The Red Bulletin_1204_ZA

Michael Kiwanuka / Kevin McCallum / Brandon Semenuk / Spiritualized / Alexis Thompson / Leonardo da Vinci

A BEYOND THE ORDINARY MAGAZINE

SIR JAMES

DYSON THE SCIENCE OF

ULTRA RUNNING

APRIL 2012

Dow our f nload re App e iPad now !

M83 EXCLUSIVE SCARLETT JOHANSSON RED BULL STRATOS

MAYA GABEIRA 24 HOURS WITH THE BIG-WAVE GIRL WHO SHOWS UP THE BOYS

YANNICK GRANIERI REVEALS MTB SECRETS

John Florence Mr Price Pro Ballito 2011 . Photo Kelly Cestari John Florence Mr Price Pro Ballito 2011 . Photo Kelly Cestari

JULY JULY 2-8 2-8

THE WORLD OF RED BULL

April 17

WHERE’S YOUR HEAD AT: SCARLETT JOHANSSON With bombshell looks fit for movies’ golden age, the youngest old pro in Hollywood is saving the world in The Avengers, 2012’s first blockbuster.

Here’s the makings of a leading lady

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BIRTH OF A TRICK When freestyle moutain bikers show off their tricks, difficult manoeuvres come across as second nature. Star French freestyler Yannick Granieri reveals the secrets of this success, including a trampoline, and a single-minded coach on double time

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COVER PHOTOGRAPHY: TURE LILLEGRAVEN. PHOTOGRAPHY: PICTUREDESK.COM, DOM DAHER, DPPI, CIRQUE DU SOIR

Welcome You’ll forgive us, we hope, for this month producing a magazine with something of a two-wheeled theme. The bicycle has been described by some as mankind’s greatest invention and while that’s a bold claim, few could argue that in an age of austerity, eco-angst and demands of personal mobility, the bike is more relevant than ever. We celebrate it with a look at some of the great European road climbs any true cyclist should tackle (page 84), a brief history of great technical innovations in mountain biking (page 30) and a whimsical reflection on how Leonardo da Vinci first invented a machine that might be called a bicycle – if, in fact, he did. We get out of the saddle too, to soar from terra firma, with an in-depth look at how Red Bull Stratos hero Felix Baumgartner earned his licence to fly the balloon that’ll take him to the edge of space (page 74). It was a wild adventure, but at least he’s now clear for take-off. As are we with this issue. Enjoy the ride.

Your editorial team

TRAVEL: NO MOUNTAIN HIGH ENOUGH

If you’ve ever fancied yourself as a Lycra-clad, Tour de France road warrior, these are the eight hill climbs that’ll give you pedal cred

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WELCOME TO THE PLEASURE DOME

Cirque du Soir, London – a mind-bending, big-topthemed night out with Moulin Rouge atmosphere, clubbers of all stripes and an in-house funfair

THE WORLD OF RED BULL

April 38

‘SENDING EMAILS IS NOT WHY I COME TO WORK’ James Dyson reinvented the world – at the very least, the way we think about it and the way we keep it nice.

In an exclusive interview with The Red Bulletin, the billionaire innovator, engineer and inventor reveals the plusses of perseverance, his gin-less wonder and his plans for 2027

54

“I FELL TO PIECES FOR 15 KILOMETRES” SA ultra-distance phenom Ryan Sandes and renowned sports scientist Professor Tim Noakes are helping to rethink what humans can do… especially with their minds

19 ART AND SOUL

For a creative control freak such as Yoann Lemoine, aka Woodkid, shooting videos for Katy Perry and Vogue Italia would never be enough. Now he’s making music, film, photography and animation, on his quest for artistic enlightenment

A HEAD FOR FILM

Footage from a first-person perspective takes the viewer into the heart of the action, yet the ‘helmet cam’ has been around longer than you think

CREDITS:

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74

RAISING THE GIANT The balloon taking Felix Baumgarter to the edge of space for his Red Bull Stratos freefall stretches wider than the wingspan of three Boeing 777s. Inflating it requires a lot of skill, patience and precision – the same qualities needed to take it up

THE WORLD OF RED BULL

66 SURF SURVIVOR Terrifying thrills, sexist barbs and the realization that your next day at the office might also be your last. Twentyfour hours in the life of Maya Gabeira, big-wave surfing’s poster girl

I don’t feel I want to prove myself anymore. If I do it, I do it for me

„

Ice man Our bodies can deal with more than we think. Cold is the best tool to help you train your physique and concentration. It is merciless but fair

IN SEARCH OF LOST YOUTH

From the Cote D’Azur to the deserts of America, via Seinfeld and Sonic Youth, Anthony Gonzalez, alias M83, mines his memories to make epic electronica for the little kid in him – and all of us

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Maya Gabeira

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“

PHOTOGRAPHY: KOLESKY/NIKON/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, SUKI DHANDA/GUARDIAN MEDIA, KURT KAINRATH, WOODKID, RED BULL STRATOS, ROBERT SNOW/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, SÉBASTIEN AGNETTI, ANDREW MCCONNELL/PANOS, HENNY BOOGERT

“

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SURFING THE STRIP

Freedom is a much-prized commodity in Gaza, Palestine. For a small but increasing number of its residents, the sea offers an escape from a war-torn world. A 12-page photo reportage

COLD AS ICE Wim Hof believes that feeling cold is just a state of mind.

The proud holder of several cold endurance records believes something else as well: anyone can do it

62

22 Me And My Body: Brandon Semenuk 52 How Leonardo da Vinci may have divined the bicycle 60 Meet America’s top lawyer-lumberjack 88 PGA winner Alexis Thompson’s golf essentials

THE WORLD OF RED BULL

April “

If I knew exactly what made a good song, I’d be a millionaire

“

Michael Kiwanuka

OUT NOW: MICHAEL KIWANUKA One young man demonstrating that simple, soulful ingredients are still a recipe for great pop music

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86

APRIL’S GUEST CHEF

87 WAY TO PHO!

The Vietnamese breakfast dish has become one of the world’s favourite bowlfuls. Make your own today

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HIGH ACHIEVER

How do you stay in shape for cliffdiving? Czech plummeteer Michal Navratil lets us in on the secrets of the training regime that lets him master mid-air manoeuvres

8 Pictures of the Month 93 Take 5 94 World in Action 96 Save the Date 97 Kainrath 98 Mind’s Eye

PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTY IMAGES, ROMINA AMATO/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

Tanja Grandits, from Restaurant Stucki in Switzerland, creates two menus at Ikarus Restaurant in Salzburg’s Hangar-7

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OF THE MONTH

rock star

Credits

Petr Kraus’s bicycle adventures begin at the point where other people get out their climbing equipment. On a recent journey around Guatemala, the Czech biking acrobat hurtled his way down the hot ash tracks of the Pacaya volcano – “it feels like snowboarding” – and then devoted himself to cave exploration by trials bike, which he found “muddy, slippery, a great experience”. But what did he take home from Central America?

“A flat tyre and so many unforgettable memories. I always say that the best way to get to know a foreign country is on two wheels.”

Watch video by searching for ‘petr kraus’ at www.redbull.com Photography: Agustín Muñoz/Red Bull Content Pool

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Credits

n E w yo R k c iT y, U SA

OF THE MONTH

bubble head

Credits

Photographer Romain Laurent has a history of taking unusual pictures on the streets of New York. For his L’Horizon photo series, he shot a bare-chested surfer waiting to cross at traffic lights while sitting on a surfboard that was floating above the sidewalk. Similarly surreal is the man-in-a-bubble that Laurent photographed for another project, entitled Something Real. Says Laurent: “The pictures symbolise a moment in time when a person is disconnected from reality while still being a part of it.”

See all the pictures in the series at www.romain-laurent.com Photography: Romain Laurent/Bransch Europe

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Credits

PAR i S , FR An c E

insane bolt

It’s Independence Day meets Storm Chasers as a bolt of lightning appears to strike the Eiffel Tower on a stormy night in the French capital.

About three miles across town, Bertrand Kulik, a concert violinist and amateur photographer, had his camera and his wits about him, and snapped this remarkable image. The blue glow is part of the landmark’s series of regular nighttime costume changes, thanks to the lights installed for Millennium Eve celebrations in 1999. www.tour-eiffel.fr Photography: Bertrand Kulik/Caters News

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Bullevard Sport and culture on the quick

Famous faces in the crowd The rise of the celebri-fan

OFF THE CHAIN

The sculptor getting a big reaction from his body parts in bike parts KYLIE & DANNII MINOGUE Australia’s sisters of pop have shown solid homecountry support for Red Bull Racing’s F1 Aussie, Mark Webber.

JOHN CUSACK The High Fidelity star doles out high-fives to his beloved Chicago Cubs ballplayers from a pitch-side seat at Wrigley Field.

Seo Young-Deok isn’t a pro cyclist, but every year he gets through more bike chains than the whole Tour de France.

His most remarkable piece, Nirvana, an outsized head over 7.5m tall, took him a year to create, using 1.5km of bike chains that cost him in the region of R 300,000.

This welded masterpiece is just one of a number of bike-chain bodies, torsos and part-bodies in Young-Deok’s Dystopia exhibition, which this year will be coming to the west for the first time after a successful run in Seoul. Its first stop outside South Korea will be the SODA Gallery in Istanbul. youngdeok.com

BEN STILLER Whether it’s Wimbledon or the US Open, the actor (here with wife Christine Taylor) does the side-toside head thing at the tennis.

Seo Young-Deok and his Nirvana ‘head o’chains’

PICTURES OF THE MONTH

EVERY SHOT ON TARGET

JAY-Z Blue Ivy Carter’s poppa part-owns the New Jersey Nets basketball team, soon to be (after a move to his hood) the Brooklyn Nets.

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Taken a picture with a Red Bull flavour?

Email it to us: phototicker@redbulletin.com Every month we print a selection, and our favourite pic is awarded a limited-edition Sigg bottle. Tough, functional and well-suited to sports, it features The Red Bulletin logo.

Wellington

Breakdancers do their thing at the Red Bull Lab Stage of Homegrown Festival.

Sean Aickin

Kid in play The wonder of wunderkinds

DUBBLE GOOD When the hits go down: old rap dogs Cypress Hill learn new licks

WORDS: FLORIAN OBKIRCHER, RUTH MORGAN. PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTY IMAGES (3), DDP MOGIGUSANT/SOLENT NEWS (2), MARCIN OLIVA-SOTO, IMAGO, PORTLAND JUNIOR PIRATES, CHRISTOPH SCHÖCH, CYPRES HILL (2)

Jonny Greenwood (l) and Krzysztof Penderecki (r) flank conductor Marek Mos after a 2011 concert

From six-string to 48 violins Music lovers are awestruck in the presence of Jonny Greenwood, lead guitarist with Radiohead and composer of haunting film soundtracks for movies such as There Will Be Blood. And yet the boot was on the other foot when Greenwood met avant-garde composer Krzysztof Penderecki. “I shook his hand after a concert like a sad fan-boy,” recalled Greenwood. “His pieces make such wonderful sounds.” Penderecki’s radical works from the 1960s are Greenwood’s particular favourites. After that initial encounter, Greenwood visited the 78-year-old at home, near Kraków in Poland, and they went on to perform a concert together in September last year.

A new album features studio recordings of the works they played live, including Penderecki’s 1961 classic Polymorphia, for 48 stringed instruments, and Greenwood’s homage to it, 48 Responses To Polymorphia. It’s a record with the feel of a Stanley Kubrick film: epic, full of fine details and eerily beautiful.

Krzysztof Penderecki and Jonny Greenwood’s album is out now: www.nonesuch.com

TAKEFUSA KUBO Aka The Japanese Boy Messi. The 10-year-old’s exceptional soccer skills saw him snapped up by Barcelona last year.

OLIVER WAHLSTRÖM In 2009, aged nine, at a NHL game show, scored hockey’s best-ever goal. For real: YouTube him.

KELLY SILDARU The 10-year-old Estonian with a load of tricks up her sleeve is considered the greatest future talent on the freeskiing scene.

Cypress Hill have spent two decades injecting hip-hop with slowed-down melodies and blissed-out beats. Now they’re venturing onto the dancefloor. The Californian trio have made a record with young British musician Rusko. The five-track EP, Cypress x Rusko, is bass-heavy and inspired by dance music’s hottest genre, dubstep.

Skrillex, a figurehead for dubstep, won three Grammys in February: the rap veterans are bang on course with the new direction they’ve taken.

How did Rusko and Cypress Hill start working together?  : We actually only wanted to produce one track, but the work we did with Rusko went so well that we

got a whole album out of it.

We knew dubstep before we’d met Rusko but we had no idea that it was such strong, intense music.

Was it a clash of generations?

Dubstep and hip-hop aren’t that different, but when we heard our voices over those heavy beats for the first time, it sounded very natural. Yes, Rusko is 26 and we’re all about 45, but we got along very well and we have no qualms about working with young musicians.

Have you figured out how to dance to dubstep?

Not yet. I can move to hiphop, but I need something new now. Maybe I should dance naked? We’ll see.

Listen to samples of the EP at www.cypresshill.com

From right: Sen Dog, Rusko, DJ Muggs and B-Real

WE HAVE A WINNER!

Hokkaido Only 178 other boarders to beat to triumph at Red Bull Snow Charge.

Hiroyuki Nakagawa

Abu Dhabi

At Red Bull Car Park Drift, Abdo Feghali partakes of the burning of the rubber.

Naim Chidiac

Kapstadt Giant tricks in front of Table Mountain at kiteboarding’s Len10 Megaloop Challenge.

Craig Kolesky

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Kiteboarding SA style

2011 Red Bull Music Academy alumnus Behr lays down some sounds at A Taste Of Sónar

Big air, its current pioneers will tell you, is where the sport of kiteboarding is headed. One kiteboarder exploring this boundary is Dutchman Ruben Lenten.

Spending a large part of the year in SA, Ruben has a signature move, the ‘megaloop’, which involves jumping more than 20m into the air, pulling the kite through a full circle in the wind’s power zone and then making the landing. In February, Lenten invited 24 kiteboarders to his first Len10 Megaloop Challenge at Big Bay, Cape Town. After a long day’s competition, it was the UK’s Lewis Crathern – who in 2010 famously kiteboarded over Brighton Pier in the south of England – who nailed the big one to claim the title. www.hyperdub.com

Feeling peaky New Era, makers of the 59Fifty baseball cap – Major League Baseball’s official headwear – recently brought their travelling exhibition of ‘art caps’ to South Africa. This touring gallery, which began in London last November, stopped in Berlin, Milan, Barcelona, Paris and Stockholm before arriving in the Mother City. Titled New Era Introducing, the project sees designers from eight countries being given carte blanche to express themselves on a blank New Era 59FIFTY cap. Among them was SA’s Jonathan Ferreira, who came up with this horny little number (above) inspired by Maurice Sendak’s children’s book Where The Wild Things Are. The work is “about a subtle evolution from inanimate object to fairy-tale animal.” www.neweraintroducing.com

Lucca Crowd support in extremis at the Italian extreme enduro race, Hell’s Gate.

Olaf Pignatarob 16

Antigua

CATALAN CAPE TOWN

Spain’s top electro fest proves a hit with Capetonians

Last month, the Holy Grail of electronic music festivals visited Cape Town.

A Taste Of Sónar, a mini edition of the Barcelona electro fest, formed part of the Mother City’s Design Indaba convention. The day-long event at Cape Town City Hall began with sets from spaced-out minimalists Fletcher In Dub and afro-dub mash-up masters Blk Jks. Top-of-the-bill highlights included a Massive Attack dubstep DJ set, before Berlin duo Modeslektor and French soundsmith Brodinski mesmerised the crowd with pounding rhythms, crashing synths and frenetic remixes. But it wasn’t all about the big guns, as Red Bull Music Academy also had its own stage. Following on from its SónarDôme presence at the Barcelona festival, the stage showcased local talent, with SA stars like Culoe De Song, Jullian Gomes, Behr and Thibo Tazz providing a more chilled-out flow of beats. www.redbullmusicacademy.com

Czech three-time world trials bike champ Petr Kraus at the ‘other Antigua’, Guatemela.

Agustin Muñoz

Muscat In Oman, the Red Bull boat gets stuck in round one of the 2012 eXtreme 40 sailing series.

Sabine König

WORDS: RUCHARD RUMNEY, STEVE SMITH. PHOTOGRAPHY: CRAIG KOLESKY/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, ONE DOG CHICKEN, SYDELLE WILLOW

We have lift-off

b u l l e va r d

where’s your head at?

Scarlett JohanSSon

With bombshell looks fit for movies’ golden age, the youngest old pro in Hollywood is saving the world in 2012’s first blockbuster. Here’s the makings of a leading lady Mr

st Woody Allen, a man with a string of movie muses, has thrice cast Joh ansson – in Match Point, Scoop and Vicky Cris tina Barcelona.

The first gig came sight uns een. “I could have arrived there with a mohawk and he would have been totally scr ewed,” she joked. She kept her reg ular do, and Match Point led to her fourth and most recent Golden Globe nomination.

hellO, the twin s

When Hunter Johansson came into being on November 24, 1984, his mother, Melanie, had not long recovered from giving birth to her third child, Scarlett, just three minutes earlier. The twins, and their older bro and sis, have Danish father Karsten to thank for Scandinavian genes. Scarlett may have inherited the performing bug from Karsten’s father, a writer and radio host.

VOw! Fla p! CiaO!

little Miss sCarlett

On July 10, 2009, a nerd supercouple was born. Ryan Reynolds was announced as Green Lantern; he was already married to SJ, aka Black Widow in Iron Man 2. But Green and Black got the blues: they divorced last year.

Few successful child actors maintain their early-years eminence. Remarkably, for someone who turns 28 in November, this is Johansson’s 20th year in the business of show. It was 1993 when she began auditioning; an early, unsuccessful try for Jumanji is just the cutest YouTube clip.

waits -in G Ga

words: Paul wilson. illustration: lie-ins and tigers

hO rs e pl ay

After her film debut in Nor th (1994) and a turn as the elder sister of the Macau lay Culkin replacement in Home Alone 3 (1997), Johansson’s first major role was as the girl who also nee ded a quiet talking-to in The Hor se Whisperer. The film’s star and director, Rob ert Redford, felt the impressively mature you ng lass was “13 going on 30”; she called him Booey.

He actually prefers Bob.

Oh, GrOw Up

At the beginning of 2003, SJ was known chiefly as the girl in The Horse Whisperer and one of the two girls in Ghost World. By year’s end, she had moved on to being the young woman in Lost In Translation – perhaps her finest work – and the girl in The Girl With The Pearl Earring, playing, respectively, above and below her then age of 18.

Lost found her winning a Best Actress BAFTA.

Me

Many actresses sin g, but Johansson is the on ly one with an album of Tom Waits covers. Eleven of the 12 songs on Anywhere I Lay My Head came from the gravel ly voiced songsmith. David Bo wie provided backing vo cals.

Waits, Johansson sai d, gave his blessing; she ga ve a fine, husky tribute to Wa its’s rasp.

pieCe OF KiC K-a ss

DOn’t MinD the Gap In 2004, Johansson, having already worked with Redford, Sean Connery, Bruce Willis and Bill Murray, confessed that she had only ever been starstruck twice: by Bill Clinton and Patrick Swayze. Both fellows to set hearts a-flutter, so no shame on Scarlett for double-taking. She has grown to like the older man: in 2011, she spent five months on the arm of Sean Penn (b.1960).

This summer’s blockbuster movies season begins with a big bang. The Avengers is thick with existing movie superheroes, including Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man. Scarlett again plays Russian spy-assassin Black Widow, whose leather catsuit is the only thing tighter than her death grip.

The Avengers is out worldwide late April/early May: marvel.com/avengers_movie

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b u l l e va r d

Art And soul

woodkid

Woodkid’s Iron video: Powerful battle imagery and thunderous beats

The new single/EP Run Boy Run is out on Green United Music

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his client list features the likes of lana del rey, taylor swift, moby and Katy Perry. not bad for a guy who’s still only in his late 20s. yoann lemoine, indeed, has already collected his fair share of fame, kudos and prizes to go with the A-list client list: for example, five lions at the Cannes lions international Advertising festival, the most important competition for makers of commercials. in recent years he’s made a splash as a director of music videos and lately came up with powerful images for lana del rey’s Born To Die, notably one composition of twin tigers flanking the new queen of retro pop under a majestic Baroque vault. lemoine recently appeared on stage with del rey as a singer, marking an ascendant musical career that launched in 2011 with his first eP, Iron, under the pseudonym Woodkid. the black-and-white images that accompany the fanfare blast of the title song illustrate what happens when yoann lemoine is in control of everything from the first note to the last still. Perfectionism! All-enveloping art!

Words: Arno rAffeiner. PhotogrAPhy: KArim sAdli (2), WoodKid (1)

For a creative control freak such as Yoann Lemoine, shooting videos for Katy Perry, Lipton and Vogue italia could never suffice. Now he makes music, film, photography and animation, in the quest for artistic perfection

illUstrAtion: dietmAr KAinrAth. PhotogrAPhy: getty imAges (1), ACtion imAges (2)

b u l l e va r d

lemoine comes from a Polish background, grew up in lyon and as a constantly occupied creative is equally at home in Paris and new york. he is, then, a jack-of-all-trades whose expressive urges threaten to explode. such energy requires him constantly to seek new outlets for his creativity, whatever the field. he refers to them as “avenues of expression,” and describes his life as being an artistic balancing act with at least four competing forces pulling him ceaselessly in this direction and that (and then in two others): film and music, photography and illustration, always with tension between lucrative contract work and self-realisation. But lemoine waves off such turbulence airily. “it’s only difficult for my schedule,” he says. “thinking it all up is no problem. for me, everything hangs together.

When i work with sound i have images in my head, and when i work with images, i have music in my head. that’s completely natural.”

Woodkid’s first album, due to appear this year, is pretty Name much in the can. titled The Yoann Lemoine Golden Age, it’s a work about Born adulthood and the loss of March 16, 1983, in innocence. lemoine talks about Tassin-la-Demi-Lune it like a romantic who still near Lyon, France believes in the genuine and Million hits man unadulterated within all of Lemoine’s graffiti animation for an AIDS us. “With Woodkid,” he says, awareness campaign “it’s really all about finding brought toilet wall the inner wild child.” scribbles to life. The for the recording he was Cannes-crowned clip currently has around 10 assisted by orchestre national million hits on YouTube. de Paris, as well as sebastiAn, upstart producer ed Banger.

Keys to success Lemoine has two large But he could probably have keys tattooed on his handled it all solo. At root, forearms. One for lemoine prizes simplicity images, one for sound? given perfect form. his music leans towards classic songwriting, but even simple chord progressions are opulently arranged, with horns, strings, timpani – no stop unpulled. Cinemascope, if you will. Just like his video clips, which are really short films, although they relate a feeling instead of following a conventional narrative. it’s no coincidence that lemoine’s major ambition is to make a feature film. “i always said i wanted to make my first feature film before i’m 30,” he declares. “i now realise that’s not going to happen, but that’s oK. it’s better to come up with a really good first feature than rush through any old shit. i have more respect for film than any other area i operate in. for me, it’s really something holy.”

HARd & FAST

Top performers and winning ways from around the globe

Jamie Roberts (left, with Leigh Halfpenny and Scott Williams) was a key member of the Wales side that won rugby’s Triple Crown for the 20th time.

At the Pro Gold Coast in Australia – the first stop on surfing’s 2012 ASP World Tour – South Africa’s Jordy Smith went out in the semi-finals and finished third.

With victory in the World Cup giant slalom in Åre, Sweden, Lindsey Vonn (USA, centre) won a fourth overall World Cup skiing title in five years.

www.yoannlemoine.com/woodkid

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KIT EVOLUTION

A HEAD FOR FILM

HEAVY-METAL GSAP 16MM FAIRCHILD GUN CAMERA, 1940 Sherman M Fairchild (1896-1971) is a true unsung hero of World War II. In 1919, he devised the first reliable, accurate aerial camera. Twenty years later, with his camera company grown into a multi-division corporation, 90 per cent of cameras in Allied aircraft were of Fairchild origin or manufacture. Many of those were the 20

so-called ‘gun cameras’, which sprang into action when a fighter pilot pulled the trigger on his machine gun, and captured the ensuing air battle on 16mm film. The example shown above comes from the collection of the Leica camera shop in Vienna, and is in all likelihood a one-off piece that was the product of the busy

fingers of a United States infantryman.

The soldier, who was perhaps part of a reconnaissance party or army film unit, attached a 16mm Fairchild gun camera, with a Bausch & Lomb lens, to an infantry helmet. Good neck muscles were required: helmet and cam together weigh 2.16kg. www.leicashop.com

WORDS: ANDREAS ROTTENSCHLAGER

Footage from a first-person perspective takes the viewer into the heart of the action, but the ‘helmet cam’ has been around longer than you think

B U L L E VA R D

PHOTOGRAPHY: KURT KEINRATH

LIGHT FANTASTIC GOPRO HD HERO 2, 2012 When Nicholas Woodman was surfing in Australia in 2002, he was not as happy as he should have been. The hours in the water were unforgettable, but the pictures the Californian and his friends took were entirely forgettable, not least because they were taken from the beach. So Woodman began to experiment, mounting cameras

on a surfboard, and an idea took hold.

He raised money selling Balinese beaded belts, went back to Cali and formed GoPro, to market the cameras that would allow regular surfers – and bikers, jumpers, gliders and fliers – to ‘go pro’ and capture amazing shots of themselves mid-action.

The GoPro HD Hero 2, shown here attached

to the helmet of US freeride mountain biker Paul Basagoitia, takes 11-megapixel stills, shoots HD video and is waterproof.

With battery and housing, the camera weighs just 167g; helmet plus cam weigh 1.42kg – that’s 33 per cent less of a brain ache than its wartime counterpart. www.gopro.com

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B U L L E VA R D

ME AND MY BODY

BRANDON SEMENUK Being at the top of freeride mountain biking doesn’t come for free: the Canadian world champion trains every day and regards scars as part of the job

FUEL

THE SHOW MU ST GO ON

Injuries so far… I’ve broken both collarbones and one wrist. I have a permanently dislocated rib and some torn ligaments. What else?

I let the body do what it has to do and try to let injuries heal properly.

It knows how to deal with problems best, even if some parts don’t come together like they used to. Once I’m on the bike, it’s not a problem.

SCAR TISS UE

I’m very glad my body has a good self-repair mechanism.

It produces scar tissue on the pelvis and on the front and back of my lower legs for when the bear’s claw pedals carve into my flesh [due to slipping] and any other poorly cushioned parts of my body. We need to move easily as freeriders, and too much protection would hinder our movement, so we use as little as possible. Even at the Red Bull Rampage I just wear a T-shirt and shorts.

BR AN DO N UN BR AN

DE

D I don’t have a single tattoo, which is pretty unusual in this job. Andreu Lacondeguy, for example, has now becom e a mutating work of art and almost every ride r on the FMB Tour has at least one or two tattoos. But I’m completely as nature inte nded. Not because I don’t like tattoos. It’s just that I haven’t yet found a design that I like so much I want to have it under my skin till the end of my days.

GRE AT LEG S

, When I started riding mountain bikes to used I . iding freer with do to it had nothing be a cross-country racer and I trained really hard for it. I still draw on the all the work I put in back then and r my legs are still stronger than my uppe body. This is why when I’m working out, , I need a lot more time for my upper body body. back and arms than I do for my lower

SHUT UP AND RID E!

Since my teens, I’ve tried out my trick s first in the foam-pit at home. I try to spend some time on the bike every day and my home town of Whistler in British Columbia is a freeride paradise. The only thing you want to do when you’re there is get up into the mountains and ride. Mountain biking is such a versatile sport that it automatically trains a number of musc les.

I get the extra I need for my upper body through press-ups and chin-ups.

Watch the Freeride Mountain Bike World Tour live at: www.redbull.com/bike

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WORDS: WERNER JESSNER. PHOTOGRAPHY: CHRISTOPHER MORRIS

I eat everything. Not junk food, but whatever fruit, veg and meat I like – and I love Mexican food. There’s not much meat on my ribs, which is both a blessing and a curse: a bit more natural padding in the form of fatty tissue can be very handy in my sport, but that’s probably not going to happen. So when a crash goes wrong, I have to try to be like a cat and work out a way of avoiding the full impact.

JHB 35738

B U L L E VA R D

LUCKY NUMBERS

MOUNTAIN BIKING

A whole generation has now grown up with the world’s most versatile piece of two-wheeled sporting equipment. Quantifying such a vast subject matter is tricky, but we’ve tried anyway

At the first Mountain Biking world champs, in Durango, Colorado in 1990, US rider Greg Herbold, known as H-Ball, waited at the start of the downhill race with a prototype sprung fork on his bike, boasting 50mm of spring deflection.

He won the race convincingly. The RockShox RS-1s bike suspension came on the market soon afterwards.

Markus Stöckl

Anne-Caroline Chausson

1990

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The greatest excesses coincided with the millennium.

The Italian manufacturer Marzocchi produced the Super Monster sprung fork with 30cm of spring deflection, 10cm more than is common today.

It weighed 5.8kg and was harmful to any bike’s geometry (and thus to the way it rides). The fad disappeared just as quickly as it had emerged.

Greg Herbold

1988

The Mountain Bike Hall of Fame is in Crested Butte, Colorado. Since 1988, 120 people have been honoured, in the categories of Advocacy, Industry, Journalism, Pioneers, Promotion and Racing History. There are at least three, and at most seven, new honourees every year, but the first intake comprised 10 lucky folk, including Jacquie Phelan, a dominant force in the sport’s early years and one of 17 women honoured to date.

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Jumps were just hops and ramp jumps, disc brakes and full suspension nonexistent in 1990, when Walter Arthofer from Waidhofen an der Ybbs pulled off the first mountain bike backflip.

In a cow field. With bales of straw for safety.

In 2011, New Zealander Jed Mildon succeeded in completing the first-ever triple backflip.

Marzocchi Super Monster

1896

Engineers have been tinkering with the connection between man and pedal for over 100 years. American firm Sager was granted a patent on clips with leather straps in 1896. Bernard Hinault won the Tour de France in 1985 for the first time using clipless pedals by Look.

Shimano presented its off-road SPD system, with cleats on the soles of shoes and no clips, in 1990.

Bernard Hinault

4,418

222

In 2000, Frenchman Eric Barone set the current mountain bike speed world record of 222kph on an aerodynamically optimised prototype in the Alpine resort Les Arcs. Almost as crazy, and perhaps more impressive, is the 210kph that Markus Stöckl clocked in 2007, on a conventional bike and wearing outdoor shoes.

Twelve-time world and eight-time European downhill champion, four-time World and twice European dual slalom champion and 55 victories in the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup: Anne-Caroline Chausson is the all-time greatest mountain biker. As if that wasn’t enough, the 34-year-old Frenchwoman qualified for the BMX at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and took a sensational gold.

The world’s longest mountain bike race is the Tour Divide, which lasts for 4,418km along the American Great Divide from Banff in Alberta, Canada to Antelope Wells, New Mexico. In 2010, Matthew Lee, won in 17 days, 16 hours, 10 minutes. Of the 43 starters, 23 finished the course: the last of whom was 10 days, 8 hours, 41 minutes behind the winner.

Mountain Bike Hall of Fame

Watch the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup, iXS Cup and FMB Freeride Tour live at www.redbull.com/bike

WORDS: WERNER JESSNER. PHOTOGRAPHY: MAURICO RAMOS/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, GETTY IMAGES (2), DPPI, MARZOCCHI, MTN BIKE HALL OF FAME & MUSEUM

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pepejeans.com

Surfing

the Strip

Freedom is a much-prized commodity in Gaza, Palestine. For a small but increasing number of its residents, the sea offers an escape from a war-torn world Words: Ruth Morgan Photography: Andrew McConnell/PANOS

Mohammed Abu Jayab catches a wave at dusk as street lights start to come on in Gaza City behind him

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“People wash their horses in the sea every day in Gaza,” says McConnell. “Just after this picture was taken, this guy got on the horse, headed out and kept going. He was just messing around, having fun, and the horse seemed to enjoy it. The sea’s a real release.

People love to go into the water and swim.”

action

ovement isn’t free for Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. Restrictions are such that the area is referred to by some locals as ‘the biggest open-air prison on Earth’. The Israeli blockade and a clampdown on exit permits have led to a mass of densely populated refugee camps that are home to a people in limbo. A small but dedicated number of boys, men and even girls find temporary escape through surfing. Photographer and sometime-surfer Andrew McConnell travelled to Gaza City to document them.

“When I heard about the Gaza surfers I knew I had to go and meet them,” he says.

“Surfing in Gaza sounds surprising at first – you don’t imagine it existing – but it actually makes perfect sense.

Where is that sort of freedom more needed than in Gaza?

“When I went in December 2009, I stayed with a family in a little town in the north.

There were strange noises at night: tanks moving, air strikes. I heard missiles being fired from nearby into Israel – then there was the inevitable retaliation. Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are suffering. To them, in a place with no parks 29

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Mohammed Abu Jayab with his children in one of the narrow passageways of the

Al-Shati Refugee Camp, known as Beach Camp

Surfers melt candle wax onto a board – surf wax is impossible to find in Gaza. Each waxing requires about 12 candles and an hour of careful work

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Back at home, Abu Jayab teaches his young son to surf

Surfer Ali Ayrhim prays before taking his board to Sheik Khazdien beach

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or gardens, no forests, no open spaces, no respite from the concrete, the sea has become hugely important.

“Palestinians in the Gaza Strip started surfing in the mid-1980s. Mohammed Abu Jayab (previous page), a fisherman and carpenter, is one of the pioneers of the scene. He built his own board out of wood, after seeing people on TV riding waves. It was a really heavy, rock-solid thing (lucky for him he has a new one now), but he stuck with it for a long time. In a region where life is marked by conflict and struggle, surfing is one of the only means of escape, and so it became something very important.

“Today there are around 30 surfers, a number which is dictated by the number of boards available. It’s impossible to find surfing equipment in Gaza. The surfers are forced to rely on outside donations of kit.

Getting hold of it means negotiating a lot of red tape – shipments can be held at customs in Tel Aviv for two years or more. Many are simply turned back. As a result, the sport is still very much in its infancy here, despite it having been around for nearly three decades.

“However, once people get out on the waves, the city’s problems are literally behind them. Every surfer I spoke to told me that the overriding feeling surfing gives them is one of freedom. One said when he catches a wave, it’s like he’s flying. They get to leave Gaza and head for the horizon. For a short time, they get to escape the prison.” www.gazasurfclub.com

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“This is a Friday night and Sheik Khazdien beach is packed,” says Andrew McConnell.

“During the summer, it’s just chock-a-block with families and kids.

You can’t see many women here

as they don’t like to be photographed.

You can see surfer Ali Ayrhim’s name on his board. It has a Palestinian flag design, so it’s red, green, black and white. The surfers hang out at the lifeguard towers along the beach, as do local policeman. They’ll be on their horses just out of shot, patrolling along the sand.”

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“These surfers still get strange looks,” says Andrew

McConnell, “it’s nowhere near the norm here yet.”

Amer Al Dous paddles out

Sabah Abo Ghanem (left) and Kholoud Abo Ghanem, Gaza’s only female surfers. The girls, aged 11 and 10 respectively, surf on borrowed boards, and will have to stop when they reach puberty, as their older sisters did before them. Surfing is not considered an acceptable pastime for a woman

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Momen Abo A’ase, emerges from the water on his board

by Gaza City beach

Mohammed Shamalak paddles away from Gaza’s tower blocks

action

Andrew McConnell

Irish photographer Andrew McConnell was born in 1977.

He began his career as a press photographer covering the closing stages of the conflict in Northern Ireland.

In 2004 he moved into documentary photography and has since worked all over the world, including Africa, where he now lives.

His photos have appeared in National Geographic, The New York Times, The Guardian, Vanity Fair and Der Spiegel. His portraits of the Sahawari people of the Morocco-Algeria border won a first prize in the World Press Photo 2011 awards. www.andrewmcconnell.com

Twilight: surfing by the day’s last light at Gaza City

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Action

‘sending emails is not why we come to work’ James dyson reinvented the world – at the very least, the way we think about it and the way we keep it nice. The billionaire innovator reveals the plusses of perseverance, his gin-less wonder and 38

h

e has many qualities, but above all James Dyson has resolve. after devising a totally new technical vacuum cleaner concept in 1978, it took 15 years, 5,126 prototypes, and continual rejection from existing vacuum cleaner companies before he launched a product under his own name: the Dyson DC01. it turned out in his favour that potential partners and investors didn’t believe in him, because that meant he had to finance his company himself. today he is the sole owner and, consequently, one of the world’s richest 500 people. Dyson’s reinvention of everyday items like heaters, fans and hand-dryers points the way to a future of clever, compact commonplace surprises. in person, Dyson, who has been Sir James since 2007, is amused and very relaxed.

PhotograPhy: Suki DhanDa/guarDian newS & MeDia

Words: Herbert Völker

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makings oF a man

James Dyson and Dyson Ltd – a timeline of innovation

1970 / SEA TRUCK Dyson, 23, and a student, is invited to project-manage the Sea Truck, a fast, sturdy ship for carrying heavy cargo.

Dyson’s degree was furniture and interior design; Sea Truck’s success turns his focus to engineering.

1974/ BALLBARROW Dyson reinvents the wheelbarrow, using a pneumatic ball. Its investors squeeze a cash-strapped Dyson out of his controlling interest. Two lessons learned: the ball works (see later vacuums); never relinquish control.

PhotograPhy: DySon (5), reX FeatureS (1), getty iMageS (3)

THE RED BULLETIN: Shall we talk about vacuum cleaners?

JAMES DYSON: Sounds exciting.

You’ve radically improved objects that no one else thought could work differently. Can we expect more surprises like this from you? yes, there’s no end of possibilities, particularly now that the environment is so important. we make products that are more efficient, that work better, use fewer materials, less electricity, less water – and less energy. this makes engineering and the development of new technology much more fun, much more interesting, much more complex and also much more challenging. it’s a wonderful time to be an engineer or a scientist.

What is the most important quality in a person who believes in something and actually makes it a reality? if you want to do something that is different, you must think it is better. you can’t ask anybody for advice, because no one else knows what the future is going to be, or whether your idea will work.

So you have to make the decision for yourself. and you don’t know for sure, you’re only guessing, but it isn’t entirely intuitive. you can use logic to explain why you might be correct, but doing something different, something new – there is only so much logic you can use. you don’t know whether people will like something just because you do. you have to be stubborn as a mule, because usually most people think your idea will fail. here’s an example: our vacuum cleaners are transparent. you can see the dirt.

Many people were irritated by this, and therefore shops didn’t want to sell our product. So i said, “well, i’m sorry, but that’s how my vacuum cleaner is.”

Seeing your own ‘emissions’, as it were, is interesting. The American author Erica Jong once described her shock at sitting on a German shelftype toilet for the first time and catching a glimpse of the legacy she left behind before flushing. at first i found it shocking as well. i thought they’d installed the toilet

bowl back to front – the water in front, and the pan behind. But it was still an interesting experience.

Many doctors recommend taking a backward glance so that we understand our bodily functions.

But we’re digressing. It’s said that long-distance running helped you to become stubborn and determined.

Long-distance running is a quite a lonely thing to do. you do it on your own. Most people slow down when they feel tired, but you have to accelerate when you get tired, simply because everybody else gets tired. in life, most people give up at the point when they are about to be successful. So, if you want to make a breakthrough, if you want to do something nobody has done before, you have to go through that pain barrier, even though you might collapse at the end of it. herb elliott [australian winner of 1,500m gold at the 1960 rome olympics] ran up and down sand dunes in his training. that’s very painful. i grew up in north norfolk, and i ran up and down the highest sand dunes i could find.

The people you admire include philosophers, scientists, inventors and engineers. If you had to pick one as a stand-out, who would it be? i choose Brunel. [isambard kingdom Brunel, 19th century civil engineer; builder of railways, bridges and steamships.] i particularly like him because he had a pathological desire to completely innovate with everything he did. he couldn’t repeat anything, do anything that anyone else had done. i admire that enormously. whatever he did looked beautiful, extremely elegant. he never talked about it, but i learned from him that engineering in itself and engineering innovation is beautiful. you don’t have to try to design something if the engineering is beautiful.

How does a person conceive of something as bold as a technological leap?

Slowly, slowly. you must only make one change at a time, otherwise you don’t learn what it was that made it worse or better. that doesn’t stop you making a big leap, but you must get there by learning how you got there.

So you take one step after the other. it’s no use saying, “i reckon that’s how it will work best.” you simply have to do empirical testing. it’s still the edisonian principle of trial and error.

That sounds like it’s straight out of the Formula One textbook. A couple of years ago you put rolling bearings, similar to those used in Formula One

1978-1983 / THE BIG IDEA Dismayed at the poor performance of his vacuums, Dyson sets out on his life’s great path.

He climbs the fence of a nearby sawmill to observe its dustremoving cyclone.

He and his team make 5,127 prototypes of a bagless cleaner.

He is told ‘No’ by everyone he approaches, but never listens.

‘to make a breakthrough, you have to go through the pain barrier. herb elliott ran on sand dunes. ‘i love the mini, and its designer, alec issigonis. how it looked came about because of the technology inside. that’s a significant part of the dyson recipe’ ‘Brunel had a pathological desire to completely innovate with everything he did. he couldn’t do anything that anyone else had done. i admire that enormously’

1986 / G-FORCE

1993 / DC01

The first bagless vacuum goes on sale in Japan, after Dyson licenses the tech to a firm that also imports Filofaxes.

Money made from the sales enables Dyson to put his own name on the next product on his drawing board…

…the DC01. Made and sold in the UK, retailing for £200, the DC01 also has a carrying handle, a long stairs hose, onboard tools and a clear bin. The bin is thought to be a hindrance – who wants to see all that dirt?

– but two years later, the DC01 is the UK’s bestselling vacuum cleaner.

2000 / CR01 After fighting off patent infringements in the UK and USA, Dyson unveils his second cleaning device – a two-drum washing machine that mimicked the more efficient motions of hand washing. Too expensive, and perhaps too grey for buyers of white goods, it was discontinued in 2005.

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Action

2003 / DC11

2006 / AB01

The first Dyson cleaner for homes without a cupboard under the stairs. The telescopic wand at the end of a long hose meant this also was the first Dyson to appear on driveways on Sunday mornings as car-cleaning kit.

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2011 /AM04 Dyson’s most recent innovation, the Dyson Hot heater, takes many of the principles of the Air Multiplier fan and uses them to heat (and cool) a room quickly and efficiently. Forty years on from his first productions, Dyson is still a world leader of innovation and smart thinking.

2009 / AM01

Known as the Airblade, Dyson’s hand dryer blasts air at 640kph over wet paws that still instinctively reach for the paper towel dispenser.

Various claims and counterclaims have been made about its hygiene properties, but it’s greener and cheaper than paper and other dryers.

From Airblade to blade-less: the Air Multiplier fan is Dyson’s most wow-factor product. It works by forcing pressurised air over and out of certain shapes, a process that also draws in surrounding air and requires a similar balancing act as used by birds of prey on their wings.

2006 / DYSON DIGITAL MOTOR Is Dyson’s leastknown invention his best? Seven years in development, this small carbon-free electric motor lasts four times longer than its forebears, thanks to fewer moving parts. First used in the Airblade.

CreDit:

something, and i don’t necessarily get the opportunity to change it every week. when i go to a grand prix, i enjoy the pace, seeing how they do things – the technology, the electronics, materials – but i think it’s a little unfortunate that it all comes down to the aerodynamics. while aerodynamics is exciting, it’s slightly difficult for the layman to understand what’s going on. when you see the cars, you can hardly tell the difference between them. therefore, for me as an engineer, it’s less interesting than it could be. if there were no rules, if you were allowed to design any sort of car, it might be more interesting. obviously you’d have to have strict safety rules, but why penalise someone because they make a car that hugs the ground very well? why make a rule that prescribes a certain distance from the ground? it seems to me that some of the rules try to even things up, but they are detrimental to the development of new technology.

Whereas free-rein development of new technology is a fundamental aspect to what you do. we do all the research ourselves, our 800 engineers. robotics, batteries, electric motors, carbon nanotubes and other things i can’t talk about. we research all of the areas. Being a private PhotograPhy: DySon (4), reX FeatureS (2), CorBiS outLine (1)

cars, in a washing machine. Are there other similarities between your work and that of a Grand Prix race team? yes, of course. when we built a very special washing machine with two big drums, we needed the absolute best bearing we could find that could take lateral loads. this came from motorsport. it was very expensive, and very beautiful.

McLaren had used it. there’s also common ground in aerodynamics, like creating negative pressure through clever ducting of airflow. this applies as much to our new fan as it does to an F1 car’s diffuser. then there’s the problem of high revs. a Ferrari engine tops out at 19,000rpm; the electric motors in our hand dryers go at 110,000rpm. the advantage of speed is that you can make everything much smaller and much more efficient. the efficiency of our electrical motor is about 87 per cent, so we are only wasting 13 per cent of the electricity. the best conventional ones are 46 per cent efficient. with our new motors, a battery would last twice as long. also with our motors, there’s no emission of carbon dust. Conventional motors have brushes; we don’t have them at all. a chip provides the signal, so there is nothing to wear out: the motors last from 3,000 to 4,000 hours, while conventional ones are limited to 600 hours. So, no emissions, no nasty black carbon dust, they are much smaller, and use far fewer materials, hardly any copper. But it’s difficult to go fast. getting out of balance at that speed results in a lateral force of about 40 tons, so keeping motors together at that sort of speed is difficult.

Do you follow Formula One closely? i’m not an F1 race addict, but the technology behind it interests me. i like, for instance, how at the end of the race they dismantle everything completely and examine it closely. it’s almost the opposite of what i do. i have to make millions of

Action

‘to do something different, you must think it is better. no one else knows the future’

‘we put a lot of money into r&d. we’re working on equipment for 15 years’ time’

company, we can afford to think very long term. no one else wanted to invest, so i own all the shares. we put a lot of money into research and development. we’re working on equipment that’ll come onto the market in 15 years.

So, might you be working on something like regenerative braking [harnessing the energy created in a vehicle’s braking for another use]? true. we are developing many technologies in this direction, although we’re not working on an actual product.

What sort of cars do you like? i’ve always loved the Mini. i have one that was cut in half longitudinally so you can see how it works. i’m a great fan of its designer, alec issigonis. what i really like about him was that he drew the entire mechanical operation of the Mini in a three-dimensional sketch – layouts, how it would work – while sipping gin on a balcony in Cannes.

It was probably Gordon’s gin. It is said that the Mini had a sliding window, not a winding window, to leave room for a storage cavity in the door into which a Gordon’s bottle could fit. his way of developing a vehicle was absolutely brilliant – and the fact that

how it looked came about because of the technology inside. that’s a significant ingredient in the Dyson recipe for design. a good product should also look really good. Design shouldn’t be driven by marketing, but instead should express a product’s function. it should be an integral part of developing the technology and engineering of the product, not something that’s done at the end to make it look good.

Design is not an isolated activity, it’s a continuous process of engineering and developing new technologies.

Do you sketch your designs yourself? yes, my engineers and i do it by hand. in that way, we can quickly explain our ideas. But we don’t have a glass of gin in hand – although it’s not a bad idea. i tend to leave the gin out now, and stick with just the tonic and the lemon. you don’t really notice a difference because gin doesn’t have much taste. it’s the smell of gin that’s nice. anyway, we each have a book in which we develop ideas and communicate them to each other. the best engineers and designers are the ones that can draw the best. Sometimes the drawings are quite crude and done quickly; other times they have to be very accurate. above all, a sketch must convey an idea, that’s very important.

Do you still avoid using email? i don’t want people to become a slave to their emails, to feel as though they have to answer every single one. Sending and answering emails is not creative, and that’s not why we come to work. you come to work to interact with people, to discuss your view of things, to change and improve things. email doesn’t progress that.

Knowing that some people, such as Napoleon, needed just four hours of sleep is very irritating. You need 10 hours, and this a comforting thought. in bed before 10.30pm, up just after 7.30am. there’s no secret, it’s just how i’m built. it can’t be too wrong.

Do you have a museum on your premises? no, we’re interested in the future, not the past.

Do you collect things privately, like trophies from technological history, or old or new art? i hate collections. i find something slightly odd about the squirrel-like collection of things. i don’t have the desire to do that. i didn’t even have the desire to collect stamps as a boy. things should be used, not collected and not used. www.dyson.co.uk

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In search of lost youth

From the Cote D’Azur to the deserts of America, via Seinfeld and Sonic Youth, Anthony Gonzalez, alias M83, mines his memories to make epic electronica for the little kid in him – and all of us

The lights go out. The Shepherd’s Bush Empire, that time-honoured London venue, is packed to the rafters. Blue spotlights come on, piercing the smoke on stage and passing through an expectant audience. A staccato synth strikes up. It sounds like an old sci-fi film. Someone enters the stage and the mobile phone cameras go up in the air along with the whoops and cheers. The someone is wearing an alien mask – big, black, bulging eyes, a ghoulishly grotesque face, dishevelled hair – and matching gloves.

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The rest of the outfit is black. Slowly, deliberately, the monster raises its clawlike fingers. The synth mantra swells. The cheering gets louder. And then it all stops.

Has someone pulled the plug? Slowly, a sweet melody begins to emerge from the cacophony and the fans recognise it immediately: Intro, the opening track on M83’s latest album. At centre stage is Anthony Gonzalez. He has taken off the alien costume and is now accompanied by three other musicians. A synthesizer fortress, drums and flashing lights. “Carry

on, carry on,” he sings into a microphone, his voice slightly gravelly. This charismatic leading man captivates his audience for the next couple of hours, and says a sweaty goodbye at the end of it all with a colourful stroboscope fireworks display and the synth epic, Colours. The fans go on cheering as the twinkling hail of stars on the stage screen slowly goes out.

The next morning, Gonzalez is lolling on a couch in the sterile backstage area.

He has dark blond hair, cut short like a schoolboy’s, bright blue eyes and a smile

CREDIT:

Words: Florian Obkircher Photography: Sébastien Agnetti

The man behind M83: French musician Anthony Gonzalez is a self-confessed nostalgic who tries to capture the light-hearted nature of childhood innocence in the epic sounds he creates

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“You’re not scared of anything when you’re a child. I miss that feeling.

My music is a tribute to youth” that is both friendly and shy. Muscular upper arms peep out from beneath his T-shirt. He is wearing jeans and trainers.

This is not how rock stars are meant to look. At first glance you might think the 31-year-old Frenchman was a sports science student with ‘perfect son-in-law’ written all over him. “I’m really not a performer,” Gonzalez says, when the subject of last night’s show comes up, and gives an impish grin. So who was that on stage last night then? That energetic, selfconfident fellow singing into the mic?

“Thanks very much for the compliment,” he says. “I’ve slowly been growing into the lead-singer role and I don’t have to hide behind my synthesizers any more.”

Gonzalez is a master of understatement.

He formed M83 11 years ago, naming it after the Messier 83 galaxy 15 million light years from Earth. His sixth and latest album Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, was released in October last year and went straight in at number 15 on the US Billboard charts. The epic scale of M83’s songs mean they are often used in films, from indie dramas like Stranger Than Fiction to sports documentaries like The Art Of Flight. M83 have already supported bands such as Depeche Mode, The Killers and Kings Of Leon on tour. Gonzalez says he’s adopted a few things from those bands’ frontmen, but in truth he’d much rather be at home in his studio tinkering with sounds and working on new pieces.

M83’s records are playful, harmonious and dreamy, with ethereal melodies and a wall of synths. They release the happy hormones at the same time as evoking the comforting melancholy you get leafing through yellowing photo albums.

Gonzalez discovered his love of flashy sound boxes when he was seven, watching a concert by French musician Jean Michel Jarre on TV. “He was surrounded by all these amazing vintage synthesizers. He looked like a musician from the future,” he recalls.

“And then I got a Bontempi keyboard from my parents for Christmas. It was very cheap, but good enough for a kid.”

From then on, he would experiment with sounds in his bedroom for days on end, the only unusual element in an otherwise normal upbringing in the southern French coastal town of Antibes: going to the cinema, fooling around with 46

his friends, a first kiss when he was 10.

“It wasn’t pretty,” he says. “In the summer we’d meet in the evenings in the garden of the estate where we lived and do stupid stuff. I was hanging out with older kids and they decided I was ready for my first snog. I was shy and actually not prepared at all and the girl was really ugly.”

As Gonzalez tells these stories, a smile is plastered across his face. Memories such as these spark a longing in this selfconfessed nostalgic, who tries to capture the light-heartedness of childhood innocence in his music. “You’re not scared of anything when you’re a child,” he says.

“You know that everything will be OK. I miss that feeling. My music is a tribute to youth. It’s therapy and a diary all in one.”

Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is the first album Gonzalez wrote and recorded in Los Angeles. He moved to California two years ago, to the city that fascinated him as a child as the metropolis of film and all the clichés that went with that. At first, he spent a lot of time alone, which helped him gain a clear view of his music through the clutter of those memories. Gonzalez was disillusioned after M83’s successful and relatively accessible previous album, Saturdays = Youth, which came out in 2008 and marked his international breakthrough. The question was, Where should the journey take him next?

Gonzalez found his answer in the Mojave Desert. “I’d often just put two synthesizers, some weed and a computer in the boot,

rent a cabin and go,” he says. “It was so inspiring. When you play music out there at night, you can see the stars, you’re by yourself and you’re scared of the coyotes.

I really felt a connection with my music out there, for the first time in ages.”

With the addition of Gonzalez’s vocals, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming ended up darker, more epic and with more detail than Saturdays = Youth. It took him a long time to come to terms with his voice; on earlier albums he used guest singers and would only contribute vocals in a whisper or under effects. New songs such as Midnight City, for example, are something of a liberation. Gonzalez sings.

He screams. “When I’m working in my studio, I often have a film on for reference,” he says. “Once I had Aguirre, The Wrath Of God, with Klaus Kinski, playing. I could see him screaming, the anger on his face, and I thought, ‘God, I should sing,’ which is how it started.

I wanted to do what I felt like doing, regardless of what people thought of it.”

No compromises. Just go for it. This attitude is a recurrent theme throughout Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming. There is Seinfeld-style slap bass and there are saxophone solos, ’80s hangovers as uncool as they come. And there are 22 songs.

Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is a double album, a very bold move in the digital age where most listeners’ attention span is challenged by a five-minute song. “The double album is a statement,” Gonzalez says. “I’m trying to say that I prefer the old way of listening to music. I grew up going to the record stores, waiting for the new Sonic Youth album to arrive for so long. I couldn’t stop listening to it for weeks. Now you’re excited about one album for 20 minutes and then you go out and check the next one. What I like about these albums is, that they’re a way to connect to my past. That’s not the case anymore, there are too many releases.”

Gonzalez is currently touring the album. The day before yesterday he was in Singapore. Tomorrow he’ll be in Belgium. In April and May there’s a tour of the US, then a string of dates on the European festival circuit. So how have his live shows changed over the years?

“I realised I needed to be more confident about myself. This time now could be the peak of my career, and I don’t want to look back at some point and wonder why I didn’t have the heart to come out of myself,” he says, and then pauses for a moment, thinks, and, still smiling, adds, “Yeah, and I probably wouldn’t have put on an alien mask five years ago either.”

Tour dates, videos and remixes at ilovem83.com

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BIRTH OF A

TR IC K When freestyle mountain bikers show off their tricks in competitions, difficult manoeuvres come across as second nature and make what they do look easy. French shooting star Yannick Granieri allows us a glimpse behind the scenes and what we find is a lot of hard work Words: Werner Jessner Photography: Dom Daher

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gymnasium in Craponne, a one-horse town not far from Lyon, in central France, and a place famous for its gymnasts.

Franck Rousson is lean, with short, thinning hair. A former French trampoline champion, Rousson now trains up-and-coming talent. One of his greatest-ever talents was a slovenly 14-year-old called Yannick Granieri, but that all changed on the eve of an important competition, when Granieri came flying off the trampoline having got a jump combination completely wrong.

The resulting injury meant the end of any career in gymnastics for the wild child. (Anyway, stubbornly working his way through set programmes was getting on his nerves. Where was the room for creativity in that?) Granieri turned to mountain biking, got seriously into it and was at the top level of freeriding not long after turning 20.

Now aged 25, he is one of the biggest names in the business and was in the top three of the overall standings for much of the 2011 FMB World Tour, until a lousy second half of the season dragged him back down to seventh place.

Granieri is one of the glitziest and most unpredictable riders on the tour. One of many examples: at the 2010 Red Bull Rampage event in Utah, he plumped for the ballsy line over a 15m drop, pulled off the landing and followed it up immediately with a backflip, which he also landed,

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Night rider: Yannick Granieri practises in the gymnasium until midnight

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but he then rolled into some prickly shrubs. Other, crestfallen riders might have chosen to simply roll on down to the finish, but not Granieri. Just for the fun of it, he did another backflip and came down hard. It’s a professional freerider’s job to not let anything show – to be invincible, immortal, as cool as ice, a party animal, to pick up girls and to be a shining example for young people all the while – but not many are made of such tough stuff.

At 9pm in Craponne, the last gymnasts have left the gym. All that remains is their stench. The lights are still on by the large trampoline, where Rousson, the only person left, is waiting for his prodigal son. This is where the two of them come up with new mountain bike tricks together. They’re currently working on a backflip 360, ie one rotation around the longitudinal axis and another around the vertical axis, both rotations overlapping. A backflip 360 is an entry ticket into the world of the elite.

There are 7m between the trampoline and the gymnasium ceiling, and the spot is conspicuous for being the only place not to have spotlights. “We had to take them down,” says Granieri, “otherwise I’d have knocked them off. There’s a lot to be said for using a trampoline.

If I was jumping into the foam-pit on the bike, then I’d need five minutes per attempt, and that’s if all goes well.

Pushing the bike into position, getting ready, jumping, getting the bike out of the foam-pit, clambering out myself, taking a breather, starting over…

“On the trampoline I can do 20 backflip 360s a minute if I feel like it, whatever the weather, all year round. And there’s less chance of getting injured at the

Skydiver

Granieri’s safety on the trampoline is plain to see.

He knows his position at any given time.

A note to laymen: “Always keep your eyes open.

A somersault in the air is not the same as a flip.

The rotation only begins once you’re in the air.”

gymnasium. Also, the trampoline is less forgiving of mistakes. No, that’s wrong. Franck is less forgiving of mistakes than the dirt.”

His trainer is fastidious in making sure that Granieri lands his jump in a perfectly straight line. “There are only two ways to end a jump on a trampoline: exactly in the direction you

took off in or in precisely the opposite direction,” says Rousson. Granieri adds: “A degree of lateral misalignment is acceptable on the bike because you have the handlebars to correct you.”

Anyone who can pull off difficult tricks precisely on a trampoline has greater reserves to fall back on in case of unforeseen circumstances during

“Ooh!” in instalments

What was that just then exactly? As it is virtually impossible for onlookers to appreciate the multiple elements of trick combinations with the naked eye, we dissect a backflip 360 for you here.

Yannick Granieri, 25: The former gymnast is one of the most stylish riders on the FMB World Tour

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CREDIT:

The takeoff has to be relatively straight. Longitudinal rotation can only begin once both wheels are in the air.

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CREDIT:

“We had to take the spotlights down – otherwise I’d just knock them off” competition proper – wind, a slippery or weak take-off – and can win over the judges with smoother execution.

In order to get a feeling for movement and positioning in the air, Granieri begins practising new tricks without any equipment, just like in the old days when he was a regular gymnast. The next step is to have an old BMX handlebar in his

hands: “That gives me a sense of my transverse axis and what it will feel like later under real conditions.” Things get more serious when it comes to simulating the position for the rotation around the longitudinal axis, for which Granieri puts a foam block between his legs.

This not only requires more strength, it is also more demanding in terms of

co-ordination. Every single degree of a skewed landing is mercilessly visible.

The final level of escalation involves training with a padded bike-frame without wheels. Granieri can no longer simply do jump after jump; every landing ends on a mattress that Rousson pushes into place on the trampoline.

This reduces rebound, and enables Granieri to land and stay still, which again improves control.

Watching Granieri at this stage, it becomes plainly obvious that the number of mistakes is still too high. He is basically pulling off his backflip 360s, but he isn’t doing so reliably. Rousson urges his protégé to start his rotation around the longitudinal axis earlier, but he refuses.

“That only works on the trampoline, not on the bike. I have to factor the mass inertia from the rotation of the wheels into my movement and the fact that I can only commence rotating on the bike once the front wheel has taken off.

I don’t want to cheat on the trampoline.”

As so often happens, the lights in the gym don’t go out until midnight. At some point this season, Yannick Granieri will conjure up a backflip 360 out of nowhere on the FMB tour and he will make it look easy. Very easy. He won’t be thinking then of the nights spent in the sweaty haze of the gym. He’ll be focusing instead on the kick he gets from his run, on the adrenalin, the show, the judges. In the meantime, Rousson will be sitting with his laptop in his office at the gym, also enjoying Granieri’s run, but analysing it, looking for some mistake or other that can be ironed out at the next training session. You can be well sure of that.

Watch the Freeride Mountain Bike World Tour live at www.redbull.com/bike

And you’re done. On a trampoline, you could start over again. If you’re on dirt, wait for your next take-off.

Now twist. Accelerate the latitudinal rotation so as to have one eye on your landing position.

And down. Land in the direction you took off. Finish any fancy extras – no-foot, handlebar spins, etc – in good time.

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LEONARDO!

A possible history of the Renaissance and how da Vinci divined the bicycle

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Words: Herbert Völker

ne day in the Renaissance, a couple of bright sparks are sat in front of the Palazzo Spini, in Florence, discussing a text by Dante. Leonardo da Vinci is just walking by and they want to hear what he has to say about it. Leonardo begins an answer, but gets impatient and says: “Here comes Michelangelo, ask him.”

Michelangelo, a young lad, doesn’t expect anything pleasant from Leonardo, and starts to berate his elder: “You haven’t even finished that horse up in Milan.” Exit Michelangelo.

On a loose leaf of paper, Leonardo is jotting. Patience helps against a scolding like clothes help against the cold, but right now no amount of clothing is going to be warm enough. The boy is right: Leonardo has too much unfinished business. Bad luck that the Milanese had to use the bronze for his giant equestrian sculpture to build cannons.

Instead, everyone is now gawking at the tight bum of the David sculpture, 5m high, six tons of marble. Everyone’s talking about Michelangelo.

He’s 22 years younger than Leonardo.

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CARTS AND MULES EXASPERATE HIM. A SLENDER VEHICLE IS NEEDED, WITH A PAIR OF CARTWHEELS ONE IN FRONT OF THE OTHER

hile the most beauteous details are wonderfully documented, there is still the occasional hefty chunk of history missing. We’re in Florence in the year 1504, now taking small sidesteps away from the known path, but always in keeping with the spirit of Leonardo.

He is 51, considered ancient in those days. Still, he’s in good shape (he knows why: no meat, little wine, no women – all sacrificed without too much effort). Not long ago he clambered around in the Alps because he believed it would be pitch black that far above the Earth, but he didn’t quite manage to get up high enough to find out.

The exquisite beauty that was vaunted about young Leonardo has now turned to dignity. The white head of hair flows into the cascades of the city’s mightiest beard – at least the best groomed, without tangles or strands, in elegant waves.

War has raged around him much of the time: Florence against Pisa, Venice against the Turks, Milan against the French, Cesare Borgia against all, and a man of his talent of course often became drawn in. In fact, he was a military engineer at the time he created The Last Supper. Everyone needs a hobby. Ultimately

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he loved peace, and the wildest of his inventions stayed a secret, as sketches, “because of the viciousness of people”. Could you hand them a torpedo to sink galleys?

Lately, he’d had little time to paint, is more involved in product development for the military, and a thousand different pipe dreams yield nothing. Nothing? Clockwork and drill, mechanical mandrel and car jack are all mighty useful, but the other stuff? The flying machine, the parachute, the underwater breathing apparatus – for what?

His latest eccentricity is anatomy. There are only assumptions from the ancient Greeks about how the inside of the body works.

Leonardo must autopsy corpses himself to find clarity. No one can help him. The elegant gentleman rummages around in stinking guts, dissects muscle fibres, saws bones – and draws the inner workings of the body, fibre for fibre, drunk with the excitement of the secrets he discovers and reveals in flawless beauty.

Appropriate corpses are kept for him at the Hospital Santa Maria Novella. Leonardo takes the young and the old, women and men, however they arrive, from the ward to the morgue.

From his studio, which also serves as a living room for him and his students, the route leads him through the screech and judder of city traffic. The wretched mule carts trundle along annoyingly.

Leonardo developed a decent wheel bearing long ago, but he cannot explain to every single greengrocer how they should pimp their carts.

At least the vehicles don’t have to deal with deep ruts in the road. The Republic of Florence has laid cobblestones on many of its major residential streets. Still, the alleys are jammed with the wide carts and the irritating complacency with which they obstruct each other. Mules are not known for their helpfulness when it comes to dodging.

At the Vigna Vecchia, a bird handler awaits Leonardo, who always buys a specimen from him. He chooses a slightly bedraggled chaffinch and watches as it flies away. He loves animals, from the sparrow to the horse.

At the hospital they’ve put aside the best corpse for him. They hand him a black gown, a saw, a chisel, the foot rule. Rough sketches are enough; he’ll save his increasingly clearer picture of how everything is linked until he returns to the studio. He’s often asked how he can stand the stink of the post-mortem room.

‘What stink?’ he asks, now changed into rose-coloured clothes.

Impatiently, he heads for home, always with the constant exasperation of carts and mules. A slender vehicle is needed,

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more nimble than the trotting creatures. Maybe the pair of soon as you gather momentum, you shift your body weight cartwheels could be placed one in front of the other, rather as is necessary. The machine will follow. than side by side, and not so clumsy and stiff. It should be Wouldn’t the master like to come? a mule-less vehicle, and off fly his thoughts to the cogs and No, he only wants to hear how it all went. screws and chains that are his most beloved toys. The things t took ages for Salai to come back. Two mule cart drivers he’d build from these, from a forge to the ‘endless’ screw. had cornered him and given him a good beating. He had At home in his studio, which he calls Bottega, with its living only attempted very slight gradients. The steering had quarters for apprentices, there’s the usual bread soup with plenty worked, even with the rigidly fixed front wheel. But then, said of marjoram and bay leaves. He tells Salai about his single-track Salai, we need a solution for stopping, otherwise you constantly ideas. (Salai is, in a manner of speaking, an A-student. In a crash into mules. At least they’re softer than house walls. manner of speaking because nobody really wants to know. Salai Leonardo had more pressing tasks than to invent a brake. is a very pretty boy, moderately gifted as a painter, unreliable as Salai sold the two wheels and kept the wooden frame for a servant, but a cheeky hound with a talent for stealing. Leonardo the cooler autumn days – the master would be delighted pulled him out of the gutter when he was a child, but he will with a roaring hearth fire. have his reasons for putting up with so much.)

Leonardo finished the sketch board painting of the silk Could a person, asks Leonardo, keep balance on a cart with dealer’s wife, he wiped away the last traces (well, not quite) just a front and a back wheel? Legs down and always keep that were reminders of Salai’s features. pushing? Of course. How else?

Yet something about the bride of the silk If only he wasn’t so infatuated with all the handler still seemed a little impertinent, chains and cog stuff – a single-track cart would something troubled him about the corners actually be an easy exercise. …is something we’ll never know. of her mouth. They cordially agreed to Ten thousand academics around the world are still at odds. It all hangs on alai has gone too far this time. Again, cancel the order. Later though, Leonardo a chalk drawing that probably happened he’s pocketed 30 soldi from the did paint the sketch in oil and took the in the year 1504, around Mona Lisa’s household purse. He was moody while picture on the three-month journey to time. This sketch, clearly identified posing, and pulled stupid faces. Leonardo the Château d’Amboise in the Loire Valley, as a treasure among Leonardo’s loose can’t be bothered finishing the sketch, let once the snow on the passes had melted. papers, is clumsy: a student must have alone painting the real thing. He blends The King of France had summoned copied it from Leonardo’s original.

Indeed, it’s consistent with the ideas of Salai’s portrait with the sketches of the him. Leonardo da Vinci had never given the master at that time, including the silk handler’s wife. At least she stays still one of his pieces a name. That was always sprockets and chain. Even the principle when posing, although she does look done instead by his contemporaries, of steer through shifting weight worked a little insipid. She’s not that young anymore The Last Supper, Adoration of the Magi, in Leonardo’s various machines. The – 25 or 26. The cheekiness in Salai’s sketches Lady With An Ermine. wooden model that was recently built for makes the women a touch more enigmatic.

Francis I of France, The Renaissance the Leonardo Museum in Vinci confirmed the elated expectations of the fans.

Leonardo will come back to the sketch in King, was delighted with the gift. And Our story remains in its period a couple of months. the name of this painting? Leonardo couldn’t Salai, who is supposed to keep the master’s context, and fantasy only kicks in where think of a title, but it had something to do we talk about the construction and loose papers in order, has quietly snuck away with Lisa, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo testing of the machine. There was to a carpenter with the sketches of the small a Florentine cloth merchant. Good, then it’s nothing but Leonardo’s sketch back cart. Couldn’t he build this? Leonardo has left La Gioconda. then (the original was lost) and the inept copy, without a prototype. the suggestion of cogs and belts unfinished, In Italy – where for centuries they had to Running counter to this popular after all he knows how it goes. Salai has settle for the legend “mysterious beauty’s history, a new theory arose 14 years hastily finished the drawing, somewhat painting” – they said Mona Lisa. ago: that a monk allowed himself ham-fisted. No matter, the transmission The balancing machine remained nameless a little joke while cataloguing mechanics would have been too sophisticated for 400 years.

Leonardo’s sketches in the 1960s. for a simple craftsman anyway, right now the Then, ‘bicycle’ somehow seemed obvious.

Further scientific research is virtually impossible, as all the original papers focus is solely on the balancing contraption. have been sealed in plastic. And That spring, Salai surprises his master somehow the meddlesome monk with a cloddish wooden frame, with two doesn’t quite fit into our picture… cartwheels. Leonardo is touched, although quite a few of his ideas are missing. He sends Salai a couple of blocks down the road where the good cobblestone streets begin. Giulio should go with him, because of the mules.

You will be able to avoid them, that’s what’s great about the machine.

How should it work? You choose the direction anyway by pushing off. And as

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The whole truth...

ILLUSTRATION: FACSIMILAR REPRODUCTION/GIUNTI EDICTION/CODEX ATLANTICUS

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Action

“I fell to pieces for 15 kilometres�

Body of evidence: Professor Tim Noakes is studying just what makes Ryan Sandes capable of winning some of the toughest distance races in the world

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SA ultra-distance phenom, Ryan Sandes, and renowned sports scientist Professor Tim Noakes are helping to rethink what humans can do… especially with their minds

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et’s unpackage that Ryan Sandes sentence, shall we… especially the “for 15 kilometres” bit. Usually falling to pieces, particularly during an endurance event, brings one to an immediate and prolonged halt. Most likely it means the end of your race.

For Sandes, though, it was merely a phase. One that lasted for 15km... a distance most recreational trail runners would regard as a pretty decent run on its own.

As we all now know, Sandes is not your normal athlete. In the same way as Usain Bolt, Sandes exists at the very fringes of human ability. Practically

mutant. He’s the polar opposite of the tall Jamaican, but no less impressive in prowess. While Bolt is busy compressing our perception of time, shaving off slivers with each new record, Sandes is expanding it by adding days.

He has no peer among the world’s multi-stage trail-running elite with a CV that includes being the first person to win all four races of the 4 Deserts series, claiming honours in the heat of the Gobi as well as the chill of Antarctica.

With little in the way of challenges left here, Sandes has now turned his

Words: Steve Smith Photography: Craig Kolesky

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attentions to single-stage trail races that cover distance from 100km to 100 miles.

And it was during one of these that he fell to pieces. And he properly fell to pieces in case you’re thinking it’s a soft little metaphor that’s convenient to the story.

“I thought that was it,” he recalls.

“I thought I was going to drop out.

My legs were cramping very badly and I was in a lot of pain and discomfort.”

This was 45km into the 2011 North Face 100 race in Australia and the prospect of making it to the finish line another 55km down the trail, let alone finishing near the front, would have seemed remote to most people. Of course, Ryan Sandes is not most people. Not only did he recover to finish the race, but he finished on the podium behind the acknowledged king of the one-dayer ultra trail races, Catalonian mountain athlete, Kilian Jornet.

How Sandes managed to do this is essentially what this story is all about.

It’s an investigation as to exactly how he has managed to overcome physical fatigue to run the distances he does, at the pace he does, and even – when the wheels do fall off – recover quickly enough to not only carry on running, but running at the pace he does.

He must be physically superior to the rest of us, right? Like Bolt has those long legs and a second helping of fasttwitch muscle fibres that propel him to 38.18kph, Sandes must surely have the ultra-distance equivalent. Bigger lungs maybe? Slow-twitch muscle fibre ideal for endurance? Maybe he has bird-like bones that make him especially lightweight.

See that theory in a Discovery channel doccie and you’d certainly buy it.

N

o,” is the very emphatic statement from the man behind the big desk covered in heavy tomes and assorted academia.

And if you know Professor Tim Noakes by his stellar reputation in the world of sports science, you’ll know he doesn’t say something unless he’s pretty sure.

“No, his biology is ordinary. Look, when I say ordinary I mean ordinary for an elite athlete. Of course Ryan is better than average, but, for example, he’s no Haile Gebrselassie, the marathon worldrecord holder. In fact he’s not even a Bruce Fordyce, the legendary SA multiple Comrades ultramarathon winner. We’ve also studied the way Ryan runs – the mechanic of his gait. There’s nothing special there either. I don’t know Ryan’s 56

Tim Noakes The Professor of Exercise and Sports Science at UCT, who’s run more than 70 marathons and ultramarathons, believes that Sandes’s extraordinary ability is in his mind

“The sensations of fatigue you feel are entirely self-generated.

They’re nothing to do with your physical state” family background, but if this were all just the result of good biology he would’ve had a long family history of outstanding humans. And he doesn’t.

The biology of humans is such that even an elite athlete is never going to have a biology 50 per cent better than anyone else. Someone like Sandes might be five per cent or six per cent better, but that’s not going to explain his extraordinary performances.”

The Professor also points out that Sandes doesn’t even have the natural speed of a top distance athlete. It’s accepted that, at this level of athletics, that the more speed you have, the easier it is to then run a longer distance. You’ll now be running at a much lower intensity than you’re normally used to and it will be less stressful. In other words, if a sub2:10 marathon runner prepared properly and stepped up to, say, a 90km race, he should enjoy a definite advantage over a guy like Sandes who, at best, would post a 2:30 time over 42.2km. Yet Sandes is able to outrun the faster guys by hours in the longer distances.

So it’s not biology. Right. Something must explain it though? There’s clearly an attribute Ryan Sandes has that allows him to run the way he does.

“It’s his mind,” says Prof Noakes. It’s something of an unexpected analysis from a man who has made a career studying and analysing the more physical aspects of sport. What it does do though

is reflect a growing awareness among the science fraternity of just how much an athlete’s mental make-up will determine his or her performance.

“You must understand that the sensations of fatigue you feel in running are entirely self-generated. They’ve got nothing to do with your physical state and are only related to how close you are to the finish. In other words: the closer you get, the more tired you get.

Your biology is not getting any worse, it’s pretty much the same. It’s the way the brain functions.”

This echoes the so-called ‘Central Governor’ theory, which basically states that, in order to protect your heart, your sub-conscious only ‘allows’ you enough energy to complete the task at hand. At the end of a 10km race, for example, you feel as out of breath as you do after half marathon, or even a marathon. This internal governor is also why once one athlete has broken a perceived performance barrier, his competitors then follow suit. Roger Bannister’s famous sub four-minute mile is the oft-quoted example. Soon after he ran under four minutes, his rivals began to crack it as well. The mental marker had been shifted for all.

“We think Ryan may have educated his brain to think differently. In my view, Ryan is able to control the levels of discomfort that he feels. He quite easily and naturally enters a trance-like state where he is able to override them and completely disconnect so he has no emotional connection with it. They are just sensations to him… they mean nothing. And why I say trance-like, is because the Tibetan monks basically did the same thing. They would enter a trance and then basically just run all day.”

This running all day hypothesis is also adjunct to another theory Prof Noakes subscribes to, and that’s a growing belief that it was pre-humans’ ability to run – particularly in the midday sun – that was the major driver in human development.

Simply put, because our hairier ancestors stood upright and therefore exposed little body surface area to the midday sun, and because of our ability to sweat (a superior heat-exchange system), our distant cousins could run down animals like big antelope. Running for hour upon hour we’d chase the animal until it was so exhausted it would literally be immobile. This, it is thought, was the hunting technique used before we’d even developed effective hunting tools. By

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the end of the chase, all the hunters needed do was cover the animal’s nose and mouth to suffocate it. And it was this regular access to protein and fat that helped developed our brains to a point where we could tap out words on a laptop.

Basically then, we were made to run.

And, if Ryan Sandes is anything to go by, we humans are capable of running a lot further than we thought.

So much for the theory. What does the runner himself think about all this?

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ell firstly, I do think we humans can push the boundaries a lot further than we expected, whether it’s trying to run further or faster,” says Sandes. “At the moment I think we’re in this bubble of a comfort zone where we expect everything to come to us and we’re not urging ourselves to push any

boundaries. With technology everyone’s just become lazy. I also definitely believe in the Central Governor theory. It’s funny how you finish a 40km race and it feels like you couldn’t have gone one step further… and then you finish a 100km race and feel the same level of fatigue.

We definitely have that mental governor.

So how then has Sandes established such a cosy relationship with his own Guv? Is it merely a little internal dialogue over breakfast about shifting the marker a little further down the road? Or has he, perhaps, benefited from the skills of sport psychologists?

“Oh no. No. I don’t got to a psychology coach or anything like that. I know that it’s up to me to do it and I don’t need anyone else to tell me I can run 100km or a 100 miles or 250km. Before a race I do a lot of visualisation and, particularly for the longer races, I actually like to get out and run the course to get a feel

for it. It helps me get into that zone, which is almost like a form of meditation for me. I need to feel the trail… it’s almost a spiritual sense.”

“The best races I’ve had are when I’ve gone into them not worrying too much about the people around me. If I focus too much on racing other people I don’t perform my best. However, when I’m very relaxed, basically pretending I’m not in a race, I just get to the finish line as fast as possible and just focus on the beautiful environment I’m running through.”

It was a failure to do this that led to the 15km of falling to pieces mentioned earlier. The problem was Kilian Jornet.

The North Face 100 was the first time these two Salomon-sponsored team-mates would compete against each other and it gave Sandes too much space to focus on the other side of his personality…

You see Sandes is also super-competitive.

Both guys will play down the rivalry as much as they can, but it can’t really be anything but that. Jornet’s the king of single-stage ultra-distance trail races… and Sandes is stepping into his territory.

You can bet your last sachet of energy gel the old motorsport mantra of “the first person you need to beat is your team-mate” applies in Team Salomon as well.

“The best races I’ve had are when I’ve gone into them not worrying too much about the people around me.

If I focus too much on racing I don’t perform my best”

Ryan Sandes “I don’t go to a psychology coach or anything like that.

I know it’s up to me to do it and I don’t need anyone to tell me”

There’s no question Sandes wants to beat Jornet. Chat to Sandes and you get a strong sense there’s an iron seam of competitiveness that supports the more chilled-out public visage. Sure, he’s able to access the Tibetan monk-like state that allows him to run all day, but lurking a little deeper is also a singleminded determination to be the first person to cross the finish line at the end of that particular day.

Something of a balancing act is what’s needed. Give his super-competitive side too much time in the sun and it can all go wrong. Which is why the 2011 North Face 100 was such a lesson for Sandes. Winning, 57

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Peak performance: “I don’t mind spending seven or eight hours training on the mountain,” says Sandes. “It’s what I love to do”

they say, is a habit and his got broken out there in rugged Blue Mountains National Park of New South Wales.

“I was too focused on racing and I lost that spiritual feel. I was in so much pain I really thought that was the end of my race.

But then I tried to relax a little more, not be so hard on myself, and try to focus more on enjoying being out there in Australia.

My legs slowly started to feel better and it’s amazing how you can start to come right.

“It was definitely a lesson learned, though. After that I went back to just staying focused on my surroundings and actually just smiling as a way of staying positive. Look, I’ve always been a fairly competitive person and I’ve always wanted to push myself and challenge myself to be the best I can be. I think it’s allowed me to go out and push myself that much harder in training. Because it’s what I genuinely love to do, I don’t mind going and spending seven or eight hours training on the mountain. In this respect, I think Kilian is the same as me.”

So we put this question to the Spaniard, too. Did he also perform best when he was relaxed and enjoying his surroundings?

And how does he balance the yin of this with the yang of competition?

“When I started racing,” says Jornet, “I used to be nervous and excited. Every race was do or die. With more experience, I’ve learned to take pleasure in racing.

Being in the mountains is part of my passion. Of course, I love racing, I’m a racing addict and I take part in 50 races every year, but you also need to realise that in the end racing is just another day.

It’s important to think and know that from the start to the finish line you are in a race and your goal is to win. You need 58

“It is impossible to separate mental and physical. The strongest muscle in our body is the mind” to fight to the end, but during the race you also need to enjoy it. You are in a place you like and you are with your friends.

“So yes I also think it is impossible to separate mental and physical. I always say the strongest muscle in our body is the mind. If you’re motivated, you train more, and you are then stronger. But more than just that, it’s also important to be passionate. There an old Catalan song I love that says: “Is not just physical or mental... is also sentimental (emotional).”

Don’t play sport like work, or just for the sake of playing. You must love the sport, love the environment, find a balance with being competitive. Personally, I think my strong point comes from my love of being in the mountains.”

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t’s kind of hard to believe that isn’t it? And rather tempting to be dismissive of… love your surroundings and you too could become a world-class ultradistance runner? It practically borders on the hippy.

Prof Noakes offers a little more meat to the vegan hotpot in the form of an example… Greek ultra-distance legend Yiannis Kouros. The technique Kouros used to win races anywhere from

a 100km to a 1,000-miler offers a more usable insight into humans’ ability to run such long distances.

“I’ve spoken to people who have run against Yannis,” says Prof Noakes, “and they all said they can beat him up to 24 hours, but once it goes beyond that, he becomes this machine. He has this ability to basically switch off everything except to focus on the next 15-minute checkpoint. I’ve heard the guy is almost autistic. He has this ability to shut out everything else and just focus on the next milestone. When he set his world records, he organised someone to always be 15 minutes ahead of him to feed him... and that’s all he’d focus on. That simple method was why he was successful.”

Sandes essentially employs the same technique.

“If you told me that tomorrow I had to run 160km, I wouldn’t cope with that number,” he agrees. “What I do is try to focus on getting to the next checkpoint in 10 or 15km. By breaking up the race like that it just becomes mentally more achievable. The rest of it your body will cope with.”

What then will one’s body not cope with? If you’re lucky enough to be hardwired with this mental ability to run all day, where are the physical limits of human endurance? How far can we run?

“There are physical boundaries after which you start to break down,” says the Professor. “If you go out every day and run 40 to 60km every day for a couple of months without a break – and there are people who have done this running across America – your body will start to break down and the effects can last for years. There will be long-term consequences. Whether they are just physical or mental too, I’m not sure, but I think it’s a bit of both.

“I think that as an ultra-distance runner, you have 10 years. Maybe you wear out your body, maybe you just lose interest. Of course, motivation is everything, but because swimmers seem to be able to carry on competing for longer, I think there is something about the body having to carry its own weight for so long as this level.”

It’s been nearly four years since Sandes came out of nowhere to win the 4 Deserts race across the Gobi. Does that mean he only has six more left? Perhaps this is another marker that this 30-year-old South African will pick up and Frisbee a little further on down the trail…

Follow Ryan Sandes at www.ryansandes.com

SALOMONRUNNING.COM

RYAN SANDES EXTREME ULTRA DISTANCE ATHLETE

S-LAB 4

“THE SALOMON SLAB 4 IS MY SHOE OF CHOICE AS IT GIVES MY FOOT ALL THE SUPPORT IT NEEDS AS WELL AS BEING FLEXIBLE AND VERY COMFORTABLE. THEY FIT MY FEET PERFECTLY AND ADD A WHOLE NEW DIMENSION TO MY RUNNING EXPERIENCES.” - RYAN SANDES

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ARDEN COGAR

Chopaholic America’s top lumberjack has three academic degrees, meditates, and is a practising lawyer. His speciality? Accidents in the workplace Words: Andreas Rottenschlager Photography: Philipp Forstner

I was four years old when my father gave me my first axe. He said to me, “Never run while you’re carrying the axe,” and, “Always hand it on to someone else handle first.” There were a dozen saplings growing in our garden at the time. I chopped them all down. No one in West Virginia minds children playing with axes. Lumberjack sports go back a long way here.

It’s a problem that nobody works with their hands any more. And it’s a fundamental one in the States. When spectators see me at the championships, they say, “Oh my god. That looks strenuous.” But I sit at a desk all day.

I like good food. I’d soon weigh 180kg if I didn’t do anything.

The most important nutritional rule is: enough carbs to get through training and not much fat, so that my suit doesn’t explode.

A park warden slapped a US$500 fine on my father. He had been training for a woodcutting competition in the forest, and splinters of wood landed in the stream as he did so. “Environmental pollution,” the ranger claimed. But my father fought back. He hired a lawyer to contest the fine and won. I thought that was great. I now knew exactly what I wanted to do for a living.

I was the only person at the West Virginia University College of Law to do lumberjack sports. Obviously I didn’t give up competing, and of course people said stupid things. “What do you do that for?” the other students would ask. “Why do you drink so much beer?” I’d ask them in return. But it’s true that competitive sawing and chopping blocks of wood to pieces aren’t typical hobbies for a lawyer.

Muscle doesn’t help in the courtroom.

It’s even a disadvantage if you come across as threatening. I weigh 118kg.

I try to make myself seem supremely modest when I talk to the jury. The most important rule is to speak to them like they’re smarter than you.

Modesty is a good quality.

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There’s nothing nicer than beating the s*** out of something that can’t hit back. Sometimes I stick other lawyers’ names on a block of wood and then hack it to bits. It’s the best way to tackle stress.

The American lumberjack champion on weekends; a lawyer during the week

As a lawyer: a 14-hour working day. As a woodcutter: two hours of training a day. But apart from that there’s not much difference between the two. You do your homework; you study your opponents.

My day begins at 6.30am. I have breakfast, go to the office, and then do woodcutting training in the evening.

The shed by my house is piled high with saws, axes, and fitness equipment. My wife trains with me. She’s often already in the shed with an axe when I get home.

What do you think is more attractive to women? Brains or brawn?

My wife says brains.

Doing lumberjack yoga makes me more supple. My instructor developed special exercises for my hips and shoulders; with my physique, the standard positions were simply out of the question. I also meditate eight to 10 times a day. I can get myself into a state where my head is totally clear in three seconds. Peace reigns there at those times. I do it before every competition, or whenever an interlocutor gets on my nerves.

You’re as strong as a bear when you’re 20, but you don’t yet have the mental strength. At 40 you’ve got good nerves, but you aren’t as strong. The ideal age for a lumberjack sportsman is between 35 and 45; then the performance curves begin to tail off. My father competed until he was 60. I’d like to do the same.

All the competitions: www.stihl-timbersports.com

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Name: Arden Cogar Jr Born: April 21, 1970, in West Virginia Titles: Four times US STIHL Timbersports Series champion, sponsored by the chainsaw company; sixth, STIHL Timbersports World Championships 2011; Captain of the US Timbersports team

Academic titles: BA, Political Sciences; MBA; JD Student job: Maths tutor for West Virginia University football players Law job: His speciality is occupational injuries Biceps size: 50cm Favourite philosopher: René Descartes

“There’s nothing better than beating something that can’t hit back”

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He’s as

COLD as ice Wim Hof believes that feeling cold is just a state of mind. The holder of several cold endurance records believes something else as well: anyone can do it Words: Andreas Rottenschlager Photography: Henny Boogert

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O

nce, when Wim Hof was still a young man, visitors to the Beatrixpark in Amsterdam took him for dead.

One winter morning, the 20-year-old swam out to the middle of the pond and disappeared. A minute passed. Then another.

Someone called the police.

“They thought they that were going to have to recover a body,” Hof says. “But I was fine. I was sitting at the bottom of the pond meditating.”

Hof is in his Amsterdam apartment sipping tea. He is now 52 and bearded.

His muscular pecs are bursting out of his

It‘s all in the mind: Meditation and concentration allow Hof to sit on an Icelandic iceberg

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T-shirt. Newspapers call Hof the Iceman.

He has already set 20 cold-related world records. He has climbed Kilimanjaro barechested, jumped into frozen lakes without a diving suit, and run several marathons barefoot at temperatures of -20°C. Hof sits and pours sugar into his tea.

“Everyone can learn to do what I do,” he says.

fire from within

Hof explains that his anti-freeze method is a combination of breathing technique, meditation, and decades of training under extreme conditions.

Normally, if a person’s temperature falls below zero, the body draws blood from the limbs and pumps it toward the heart. The risk of frostbite is high, and continued exposure can lead to death.

Not for Hof. The Dutchman believes that by meditating, he can influence his autonomic nervous system and blood circulation and thus maintain a constant body temperature, even in subzero temperatures or icy water. He calls it “turning up his internal thermostat”.

The Iceman showed the world how the method works last November in New York. In order to break his 20th world record, Hof clambered into a Plexiglas box and was packed in up to his neck in 680kg of crushed ice.

He wore no protective clothing; the coat of ice enveloped his bare skin.

He meditated, his gaze trained straight ahead. He breathed in and out steadily.

Passersby stopped and watched.

He remained in the box for one hour, 52 minutes and 42 seconds – longer than anyone else had ever managed before him. Then the assistants broke the Plexiglas and Hof stepped out of the ice.

So, how did he do it?

“When I’m freezing, I visualise heat in my body,” he says. “I imagine it increasing with every breath, like a fire spreading inside me. It is a show of strength, it is ongoing communication between body and mind.”

Do you feel cold in the ice?

“No. The only danger would be if something distracted me and my concentration lapsed. Then I’d be cold straight away.”

What would you do then?

“I’d pump heat into the relevant body part!”

Hof knows that some of the things he says sound crazy: a “thermostat in his head”; “fire from within”.

And though he’s been exposing himself to extreme cold for 30 years, people’s lack of faith still works him up. “I’ve been 64

Ice bath: Taking a dip in frigid Icelandic waters. “I’ve been called crazy," says Hof

called crazy, a liar. You can’t imagine how much resentment I’ve come up against.”

Hof must have genetic advantages, his critics claim. “Influencing the autonomic nervous system? Generating heat from his thoughts? No way.” Hof had to prove them wrong.

the iceman experiment

Dr Peter Pickkers is a thin man in his mid-40s with closely cropped hair and a pleasant voice. He does research at the St Radboud University Medical Centre in Nijmegen in the Netherlands.

On April 18 of last year, Pickkers

Testing times: “This showed that what I do isn’t hocus-pocus,” says Hof

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technique – hyperventilation followed by holding his breath – could be responsible for the discharge.

Pickkers is smiling in the TV report. Hof, by contrast, is seen crying.

He can now explain that “those tests mean more to me than the records I’ve broken. They show that what I do isn’t hocus-pocus,” he says.

merciless and fair

appeared on Dutch TV. “We have extraordinary news,” he told reporters.

He was talking about the Iceman.

Pickkers and his team had tested Hof’s resistance to the cold during an 80-minute ice bath. The astounding thing was that while Hof’s skin temperature dropped from 28°C to 5°C, the change in his inner body temperature was minimal, from 38°C to 37°C. Their findings also showed that Hof’s oxygen intake doubled while he was in the ice bath. Hof was sitting still, but his blood was pumping like he was running a marathon.

In another experiment, the scientists investigated whether Hof really was able to influence his autonomic nervous system. Doctors injected him with a biochemical endotoxin that brings about short-term flu-like symptoms in humans.

The Iceman planned to fight them off through meditation.

The TV report shows Hof lying in bed two hours after the injection with sensors

He insists anyone can do wHat He does: “start witH a cold sHower” all over his body. He tells the doctor he feels nothing more than a light headache.

But the real sensation came out later in the lab. Hof had managed to fight off the endotoxin attack by producing large amounts of the stress hormone cortisol – something people cannot normally actively control.

Cortisol is released by the body in extreme situations, for instance if you’re suddenly involved in a street fight. Doctors believe Hof’s breathing

An icy wind is whistling through the broadleaf trees in Flevopark in Amsterdam. Hof wants to show us his new bathing area. It is a murky pool, surrounded by jogging paths and hedges, a little over a mile east of downtown. Hof says the water temperature is 3°C and that he’d like to swim a lap after jumping in.

Nobody should leap into icy water without preparation – that would be stupid. But Hof insists that anyone can eventually learn to do what he does. As with all things, you just have to start small. “A cold shower every morning,” Hof explains. Five seconds is fine; you can increase the length of the shower as time goes on.

Hof has begun teaching his methods – effective breathing, deep concentration, walking barefoot in the snow – in workshops that attract people from all over the world, from normal folks to serious athletes, like Olympian Elisabeth Willeboordse, a Dutch judo bronze medallist, and kickboxing champion Gökhan Saki, also from the Netherlands.

“Our bodies can deal with much more than we think,” says Hof. “Cold is the best tool to help you train your physique and your concentration. It is merciless but fair.”

When asked what his own first experience of the cold was, the Iceman tells the following story: “My mother was pregnant with twins but had no idea there were two babies, as she had no ultrasound examination.”

Hof’s brother, Andre, was the first to be born that day, April 20, 1959. A few minutes later, his mother began to scream for a second time; Wim was coming, and no one was expecting him.

“I was born in an unheated corridor between the recovery area and the delivery room,” Hof says. Then he pauses.

“The ironic thing is, doctors have told me since that I must have almost frozen to death there.”

Cold training with Hof: www.innerfire.nl The Iceman experiment: www.youtube.com; search “Wim Hof scientific”

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o ahead, flip through the next few pages and take a look. You’re going to anyway, so why not get it over with. Honeyed skin and hair with sun streaks; white teeth in that kid-sister smile. There she is posing with a surfboard on Oahu, looking fey, then all playful.

Now flip to the cover. Maya Gabeira… Ring a bell?

Google might help a bit: ESPY winner, five-time winner of something called the Billabong XXL Big Wave Award for female performance. And YouTube?

The Maya Gabeira in those videos is suited up in neoprene body armour, her legs astride a board, her eyes wide with fear, the white cap of a monster wave in Mexico, or Tahiti, or Hawaii rushing down on her.

She’s just another black-suited big-wave surfer catching waves and getting worked in wipeouts, her ponytail the only giveaway.

The two-piece bikini? Not her work clothes.

Purely for show, you see: to get on the cover, to sell sponsorships, to become the brand that appears on massive talk shows in Brazil and works as a surf commentator in the US. The skimpy Billabong threads are not the items packed into a backpack sitting on the floor of a small rented room on Oahu on January 3, its owner pacing nervously nearby.

“These guys are just crazy,” she says, and sits back down on the couch. She picks up the guitar her boyfriend gave her as a Christmas present and absent-mindedly strums a few chords. The guys are probably 20 or 25 of the world’s best big-wave 68

surfers. At the moment, all of them are making their way to Maui, a half-hour plane ride away.

On January 4, off that island’s north shore, they’ll meet a swell the size of a two-storey building that began last week somewhere between Japan and Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. It’s now hitting its first bit of underwater resistance at a break called Pe’ahi just 300 yards or so off the shore near Maui’s airport.

There it throws up waves with wind-whipped 40 to 50ft faces, moving at more than 50kph, a legendary set of waves known simply as Jaws.

In 1992, local legends like Dave Kalama and Laird Hamilton surfed it for the first time in recorded history, using Jet Skis to tow themselves in because the speed of the wave made it too fast to paddle. The wipeouts at Jaws are extreme: cracked ribs, snapped ankles, long hold-downs. The rocks at the shore are a graveyard of glass-fibre and foam. Now, two decades after Jet Skis offered a quantum leap in the size of waves that could be surfed, paddling into Jaws, one of the sport’s cathedrals, has become the new measure of machismo. And with the biggest swell of a so-far quiet big-wave winter season going to hit early tomorrow morning, Gabeira is set to join them. Except she isn’t. At least not at the moment.

“I don’t think it’s a good scenario for me,” she says. “Most don’t think it’s paddle-able. The line-up [of surfers on the waves] is much wider, bigger.

The sets come more often. It’s a whole arena of different reactions: water and wind.”

The phone rings, as it has done a number of times this afternoon. She answers it and switches to Portuguese. It’s her Brazilian rider friends, the big brothers who first took her under their wing when she began showing up on Oahu’s north shore in 2004, a surfing rookie in her late teens with limited English but a burning desire to prove herself in a big swell. Each does his best to convince her to come.

The other option is inviting: surf what are guaranteed to be big waves in Waimea Bay, just down the road on King Kamehameha Highway. It’s her home turf, the place she’s surfed for years. Though she towed into a wave at Jaws estimated at 40ft on Christmas Day in 2010, she’s never paddled.

So where will she risk her life tomorrow?

“A lot of big-wave surfers will never do this,” she says, calling up YouTube videos of the first riders to paddle into Jaws three years ago. “People expect me to, yeah. But then when it’s crazy and I go out there, they don’t think I should be out there.”

There are Keala Kennelly and Jamilah Star and a few other very talented, gutsy female riders who have made their name on big waves and won prizes. But none have chased and ridden waves around the globe with the consistency of the 24-year-old Brazilian. As a result, she’s borne the brunt of the sexist comments and jealous barbs. Big-wave surfing is a brotherhood, and the kid sister is tolerated, but often not much more.

The phone rings again. On the other end is Carlos Burle, one of Brazil’s most skilled big-wave riders

ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY: TRACY KRAfT

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ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY: DAvID HOLMqvIST

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and Gabeira’s mentor from the very beginning. Their partnership has given her the biggest waves of her life, but also resulted in some brutal injuries: the time Burle’s Jet Ski broke her nose in 12 places when a wave tumbled it into her, the wipeout in Tahiti last August, where she was kept down for six consecutive waves while Burle tried in vain to find her.

He’s reined her in when she’s become too ambitious and pulled her out of the surf when she couldn’t go any more, urging her to get out there again. Phone calls can come and go, but at the end of the day, it’s Burle’s opinion that matters most.

They talk for a few minutes and then she hangs up.

Her attention shifts to the MacBook where the Hawaiian Airlines ticket confirmation page for a flight leaving from Honolulu to nearby Maui in three hours is called up. Her mouse hovers over the accept button, and then she presses down.

“Oh shit,” she says. ast August, Gabeira joined the cream of the surfing community – and the travelling circus of photographers, video cameras, and sponsor reps – in Tahiti for what was considered one of the biggest swells to ever hit the famed shorebreak, Teahupo’o.

The wave has been an important marker of Gabeira’s progress in her high-risk career choice.

Though she’s suffered brutal wipeouts (all can be viewed on YouTube), her performances on the tricky, 70

deep barrel of the wave at ‘Chopes’, as they call it, have also alerted the wider world to her guts.

With Burle towing her in, she surfed a smaller wave that time but kicked out late and too far inside the dangerous, dry reef, where no surfer should ever get caught. With the channel overwhelmed with boats, Jet Skis, and other surfers, Burle couldn’t get to her. Her body only half-submerged in the water, she watched as a gigantic wave pounded down on her. It was followed by five more. When they finally pulled her out, she was dazed and had a cut on her ear. A short while later, her blood pressure was running high, as was her temperature, and her stomach was bloated from swallowing seawater.

To Gabeira, the symptoms were typical of her biggest wipeouts. To the people gathered there, she was on death’s door. None other than the exalted Kelly Slater criticised her for being in over her head and endangering the lives of others. The rebuke, public and directed at her by surfing’s biggest star, broke her heart. “It still does,” says Gabeira.

The trauma of that wipeout had her crying every night for a week before she went to sleep. But the Tahiti experience also brought the nagging criticisms about her surfing style and inexperience to the fore.

In her eight years of flying around the world in order to surf big waves, Gabeira said she’d got to the point where “people still talk about me, but they do it behind my back rather than in front of me”.

Now, the criticisms were out in public for everyone

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to see and hear. And Gabeira, female big-wave surfing’s poster child, was thrown for a loop.

“Nobody cares about all the other guys who got screwed out there,” she says, in a tone more incredulous than angry. “Many did, but they didn’t say anything. But it’s because I’m the fragile girl who gets stuck in the waves six times… I understand his point of view that I was unprepared. But I have my own point of view, too. Maybe I was lucky [to survive], but what about all the other times I’ve survived. Was I lucky then, too?” She lets out a hollow laugh. “They say I get lucky when I catch a big wave, too. So now I guess I’m double lucky.” he sets are coming in steadily along the beach lining King Kamehameha Highway as Gabeira makes the hour-long drive to Honolulu Airport. The big swell is starting to make its presence felt with 10 to 15ft walls that crash down heavily. Gabeira slows down her truck as she passes Waimea Bay. “My stomach always goes weird knowing I’m leaving, and it’s going to be big tomorrow,” she says, trying hard to keep her eyes on the road.

“It’s always been one of my favourite places....

But, you know… it became a job. And I got to take that next step.”

Through the open window in the back of the cab, Gabeira’s 10ft 4in pink surfboard, messily bound in bubble wrap and masking tape and stuffed into a big board bag, pokes through from the truck bed.

Behind her seat, she’s got a backpack holding the new revelation in the surfing community: the Billabong v1 wetsuit. With a CO2 canister tucked into a flotation bladder woven into the back, the wetsuit inflates at the pull of a ripcord, allowing the wearer to escape from the washing machine of waves and float to the surface. A Da Kine product called the Matrix impact vest that wouldn’t look out of place strapped onto a soldier in Kabul is back there as well.

The reality of what she’s planned for tomorrow lurks in the background. The past year has been her toughest, with the loss of friend and big-wave veteran Sion Milosky, who drowned at California’s Maverick’s break. She also had enough hard wipeouts, culminating in Tahiti, to give her the sense that maybe, at 24, it’s already time to begin thinking about another day job. “I’ve had a few reality checks in the last year. I’ve lost heroes, like Sion, and you see that people who are surfing at their very best drown as well. And you know it can happen to you.”

And if it happens at Jaws, it happens in the most public of places, where every set of waves will have scores of cameras trained on it. Jaws is a proving ground, and a good shot or some good footage can earn a surfer a long look from sponsors, never mind the respect from the brotherhood. for Gabeira, it’s something she’s never gotten used to. “I think I’m always more nervous about the people there, than the surfing,” she says. “And I think it holds me back.”

She’s happiest when it’s just her and Burle. Yet she likes the attention as well, and the cover shoots. She knows she’ll have to keep taking risks in order to grasp that sliver of limelight reserved for people in 72

her line of work. “It’s a circus,” she says. “But it’s in the circus you have to prove yourself.”

“Why do I do this?” she asks as she coasts through light traffic close to the airport. She laughs and shakes her head, the answer not even clear to her.

Soon after, she wheels her board bag through the long-term parking lot, into an elevator, and over to check-in. Hawaiian Airlines employees don’t give the jury-rigged, masking-taped board a second glance.

It’s not the first they’ve seen today. t’s dark and windy when Gabeira wakes in a hotel room that smells of cigarette smoke at 4.30am. An hour and one soy latte later she’s in the water-logged parking lot of nearby Kahului Harbour, where photographers and videographers wait for boat rides to the show. She screws in straps for her smaller tow-in board and jumps on it a few times in the bed of the truck. If she doesn’t manage a paddle-in on the big one, at least she’ll be ready to tackle the giants on a tow-in.

The 40-minute ride out through dark, shifting waves on the back of a Jet Ski is rough and windy, and Gabeira arrives at Jaws soaked through. The sky is a muddle of gun-metal grey at 7am. On the red-clay cliffs, surfboards of different colours glint in the early sun like bottle tops. The crowd has been gathering since the morning but is barely visible amid the thick foliage. Boats and Jet Skis and surfers who have paddled in from those cliffs, through breaking waves and rough currents, bob up and down in the channel.

In the trough of one of these monsters, land, just 275m away, disappears. It only swoops back into view when you hit the crest. The wave curls into three peaks, the 15-knot early morning wind whipping water off the top of it like a rockabilly’s quiff. The faces are between 20 and 30ft. Later in the morning, estimates will have them at up to 50.

But nobody obsesses over numbers.

If you surf Jaws on a big day, you will talk about it for the rest of your life. It will have meant you survived the difficult conditions and cruel arithmetic of the wave.

Of the 30 out in the water today, only a handful will shoot down its face without wiping out. And only two or three will actually “make” the wave and not end up sucked down by the water as it rumbles toward the rocks.

Gabeira paddles around cautiously with the rest of the riders. As the first attempt the wave, successful rides – and there are few of them – are greeted with big whoops and cheers; wipeouts with the kind of moan you get when the home team misses the game-winning shot.

Locals and those who know the wave’s intricacies rule the day.

Dave Wassel, a North Shore lifeguard in Hawaii and a good-

CLOTHES: BILLABONG, HAIR & MAKE-UP: KATY YUNG fOR TRESEMME AND MAC, PRODUCTION: fX GROUP

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natured, sarcastic presence in the line-up, is one of them. In 2004, he suffered one of the worst wipeouts of his life at Jaws, getting sucked down after bailing on a wave for “the most treacherous, tumbling, terrifying minute” of his life, as he puts it.

“There’s a lot of luck involved in being in the right position to catch the wave,” he says. “Then you have the wind coming up the face, blowing upwards, so it’s like I’m on a kite. A 10ft 5in kite.”

This time, however, he manages to control his board and shoots straight down the face of a monster that most consider one of the rides of the day. Caught

at the very end and plunged down by the roaring whitewater, he pulls the ripcord on his v1 wetsuit and shoots up, paddling to the safety of a nearby boat. He pulls his muscular frame onboard, the back of his wetsuit puffed out like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. He declines the offer of water or Red Bull. “Does anyone have a beer?” he says, and basks in the congratulations from paddling surfers.

He casts a glance over the line-up at Gabeira, who’s got closer to one of the takeoff areas on the peaks but still looks hesitant.

“She got smoked in Tahiti,” Wassel says, by way of analysis. “That’s got to mess with your head.”

There’s no doubting what Gabeira has done for women in the sport, though, he continues, a can of Coors in his hand. The Brazilian, he says, is pushing the level of women’s surfing to new heights, building on what pioneers like Kennelly had started.

“It’s a male-dominated sport,” he says, “and she’s at the forefront of making guys shut up.”

As the morning fades into early afternoon, Gabeira’s chance at catching a wave dims. There’s nothing worse than being out there and not paddling into anything. “It makes you scared, it makes you tired, frustrated… it makes you see wipeouts,” she’ll say later. “It sucks your energy, mentally, too.”

Burle’s had a tough time as well, but not for lack of trying. He’s been pushed under three times after falling off of his board on the wave face. But the Brazilian, who at 44 is in better shape than most of the 20-somethings testing the waters today, is insatiable.

After his board breaks, he catches a ride back out to where Gabeira is. The two find each other across Jet Skis and photographers and boats, like the pivotal scene of a rom-com, slow-mo’ed for effect. “Let’s go!

Maya! Let’s go!” he shouts. “C’mon! Just us!”

They’re the words Gabeira has been waiting for. As the last of the paddlers abandon the wave, she straps on the 6ft 1in board she’s brought along and grabs the tow rope on the back of Burle’s Jet Ski. It seems as if the entire line-up is watching her.

Most wouldn’t dare tow Gabeira into a wave. The responsibility of ensuring she lives to see another day is enough to deter even the most confident big-wave surfers. “It’s not the same as with guys, who can take poundings,” says Edison de Paula, a Brazilian rider who is one of Gabeira’s good friends. “Women are different.” If the measuring stick is the equality women have achieved in most other areas of life, then de Paula’s words, and Slater’s tweets, suggest a double standard.

But Gabeira herself recoils at being compared to the guys. “Serena Williams isn’t going to win one set against Roger federer,” she says. “She’s awesome, but he’s bigger and more powerful. So, it’s like, stop trying to compare… I don’t feel I want to prove myself anymore. If I do it, I do it for me.”

And so Gabeira pops up on the board, clutches the tow-rope, and gets pulled into Jaws. It’s a smaller wave than the ones she caught here in previous years, but it’s a relief nonetheless. She executes a bottom turn or two, looking smooth and confident.

Doing it for nobody else at all, really. Just for her.

More from Maya’s photoshoot at www.redbull.com

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Action

The Red Bull Stratos helium balloon holds around 850,000 cubic metres of gas, at takeoff it stretches over the wingspan of three Boeing 777s and transports Felix Baumgartner three times higher than the cruising altitude of the world’s largest airliner. The logistics and precision behind the balloon lift-off are breathtaking Words: Werner Jessner

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PHOTOgRAPHy: JOERg MITTER/RED BuLL STRATOS

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Raising the giant

About Red Bull Stratos Red Bull Stratos is a mission to the edge of space, on which Felix Baumgartner will ascend 36,576m in a helium-filled balloon and skydive back to earth, gaining valuable data and breaking world records set by Joe Kittinger in 1960.

The records Baumgartner intends to establish are:

1. The speed of sound unaided 2. Free fall from highest altitude 3. longest free fall time 4. Highest manned balloon flight

The Red Bulletin is following the mission closely, each issue focusing on a specific topic. All back issues can still be downloaded for the iPad.

IN FeBRuARY, we began with interviews with Felix Baumgartner 1.1 and Joe Kittinger 1.2. lAST mONTH we took a close look at Baumgartner’s

capsule 2.1, its interior 2.2 and the cameras on board 2.3.

THIS mONTH is all about the balloon that will take Baumgartner into the stratosphere.

3.1 Balloon Tech: how and when to launch 3.2 Ticket To Ride: Felix Baumgartner obtains his balloon licence.

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3.1

Balloon Tech: how and when to launch

P

ity the meteorologist, that most common of all scapegoats. “We’re always to blame,” says Don Day. “It’s part of our job description.” Of course, the Cheyenne weatherman’s modesty is misleading.

A vital lynchpin of the Red Bull Stratos Team, Felix Baumgartner and co are consistently impressed by Day’s uncanny accuracy. The trick? More than simply weather prediction, Day practises weather pre-calculation.

“Many factors must come together to get a balloon of this dimension off the ground,” he says. “Firstly, no wind.

We can’t have wind of more than 3kph at ground level, and with our three weather balloons at an altitude of 60m, 6.5kph is the limit. Even in a region that is perfect for balloon starts, like New Mexico, you only get this sort of calm just before sunrise.

“Secondly, you need none or very few clouds, the lowest possible humidity.

Over the entire surface of the balloon, water droplets very quickly add up to become a burden of several hundred kilos. Third, we need good visibility.

And fourth, on the way up, there must not be any strong winds, which could push Felix far off course.

“Only when these parameters are met can I give the OK and Red Bull Stratos can lift off.” For this, Day has data up to 40,000m altitude available to him – the highest ascertainable point for meteorology, even higher than Baumgartner will climb.

By combining computer-calculated weather simulations, data from various weather balloons at different altitudes, stored recordings, and finally a smidgeon of meteorological genius, it is possible to form a prognosis three days prior to the start: be prepared to lift-off on Wednesday. Beginning 24 hours before the start, the prognosis is

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so precise that Day can be persuaded to talk about “90 per cent accuracy”.

Whether today is the big day must be decided eight hours before takeoff.

It actually takes that long to run the entire start procedure.

The man who gets the balloon airborne is Launch Crew Chief Ed Coca.

While he may be an old hand in the business, he hasn’t seen many ventures like that planned by Red Bull Stratos.

“After all,” he says. “It’s not every day you get such a huge balloon off the ground.”

How many 850,000 cubic metre balloons has he launched before?

“This is my first.”

Four and a half hours before the start, Coca calls Day to find out the exact direction of any possible breezes (no more than 3kph). The balloon, the capsule parachute and the capsule are all connected in a train-like configuration – the ‘flight train’ – and spread out accordingly on the airfield

“It’s not every day that you get such a huge balloon off the ground” in Roswell, New Mexico, with the capsule attached to a crane.

To ensure controlled launch, the light breeze permitted should ideally blow directly against the capsule, and on no account from the opposite direction or at an angle to the runway.

The Red Bull Stratos balloon is made of a gossamer-thin, transparent polyethylene film that is reminiscent of the type used for dry-cleaner bags. The thickness of the envelope wall varies, but at any given place it’s substantially less than a millimetre. Construction of the balloon, as you might well imagine, is a task that requires exacting precision. There

Waking up the Giant How do you erect a thing as high as a 75-storey building in just one hour’s time? This is how

Inflation 1. One hour prior to takeoff, hoses leading from two trucks, carrying 10,194 cubic metres of helium between them, are used to begin inflating the balloon.

2. A launch arm keeps the balloon in place.

Inflation goes from top to bottom.

3. The top of the balloon starts to rise.

4. The launch arm slowly moves the balloon along its length.

A

Helium is lighter than air. The top of the balloon rises

Helium comes in through two inflation hoses Helium is brought in two large trailers

The balloon is under a balloon restraint

Balancing

B

The crane moves the capsule under the balloon centre

This is the ‘train’ with the parachute that will bring the capsule safely down

C Takeoff

After the removal of the launch arm the balloon fully rises

1. The crane releases the capsule.

2. Red Bull Stratos takes off.

PHOTOgRAPHy: JOERg MITTER/RED BuLL STRATOS. ILLuSTRATION: ALBERT EXERgIAN

At an angle of 20 degrees, matters start to get delicate

1. The launch arm releases the balloon.

2. A crane still holds down the bottom of the balloon with the capsule.

3. The balloon rises into fully upright position.

4. With the balloon at an angle of approximately 10-20 degrees, the capsule is released.

5. The crane manoeuvres the capsule exactly under the centre of the balloon.

Weather balloons indicate wind directions

The capsule is held by a crane Baumgartner is already seated inside his capsule

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Action

Even one hole in the balloon, no matter how small, can spell trouble, so it’s scanned with a special light

HelIum lighter Than Air Helium (He) is a colourless, tasteless, nontoxic noble gas. It is the second lightest and second most abundant element in the universe (after hydrogen). most of it was formed during the Big Bang.

For commercial use, helium is extracted by fractional distillation of natural gas.

One cubic metre of helium weighs just 179g, while one cubic metre of air weighs approximately 1.3kg (depending on temperature and composition).

Helium

Air

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is no room for error. Moreover, there is the not so small task of building in a reflective tape so that the empty envelope that floats down to earth after the capsule detaches can be located via radar at any time. Even one hole in the balloon, no matter how small, can spell trouble.

For this reason, the entire balloon (and there are two just in case) is scanned with a special black light before being taken from the long table where the individual lengths of material are glued and loaded into the transport box.

So that the delicate balloon doesn’t become damaged when it’s spread out on the asphalt, a protective layer of Herculite, a specially selected industrial synthetic material, is placed between the ground and the balloon. There is a strict dress code for the 15 men who lay out and launch the balloon: cotton gloves; no zips; no eyelets; no jewellery.

And no force: every contact, every movement of the balloon, poses a risk that could cause a potential weak spot.

And any temptation to give it a hefty pull into the correct position must be resisted – the balloon envelope alone weighs 1,682kg, as much as a mediumsized vehicle.

Once the sleeping giant is finally spread out on the ground, the detachment mechanisms are armed which, when Baumgartner has landed safely, will sever the balloon from the capsule. In the course of this, the balloon envelope will tear along a predefined line, the helium will release into space and the balloon envelope will begin its slow descent to Earth, where a ground crew will gather it up and bring it back to Roswell in the bed of a very large truck.

But we’re nowhere near this point yet: for starters, Baumgartner’s airship first has to lift off.

An hour before takeoff, Mission Control OKs launch preparations.

Fifty-five minutes before takeoff, the filling of the balloon with helium begins. For this, two trucks filled with

helium are needed, each has a capacity of 5,097 cubic metres. In order to fill the balloon as close to launch possible, the decision was made to use a dualinflation method, which means that the helium is pumped simultaneously from two hoses into the upper end of the transparent beast.

Eventually, the balloon lifts its head and heaves itself up as a gigantic bubble.

In the following minutes the bubble becomes bigger and firmer, and the arm that holds the balloon on the ground attached to a truck plays out more balloon length centimetre by centimetre.

At the other end of this giant, the polyethythene sausage still lies on the ground, and inside the capsule Baumgartner sits ready. This capsule in turn is held aloft by a specially modified mobile crane that’s driven by one damn good truck driver.

The moment that the launch arm releases the balloon, it begins its initial vertical ascent, hoisting the unfilled portions from the ground.

The balloon still climbs and should be headed in the direction of the crane; Baumgartner’s capsule begins feeling its first twinges of tension.

When the balloon reaches somewhere around a 10 to 20-degree tilt – a rule of thumb for veteran balloon launcher Ed Coca – the crane supporting the capsule begins to move. It must now be manoeuvred precisely under the balloon, which is something like balancing a broomstick on the tip of your finger, admittedly on a slightly different scale, while the balloon pulls on its load from above.

Coca guides the crane, but stands on the runway a short distance away: “Standing to the side gives you a better view and feeling for how you best manoeuvre the capsule under the centre of the uplift.”

Calm at the start is a good thing.

Even in a space as big as an airfield, the amount of square mileage is not unlimited and the moment Coca gives the OK, the crew need to release the towline sooner rather than later.

In the long, long pause before the moment when Felix Baumgartner rises up into the clear morning skies above Roswell, none of those watching will dare breathe. “Even though we’ll have already overcome huge hurdles at the moment of lift-off, we’re not finished by a long shot,” says Baumgartner.

“This is just the beginning.”

3.2 My

Beautiful Balloon PHOTOgRAPHy: JOERg MITTER/RED BuLL STRATOS (2), BALAzS gARDI/RED BuLL STRATOS, SvEN HOFFMANN/RED BuLL STRATOS CREDIT:

H

ow do you manoeuvre a balloon? Well, there’s no arguing with the wind, but if you’re a sufficiently savvy and experienced balloonist, you’ll know how high, for how long and which way the wind is blowing.

So you’ll understand that a gentle northerly at 200m can be a fresh southerly at 400m. you’ll be moving at 40kph or more, but you won’t feel it, because you’re moving with the wind.

Only when the wind turns do you feel it: first in the face, then in your clothes. you control the altitude of a helium balloon with a valve that allows the gas to escape – you sink – or through dumping ballast – you rise. The system works with incredible precision, although with a lag of around half a minute. Adjusting to this is a part of the art of ballooning: never would you throw sandbags over the side, like you see in some dreadful adventure movie. For starters, a bag could land on the head of some poor rambler below and second it would be a very crude method.

It’s normally enough to empty the large sandbags by just a scoopful to gain height.

Ballast is the balloonist’s gold. Once you’ve thrown it all overboard you’re robbed of a crucial navigating aid. It’s not just that you can’t climb any more – say there are mountains ahead – but more importantly you can’t use the higher atmospheric layers to steer. If you’re desperate, the only option is to throw equipment over the side, but that’s obviously the last resort.

My Red Bull Stratos balloon trip is only one way – up! – but I still had to

Before you can jump from a height of 36km, you have to get up there.

And if you’re planning to ascend to the edge of space in a huge balloon, you’ll need a legit licence. Here’s how Red Bull Stratos adventurer Felix Baumgartner went about getting his Words: Felix Baumgartner

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Ballooning sure has its adventurous moments.

I had to find that out the hard way

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“I had just two days to learn ballooning . On the third day President Obama was expected”

that’s a packed schedule to build up enough practice starts and landings, but soon I was getting to grips with the tactical game of the winds and memorising wind directions at different altitudes. I feel most at home in the air: it’s where I’m ‘in my element’.

After two days of ballooning I felt ready for the examination. Joe Kittinger, our mission consultant, had assured me that in my case I wouldn’t have to sit the written test, so I was surprised when my examiner – a tall, white-haired gentleman from the Federal Aviation Administration ordered me upstairs and sent Joe away.

It’s not in my nature to do things by halves and when I have to do something, I want to do it perfectly. So I hate being faced with a tricky situation that I’m not prepared for. I’m also brutally honest, so I told the examiner I was there on the understanding that I wouldn’t have to sit a written exam, so I hadn’t studied for it.

I explained the project to him and that I didn’t plan to fly around with balloons after Red Bull Stratos and I definitely didn’t intend to transport passengers.

To my surprise, he heard me out and produced an aeronautical chart outlining a route. I’m more than familiar with aeronautical charts, thanks to my helicopter flying, and I spotted the trick question the examiner had slipped in and I showed myself sufficiently competent for the stern old gentleman to give me the thumbs up and do the practical test the next day.

The balloon was tethered on a large, fenced football field. A couple of cars were parked at the fence, which I thought

“Getting a balloon licence is a bit more involved than passing a driving test” were too close, but the examiner and the teacher both reckoned it would be fine…

We floated up without a problem, but after a couple of metres the uplift stopped and we shaved a wing mirror off one of the cars and put a hefty dent in the roof – not that either my teacher or examiner seemed particularly concerned! We just managed to scrape over the fence and I felt a bit bad. But my two companions both told me not to worry, that it had been a ‘false lift’. It dawned on me right then that getting a balloon licence was a bit more involved than passing a driving test.

False lifts aren’t dishonourable – just ‘one of those things’ that can happen.

They’re caused by wind pushing on the lower part of the balloon and creating lift. you let the line go thinking you have strong lift. But it stops at exactly the moment the balloon has reached the speed of the wind.

In our case, that was right at the height of the car’s side mirror. I’d wanted to start from further back and both the examiner and the teacher had assumed we were far enough away – so I was off the hook.

A little while into our flight we began to approach a mountain. The examiner suggested tossing out a couple of spadefuls of sand, but I said I thought we’d be OK. The tester suggested we make a bet on

PHOTOgRAPHy: SvEN HOFFMANN/RED BuLL STRATOS

undergo balloon training. It started by filling 25 or 30 sandbags. After the fourth I assured my balloon teacher that I’d understood the system thanks very much, but he showed no mercy. If only they’d let me build a sandcastle!

But after the fun came the serious stuff: focusing on precise communication with the meteorologist. That’s the be-alland-end-all of good preparation. A good meteorologist prepares you for the diverse wind conditions at different altitudes so you can plot your route, regardless of whether you’re going from A to B and back again, or in a triangular flight path: the most common ballooning routes.

The balloon itself stands on the ground ready to go: helium is expensive so it’s not normally released. you just refill missing gas. gas balloons are costlier to run than hot-air balloons, but the gas balloon pilot is higher up the balloonists’ pecking order. (And for Red Bull Stratos, a gas balloon is the only option, due to the lack of atmosphere.)

One of my first learning experiences with ballooning is that it’s sport for early risers. you start to prepare at 3am, to be airborne before the sun rises and the first winds spring up. you always aim to have as little wind as possible when starting off.

I did my balloon training in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and by coincidence, I seemed to attract some action to the place. Three days after my arrival, a no-fly zone was announced for the entire airspace because President Obama was due to be there. That left me just two hectic days to learn ballooning –

I obtained my ballooning licence in Albuquerque, New mexico. I even had to fill the sandbags myself!

CREDIT:

Ballooning is a sport for early risers.

Preparation starts at three in the morning, you become airborne by sunrise

whether or not we cleared the mountain.

I said, “Sure.” It was close, but we made it without dumping any ballast. Slowly, I felt I was getting a feel for it.

On the other side of the mountain we caught a stiff wind – around 80-90kph, causing us quite a lot of turbulence. We were approaching another mountain range and on the other side there weren’t really any suitable places to land. So we needed to get down fast. I pulled hard on the cord to release the gas and let the balloon descend quickly. unfortunately, the surface winds were still at 40kph and I was getting worried. We prepared for the landing, put on our helmets and pulled the sandbags into the basket so they wouldn’t be ripped open from a rough landing and allow us to rise again. The landing area wasn’t large: it was a field, at least, but fenced with barbed wire, so there weren’t many options for rectifying a landing error in a slow-reacting balloon. We definitely needed to get it right first time.

When the ground rushes up at you at 40kph it feels as if you’re going really fast and the landing was wild! The basket tipped over and we were dragged across the ground. We were all tugging hard on the valve to let the gas out of the balloon and stop our ride. We tucked our heads in and tried to keep our arms and legs inside the basket. “Pull, pull, pull,” shouted the examiner as the basket ploughed across the ground. We couldn’t move, but at last the rope was wound in, the vent was open wide, the helium released, and the whole load ground to a standstill.

Silence.

“Are you guys OK?” We clambered out to see the 80m scar the basket had ploughed into the field.

Ballooning has its wicked moments!

Still: exam passed.

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Next month

A close look at Baumgartner’s pressure suit

www.redbullstratos.com

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Inhalt 80 REISE-TIPP Red bull X-Fighters 82 GET THE GEAR Ice-CrossDownhill 84/85 KULINARIK Daniel Humm, „Coda alla vaccinara“ 86 TRAINING Tao berman, Christian Schiester 88 HANGART-7 89 THE STRoKES 90 CLUb & CD 91 TAKE 5 Jamie xx 92 ToP-SPoTS 94 SAVE THE DATE 96 RED bULL TV-FENSTER bei ServusTV 98 KoLUMNE mit Christian Ankowitsch

Czech cliff diver Michal Navratil is a master of mid-air manoeuvres – read about how his tough training regime helps him fall with grace on page 90

Ent in velisit lor in utpat.

In exercidui te dolor senibh er si bla feummod ea covmmy nullan ut augait et, quat.

Contents 84 TRAVEL IDEAS Cycling the roads of Europe Tour de France-style 86 Global food One top chef’s inspiration and a recipe to follow 88 GET THE GEAR Alexis Thompson and her golf kit 90 TRAINING Cliff diver Michal Navratil’s top tips 92 BEST CLUBS Cirque du Soir, London 92 OUT NOW Folk-soul from Michael Kiwanuka 93 TAKE 5 Spiritualized frontman’s musical picks 94 WORLD IN ACTION 96 SAVE THE DATE 97 KAINRATH’S CALENDAR

Photography: Samo Vidic/Red Bull Cliff Diving

98 MIND’S EYE

MOre BODy & MinD

The Stelvio Pass: Feel the burn then enjoy 60 hairpin bends on descent

2 Col du Galibier france Another epic of the tour and far older than the also-fabled Alpe d’huez, the Col du galibier celebrated its centenary in last year’s Grand Boucle. to mark the occasion, riders had to scale both its approaches, each time grinding up its 2,645m. Andy schleck had the honour of winning the tour’s highest-ever stage finish. near the peak is a memorial to the founder and first director of the tour, henri desgrange. A wreath is laid thereon whenever the Col du galibier is included on the tdF route. the truly insane/oaken-thighed might consider taking in the huez and the galibier in a day’s riding, as they’re a mere 60km apart. only for the brave.

2 WHEELS GOOD THIS MONTH’S TRAVEL TIPS

Ain’t no mountain high enough EUROPEAN CYCLING ROUTES

if you’ve ever fancied yourself as a lycra-clad tour de France road warrior, these are the climbs that’ll give you cred

1 Alpe d’Huez france the French call it ‘la mythique’ – the mythical one – and such is its status in road cycling lore no tour de France feels complete without it. it tops out at 1,860m after 21 switchbacks that give the legs momentary rest. But make no mistake, the Adh is 13.8km of burn, at an average gradient of 7.9 per cent and to see the tour riders blast up here as if they’re sprinting on the flat is a pilgrimage every cyclist – nay, every sports fan – should make. First included in the tour in 1952, it has featured almost every year since. italian master Fausto Coppi was the first winner, keeping the yellow jersey to the finish – a feat later achieved by laurent Fignon and lance Armstrong.

Vienna

austria

8 5 1

france

2

7

italy

4

6

Rome

spain 84

Barcelona

Credits:

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5 The Stelvio Pass italy one for the cycling purist: the stelvio is just as fabled as its French Alpine cousins and is a monster climb that rewards riders with a hugely enjoyable 60-hairpin descent. A giro d’italia regular, the stelvio grind starts north of Bornio and winds up to 2,757m, making it the second-highest Alpine paved route, after the Col de l’iseran (2,770m). its height means that changes in weather conditions en route are inevitable, giving rise to the definitive stelvio experience: start in short sleeves – climb – chill – don jacket – keep climbing – freeze – crest – descend – grin – thaw. it’s as intense as cycling gets.

Words: Anthony roWlinson. photogrAphy: ddp (1), dppi (2), ACtion imAges (2). mAp: AndreAs posselt

Col du Galibier: Follow in Andy Schleck’s tyretreads

3 Col du Tourmalet france/spain A switch of ranges takes peak-seekers south-west, to the pyrenees and the mighty Col du tourmalet, which, at 2,115m is the highest pass over these border-defining mountains. Another of the tour’s ‘hollywood’ ascents, it has been raced up (and down) since 1910, making it the climb most featured on the tdF. And if one racing ascent per year isn’t enough, punishment gluttons might also find themselves competing for summit honours on the route of the Vuelta a españa – spain’s less starry tour equivalent. riders can find inspiration of a sort at the summit, where there’s a statue of octave lapize, the first tourmalet stage winner, gasping for air.

4 Mont Ventoux france the mountain forever associated with tommy simpson, Britain’s world champ cyclist who, in 1967, collapsed and died less than 1km from the finish line, whispering ‘put me back on my bike’ with his last gasps. it’s reckoned to be among the most demanding of pro tour climbs, largely on account of its unremitting nature. you get on and you don’t stop climbing till you reach its moonscape summit, where mistral winds of up to 200mph have been recorded. if you make it to the 1,909m finish line, you’ll have passed tommy’s memorial, where riders – pros and ams alike – leave tubes, bottles and bars in silent homage to the late great.

Grossglockner: But leave winter to the pros

6 Alto de L’Angliru spain the Angliru is to the Vuelta what the Alpe d’huez is to the tour: a showbiz chainbreaker. deliberately chosen by Vuelta organisers to make even the hardest of pros whimper, it rises to 1,573m, but – get this – its steepest gradient is 24 per cent! And it gets harder as you go higher. nasty. it was first included in the Vuelta route in 1999 and has since provoked anguished reaction to its intensity. Vicente Belda, manager of the Kelme team, was quoted in 2003 as saying: “What do they want? Blood? they ask us to stay clean, then they make the riders tackle this kind of barbarity.”

Mont Ventoux: There’s 200mph winds up here…

7 Monte Zoncolan italy here’s how one semi-pro rider recently described the Zoncolan: “it’s one of those chain-breaking epics that the pros need compact chainsets to get up.” [A lowergeared ‘compact’ chainset makes for an easier climb.] even the name sounds evil – like some kind of Bond villain – and its western approach stands alongside the Angliru as a pro’s worst nightmare. its 1,750m have featured four times in the giro d’italia, starting from the gorto Valley and ascending for 10.1km with gradient peaks of 22 per cent. its most notorious stretch starts at liariis, 8.5km from the summit: over the next 6km riders climb 900m. ouch…

8 Grossglockner austria Welcome to Austria’s highest mountain and the second highest Alp, at 3,798m, after mont Blanc. With italy adjacent, a grossglockner stage has twice featured on the route of the giro d’italia – in 1971 and, in a surprise reprise, in 2011. the view from the top – should you manage to get there – is reckoned to be one of the finest from any Alp, stretching 240km over more than 150,0002 km. if you fancy giving this one a go, make sure you don’t ride in winter when the grossglockner-hochalpenstrasse (the high Alpine road) is closed. www.climbbybike.com

A Grossglockner stage has twice featured on the route of the Giro d’Italia

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MORE BODY & MIND

THE WORLD’S BEST CHEFS WHAT’S ON THE MENU AT HANGAR-7

Match ’n’ sniff

TANJA GRANDITS A unique talent for harmony results in a wonderful world of aromas, textures and colours

‘My Joyful World Cuisine’ is the sub-heading of Tanja Grandits’ first cookbook, published in 2007, and it serves as an explanation of its less expansive title: Pure Aroma.

Not that it necessarily needs explanation, as the petite Swiss chef with German roots puts aroma front and centre in her work. And her great talent is to find harmonies – natural and coherent – where you would least expect them: passion fruit and cumin, for example.

Or grilled sea bass with ajowan (an Asian spice) and served with corn cream and grapefruit salsa.

Or mango polenta with corn soup, egg yolk and white truffles. Or Arctic char (a member of the salmon family) with carrots and prunes.

“Wellness for the senses” is Grandits’s confident description of her wonderland of aromas, textures and colours. It’s a confidence reflected in her working set-up: she runs Basel’s Restaurant Stucki, once the domain of Hans Stucki, the father of Swiss cuisine who died in the ’90s. “Being able to work here fills me with awe,” she says.

It was Hans Stucki, though, who once apparently observed that women can’t cook. “Oh? Really?” is Grandits’ wry reply.

MY PHILOSOPHY

MY RESTAURANT Restaurant Stucki Bruderholzallee 42 4059 Basel, Switzerland Tel: +41 61 3618222 www.stuckibasel.ch In 2008, Tanja Grandits, then 34, and her husband René Graf took over the celebrated Restaurant Stucki. Their renovations brought a breath of fresh air to the venerable space, but the name of the restaurant remained – as a mark of respect to Hans Stucki, the towering legend of Swiss cuisine.

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Liberty “For me, success is being able to do whatever I want from morning to evening.”

Harmony …And not just in culinary composition, but in life as well: Tanja Grandits draws strength from yoga and jogging, while days off are devoted to the family, to lazing around and playing – particularly drawing – with her four-year-old daughter Emma.

Serenity For all her Michelin-starred restaurants and Gault Millau points, the woman who so casually cooks in the domain of Hans Stucki (though she never met him), cares little for acclaim.

“Points and stars were never important to me,” she says. “It’s all about freedom and joy in the kitchen.”

Hangar-7 Guest Chefs Every month, a top guest chef comes to the Ikarus Restaurant in Hangar-7, at Salzburg airport, and teams up with the in-house kitchen staff to create two special menus.

The guest chef for April is Tanja Grandits, from Restaurant Stucki in Basel, Switzerland.

Learn more about her menus and other guest chefs at Ikarus at www.hangar-7.com or www.facebook.com/hangar 7. To book a table or make enquiries send an email to ikarus@hangar-7.com or call +43 662 2197-777.

PHOTOGRAPHY: HELGE KIRCHBERGER/RED BULL HANGAR-7 (2), JÜRG WALDMEIER/RED BULL HANGAR-7 (1)

Arctic char, carrots and apricots

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COOK GLOBAL LET THE WORLD BE YOUR KITCHEN

THE RECIPE

WORDS: KLAUS KAMOLZ. PHOTOGRAPHY: FOTOSTUDIO EISENHUT & MAYER

Way to Pho!

PHO BO, VIETNAM A breakfast soup that has managed to conquer the world

Pho bo, a noodle soup that’s eaten for breakfast, originates from near Hanoi but has become, as The New York Times once put it, “a national passion”. It blends French and Chinese influences: China contributed the noodles, their French colonial overlords added beef. Until then, the cow had been regarded locally only as a beast of burden and a working animal. The first Pho restaurants opened around 1920 and the soup then went on to conquer food stalls, too. But it was the Vietnam War that made Pho famous around the world: refugees took it with them wherever they went. Pho bo has now reached number 28 in a CNN list of the world’s tastiest dishes.

The authentic way to eat this Vietnamese soup is with a pair of chopsticks and a plastic spoon.

Serves four For the soup’s contents: For the soup: 250g rice noodles (pho) 2ltr strong beef stock 1 bunch Thai basil 5cm ginger, sliced 1 bunch coriander 1tsp sugar 2 spring onions, sliced ½ onion, sliced 4 to 5 red chillis, sliced 1 star anise 100g bean sprouts 1 stick cinnamon 1tsp sugar 4 cloves 250g uncooked beef fillet, sliced finely ½tsp ground coriander seeds 2 limes 2 tbsp nuoc mam (fish sauce) Ip essi. Lis nis ametum irillan drercipis nos amconsenisi Chilli sauce tat niatuer susciduis nullam irit vulla con hendre do dolorperoHoisin etuer alit vero od min et lute verat, sauce quisi bla corperostrud tat nos ex ero odit, volortie erciliquisl ut ute dignim vel et vel ea feugue velestrud modolob orperilla facil ut ulla faccumsan eum Slowly warmnum the zzrit beeflore stock thetie ginger and sugar.

Adddio quatin venisit modwith tat. Dui minciliquis num dipis the rest ofnisl soup ingredients simmeripit onutthe hob for nismodo around et, consequis in vulputem augaitand irit wiscilisl wismolenis 45 minutes.

Strain contents through a sieve and discard, sumsan heniam niam the ad tem dolor acinisi tis alis ex ercilis ating ex esenisl then put the stock backvenim on the heat.

Soak thefeum rice eugiate noodlesdoindunt ea consequi blaore dolum zzrit, sustie dolore cold water.

Divide the Thai basil, coriander, spring onions, chillis, praesto od dunt aliquisis alit, conulput nim aliquipis aliquatue ea corperit bean sugar and place bowls.

Next,zzrit add dui erosprouts digna at and lor suscidui bla faci tat. into Ut wisserving nisl dolor suscipsum the drained noodles. the desired amount beef fillet, add to lortinit wisl ulputat.

HentTake etuerciduis am velisim inibhof esto od tissi. your bowl and cover with piping hot soup. Cut the limes into quarters, squeeze over and serve with chilli and hoisin sauces to taste.

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Life in the fast lane

ALEXIS THOMPSON Last year the 17-year-old American won three professional golf tournaments to join the world elite. And she did so with style, as her equipment demonstrates 1. Red Bull golf cart This pimped-up Red Bull cart with rear spoiler and chrome rims has a powerful sound system on board.

It’s been souped up, too, so I can get around the practice course pretty quickly.

5. iPod touch (pink case) I love music and listen to it all the time when I’m travelling, practising, or warming up for competition; Linkin Park and the rapper Drake are my current favourites.

7. Alignment sticks These two red sticks are always in my golf bag when I’m practising. I lay them down on the ground on the driving range so that I can check on my swing.

10. Puma PG Tallula golf shoes The Fast-Twist spike system on these leather golf shoes with a cushioned insole guarantees maximum grip on the course.

8. Puma Duo Swing graphic shirt/pleated tech short The light, moisture-resistant CoolMax fabric has silver ions in it to make it antibacterial, and it provides UPF 50+ UV protection.

11. Puma Heritage grip bag I keep my mobile phone, passport, and make-up, of course, in my pink grip bag.

9. Red Bull peaked caps As a fashion-conscious young woman, I make sure that my peaked caps never clash with the rest of what I’m wearing when I’m on the golf course.

6. Canon EOS Rebel camera I’m a passionate amateur photographer. I use the DSLR camera to photograph the most beautiful places and golf courses in the world when I’m on my travels.

2. Cobra S2 driver (8.5°) I can hit the ball around 275m with this driver, which has a Fujikura ZCom Six shaft (S-flex).

12. Cobra golf tour bag My golf bag is very neat and tidy, with its three-point harness system. It has six pockets for clubs, eight for clothes, balls, and drinks, and a holder for visors and towels.

13. Cobra golf clubs My tools need to get me a low score for every round of golf I play: Cobra S3 3-wood (15°) with Graphite Design Quattro Tech MD6 stiff shaft; Baffler 2H (17°) wood hybrid with Aldila NV 85 stiff shaft; Cobra S2 forged-iron (3-PW) with Rifle Project X 5.0 shaft.

14. Puma Soleil trainers These trainers are light but sturdy and are what I wear when I’m travelling; they’re eerily comfortable and quick to take off and put back on again during security checks at the airport. www.alexis-thompson.com

GET THE GEAR

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3. Black Puma rain suit This jacket protects me against the rain and the wind, which is incredibly important on rounds of golf that can last for up to six hours.

ESSENTIAL PRO KIT

4. Travel cushion I’m never without this pink and white cushion on any journey. It helps me relax the way I need to, especially when I’m on those long flights to tournaments.

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WORDS: ULRICH CORAZZA. PHOTOGRAPHY: BOB CROSLIN

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Man at work

There’s no such thing as a day off for this active athlete. Even when he’s at sea, his spare time is spent in the gym or the pool Friday Variation on Tuesday’s workout, focusing on a single muscle group towards the end . “I try to switch it up constantly to keep my body guessing.”

Tuesday Gym: 20 minutes cycling.

Squats holding weights: 100 reps. Quad machine: 32 reps increasing weight.

Hamstring machine: 32 reps increasing weight. Ten front lunges on each leg holding weights. Thirty standard sit-ups, then 30 with legs raised. Twenty push-ups, then 20 reps bringing my legs up to my chest in push-up position. Chest press: 12 reps with 30kg dumbbell. Repeat routine at least three times.

Saturday A one-hour warm-up session, involving stretching, diving from 3m, 10m and 17.5m, and trampoline exercises, before two evening shows.

Wednesday A 45-minute stretch before a 10-mile run on the ship’s track.

Thursday A variation on Tuesday’s workout followed by a rock climbing session on an indoor wall. “The demands this places on my core really helps improve my handstand control, which is important in cliff diving.”

work out Training wiTh The pros

High jump Michal Navratil the Czech cliff diver is a master of mid-air manoeuvres thanks to a tough training regime

In 2011 Czech high-dive champion michal navratil finished third in the red bull Cliff diving world series and this year has his eye on the top spot – which means practice, practice and more practice. when not competing he performs dive shows on a Caribbean cruise ship, which is also his training base. “I can’t sit still,” he says. “I’m always doing something active. and diving is my passion. I do cardio circuit training and gymnastics for flexibility and balance, but I stay away from heavy weights as big muscles restrict mobility while diving – it’s about balance.” what’s inside also counts. “I mix a sport multivitamin, a glucosamine supplement, a vitamin b complex and a fish oil supplement, and wash it all down with an amino acid protein smoothie.” tasty. www.redbullcliffdiving.com; www.youtube.com, search for ‘Michal Navratil’

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Sunday Same as Saturday. “Other than the shows, Sunday should be a day to relax, but my body craves activity.”

“When I’m not on the ship I have a similar routine, but I also run with my dog twice a day, go inline skating and mountain biking – all the things I can’t do at sea”

Flexible approach: Stretching is vital

Keep it fresh

Navratil stays ahead of the game and ready for anything by constantly reinventing his dives and hunting out exotic new locations to practise in “During the European winter, I try to always prepare at least one new dive for the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series competition season,” says Navratil.

“I start off picturing it in my mind, and then I turn my creative visualisations into actual dives.

Unfortunately, that often involves crashing, which, from the heights we train at, can be painful. But I want to constantly push myself and keep my dives as difficult as possible.” And working aboard a cruise ship means practice never gets old. “I take advantage of the many places I come across,” he says. “For example, I once found a great dive spot off a hotel roof on the Caribbean island of St Maarten – you can see the results of that on YouTube. When the ship enters a new port I’m straight off to scout out the possibilities for diving.”

words: ruth morgan. photography: red bull Content pool (3)

Leap of faith: Navratil competes in Athens, Greece

Monday Early start with warm-up at the pool including stretches, handstands and trampoline work. Practice dives from 3m, 10m and 17.5m. Then I perform in two shows.

FATE DOESN’T ASK. IT COuLD ALSO bE mE. Or yOu. David Coulthard.

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“Good songs are timeless”

All the fun of a fancy-dress fair at Cirque du Soir

Out nOw essential listening

MichaeL KiwanuKa a young man demonstrates that simple, soulful ingredients are still a recipe for great pop

party the world over

Welcome to the pleasure dome cirque du soir, London this mind-bending big-top-themed night out has a moulin rouge atmosphere, drag queens and an in-house funfair

The club was born... to create a night like no other, a club that provides more than simply drinks and music. we wanted people to leave feeling wowed. circus performances change every night, with special acts and surprises.

From outside, it looks like... nothing special – and that’s the whole point. previous clientele are in the know and tell others what goes on behind the two black doors.

When you walk in, you see... the rabbit hole from Alice In Wonderland. a lit-up entrance then leads guests into a moulin rouge-themed chamber.

The night gets going at...

12 midnight on the dot [doors open at 11].

Our regulars are... a show-stopping mix of models, drag queens and people with broad minds. no two regulars are the same.

The craziest night was... halloween last year. sold out three weeks in advance, 92

the police sent crowd control because so many more people turned up, all in costume. we decorated the club as a forest. the atmosphere was crazy.

The track that makes the crowd go nuts right now is... lykke li’s I Follow Rivers.

Take a break from the dance-floor at... the funfair area, complete with popcorn and candyfloss machines, and interactive installations. caricature and make-up artists join the revelry, with photo booths at hand to capture the fun.

Best for nearby late-night munchies are... the restaurants in chinatown, and there’s balans on old compton street in soho for a full english breakfast.

Tom Eulenberg, marketing and PR director, Cirque Du Soir Cirque Du Soir 15-21 Ganton street, London W1F 9BN, UK www.cirquedusoir.com

Michael Kiwanuka topped the BBC’s Sound Of 2012 poll

words: florian obkircher. photography: cirque du soir (2), sam butt (1)

Best CluBs

from recordings a man, a guitar, from back then. a good song. for a Such as? long time, this was the way someone pop music’s essential like sam cooke or mix, but in recent marvin gaye used times it has been Warm songs his voice. they had under threat from auto-tune effects and combining folk a language of their and ’70s soul own, their own way heavy beats. michael of phrasing. their kiwanuka is fighting vocals are usually slightly back. the 24-year-old behind the beat, which gives from north london, son the song a certain swing. of parents who escaped Is a good song enough idi amin’s uganda, writes to be successful now? folk-like songs in the absolutely. the current tradition of Van morrison success of adele, whom and bill withers. great i toured with last year, tunes wrapped up in proves that. boy bands warm 1960s and ’70s garb, might be able to palm composed only of his soulful anything off on their voice and acoustic guitar. hysterical fans, but on his first tV music show that’s got nothing to appearance, the co-billed do with music. a good björk and anthony kiedis song is just timeless. were left speechless, while What makes a good his debut album is currently song a good song? causing a worldwide emotion, abandon, a good wave of goosebumps. melody, good lyrics. if i the red bulletin: knew exactly, i’d probably Are you nostalgic? be a millionaire by now. kiwanuka: no, but old music just had class. you can barely find that level Home Again (Universal) of finesse and technical skill is out now. Tour dates at www.michaelkiwanuka.com in pop today. i learn a lot

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Take Five

“Can taught me the beat”

The music ThaT influenced The sTars

Spiritualized Jason Pierce thinks differently. his music floats, he plays concerts in the arctic circle and draws inspiration from records way beyond the usual pop canon

words: florian obkircher

Jason Pierce makes music for astronauts. he joined his first band, spacemen 3, when he was 17 years old, and with his own musical project, spiritualized, formed in 1990, he writes breathtakingly beautiful, free-floating songs. it’s music that sounds like psychedelic-era beatles experimenting in a space capsule – Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space is the apt title of spiritualized’s legendary third album, whose spirit and beauty prompted The NME to compare it in 1997 to The beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. spiritualized are the only band ever invited to perform in the cern laboratory. “but sadly,” rues Pierce, “it didn’t happen because of a scheduling conflict.”

Master of floating guitars: Jason Pierce, alias J. Spaceman

at least he is able to take some consolation from giving his music an airing under the northern lights in the arctic circle: “You can’t reinvent music, but you can put it in unusual situations and develop it further in that way,” Pierce reflects. it’s something he achieves on the new spiritualized album Sweet Heart Sweet Light. he moves deftly between experimental sounds and big melodies, between sheets of guitar and hypnotically bluesy pop songs. “The obvious masterpieces, like the beach boys’ Pet Sounds aren’t important to me,” says Pierce. “i’m inspired by forgotten treasures, overlooked pearls, the backbone of pop music so to speak.” Pierce picks out his five most inspirational records.

Link Wray – Be What You Want To Most people know Wray through songs like Rumble from the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. But he’s got more to offer than his ’50s guitar thing. This album of gospel, rock and blues is a revelation, particularly when Wray steps up to the microphone. I own a lot of records that are not waving flags, they’re these quiet ones that sit in my collection but never disappoint. Link Wray albums are like that.

Acetone – Cindy It’s a sad story, the fate of this Acetone record from my friend Richie Lee, who died much too young. It came out in 1993 and was completely overlooked – even by their record company. They wanted a Britpop album and didn’t know how to deal with Richie’s great eccentric surfcountry songs. More people should know about this record, it’s worth it.

Rocket from the Tombs – The Day the Earth Met I found this record in a shop in Detroit and right away I was riveted. Furious, astonishing proto-punk, recorded live at concerts in 1974. It’s impossible to cover the Stooges but they do them absolute justice. The members later formed bands like Pere Ubu and Dead Boys, but this here is far superior.

Can – Delay 1968 I never liked Can when I was a kid because it was so beat orientated. With Spacemen 3 I thought the beat is access and anchor. If you’re not careful it holds everything you do into the earth. So the drums were always quiet in my music. It was only later that I recognised the magic of the hypnotic Can beat.

Delay 1968 isn’t one of the band’s classics but it’s a properly complete record.

And it’s angular and stuffed with ideas that don’t necessarily sit next to each other comfortably. I also like the simple sleeve, and thanks to that beat, I hear drums like they’re not only beats but an instrument.

Royal Trux – Accelerator This record contains one of the greatest songs ever written: Stevie – an absolute amazing jam. Accelerator was actually was made for a major label; bands often get more conservative in that situation. But not Neil Hagerty and his band Royal Trux: the album is completely squashed.

It rumbles and jolts, sometimes the sound is so messed up, it almost sounds wrong. But that’s exactly why I revere it. Every pore contains so many ideas; every riff, every melody sounds familiar but at the same time completely different from anything you’ll have ever heard on a record.

Sweet Heart Sweet Light comes out on April 13. Tour dates and sound samples at: www.spiritualized.com

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World in Action April 2012

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A GLOBAL ROUND-UP OF SOME OF OUR FAVOURITE THINGS TAKING PLACE OVER THE NEXT FEW WEEKS

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Sport 03-14.04.12, BELLS BEACH, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA

ASP (Women’s) World Tour As tradition has it, Hells Bells by AC/DC will again ring out every morning before the male and female surfers hurl themselves into the Indian Ocean. The Rip Curl Pro on Bells Beach, 110km southwest of Melbourne, began in 1961, making it the oldest surfing contest on the tour. Last year it was dominated by the Australians: in the men’s final, Joel Parkinson beat Mick Fanning and in the women’s category, Sally Fitzgibbons got the better of the USA’s Carissa Moore.

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08.04.12, LOSAIL INTERNATIONAL CIRCUIT, DOHA, QATAR

Qatar Moto Grand Prix Champion Casey Stoner is the man 3 World to beat in the first race of the Moto season at this 5.4km track, which was completed in 2004.

Last year, the Australian won here, launching him on his way to a second Moto Grand Prix title.

In addition to the Moto2 races, there’s the muchanticipated Moto3 series, which is being run for the first time in place of the 125cc category.

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The world’s best freestyle motocrossers are preparing to break out the aerial acrobatics for the first round of this year’s Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour. The tour will be making a total of six stops, including three new venues in California, USA, Istanbul, Turkey, and Munich, Germany.

This year’s proceedings will once again get under way under the imposing skyline of Dubai. This is where last year’s winner, Spanish rider Dany Torres, wowed the judges and captivated 15,000 fans.

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FIVB Brasilia Open

05-08.04.12, AUGUSTA NATIONAL CLUB, GEORGIA, USA

There could hardly be a better place than Rio to kick off the new beach volleyball season.

Men and women will do battle for prize money but more importantly, the points that will help them qualify for the London Olympics. Last year, the South American sand provided rich pickings for the American duo Rogers and Dalhausser. In the 2011 final, the 2008 Olympics gold medal winners comprehensively beat the home partnership of Emanuel and Alison by a score of 21-18 and 21-13.

The ladies enjoyed more success on home soil with Brazilian team Larissa and Juliana taking the win.

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PGA Masters Tournament 2

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Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour

15-22.04.12, RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL

Sally Fitzgibbons masters the waves

The coveted Green Jacket has been fought over at one of this most beautiful of golf clubs since 1949. Last year, South African Charl Schwartzel mastered the famous course, beating the rest and securing his first Major with final tally of 14 below par.

This year, a rejuvenated Tiger Woods will be on the lookout for his fifth win after finishing fourth last year.

13.04.12, DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Casey Stoner is vying for another victory in Qatar

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PHOTOGRAPHY: SIMON WILLIAMS/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, IMAGO, FIVB, DANNY CLINCH/WARNER BROS, DIEGO G. SOUTO/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, PICTUREDESK.COM

13-15.04.2012, THAILAND

Songkran

The Thai New Year celebrations are also the world’s biggest water fight. People go wild as they make their way through the streets carrying buckets, hoses and water-pistols. And the timing’s not bad either: April is the hottest month of the year in Thailand. Symbolising spiritual cleansing, the most intense celebrations can be found in the northern city of Chiang Mai, where the water pours for six days.

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18-29.04.2012, NEW YORK, USA

Tribeca Film Festival Robert De Niro brought this festival into being with two of his colleagues in 2002.

It was both a creative reaction to the September 11 attacks and an attempt to breathe new life into the Tribeca district of Manhattan. And it’s been a big success. There have already been three million visitors at the 1,500 film presentations, discussion panels and concerts. The Tribeca Film Festival is the perfect place for independent directors to make new contacts and an ideal platform for them to present their works to a wider audience.

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FIVB title defenders Dalhausser and Rogers (left)

21.04.2012, BILBAO, SPAIN

BreakOnStage Head-spins, power-moves, top-rocks… At BreakOnStage in northern Spain, one of the major B-Boy competitions in Europe, international crews such as Vagabond from Paris, Fusion Rockers from Madrid and the Hoochen Crew from Brussels turn into human spinning tops. There are also dirt-jump and slackline shows, a Red Bull BC One Cypher and a closing concert from Spanish hip-hop star Rapsusklei.

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Culture

The aquatic Thai New Year celebrations

13-15.04.2012/20-22.04.2012, INDIO, CALIFORNIA, USA

30-31.03.2012, STUDIO COAST, TOKYO, JAPAN

Coachella

no doubt this is the coolest US festival.

6 There’s Even Leonardo DiCaprio and Kirsten Dunst clamour to get up close to the headliners (this year Radiohead, The Black Keys and Snoop Dogg all feature).

But those without an entourage attending to their every whim should take care when choosing what to wear. Day temperatures can reach 38°C; at night it’s bitterly cold.

Red Bull BC One dancers take on Spanish B-Boys.

SónarSound Tokyo

Before the Sónar Festival turns its hometown of Barcelona into an electronic music Mecca in June, it’s making a quick trip to Japan. Digital funk monster Squarepusher’s sound system will raise the roof, as will big-screen electronic artists The Cinematic Orchestra, veteran hipster Vincent Gallo and a plethora of artists on the Red Bull Music Academy stage.

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Coachella headliners The Black Keys

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Save the Date

April & May 2012 MUSIC, SPEED AND SPORT: THE BEST THINGS TO DO AND SEE IN SOUTH AFRICA OVER THE NEXT FEW WEEKS

APRIL 22

Survival of the fittest Some would say there aren’t that many reasons to visit South Africa’s second oldest city, but the Spec-Savers Ironman is your perfect excuse.

Port Elizabeth hosts Africa’s only Ironman event once again, with the transition point at Hobie Beach an excellent vantage point to catch the 7am start for the 3.8km swim. After that the athletes return for the 180km bike ride and, finally, into their running takkies for the 42.2km marathon. www.ironmansouthafrica.com APRIL 25–30

Bring your own You don’t have to be a fan of all things tie-dyed to head to the Stonehenge farm on the edge of the Tankwa Karoo National Park, but it does help.

So will endurance. Somewhat appropriately, this music/dance/art/performance festival is held in the middle of nowhere. It operates on a ‘gift economy’, meaning you have to bring all your own stuff and money is no good. It’s all about sharing and bartering. It’s a departure from modern society.

First-timers sing its praises. To a trance beat. www.afrikaburn.com

Bike enthusiasts flock to Dirtopia APRIL 27–29

The ride of your life Dirtopia, on the Tarentaalkraal campsite near Greyton in the Overberg region of the Western Cape, has been something of a Mecca for the mountain biking community since it was first held 12 years ago. A raft of disciplines – from full-body armoury gravity events, such as downhill, dual and dirt jumping, to cross-country trails – can be tried out across the weekend, and Dirtopia’s laid-back camping vibe means the whole family can come along and join in the two- or sometimes three-wheeled fun. There are also more relaxed activities, such as night rides, a range of activities for kids and a chance to hone your moves at bike skills clinics. www.dirtopia.co.za/mtbfestival

FROM MAY 11

Knysna Speed Festival, a 10-day celebration of all things motoring held in the Eastern Cape’s Garden Route town of Knysna, has steadily grown in popularity since its humble beginnings in 2009.

The hillclimb is sure to be one of the big attractions, but this year a motorshow, kart grand prix, slot car challenge and soap box derby have all been incorporated into the bill in an effort to build the event up to something approaching the UK’s legendary Goodwood Festival Of Speed. www.speedfestival.co.za

MAY 11

Strictly youth Back To The City attracts thousands of people each year to Newtown, Joburg, for South Africas’s premier hip-hop and youth culture festival.

Fittingly for an event held on Freedom Day, this day of live performances, street art and exhibitions actively promotes and encourages critical thinking, social change and unity, while empowering communities through media and the arts. www.backtothecity.co.za

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Wheeling for social change in Joburg

PHOTOGRAPHY: KNYSNA SPEED FESTIVAL, DIRTOPIA, BACK TO THE CITY

Days of speed

illustration: dietmar kainrath

K a i n r at h

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bove a sign in new York City’s o’Hara’s bar that reminds patrons of the state law against smoking in public spaces, is the rank and insignia of a south african police inspector. rebecca, the barmaid, cannot remember how it got there. It was there before she started working at o’Hara’s four months previously. she asked one of the other managers about it. He didn’t know either. It didn’t really matter to me.

It was – as much as seeing a police rank can be – comforting to know that there was a little part of south africa in o’Hara’s, a bar on Cedar street right beside ground Zero. twenty minutes before I had been standing in front of the name of my friend Craig gibson, who had been in the first tower of the World trade Center when it was hit by a hijacked plane on september 11, 2001.

His name is on block n16 on the north Pool at the 9/11 Memorial. It was the first place I went when I landed in new York for a recent whirlwind visit. using my iPhone, I navigated from the trump hotel in soHo south down Varick street, left on leonard and then right on Church street. the 9/11 Memorial Visitor Center is on 90 West street, opposite st Paul’s Chapel, which was used by emergency workers as a place to sit and recover during their efforts to help. the queue is long, but it moves along quickly with the Center’s staff geeing people along to pick up the free tickets to visit the actual memorial. a donation is asked for but not required, which seems the right attitude – dignified and decent. to actually get into the memorial is another five-block trip to yet another queue. street vendors try to sell you a magazine with the headlines ‘never Forget’ and ‘Heroes’ on the cover. none of them speak with an american accent, most are east european and can be talked down to $10 for a magazine, or even $5 for two. street capitalism and

Mind’s Eye

A New York Farewell Sitting at a Ground Zero bar, Kevin McCallum remembers a close friend and a fateful day retail have no dignity, just a price. some take up the offer, others ask why they are trying to make money off the dead.

It’s a fair question, but the market is there to be fed and so they do. the line to get into the memorial entails six or seven ticket checks, one ticket scan, a felt-tip marker tick and an x-ray search. It’s a sobering and second reminder that the united states believes it is still under threat.

Having to take my shoes off for a second search at or tambo after going through customs for the flight to new York was the first one. then there’s the short walk inside, a sign pointing to the north Pool, off to the left from the entrance. I spent all of five minutes there, touching gibbo’s name, smiling, taking a few pictures, and as I walked away, the tears welled up. It felt unreal, somewhat

disconnected, but there was relief that I knew gibbo had not been forgotten. o’Hara’s bar is directly opposite the entrance to the memorial. after the attack it was covered in soot and dust, the roof smothered, and the damage meant the bar had to be closed for eight months. rebecca poured me a sam adams beer, asked where I was from and, after hearing about gibbo, gave me the bar’s scrapbook of 9/11 ‘Fallen Heroes’ to look at. It is packed with pictures of the bar, reports of the day, stories of those who died, and letters from those who have visited the bar and found it as good a place as any to soothe the soul after the starkness of the memories. next to me an overweight american man and wife had just visited the Memorial and were desperate to buy some memorabilia. she dashed off to find a ‘twin towers’ t-shirt. rebecca caught my sigh and came over for a chat. she was a photojournalist who had been covering the occupy Wall street protests a few blocks away. she had come to o’Hara’s for a few pints in between the heat of shooting the protest against capitalism, and had then ended up working the bar. she had been in new York for just over a year, had been living in brooklyn and wasn’t going to bartend forever, but, then, no one is. rebecca said that a lot of cops and firemen came into o’Hara’s, but it was usually only the visitors – like me – who came to talk about 9/11. It wasn’t that she was getting bored of talking about it – no one should – but sometimes it did get a bit much. life had to carry on. that was the point. the memory of that day, of those lost should never be forgotten. but we all have to say goodbye sometime. In new York, I said goodbye to gibbo.

Kevin McCallum is an award-winning sports journalist and acclaimed columnist for the Independent newspaper

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