The Red Bulletin UK 05/21

UK EDITION MAY 2021, £3.50

BEYOND THE ORDINARY

Fresh focus

Meet the B-Boys and B-Girls shaping a new era for British breaking Pictured: B-Boy Sunni is putting the UK scene back on the map

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Ghetts on success “NOW I KNOW EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE”

Deep, dark & dangerous THE DARING CAVE DIVERS GOING WHERE NONE HAVE GONE BEFORE

ALPHATAURI.COM

© Jean Nouvel, Gilbert Lézénès, Pierre Soria et Architecture-Studio / Adagp, Paris, 2021

Editor’s letter

Pushing into unknown territory is rarely easy, as the subjects in this month’s issue of The Red Bulletin demonstrate. But it’s how each of them is managing to find true fulfilment.

Cover star Sunni is one of many UK breakers (page 30) with a fresh take on what their scene can be. Together, they’re working to make it a more athletic, artistic and accepting place, which is, in turn, inspiring a whole new generation of dancers.

We meet cave explorers Klaus Thymann and Alessandro Reato (page 42), who take us on a deep dive into their pitch-black underwater world as they become the first in modern history to enter a claustrophobically narrow waterway beneath the Mexican jungle, on a mission to unearth ancient artefacts.

Then we follow the women of inaugural freeride event Formation (page 56), who braved the unforgiving red-rock terrain of Utah’s Zion National Park on two wheels to break new ground – literally and metaphorically – for the female biking community.

And we sit down with Ghetts (page 66), who attributes his current chart success to looking at himself in a new light.

Having shed his ego, stopped conforming to what he thought others wanted to hear, and brought honesty to his music, the UK rapper is finally getting the recognition he has long deserved.

We hope you enjoy the issue.

CONTRIBUTORS THIS ISSUE

WILL LAVIN

In a career spanning almost 20 years, the British music journalist has interviewed everyone from Nas to Nile Rodgers. “I’ve watched Ghetts’ evolution firsthand,” says Lavin, who met up with the grime star again for this issue. “Every time we speak, his energy is electric. His resilience and passion for what he does is empowering beyond words.” Page 66

PARIS GORE

Already a veteran of shooting Red Bull Rampage, the US photographer was excited about shooting the first Formation. “I knew many of the riders [already], so it was great to see them challenge themselves in new ways,” says Gore, who has shot for the likes of National Geographic, Patagonia and Arc’teryx. “The way the women supported each other brought a unique vibe to the event.” Page 56

GAVIN BOND (COVER)

THE DISCOMFORT ZONE

Catching a break: AJ the Cypher Cat performs a headspin for photographer Gavin Bond at our cover feature shoot Page 30

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THE RED BULLETIN

CONTENTS May 2021

08 Gallery: dragon racing in the

deserts of Saudi Arabia; anythingbut-plain sailing in the North Atlantic; winter wakeboarding in central Denmark

15 Great escape: electronic-pop trio

Flawes give everyday hassles the elbow with their dream playlist

17 Global perspective: sick of staring

at your neighbour’s fence? See the world instead with WindowSwap

18 Work out: the camper van that

thinks it’s an office – and has a sunroof with a difference

20 Root cause: the photographer

and activist fighting widespread deforestation in British Columbia

22 Solar system: Sunflower House

– the nature-inspired, carbonneutral home with petal power

24 Tom Evans

Motivational talk from the army man turned ultrarunner who is happy to suffer for his sport

2 6 Hannah Reid

The London Grammar singer on fame, confidence, and calling out inequality in the music industry

28 J ill Wheatley

The Canadian adventurer whose traumatic brain injury gave her even more mountains to climb

30 B reaking

Meet the B-Girls and B-Boys who are power-moving UK breaking up the world rankings – next stop, Olympic glory

42 C ave exploration

In caverns deep beneath the Mexican jungle, two divers have uncovered a hidden history

KATIE LOZANCICH

56 F ormation

The women-only event changing the landscape of MTB freeriding

66 G hetts

Perseverance pays – just ask the grime veteran whose hard yards have finally come to fruition

THE RED BULLETIN

73 Para-alpinism: all the challenge

of mountain climbing plus the exhilaration of paragliding 78 The riding’s on the wall: Kriss Kyle gets creative in the Welsh woods 80 Power trip: everything you need

to know about e-biking – from what to ride to what to wear

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Carving their own trail: at MTB camp Formation in Virgin, Utah, female freeriders can push the boundaries of their sport

89 Pod bod: train like an astronaut 92 Work mode: how to forge a

successful career as a gamer

93 Beat combo: the pocket synth

with retro fighting-game style 94 Essential dates for your calendar 98 Rally royalty: ‘Mr Dakar’ in action 07

NEOM, SAUDI ARABIA

Playing with fire

Pareidolia is the name given to the imagined perception of patterns, objects or faces where they don’t actually exist. Here we see Anton Shibalov, Dmitrii Nikitin and Ivan Tatarinov tracing the gumline of a huge, slumbering dragon during this January’s Dakar Rally. Or could it just be the Russians tearing around Neom – the site of a controversial megacitybuilding project in Saudi Arabia – in their Team Kamaz Master truck?

Whatever the truth of the matter, French photographer Éric Vargiolu was on hand to capture both beasts for posterity. Instagram: @eric_vargiolu

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ERIC VARGIOLU/DPPI/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

DAVYDD CHONG

NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN

DAVYDD CHONG

Heavy blow

PIERRE BOURAS/ L‘OCCITANE EN PROVENCE

There’s nothing like a pleasant sail. And the Vendée Globe – the iconic solo, non-stop, round-the-world yacht race – is nothing like a pleasant sail. Last November saw the 33 starters in the 2020/21 race battered by 90kph gusts off the coast of Portugal. The L’Occitane en Provence boat, skippered by Armel Tripon – and photographed here by fellow Frenchman Pierre Bouras – was among the most badly damaged, necessitating a 560km detour for repairs. “The sea was white; it was very brutal,” said Tripon afterwards. “But it’s a real gift to be able to live it and see this.” And to survive it, no doubt. Instagram: @pierrebouras

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DAVYDD CHONG

SILKEBORG, DENMARK

ESBEN ZØLLNER OLESEN/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

Cold calling Dragging your sorry carcass outdoors to train on a dark, wet, icy winter’s morning is tough.

And yet, despite long months of piercing cold and precious little sun or daylight, Denmark is among the world’s most active nations. This resilience is celebrated in the video We, The Danes. Among those featured is wakeboarder Robin Leroy Leonard, captured here on set by Copenhagen-based photographer Esben Zøllner Olesen as he glides across the Silkeborg lakes in central Denmark. To watch the film, head to redbull.com. esbenzollnerolesen.com

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GIVES YOU WIIINGS. ALSO WITH THE TASTE OF CACTUS FRUIT.

FLAWES

Dream team The indie-pop trio’s new EP sees them caught in a Reverie. Here are four songs that transport them away

JOSHUA HALLING

FLORIAN OBKIRCHER

British electronic-pop band Flawes – vocalist/keyboard player Josh ‘JC’ Carruthers, drummer Josh Hussey and guitarist Freddie Edwards – formed in 2015. Later the same year, their debut, Don’t Wait For Me, was named a BBC Music Introducing ‘Track of the Week’ and reached number eight on Spotify’s UK Viral 50 chart. By the time debut album Highlights dropped early last year, Flawes were ready for a tour, but a world in lockdown wasn’t, so they went back into the studio. “Writing [new EP] Reverie took us away from this reality and gave us a positive focus,” says JC. “Hopefully it provides the same escapism and positivity for the listener.” Here, they share four songs that help them escape daily life. Reverie is out now; redbullrecords.com

Ásgeir

The Beatles

City and Colour

Sigur Rós

Lupin Intrigue (2013)

Sun King (1969)

Day Old Hate (2005)

Starálfur (1999)

JC: “I stumbled across this track by the Icelandic singer/ songwriter a few years ago and it’s my go-to for chilling out. I just stick it on my headphones at full blast and get lost in my thoughts. The arpeggiated synth, along with the beautiful piano part that escalates in the background, traps you from the start. By the time his vocal enters at 36 seconds, you should be well on your way to a daydream.”

FE: “There’s something really hypnotic about this track on Abbey Road. The soft, layered vocals feel so soothing, almost like a lullaby. The band were experimenting a lot at this stage; the guitar has a sitar-like quality, and they sing in a crazy combination of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese towards the end. I listened to the album a lot when I was a kid, and this song would always take me to a different headspace.”

JH: “This song connected with me the first time I heard it. I find [singer/songwriter] Dallas Green’s voice mesmerising – soft yet powerful. I’ve listened to it so much that it holds many memories – it’s quite emotional to listen to all the way through.

As soon as I press play, I find myself in a daydream, looking back over the last 10 years at the good times and the bad. I even got a tattoo of the album cover on my back when I was 17.”

JC: “I’m a melody-over-lyrics guy and [the Icelandic post-rock band’s vocalist] Jónsi delivers big-time on this song, One day I’ll translate the lyrics to see what I’ve been singing along to all these years. But that might spoil the fun, right? Perhaps the reason this is such a great song for daydreaming is just that: your mind doesn’t get caught up in the meaning of the lyrics, so you can just drift away on the melodies and harmonies.”

THE RED BULLETIN

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ALESSIO (ITALY), CONSTANCE (FRANCE), ELIZABETH (USA), EMMA (USA), IDIL (SCOTLAND), JUDAH (NORWAY), NALLE (FINLAND), SEBASTIAN (CHINA), YACHAR (EGYPT) LOU BOYD

Positive outlook: (clockwise from top left) Tellaro, Italy; Chamonix, France; Arizona, USA; Grytting, Norway; Fayoum, Egypt; Xishuangbanna, China; Norola, Finland; Fire Island, USA; Edinburgh, Scotland

In April 2020, when most of the world had entered lockdown, husband-and-wife Vaishnav Balasubramaniam and Sonali Ranjit were stuck in their cosy but cramped Singapore flat, looking out of the same window every day.

When they came across a photo on Instagram showing the beautiful view from a friend’s Barcelona home, the couple joked that they should find a way to swap windows. The two advertising executives asked their friend for a short video of his view, and WindowSwap was born.

The online project presents window views from across the world, allowing users to flick through hundreds of different videos uploaded by others. From a small, chicken-filled back garden in Kettering to rainy side streets in Mumbai to a balmy sunset on a Hawaiian beach, a different scene is selected at random each time you click refresh. The website transports you out of your own space and gives you a glimpse of another way of life.

“You see views of countries that you don’t get in travel magazines or generally in the media,” says Ranjit. “Looking through someone’s backyard or side streets makes a place come so much more alive.”

WindowSwap may have been inspired by a desire to escape lockdown, but while designing the website the pair realised that it could serve as an escape from the online world, too. “We didn’t want to create those dopamine-induced feelings that TikTok gives, but rather a calm space,” explains Balasubramaniam. “We THE RED BULLETIN

WINDOWSWAP

Zoom with a view What better way to allow your mind to wander than by staring out of a window? How about letting it roam across the globe debated whether to create likes or a comment box to connect people, but in the end we decided to stick to a very simple experience.”

The site instead serves as a meditation throughout the day, with no access to other users or distractions from the video itself. “It’s more like the early internet,” he adds. “You’re just there to have fun. No one’s judging you, no one feels bad, and you have nothing to prove.”

Since the launch of WindowSwap, the couple have

certainly got their wish to see more of the world – they have now received more than 600 videos from every corner of the globe. “One window that got my attention [in particular] shows the pyramids from someone’s house; a view you would never usually see,” says Balasubramaniam. “The pyramids are in the distance, but at the bottom of the screen you can see rows of houses and alleyways. It’s just amazing.” window-swap.com 17

Roadwork ahead Adventure in the front, office in the back – this kitted-out camper is all business Traditionally, if you wanted to travel the world and experience the freedom of life on the road, you’d have to save up and leave your job behind. But the events of the past year have almost certainly changed that for ever.

With people working remotely and most meetings hosted online, jobs that were once tied to an office can now be done from anywhere in the world.

In response to this, Japanese car manufacturer Nissan has designed a new type of camper that is part van-life, part office space, allowing you to combine the most radical lifestyle with a traditional nine-to-five job.

Controlled by a mobile app, the camper’s retractable pod is a pop-up office on wheels. Not 18

only does it fit a person, a desk, a full-size screen and an ergonomic chair (by esteemed US furniture maker Herman Miller), it also has a transparent floor to gaze through between emails and remind yourself that you’re on a mountain trail or beside a beach.

When the daily grind is over, just hop outside, tap the app to fold away your office until morning, and head out for a surf or a hike; inside the camper’s glove box you’ll find a ‘UV antibacterial lamp’ to disinfect your personal

possessions on your return.

Alternatively, climb up onto the rooftop deck, which has its own sunlounger and parasol, for après-travail drinks.

According to research by tech solutions firm MBO Partners in 2018, 4.8 million American workers at the time described themselves as ‘digital nomads’, and the number is growing rapidly. “Many office workers are having a variety of issues working at home,” says Nissan of its invention. “[We want] to solve this by giving them more choice of where and how they work.”

The Office Pod is only a concept at present – it was unveiled at this year’s virtual edition of the Tokyo Auto Salon car show – but it’s based on a modified version of Nissan’s popular NV350 Urvan caravan and is something the company is serious about. “Hopefully this is the start of a new era where we can design our own outdoor-based lifestyles,” says Nissan, “and where we can work from wherever makes us feel happiest.”

THE RED BULLETIN

NISSAN

NISSAN OFFICE POD

LOU BOYD

Mine’s a Vanhattan: quaff cocktails on the roof if you’re not driving – just don’t forget the handbrake

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ANCIENT FOREST ALLIANCE

Protecting our elders

We take photos to capture cherished memories; activist and photographer TJ Watt is using the medium to save the planet’s ancient woodlands TJ Watt’s latest photo series is a story of two halves. In the first, the nature photographer stands beside the giant ancient cedars of the Caycuse Valley in southern Vancouver Island, Canada, on a clear blue-skied day. The second half tells a darker story. We see Watt posing against the same backdrop, but now the thousandyear-old trees have been cut down to their stumps.

The Canadian began his Caycuse Before & After project with one aim: to draw attention to the deforestation of British Columbia’s oldest trees. “You 20

can’t argue with what you’re seeing,” says Watt. “[This is] the destruction of one of the grandest ecosystems on Earth.”

An environmental activist and self-proclaimed “big tree hunter”, Watt has been recording the activity of the logging industry in the Caycuse Valley for the past year, finding old-growth trees marked to be cut and capturing them before and after. “I had to measure how far away I was from each spot, record which lens I was using, and GPS where each tree was,” he says. “Then, when I THE RED BULLETIN

TJ WATT

LOU BOYD

The unkindest cut: Watt’s photo project perfectly illustrates the devastation of the old-growth forests

THE RED BULLETIN

came back months later, I had a GPS tracker showing where I’d hiked.” The project has captured worldwide attention. “The photos hit home because what you’re looking at is the loss of trees upwards of a thousand years old. When a forest like that is cut down, it’s gone for ever.”

The harvesting of British Columbia’s ancient forests is an urgent environmental moment.

Less than 10 per cent of Vancouver’s original old-growth woodland is currently protected, and an area of untouched forest equivalent to more than 10,000 football fields is cut down each year. A co-founder of non-profit organisation Ancient Forest Alliance, Watt is not only documenting this devastation but successfully fighting against it. The alliance famously saved another forest, Avatar Grove, which was marked to be cut down in 2010. “That area has become an international old-growth destination, with hundreds of thousands of people visiting

every year,” says Watt. “The community has shifted towards a green economy based on bigtree tourism. It shows that oldgrowth forests are worth more standing than they are on the back of a logging truck.”

All hope is not lost for those forests that do remain. In the lead-up to last October’s local election, the BC government promised to implement a new era of protection for the most endangered old-growth trees.

Now the election has been won, Watt is calling on everyone moved by his photo series to hold them accountable to their pledge. “I encourage everyone to write to and phone the politicians in BC, regardless of where you live. This is a global issue and these are some of the finest temperate rainforests left on our planet.

Although we lost this forest, we may be able to save many others because of it.” ancientforestalliance.org; tjwatt.com 21

The world did a pretty good job of looking after itself before humans came along. Now, architects are taking lessons from Mother Earth

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1. Photovoltaic (solar) cells positioned at optimal angles; 2. Rotating roof; 3. Rainwater collection and reuse; 4. Wind power harnessed; 5. Edible gardens; 6. Elevated to prevent flooding; 7. Energy storage

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“Nothing is invented, for it is written in nature first,” said the great Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí, whose Modernisme buildings – most famously the Basílica de la Sagrada Família in Barcelona – sprout from the ground like bizarre, ornate vegetation. The natural world has long influenced building design, dating back at least as far as the Ancient Greeks; now, Sydney-based architect Koichi Takada has taken this one step further, creating a house that’s not only inspired by plants but acts and moves like one.

Built in the fields of Umbria, Italy, Sunflower House mimics the behaviour of its namesake, turning its face towards the Sun to harness its rays. Rotating around a central ‘stem’, its solar panels produce up to 40 per cent more energy than the static equivalent. Unused energy is stored or fed to the power grid; all rainwater is collected, too.

“It’s a house powered by the sun, collecting more power

THE RED BULLETIN

LOU BOYD

Stemming the damage

KOICHI TAKADA ARCHITECTS

SUNFLOWER HOUSE

than you need,” says Takada of his creation, which was commissioned by Bloomberg Green, the US media group’s division focusing on climatechange news and solutions.

“You don’t pay bills, and you can possibly sell your extra energy back to the city.”

In addition to its solarenergy-harnessing capabilities, the design employs an ancient and eco-friendly natural airconditioning system invented by the Romans. The Sun heats a chimney, causing the air inside it to rise. This, in turn, draws air into cool clay pipes buried below ground, lowering it to the temperature of the surrounding soil.

In December last year, the United Nations reiterated its mission to make the world entirely carbon-neutral by 2050. Takada believes that Sunflower House could be the catalyst for a larger architectural movement that will help achieve this aim. “This is an opportunity to reverse climate change by designing greener buildings,” says Takada. “[The principle that] ‘form follows nature’ draws on the lessons of the natural world, creating innovative designs that allow people to reconnect with nature and, ultimately, save our planet.”

Takada’s task is not an easy one. The construction industry currently accounts for almost 40 per cent of the world’s CO2 emissions, a statistic that has risen steadily over the past few decades. But he believes that by studying natural solutions around us, we can reverse the damage already done. “In the past, houses were designed to be static, but Sunflower House is dynamic, placing an emphasis on performance,” says Takada. “Countries have committed to carbon neutrality by 2050. This gives us just 30 years to restore what humankind has destroyed over the past 200.” koichitakada.com

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Tom Evans

Escaping the comfort zone The ultrarunner started his sporting career for a bet, and discovered a love of pushing his limits that has kept him moving ever since Words TOM WARD Photography BEN LUMLEY

“My thought process can best be described as ‘minimal’,” laughs Tom Evans, describing his 2017 entry into the six-day, 251km Marathon des Sables, held annually in the Sahara Desert. As well as being possibly the toughest race on the planet, it also happened to be Evans’ first. “I knew it was the hardest race out there, and I thought there was no point in doing the easy ones,” he says. “I’d jump straight in at the deep end.”

Though he lacked any formal training, Evans’ self-belief carried him to an unbelievable third place – the fastest time run by any European in the race’s history – and, naturally, skyrocketed him into the world of professional ultrarunning.

“I was always sporty,” explains the 29-year-old. “I represented England at rugby, hockey and athletics events while at school. Looking back, I wasn’t necessarily the best, but I always tried the hardest. After school, I realised I didn’t want to go to university, so at 18 I joined the army. I’d always felt I had something to prove, and in the army an easy way to do that was by keeping fit. The army is an endurance-based organisation, which suited me really well.”

After the Marathon des Sables, Evans capped off a successful streak by winning the 101km CCC race at the 2018 Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc.

The following year, he left the army to pursue running full-time, and he hasn’t looked back. Next on his

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schedule is Red Bull’s official charity partner event the Wings for Life World Run on May 9 – a unique race with no finish line, in which runners compete against a ‘catcher car’ until it overtakes them. This year’s participants will still compete at the same time, but – due to COVID-19 restrictions – they’ll run against a virtual car, via an app.

It’ll be different from Evans’ past experiences at the annual event, but he’s a master of adaptability.

Currently holed up in Loughborough with his fiancée, professional triathlete Sophie Coldwell, he’s keeping busy by switching snowy trails for road running and has even smashed the Three Peaks challenge on a treadmill. Here’s how Evans keeps pushing forward… the red bulletin: You came third in the Marathon des Sables after entering for a bet. How? tom evans: My friends did [the race] in 2016 and finished in the top 300.

I thought I could do better, and over a few beers they bet me I couldn’t. I signed up the next morning. There’s a lot of crossover with the military, because you’re sleeping outside under the stars and pushing yourself to your limits every day. Through running the race, I discovered this ability to suffer for a very long time in the heat. Two years later, I left the army to become a full-time professional athlete.

Ultrarunning is one of the most punishing sports. Is it all down to this natural ability?

No, I train very hard and I get used to suffering. I know in any race there will come a point when I’ll

want to stop. When I get there it’s like, ‘Right, I knew it was going to happen, so now’s the time to embrace it, but also know that the minute after you stop, it’s going to stop hurting.’ I think I can withstand a lot, but I want to know how long I can actually keep feeling uncomfortable for.

Many people struggled to find focus during lockdown. What kept you motivated?

It’s very easy to keep a habit once you have it, but it’s very difficult to start the habit in the first place.

I think people go from never running at all to loving it. Then there’s the other side of that: as soon as you do stop something like running, it’s very difficult to start again. So, for me, it’s about keeping as much consistency as possible.

I always set mid-term and long-term goals – I’m very goals-based. Having gone from boarding school to the military, I like knowing what I’m doing. Typically I drive to the Peak District or Snowdon or the Lake District, where there are phenomenal trails, but I wasn’t able to do that in lockdown. So I started running from my door instead. Road running suits me well, because it’s easier to collect data on your run. You don’t have to pigeonhole yourself into a certain distance or event. I run because I love running, and it’s a brilliant thing to be able to do.

What’s your plan for the Wings for Life World Run? Because it’s a charity event, my goal is to raise as much awareness for spinal cord research as I possibly can by putting in a performance that people talk about. It’s going to be a long, uncomfortable run, which is my sweet spot. I think the best way people can physically prepare is to go on the website and play around with speeds; look at how far you can get [while] running at a certain pace. Because it’s on the app, you can challenge your friends virtually, which keeps the competition alive.

Join this year’s Wings For Life World Run at wingsforlifeworldrun.com/en

THE RED BULLETIN

“I train very hard and I get used to suffering”

THE RED BULLETIN

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Hannah Reid

Speaking truth to power British trio London Grammar’s ethereal pop songs have been streamed more than a billion times, but it’s only now that their lead singer has truly found her voice Words STEPHANIE PHILLIPS Photography WILL REID

Hannah Reid, best known as the vocalist of indie-pop trio London Grammar, casually reveals a major lockdown achievement as she chats from her West London home. “One positive is that instead of going out on the road, we’ve carried our creative process on,” says the 31-year-old singer, “so we’ve been writing loads and working on a fourth album.”

This is surprising news given that the long-awaited third album by the band – Reid, alongside guitarist Dan Rothman and drummer/keyboard player Dominic Major – only gets its release this month. A collection of deftly woven, Balearic-flavoured pop tracks, Californian Soul tackles toxic misogyny, the death of the American Dream, and Reid’s own personal growth. It demonstrates a newfound confidence she says is down to age, experience, and the influence of a new generation of inspirational female artists. the red bulletin: You found fame at quite a young age. How has that affected you? hannah reid: We were signed when we were 21, and it’s definitely changed me as a person. The music industry is a very tough landscape.

It’s completely male-dominated, and it was a little bit of a shock. Also, when you experience success you’re suddenly opened up to this world of other people’s opinions. You can lose your own sense of identity a bit.

But I feel like on this third album

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I’ve managed to get that back. I’ve changed a lot as a person, and there was just a different energy in what I was writing, and in the music. It’s kind of upbeat for us, but the lyrics are quite dark in places and a bit more aggressive.

Has confidence come with age?

On the first record, I was actually really lost and very vulnerable, like a lot of young people are at that age. As you get older, the things that you experience change you, and, yeah, I found a different kind of confidence. Whereas on the second record maybe I was hiding behind a bit of a veil of poetry, [on this record] I was just like, “I’m going to say whatever I want to say.”

Have you consciously taken on more of a leadership role in the band?

In terms of dealing with the industry, yes. If people don’t respect me as a leader, they won’t respect me at all. Because I’ve had such difficulty sometimes being the only female in the room, I was like, “If you guys support me in that way, I don’t think people can take advantage of us.” It’s an industry where you do have to have quite strong boundaries and a thick skin.

It’s a constant battle.

You’ve mentioned that you see the new album as a feminist record…

It’s definitely in the lyrics. I did have quite profound experiences being a woman in the music industry and then realising that when I came home from being on tour and spoke to my girlfriends about it, they were all having the same experiences. It

was disappointing and made me feel like, “Wow, the world has not moved on in the way I thought it had.”

Do you think the #MeToo movement has had a lasting effect on the music industry?

It made people self-reflect in the same way that Black Lives Matter has. Even really good men I worked with would be like, “I just didn’t realise that women felt this way.”

It’s been the biggest step forward.

Do you find inspiration in other female artists?

I love any art that’s made by women and is about being empowered.

The younger generation of female artists who are leading the way, like Arlo Parks and Billie Eilish – women who are quite a lot younger than me – have helped me. You can see it in them having control over their careers and saying everything they want to say.

What was it that you wanted to say with this record that you couldn’t before?

There are some songs where I’m speaking about those sexual politics or dynamics that go on between men and women, with men still holding that baton of power.

There’s more personal stuff that’s just about me losing myself in that environment and regaining a sense of who I was. I think I just wanted to say “Fuck you”, really.

Given your newfound confidence, would you ever be tempted to go solo?

There’s just a magic between us three [in the band] that I really cherish. No matter how the music changes or evolves from record to record, we’ve also evolved so much as a trio. It’s so fascinating to be a part of that. I do have a wish to maybe write a really obscure, tragic country record that probably no one would listen to. But that’s a long way off.

London Grammar’s album Californian Soil is out on April 16 on Ministry Of Sound; londongrammar.com

THE RED BULLETIN

“I’ve had difficulty being the only female in the room” THE RED BULLETIN

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Jill Wheatley

Moving mountains When the Canadian suffered a severe traumatic brain injury in 2014, what spelt an end to life as she knew it also marked the start of a new adventure Words RACHAEL SIGEE Photography VINAYAK JAYA MALLA

Jill Wheatley doesn’t like the word ‘accident’. Instead, she describes the moment her life was altered for ever as “when serendipity changed my trail”. It was 2014, and she was teaching sports science at a school just outside Munich when, during a lesson, she was hit on the head by a baseball. Her skull fractured, her brain suffered swelling and bleeding, and damage to her optic nerves left her with just 30-per-cent vision – her right eye would never open again.

In an instant, Wheatley, still in her early thirties, was transformed from an independent “adventurous spirit” to the survivor of a traumatic brain injury (TBI), which also triggered a rare eating disorder that saw her weight plummet dangerously.

It would be more than two years before Ontario-born Wheatley left hospital to find that her life – her job, home, and German residency – no longer existed. Before “serendipity” intervened, Wheatley had spent every minute outdoors, so, despite her injuries and with nothing more to lose, she set off to ice-climb, ski and mountain-run her way around the world’s most spectacular massifs, from the Eiger Ultra Trail in the Alps to Nepal’s Annapurna.

She has documented her journey in a blog, Mountains of My Mind.

Last November, after months of lockdown in Kathmandu, Wheatley was about to climb the iconic Ama Dablam when she learned that her father had unexpectedly passed

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away. “I honestly feel like my life experience prepared me for it, and I was more accepting of relinquishing control,” she says. “There was nothing I could do. There was a strange sensation my dad was with me, that he could see. It gave me strength.”

She climbed on and made it to the summit… the red bulletin: What was it about mountains that called to you? jill wheatley: I’ve always been drawn to mountains and the outdoors. I felt like no matter what mountain, it couldn’t challenge me the way those 26 months in hospital did. Once, when I was really sick in Colorado, a doctor came to introduce himself. I was pulling my tubes out and doing everything a patient shouldn’t do. He said, “I understand you like mountains. These are your lifelines. If you’re on an expedition, you’re on a team. We are your team who’ll help get you to your Everest.”

Two years ago, the first time I saw Everest, his words came back to me.

No one climbs a mountain alone.

How much of a challenge is travel on your global expeditions?

In Canada and the US, there’s an assumption that every adult can drive. Why am I not running more in the Canadian Rockies? Because it’s really hard to access if you’re visually impaired. It’s not like in Switzerland where you can hop on a train and it takes you door to door. That was disheartening at first. However, I think the places I choose now reflect that. I learned that Chamonix, for example, is great because I can base myself somewhere, and if I’m there a month I can do 30 different trails.

Other than your loss of vision, how does your TBI affect you?

You can see the scars from my physical falls, but you don’t see the cognitive function. I have no depth perception, so I fall; I pour my water and miss the cup. Not every day, but often. Balance, coordination, concentration – all of those things needed training. Sometimes I need to remind myself that it is a lot. Still, in my mind I’m not being gracious to myself, I want no excuses. However, it doesn’t matter what pace I go.

That’s not what’s important. I’m here when I wasn’t expected to survive, and look at what I’ve chosen to do.

What now helps you deal with difficult moments?

Impermanence. I was introduced to Vipassana, a type of meditation that starts with 10 days of silence. The root of it is basically that everything is constantly changing. I allowed myself to think deeper into that, shift my perspective, and recognise that actually I’m a very good example of impermanence. I don’t even like the word ‘recovery’, because to me that means going back to something, and I don’t want to go back to the person I was before. I feel like the lessons I’ve learned from my TBI are more than I ever would without it.

The power of perspective is the most significant lesson; that shift from what I’ve lost to what I’ve gained.

Adversity doesn’t look the same to everyone. It might not be a TBI or vision loss, but every human can connect to adversity, to vulnerability, to being open and authentic.

How does it feel to have reached a summit?

Honestly, I feel gratitude. I get goosebumps every time I talk about it. I look at a picture of me on a summit, and in the other half of my brain I’m lying in a hospital bed in Colorado hoping that I don’t wake up. I’m so thankful that these people didn’t give up on me. On top of a summit, it’s me standing there, but it’s so many other people who have got me there. mountainsofmymind.com

THE RED BULLETIN

“Adversity doesn’t look the same to everyone”

THE RED BULLETIN

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MAKING MOVES Almost half a century after breaking burst onto the streets of the Bronx, meet the UK B-Boys and B-Girls helping reinvent, reinvigorate and reimagine their scene for a new era Words RUTH McLEOD and TRACY KAWALIK Photography GAVIN BOND

B-Girl Vanessa The 29-year-old Portuguese-born breaker won the 2019 Red Bull BC One Cypher UK final with a victory over Leeds’ RaWGina.

As well as competing, she’s committed to teaching and promoting up-and-coming B-Girls

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Breaking

T

he world of competitive breaking usually involves spot-lit, sweat-drenched battles in packed-out venues for hyped-up crowds.

But on a Sunday evening in early March, thanks to lockdown, B-Girl Vanessa Marina is performing to the world via her mobile phone, in a small hired studio in Hackney Wick, east London.

The Portuguese-born 29-year-old is competing live against Argentina-based B-Girl Carito for a place in the final in Texas, and, despite the unusually subdued backdrop, her energy is characteristically high. Vanessa’s feet shift rhythmically and instinctively as she moves fluidly between freezes, footwork and spins to a salsa-infused hip-hop soundtrack, seemingly propelled as much by her self-confidence as by her athletic ability, honed through hours of practice.

“When we dance, it shows our personality,” she says. “It shows character. Someone shy can become their true self. Breaking is a language everyone around the world can understand, and a battle is a conversation. The person who goes first asks a question; the person who battles next gives the answer. No two movements will ever be the same.”

It’s this marriage of artistic interpretation and gymnastic skill that makes breakdancing – or breaking, as it’s known in the scene – a unique proposition. Part art, part sport, breaking was conceived on the streets of New York in the 1970s, but has since spread around the world. More recently, its growing popularity has resulted in its 32

– controversial for some – inclusion in the 2024 Paris Olympics. An unlikely alliance of objectors has arisen following news of breaking’s Games debut, comprising both traditional sportspeople sceptical of its credentials, and old-school breaking purists afraid that mainstream exposure might dilute the culture. But, for a fresh generation of UK breakers keen to push the boundaries of their scene, it’s just the latest step in a journey that was already well underway. These B-Boys and B-Girls are athletes, artists, activists and adventurers, using their art form to express themselves to an ever-expanding audience.

“It’s great to have new platforms and opportunities,” says Vanessa, who, at 18, moved from Lisbon to London to pursue a breaking career and has since helped to evolve the UK B-Girl scene.

“The breaking scene is now thriving in London and across the UK. Scenes have to evolve; nothing stands still. As these new opportunities are born, we must embrace them and what they can do for the culture and our future. If we stand still, the scene will die” Though it was born in the Bronx, where breaking battles and cyphers – freestyle battles fought in the centre of a circle of B-Boys and B-Girls – were used for everything from self-expression to settling scores and unifying neighbourhoods, breaking has decades-old roots in the UK, too. Over the course of UK breaking history, London has been home to prestigious battles such as the UK B-Boy

AJ the Cypher Cat Breaking is in the blood of this 19-yearold – his father and uncles were part of the scene back in the ’80s. AJ – real name Aijion Brown – reached last year’s BC One Cypher UK semi-finals and now he has his eye on the chance to represent Team GB at the 2024 Paris Olympics THE RED BULLETIN

“As soon as I won my first battle, aged eight, I told my dad that one day I’d compete at BC One” AJ the Cypher Cat

Breaking

“I started breaking with a class at King’s College. “I thought, ‘Why not push myself to do something I’ve never done before?’”

B-Girl Nat Championships, which not only made newspaper headlines and sold out Brixton Academy numerous times but helped keep the national scene alive.

Small breaking hubs have long existed across the country, from Swindon to Aberdeen, and current Red Bull BC One Cypher UK champions RaWGina and Kid Karam are from Leeds and Derby respectively. In an internet age when it’s as easy for a B-Girl from Taunton to throw up her hardest moves online for the world to see as for a B-Boy in rural Kazakhstan, top breakers are not only indemand internationally for battles, performances and judging panels, but have the chance to pass on their skills to a new generation hungry to learn.

“The UK scene is still a bit chaotic; it’s going through a transitional phase right now,” says 25-year-old Bristol B-Boy and contemporary artist Izaak Brandt. “But it’s the least divided it ever has been. Some of the older generations in the UK have a fixed idea of what breaking should be – that it should be raw and people shouldn’t get on, that it should be extremely exclusive – but I think younger generations feel a longing to connect and get on with other members of their generation. And, thanks to the internet, there’s been more dialogue between them, which has created more unity. We’re starting to see people coming together.”

W B-Girl Nat Natasha Lee’s passion for breaking has taken her around the world, but her B-Girl career was almost cut short after she suffered a spinal injury.

Thanks to sheer perseverance and dedicated training, however, the Hong Kong-born breaker has bounced back stronger than ever THE RED BULLETIN

hen dedicating yourself to a scene that demands practice time, often leads to injury and offers little financial reward, passion and resilience are key. Izaak got into B-Boying at the age of 11 after seeing Sunni Brummitt, also 11, perform at an event in Bristol. “I immediately wanted to get involved,” says Izaak. “Breaking lives within the realm of [both] sport and art. It’s a real intersection between both worlds and merges them perfectly, harmoniously. That appealed to me. Sunni has been one of my closest friends ever since.”

Izaak and Sunni perfectly embody each end of the spectrum of possibilities within breaking: Izaak’s wild artistic experimentation at one end and the fierce athleticism of Sunni – famed for his impossiblelooking headspins and explosive creativity in battle – at the other. With multiple world championship performances to his name, a contract as a Red Bull BC One All Star, and a reputation as one of the best

B-Boys the UK has produced, Sunni is a poster boy for British breaking and has helped to put it back on the world map. “I had very few [UK breakers] to look up to,” says Sunni, who began breaking alongside climbing and playing football as a child in south-west England. “So, when I did my come-up, anything going good for me was a bonus. We’ve got a big underdog situation in the UK that we’ve kind of adopted and accepted and embraced. I might have got us some recognition, but we still have a long way to go.”

Breakers such as Sunni aren’t wary of their sport being professionalised in the push for progress on the global competitive stage. In common with many other elite breakers, the 26-year-old already trains like a top-tier gymnast – six hours per day, five days per week – and is quick to dismiss those reluctant to see breaking grow in mainstream popularity. “There are people who are 40 and used to be B-Boys and that’s what makes them cool and ‘hip hop’,” says Sunni, who’s in the process of moving back to Bristol after a stint living in Holland. “If they see B-Boys competing in tights on the telly, they’re not going to feel so cool. But that’s not the point of it; when they were those kids breaking on the street, if someone had said, ‘Do you want a dance studio, a nutritionist, a sports therapist?’, you know they’d all have said yeah. They were out there because of necessity, not a personal choice. People get that confused.”

But in this uniquely artistic sport, where there’s no universal regulation or regimentation, what may need to change in the shift towards the mainstream is how battles are judged. Currently, breakers attempt to wow crowds and win over judges with their own unique style, whether that’s about power moves (explosive manoeuvres such as headspins, flips and gravity-defying athletics) or top rock – upright footwork that requires a mixture of coordination, flexibility, rhythm, and out-of-this-world musicality.

Winners and losers are decided by a panel of judges who weigh up elements from tricks to character and creativity to decide who becomes the champion – and right now there’s no template for this.

“This is why we’re right in the middle between an art form and a professional sport,” says Sunni, who before the pandemic would be battling, performing and judging in a different country every week, to the thunderous applause of fans in packed-out arenas.

“It’s subjective. What you look for as a judge depends on the event and where you are. When I go to China, they teach breaking in dance schools where 500 pupils might be taught by one tutor and do the exact same rounds, with the same vocabulary, so you have to judge that in a certain way. Then you go to France and the scene seems to be split into either full-onstyle character cats or the no personality tricks and power breakers [one who focuses on power moves].

So it’s about being educated to know what to judge on, rather than having a standard set of criteria.”

For most breakers, competitions represent the quickest route to recognition. Presently, the pinnacle of battle success in the global breaking scene is 35

Izaak Brandt A multidisciplinary artist as well as a breaker, Izaak has given up battling and instead represents and promotes the sport through various creative mediums.

The 25-year-old hopes increased exposure will help make the breaking scene more inclusive and open-minded

Break Breaking dance

“It’s a fantastic time right now; I believe entering the mainstream will only enrich breaking” Izaak Brandt

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Breaking

B-Boy Sunni The poster boy of British breaking, Sunni Brummitt moved from Malaysia to the UK as a child and began breaking at the age of 10, joining his first crew, Toy Soldiers, soon after.

In 2019, 14 years and many battle victories later, he became the first UK breaker to make the Red Bull BC One All Stars team THE RED BULLETIN

seminal international event Red Bull BC One, which began back in 2004. Annual national qualifiers feed through to the highly anticipated world final, which Sunni has reached three times and has been held everywhere from Tokyo and Mumbai to this year’s upcoming event in Gdansk, Poland. The final, which sees the best 16 B-Boys and B-Girls go head-to-head, is watched live or online by most of the world’s breaking population, helping to inspire the next generation of breakers to aim high.

“If you’re going to train, you should train to win everything,” says 19-year-old Wolverhampton breaker Aijion Brown, aka AJ the Cypher Cat – a name inspired by his love of battling. “As soon as I won my first battle, aged eight, I told my dad that one day I’d compete at BC One.” AJ’s education came from his B-Boy father Pablo’s DVDs, and also from his dad’s cousins – both were keen breakers during the UK’s first wave, back in the 80s. As a way of paying his respects, AJ offers free breaking classes during the college/school summer holidays. “The breaking scene in Wolverhampton is literally me and a couple of others!” he laughs. “Though there’s more of a family vibe in the UK, it’s also competitive. I train even harder, because I’m in two generations; I’m in Sunni’s generation as the youngest, and there’s also a whole generation under me, trying to take me out.”

In 2019, AJ was selected to compete at BC One for the first time as a wildcard and managed to reach the semi-finals. “Now I want multiple BC One titles,” he says. “I’ve always loved to battle. When I can beat Sunni, I’ll know I’m at the top in the UK. Then I can focus on reaching the worldwide level of breaking.”

Though battling is the most visible side of the breaking scene, for most it’s the physical embodiment of something that runs deeper. “When I dance, I feel proud,” says Sunni. “My goal with my dance isn’t validation; it’s that I’m good enough so that it can be my ticket to whatever I want, whether that’s work, respect, or being able to really express myself properly. I get worried about B-Boys when they go on a winning streak but then lose and disappear.

For me, [competitive] breaking is like playing chess: when I lose a game, I get pissed off, but it’s like, ‘Let’s start another match.’ Battling ain’t that deep – it’s the nature of the game. If you can learn how to lose, you actually win so much more.”

In contrast to his battle-ready childhood friend, artist Izaak is taking breaking in a different direction, pushing to change preconceptions about the scene in unexpected settings. “My decision not to pursue the battle direction was a lack of interest,” he says.

“After being heavily involved in the battle scene for a few years, I realised my creative energy could be used more effectively in other areas. I’ve taken breaking into other mediums: drawing, conceptual performance, animation, publications, painting, fashion, choreography, and now sculpture. It’s an ongoing exploration for me. There need to be way more touchpoints for people to connect with breaking, and I believe that’s one of my jobs – to proliferate

“Suffering losses is the nature of the game.

If you can learn how to lose, you actually win so much more” B-Boy Sunni breaking into spaces people may have not seen it before, so that it’s not just battling that’s visible.

It’s a fantastic time right now; I believe entering the mainstream will only enrich the culture. It’s important to have people of all genders, sexualities and walks of life in the discourse of breaking so it can be a more open-minded place. But it’s a long process.”

O

ne area that has been slow to change in breaking, both in the UK and worldwide, is gender equality. Women are still a distinct minority in what can be a hyper-masculine scene.

“As a woman in breaking, you have to work twice as hard for half the recognition,” says Vanessa.

“We are making progress, but, because it’s a maledominated scene, girls are doubtful they’ll be heard, so they don’t vocalise their opinions. That needs to change. I’ve experienced unfair situations like guys being given a good floor on the main stage while our B-Girl battle was on a rusty floor, or when we got paid less than the guys, or they didn’t want to pay us at all. I couldn’t be quiet – it caused a revolution in me.”

Vanessa is now part of B-Girl Sessions, a womanonly group seeking to promote female breakers and give them a place to come together. She also hosts workout sessions for B-Girls around the world, who Vanessa says have often learned breaking from men rather than focusing on the specific abilities of their own bodies. “I’m trying to give the girls more of a voice,” she says. “The women in this scene are here because they have something to say. I have something to say. B-Girls continue to be so strong in this scene, because it’s a marathon for us, not a sprint. But it is changing. BC One was the biggest platform to include girls four years ago, and I’ve seen the changes made since then. Suddenly, girls saw it was possible to reach this stage and be seen, be heard. And the call for gender parity at the 2024 Olympics could have even bigger consequences.”

London B-Girl Roxane Hackwood, aka Zana, who has been competing internationally since 2010, has witnessed firsthand the evolution of the B-Girl scene in the UK. “When I first started, B-Girls all dressed the same and pretty much moved the same,” she says, “whereas now you get girls who dance supergirly or are total powerheads etc. There’s so much scope within it. Initially, I hid my background in capoeira so it didn’t look like I was taking an easy 39

“When I first started, B-Girls all dressed the same and pretty much moved the same. Now, there’s so much scope” B-Girl Zana

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THE RED BULLETIN

Breaking

route. And I’ve always preferred power moves, but I was influenced away from them by coaches and other breakers who told me they would take too long to master. Now, there’s so much inspiration to draw upon to help you find your own voice, so I can integrate capoeira into my dance, and the flavour of it is coming through. Power will come next. I’ve learned to double down on the things I like.”

C

B-Girl Zana London breaker Roxane Hackwood has more than a decade of international competition experience. Her distinctive style, which incorporates elements of the Brazilian martial art capoeira, won her a place in the final eight at last year’s BC One Cypher UK

THE RED BULLETIN

lasses such as those offered by Sunni, AJ and Vanessa are bringing new breakers into the fold who might otherwise have missed the opportunity. “Most breakers you meet started out in the scene, but I started with a class at King’s College of all places!” says London-based, Hong Kong-born Natasha Lee, aka B-Girl Nat. “I thought, ‘Why not push myself to do something I’ve never done before?’” After getting hooked on breaking, the adventure-hungry 29-year-old travelled to Taiwan and linked up with B-Boys and B-Girls there, then journeyed on to Australia to do the same. But just as her skills were catching up with her passion, a devastating spinal injury almost stopped her in her tracks. Doctors told her to forget breaking and move on, but, after some recovery time, Nat redoubled her focus on training and came back to the UK stronger and with a newfound fire. Last year she made her UK cypher debut, and she’s now training with UK breaking pioneer and coach DJ Renegade, who has helped set up Breaking GB, an IOC-approved training collective, to support those who are determined to get to the Olympics.

That the UK scene is at this point today is testament to these breakers’ ability to evolve.

“It’s important to respect the founders and the work that’s come before us, because we’re building upon that,” says Zana. “But, with breaking, the idea should be that each new generation brings a different flavour to it. If that’s bringing new music, new styles, a new platform, we have to let it evolve.

It has to happen in order for [up-and-coming breakers] to feel engaged and form an attachment to it – the new generation doesn’t have a connection to Kool Herc or Grandmaster Flash any more.”

Back in Hackney Wick, Vanessa has completed the last of her three final rounds and watches her phone screen as she catches her breath, awaiting the judges’ decisions. All three vote in her favour.

She beams at the camera. “It was totally different to battle online,” she says. “Also, I’d gone one year without battling while I just worked on my breaking, so it was a good comeback. Each round I won just made me more sure of my skills, and by the time I came to the final I knew there was no other option but to win! It’s thanks to the motto I had when not battling last year: ‘You have to be ready so you don’t have to get ready.’”

Sounds like good advice for a scene on the verge of its big break.

Watch the B-Girls and B-Boys in battle on the Red Bull BC One YouTube channel; youtube.com 41

HIDDEN DEPTHS

Exploring narrow, unmapped underwater caves deep in the Mexican jungle is fraught with danger.

But, for two of the world’s most intrepid cave divers, what they discover in these unexplored passageways can be truly life-changing Words KLAUS THYMANN and RUTH McLEOD

Photography KLAUS THYMANN

Thymann enters the water of the cave – coloured yellow near the surface by tannic acid from recent rainfall – with his camera, watching closely for any sign that the underwater housing is leaking. A video light illuminates the path ahead, along with a light on his helmet, which he calls his ‘third hand’

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Cave exploration

K

laus Thymann is 300m inside an underwater cave in Mexico, 10m below dense jungle, navigating a constricted passageway that’s barely bigger than he is – around 60cm from floor to ceiling.

The Danish-born photographer and cave diver is shooting what are likely to be prehistoric human bones, so he has had to adopt a plank position with his arms outstretched, using his lungs to control his level in the water; if any part of him touches any surface, he could destroy these artefacts by disturbing silt that could also leave him with zero visibility.

Under this intense pressure, Thymann – who estimates he has spent several hundred hours in caves like these during his career – is the most stressed he’s ever been on a dive. But he knows that if he’s unable to stay calm, he’ll get through his supply of air too quickly and there’s a high chance he could drown.

This is cave diving at its most extreme.

Cave exploration is a better description, since most of the routes Thymann and his diving partner Alessandro Reato survey have not yet been mapped, making the pair the first humans in modern history to lay eyes on whatever awaits them around the next dark corner. “Your body 44

screams panic in these situations,” says Thymann. “You are underwater, in darkness, in a confined space, so stress levels are high. But your survival depends on your being calm. You have to develop the skills to subdue that intuitive fear.”

Squeezing expertly through spaces small enough to make most wince, these underwater explorers are willing to go where most can’t or won’t, carrying with them all the equipment they need to avert disaster if something goes wrong – and things often do. “It’s not really a question of if, but when, something will go wrong, meaning you just have to be prepared for it,” says Thymann. “There is no dive buddy. I frequently squeeze through gaps so small I have to tilt my head sideways, and in that position another diver can’t get to you.

“When it comes to kit, we have at least two of almost everything. Two is one, one is none, as we say. Packing and preparation are done with military precision, as even a little thing can be what saves the day. I don’t like risks. I work methodically and don’t deviate from my protocol – that’s how I justify doing this.

I plan, I prepare, and then of course I’ve had extensive professional training and

Top left: you can’t see it from the air, but beneath the dense jungle there’s access to the underwater caves. Above: they may be filled with air, but the dive tanks weigh more than 10kg each, meaning they’re ferried to site one by one THE RED BULLETIN

Locating the cave “We start out with our porter Jesus walking in front of the 4x4, chopping at vegetation with his machete, but at some point the road and jungle merge, so we get out and walk. Alex’s Italian arms get excited as he talks, disturbing a hornets’ nest. We run, but still get stung. We’re heading for the GPS THE RED BULLETIN

coordinates that mark the position of a cenote – our access point to the underwater river system.

We find cenotes from our Mayan contacts; from seeing on a map where the water should go; from diving and seeing light above; and from others who have told Alex they’ve found a hole in the jungle.”

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Time travel “I’ve been cave diving for less than 10 years, but I’ve dived all my life. I remember freediving as a kid, going down with a net to catch octopus in the Mediterranean. I like the challenge of cave diving; I like doing things that are complicated and haven’t been 46

done before. Once I enter the rabbit hole, I just want to go further into it. Diving the underwater rivers feels like entering a time capsule; time doesn’t exist, as there are no outside factors to disturb you – no daylight, no noise, just the sound of your

breathing. As we swim through the water, we enter an ancient time, experiencing what no one has for hundreds and thousands of years.

However, diving is also very much about time – you have to keep track of it to survive and know your limitations.”

THE RED BULLETIN

Cave exploration

“Exploration cave-diving isn’t for everyone – it takes claustrophobia to a new level” have built up experience. It helps that my personality is uber-rational, so I generally solve issues well under pressure – be that on a mountain, inside a glacier, deep underwater, or on the edge of a volcano.”

During a varied career as a journalist, photographer and explorer, London-based Thymann, 46, has trekked new routes to explore the glaciers of Uganda and Congo; was the first person to scuba-dive the world’s clearest lake, New Zealand’s Blue Lake; and has led expeditions to mountains on six continents, all with the aim of furthering knowledge and awareness of the climate crisis. And this mission, he says, is similarly important: “It’s an expedition with a purpose, and that’s what I find interesting. I need that purpose. All of the peaks have been summited, so now you get things being done in multiples – the Three Peaks Challenge or whatever – an artificial goal in order to set a new record.

I have a lot of respect for people who are able to do it, but there is no benefit to the world in the 100th person standing on top of a mountain. I’m trying to come back with something that benefits science and

helps us make informed choices about how we behave on this planet.”

It was in Mexico – Reato’s current home – that Thymann first met the Italian cave diver and former army cartographer, through friends, in 2016. The pair soon realised they shared a love of mapping and heading off the beaten track; Reato had explored more than 70km of the country’s caves. “I have a similar appetite to Alex in terms of going places where others don’t,” says Thymann. “Even most people who enjoy cave diving won’t crawl down a piece of rope into a hole in the jungle they can barely squeeze through after walking for miles through dense jungle. But we like the parts that are still really wild, and to get to that frontier you must engage with nature differently.

Exploration cave-diving certainly isn’t for everyone – our sort of cave diving takes claustrophobia to a new level. With Alex, I feel that I’ve found a partner in crime.”

So, when Reato contacted Thymann last year to tell him about his discovery of this ancient skeleton, the Dane was all in. “In this case, if it wasn’t the bones and the fascinating insights into the past they might give us, it could be for an environmental purpose, like trying to map underground rivers to help protect them,” says Thymann. “The caves here in Mexico are unique; they’re the world’s largest underground system and we need to preserve them – for the habitat, for the reef, for what it provides, and just because it’s a huge archaeological site.”

Using calculations based on historic water levels, they know the bones could

Above left: Thymann – providing the only light in the pitch-black cave – follows the navigational line.

The scenery changes constantly: “Two kicks of your fins and you’re somewhere that looks totally different.” Right: Reato readies his mask for diving THE RED BULLETIN

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Cave exploration

Thymann squeezes through a tight gap, disturbing silt that affects visibility. In spaces this small, he has to crawl.

Opposite: Reato leads the dive deep into the cave. “The only thing we leave behind is bubbles,” says Thymann

Lining the route “Exploration of the underwater caves on the Yucatán only began in the 1980s. Back then, mostly American cave-divers would use single-engine aircraft to fly over the jungle, trying to spot cenotes from the air, and would throw something down to mark the spot. Then they’d walk through the jungle to find the marker. Nowadays we have drones and GPS, but no technology has been created that can overcome the

complexity of mapping underwater. The main method of navigation is still the same: a continuous line of nylon string from the open water all the way to wherever we’re going in the cave. When caves are explored, the line is left underwater with arrows pointing towards the exit at any intersection. Every cave diver knows how to navigate in total blindness by holding onto the line and feeling the arrows.”

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Cave exploration

“There’s a sense of awe about the find… it makes you humble” be more than 9,000 years old, which would make them some of the oldest ever discovered in the country. And the race was on to document the find and collect a sample for analysis, guaranteeing the bones official protection from looters who plunder sites such as these.

“We knew we had to keep the exact location of the bones to ourselves,” says Thymann. “What has happened in the past is there’s been an archaeological find, but then you can’t surround it in barbed wire, and when people have come back it’s gone. To me, it’s such a weird thing. I don’t understand it. Even though it’s probably a very small minority doing the looting, they pose a disproportionately big risk. It happens all over the world; there’s a black market for artefacts. So we knew we had to be careful – and quick.”

Thymann doesn’t drink at all for at least a week before a dive. He exercises every day and sticks to a healthy diet – extra pounds do nothing for your ability to inch through cramped spaces. “For weeks, I prepared from my base in Europe.

For an expedition, I bring more than 100 items. I keep things in working order, but I still test it all before heading out.

Alex sent me a sketch of the area with the bones and we discussed approaches.

We have defined roles: Alex leads the exploration, and I document it and create the material the archaeologists and scientists need.”

When Thymann arrived in Tulum to meet Reato and head into the jungle, he was – as always – prepared for anything.

But, no matter how many times he ventures into the depths of the Yucatán underwater caves, it never becomes routine. “Before heading into the cave, I felt a mixture of extreme excitement but also disbelief,” Thymann says. “I was thinking, ‘These are prehistoric human bones and this is insanely special.’ There is awe around it. It makes you humble in a way. You’re just looking at a tiny piece of a very big puzzle. And that’s a very healthy way of looking at things sometimes. It reminds you that your little life is not so significant.”

Kit list Preparation is key, and a mission of this kind requires 44kg of vital equipment 1. Two independent tanks with a regulator and pressure gauge attached 2. Fins. Thymann uses normal fins, which are slightly longer and heavier than cave fins and help counterbalance the weight of his camera 3. Wetsuit. He has a 5mm suit, hood, 3mm vest, and boots 4. Secondary dive light (first back-up), which is attached to his helmet with a bungee cord 5. Helmet, which is customised to hold lights 6. BCD (buoyancy control device) with two bladders – the second is a back-up 7. Primary light, attached to a battery with a cable 8. Video lights 9. Line markers, used for navigation.

Thymann’s are bespoke, circular ‘cookie’-shaped

markers, so on wellused lines he can feel which are his 10. Third light (second back-up) 11. Dive pouch, which holds tools and spare parts, reels and a spare mask for deeper dives 12. Camera housing with dome and handle 13. Underwater flashes 14. Dive mask 15. Bottom timer, which displays depth and time (back-up to dive computer) 16. Housing for a small compact camera (mainly back-up) 17. Surface marker, which can be inflated at the surface entry point with a line attached or, once submerged, float camera housing to the surface quickly in case of an issue 18. Primary reel 19. Dive computer 20. Wrist slate, used for navigation 21. Bigger slate and pencil (with wrist strap), used for advanced notes

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Fully equipped “When cave diving, everything’s complicated. Communication underwater is complicated, because you can’t talk, so you use sign language. But then, a lot of time in caves you can’t see, either, so you communicate with light signals. Then, if we’re doing something that involves a fairly complex task, we use a slate that we can write on with a pencil.

Cave diving in itself is taxing; the basics you have to monitor are time, depth, gas consumption, and navigation. Then adding something else complex, like doing photogrammetry [surveying and mapping] or THE RED BULLETIN

photography underwater, is extremely difficult. I have to know where every piece of kit is, by feel, so I can reach it in zero visibility if I need to, and know how to instantly unclip and untangle it. For instance, my pencil has a bungee cord that sits around my wrist like a bracelet. If I’m writing, that’s a tool I might need for the recalculation of gases, and for navigation too, so that pencil is insanely important. But then I do have a spare pencil in my pouch.

And I carry a knife to sharpen it underwater if I need to.”

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Slow and steady “Having swum hundreds of metres into the cave, I’m in an appendix part of the cave, hovering above prehistoric bones. The space is so tight there’s less than an elbow’s length between the dome on my underwater-camera housing and skull parts including loose teeth that lie beneath the fine-grained silt. Any wrong move will disturb this archaeological site and cause damage. It’ll also cause a silt cloud to rise, creating zero visibility, which is a really bad scenario.

There’s so little room I can’t even swim, so I’m planking, stretching out my body, arms and legs. I’m being positioned

by Alex, who’s holding me by the ankles and manoeuvring me around. To navigate, I signal using my hands – index finger forward and Alex slowly

pushes me forward. As I try to remain zen in this cavediving yoga position, Alex hits the top of my leg. We’ve rehearsed this and I know what to do. I release a tiny bit of air from my lungs and descend about 5cm, just enough to avoid a lowhanging part of the cave roof.

Every small movement here is a feat in itself. We move a few centimetres at a time, across an imaginary grid, to document everything.

I check my pressure gauges constantly to ensure I’m not using too much air and that I can still get out of here. The whole operation takes 70 minutes. I shoot about 500 images of the area where the skull is, which will be put into a photogrammetry model so scientists can navigate the cave on a computer screen.”

Cave exploration

Bubbles created by the divers accumulate and merge at the roof of the cave. Here, it’s essential they don’t come into contact with the porous cast rock that surrounds them; even a small impact will cause damage

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Cave exploration

Off the chart

Reato lays down a fresh navigational line from his exploration reel in this unexplored cave and ties it off to a stalagmite

“Mapping is a big part of what I do. Whether it’s mapping glaciers or new trekking routes in Uganda, I try to map out new terrain, both in a conceptual and very straightforwardly practical manner, and these underground river systems are one of the only places on the planet that haven’t been mapped. That makes it very exciting. There are many risks – the equipment can fail, the cave can collapse, you can have a

heart attack underwater, or get lost in a cloud of silt – but the reality is that most deaths while cave diving happen due to navigational errors. Cave diving follows a tried-and-tested method of having a string to follow out, but the caves are not simple one-lane roads – they’re more like distorted spider webs. One wrong turn can lead you further away from the open water, and at some point you run out of air.”

Thymann uses UV light to assess damage to the bones. Below: close to an intact jawbone lies a molar with good potential for DNA extraction

Body of evidence “There are a lot of indications that this is a prehistoric skeleton. For now, that’s based on the historic water levels and the current water depth. By combining the two measurements, you can see what’s realistic. The depth of the site is 10m, which means that the last time the caves were dry in this area was between 8,000 and 10,000 thousand years ago. And it’s totally unreasonable to think somebody could have died and floated into these caves against the current. So it makes these bones potentially some of the oldest human remains to be found in Mexico.

But that will depend on the THE RED BULLETIN

exact date. The water-level calculations indicate the youngest the bones should be, but of course there’s nothing to say these bones couldn’t have been here for a significant period before the water level rose. For now, having completed this part of the mission, we head out and surface. It’s a success, and we have all the material we need to file permits with the Mexican authorities that allow us to take a sample for analysis.

The DNA can reveal fascinating insights into our ancestors, and underline the huge archaeological value of these river systems.”

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TAKING THE LEAP How the women of RED BULL FORMATION transformed freeride mountain biking for ever

PARIS GORE

Words JEN SEE

Rocks off: Hannah Bergemann drops into the top of her line at the firstever Formation in October 2019

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he sun had just begun to rise near Virgin, Utah, when American rider Hannah Bergemann began to climb. Shouldering her 16kg downhill bike, Bergemann walked steadily up a narrow desert ridgeline. When she reached the top, she looked down the line that she and her dig crew had patiently carved out of the red desert sand, peeling back layers of prehistoric stone. If Bergemann felt any nerves, she didn’t show them.

She began to ride. With precision, Bergemann followed the narrow track unwinding along the canyon wall as the landscape blurred beneath her wheels.

She hit her first jump, flying over the gap. The ground dropped into wide-open air beneath her. Then came a series of ledges, a staircase made for giants, formed out of rock layers, none of them laid straight. A steep chute sent her

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hurtling downwards until, at last, Bergemann arrived at a final jump. She soared over the gap cleanly, her bike’s suspension compressing under the force of the landing.

Bergemann had come to Virgin for Red Bull Formation, a freeride camp for women. The groundbreaking October 2019 event brought together six of the world’s best freeride mountain bikers and gave them the opportunity to ride in the storied Utah terrain, made famous by the almost exclusively male bike event Red Bull Rampage, a notoriously testing invitation-only contest that’s now one of the biggest on the global calendar.

After five days in the desert, no longer could anyone say that women lacked the skills to ride Utah’s intense and unforgiving terrain. These riders had transformed the landscape of women’s THE RED BULLETIN

KATIE LOZANCICH, PARIS GORE

Trailblazers: Micayla Gatto (right) takes a break to compare notes with Vaea Verbeeck

After three dig days, the women had created three very different lines In the swing: Vero Sandler digs her line in the desert sun of Virgin, Utah

Track star: Sandler shows her classic style as she charges down the mountain

Formation

mountain biking; they had created the foundations for women’s freeride to fly.

“It gave me confidence to start from a blank slate on the mountain and make it into something rideable that pushed my limits,” says Bergemann. “There hasn’t been a lot of space for women to pursue freeride – I feel like this is the start.”

Formation’s roots go back to 2017, when Rebecca Rusch travelled to Rampage as a guest. A decorated endurance mountain biker, Rusch had never seen the iconic event in person.

She stood in awe of the riding skills on display, but couldn’t help wondering why no women were competing. She began to ask questions. “I was the pot stirrer,” she says.

Rusch learned that Rampage had never specifically excluded women, but

cycling brand Liv came along in 2013, she jumped at the chance to do something new. She became a brand ambassador and built a portfolio of travel, filming, clinic events, and freeriding. Holden’s new role also opened the way to chase her dream of qualifying for Rampage.

“There wasn’t a path to Rampage for women, because it had never been done before,” she says. “I just tried to spend a lot of time out there and be a sponge and learn as much as I possibly could.”

After spending several years digging at Rampage and riding the terrain in Virgin, Holden put all her chips on the table. Together with a videographer and photographer, Holden went to the desert to make a movie she hoped would score her an invite to Rampage. “I put everything into it,” she says. Her attempt ended quickly, though, when she crashed and tore her calf muscle. Two years of injuries followed, while the level of riding at Rampage rose exponentially. “It was really emotional,” she says. “I realised that dream wasn’t going to come true.”

Even as Rusch began asking questions, Holden still felt the sting of regret. “I had wanted to be the girl who made Rampage,” she says. At the same time, she had begun

PARIS GORE

This was the riders’ first chance to collaborate to push the boundaries of their sport

none had ever qualified. “I felt like I had to be the one to push. I was not a freeride athlete, so it wasn’t like I was out for myself,” she says. “I had no skin in the game; it was just the right thing to do.”

With that push, the conversation about where women fit into the Rampage picture began in earnest. “There were some hard conversations,” Rusch recalls.

The next year, a crew of Red Bull athletes, female gravity riders and Rampage veterans gathered around a table to discuss the idea of a women’s event in Virgin. Should women be added to Rampage? Should there be a separate event? No one knew exactly what equality and inclusion for women looked like in the context of Rampage.

“I think people just could not picture what it would look like for a woman to ride [Rampage],” recalls Katie Holden, a now-retired American downhill pro who was at the table that night. “It’s just this dude environment. It’s hardcore and it’s gnarly.”

Holden had her own history with Rampage. Like many female riders, Holden had started her career as a racer, but it had never felt like the right fit.

When the offer to partner with women’s

Route-one cycling: British World Cup rider Tahnée Seagrave takes the path of least resistance THE RED BULLETIN

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“A lot of people didn’t believe in Formation until Formation came to be” Katie Holden

to come to terms with what had gone wrong for her. In retrospect, she could see that although she came close to reaching the heights required to compete at Rampage, she didn’t have the perfect skill set to do it. And she saw that her approach had isolated her in crucial ways.

So, when the chance came to design a women’s event in Virgin, Holden was all in. Here was a way to put her experience to work and build a space for women to succeed. “I don’t like to say that I failed, because I don’t really believe in failure, but my experience was a stepping-stone for Formation,” she says. On a drive to her mother’s house on Whidbey Island from her home in Bellingham, Washington, Holden pulled over to sketch the outlines of a women’s freeride camp. By the time she arrived, she knew: Formation was on.

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hen New Zealander Vinny Armstrong stepped off the plane in Las Vegas, she’d never seen the desert. “It feels like a different planet,” she says. Known for her stylish airs, at the time Armstrong stood at a crossroads in her career.

“I was really tossing up whether I was going to keep trying to be a World Cup racer or do a freeride career,” she says.

The six riders invited to Formation came from diverse corners of the mountain biking world, but most shared a background in World Cup downhill racing. As Holden considered riders, she felt the experience of learning World Cup tracks and dealing with the pressures of racing would help them navigate the steep challenges posed by riding in Virgin.

Holden also felt the need to prove that women could handle riding the area’s unforgiving terrain. She wanted to set them up for success. “A lot of people didn’t believe in Formation before Formation came to be,” she says. “So I felt like we had to make it perfect in order for people to jump on the train.”

The sandstone walls of the canyons around Virgin are marked with tracks and 62

jump lines that riders have built over time. During its 12-year history, Rampage has used several sites in the area, and the remnants of many features remain. “It was exciting just to see all that in front of my eyes,” says Veronique Sandler, a New Zealand-born rider now based in south Wales, who focuses on filming. She recognised a number of the jumps from seeing them in Instagram clips posted by Utah-based riders such as Jaxson Riddle and Ethan Nell.

British World Cup racer Tahnée Seagrave and Canadian riders Micayla Gatto and Vaea Verbeeck completed the group of six, and, on the first day, the women headed to one of the original Rampage sites to acclimatise to the terrain. “Just getting used to the exposure, there are times when your brain goes, ‘No, that’s not even something I’m going to try,’” says Verbeeck, who won the overall title at the Crankworx series in 2019. Riding in the desert, some of them for the first time, the group tested the traction and braking points as they began to uncover the desert’s secrets. “It takes a bit to get used to it, because you still get heaps of grip, even while sliding and drifting everywhere,” says Armstrong.

“It’s just so sick.”

The first day also let the women reconnect. All six riders knew one another from past events, but typically they spent their time competing against each other.

From the start, Holden envisioned Formation as a collaborative effort to raise the level of the sport. The women embraced the concept. “We were legit standing next to each other, discussing everything together, brainstorming together, trying to make it work together – for each other,” says Verbeeck.

The next day, the women and their crews headed to the 2015 Rampage site and began digging the lines they planned to ride. An often under-appreciated element of Rampage is the skill required to dig tracks and features into the walls of the canyons. “One of the hardest parts is seeing raw terrain and being able to visualise how to turn it into something you want to ride,” says Bergemann.

Both Bergemann and Sandler spend hours digging at home, but working in the desert was different. “I do a lot of digging, but it’s so different out there,” says Sandler. “[New Zealand rider] Casey Brown was injured, unfortunately, but she’s done digging at Rampage before and she had tons of tips for us.”

Joining the six riders – and underlining the fact that the desire to push women’s freeride transcends not only bike specialisms but sports – came supporters including freeride fans Michelle Parker, a big-mountain skier, and Puerto Rican motocross racer Tarah Gieger.

After three dig days, the women had created three very different lines.

Bergemann and Gatto went big with exposed, high-consequence features.

Bergemann and her dig team built a long, steep track with multiple drops and gap jumps. With help from Rusch, Parker and Gieger, Gatto sculpted a fast chute down the narrow spine of a ridgeline. Her line included two blind step downs.

THE RED BULLETIN

KATIE LOZANCICH

Formation

Dream team: the athletes, dig crews, organisers and mentors whose combined efforts made Formation a reality celebrate the breakthrough event

Across the canyon face, Sandler, Verbeeck, Armstrong and Seagrave collaborated on a flowing track they dubbed the ‘party line’. These riders sought space to show their style and throw a few tricks into the mix. “At first, it was like, ‘This looks crazy!’” says Verbeeck. “But by the time we rode it we didn’t know how easy it would feel.”

Their line included a series of drops, an arcing berm (a narrow raised shelf), and a jump line at the end.

“Every line showed each rider’s personality, and that’s what I really love about freeride,” says Brown, who competed in Proving Grounds, a Rampage qualifying event, in 2019 and attended THE RED BULLETIN

Formation in a supporting role, due to a broken collarbone. “It’s an art form rather than just a race.”

As the first of two riding days began, Bergemann set an early standard. Her line was done; she was ready. “I was super stoked and eager to get on my bike after several days of digging and thinking about riding,” she says. As the other women prepped in the parking lot, Bergemann soared over the gap of her final jump. Seeing Bergemann ride, California native Parker, who was present to mentor the riders, recalls thinking, “Oh, it’s so on now.”

For Holden, the moment felt like validation. “It gives me chills just thinking

“I was frickin’ blown away by the talent and the skill of these women”

Rebecca Rusch

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In five days, the women had transformed the landscape of women’s mountain biking Gatto blaster: the Canadian dug a challenging line at Formation with a fast chute down the narrow spine of a ridgeline, and two blind step downs

Formation

missing the landing spot on her first run, Armstrong began setting out small rocks to guide her, like the lights on a runaway.

Each evening at Formation, the riders and support crew gathered for a series of round-table discussions. One night, they talked about fear. “I learned a lot about how the other girls deal with fear and the processes they go through,” says Sandler.

The sessions proved intense. As she has thought about future editions of the event, Holden has wondered how she might preserve this knowledge sharing while giving the riders more downtime.

The insights into managing fear have had lasting value. “All these emotions we feel [when] pushing boundaries, we’re all doing similar things,” says Gatto, who found inspiration in Parker. When she prepares to ski a big line in Alaska, Parker channels the confident voice in her head.

“I named my confident person Chad,” says Gatto. “Every time I went to try something, I could hear the girls yelling, ‘Go Chad!’” Since Formation, Gatto has continued to hone the mental side of her game. She wants to ensure that next time she’s ready to hit every big drop.

All six riders knew each other, but they typically just competed against each other

MICHELLE PARKER, KATIE LOZANCICH

about it,” she says. “It was the first riding day and there was so much tension. All of a sudden, we all saw Hannah grease the gnarliest line. It really set the tone for the whole thing.”

But learning to ride the steep terrain had its challenges. Like her peers at Formation, Gatto had raced World Cup downhill. In 2014, a severe concussion put her racing career on hold, and she redirected her energy to filming, bikepacking and hitting big jumps in her spare time. “I was just feeling like I want to ride big chutes and big ridgelines,” she says. “It was always this pipe dream to go and see Rampage and ride out there.” Formation offered a chance to chase that dream.

Gatto built a vertigo-inspiring line with steep drop-offs on either side. It included a heavy double drop. Making the first drop meant sending her bike flying off the edge of the cliff line. As she committed to the drop, Gatto could not see the landing, which sat far below her with its edges falling away into a steep canyon. If she missed her narrow landing patch, she would plummet into the canyon below. “It’s just so scary, that fear of crashing, because if you crash, you’re done,” Gatto says. She ended up skipping the first big drop.

Across the canyon face, Armstrong wrestled with a similar dilemma. As she rolled up to one of the drops on the party line, all she could see was sky. “I couldn’t see the landing until my front wheel was nearly in the air,” she says. After almost

One vision: 2019 Crankworx winner Verbeeck (right) hailed the team spirit at Formation THE RED BULLETIN

For women’s freeride, Formation was just a beginning. “I’m super excited to go back, because we know we can definitely trust the terrain more and go a bit harder,” says Verbeeck. Both Parker and Rusch are eager to repeat their roles as diggers and mentors, too, while Holden is already jotting ideas in her notebooks as she drives around Bellingham.

“I was frickin’ blown away by the talent and the skill of these women,” says Rusch.

“Seeing it up close was really inspiring for me. I want to go back so much.”

The riders all say they’re ready for more chances to lift their freeride progression. Brown, for example, values the pressure that competitive events put on her to hit new features, but she’d love to see more events that share Formation’s non-competitive nature. “I think a lot of women [give up] the sport because they feel that the only places to participate at a higher level are contests and not everyone is made for that,” says Brown. She’s hoping to see more space for women at freeride events such as the Fest Series.

Already Formation has changed the career trajectories of some of the women.

“Even in the past year, the industry has invested in women in a way they haven’t before,” says Holden. Shortly after, Formation, Bergemann and Sandler received invitations to travel to India with action-sports filmmakers Teton Gravity Research and ride in their high-profile project Accomplice. Bergemann now has sponsorship support from Red Bull and Transition Bikes to chase her freeride dream. Armstrong says new doors have swung open for her, too, and she’s shifted her focus from racing to freeride.

After the COVID gap year, planning is underway for Formation 2021 to happen later this year. Though she may tinker with the details, Holden expects the event to look similar to the 2019 edition, with a mix of digging, riding, and round-table discussions. She remains committed to keeping Formation non-competitive.

Holden has found a deep satisfaction in bringing her own experience with Rampage full circle and showing the world just what women riders can do.

“I just have this full-body high from knowing that women can ride there, and that people believe and know women can ride there now,” says Holden.

“To see a collective of women look good out there – once people could see that, it just changed everything.” redbull.com 65

TIME TO SHINE

East London rapper GHETTS has been putting in the work for almost two decades, and now finally it’s paying off. Here, he talks about fighting conformity, the power of self-belief, and how ditching his ego was the key to success Words WILL LAVIN Photography ADAMA JALLOH

Future’s bright: Ghetts’ moving third album, Conflict of Interest, is an early contender for ‘Best of 2021’ lists

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Ghetts

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laying the long game isn’t for everyone. But, for Ghetts, patience and determination have been key components of a career built to last. Our first taste of the British rapper’s raw, whip-smart wordplay and magnetic charm came in 2005, when – under the name Ghetto – he guested on the track Typical Me by Kano, a fellow member of east London collective NASTY Crew. That 42-second introduction signalled the arrival of a grime heavyweight in the making – even if it was to be a slow and steady ascent to prominence.

Born in Plaistow, east London, Ghetts – real name Justin Clarke – began taking his career as a rapper seriously soon after being released from prison for a series of minor car-crime offences in 2003. His debut mixtape, 2000 & Life, was released at the tail end of 2005, followed two years later by his second, the acclaimed Ghetto Gospel. Packed with big ideas and diverse subject matter, conceptually the mixtape was ahead of its time in the grime world and highlighted the depth and range of the then 22-year-old artist. Known as the MC’s MC, for years Ghetts stood by and watched as a number of his grime contemporaries broke into the mainstream and were lauded as the leaders of the new and exciting cultural uprising he was helping to create.

But finally the agile wordsmith is enjoying his own moment in the sun. Ghetts has been nominated for awards – including a place on the Best Contemporary Song shortlist at the Ivor Novellos for Black Rose, a rousing celebration of the strength and beauty of Black men and women – and has worked with artists such as Ed Sheeran, Stormzy and Emeli Sandé; he can also count the likes of Drake and Kanye West as fans. Then, earlier this year, he scored a first UK top five hit with his critically acclaimed third album, Conflict of Interest.

Although this path has been longer for Ghetts than for others, he says that the journey has taught him lessons on what true success means. According to the now 36-year-old, humbling himself and choosing to be thankful has contributed to him making the best music of his entire career and, in turn, is the reason why he’s now earning the acclaim he so desperately hungered for.

the red bulletin: Compared with many other artists, your success has been a long time coming… ghetts: It really has. And it’s been a bit overwhelming, if I’m honest. For a long time, I felt like my back was against the wall when it came to making music and putting it out, like I had to constantly prove so many people wrong. Whereas recently it’s been the opposite; I’m now at a place where I’m having to prove people right – but that’s not a bad thing.

Why do you think people are connecting with you more now than they did before?

I think my songwriting is the best it’s ever been. I’m at a point where I feel like I’m becoming more of a wellrounded artist. As a lyricist, you can sometimes go overboard and just rap a bunch of bars, but you’ve got to know when to put your foot on the brake and when to take it off. That was something I had to teach myself. I don’t think I would be having the success I am now if I hadn’t got rid of my ego.

Was that hard to do?

At times, yeah. But there’s no room for ego when you’re trying to be great. I can definitely say I find it easier to do within music than in real life. When you’re having an argument with your partner and you swear you’re in the right, it’s harder to say, “You know what, babe?

I’m in the wrong.” But it shouldn’t be that way. Removing your ego from both work settings and reality settings is really important – at least for me.

What made you want to get rid of it?

I started to see things that I don’t like about other people creeping into myself.

There was a time when I was super

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THE RED BULLETIN

“I don’t think I’d be having the success I am now if I hadn’t got rid of my ego. There’s no room for ego when you’re trying to be great” THE RED BULLETIN

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Dropping knowledge: Ghetts’ redemptive life and career experiences make him a powerful role model for kids growing up today

“I’d tell my younger self you gotta be grateful for every step you take”

Ghetts

ungrateful. I couldn’t see all the opportunities and blessings I had. I was looking at everyone else’s life and couldn’t see what was going on in my own. I was always thinking that what I had wasn’t enough.

When you were released from prison in 2003, having served time as a juvenile, what was it that prevented you from going back?

It was the support I had from my family while I was in there; it acts as a deterrent. Some of the worst things we do in our lives happen because we feel like no one cares. It’s an overwhelming feeling. A lot of people commit suicide because they feel like nobody gives a shit. So when you feel like somebody cares, it can act as a deterrent and it can really help you through some of the hardest times in your life. That’s why in the video for Proud Family [released as a single last December] I included the scene when young Justin leaves prison and is greeted by his mum. There’s a lot of layered thinking in it.

On that same track, you rap: “I’ve been who I see all these youngers becoming.” Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give your younger self?

I’d point out the opportunities. I’d tell myself you gotta be grateful for every step you take, whether big or small.

Every bit of progression is amazing and should be celebrated. I’d tell myself to be thankful and to look at how far I’ve come. I want [today’s young people] to know that although I might not have ever been in as deep as them, I still understand what it is they’re going through. I know to them I sound like the OG who’s lecturing them about staying on the straight and narrow, but I’ve seen enough to know that 99.9 per cent of the time the street life only ends one of two ways: death or jail.

Would you say your days in prison were some of your darkest?

They weren’t great, but they weren’t my darkest. My darkest days were when

THE RED BULLETIN

“We’re all humans, and on a day-to-day basis most of us are conflicted” I made [2008 mixtape] Freedom of Speech. I really wasn’t in a good place when I put that project together.

In what way?

It was around that same time I was struggling to see my blessings and it was beginning to bleed into my music. If you listen to Ghetto Gospel, which came out [the year] before, I stepped out of my comfort zone and created something with a lot of depth in it. But the feedback I was getting at the time wasn’t what I wanted to hear. So I decided to conform to the underground with Freedom of Speech. I felt like people would understand that better.

That’s unusual. It’s not often you hear about artists conforming to the underground…

Way more people conform to an underground sound than they do a mainstream one, trust me. It’s because they’re scared to be who they really are outside of what they’re perceived to be, especially if it’s working for them.

It can’t have been easy putting the demands of the listener ahead of your own creative needs…

It wasn’t. It made me feel really conflicted, and that’s what eventually led to the title of my [latest] album, Conflict of Interest. I got halfway through making it and realised I was a very conflicted human being. I had a real self-aware moment where I decided I couldn’t risk not including all the qualities that make me who I am. I wasn’t going to present just one side of myself. We’re all humans, and on a dayto-day basis most of us are conflicted.

I just so happen to be capturing some of these moments on record, so it’s my job to make the public understand it, even if sometimes it sounds like we’re contradicting ourselves.

Have there been times where you’ve felt pressure to conform to the mainstream, too, as you’ve watched your peers experience huge success?

Yeah, I used to have that feeling all the time. These days, everyone’s screaming culture, culture, culture. But I remember very clearly a time when it was less about culture and more about looking for that hit, something made specifically to be played on radio or at a festival. One of my old managers used to say stuff like that to me. Like, “We need to get in the studio with this person or that person.”

But I never went through with it. I didn’t feel like I needed to.

Where did you get that self-belief?

Every step I take seems impossible to the people around me, but because I’ve made so many of them already I know the next step’s a real possibility. I prayed for the person I am today. I was in a prison cell, telling the inmates that the person I am now was who I was gonna be. Very few people believed me. I was telling the governor that I’d never be coming back to jail, but he hears that every day. It doesn’t mean anything to him – they’re just words. So I look at every step like that very first one. Everything is possible to me.

Have you had to make sacrifices to get where you are now? If so, what has been the biggest?

My time. I never have enough of it to do other things. I spoke to someone recently who I hadn’t seen in a while and I was really apologetic about it. He was like, “Nah, it’s fine. I understand that you’ve been busy.” I thought to myself, “That’s not really an excuse, because tomorrow’s never promised.” Time is moving so fast, and because I’m so focused on one area I keep sacrificing it. I’m always questioning whether or not my career is important enough for me to continue sacrificing my time.

And is it?

That’s hard to answer. I know what I want in life. I know what I want for my kids, and what I’ve got to do to achieve it. But at the same time it’s breaking bonds that could be made stronger. It’s a tricky one, but I’m gonna continue to work on it and work on myself.

Ghetts will be touring the UK this November. For tickets, go to ghetts.co.uk

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VENTURE

JAKE HOLLAND

CALUM MUSKETT

Enhance, equip, and experience your best life

PARA-ALPINISM Mont Blanc, France-Italy border

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VENTURE Travel

“The route down would normally be arduous and risky, crossing glaciers and rock walls, but I’m not making the descent on foot – I’m flying it” Calum Muskett, climber and mountain guide

S

now crunches underfoot as I make the final few steps along the narrow snow ridge leading to the summit of Mont Blanc, the highest peak in western Europe. Cloud shrouds the French side of the mountain as a chill breeze freezes my eyelashes. It’s 7am on September 1, 2019, and the region’s regular summer paragliding ban has just been lifted. A wave of nausea hits me as I unpack my bag – I feel physically beaten by the effort to reach the summit.

More than 3,500m below me lies the Chamonix Valley. From here, the route down Mont Blanc would normally be long, arduous and risky, crossing glaciers and rock walls, but I won’t be making the descent on foot – I’m going to fly it.

I’ve been climbing mountains ever since 2006, when I served an apprenticeship on the crags and cliffs of my native North Wales. These days, as a professional climber and mountain guide, I follow the seasons, dividing my time between the mountains of Snowdonia and the Giffre Valley in the French Alps. Two years ago, I learned to paraglide, which opened up new horizons for me. An ascent of Mont Blanc would normally take three days and involve two cable cars and a train ride; now I can leave Chamonix in the early hours, climb the mountain, and be back down for a second breakfast.

There’s something liberating about flying – there’s that release of pressure from committing a launch where you have to get everything just right, feet dangling improbably over the abyss as you cheat evolution and soar with the birds. After 10 minutes of untangling frost-covered lines and laying out my canopy, I’m away, swooping down to

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Rock steady: on the crux pitch of Incroyable

Italy in the cool morning air, thankful that I don’t have to walk any further, and ready for my morning cappuccino pick-me-up in the café that sits next to the landing field.

Para-alpinism, as it is known in France, is becoming an increasingly popular pastime. As the name suggests, this is a combination of paragliding and alpine mountaineering, and the European Alps – with their limited flight restrictions and excellent infrastructure – are particularly well geared towards the pursuit. The concept isn’t new – pioneers such as the Frenchman Jean-Marc Boivin were launching off many of the world’s highest summits some four THE RED BULLETIN

VENTURE Travel

Where to go Location: Chamonix Valley Nearest airport: Geneva

France Italy

Transport: Six cable car systems Altitude: More than 4,000m, with 11 main summits in the Mont Blanc massif Seasonal info: The massif is restricted in July and August

JAKE HOLLAND

CALUM MUSKETT

Peak time: Muskett ascends a snow ridge to reach the Eccles bivouac hut in the early morning

Super fly guy: the Welshman commits to launch his paraglider at 4,000m THE RED BULLETIN

decades ago. This early era of the sport culminated in Boivin’s successful flight off Everest in 1988; since then, the technology of – and interest in – paragliding has shifted towards crosscountry flying, where the performance of wings has been orientated towards improving the glide ratio and lift of canopies. The current cross-country world record stands at a straight distance of 564km, set by three Brazilian pilots in 2016, while the highest flight ever recorded was established that same year by Frenchman Antoine Girard, who soared above Broad Peak in Pakistan at an astonishing 8,157m.

The early pioneers of para-alpinism would shoulder huge packs weighing in excess of 12kg (that’s without factoring in any of the mountaineering equipment required), making climb-and-fly missions impractical, to say the least. Recent improvements in technology have provided new canopy types consisting of just a single ‘mono-skin’ layer rather than the conventional double layering system with air cells. These new wings weigh as little as 1kg, pack into a midsized stuff sack, and have an ultra-light sit-harness. This step-change in technology has given the sport a new lease of life. But fast and light paraalpinism is just one strand of the sport; the real appeal for me is what you can achieve when you introduce technical climbing, where conventional descents by abseiling and down-climbing can be both lengthy and dangerous.

It’s September 2020 and, together with my friends Paul and Jake, I’m back 75

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“Para-alpinism is becoming an increasingly popular pastime”

Wearing crampons to give myself purchase on the snow, I make my committing run to launch the glider.

The light fabric quickly and easily rises above my head, and as the leading edge touches the sun a warm valley breeze inflates the canopy and gently lifts me off my feet. Looking back, I see Jake and Paul safely take off with whoops of joy as they settle beneath their wing.

It’s shared experiences like these that make para-alpinism such an incredible sport. The descent was once the boring part of the day, but now it’s something to look forward to. As we touch down in the valley, conveniently close to that café, it’s time to plan our next adventure.

Calum Muskett is a professional climber, mountain guide, and ambassador for Rab, Scarpa and Petzl. He provides bespoke mountaineering and ski courses at muskettmountaineering.co.uk THE RED BULLETIN

JAKE HOLLAND

on Mont Blanc. We’re attempting a second ascent of the mountain’s hardest rock climb – a route known as Incroyable, on the Pilier Rouge du Brouillard, an imposing granite monolith that starts at 4,000m. The sun is out and the weather is baking hot. Snow melting on the slopes above and below us expose a vertiginous red rock face, which we manoeuvre up using our fingertips. After a successful day’s climbing, we make it to the tiny tin shack of the Eccles refuge and a viable take-off on a hanging section of glacier near the hut.

The position is awe-inspiring, and the ever-steepening convex snow slope is perfect for a take-off – or it would be if the entire slope wasn’t still frozen. Paul and Jake are standing on a hacked-out snow ledge 30m to my side. It will be Paul’s first flight under the command of Jake on an ultra-light single-skin tandem wing. What a place for a first flight.

CALUM MUSKETT

Soar point: (above) Muskett flies above the heavily crevassed Glacier du Brouillard; (below) approaching the landing field in the Val Veny, Italy

PROMOTION

Canyon’s Torque:ON takes the eMTB to the next level. Below: changing its lightweight battery is a breeze

ROO FOWLER

T

he electric mountain bike has opened up a world of possibilities for riders who want to push themselves and their machine to the limit. However, the constantly evolving technology has come with caveats – battery life has been the biggest drawback, restricting range and time spent on the trails – while designs have generally stuck to the safer end of the spectrum. Until now, that is.

Canyon is a pioneer of eMTB design, and the Torque:ON is the latest in its extensive off-road range to get the ‘ON’ treatment.

Based on the big mountain model of the same name, the result is a gravity-hungry rig that will gobble up the hardest bike-park lines or backcountry trails, run after run.

Powering the Torque:ON is Shimano’s latest EP8 motor. The unit’s 500 peak watts and 85Nm of torque act as your own personal uplift. Press the toptube-integrated :ON button, select a support mode (Eco, Trail or Boost) on the handlebar-mounted switch and get ready for 25kph of fun.

Gone are the days of slapping a battery where there’s room, and Canyon has designed the entire frame’s geometry around a

lightweight 504Wh downtubeintegrated pack. Its positioning keeps the centre of gravity low and adds stability over rocky or root-strewn sections of trail. If you do manage to burn through its 100km range in one session, swapping it for another is a cinch.

Plus, with a discounted second battery on offer with every purchase, having back-up in your daypack just got more affordable.

Of course, all this power means little if the package it’s housed in isn’t up to scratch. Fortunately, Canyon knows a thing or two about constructing bombproof bikes. The frame is made from a super-durable alloy that can withstand huge drops and rough landings, while features such as oversized bearings and integrated chainring protection mean that your investment will ride like new, season after season.

Finished with 180mm of front suspension, 175mm of fade-free rear suspension, and playful 27.5in wheels, this freeridefriendly eMTB is as happy in the air as it is blasting its way down tight, technical tracks. eMTB just got extreme.

For more info on the Torque:ON range, head to canyon.com

NOW WE’RE TORQUING How Canyon’s latest range puts the extreme in eMTB

VENTURE How to...

“I

was 13 the first time I did a wall ride,” says Kriss Kyle. “I was scared – you’re going so fast you hope your tyres grip, or it’ll hurt. But it gripped, whipped me round and spat me out. I’m still chasing that feeling.”

The trick has become one of his signature moves, as seen in the film Kriss Kyle’s Kaleidoscope (2015). In his new movie, Out of Season, the 29-year-old BMX ace enters the Welsh woodlands to perform the manoeuvre on a far heavier vehicle – a mountain bike. “This has been four years in the making,” he says. “I’ve always wanted to build a curved wall ride in the woods.” Here’s how Kyle, ramp builder George Eccleston and the film’s director Matty Lambert achieved this…

Gripping stuff: BMX ace Kriss Kyle does the rounds on his wall in the Welsh woods

The vision

“I’m always thinking, ‘What’s next?’” says Kyle. “I thought I’d like to do a 270° [wall ride], where I’m going into the wall then sweeping under it on the way out without hitting my head. As long as I can picture it in my head, I know I can do it.”

CREATE

Land a wall ride

The plan

Bike supremo Kriss Kyle reveals the art of creating this incredible move

“The shape was pre-cut in the workshop, then assembled on site in two days,” says Eccleston.

“We used plywood rings made from birch – it’s flexible yet durable, so we use it on indoor skate builds – and larch slats to provide strength and grip.”

“I was nervous as I wouldn’t get to go on it before it was built,” says Kyle, “so it was a case of stepping into the unknown.”

Eccleston says they were 78

Degrees of perfection “The upper circle is 4.2m in diameter, but the lower circle is only 4m as it has a backward lean of 5°,” says Eccleston. “That means if it’s wet on the shoot Kriss can hit the wall slower with more control and grip.

If it was vertical, he’d slide straight down it.”

“We had two angles to film: one from behind, showing Kriss going into the wall ride, then a drone moving down from the tree canopy,” says Lambert.

“You want to see him from a riding perspective – to see how hard it is – but it should also look beautiful. It’s quite awkward entering the curved wall, and the viewer can see how thin the gap is. As he hits the wall, he kind of disappears.”

Watch Out of Season from April 15 at redbull.com THE RED BULLETIN

CHRISTINA LOCK

The moment

The build

The test

prepared to make alterations on set: “On the first few goes, we had to watch for wobbles when Kriss hit it at a certain point. Where that happened, we added extra timber braces.”

HOWARD CALVERT

270°

EISA BAKOS

“Kriss often just has a rough idea in his head and we try to find a spot that works,” says Eccleston. “We picked a point amid these three trees to get the lateral side-to-side stiffness.

We needed trees on a slope that allowed [the wall] to be 1.5m off the ground at the entry point, but 2m on the other side so he could exit beneath it.”

VENTURE Equipment

Charge ahead Gone are the days of electric mountain bikes being labelled as cheating, lazy, or even dull. With professional riders such as Matt Jones and Tahnée Seagrave already jumping on board, it’s time to join the e-revolution...

MARIN’s slogan, etched into the rims, is ‘Made for fun’. Thanks to the motor, it’s enjoyable going uphill, but with a full suspension this bike is clearly built for maximum pleasure on a fast descent.

The trail tamer: Marin Alpine Trail E2 Mountain biking was born in the hills of Marin County, California, in the late 1970s and early ’80s.

Among its innovators was Marin Bikes, which, for 35 years, has put its prototypes through their paces on those original tough and gnarly trails. So, when the company claims the Alpine Trail E2 is its “most capable eMTB to date”, that’s no small boast. Based on the non-electric Alpine Trail model, the E2 adds extra zip to a much-loved all-mountain platform with a 250W Shimano STEPS EP8 motor, which flattens steep climbs at the flick of a button. A removable protective plate over the frame-integrated battery adds peace of mind should you end up in the rough stuff. marinbikes.com

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THE RED BULLETIN

VENTURE Equipment

Rider #1: The modest mountain man

TIM KENT

Not everyone wants to look like a circus tent on two wheels.

This is off-road gear for the unassuming rider who wants to stay low-key while trusting that his kit can deliver Left to right, from top: LEATT MTB 2.0 water-resistant and windproof jacket with magnetic hood system for fixing to a helmet, leatt.com; MET HELMETS Bluegrass Rogue Core MIPS helmet, met-helmets.com;

THE RED BULLETIN

DAKINE Sentinel bike gloves, dakine.com; GUSSET S2 pedals, made from precision-engineered 6061 alloy, gussetcomponents.com; ARCADE BELTS Midnighter adventure belt, arcadebelts.com; STANCE Athletic Crew Staple socks, stance.com, GIRO Roust Long-sleeve MTB jersey, giro.co.uk; LEATT 2.0 Flat shoes, leatt.com; TSG Trailz shorts, ridetsg.com; OSPREY Savu 2 two-litre biking lumbar pack, ospreyeurope.com; ENDURA Singletrack Lite Knee Pads II, endurasport.com; EXPOSURE LIGHTS Flex eMTB light with an output of up to 3,300 lumens, and RedEye-E light, exposurelights.com

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VENTURE Equipment

Rider #2: The woodland warrior For the female trail rider wanting to blend into the backcountry but still stand out for her skills, here’s a full set of kit that’s all about function and less about frills Left to right, from top: SPECIALIZED Ambush Comp helmet with ANGI crash sensor, specialized.com; ENDURA Hummvee Lite Icon gloves, endurasport.com; LEZYNE Tool Insert Kit multitool, ride.lezyne.com;

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ADIDAS Five Ten Freerider Primeblue 2021 MTB shoes, adidas.co.uk; SIXSIXONE Radia goggles, sixsixone.com; DMR BIKES Pedal spanner, dmrbikes.com; SPECIALIZED Techno MTB Tall socks, specialized.com; CHROME Storm Salute Commute jacket, chromeindustries.com; SIXSIXONE DBO elbow pads, sixsixone.com; DAKINE Drafter 14L Bike Hydration backpack, dakine.com; SPECIALIZED Andorra Air Longsleeve jersey, specialized.com; SCOTT SPORTS Trail Contessa Sign Women’s shorts with padding, scott-sports.com; DMR BIKES V11 pedals, dmrbikes.com; SIXSIXONE DBO knee pads, sixsixone.com

THE RED BULLETIN

VENTURE Equipment The slender steed: Specialized S-Works Turbo Levo SL One common – and misinformed – belief about eMTBs is that they’re on the chunky side. Your honour, the defence submits the Turbo Levo SL… Despite packing a motor and battery into its trim physique, it weighs just 17.35kg – lighter than some of the portlier pedal-powered mountain bikes.

The US manufacturer’s focus was on creating an e-bike that handles exactly like a regular one rather than a bulky, battery-assisted stereotype. It achieves this by combining a ridiculously light-yet-strong carbon-fibre frame with some of the slickest components, engineering a responsive and reactive ride that will have you forgetting it’s carrying a motor at all. It might not be the most powerful e-ride around, but that’s also not what it’s all about. This bike will make you feel like you’re having a good day – that feeling that comes when the climbs are a breeze and you have the energy to do an extra lap of your regular loop – every time you saddle up. specialized.com

To get the most out of this eMTB, download SPECIALIZED’s Mission Control smartphone app, which allows you to tune the power levels, log rides with Strava, and keep an eye on how much battery life is left. Better still, input the distance you’ll be covering and the app will adjust your power usage throughout your journey to ensure you have enough juice in the battery to get home.

TIM KENT

The Turbo Levo SL is lighter than some of the portlier pedal-powered mountain bikes THE RED BULLETIN

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VENTURE Equipment The downhill demon: Canyon Torque:ON An electric mountain bike is a serious investment, so, understandably, the thought of throwing it – and you – down a cliff face could prompt you to search for tamer trails. The Torque:ON eliminates these concerns courtesy of a bombproof build.

This bike has passed the same strength and impact tests as Canyon’s UCI Downhill World Cup-winning rigs – the first of the German bike brand’s eMTBs to do so – meaning it will pick itself up and dust itself down, hit after hit, even if you struggle to. But being built like a tank doesn’t mean it has to handle like one. The Torque:ON has been designed with agility at its core. Canyon has managed this by integrating a smaller, switchable battery, saving weight without sacrificing any of the fun. Whether you’re tearing down technical descents, stomping juicy jump lines, or even when flying through the air, it feels amazingly weighted. canyon.com

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The Torque:ON has passed the same rigorous tests as Canyon’s UCI Downhill World Cup-winning rigs

Boasting 85Nm of power, the Torque:ON is aptly named, but just as much attention has gone into making it a joy to handle.

The lighter 504Wh battery improves its centre of gravity, and smaller 27.5in wheels make it more reactive on those tight trails. Deep front and rear suspension gives plenty of traction, and its gravityfocused frame geometry has been designed with fast descents in mind.

THE RED BULLETIN

VENTURE Equipment

Rider #3: The technicolour trail-rider

TIM KENT

For the female rider who isn’t shy about showing off, don’t be afraid to dial up the brightness. And if you’re dialling up the difficulty too, go for the full-face helmet option Left to right, from top: CINELLI Slime socks, designed by Ana Benaroya, cinelli.it; POC Kortal Race MIPS helmet, pocsports.com; ENDURA MT500 Thermal Long-sleeve Jersey II top, endurasport.com;

THE RED BULLETIN

SIXSIXONE Raji gloves, sixsixone.com; 100% Trajecta full-face helmet and Accuri2 moto/MTB goggles, 100percent.com; NUKEPROOF Neutron EVO (Electron EVO) flat pedals, nukeproof.com; MONS ROYALE Stratos Shift bra and Redwood Enduro VT high V-neck tee, monsroyale.com; SCOTT SPORTS Soldier 2 elbow guards, scott-sports.com; LEZYNE Pocket Drive HV compact high-volume bike hand pump, ride.lezyne. com; NUKEPROOF Nirvana shorts, nukeproof.com; LEATT 3.0 Flat shoes, leatt.com; ARCADE BELTS Ranger adventure belt, arcadebelts. com; SCOTT SPORTS Grenade EVO Zip knee guards, scott-sports.com

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VENTURE Equipment

Rider #4: The firestarter Go bright or go home. A fiery colour scheme for the advanced male rider cruising bike parks or the toughest alpine trails Left to right, from top: ENDURA MT500 Full-face helmet, endurasport. com; DAKINE Agent O/O Bike knee pads, dakine.com; MONS ROYALE Tarn Freeride Long-sleeve Wind Jersey top, monsroyale.com; HT COMPONENTS PA03A pedals, ht-components.com; POC Kortal Race

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MIPS helmet, pocsports.com; GIRO HRC+ Merino wool cycling socks, giro.com; BELL Descender MTB goggles, bellbikehelmets. co.uk; ZÉFAL Z Hydro XC hydration backpack, zefal.com; LEATT MTB 3.0 shorts, leatt.com; DRAGON Ridge X sunglasses, dragonalliance.com; LEZYNE Micro Floor Drive Digital HVG portable pump and Tubeless tyre repair kit, ride.lezyne.com; ARCADE BELTS Ranger adventure belt, arcadebelts.co.uk; ENDURA Hummvee Lite Icon gloves, endurasport.com; RIDE CONCEPTS Men’s Powerline shoes, rideconcepts.com

THE RED BULLETIN

VENTURE Equipment The souped-up steal: GT Force GT-E Current

TIM KENT

Founded in 1979, GT Bicycles cut its teeth in the pioneering days of BMX, but the brand has come a long way since the era of mullet haircuts, foam crossbar pads and mag wheels, and its current mountain-bike range is renowned for balancing top-of-the-line tech with pocket-friendly prices. The GT-E Current is the “performance-enhancing” version of its all-mountain, full-suspension Force rides, with the race-ready aluminium frame ever-so-slightly beefed up to seamlessly incorporate the battery and Shimano STEPS motor. Strategically mixing high-end components – made by the likes of SunTour and X-Fusion – with own-branded parts means you get a ride that doesn’t cost the earth, but can grow with you and your newfound passion for pinning pumptracks and shredding singletrack. This is a no-nonsense introduction to the world of e-mountain biking. gtbicycles.com

EFI – or ‘electronic fun injection’ – is the technical term that GT has coined for this electric-powered addition to its full-suspension line of mountain bikes. As Belgian downhill enduro pro, GT ambassador and Red Bull athlete Martin Maes likes to refer to it, this bike’s 29in wheels, 150mm of suspension travel and aggressive race geometry make it a very personal chair lift.

The GT-E Current doesn’t cost the earth, but can grow with your passion for pumptracks THE RED BULLETIN

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Energetic by nature. Your Energy Bikes. fazua.com

VENTURE Fitness

B

efore becoming the leading expert on astronaut health and fitness at the German Aerospace Center in Cologne in 2009, Professor Jörn Rittweger conducted research into a seemingly unconnected subject. “Bed-rest studies,” says the scientist. “Subjects lay in bed for 60 days or longer and we’d test training, nutrition and electrical stimulation. It simulates a lot of what happens to astronauts in space, and ultimately it led to me getting this job.”

Going into space is extremely hazardous to health.

With no protective atmosphere or magnetic field, exposure to radiation is increased. “On the ISS, [radiation is] 300 times higher than on Earth. On the Moon, it’s 600 times higher.”

But the biggest factor – one that relates most closely to the professor’s bed studies – is gravity, or the lack of it.

“Gravity is perhaps the strongest environmental stimulus since the start of our evolutionary journey.

Our bodies have developed mechanisms to ensure our brains receive enough blood when we’re upright.”

In zero gravity, however, up and down don’t exist. “Within hours, astronauts discharge about a litre of urine to get rid of the blood they’re no longer storing in their legs,” Rittweger says. “Low gravity also knocks the ear’s balance system off, causing nausea. It takes days for the body to suppress this ‘space adaptation syndrome’; astronauts learn to keep their head still and not turn quickly.”

As the head of the centre’s muscle and bone metabolism department, Rittweger’s prime focus is clear. “Of the almost 500 muscles in our body, almost half support standing, walking or running, and muscles only grow and develop strength when they meet resistance,” he explains.

With the lack of gravity on the ISS, astronauts aren’t pulled to the ground; there’s no

THE RED BULLETIN

HONE

Striving for a celestial body How does an astronaut maintain an out-of-this-world physique? Here’s the rocket science… resistance, and muscle atrophy sets in.” The human body, he says, renews around one to two per cent of its muscle mass per day, but in space (or long periods of bed rest) it’s shed rather than gained. And the same happens to your bones: “Leg bones lose about one per cent of their mass per month.”

The solution isn’t simply sending astronauts into orbit bulked up. “We channel calcium through our kidneys.

If an astronaut increases bone mass before a trip, they’ll lose more [calcium], which can lead to kidney stones. You don’t want that to happen in space.”

There’s also the effect on metabolism: astronauts have higher rates of adult-onset diabetes, meaning an increase in their blood sugar. Blood-fat levels increase, too, and there is a danger of atherosclerosis

Above: Professor Jörn Rittweger of the German Aerospace Center; top: European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti in training

“Nowadays, astronauts return to Earth in much better shape”

[plaque build-up on artery walls that can cause blood clots, strokes or heart failure].”

These changes may not cause immediate problems while the astronaut is in space, but they become a real issue once back on Earth.

“There are doctors for that,” says Rittweger, “but it would make Mars missions tricky.

They could last up to two-anda-half years, and medical care is hard to come by on Mars.”

This is why Rittweger and his team have created a comprehensive workout that can be done in space.

The right stuff

“It’s not easy to recreate the important stimulus for our three largest muscle groups – the back extensors, glutes and leg muscles – which account for a third of our body mass,” says Rittweger. This 89

VENTURE Fitness

“Using an exercise bike in space isn’t straightforward” 90

The rolling cucumber Target areas: core and body control Lie face down, legs and arms stretched out, with only your belly touching the floor. Roll onto your back, then onto your belly again, with your limbs outstretched. Adjust reps according to fitness.

Squats with weights Target areas: legs and core/back Place a barbell on your shoulders and bend your knees, keeping your back straight, knees behind your heels, and maintaining body tension. Adjust the weight and reps to your fitness level.

Rowing leant forward Target areas: back and shoulders Lift the dumbbell, keeping your back straight as if doing a dead lift. Raise it to your chest while in a forward-leaning position. Keep your elbows close to your body. As with the squats, adjust the weight and reps to your level of fitness.

One giant leap

The professor’s team are always looking for ways of improving astronaut fitness, and the latest involves jumping. “It exercises the entire extensor and flexor chain in the back and legs.

We attach the astronaut to a slide that allows freedom of movement but prevents them whacking against the wall. If all goes to plan, we’ll try it on parabolic flights here on Earth in about two years, and on the space station soon after.” Crucially, it needs to be enjoyable: “Imagine being on a flight to Mars and having to find the motivation to work out every morning.”

But no matter how astronaut fitness systems evolve, there’s one side effect that is unlikely to be eradicated. “Sweat,” says Rittweger. “It’s more unpleasant than on Earth because it doesn’t roll down your body. And there’s no post-workout shower, either.

You have to clean yourself with Wet Wipes.”

THE RED BULLETIN

TOM MACKINGER

Isolation and cabin fever are standard for an astronaut, but a recent problem for many of us on Earth. These three exercises from European Space Agency fitness expert Nora Petersen will help you stay fit when space is an issue…

balance between the liver and fatty tissue, and we need the latter for the brain. Isolation and a lack of movement change its internal structures responsible for learning and behaviour. That can lead to listlessness, irritation, and lapses in concentration.

Sport on the space station can reduce stress. Ernest Shackleton was aware of this.”

Rittweger’s reference to the legendary Arctic explorer, much like his studies into bed rest, are highly pertinent to space travel. “Polar expeditions are some of the most challenging mankind has ever undertaken, and most have gone wrong,” he explains. “Shackleton brought back all of his expedition members alive. We know from his accounts that even in the harshest conditions they went out for an hour’s exercise each day. That’s probably what saved them.”

FLORIAN STURM

To fitness and beyond

ESA/NASA

has led much experimentation.

“In the 1970s, the Russians relied on chest expanders; their elasticity generates resistance. Endurance sports were also popular that decade – that’s why we still see the exercise bike and treadmill on the space station. But cycling in space isn’t straightforward – there isn’t the force to keep you in the saddle, and it takes practice to control your upperbody inertia. Astronauts have to be locked to the pedals.

It’s more for variety than muscle gain and will probably be culled soon.”

Practicality isn’t the only downside to endurance training. “You also need shockproofing. It would be a disaster if the vibrations damaged the space station.

You can’t just drill a lug into the ISS wall, attach a rubber band, and start practising jumps.” As such, spring-based or even robotic dampers are used. “But experts agree that we should now rely on resistance training instead.”

These days, gym junkies on the ISS mainly use a system known as ARED (Advanced Resistive Exercise Device), which uses vacuum tubes and flywheel cables to simulate free-weight exercises such as squats and deadlifts. “Two hours a day, six days a week, as a rule,” says Rittweger.

“In the past, fitness was the first thing to bite the dust if time was short. Russian and American doctors have gushed about how astronauts now return to Earth in much better shape.”

Exercising in space is also crucial for mental wellbeing: “Physical exertion generates messenger substances in your muscles such as interleukin-6 or BDNF [brainderived neurotrophic factor].

The former sets the energy

10 ISSUES

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BEYOND THE ORDINARY The next issue is out on Tuesday 11 May with London Evening Standard.

Also available across the UK at airports, universities, and selected supermarkets and retail stores.

Read more at theredbulletin.com JAANUS REE / RED BULL CONTENT POOL

VENTURE Gaming PLAY

“I learned a lot. Before, I was just shooting and focused on good stats; I didn’t talk a lot. But I became a better team player, more open and honest.” This successful move inspired another one when he left CS:GO. “I was caught in a bad cycle with teams I didn’t believe in. I thought, ‘I’m going to gamble at being one of VALORANT’s best players.’ It was a challenge and it was awesome.”

Game your career Playing video games for a living isn’t something a careers advisor would recommend. For that advice, you need a proven esports superstar

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He was playing the newly released Counter-Strike: Global Offensive at the time when some fellow players asked him to join a team. “Now I work with computers every day.”

Here are some valuable lessons pyth learned on his unorthodox career path…

Focus your passion

When he left education at 18, Mourujärvi was playing CS:GO for 15 hours a day. “Sleeping at 8am, waking at 5pm and

“There are no shortcuts – you have to build your way up”

grinding again,” he recalls.

“But when I knew there could be a career in it, I changed my routine and began thinking like a pro. I also stopped shittalking. I’ve been a nice guy for 14 years now.”

Play to your strengths

Pyth is a master of ‘clutch’ play – the ability to turn a game around in the final seconds – which he proved this February when G2 won the first Red Bull Home Grounds competition, and earlier in his career when he singlehandedly defeated rivals Ninjas in Pyjamas in a 2014 four-against-one CS:GO match. Two years later, he was playing for them. “Prove yourself and people will see you,” he says. “But there are no shortcuts – you have to build your way up. And have fun or you’ll get nowhere.”

Exit your comfort zone

In 2015, pyth explored uncharted territory, helping to build new Canadian CS:GO team Luminosity Gaming.

“I was teamless and wanted to prove myself,” he says.

Look ahead

At 27, Mourujärvi is an esports veteran. But he’s confident that when his competitive time is up, his career won’t be.

“I still want to work in esports, maybe as a coach. A lot of players just practise their aim every day, but they need to understand teamwork and strategy. You can’t just have the same players in the team.

It’s like how [Premier League football team] Liverpool became better when they bought [defender] Virgil van Dijk. He’s not an official captain, but he brought leadership and confidence that fed into the team. That’s a good quality to have.”

VALORANT is on Microsoft Windows; playvalorant.com.

Check out the latest Red Bull Campus Clutch heats at redbull.com. Follow pyth at twitch.tv/pyth THE RED BULLETIN

JOE ELLISON

Sharp shooters: VALORANT characters Phoenix (left) and Jett

“The people who hate on you are the loudest,” says pyth.

“Playing CS:GO, I was abused on Twitter and got death threats mid-game. I practised some focusing exercises, but then forgot to do them.” He turned to training software to shut out stress – “I’d practise shooting ranges in [training program] AimLab, with music on to get good vibes” – but the answer lay in a change of scene. “VALORANT has one of the most supportive fanbases,” he says, adding that good workmates are also vital. “In G2, we’re friends in and out of the game.”

YUNG ELDR

Right now, students across the world are studying for a big test, but not the kind you’d expect. Red Bull Campus Clutch is a global esports tournament for universityaged players competing in VALORANT, a tactical teambased first-person shooter.

Before it had even launched last year, the first livestreamed playtest broke the record for the most hours of a single game watched in a day (34 million, with 1.7 million concurrent spectators at one point). It has grown into one of the biggest esports, drawing star players from rival games such as Fortnite and Overwatch.

Campus Clutch competitors might not be in the same league, but the winning teams from each country will play off in May’s world final for a prize of €20,000 and a state-of-theart gaming hub for their campus. It might also kickstart a lucrative career they hadn’t previously studied for – pro esports athlete.

Jacob ‘pyth’ Mourujärvi (pictured, right) could teach them a thing or two. The 27-year-old Swede, part of the elite G2 Esports team, is one of the world’s best VALORANT players, but nine years ago he was studying IT at school. “I had no career ideas, but I enjoyed working with computers,” he says.

Avoid toxicity

VENTURE Gaming Cover your tracks: you can also buy a silicon skin (pictured far left) to protect your Pocket Operator

COMPOSE

Don’t be fooled by the toy-like looks – this mini synth packs a Dragon Punch

TEENAGE ENGINEERING

TOM GUISE

Beat it up

THE RED BULLETIN

Modular synthesisers – electronic musical instruments that can be linked to sample, create and manipulate sounds – have been around since the 1950s, when they were as big as a fridge. Street Fighter II, released in 1991, was the first fighting video game to sport ‘combos’ – strings of combat moves. Teenage Engineering is a brain trust of Swedish engineers who make cool, retro-styled music gear, and this is their love letter to all of the above.

Their Pocket Operator synths are a masterclass in stripped-down design:

a circuit board with a flipstand, two AAA batteries, and a pair of 3.5mm jacks on the back. On the front is a grid of buttons, two knobs and a mic to create 16 sequences of 16 sounds to record a 256-step tune or perform an impressive live set. Each device has its own sound – rhythm, robot, office – represented by vintage Nintendo-style graphics on the LCD display. Connect them together and you have a digital orchestra. And now you can add SFII’s classic ‘Shoryuken’ samples to that knockout combo. teenage.engineering

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VENTURE Calendar

21

April onwards THE HUNDRED As spectator events return, it’s set to be a glorious summer, and with the new normal comes new sports.

Kicking off on July 21, this 100-ball pro cricket series serves up 68 men and women’s matches across a whole month, with the biggest names taking to the crease, including Ben Stokes (below) captaining Leeds’ Northern Superchargers. Priority tickets went on sale on April 7, with general sales starting April 21.

Birmingham, Cardiff, Leeds, London, Manchester, Nottingham and Southampton; thehundred.com

31 July RED BULL ILLUME 2021 “If you want to be a better photographer, stand in front of more interesting stuff,” veteran Nat Geo lensman Jim Richardson once said. Wise words, as anyone who has contributed to global photography contest Red Bull Illume can attest. This biennial showcase attracts some of the most incredible action-sports and adventure moments captured on film (59,551 images were entered in 2019) then takes them on a world tour (pictured: the 2020 tour stop in Vancouver). Now, 2021’s Image Quest has begun. The submission deadline is July 31, with winners announced in November. redbullillume.com

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April onwards ONE AT A TIME When it comes to slopestyle MTB, Brett Rheeder is perhaps the greatest there is. The 28-year-old Canadian has four slopestyle world titles, an X-Games gold medal and seven Crankworx victories, but in 2018 he faced one of his toughestever seasons, struggling with a longterm knee injury. Spectators often only see the performance on the day, but this film, following Rheeder through that tumultuous year, is a candid look at the pains an athlete endures for their craft. redbull.com 94

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VENTURE Calendar

13

April onwards NATURAL SELECTION: JACKSON HOLE

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April to late June THE LUNA DRIVE-IN

MASON MASHON/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, THE HUNDRED, DEAN BLOTTO GRAY/ RED BULL CONTENT POOL, MARCOS FERRO/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

If there’s one good thing to emerge from social distancing, it’s the revival of the drive-in cinema. But banish throwback images of Grease from your mind; The Luna Cinema delivers state-of-the-art outdoor screens, in-car digital sound and click-and-collect food-and-drink service. Among the films being shown are Wonder Woman 1984 – one of the first chances to see it on a big screen since its December release – Pixar’s Onward, Joker and, of course, Grease. Venues across the UK; thelunacinema.com

Travis Rice dreams big. The 38-yearold snowboarder burst onto the competitive scene at the age of 18, with no sponsor, by dropping a gargantuan backside rodeo over a 36m gap at a place called Mammoth Mountain. But his biggest dream was to launch the ultimate backcountry freestyle competition in his hometown.

This February, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, saw 24 of the best snowboarders battle across 16 acres of mountain – and, of course, Mother Nature served up large, tipping 1.2m of deep powder on day two. Check out the weekend’s mightiest moments. redbull.com

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April to late May THE MERMAID’S TONGUE Pre-lockdown, you had escape rooms, immersive theatre, and murder mysteries. Now, the latest must-have group experience is the online sleuthing show: a blend of live performance, interactive role-play, team puzzle-solving and taut thriller, played through your computer. Having launched last October with an initial sell-out three-week run, the show has now extended bookings until at least late May. themermaidstongue.com THE RED BULLETIN

13 April onwards RED BULL BATTALA DE LOS GALLOS 2020 It’s helpful, though not essential, to understand Spanish to gain the most enjoyment from this contest – for a start, you’d already know that the name means ‘Battle of the Roosters’. The world’s biggest freestyle rap competition draws thousands of spectators from across Latin America to witness the crema de crema of Spanish-speaking MCs spitting rhymes. At least, it would most years. For 2020, an audience-free, greenscreen arena was built in the Dominican Republic, so contestants battle amid virtual deserts and mountains. The backdrops are fake, but the lyrics are real. redbull.com 95

GLOBAL TEAM

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The Red Bulletin is published in six countries. This is the cover of our French edition for May, which features the stunning skate photography of New Zealand-born lensman Jake Darwen For more stories beyond the ordinary, go to: redbulletin.com

The Red Bulletin UK. ABC certified distribution 145,193 (Jan-Dec 2020)

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Head of The Red Bulletin Alexander Müller-Macheck, Sara Car-Varming (deputy) Editors-in-Chief Andreas Rottenschlager, Andreas Wollinger (deputy) Creative Directors Erik Turek, Kasimir Reimann (deputy) Art Directors Marion Bernert-Thomann, Miles English, Tara Thompson Designers Martina de ­Carvalho-Hutter, Cornelia Gleichweit, Kevin Goll Photo Editors Eva Kerschbaum (manager), Marion Batty (deputy), Susie Forman, Tahira Mirza, Rudi Übelhör Digital Editors Christian Eberle-Abasolo (manager), Lisa Hechenberger, Elena Rodriguez Angelina, Benjamin Sullivan Head of Audio Florian Obkircher Special Projects Arkadiusz Piatek Managing Editors Ulrich Corazza, Marion Lukas-Wildmann Publishing Management Ivona Glibusic, Bernhard Schmied, Anna Wilczek Managing Director Stefan Ebner Head of Media Sales & Partnerships Lukas Scharmbacher Head of Co-Publishing Susanne Degn-Pfleger Project Management Co-Publishing, B2B Marketing & Communication Katrin Sigl (manager), Mathias Blaha, Katrin Dollenz, Thomas Hammerschmied, Teresa Kronreif (B2B), Eva Pech, Valentina Pierer, Stefan Portenkirchner (communication) Creative Services Verena Schörkhuber-Zöhrer (manager), Sara Wonka, Julia Bianca Zmek, Edith Zöchling-Marchart Commercial Management Co-Publishing Alexandra Ita Editorial Co-Publishing Raffael Fritz (manager), Gundi Bittermann, Mariella Reithoffer, Wolfgang Wieser Executive Creative Director Markus Kietreiber Project Management Creative Elisabeth Kopanz Art Direction Co-Publishing Peter Knehtl (manager), Erwin Edtmaier, Andreea Parvu, Dominik Uhl Commercial Design Simone Fischer, Martina Maier, Alexandra Schendl, Julia Schinzel, Florian Solly, S ­ tephan Zenz Subscriptions and Distribution Peter Schiffer (manager), Marija Althajm, Nicole Glaser, Victoria Schwärzler, Yoldaş Yarar Advertising Manuela Brandstätter, Monika Spitaler Production Veronika Felder (manager), Friedrich Indich, Walter O. Sádaba, Sabine Wessig Repro Clemens Ragotzky (manager), Claudia Heis, Nenad Isailović, Sandra Maiko Krutz, Josef Mühlbacher Finance Mariia Gerutska (manager), Klaus Pleninger MIT Christoph Kocsisek, Michael Thaler Operations Melanie Grasserbauer, Alexander Peham, Yvonne Tremmel Assistant to General Management Sandra Artacker Project Management Gabriela-Teresa Humer Editor and CEO Andreas Kornhofer Editorial office Heinrich-Collin-Straße 1, A-1140 Vienna Phone +43 1 90221-0 Web redbulletin.com Published by Red Bull Media House GmbH, Oberst-Lepperdinger-Straße 11–15, A-5071 Wals bei Salzburg, FN 297115i, Landesgericht Salzburg, ATU63611700 Executive Directors Dkfm. Dietrich Mateschitz, Dietmar Otti, Christopher Reindl, Marcus Weber

THE RED BULLETIN United Kingdom, ISSN 2308-5894 Editor Ruth McLeod Associate Editor Tom Guise Chief Sub-Editor Davydd Chong Publishing Manager Ollie Stretton Advertising Sales Mark Bishop, mark.bishop@redbull.com Fabienne Peters, fabienne.peters@redbull.com Printed by Quad/Graphics Europe Sp. z o.o., Pułtuska 120, 07-200 Wyszków, Poland UK Office Seven Dials Warehouse, 42-56 Earlham Street, London WC2H 9LA Tel: +44 (0) 20 3117 2000 Subscribe newsstand.co.uk/theredbulletin Enquiries or orders to: subs@uk. redbulletin.com. Back issues available to purchase at: getredbulletin.com.

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THE RED BULLETIN Austria, ISSN 1995-8838 Editor Wolfgang Wieser Proofreaders Hans Fleißner (manager), Petra Hannert, Monika Hasleder, Billy Kirnbauer-Walek Publishing Management Bernhard Schmied Media Sales & Partnerships Thomas Hutterer (manager), Alfred Vrej Minassian, Franz Fellner, Ines Gruber, Thomas Gubier, Daniela Güpner, Wolfgang Kröll, Gabriele Matijevic-Beisteiner, Nicole Okasek-Lang, Britta Pucher, Jennifer Sabejew, Johannes Wahrmann-Schär, Ellen WittmannSochor, Ute Wolker, Christian Wörndle, Sabine Zölß

THE RED BULLETIN France, ISSN 2225-4722 Editor Pierre-Henri Camy Country Coordinator Christine Vitel Country Project M ­ anagement Youri Cviklinski Contributors, Translators and Proofreaders Étienne Bonamy, Frédéric & Susanne Fortas, Suzanne ­Kříženecký, Claire ­Schieffer, Jean-Pascal Vachon, Gwendolyn de Vries

THE RED BULLETIN Germany, ISSN 2079-4258 Editor David Mayer Proofreaders Hans Fleißner (manager), Petra Hannert, Monika Hasleder, Billy Kirnbauer-Walek Country Project Management Natascha Djodat Media Sales & Partnerships Thomas Hutterer (manager), Alfred Vrej Minassian, Franz Fellner, Ines Gruber, Thomas Gubier, Daniela Güpner, Wolfgang Kröll, Gabriele Matijevic-Beisteiner, Nicole Okasek-Lang, Britta Pucher, Jennifer Sabejew, Johannes Wahrmann-Schär, Ellen WittmannSochor, Ute Wolker, Christian Wörndle, Sabine Zölß

THE RED BULLETIN Switzerland, ISSN 2308-5886 Editor Wolfgang Wieser Proofreaders Hans Fleißner (manager), Petra Hannert, Monika Hasleder, Billy Kirnbauer-Walek Country Project Management Meike Koch Commercial & Brand Partnerships Manager Stefan Bruetsch Advertising Sales Marcel Bannwart (D-CH), marcel.bannwart@redbull.com Christian Bürgi (W-CH), christian.buergi@redbull.com Goldbach Publishing Marco Nicoli, marco.nicoli@goldbach.com

THE RED BULLETIN USA, ISSN 2308-586X Editor-in-Chief Peter Flax Deputy Editor Nora O’Donnell Copy Chief David Caplan Publishing Management Branden Peters Media Network Communications & Marketing Manager Brandon Peters Advertising Sales Todd Peters, todd.peters@redbull.com Dave Szych, dave.szych@redbull.com Tanya Foster, tanya.foster@redbull.com

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Action highlight

After his 14th victory in the world’s most legendary rally raid, French driver Stéphane Peterhansel (pictured here during stage three this January) could officially change his name to ‘Mr Dakar’. But then, it’s probably not worth the passport hassle, what with all the international travel he has to do. Africa, South America, Saudi Arabia... the 55-year-old has conquered them all at Dakar. See him in action at redbull.com

The next issue of THE RED BULLETIN is out on May 11

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Done and dusted