops generally just ignore messengers. I think they understand that we perform a role in corporate life, and that most of the time what we’re doing is deliberate and careful. But if we do get to the point of interacting with a cop, they’re probably not going to judge us too favorably.”

And danger is ever-present, coming in many forms for a speed merchant on two skinny wheels. Oil, manhole covers, cars/ buses/trams/pedestrians in a constant swarm, all around… It would fry your mind if you allowed in the fear. But the courierwarrior just doesn’t. “Do I get scared?” Austin reflects after a long pause, “No. Not even when I started. I just feel really comfortable in traffic, so I never really got scared. I’m lucky: I’ve never had someone deliberately chasing me and trying to hit me with their vehicle—and that does happen. It depends a bit on the road. If it’s quite open, then you’re more exposed. I just kind of trust people not to be psychopaths. If you really think about it, then of course, when you’re going into a gap between two stopped cars… they could see you and think ‘screw this guy’ and hit you…”

Accidents are an unavoidable hazard. Like athletes in any high-risk sporting venture, a courier can only believe their number will never come up. “You need to develop an amazing level of awareness and personal responsibility for your safety,” says Austin. “I’ll see situations where somebody does a U-turn right in front of me when I’m coming toward them at a fast pace, and without your reaction, you’d be severely hurt or dead. You escape serious injury or death by inches, and all because of the action you take.” There is, too, the risk of mundanity. Without the mental and physical engagement of the man on the machine, bike messengering can be reduced to humdrum essentials: delivering packages from one office to another. Today, for Austin, those packages include feathers for a boutique fashion designer, plus a series of design sketches and confidential documents.

“On a really basic level, it’s not that complicated,” he says, “but there are all sorts of things you can do to save time and energy and make your day flow better: a better way to position your strap, a better way to pack your bag, or a way to sneak into a building instead of taking a time-consuming service entrance.”

Indeed, for a courier with the wit and spirit to explore the wider parameters of his existential position, there’s true

“ Do I get scared? No, not even when I started.

I just feel really comfortable in traffic”

satisfaction. Austin points out a particularly outré courier, who rolls by casually, dressed in a scarlet boiler suit and construction hard hat. “That’s Sarge,” he explains. “He’s cool. He has differentcolored hats for different days. I don’t know if he has a system.”

So there’s comedy, too, for those with eyes and minds open.

There’s also a uniquely invigorating urban-outdoor lifestyle.

Josh Godar again: “There’s a definite reason why I do this. It’s not because I’m crazy and I like to ride my bike. There’s a real sense of freedom and accomplishment to it. A lot of us are collegeeducated and could choose more conventional jobs, but this is what we want to do. I think the tourists like us, too. London, Tokyo, Berlin… we’re part of the scene, man,” he twinkles.

URBAN WARRIORS There are 2,000 bike messengers daily dissecting New York, 24/365, and an unspoken “bond of the road” gives rise to a loose camaraderie. Austin is swift to dismiss notions of the courier collective being any kind of select “brotherhood,” though: “It’s not like we’re some exclusive club. Maybe being a messenger isn’t even a huge part of your identity because so many people do it.

There is a small group—and I’m in it—where being a bike courier is a big part of who you are. But there are guys for whom music is much more important and this is just their job. And that’s cool. If they just want to make enough to live on, that’s fine. There are plenty of guys who go nose to the grindstone, working every waking moment every day of the week.”

That kind of “dash for cash” is only one of many competitive threads shot through the fabric of courier life. There’s beating your best time to a regular delivery; being the highest-earning rider in a crew; and spontaneous street-burning —“That’s real fun,” Austin grins. “Sometimes when two of you are in traffic and you’re both feeling it—maybe you’ve raced before—you just go jamming through the cars.”

There is also racing of a much more organized kind. Austin has twice won outright the North American Cycle Courier Championships, and was disqualified on a technicality after finishing first at the Worlds, in 2007 in Ireland. Satisfying as these accolades may be, they’re a spin-off from—not the purpose of—courier riding. Part work, part adrenaline-fix, part lifestyle choice, courier riding is also a vocation with a sociopolitical dimension. Austin’s bikes carry “One Less Prius” stickers, and his weekends are full of corralling “fun” rides he has organized: one was a recent 30-mile round-trip from Manhattan to the Red Bull New York soccer stadium in Harrison, New Jersey.

These events, he believes, constitute a valuable community service as well as helping edge America toward becoming less dependent on cars: “I’m active with one of New York’s green organizations [www.times-up.org], and we’re trying to create new cyclists in New York. The U.S. is on the cusp of a sea change in the way we consider urban transportation. For most of the past century, the country was built on a car model, and that’s no longer sustainable. Finally, the policy of U.S. transportation is shifting to one that relies more on bikes.”

It’s during this pause for coffee and bike-saddle philosophy that Austin, at last, reveals the courier’s secret—the trick, if you like, to surviving and thriving on some of the world’s meanest streets: “You don’t have to do everything as fast as you can,” he says. “If a job has a two-hour delivery, then why do it in 20 minutes and give the client a rush bill for nothing? The best thing you can learn in this job is patience.”

Or, as another, somewhat more famous, bike racer once put it, “It’s not about the bike.”

Follow Austin Horse on Twitter: twitter.com/AustinHorse Watch fottage of our photoshoot at: www.atom.com

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GAME changing Words: Drew Tewksbury Portraits: Emily Shur

, But the t n e C 0 5 m eard fro

h ce we ’ve n i s e l i h aw It ’s been nate is back in the ag m s es sin bu r/ to ac ng di brand-buil mulling d n a s t a e b w e ing out n studio, sound over the future of music

Behind the façade of beaches and boutiques, the celebrity hotspots, and million-dollar lofts, Santa Monica has a secret history of warfare. During World War II, this city a short drive north along the coast from LAX was the home to the American aeronautics industry, playing an integral role in keeping the US war machine running. Here, engineers and designers drew up the plans for fighter planes, while welders and construction crews turned them into reality.

Sixty years later, the airplane hangers and warehouse buildings no longer bustle with the activity of warplane builders.

The creative industry has now taken over these expansive complexes, turning them into movie and music studios, perhaps in the hope that they can channel the innovation and work ethic that once 64

teemed under these thick wood rafters and curved roofs.

Somewhere inside a huge warehouse dating back to 1959, the inimitable rapper, actor, and entrepreneur Curtis James Jackson III, aka 50 Cent, is in the studio debuting beats that will form the skeletal structure of his next album.

Two dark-black Cadillac Escalades wait like club bouncers outside the door of the Red Bull Recording Studio, and inside, the bass is quaking. Jackson and his team sit in the control room, behind a state-ofthe-art mixing desk, compressors, speakers, and all manner of cables. A stony-faced man in jeans and a suit jacket sits on the couch, while Jackson is pleading the case for his beats.

It has been a year of relative radio silence for Jackson, and nearly a year

since his much-delayed last album, Before I Self Destruct, hit the streets last November. Other than a handful of remixes and cameos, the rapper has largely stayed off the media radar.

While other rappers have been dropping pretentious art films (Kanye), scripting prison communiqués (Lil’ Wayne), or waxing literary on book tours (Jay-Z), Jackson has been developing his film career and perfecting his sound to come.

His entourage in the studio looks nothing like the gangstas, pimps, or playas preening behind him in rap videos. Instead, these are the men behind the music, the ideas men, beat aficionados, and business types who are helping to determine Jackson’s next move in music. He presses play on a laptop, and the beats swell; Jackson’s

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head, topped with a baseball hat, nods to the bass-heavy, lurching beat as he paces around the studio, repeatedly checking his BlackBerry. Jackson’s a compulsive Twitter fiend, and even in top-secret studio sessions, he can’t help but throw some textual messages in bottles out to the digital sea.

Jackson’s arms are chiselled, tightly fitting into his YSL shirt. His eyes stare at the glow of the computer screen, then up to his team assembled in the room, some of whom nod their heads, while others stare downward, listening intently to these never-before-heard sounds.

There’s the steady kick-drum pulsing waves of bass over rolling snares, mixing the ubiquitous warehouse-party thump with the syncopated groove of classic hiphop. Jackson moves to the beat, seemingly laying down a flow in his head to these instrumental tracks. He seems tired but healthy, a far cry from the shocking images of Jackson that hit the internet, revealing his emaciated face, with sharpened cheekbones and cavernous eyes —evidence of his dramatic 54-lb. weight loss for his role as a college football quarterback ravaged by cancer in the upcoming Things Fall Apart. He reaches to turn off the song, revealing forearms inscribed with mysterious scars.

After more than an hour of beat debuts and secret conversations with the producers, his management team packs their bags for a flight back to New York.

Jackson has been away from his roots in NYC for a month-long mission in LA. “I’m here to find new sounds,” he says softly, using a surprisingly different cadence from his Rottweiler growl on records. He just did a remix for the club anthem “Like a G6,” produced by Los Angeles’ Korean-American sensations, Far East Movement. “I mean, that’s a different pocket. It feels like dance music. A lot of really up-tempo beats, that’s faster than what I would usually do.”

The rap game today has changed. The class of 2010 barely resembles Jackson’s compatriots at the turn of the millennium.

Hip-hop has gone fully pop, complete with upbeat dance rhythms and auto-tuned choruses crooned by aesthetically oriented starlets. Kids from Inglewood— the ancestral home of West Coast gangsta rap—now wear neon and skinny jeans, as

though to hark back to the old days of rap, where electro and hip-hop overlapped with the 808 drum machine-banging sounds of Arabian Prince and J.J. Fad. Like those days before the late 1980s crack epidemic, L.A.’s crime rate is relatively low, and kids are headed back to the clubs. Los Angeles raves, like this summer’s Electric Daisy Carnival, brought in 80,000 wide-eyed rollers from across diverse economic and racial divides. While Jackson’s style of hardedged hip-hop has largely stagnated, Kanye’s gone art house and Jay-Z has become a father figure.

Jackson is no stranger to spotting trends or self-examination, and, earlier in 2010, he announced that his next album, Black Magic, would lean more toward an emerging confluence of hip-hop and Europop. Then, just a few months later, Jackson wound down the project.

“I moved it because it’s a total artist’s album,” he says, “it was something that I just wanted to do, so I went in and recreationally made a full-bodied piece of work. I gave myself a new concept, and now it’s in the vault, but you can build another album out of that material that you put to the side.”

Pieces of Black Magic, or at least their house influence, appear in these studio songs, but at best they are just prototypes. No album title or song titles have been announced, or a release date given. After Black Magic went in flux, Jackson re-evaluated his music-making process, and ruminated on whether his movie projects and other entrepreneurial efforts would leave room for hip-hop.

“I feel like I’ll have to do it at a different pace,” he says. “I won’t be traveling as often, or go on big tours. It’s not a long drawn-out process for me to create it, but it’s a long drawn-out process deciding what to offer the world. When I was making music initially, it was just for a 10-block radius—now it’s for the world.”

Eight years ago, Eminem first invited Jackson to come to Los Angeles to showcase the young upstart-rapper’s skill to the legendary Dr Dre. The meeting resulted in a $1 million record deal, which led to the 2003 debut Get Rich or Die Tryin’. The album set sales records, with 872,000 copies sold in just four days.

His next album, The Massacre, would

“i won’t be traveling or on big tou making music

rs. when I was

initially, it w as just for a 10

radius—now it’s for the wo rld

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Film Buff Since the semiautobiographical Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ in 2005, Jackson’s career hasn’t involved too many awards-show invitations.

Most of his films so far have been heavy on the drug dealing and the gunplay plotlines (a sample of his oeuvre below). But last year, Jackson lost 54 lbs.in nine weeks to play a cancer-stricken athlete in the upcoming film Things Fall Apart. His Cheetah Vision Films production company has attracted more than $200 million in investment, and has just won Bruce Willis to play in the upcoming film, Set Up.

Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (2005) The one that started it all, where Jackson emulates Eminem’s 8 Mile

additional photography: Kobal Collection (1), rex features (1)

Twelve (2010) Rich NYC kids on too many drugs do bad things. Joel Schumacher directs, Jackson deals

13 (2010) Jackson joins Sam Riley and Mickey Rourke in gambling with each other’s lives in a twisted game

Gun (2010) Co-written by Jackson, who also stars as a drug kingpin opposite Val Kilmer

break this record in 2005, with 1.14 million copies sold in four days.

Not bad for a kid from Queens whose past was mired in trouble. Raised during the 1980s crack epidemic, Jackson was surrounded by drugs and crime. His mother was a dealer, and was murdered when Jackson was only eight years old.

He turned to drug dealing to survive, and he brought in a healthy profit.

By the time he was 19, Jackson had been arrested three times. To avoid jail, he went to a boot-camp program to straighten out. When he returned to Queens, he began pursuing a rap career, and ultimately landed a $65,000 contract with Columbia. But before he could release his debut album in 2000, Jackson was shot nine times while leaving his grandmother’s house in Queens, and barely survived. Columbia saw Jackson as too controversial, and released him from the contract. When he recovered, Jackson picked up where he started in rap: mixtapes. When one of his tapes landed in the hands of Eminem in 2002, Jackson’s life changed forever.

But eight years later, the music industry is evolving to save its existence.

Jackson too has felt the effects, and has developed his own game plan for this post–big-label environment.

“I think the new music business is going to be for you to identify how much people like you. Because some people like you enough to spend 99 cents for your single, and some people like you enough to buy the actual album. Some people like you so much they want the hat you have on in the picture, they want your glasses, they want your shirt, and your shoes. They want everything that is attached to your lifestyle.”

“The object,” he continues, “is to be connected to those businesses and brand things that they’ll actually acquire along with that single or along with that album.

Artists are becoming NASCARs, and we just got to figure out who’s going to pay to put their sticker on each artist’s ass.”

Jackson’s persona as a hip-hop star obfuscates his real talent. His true power is not exhibited on stage, or with a mic, or even on the movie screen. His real gift is in the boardroom. When he talks about business, his demeanor changes. The softspoken insecurity about his music career fades as his voice projects confidence and

jackson’s persona as a hip-hop sta real talent.

his real gift

r obfuscates his

is in the boar

droom— He can sell you anything, and he will

eloquence. He can sell you anything, and he will. Even in a struggling economy, Jackson has the Midas touch in the business world. His entrepreneurial efforts include the G-Unit clothing brand, a film production company, and even a stake in a South African platinum mine.

According to Forbes, in 2008, he brought in $150 million in 12 months.

The bulk came in when Coca-Cola bought Vitamin Water’s parent company, Glacéau, for $4.1 billion. Jackson had received a stake in the company after creating an offshoot brand of a beverage called “Formula 50,” and that foresight landed him with a $100 million profit. Then, in October 2010, Jackson’s and his partner Randall Emmett’s production company, Cheetah Vision, landed a $200 million deal to produce several films, including their first, Set Up. While sitting outside on the studio’s stoop, Jackson’s agent calls: “Bruce is in,” he says. Willis, that is. The action star has committed to Jackson’s upcoming film project, Set Up, along with Paul Walker.

Jackson smiles for the first time at the end of this long day. Before visiting the studio, he had been in talks at Creative Artists Agency (CAA), one of the world’s largest talent agencies. He had shifted to CAA earlier this year, he says, as they focused more on film than his previous agency, William Morris.

“I love music, but I’ve developed a passion for film and being a part of film projects that have the right artistic qualities to them,” Jackson says.

Jackson kept a virtual photo diary of this day, snapping photos celebrities and actors he saw in the hallway. “This is me and Robert Redford, one of the best actors ever,” he Tweeted, showing a photo of himself with his arm around Redford.

“My goal is to get Things Fall Apart into Sundance,” he says. “Then I ran into Robert Redford today, who started it all, and he actually knew about the movie.

I almost fainted.” Jackson stares at his picture with Redford on his BlackBerry.

Jackson ignores the demands of his companies, the haters, and celebritycrazed gossip hounds. He focuses on the Saltine-sized screen, and smiles at the possibility of his name, Curtis Jackson III, scrolling down the credits at Sundance.

Then his manager interrupts the daydream, beckoning him away from the Santa Monica studio, and into an adjacent Escalade. The engine rumbles, and the 50 Cent entourage speeds away.

On to the next one.

Keep up with 50 Cent’s msuic, movies, and more at www.50cent.com

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freeze frame Swiss photographer Thomas Senf accompanied wingsuit flyer Valery Rozov to Antarctica.

This is the story of the trip in Thomas’s own words.

Words: Thomas Senf Photography: Thomas Senf and Predrag Vuckovic

SOUTH AMERICA

AFRICA

ANTARCTICA

The Drygalski Mountains in Queen Maud Land protrude like fangs out of Antarctica’s 3,282-foot thick perpetual ice. Late last year, Russian BASE jumper Valery Rozov led an expedition there with the intention of jumping from the summit of the tallest of the Drygalski Mountains, the 9,500-foot Ulvetanna Peak.

Swiss photographer Thomas Senf was part of the expedition, and he decided to record his experiences.

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Valery Rozov on the Holtanna peak. Thomas Senf: “The fascinating thing about this trip from a photographic point of view was the challenge of portraying the incredible dimensions of this landscape, and at the same time, capturing images of the sport�

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A ntarctica

Thomas Senf grew up in Leipzig, Germany, and moved to Switzerland for love in 2002 at the age of 21 – love for the mountains. Senf combines mountaineering and photographic skills like few before him: as a mountain climber, he has succeeded in making various first ascents (for example in the Indian Himalayas) with top mountaineers such as Stephan Siegrist and Ines Papert

Ulvetanna is Norwegian for “wolf tooth,” and it couldn’t describe the mountain more perfectly.

I’d seen photographs of Ulvetanna, but I’ll never forget the view when I first saw it for real from the window of our small cargo plane: hundreds of miles of icy landscapes in every direction, and then the Drygalski mountain chain—these bizarrely shaped, monumental crags—in the middle of it all.

It was a perfect, sunny day. Everything sparkled and glistened. There were eight people on Valery Rozov’s expedition team, and we were all glued to the airplane’s windows. No one said a word.

Valery was due to jump from the summit of this mountain a few days later.

Nothing happens of its own accord on an expedition to the Antarctic. You can’t rely on anything. Nothing can be planned with 100 per cent accuracy, mainly due to the unpredictability of the weather. Within minutes, a perfect day can descend into a blizzard, with snowstorms swirling at speeds of up to 60 MPH. We learn before we’ve even set foot on the ice that split-second decisions can often have huge consequences. If the pilot of our small plane lands too far away from the foot of the mountain—you set up base-camp by the plane—you have hours of extra walking to do over the coming days. But the closer he lands to the mountain, the longer your base camp is in the shade, and you’re exposed to even more extreme cold.

Our small plane managed to land at the perfect distance from the mountain range, but the landing was hard. As a result, the plane was seriously damaged, and it had to be repaired there and then, so that it could take us back to civilization at the end of the three-week expedition.

daily routines

There’s no real night at this time of year in the Antarctic, which you can cope with perfectly well as long as you’re disciplined, stick to a strict daily routine, and are reasonably constant about what time you go to bed and get up again. The main difference between day and night is the 72

Every summit ascent begins with a tricky decision: how much should I take, and how much can I leave back at base camp? On this occasion, the mountaineers had to pack all the necessary equipment for ascending rock and ice. Including photographic equipment, Senf’s backpack weighed around 33 lbs.

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Hang-time in the Antarctic: “The picture of me above was taken by Predrag Vuckovic, a Serbian who supervised the expedition as ‘Head of Photographers.’ When Valery jumped from Mt Ulvetanna, Predrag covered the exit position, leaving me to move to a rather more unusual perspective....”

temperature. In the daytime, the more-intense sunshine makes for a pleasant 14°, but at night the temperature can plummet to -22°.

It was relatively cosy at our base camp. There was a large dining tent with enough room for everyone to cook and eat, and then there were the small tents for sleeping in. We’d built walls of snow around the tents to be better protected against any wind. They wouldn’t have helped at all if we’d been exposed to strong storms.

In Antarctica, you have to be willing to spend the whole night hanging onto your tent with all your might, just to prevent it being blown away.

And even much less strong winds can have a major effect. The wind-chill factor of even a light breeze can make 14° feel like -4° or even -22°. That’s not just unpleasant—it’s actually dangerous. You can forget about climbing at temperatures like that because your frozen fingers lose all sensation. I tried to climb without gloves on once during the expedition. I gave up after a single pitch.

The sun really makes you feel better during the daytime, especially as a photographer, and that’s 74

not just because of the light, but because it’s so much easier to do your work without wearing gloves. But you’d better not underestimate the strength of the sun.

We had to put thick layers of sunblock on our faces every day, otherwise we would have gotten really burned.

Valery

I already knew Valery from a number of other joint undertakings, including a few projects in the Alps and the ascent of Mt. Elbrus in the Caucausus. I climbed with him to the summit of Europe’s highest mountain when he became the first man to jump off it.

I always love traveling with him. He’s very focused and professional, but he’s also very modest. Anyone who didn’t know him would never guess the things he’s already done and achieved in his life. Valery isn’t the kind of guy who morosely pursues a goal at any price. Having a vodka with the team at base camp is also part of the fun. And if a jump turns out to be too risky, he won’t do it. Being on a team with Valery means knowing that everyone’s well-being is close to his heart. He’s both a leader and a team player at the

“You don’t have any more than two or three minutes to prepare and shoot were at the track as the photos. If the diveritisspent already centre ofcold the sporting universe. when he jumps, then he’ll cool down Movie stars, corporate too much during the flight” CEOs, kings, princes –

“I abseiled a few yards down the face to capture Valery in action. From a photographic point of view, this is not without its risks, and it’s only possible if another photographer captures the ‘safe’ shot at the exit point. In this case, the risk paid off, and this shot was beamed around the world”

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“We had to put thick layers of sunblock on our faces two or three times a day, or we would have gotten badly burned”

An everyday scene in Antarctica. Finding a sunny spot to set up camp is key. During the summer here, sunshine can make the difference between a biting -22° and a relatively comfortable 14°—even at night. Rozov’s expedition was very lucky with the weather. There wasn’t a single snowstorm in three weeks

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Valery Rozov, the multitalented sportsman: the Russian is an experienced BASE jumper, wingsuit pilot, and three-time world champion in parachuting, with more than 7,000 jumps under his belt. He’s also a fantastic mountain climber…

…and resourceful enough to serve up something edible even with a comparatively meager selection of ingredients. Rozov is “a very professional, extremely modest sportsman, who manages to ensure that everyone in his team is looked after well—something that’s very important to him,” says Senf, who’s been on several joint projects with him

Rozov is regarded as the world’s best BASE jumper and wingsuit pilot. He caused a sensation with his jumps from the summit of Europe’s highest peak, Mt. Elbrus, as well as a jump into an active volcano in Kamchatka, Russia.

Thomas Senf snapped this portrait at Advanced Base Camp the evening before the ascent of Mount Ulvetanna

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Action “There is barely any relief or happiness at the summit—that could be fatal”

While wearing his helmet camera, Valery Rozov captured some stunning film footage of his flight over Antarctica

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There are two ways to descend the mountain. Rozov chooses the quicker way. Senf: “There are two or three people waiting at Valery’s landing site who have filmed the jump, and have got some warm clothes and shoes for him. By the time we photographers get back to base, Valery’s already finished his dinner”

same time. That’s a nice feeling for all of us, and it quickly brought our team of eight men from four different countries together.

Ulvetanna

The day we set off for the summit of Ulvetanna began when we left the ABC [Advanced Base Camp] —our second base camp—at 6 a.m. We had fixed ropes along the route on previous days so that we’d be more mobile with the photo and camera equipment, so the ascent proceeded fairly quickly.

We’d got to the end of the fixed ropes within four hours. We still had about 12 rope lengths to climb after that. We got to the summit at about 5 p.m.

When you reach it, you barely feel happiness or relief. Those emotions could even be fatal on an expedition like ours for a number of reasons.

Because first and foremost, as a photographer, you have to be wide awake at precisely that moment.

From the photographer’s point of view, the whole expedition and the entire trip’s success rides on the two or three seconds after the sportsman jumps.

You have to have chosen the perfect perspective, everything’s got to be just right with the equipment, and you’ve got to choose the right time to shoot.

If something goes wrong during those seconds, you’ve got a serious problem.

And there’s also a certain pressure to be quick, because Valery is only wearing his thin wingsuit and is absolutely freezing in the Antarctic temperatures.

You have no more than two or three minutes to

prepare and take photos. If the jumper is already freezing when he jumps, he’ll lose too much heat during the 45-second descent—he’ll lose sensation in his hands and won’t be able to control the jump… and then things could get really dangerous.

Enjoyment

If you accompany a BASE jumper up a mountain, you obviously go back down without him. Such is the fate of a BASE photographer. We got back to our camp at about midnight, by which time Valery had already polished off dinner. Sometimes on TV they show mountaineers celebrating like football players after they’ve scored a touchdown when they get back to camp having conquered another peak.

But in reality, it’s all a little less spectacular. You’re just tired, exhausted, hungry, and thirsty.

The joy at what you’ve achieved together only begins to settle in over the next few days.

The way we expressed our joy may have been a bit unconventional. As we’d been so lucky with the weather throughout the expedition, we still had a couple of days to spare. We made the most of them to climb two smaller peaks: Tungespissen (1.4 miles) and Holtanna (1.6 miles).

From a mountaineering point of view, they are only moderately challenging, but scenically, they were still breathtaking. Valery jumped from them too, so we had the chance to take more photos and record more footage.

More on Thomas at www.thomassenf.ch

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Credit

On the go: Brighton, U.K. rockers The Go! Team have a unique style that pushes the boundaries of indie rock and garage rock. They talk about the five albums that have influenced their music on page 94

More Body&Mind Where to go and what to do this month

Photography: Ollie Millington/Getty Images

Credit

82 The longest horse race in the world 84 eat yourself smart 85 a top chef’s secrets 86 Get the Gear 92 rising star james blake 96 the disappearing artist

Lovers of luxury need not apply. The Mongol Derby horse race is strictly a “no-frills” thrill The exposed and sparsely populated steppes of Mongolia are not your average summer-holiday destination. But then, it’s also not your average person who opts to spend their August vacation taking part in a grueling test of endurance on a wild-eyed steed in the longest horse race in the world.

For this sort of intrepid individual, the vast grasslands of Genghis Khan’s former empire provide the perfect setting for an equine enterprise and a chance to throw off the shackles of our modern health-and-safety-obsessed world for 10 days of old-fashioned adventure.

And it would be hard to get more truly old-fashioned than the Mongol Derby.

Each year, a 13th-century postal system invented by Khan is resurrected 82

for the task, allowing the competitors to cover the 620-mile route just like the messengers of ancient times, using a series of traditional tents, or urtuus, placed 25 miles apart, manned by local nomadic farmers armed with fresh horses, mutton stew, and a bed for the night. But between these posts, it’s rider and horse, covering over 60 miles each day, navigating alone across the testing terrain—exposed to harsh sun, winds, rain, and freezing temperatures after dark, all to be the first to reach the finish.

“We are trying to rediscover that pioneering spirit,” says events manager and former Derby competitor Katy Willings of The Adventurists, the U.K.based company behind the contest. “The riders aren’t on a nice guided tour with

“This race is really tough. On day six, I took a wrong turn, and what should have taken four hours took eight”

Words: Ruth Morgan. Photography: Anya Campbell

Easy Riders?

No Khan Do

an itinerary—there’s not too much monitoring and evaluation, no Lycra or micronutrients. It’s a raw adventure.”

Between 20 and 30 riders each year pass the rigorous evaluation stage to get a chance to compete in the Derby, which began in 2009. Competitors must have a high level of riding ability, and be light enough for the Mongolian horses—a small but frisky breed—in order to get a place. And, far from resulting in a lineup of professional endurance riders, it’s mostly amateurs who get into the saddle.

“There’s such a broad spectrum of people who do the race,” says Willings.

“We’ve had four Olympians so far— not riders, I might add. It’s a personal challenge. Lots of people want to see how their physical skills translate into this slightly Wacky Races environment.”

The seemingly endless stretches of thyme-scented, grassy steppe, flanked

more body & mind

Left: A young jockey ready to race in the Derby opening ceremony; test-riding a pony; a horseman. This page: Briton Richard Dyer leads the pack; fixing a saddle; family members; many herders have satellite T.V. and cell phones

by mountains, sporadically populated by animal herds and nomadic farming families working as they have done for centuries, makes for a stunning backdrop that belies the formidable terrain.

“I grew up wanting to be a cowboy,” says Richard Dyer, a 31-year-old builder from Guildford, England, who took part last year. “But in the U,K., you don’t get the opportunity to ride in vast open spaces, so Mongolia was incredible, but extremely challenging. It’s the excitement of taking a calculated risk. There are safety measures in place, but at the same time, it’s just you and the horse. It’s up to you to get from A to B. It’s a genuine experience of being alone.”

Riders are equipped with a GPS navigation system, something the nomadic farmers may scoff at, but is considered a necessary concession to technology by The Adventurists. Each rider is also trackable, so they can be reached in case of emergency by medics or vets, in 4x4s or by helicopter. But interference is kept to an absolute minimum, and unless a horse or rider is in serious danger, the competitors are on their own.

“Mongolia is stunning, but this race is tough,” says Dyer. “On day six, I took a wrong turn, and what should

have taken four hours took eight. It poured down with rain on a biblical cale, with lightning and wind ripping across the plains. You’re just so exposed.

Physically, you accept you’re going to feel really sore for days. But it’s more the mental element—when you’re soaking wet, freezing cold, and hungry, and there’s not much prospect of getting dry, it’s a real challenge to carry on.”

And when riders make it to the comparative comfort of an urtuu, it’s a safe bet mutton’s on the menu. The Adventurists’ no-frills policy extends to food, with competitors eating what’s cooked by their nomad hosts, invariably dried mutton stew washed down with a cup of mare’s milk. “It has a unique flavor,” says Richard. “It’s fermented, so it’s slightly alcoholic. It’s not the sort of thing you’d want to buy at duty free, but at the time, it was great.”

A new route is being planned for 2011 to keep the task exciting, but still tough.

Though some finish the race in the back of a 4x4, most find the stamina to make it to the end, proud to have conquered this ancient test of mettle, whether or not they have won, their stiff reserve matched only by their stiff lower body.

For more information and for 2011 entry forms, visit mongolderby.theadventurists.com

MONGOLIA

Ulaanbaatar

the knowledge…

Who? Only competent riders need apply.

Anyone with the necessary grit to sign up will then need to pass a rigorous selection process.

Where? The exact race location is kept top secret. Selected riders are rought by bus from the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar to an undisclosed location in order to prevent any pre-race reconaissance taking place.

When? The selected riders begin three days of intensive pre-race training on August 3 out at an especially constructed camp. The start gun fires at 9 a.m. on August 6, and the final dust is expected to settle on August 16.

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A la Carte

Brain food? No problem, according to nutritionists, who can tailor a menu to boost your IQ. What’s more, they reckon you can even eat yourself beautiful.

Wild rice risotto with stewed peppers, algae and tofu

Egg, salmon and cucumber

Sautéed chicken noisette with spinach, cashew nuts and red curry

Beauty food Want to stay young and attractive for longer? Of course you do. And Marianne Botta reckons it’s easy without resorting to faddish diets. Glycosylation—when sugar and proteins bond—quickens the ageing process. So, seared and wellfried foods—such as chips—are frowned upon because the heat causes a reaction between sugar, carbohydrates and proteins, which leads to glycosylation.

Steaming and stewing are better, and will help prevent those naughty wrinkles appearing. You have to have protein to form keratin, which we need for healthy hair and the skin’s connective tissue fibres. Tofu is the food which contains the most of that. Those with skin trouble should avoid poultry skin, egg yolks and offal as they contain arachidonic acid, which causes inflammation in the skin cells. They should go for wheatgerm oil, which, thanks to its vitamin E content, even helps heal scars.

Brain food If you’ve got to concentrate long and hard, then you shouldn’t—surprise, surprise— eat anything heavy as this will cause blood to settle in the stomach and stop you thinking properly. Vitamin C (found in kiwis, peppers, rose hips) and E (in wheatgerm and nuts), by contrast, help stimulate the flow of blood to the brain.

Also important is a consistent blood-glucose level. Eating pumpernickel will make sure of that. Wholemeal bread will give it a gentle boost. What’s really bad is dextrose, which quickly raises the blood sugar level, then sees it drop off again. If you’re tired, bananas, dried fruit and nuts help in the short term. And plenty of liquids, but a maximum of one cup of coffee a day. Fish, thanks to its Omega-3 fatty acids is good for the nerves and brain. But you should eat red meat three times a week to avoid a lack of iron which can lead to loss of concentration and even depression.

Vegetarians should compensate with nuts.

Mood food Carbohydrates and not too much protein make for a good mood as they ensure that the body’s own mood setters aren’t dulled. Botta’s tip: Warm milk with honey or pasta with a vegetable sauce as they help the body to create serotonin, the happiness hormone. Chocolate is proven to do the same thing, but Botta also recommends dates, figs and porridge. The Omega-3 fatty acids in fish can raise the spirits in the same way spicy food can. The body perceives the effect of chilli, curry, wasabi and ginger as pain, so produces morphine and endorphins to counteract it. Green tea also has a positive effect on the mood as it relaxes you and makes you more resistant to stress. Vanilla can make you really happy, because it smells similar to a substance you ingest with breast milk.

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Hungry? You can sample delicious smart food right now at the Mayday-Bar in Hangar-7, Salzburg. Visit www.hangar-7.com

words: Uschi Korda. photography: HELGE KIRCHBERGER/Red Bull Hangar-7 (3), Sonja Ruckstuhl (1)

Eat Yourself Smart

Marianne Botta (left) has a degree in food engineering and nutrition. The Swiss worked together with top chef Roland Trettl to create Beauty, Brain and Mood food. Now available at Hangar-7, Salzburg

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The Taste Sensations from felicity to freakiness.

HANgar-7 guest chef

Marcus G. Lindner

words: lisa blazek. Photography: jürg waldmeier/red bull hangar-7

Every month, Salzburg’s Ikarus restaurant invites a top international chef to take over the kitchen. In February, the Michelin-starred chef from Zurich with a penchant for emotional cooking takes the reins for a spell.

The Hotel Ermitage in Küsnacht holds a special place in Marcus G. Lindner’s heart. It was there he earned his first Michelin star, so nothing can ever change that. But when it comes to comfort, there’s no place he’d rather be than at the Mesa in downtown Zurich, where he’s worked for the past five years. “This is where I can be myself,” says Lindner, a native of Vorarlberg, Austria. He learned his trade at St. Leonhard Restaurant in the medieval city of Feldkirch on the border with Switzerland, under the tutelage of Max Dick. “He was way ahead of his time,” says Lindner, “but placed a lot of emphasis on traditional virtues.” It’s those same virtues Lindner has passed on to his team at Mesa. “I demand the effort, ambition and reliability that I demonstrate myself. I just know that everything turns out better if you do it with enthusiasm.”

Lindner finds the counterbalance to his hectic working life in nature. He and his son look after their own small vineyard. “A harvest currently gives us just 40 bottles, but I’d like to come up with a menu using my own wine.”

Mesa Weinbergstr. 75, Zürich Just as in the kitchen, everything in the dining area has to be balanced. “We don’t want to smother the diner with too much décor but allow them, through minimalist lines, the appropriate space for enjoyment,” explains Lindner.

“Too many frills agitate and that’s the last thing we want at Mesa. We discuss everything, from how many glasses there should be right down to how to lay the cutlery. We always put it on the right-hand side as we’ve understood that that’s what diners mostly do automatically to create more space.” www.hangar-7.com/www.mesa-restaurant.ch

“The most important thing to me when I’m cooking is that everything should mean something. When I create a dish, I think very carefully about what blends harmoniously.

If it all comes together on the palate, you should really be able to taste what it means,” says Lindner. His dishes take that mantra literally.

The courses on his menu have names like Freakiness, Ardour and Felicity, and each one is designed to evoke the corresponding sensation in every diner.

“Dinner at Mesa should be soothing for the soul and distract the diner from his hectic daily life.

We want people to be able to relax, eat well and talk. For us, the word Mesa means much more than just ‘table’. It means coming to the table and being at the table.”

His menu ensures that guests will talk at the table as well. “I make different entrées for men and for women and that’s already a starting point for table talk. The diners can try each other’s food, swap and wonder why one person has something different on his plate to somebody else,” he says.

While the diners are enjoying Freakiness, which, if you’re curious, consists of frog, octopus, shellfish mayonnaise and basil sorbet, Lindner will already be working on the next courses, inspired by two very particular emotions.

“I see myself somewhere between freakiness and subtlety,” he explains. “Freakiness just gives you endless opportunities and boundless freedom. You can try everything, everything’s allowed and nothing’s impossible. If you cook well, you can do anything.

But at the same time I’m also a very subtle chef. I always want everything to be correct and to go together right down to the tiniest detail.”

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Words: Steve Smith. Photography: Craig Kolesky/Nikon/Red Bull Photofiles

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More Body & Mind

Get the Gear

Ice Runner

To run a 150-mile self-supported race in Antarctica, you need to be really fit—obviously. But you also need some special equipment. This is what South Africa’s Ryan Sandes took with him to win The Last Desert race.

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9 1. Base layer This is prototype stuff based on Salomon’s XR trail-running range. They’ve increased insulation significantly, while keeping the garments light, comfortable, and supportive.

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2. The shell Again, this was made specifically for the Antarctica race.

It’s not only waterproof, but—critically—breathable too.

3. Balaclava Off the rack from Salomon’s freeski range. Does what I need it to do—keep the cold out!

4. Compression calf Like the base layer, this uses Salomon’s Exo tech. The muscle support it gives, especially over long distances, means it increases blood circulation to avoid cramps.

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5. Backpack Really important. We have to carry all our stuff with us, so this fully customizable Salomon XA 20 pack is perfect.

6. Socks Salomon Crossmax made from cocona fabric. They have high breathability, and crucially, when I’m in my tent at night, there’s no smell.

7. Trail-running shoes More prototypes made for this race, they’re based on the Salomon-lab Speedcross range with extra insulation. They have a more aggressive tread pattern for better traction.

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8. Sunglasses I ran in my Oakley Jawbones almost exclusively as the goggles I had tended to fog up.

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9. Watch It’s a Suunto T6, which is a heart-rate monitor as well as a distance calculator. I don’t actually run on heart rate, to be honest—I focus more on how I’m feeling.

10. Kleenex Because sometimes, you have to go, and you don’t want to be carrying a whole roll of toilet paper with you.

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11. Food I have to carry enough food with me for each stage. While I’m running, I’ll eat Perpetuem energy gels, peanuts, and biltong, and Red Bull e-shots for a quick energy boost.

12. Crampons I’m not a fan of these, but race rules dictate we have to carry them. They feel weird on your feet if you’re running.

Keep track of Ryan’s 2011 adventures at www.ryansandes.com

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Boston Celtics vs Los Angeles Lakers 02.10.11

hot SPOTS

Rajon Rondo and Shaquille O’Neal go up against Shaq’s equally ingenious former Lakers team-mate, Kobe Bryant in a clash of the titans.

TD Garden, Boston Massachusetts, USA

Photography: James Dimmock/Red Bull Photofiles, Getty Images/Red Bull Photofiles, Andreas Schaad/Global Newsroom/Red Bull Photofiles, rutgerpauw.com/Red Bull Photofiles

We round up the month’s best sporting events, wherever you are in the world.

Freestyle Skiing World Championship 01.30–02.07.11 The best freestyle skiers will be rewarded with a World Championship crown in aerial, half-pipe, mogul, dual mogul, ski cross and, for the first time, slopestyle disciplines.

Deer Valley, Utah, USA

FIS World Cup Cross Country Skiing 02.04–06.11 Rybinsk, located about 175 miles north of Moscow, plays host to double pursuit, sprint and relay for men and women.

Rybinsk, Russia

Billabong Air & Style 02.05.11 At this TTR World Snowboard Tour 6-star event, 1,000 World Cup points and the Ring of Glory are up for grabs, all to a soundtrack provided by live bands.

Innsbruck, Austria

Red Bull Crashed Ice 02.05.11 The Red Bull Crashed Ice World Championship lands in Europe’s flattest country for the first time, but the terrifying track for the ice hockey-four cross hybrid will be no less steep, narrow or slippery, so the event remains one of the toughest tests going.

Valkenburg, Netherlands

AMA Supercross 02.05.11 Stop five of the US motocross series sees thousands of fans pack out the Angel Stadium in California, as they did for the first race of the season in January, with James Stewart hoping to be in the hunt for another Supercross title.

Anaheim, California, USA

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Simpel Session 02.05–06.11 It’s the annual winter skate and BMX event with a formidable, international line-up of talent, including Brit biker Seb Keep and Belgian skate prodigy Axel Cruysberghs. Visitors can also look forward to a film festival and some legendary post-contest parties.

Saku Arena, Tallinn, Estonia

Ice Speedway World Championship 02.05–06.11 Austria’s Franky Zorn faces a big challenge from a typically strong Russian contingent during the first round of finals.

Krasnogorsk, Russia

FIS Men’s Skiing World Cup 02.05–06.11 The small community of Hinterstoder, in Upper Austria, is back on the World Cup calendar for the first time since 2006. The event provides the last chance for the participants to check their form in the Super-G and the giant slalom before the skiing World Championships take place.

Hinterstoder, Austria

Super Bowl XLV 02.06.11 The Super Bowl is the biggest annual one-day sporting event in the USA. Last year, running back Reggie Bush won his first Super Bowl ring with the New Orleans Saints.

Cowboys Stadium, Texas, USA

ISPO Munich 2011 02.06–09.11 The international trade fair for sporting goods and sports fashion presents its wares in over 100,000m2 of space.

Munich, Germany

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series 02.20.11 The new NASCAR season starts, as always, with the Daytona 500 in the glorious Sunshine State of Florida.

Daytona, Florida, USA

more body & mind Red Bull Crashed Ice 02.26.11 This, the third and penultimate event of the season, could determine who will win the World Championship title.

Moscow, Russia

FIS Alpine Skiing World Championships 02.07–20.11 Lindsey Vonn was in a class of her own at the 2009 World Championships. But the American is yet to secure a medal in a technical discipline.

Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

FIS Snowboard World Cup 02.08–09.11 Men and women fight it out in snowboard cross and parallel giant slalom contests at the 2018 Winter Olympic candidate city of Pyeongchang.

Yong Pyong, South Korea

IBU Biathlon World Cup 02.08–13.11 After this sprint, pursuit and mass-start contest, focus will shift to the World Championships in Russia next month.

Fort Kent, Maine, USA

WRC Rally Sweden 02.11–13.11 The one true winter rally has been held for over 50 years.

Rally legend and Frenchman Sébastien Loeb is the only non-Scandinavian driver to have won here, in 2004.

Karlstad, Sweden

FIS Ski Jumping World Cup 02.11–13.11

The best newschool skiers, including three previous winners, Russ Henshaw, Oscar Scherlin and Charles Gagnier, go on a ‘sightseeing tour’ of the area.

Bad Gastein, Austria

Some of the world’s best on two wheels wow spectators with a breathtaking motocross show, which takes in highest air, whip contest and freestyle disciplines.

Turin, Italy

FC Red Bull Salzburg vs SK Rapid Vienna 02.19.11 FC Red Bull Salzburg’s first home game of 2011 in the Austrian Bundesliga and it’s a cracker. The current champions take on SK Rapid Vienna, record-holders for overall number of championships won, and it promises to be tight.

Red Bull Arena, Salzburg, Austria

NBA All-Star Game 02.20.11 The high point of the NBA All-Star Weekend sees the best basketball players from the Western and Eastern Conferences squaring off, with fans determining who the starting five will be.

Staples Center, Los Angeles, USA

FIS Nordic Skiing World Championship 02.24–03.06.11 For ski-jumpers, cross-country skiers and combined skiers, it’s all about gold, silver and bronze at this prestigious ski-centre.

Holmenkollen, Oslo, Norway

Vikersund will play host to the world championships in 2012.

But after reconstruction work on the resort’s ski-jumping hill, Bjørn Einar Romøren’s world record of 239m, set in Planica in 2005, could be under threat already this year.

Vikersund, Norway

Black Wings Linz vs EC Red Bull Salzburg 02.25.11

Red Bull Open Ice 02.12–13.11

Corrida de Bonecos Gigantes 02.26.11

The final of the ice-hockey game played in its most authentic form: four against four on a frozen lake.

Mendon Ponds Park, New York, USA

Red Bull Playstreets 02.19.11

Night of the Jumps 02.18–19.11

After the 54th and final round of preliminary competition, the final line-up in the ice-hockey championship playoffs has been set in stone.

Eissporthalle, Linz, Austria

This 200m race between huge puppets up to 3m tall forms part of the carnival festivities in one of Brazil’s oldest cities.

Olinda, Brazil

FIS Snowboard World Cup 02.17–20.11

ASP World Tour 02.26–03.09.11

The men and women will race in half-pipe, snowboard cross and parallel giant slalom categories.

The men will also perform in a big air competition.

Stoneham, Quebec, Canada

The winter break is over and it’s time to slap on the sunblock.

This collection of the world’s best-known pro surfers get the new season underway.

Gold Coast, Australia

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THE MUSIC OF NEIL YOUNG 02.10.11

night spots

Over 20 acts demonstrate a ‘Heart of Gold’: Patti Smith and The Roots among others, reinterpret Neil Young’s songs, with proceeds going to charity.

Carnegie Hall, New York

Get your dancing shoes on: here’s our global night-time guide.

CLUB TRANSMEDIALE 02.01–06.11

SPLORE-CITY 02.11–12.11

Berlin is the new capital of digital culture. A ‘poor but sexy’ city in the words of the mayor himself, it partly owes its reputation as Germany’s Bohemian bastion to Transmediale. The festival for contemporary art this year attracts electronic acts like Monolake, Dorian Concept and Kode9 to the city on the Spree.

Various locations, Berlin, Germany

Dancing in the moonlight in Aotea Square, admiring the visuals projected onto nearby buildings, and no tent required.

Sounds like a midsummer night’s wet dream for any festival-goer. The fantastic lineup includes Caribou, Four Tet and Mayer Hawthorne.

Auckland, New Zealand

the Hollies 02.06.11 Having had more hit singles than The Beatles in the 1960s, it’s no wonder The Hollies were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year.

The band is one of a few from the era never to have officially split and, judging by their popularity, for good reason.

TSB Bowl of Brooklands, New Plymouth, New Zealand

Photography: REx Features (1), Getty Images (3)

TWIN ATLANTIC UK TOUR 02.08–13.11 These Glasgow whippersnappers have toured with Blink 182 and My Chemical Romance. Now the four-piece are touring as headliners, offering tasters from their debut album.

Recorded in Red Bull’s Studio in Santa Monica with Foo Fighters’ producer Gil Norton, it’s due for release in April.

Preston, England, and Orkney, Thurso, Dingwall and Stirling, Scotland

Funeral Party 02.10.11 The East L.A. three-piece return to the U.K. following last month’s release of debut album The Golden Age of Nowhere, much anticipated since being championed by Radio 1 and 6 Music in the U.K. last year.

Cargo, London, England

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Rolo Tomassi 02.12.11 The Sheffield rockers tour Ireland to kick off what promises to be a good year.

After a 2010 which saw them play the Download and Reading and Leeds festivals, it seems the five-piece are on a roll.

Twisted Pepper, Dublin, Ireland

The Go! Team 02.16.11 It’s a triumphant return home for the seaside sextet, who are promoting their third LP, Rolling Blackouts, after a storming 2010. Highlights include collaborating with Satomi Matsuzaki of Deerhoof and receiving a nomination for Remixers of the Year.

Concorde 2, Brighton, England

PENDULUM & INNERPARTYSYSTEM US TOUR 02.16–26.11 At some point drum ’n’ bass hit a dead end. Salvation came in the shape of Australia’s Pendulum, the first true D’n’B band. Their U.S .tour is loudly supported by Red Bull Records’ Innerpartysystem, who produce similarly organic dance sounds.

Denver, Salt Lake City, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Las Vegas and Vancouver, Canada

CARNAVAL MARIA DO BAIRRO 02.27.11 In March the carnival train will ramble around Rio. And even the Samba schools’ rehearsals beforehand are parties.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

more body & mind TINIE TEMPAH & KATY B 02.22.11 Rapper Tinie Tempah sold more singles than anyone else in Britain in 2010. Looks like Katy B is on the same track this year with ‘Lights On’. The dream team is heading out on tour.

02 ABC, Glasgow, Scotland

PLAYGROUND WEEKENDER 02.17–20.11 Outdoor cinema, a cabaret stage, yoga tent and food from around the world: Put it all together and you’ve got a carnival for the cool kids. What more could you want from a festival?

Ah yes, good music. Playground Weekender has that sorted too, with De La Soul, Roy Ayers, Toro Y Moi and Roska.

Del Rio Riverside Resort, NSW, Australia

U2 02.18.11 After their tour schedule was thrown into disarray with news of Bono’s back surgery, one of the biggest bands on the planet are back on fighting form and ready to rock.

Cape Town Stadium, Cape Town, South Africa

NOISE POP FESTIVAL 02.22–27.11 A festival for anyone whose wardrobe boasts more than three checked shirts. In other words, a festival which lives and breathes indie rock culture.

Noise Pop features music, films and performances from Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner and bands including The Stone Foxes, No Age and Best Coast, i.e. bands that mere mortals will only hear about in two years’ time.

Various locations, San Francisco

JAMIE WOON 02.24.11 This 27-year-old Brit is the hottest artist of the new year, and one of five acts featured on the BBC’s ‘Sound of 2011’ list. But Jamie Woon will more than live up to the hype when he releases his debut album of melancholic dubstep soul songs Mirrorwriting in April.

Scala, London, England

BEN SIMS & KIRK DEGIORGIO 02.25.11 MICRO MUTEK FESTIVAL 02.09–11.11 Barcelona, mecca for cool music festivals, hosts Canadian electronic label Mutek’s line-up.

Various locations, Barcelona, Spain

Electronic legends Sims and Degiorgio are starting up a new club night called Machine.

The address will remain secret until the last minute, but two things are certain: The club’s motto—“new and unreleased techno”—and the first guest on the turntables, Luke Slater.

TBA, London, England

BRUISE CRUISE FESTIVAL 02.25–28.11 This isn’t your grandparents’ idea of a sea cruise. The Bruise Cruise is probably the first rock festival to take place on the high seas. Passengers making the journey from Miami to the Bahamas will enjoy bands like the Black Lips, Surfer Blood and Vivian Girls.

All served up with cocktails, casinos, pools and hot tubs.

Miami to Nassau, Bahamas

SOURCE ON ICE FESTIVAL 02.26.11 An outdoor festival in February? In Holland? The Russian state circus is making it happen, because for one night only they’re lending their tent to the festival. The organizers, however, will be providing everything else themselves, including the punch, ice skates (for the dancefloor, or dance rink if you will) and the best electronic artists, including Floating Points, Kyle Hall and Speedy J. Down Under, Utrecht, Netherlands

THE WORLD OF DRUM ’n’ BASS 02.26–27.11 Aphrodite, The Panacea, Chase & Status, Subsonik adding some ‘Trance ’n’ Bass’ and the breakthrough act of the year, Camo & Krooked: This is a lineup which brings to mind the Justice League or some other superhero summit. In fact it’s a club night able to bring any true drum ‘n’ bass fan out in a hot flush.

Arena, Moscow, Russia

I’LL BE YOUR MIRROR FESTIVAL 02.27.11 Every few months, London concert promoters ATP hire a rundown old holiday camp near Bristol and let legendary indie heroes curate a festival completely to their own taste.

Simple idea, major success.

Therefore the ATP folks are expanding to Japan, with bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Fuck Buttons, as well as local acts Boredoms and Melt-Banana.

Studio Coast, Tokyo, Japan

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James Blake London In Profile

Young Soul Rebel Hotly tipped English producer James Blake is rewiring the blues for the dubstep generation. He talks to Piers Martin about the inspiration behind his groundbreaking debut album.

Everyone is talking about James Blake— and it’s not hard to see why. In just 12 months, the well-spoken 22-year-old from north London has captivated the underground with a string of cutting-edge singles that showcased his soulful take on dubstep. Now Blake, a classically trained pianist, is poised to break through with his self-titled debut album, a blend of strippeddown blues, gospel and folk swaddled in purring electronics that bears comparison with the likes of Portishead and The xx.

None of this would have happened, however, if Blake hadn’t paid a visit to 92

seminal London dubstep night FWD>> in 2007, where the teenager heard the mutant strains of UK bass music for the first time.

From then on he sought to produce his own dancefloor tracks, mixing chords and gospel harmony with bass and beats. Today Blake finds himself at the vanguard of a new wave of exciting young producers, including his pals Joy Orbison and Ramadanman, shaping the future of British club culture.

“I just want to make hard-hitting music,” he says. It takes one listen to his emotional cover of Feist’s ‘Limit To Your Love’ to know that he does.

Red Bulletin: Tell us about that fateful trip to the club night.

James Blake: I sometimes went to drum ’n’ bass nights, but one night I was out with school friends in east London and we ended up at this club night, FWD>>, that didn’t play drum ’n’ bass, no one knew what it was. It wasn’t called dubstep at the time, it was called grime or two-step or garage. It was pitch black inside and the music was so loud.

I remember the tunes I heard drove me so far into my own head, more than anything else has ever done.

So it was the atmosphere of the club that appealed to you, not only the music?

Yes. I realized that there’s a world of people my age making music that I find really exciting, and I wanted to get on that. I saw the DJ and I thought, ‘I want to be there, I want to be behind those decks.’

So that experience threw me out of being an isolated teenager in secondary school to being involved with loads of people and sending music to people.

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Photography: Tom Horton (1), Getty Images (1)

Below: One of his first live gigs at Camden Enterprise in December 2010

You started learning classical piano when you were six years old. Did you enjoy playing or was it a chore?

I saw the importance in it. I didn’t like grades or practicing, but I enjoyed the music. I had a sense at an early age that if I was improving then it must be a good thing, so I stuck with it. But alongside that I was always improvising and singing along to records. I’d play along to old Motown and soul records, CDs of Otis Redding.

I also learned classical harmony and how to play gospel organ. I was really into gospel quite early on, like the Reverend James Cleveland. And then I got into jazz pianists Art Tatum and Erroll Garner.

Together with your voice and keyboards, silence plays a prominent role in your music. It seems you know how to make the listener wait.

I’m not sure if I’m a virtuoso in the use of silence, but there’s not many other people using it. Then again, it’s only a lack of sound, isn’t it? I think you need a certain confidence in your musical ideas for sound to not exist, or to wait in the wings and come in only when it’s absolutely necessary.

How do people react when you play these tracks in a DJ set?

Well, I love it because in that moment of silence you hear all these broken words and broken sentences. People are shouting

James on stage at the BBC Radio 1 Festive Festival 2010 at the BBC’s Maida Vale Studios

and then they suddenly start whispering.

Then the track comes back and people start talking loudly again. It’s not pretentious, I just want to break it up a bit. You don’t appreciate some sounds until you’re not hearing them.

You must like the fact that you’re proving to be a tricky artist to categorize.

Well, I know I don’t want to be classed as some soul act.

So if not a soul act, how would you prefer to be defined?

New—that’s about it really. Soul has been and gone. No one needs a soul singer these

days. Soul came from a different era, from oppression and love. I haven’t experienced those political times. I have my own life to talk about, but it’s not in a soul context.

I’ve listened to songs and maybe absorbed some of the melodies. What I want to do is make dance music that actually connects with people in the way that a soul record or a folk record does. It speaks to you in a sort of organic, human way. It’s the human touch that I want.

James Blake: James Blake (Atlas/A&M); tour dates, videos and sound samples from www.jamesblakemusic.com

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Teenage Drama & Spaghetti Westerns The Go! Team’s new album is a genre-defying whirlwind. Mastermind Ian Parton names five records that inspired him to raise that storm.

Marching brass meets light-footed hip-hop beats from back in the day, psychedelic guitar licks cling to laser-gun synths. With Rolling Blackouts, their third album, The Go! Team cement their reputation as indie pop chameleons. Ian Parton, their studio wizard, lets us into his cabinet of secret weapons.

BOARDS OF CANADA Music Has The Right To Children They’re quite mysterious, they generally keep out of the limelight, thus the music exists in its own world.

Boards Of Canada have that obsession with memories, but in a way that they can be filtered through over time they become quite dark sometimes. Their music feels like a Super 8 reel slowing up and down. That’s why at a final stage of Rolling Blackouts I put the album on disc to give it a tape hissy feel.

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PUBLIC ENEMY It Takes a Million To Hold Us Back They’re the blueprint for the potential of hip-hop. Their denseness [sic] is unique, especially on that album. Public Enemy acknowledged that they were into noise, they liked the idea of distorting.

Something I can absolutely relate to.

THE SHANGRI-LAS The Best Of If I could go back in time I’d probably see them rather than The Beatles. They were the perfect little group for me. The whole kind of melodrama of being a teenager, the dead biker boyfriend thing, I really love that. Not to mention her voice, it’s really heart-wrenching.

ENNIO MORRICONE A Fistful Of Dollars Soundtrack A song like ‘The Running Range’ on the new album has a panoramic feel—and Morricone has something to do with that.

I used to listen to his music a lot. When I thought he’d reached the pinnacle of the song, he’d go shift the gear up again. That idea of triumph and windswept things has been a big influence. My early demos are like fictional Spaghetti Western music.

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND The VU and Nico did a pretty amazing job of confusing people, going from a cute little song like ‘Sunday Morning’ and then going to the 20-minute-drone-f**k off ‘Sister Ray’. I think Velvet Underground are probably the blueprint for a perfect band. I mean, their ‘Banana’-record is just an unbeatable album, I’d say. Besides, the song ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ is probably the best song of all times, isn’t it?

The Go! Team: Rolling Blackouts (Memphis Industries); www.thegoteam.co.uk

Photography: Channel 4 Television 2010 (1)

Take Five

The Go! Team Brighton

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World Best Clubs

Working for the Weekend

Week End Berlin

Photography: Weekend Club, Betty Myller, Erich Schlegel/Red Bull Photofiles

Office building by day, club by night. Owner Marcus Trojan tells us tales from the 15th floor of an underground club that’s made it to the penthouse suite.

We love running a club in this town because… in recent years Berlin has increasingly become the trend-setting metropolis for electronic music. That was partly due to the fall of the Wall because exciting club projects would spring up in empty buildings in the heart of Berlin.

The club’s name is a reference to… a Jean-Luc Godard film from the ’60s.

But we wanted a name that was playful, that’s loaded with positivity. And what’s better in everyday life than the weekend?

We’re located… in a pretty prominent address in Berlin, the former East German tourism ministry.

It’s where East Germans used to fill out the applications required if they wanted to travel abroad. It’s the second-tallest building at Alexanderplatz, directly below the television tower. We’re on the 12th and 15th floors, as well as the roof terrace.

The first thing you see when you walk into the club is… two sliding doors that open. You walk into a completely normal office building. You walk to the elevator and go up with the elevator personnel. Suddenly the doors open and you’re hit with the bass beats.

Our idea was to… further develop this improvised feeling, typical of Berlin’s clubs, where you walk into the courtyard of an old building

Week End’s roof terrace makes it one of Berlin’s top summer spots: With views over the heart of former East Berlin, including the trademark silver disco ball that is the television tower

and suddenly stumble onto a cool club in the basement. We built on this underground aspect, but moved it from the basement to the penthouse with a view.

Our typical visitor is… between 20 and 25 and into music. They will be wearing skinny jeans, a T-shirt and sunglasses. The typical Berlin style, actually.

Some of our regulars on the decks are…

Richie Hawtin, Miss Kittin, Paul Kalkbrenner, Onur Özer or Tiefschwarz. We’re one of the three big techno clubs in the city, that’s why we take high-quality bookings very seriously. We’re not too avante garde, but not too shallow either.

The inside of the club looks like…

Helmut Lang’s design. It was envisioned that way by the architects. Everything

is in black, with shiny surfaces and matt wood and a glass façade. We won Berlin’s architecture prize in 2006.

The club’s really full when… we have about 1,500 dancers on the three different floors.

We usually start really going at… like everywhere in Berlin, not till very late. I would say somewhere between 2 and 4 a.m. But we’re not a typical afterhours club. That wouldn’t even be possible because the clubbers would have to be out by Monday morning, when the office workers we share the building with arrive to start their jobs.

Week End, Alexanderplatz 5, 10178 Berlin, Germany, +4930 24631676 www.week-end-berlin.de

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In Profile

Disappearing Act

liu bolin Beijing

Liu Bolin’s remarkable images offer a window into a society that still vexes the West. Kimberly Bradley on the Chinese artist whose work forces us to focus on the unseen.

‘Hiding in the City No. 26 – In Front of the Red Flag’ (2006) —a striking image

by Liu Bolin

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Standing on the yellow line of a highway leading into Shanghai, a man and his team race against the clock. High-rise housing projects are on the distant horizon and a mysterious monolith has been set on the road. As the man is literally painted into the background, the sun disappears.

Just as the colors and shapes rendered on his clothing, face and hair perfectly match the Chinese urban landscape, a photograph is snapped, documenting the dramatic camouflage effect.

It’s perhaps a little ironic that Chinese artist Liu Bolin has managed to gain global visibility… by making himself invisible.

His camouflage shots have attracted the attention and critical acclaim of the art world and beyond since first exhibited in 2007. The striking images have become a trademark, showing him in mostly public spaces in his native China, with body, face, even his shock of short black hair, painted into a kind of trompe-l’oeil. The pictures use no digital manipulation whatsoever.

“For me, hiding is a strategy. It’s a way to gather the power,” says Liu. Part of an ongoing series that the 37-year-old calls ‘Hiding in the City’, the images were initially a response to personal hardship. In November 2005, the Chinese government demolished the Beijing artist village Suo Jia Cun, rendering Liu and about 100 other artists homeless. “The forced removal of the artists studio was my direct inspiration,” says Liu, who was born in Shandong province and trained as a sculptor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing.

“I want to show to the world a silent resistance of a Chinese artist.”

The series’ first image camouflaged Liu into the demolition’s rubble. Many more photographs followed, all of which subtly comment on the state of the arts and society in China. In one, Liu fades into a Beijing 2008 Olympics poster. In another he sits in the lotus position in front of a striped road barricade. Several shots show him in front of urban walls covered with Chinese characters, graffiti, or even anime figures. He disappears into the Great Wall or even ‘hides’ in front of and behind men in Chinese military uniform.

The artist is both actor and producer of the final product, but also considers what he is doing as performance art. “During the performance I just stand there unmovable, I won’t think too much,” he says, explaining his process. “But creation takes a long time. When I choose the background I really chew on it; I have to express clearly to the audience why I choose a certain background.” Assistants paint Liu into the predetermined scene as quickly as they

Photography: Caters News Agency

Liu’s assistants typically need between five and six hours to paint him into a background, which the artist spends a long time choosing

can—usually five to six hours, but sometimes up to 10—and then photograph him. As a blank canvas, Liu always dons a grey uniform… the same one that the Chinese military uses for daily training. “It’s cheap, and it’s known as civil camouflage,” he says.

The past three years have seen the artist in a flurry of group and solo exhibitions around the world, as well as becoming a heavily blogged internet personality. This summer, Liu’s work will be the focus of a solo show at New York gallery Eli Klein Fine Art and also will be a substantial part of the Fotográfica Biennale in Bogotà, Colombia.

Both will include his most recent work, a photo series produced in Italy, where Liu disappeared into familiar Italian landscapes such as the Rialto Bridge in Venice. And in a more commercial east-west collaboration, Oris, the Swiss manufacturer of high-end handmade mechanical watches, chose Liu Bolin as a company ‘ambassador’, featuring him in an advertising campaign and film.

But these new projects don’t stray too far from his original mission. “In current China, art is not only a pretext. The aim of artistic creation is also to show thought.

I hope that, through my works, viewers can understand our society,” he explains.

“I hope that an individual can save himself, understand his value and understand his environment, so that he can make it better.”

In an age in which China is still repressing its artists subtly and not so subtly (last year, China’s star conceptual artist Ai Weiwei was put under ‘house arrest’ and asked to demolish his studio building in Shanghai), Liu has his work cut out for him at home and abroad. “Some people call me the invisible man, but for me, it’s what is not seen in a picture which is really what tells the story.” How right he is.

There is no digital manipulation whatsoever in Liu’s pieces, which have become favourites of the blogosphere

‘Hiding in The City No. 9’ (2006)

For more images of Liu’s work go to www.elikleinfineart.com

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W

ilfred Thesiger was the last great travel writer or, as he would have preferred, ‘explorer’. The nuanced distinction is the same as that between keypad operator and writer, although rather grander. And ‘last’ because the world’s mysteries, at least the topographical ones, have capitulated to Inmarsat, GPS and Google Maps. Every nook and cranny on Planet Earth is now available on your smartphone. There are no secrets any more. But Thesiger, some say selfishly, enjoyed several of the last remaining ones.

The author of Arabian Sands solemnly trudged around Danakil country on a syphilitic camel with only a beautiful, slow-eyed carbine-toting Bedu for human company. He made the ‘Empty Quarter’ his own and wrote about it with great poignancy. A typical Thesiger line is “we spent the next day drying the meat then went off to find the oasis”. Late in life, perhaps a memory reclaimed from ruminating with his friend Bin Ghabaisha over mint tea after the falcons had been tucked into bed, he began worrying about the Chinese.

“What,” the camel-loving Thesiger asked (and I paraphrase here), “is going to happen when all the Chinese have a car?” When he posed the question about 20 years ago, very few Chinese could afford one. Twenty years ago very few Chinese could afford a pair of jeans. It seemed a hyperbolic proposition of a future nightmare. That future has slammed itself into reverse and violently collided with our here-and-now. In 2011 almost every Chinese can afford a car.

And every Chinese seems to be busy buying one. So we now know the answer to Thesiger’s question, but if you haven’t guessed you’ll have to wait until the last paragraph before I tell you what it is.

When I was a boy, we were told that the Great Wall of China was the only man-made thing that was visible

Mind’s Eye

Great Crawl of China With every Chinese aspiring to own a car, urban Carmageddon is inevitable, says Stephen Bayley. from space. Never mind that this was a fatuous fiction of slack-brained schoolmasters, the Great Wall of China has now been joined by the Great Traffic Jam of China. To The Great Hall of the People will soon be added The Great Eternal Car Park of the People.

Official figures released at the end of 2010 told that Beijing intends to build 280,000 new parking spaces, 23 miles of underpasses and 125 miles of streets. That’s swell, but better hurry up! Since they are buying 2,000 new cars every day, you do not need a calculator to see that the new parking spaces will be full in less than five months. And as for the spiffy new roads and underpasses, it’s estimated that when Beijing accommodates 6.5m cars, in about two years, it will become as congealed and as deadly as shrimp won-ton left in the fridge for five days.

That will be it. The dream of mobility as proof of democracy will be exposed as a cruel delusion. All those Chinese yearning to be free will be stuck forever in the world’s most hellish traffic jam.

Karl Marx never noted that free markets and free mobility are inconsistent:

the lust for prestige and the yearning for independence that ownership of a car brings are much more powerful than a rational distaste of suffocating and starving in perpetual gridlock. The result is absurdity. You only have to look at a Beijing webcam to see what I mean.

What Marx did say is that history repeats itself first as tragedy, secondly as farce. Thus, as an initiative to fight the recent recession, the Chinese government halved the tax on small cars and subsidized new car purchases for peasants who in 1990 were lucky to share an old bicycle.

Henry Ford wanted to release Michigan peasants from the tedium of farm life and that led 100 years later to the desertification of Detroit where the average property price is now about $29,000 and tumbleweed blows down Grand Boulevard. Or what’s left of it.

Cars make people more efficient, at least in theory. But in the middle of the 19th century an English economist called Jevons gave his name to a paradox, which explained that when you make things more efficient, people simply start using them more, so you are back to where you started. And we are back to Beijing: a city actually and metaphorically stuffed.

Meanwhile, China uses about half the world’s cement. In the third century BC two poets called Yung-men and Ch’ang-Chun had one of those cryptic Chinese conversations. The former said to the latter, “Does it not grieve you to think that 100 years hence this terrace will be cast down?” It is recorded that Ch’ang-chun wept. With all that high-grade cement, there’s no need for tears about the fate of Beijing newbuild, but does it not grieve you to think that 100 years hence Beijing will still be congested? Thesiger would weep.

He predicted Carmageddon.

Stephen Bayley is an award-winning writer and a former director of the Design Museum in London

The Red Bulletin United Kingdom: The Red Bulletin is published by Red Bulletin GmbH Editor-In-Chief Robert Sperl General Managers Alexander Koppel, Rudolf Theierl Editorial Office Anthony Rowlinson (Executive Editor), Stefan Wagner Associate Editor Paul Wilson Contributing Editor Andreas Tzortzis Chief Sub-editor Nancy James Production Editor Marion Wildmann Photo Editors Susie Forman (Chief), Fritz Schuster Deputy Photo Editors Valerie Rosenburg, Catherine Shaw Design Erik Turek (Art Director), Miles English, Judit Fortelny, Markus Kietreiber, Esther Straganz Staff Writers Werner Jessner, Ruth Morgan Contributors Stephen Bayley, Kimberley Bradley, Ulrich Corazza, Craig Jarvis, Dan Jones, Denis Kirwan, Piers Martin, Florian Obkircher, Thomas Schrefl, Thomas Senf, Steve Smith, Tatsua Tayagaki, Herbert Volker Production Managers Michael Bergmeister, Wolfgang Stecher, Walter Omar Sádaba Repro Managers Christian Graf-Simpson, Clemens Ragotzky Augmented Reality Martin Herz, www.imagination.at International Project Management Bernd Fisa Finance Siegmar Hofstetter. Corporate Publishing Boro Petric (head); Justin Hynes, Christoph Rietner, Nadja Žele (chief-editors); Dominik Uhl (art director); Markus Kucera (photo director); Lisa Blazek (editor). The Red Bulletin is published A product of the simultaneously in Austria, the UK, Germany, Ireland, Kuwait, Poland, South Africa and New Zealand. Website www.redbulletin.com. Head office: Red Bulletin GmbH, Am Brunnen 1, A-5330 Fuschl am See, FN 287869m, ATU63087028. UK office: 155-171 Tooley Street, London SE1 2JP, +44 (0) 20 3117 2100. Austrian office: Heinrich-CollinStrasse 1, A-1140 Vienna, +43 (1) 90221 28800. The Red Bulletin (Ireland): Susie Dardis, Richmond Marketing, 1st Floor Harmony Court, Harmony Row, Dublin 2, Ireland +35 386 8277993. Printed by Prinovis Liverpool Ltd, www.prinovis.com For all advertising enquiries, email adsales@uk.redbulletin.com. Write to us: email letters@redbulletin.com

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FATE DOESN’T ASK. IT COuLD ALSO bE mE. Or yOu. David Coulthard,

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