The Red Bulletin UK 10/20

UK EDITION OCTOBER 2020, £3.50

BEYOND THE ORDINARY

DIGGING DEEP THE ‘UNDERGROUND ASTRONAUTS’ ON A MISSION TO SAVE THE WORLD

WARPED REALITY STEFANIE MILLINGER ON HER MIND-BENDING ACROBATICS

SUBSCRIBE: GETREDBULLETIN.COM

TOUGH AND READY

How rugby star JACK NOWELL gears up for glory

Editor’s letter

You’d be forgiven for thinking this is the ‘Tattoo Issue’ of The Red Bulletin – there’s almost as much ink on our subjects as on our pages. But each has a very different reason for being featured.

First, there’s rugby athlete Jack Nowell (page 32), pictured sporting the latest England kit on our cover. The Cornish-born player is fighting fit again after an injury – the latest in a long line – that has, so far, prevented him from competing in this year’s Six Nations. With the championship resuming next month, he reveals what he has learnt about preparing, both physically and mentally, to perform and stay at the top of his game.

Then there’s fashion-loving BMX star Kriss Kyle (page 60) who, having devoted himself to mastering his art in the saddle, is branching out with a clothing range. And we join the beguilingly bendy Stefanie Millinger (page 68) to hear about the hours of work required, each and every day, to teach your body to do the seemingly impossible.

Plus, with fewer tattoos, there are the ‘underground astronauts’ (page 46) risking life and limb to explore the unknown realm beneath our feet – and make the world above ground a better place in the process.

Enjoy the issue.

GREG COLEMAN

The self-taught photographer has worked with some of the world’s biggest athletes and was pleased to get the call to shoot this month’s cover with Jack Nowell. “This is my fifth or sixth time working with Jack,” says Coleman, “and it’s been a pleasure on every occasion. He’s always super chilled out and willing to work with me to get the images we need.” Page 32

MARK BAILEY

As a freelance writer, Bailey has profiled mountaineers, astronauts and polar explorers, but for this issue he tracked down those who venture underground for science and the pursuit of unworldly thrills. “There’s an extraordinary world beneath our feet that we know hardly anything about,” he says.

“These fearless adventurers are bringing the underworld into the light.” Page 46

Jurassic bikepark: photographer Fred Murray helps BMX ace Kriss Kyle with an improbable costume change. Page 60

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THE RED BULLETIN

GREG COLEMAN (COVER), FRED MURRAY, OLLO WEGUELIN

BENEATH THE SURFACE

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CONTENTS October 2020

08 Gallery: skating architectural

curves in Brazil, soaring above giant mountains in the Czech Republic, and MotoBASE jumping in the dunes of the Mojave Desert

15 Family valued: musician Skip

Marley picks four top tracks by his late grandfather, reggae icon Bob 16 The bigger picture: opera singer

Peter Brathwaite on correcting Black representation in art history

19 Public view: the US artist whose

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augmented-reality app turns your environment into a gallery 20 Bardcore, thou dost know the

score: how musicians on YouTube are channelling the Middle Ages

22 Eye in the sky: all the wonder and

emotion of viewing Earth from space – without leaving terra firma

24 M ira Rai

The trail runner inspiring women in her native Nepal and beyond

26 L ouis Josek

How the filmmaker’s trip to Jamaica became a labour of love

30 A ngie Marino

The US rider fighting for gender equality in the world of BMX

32 J ack Nowell

On the eve of the Six Nations restart, the England rugby star tells us why he’s raring to go

Deep insight: the subterranean realm is a source of great knowledge for scientists

41 Inclusivity in gaming

We meet four people challenging the (straight, white, male) norm

46 U nderworld

On location with the explorers unlocking the secrets of the world beneath our feet

60 Kriss Kyle ROBBIE SHONE

The BMX ace has more tricks up his sleeve than we first thought

6 8 Stefanie Millinger The Austrian contortionist who bends over backwards to excel at her craft

THE RED BULLETIN

77 Trails of glory: MTB coach and

former champ Al Bond takes us on a tour of Dyfi Bike Park, the 650-acre playground created by legend-of-the-sport Dan Atherton

81 Kicking back: the old-school

Banzai skateboard is reborn

82 Loading bae: backpacks you’ll

become totally attached to

84 Countdown to fitness: the weight

trainer designed for astronauts 87 Mountain GOAT: the Merrell MQM

Flex 2 is your go-to trekking shoe

88 Heads up: the full-face helmet

is a bike rider’s best friend

91 Getting on board: why Tony

Hawk’s Pro Skater is more than just a video game for some 92 Cover stars: our pick of the finest reusable face masks 93 Way to go: the natural navigator who uses wave patterns and rainbows as a compass 94 Essential dates for your calendar 98 Come fly with me: trials bike high-jinks at a German museum 07

BELO HORIZONTE, BRAZIL

Fine lines

MARCELO MARAGNI/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

“I am not attracted to straight angles created by man, but free-flowing curves,” said renowned Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer. It’s an aesthetic desired by skaters, too.

“We looked at his works and dreamt of skating on them,” says Pedro Barros.

So when the Brazilian was given permission to ride Niemeyer’s Cidade Administrativa de Minas Gerais – including its auditorium (pictured) – for the film Sonhos Concretos, he leapt at the chance. redbull.com

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KRKONOŠE, CZECH REPUBLIC

Getting some air May was a month that saw the world in lockdown, but the pilots of the Salzburg-based Flying Bulls aerobatics team took physical distancing to a higher level. The squad made the most of a day of fine weather by taking their XtremeAir XA42 aircraft for a spin over the Krkonoše (‘Giant Mountains’) range on the Czech-Polish border. This serene image was captured by Czech action photographer Dan Vojtech.

Instagram: @danvojtech

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DANIEL VOJTECH/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

MOJAVE DESERT, USA

Dune bug Bradley ‘Slums’ O’Neal is a MotoBASE jumper – in fact, he pioneered the sport with a parachute-launching dirt bike of his own design. But even by the American’s standards, this stunt – the world’s biggest desert jump, executed at the Mojave’s Dumont Dunes – was off the chain. “Every moto-photo instinct told me this wasn’t right, knowing he might die,” says Californian photographer Chris Tedesco, who reached the finals of Red Bull Illume’s Special Image Quest with this spectacular shot.

“We were hours away from medical [assistance], with no cell service, and I almost dropped the camera when I saw him launch.” bradleyslums.com; Instagram: @tedescophoto

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SKIP MARLEY

Songs of freedom This year, reggae icon Bob Marley would have celebrated his 75th birthday. Here, his grandson picks four essential tracks from a formidable back catalogue

JACK MCCAIN

WILL LAVIN

Like so many members of his illustrious family, 24-year-old Skip Marley has carved out a career in music. Having first stepped onto the scene back in 2015, the Jamaican singer-songwriter returned to the spotlight last year with the singles That’s Not True and Slow Down, the latter of which features Grammy Award-winning R&B star H.E.R. This year would have seen the late reggae legend Bob Marley turn 75 – he died in 1981, aged just 36 – and Skip remembers the impact of his grandfather’s music. “It changed the way people think,” he says.

“His determination, his discipline and his work ethic influenced the world, including me and the music I make.” Here are four of Skip’s favourite Bob Marley tracks…

Skip Marley’s new single, Make Me Feel, featuring Rick Ross and Ari Lennox, is out now

Natty Dread (from the 1974 album Natty Dread)

Revolution (also from the album Natty Dread)

The Heathen (from the 1977 album Exodus)

Redemption Song (from the 1980 album Uprising)

“My grandfather influenced the way I live and think. He instilled the mission in me, and that’s why I love Natty Dread.

It’s like an anthem for the Rasta man: ‘Don’t care what the world seh, I’n’I couldn‘t never go astray.’ Whenever I listen to the song, it just affirms the mission. It’s a song that has always stuck with me heavy.”

“We’re going through a revolution right now, and this song is still relevant because it talks about truth. Songs like this constantly remind us of the fire in my grandfather’s belly. We remember him every day. We’re the family, we all live together in love, we are him.

And we keep growing his legacy.

Love can’t take a day off.”

“This was one of the first songs where I learnt to play it all: drums, bass, guitar, piano. The Heathen is the real raw roots.

Living is a fight. We have to keep fighting and keep getting up. We have to keep surviving.

We’re going through a struggle right now. We have to keep firm and push through and be assured in The Most High.”

“One of my favourite childhood memories is being on the beach with my family and us all singing along to Redemption Song. It’s a song that changed the world, you know? It’s a worldwide anthem, a story of survival and fight and redemption: ‘Old pirates, yes, they rob I, sold I to the merchant ships.’ The song just sticks with you differently.”

THE RED BULLETIN

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Reframing history Meet the British opera singer who spent lockdown putting Black people back in the picture Does the history of art give an accurate representation of the history of the world? That’s the question posed by Peter Brathwaite’s Black Portraiture series of photographs, in which he recreates paintings of Black subjects using only himself and miscellaneous items from around his home.

Created as part of the #GettyMuseumChallenge – a call from the renowned LA institution for members of the public to recreate works of art 16

using everyday objects – Black Portraiture was influenced by Brathwaite’s research into his own family tree, during which he noticed an absence of Black representation in portraiture.

“Scrolling through some of the images in the challenge, I realised that I couldn’t see many recreations of Black sitters,” says the professional opera singer, writer and radio broadcaster. “Something that struck me in my family history, too, was that because of our

THE RED BULLETIN

PETER BRATHWAITE, GETTY IMAGES

PETER BRATHWAITE

Barbadian heritage we are descended from plantation owners as well as slaves. I could find images of the plantation owners’ portraits, but not so much of my Black ancestors.”

Brathwaite’s first photo was a recreation of an 18th-century painting by an unknown artist, titled A Black Servant, England; since then, he has posted almost 80 others. “The process of finding images has been through searching the internet and ordering back catalogues of exhibitions,” he says. “A lot of them are not well-known and are still on the margins. The Black sitters are sometimes not mentioned at all, especially if they’re with a White sitter, who takes precedence.”

Brathwaite’s series shifts the balance of power in these portraits: “I wanted to distinguish my interpretation of the challenge by looking at the images and bringing in elements of Black British or Barbadian culture – quite humble elements that have existed in my family for a long time – elevating them to highstatus objects.”

Others are now imitating Brathwaite’s imitations. “I did a recreation of a piece titled Portrait of a Black Gardener, by the artist Harold Gilman,” he says. “About a week later, I got a tag on Instagram from a boy at a primary school in Harlem, who had recreated the same painting after seeing my post.

That’s a crazy thing to see.” peterbrathwaitebaritone.com

LOU BOYD

Left: Brathwaite recreates John Thomas Smith’s 1815 etching of injured sailor turned beggar Joseph Johnson.

Below: as composer Joseph Bologne, aka ‘the Black Mozart’ (1787)

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LOU BOYD NANCY BAKER CAHILL, JOY ASICO, JULIAN MACKLER

As the opportunity to visit real-world venues vanished earlier this year, much of the culture we consume – music, theatre, art at galleries and museums – went virtual.

LA-based multidisciplinary artist Nancy Baker Cahill was perfectly equipped for this transition; for years, she has employed the mediums of VR and AR (augmented reality) in her work as much as she has paint and sculpture.

Cahill’s 2018 project 4th Wall, a free AR art app, feels like it was designed for this moment. Via the screen of their mobile device, users of the app can view her artwork inhabiting the physical space around them. They can change the size of each work and even walk into it to see the piece from every perspective.

“It was created to challenge what public art could be,” says Cahill (pictured below).

“Viewers can not only see my work in 360°, in the context of their choosing, they can move through my studio and experience a volumetric capture of me talking about the conceptual underpinnings.”

In July of this year, Cahill took the project further with a new exhibit titled Liberty Bell, which features a tolling animation of Philadelphia’s iconic city bell – a symbol of American Independence – reimagined in red, white and blue ribbons. The artwork was geotagged to six locations

THE RED BULLETIN

Sight specific: Cahill’s Liberty Bell art project as seen on the screen of a smartphone using her 4th Wall app at the Washington Monument

associated with historical fights for freedom, from the site of the 1773 Boston Tea Party to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where the famous 1965 civil rights marches took place.

Being virtual, the exhibit doesn’t require the cost or permits needed for a public art installation, something that the Smithsonian Magazine noted as timely during “a unique point in American history when communities are reckoning with the racist legacies of historical monuments across the country”.

Cahill hopes her work can foster inclusiveness in these times. “AR art invites creative collaboration with the broadest audience and automatically democratises access,” she says. “It amplifies unheard voices, tells untold stories, and engages new audiences in impactful ways.” nancybakercahill.com

4TH WALL

Ringing the changes

One artist has liberated her work from the gallery and even reality, creating a whole new kind of ‘public art’

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Wouldst thou believe it? A music genre inspired by the medieval world is taking the internet by storm

Every era leaves its mark on popular culture, and creative types will always trawl the past for inspiration. Back in the 16th century, no less than William Shakespeare tapped into the medieval period for his plays – and now, thanks to Bardcore, the Middle Ages are enjoying an, erm, renaissance.

Bardcore, a new music genre in which hit songs are remade in a medieval ‘tavern’ 20

to surpass the millions. Since then, he has created covers of Foster the People’s Pumped Up Kicks and Haddaway’s 1993 hit What is Love, and now what started as a weird offshoot of meme culture could become a genuine musical moment.

“I’m working with a label to release Bardcore on Spotify very soon,” says Link. “I’m doing some collaborations, too, including one with a Bardcore artist called Hildegard von Blingin’. We’ve nearly finished a cover of The White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army, and we’re doing Corey Hart’s Sunglasses At Night, too. For that one, I’ve worked with historical experts to translate the lyrics into medieval English. But we’ve had to change the sunglasses to a helmet. The lyrics will be: ‘I wear my bascinet at night…’”

Watch Link’s Bardcore videos at youtube.com THE RED BULLETIN

LOU BOYD

Sonnet youth

style, has exploded online in recently, with people worldwide getting down to its lutes, flutes, vielles and psalteries. And no one is more surprised about this surge of interest than its creator, 27-year-old German web engineer Cornelius Link.

“I really don‘t know why it’s exploded – I was just messing around with my mates,” Link says. “When the Coffin Dance video [a meme that shows Ghanaian pallbearers dancing while marching a coffin, soundtracked by Tony Igy’s EDM hit Astronomia] became famous online, my friend made a medieval meme of it. Then we thought it would be funny if it had a medieval tune, too.”

Link transcribed the notes and recorded a new version using medieval instruments, which he first uploaded to Discord and 9gag, then moved to YouTube when views started

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SPACEVR

Entering orbit The founder of a US tech start-up wants everyone to experience the view of Earth from space. All you need for this interstellar voyage is your swimsuit

Keeping watch: an artist’s impression of the Overview 1 satellite transmitting the view from Low Earth Orbit

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The profound psychological effect of looking back at Earth during orbit has been recorded since the very beginning of space travel. In 1969, the Apollo 11 astronauts said it was not stepping on the Moon that moved them most, but turning to see their home planet in its entirety. This moment of realisation – that all life as we know it rests on the surface of a fragile world suspended in space – was dubbed ‘the overview effect’ by the writer Frank White in his 1987 book of the same name.

Ryan Holmes, the founder and CEO of SpaceVR, was so inspired by White’s words that he asked the author to consult on a big idea he had: to bring the overview effect to people here on Earth. “The cost of going into space is around $90 million [almost £72m] and only 500 or so people have ever been able to have that experience,” says Holmes.

THE RED BULLETIN

KLAUS THUMANN/INSTITUTE, SPACE VR

Salt of the Earth: magnesium sulfate in the water simulates weightlessness

“We’re bringing it down to $99 [around £76] per person.”

For that fee, the participant is placed in a flotation tank filled with Epsom salt-infused water to deliver the feeling of weightlessness, and then, via a waterproof 4K VR headset, immersed in 360° footage of Earth filmed from space.

“About six per cent of people who take the experience cry with the profundity of it all,” says Holmes.

The experience is already up and running at a number of spas across the US, but this is just the first stage of Holmes’ plan. With funds raised through the business and a Kickstarter campaign, SpaceVR plans to send a 360°-camera-equipped satellite – Overview 1 – into Low Earth Orbit on a SpaceX rocket mid next year; this would then livestream a view of Earth direct to the flotation tanks. At the time of writing, $1 million (almost £800,000) of the $4 million (more than £3m) funding goal had already been raised.

Holmes wants this to be more than just a neat experience; he hopes that by bringing the overview effect to a wider audience, it could bring about positive change at a moment of great peril for our planet. “We need a fundamental shift in the foundation of humanity,” he says. “People who come back down to Earth have a clearer idea of how the world works, and a deeper care for the planet.” spacevr.co

LOU BOYD

All eyes: the 360° camera mounted to Overview 1

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Mira Rai

Happy feet At just 14, this Nepalese athlete ran away from home to fight in a war. Now she’s running to champion the women of her country Words TOM GUISE Photography MARTINA VALMASSOI

In June 2015, Nepalese trail runner Mira Rai was the women’s winner of the 80km du Mont-Blanc – a gruelling ultramarathon through the French Alps. The athlete, then aged 26, was running her first high-profile European race, and she triumphed by 22 minutes, smashing the 2014 winning time by six minutes.

Sixteen months earlier, Rai didn’t even know what an ultramarathon was; 10 years before that, at the age of 14, she’d left her home village in the Bhojpur district of eastern Nepal to become a child soldier in the Nepalese Civil War. Just eight weeks before the Mont-Blanc race, her country was devastated by the Gorkha earthquake, which killed almost 9,000 people. As she crossed the finish line, Rai pulled out her country’s flag and held it above her head – an image of hope for Nepal that was beamed around the world.

Rai’s story is one full of optimism.

She joined the Maoist revolution as a teenager not to take sides but for a better life than other women in her village were afforded. When the war ended, Rai wanted to stay in the army, but she was denied because, at 17, she was still a minor. Her new career presented itself in 2014, after a chance encounter with two runners.

They invited her to compete in the Himalayan Outdoor Festival 50km race, and although she had no idea what it was and had never run that distance, Rai took part – and won. It was to be the first of many victories.

Now, Rai wants to help other Nepalese women take up the sport and, with it, control of their own lives. “Running makes me happy,” she says from her current home in

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Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu. “When you’re happy doing whatever you do, pain becomes secondary.”

You weren’t even wearing proper running shoes…

No, just casual shoes I’d bought at a good price. I got blisters all over my feet, and the shoes were torn apart.

Watching you run, even in competition, you seem so calm…

I move easily in the mountains – the steep hills remind me of my childhood. When you’ve run in the Nepalese mountains, it’s easier to run anywhere else. But if I go to a flat place, I’m less comfortable.

the red bulletin: Your story seems larger than life… mira rai: It doesn’t feel larger than life. I’m just an ordinary woman from Bhojpur, fighting to do the right things for the upcoming generation of aspiring trail runners in Nepal. I’ve got a long way to go.

I get my motivation from people around the world, and my family.

How did it feel to compete in Mont Blanc soon after the earthquake that devastated your country?

I was not mentally stressed, but mentally strong. I always thought I could do my best. I was delighted afterwards – not because I’d won the race, but because my win was for all the Nepalese around the globe.

I was happy I could get a medal for our country in that dire situation.

When you were growing up, how did you view your future?

My village is very remote. Running was not an option, though I used to run up and downhill every day for my household chores. I always had a dream that had I been from a different place and had an urban life, I could have studied, gone to a good school, pursued a career. After being disqualified from the army, I enrolled to study; two years later, I [graduated from] secondary school.

Today, you’re far more than a runner – you’re an activist…

I’ve started the Mira Rai Initiative, an organisation that helps Nepal’s aspiring female runners. It was born from my own experiences of growing up in a remote village, being a Maoist fighter and struggling in the city. I want to give them a platform: English classes, a college education, physical fitness training and therapy. Each year, we take in five female runners.

We’ve already completed two groups.

You joined the army at 14...

It wasn’t a choice. I forced myself into the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] in the hope that my family would get a better future, but my time there was happy. In camp there were a lot of activities; I was introduced to running as a sport.

What are the challenges in bringing women into sport?

Convincing the parents is the toughest part. Also, making them aware of the positive outcome if they take it seriously. We’ve sent a couple of runners – Sunmaya Budha and Humi Budha Magar – to take part in international races in Hong Kong, Japan and Oman, and they’ve won. That’s an achievement.

Watch Rai’s story in Red Bull’s The Way of the Wildcard series at redbull.com; miraraiinitiative.org

The Himalayan Outdoor Festival was your first ultramarathon…

I had already participated in a 21km road half-marathon, but I collapsed 400m before the finish, due to the heat. For the Himalayan Outdoor Festival, I wasn’t aware of the route or the distance – I was just invited by some Nepalese Army runners. I had no expectations. I just kept running and running and came first.

THE RED BULLETIN

“Running makes me happy. Pain is secondary”

THE RED BULLETIN

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Louis Josek

Breaking out Whether you’re from Kingston or Cologne, says the 26-year-old director, we’re all trying to answer the same questions Words RUTH McLEOD

When German filmmaker Louis Josek first visited Jamaica, he didn’t expect to make lifelong friends, or to embark on a five-year-long personal film project that would also see him travel to the US and Japan. His documentary Outdeh: the Youth of America is testament, then, to life’s habit of taking you in directions you’d never imagined. This is mirrored in the stories of the three twentysomethings his film follows – Elishama Beckford, known as Shama, Jamaica’s first pro surfer; Romar Rose, who lives in Tivoli Gardens, one of the island’s toughest neighbourhoods; and Daniel Simpson, aka Bakersteez, a young rapper creating a new sound for his generation – as they strive to find their own path. Being his directorial debut, Outdeh is also a first step for Josek – one inspired solely by the characters he met in Kingston. Here, the 26-year-old former surf pro explains how his story became intertwined with those of his protagonists as they figured out how to proceed on journeys with no set destination. the red bulletin: This is your first outing as director. How did it all come about? louis josek: Stills cameras have been part of family life since I was young, because my dad was a photographer. Filmmaking has been with me for a long time, too. I was surfing professionally until the age of 18, then around seven years ago,

when I stopped surfing, I started to follow my pro surfer friends with a camera and focus more on that.

But I didn’t go to Jamaica with a big idea to shoot a movie. A friend invited me, so I went. And I fell in love with the island.

What in particular captured your imagination in Jamaica?

The young people really inspired me with their energy and resilience.

From an early age, they’re told, “You can’t be this, you’ll never be that.” It reminded me of Cologne, where I grew up. It might not seem like it, but it’s similar in Europe – you’re supposed to go to school, study, then go to work. I felt really connected to these people who have instead found ways to do what they want. They have a lot of dreams, and the passion and courage to follow them. This mutual understanding and trust was the basis of our movie.

So you felt your stories were somehow intertwined right from the beginning?

Exactly. I felt the sort of energy these guys had was lacking in Europe, in our generation. They really inspired me to think about what I want to do.

Who are the three characters you feature in the film?

There’s Shama, who’s 23 and lives in Eight Miles, Bull Bay [a community on the southeast coast]. He’s the first professional surfer from the

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island. Romar lives in Tivoli Gardens, Kingston, which is known as one of the roughest places in Jamaica.

He lost almost all of his family at a young age, but has just become a father. And Bakersteez lives in Downtown Kingston. On an island that’s dominated by reggae, he’s starting a career as one of its only upcoming rappers.

How did you meet them?

It seemed like the generation in Jamaica had already picked their protagonists, so we just tried to follow. It was a really natural process. For example, Bakersteez’s music was always playing when we were skating in Kingston. On this island, everything is connected.

It evolved naturally.

Did your relationship with the others change during the project?

When I started filming with them, we knew the topic, but we didn’t know where it would take us. We grew together over the five years of this project. I met Shama when he was a young kid, 17 years old, telling everybody, “I’m going to be a pro surfer,” and everyone was like, “How are you going to do that?”

Then we started filming. We ended up in Hawaii after he got a contract with [surf brand] Hurley. During filming, we always tried to help each other out. We saw each other grow, we saw each other fall, and we tried to help each other up again. The movie shows a huge part of each of their lives, and their first steps.

I also hope this movie gives people a new understanding of the island.

Everyone has a picture in their mind when they think of Jamaica. We tried to show a different Jamaica.

What gives these characters the ability to do things differently?

They’re all smart, humble, and they have huge hearts, a big energy. They each have the courage to follow their path. They’re doing different things, but they’re connected by a self-belief that separates them from others. They told themselves, “I can do this,” even though everybody is

THE RED BULLETIN

OUTDEH – THE YOUTH OF JAMAICA

”The energy and resilience of those young people was inspiring”

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telling them they can’t. They’re role models for so many in Jamaica now.

I could feel it from the beginning.

There weren’t any skaters in Jamaica and there were about 20 surfers.

There wasn’t much rap music. But now in Jamaica they’re building their second skatepark, and there’s a huge community of skaters, plus a lot of really good surfers and rappers.

They’re influencing the young people and opening up a whole other level for them. It’s exploding over there right now.

And as you were filming these characters exploring new territory, did you feel they were inspiring you in your debut role as a director?

Yes, exactly. This is my first movie.

Firstly, the whole film crew on location and all the characters, we’re all from the same generation.

We went through all this together, because no matter where you grow up – whether it’s in Germany or Jamaica – you’re facing similar questions. That was our special access to the story.

Did you feel ready to take this project on as director?

Starting out felt like being pushed into cold water. Even getting to the point of filming was tough. Nobody wanted to give me funding, because I didn’t study filmmaking, I didn’t study directing. We had two years of writing the treatment and trying to get the money together for the movie. Over the five years of the production, I was in Jamaica a lot, and I’d already spent many hours filming the characters to get them used to the camera. And then the main shooting was three months.

I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into.

Was it harder than you thought it would be?

In the beginning, everyone was like, “Yeah, we’re going to Jamaica to film a movie!” Then, as soon as we arrived, it was a really tough first week as we realised what we were facing. We had problems while shooting, the culture is very different, and then suddenly you’re not only friends with these guys 28

”We tried to show a different Jamaica”

but you’re in a working relationship.

My main problem was that I was too close to the characters – friends say things in different ways to each other, let’s put it that way. It seemed so easy when I was sitting in Germany writing the treatment, then suddenly we’re like, “OK, we have to go and film in Tivoli [Gardens] now. How are we going to do this?” We were sitting in the THE RED BULLETIN

Louis Josek

in the middle of Osaka to kick off his first tour felt surreal. There was one show a day in different cities: Osaka, Fukuoka, Sendai, Tokyo. We never knew what to expect, where we would go, who we would meet, and what we would experience.

In Sendai, the smallest city on our tour, we were driven to a small underground club in [an area of] dark streets. The club was packed.

It was hot, loud and the crowd was screaming, “Sendai neva die.” I remember thinking, “How did we get here?” – three months back we were filming in the middle of Kingston, and Bakersteez was dreaming about going on tour and making an international career. He performed his best show of the tour that night. The crowd was singing his lyrics when he left the stage.

What was it like to experience that moment?

As a filmmaker, it was one of the most exciting I’ve experienced. It sums up the beauty of documentary filmmaking for me. You start with an idea, a feeling, and a theoretical concept. During the process, you struggle a lot and you question yourself, but also you find yourself in places you would never have dreamt of. That’s one of the most important things I learnt: believe in your idea and have the courage to let the story evolve in a natural way.

OUTDEH – THE YOUTH OF JAMAICA, MARIAMI KURTISHVILI, DONALD DE LA HAYE

Clockwise from top left: on location in Jamaica; Beckford leads the way for JA surfers; Outdeh stars (from left) Beckford, Rose and Bakersteez with Josek; Bakersteez on the mic

car with the whole team and I realised I was responsible for all of them. That was hard sometimes.

Did you end up in situations that surprised you?

Constantly. For instance, when we wanted to film in one of the social buildings in Tivoli, we needed to get the OK from the community’s boss, which wasn’t easy. We were told he THE RED BULLETIN

likes books, so we ended up driving a whole carload of books to Tivoli and taking them to his house.

Luckily, that worked.

In Outdeh, you also visit Hawaii with Shama, and fly to Japan for Bakersteez’s first tour. Was that planned?

No, those trips weren’t planned at all. Meeting Bakersteez and his crew

What’s your favourite memory from making the film?

One of the most special memories I have is from the last day of the shoot. I’d had no idea how I would know we were finished. I still didn’t have this feeling two days before our plane was due to leave. We set off that day at 3am. There was a big lit-up red cross in town that we wanted in shot, so we’d asked Shama to skate in front of the camera from left to right and we pressed record. At the exact second he left the right side of the shot, the lights went out. Then half an hour later it started to rain, which it never does in Jamaica. It rained the next day, too. I finally felt done.

It was like the island said, “Right, lights out, that’s it, go home.”

Watch the film at redbull.com/outdeh 29

Angie Marino

Taking on the X men In the world of BMX, opportunities to compete on equal terms are limited for female riders – but this US athlete is fighting for change Words LOU BOYD Photography ELISE CRIGAR

Angie Marino has had a very different 2020 from the one she was expecting. By now, the 30-yearold American would have been deep into this year’s competitions, the biggest of which being her first-ever freestyle BMX event at the Olympics.

Because of COVID-19, however, she has been limited to supporting the sport in lockdown. Quarantined in her house in San Diego and unable to ride her bike, Marino has focused her energy on The Bloom BMX, an online platform promoting more exposure for women in the sport.

As one of the most famous faces in BMX, Marino is known not only for being a fierce athlete who regularly ranks highly at World Cup events, but also as a champion of equality. When it was announced that this year’s X Games would, yet again, not include a medalled event for women, she and other BMX heavyweights called for female riders to boycott the competition altogether. [The 2020 X Games in Minneapolis and Shanghai were subsequently cancelled due to the pandemic.] We caught up with Marino to ask her about her decadelong fight for equality in her sport… the red bulletin: You created The Bloom BMX with pro rider Beatrice Trang. What was the thinking behind the website? angie marino: When I was growing up, there was never any

media focused solely on girls, and the BMX media would never post anything about females. That kind of sucked, because it didn’t open the door for girls to see others like them doing this sport. I used to run a website called Yeah Zine, and Beatrice had her own site, Magnolia BMX. We decided that, instead of competing, we’d join forces, so we created The Bloom BMX as an online powerhouse that could put out good content about women’s BMX and fight for the sport.

You’ve been campaigning for years for a women’s BMX event at the X Games. How did it feel when you heard they’d ignored the request again this year?

We’ve been talking to the X Games for the past 10 years and, in all honesty, a few years ago I nearly gave up. But [BMX rider] Nina Buitrago carried on pushing them, and it seemed over the past few years that things had started to progress. First, the X Games invited us out to just ride the course, then we got to do a legit demo, and two years ago they actually paid us for the first time. This year, however, after BMX was announced for the Olympics and so many things blew up for the women’s sport, the X Games still wouldn’t let us compete.

It sucked to see that, even though we’re in the Olympics and we’ve got equal pay, they still said no.

Female riders were travelling all the way from New Zealand and Japan just to do a demo, and the X Games was giving us a thousand dollars, which wouldn’t even cover the cost of travel [male competitors can win as much as $50,000, or £38,000]. One person from [US sports channel] ESPN said, “At least you get to come out and experience it.” But we deserve more than experience! I put forward that we should make a stand and say, “No, thank you,” and just not go unless there’s an actual event for us to compete in. It was an important stance for us to be public about it and all say, “We respectfully decline.”

You’ve been riding for more than 10 years, and so many younger female BMX riders look up to you.

Where do you think this new breed will take the sport over the next decade?

When I started riding, there really weren’t many others like me, and we didn’t even have the internet and social media, so to actually see another girl ride was unbelievably rare. It’s so amazing that today these new girls are in touch and pushing each other by sharing videos and trying each other’s tricks. There are so many young girls popping up out of nowhere, and they’re so good.

I can only imagine where the sport would be now if we’d been given a platform years ago.

Looking forward to 2021, what are you hoping to achieve?

I want to keep pushing and fighting for things. Two years ago, I was second for the overall title in the Vans Series, and I want to try to come first. And the Olympics are definitely still a goal. Maybe one day I’ll even win a title at the X Games. angiemarino.com

Whose idea was it to boycott the event altogether?

Some people said we should keep working with them and we’d maybe be able to compete next year, but I’d got to a point where I had to say no.

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THE RED BULLETIN

”Women’s BMX is in the Olympics, but the X Games still said no” THE RED BULLETIN

31

Jack Words RICHARD EDWARDS Photography GREG COLEMAN

32

is

Rugby star JACK NOWELL has spent a lifetime learning how to perform when it counts the most.

And now he’s ready to put those skills back into practice

back THE RED BULLETIN

Rose and crown: Nowell can’t wait for the Six Nations match against Italy in October, which could win England the title

Tatt man: Nowell’s body art is part of his Cornish heritage.

“Every fisherman had a tattoo,” he says

Jack Nowell

“When I go home, my family still

take the mick out of me.

And that’s the way it should be”

S

ome people might, understandably, baulk at the prospect of having an 120kg juggernaut running full pelt at them with a rugby ball in hand. Jack Nowell, however, merely shrugs his enormous shoulders and tells The Red Bulletin that given a choice between that reality and going into the family business, there was only ever going to be one winner.

“I’m the first Nowell in God-knows-how-many generations not to carry on the fishing business,” says the 27-year-old, who was born in Newlyn, a tiny Cornish fishing village nestled on the southern coast between Penzance and Mousehole.

“Dad is a bit gutted, but he’s very proud of what I’m doing.

I’ve seen some videos on my old man’s phone where he’s in waves that are literally swallowing the boat. In December, when it’s minus two, choppy as hell and stormy, you won’t catch me anywhere near that.”

Nowell is far more comfortable knee-deep in the blood and thunder of an 80-minute rugby match for club or country.

Easily recognisable by his shock of blond hair and a collection of some of sport’s most eclectic tattoos, he has developed into one of world rugby’s most exciting talents. His CV now includes 42 England caps, appearances at two successive World Cups, a British and Irish Lions tour to New Zealand, and a Premiership title with the Exeter Chiefs – the first in the club’s history.

THE RED BULLETIN

35

Jack Nowell

“I’ve managed to take an awful

lot out of lockdown.

The break has freshened things up”

The Chiefs star missed the first four matches of England’s enough. I’ve also flown out to Austria to see the guys out there latest Six Nations campaign, as he’s spent the majority of 2020 [at Red Bull’s high-performance sports centre in Salzburg], recovering from injury. But Nowell could well find himself in which was a massive help during my rehab. That has kept me the starting 15 when competition resumes in Rome in October, mentally in a good place, and my body in a good place as well.” as head coach Eddie Jones’ side aim to seal their first Six Nations Nowell’s list of past injuries is lengthy. By 2019, he had triumph since 2017. And he’s up for the challenge. With Italy the endured seven different operations in as many years – on his only team standing in England’s way, Nowell is fully recovered thumb, eye socket, appendix, thigh, hamstrings, knee and ankle from January’s ankle surgery, and is – missing the equivalent of almost two years of his career. These injuries fit, firing and ready for whatever bear testimony to the incredible stress comes his way once rugby gets back that rugby places on his body. But the underway following its enforced savage nature of the sport is something hiatus. In Nowell’s own words, he has How Nowell stays ready the Cornish-born star has become ‘beasted’ himself during lockdown, for action accustomed to since making his debut hitting his home gym and running appearance for Redruth in National regularly to try to match the metres Free your mind League One – two levels below the he’d be covering during a normal “A lot of it is mental. The most important thing is Premiership – at the age of just 16. season – even if it didn’t feel the same. to find something you enjoy doing completely “I don’t think I realised just how “I hated every single run,” he says. away from your sport. Look for something big that was for me at the time,” he “I hate running. [Running for training that’s almost the complete opposite, because says. “I was pretty chilled out about it. purposes] is very different to the way otherwise you can get wrapped up in your rugby, basketball, work, or whatever you’re involved in, I play rugby. But it has to be done. You My mum and dad had to write notes which can cause an enormous amount of need to find the positives in everything saying they gave me permission to go unnecessary fatigue. I enjoyed Lego as a kid, you do. You might be injured, you might away and play, which was pretty funny and I do a lot of that now. Getting engrossed be losing, but there are also positive – I obviously had a bit of mick taken in building a Lego Land Rover takes me as far things to take out of it. I’ve managed to out of me for that. away from rugby as it’s possible to get!” take an awful lot out of lockdown, for “Obviously no one you’re playing example. I had a few niggles before against cares how old you are. At 16, Focus on fun going into this, but now my body feels at the bottom of the ruck at places like “In terms of the physical stuff, you need to find pretty amazing. It can be tiring playing Newcastle, I did get the shit beaten out some exercises away from the pitch that you really enjoy. For me, it’s being down the gym and week in, week out. It’s exciting, but of me a few times. But that’s another working hard in there. Find something you love it takes a toll on your body. Having a good thing about rugby – I’ve got 14 that will make you better on the pitch.” break has really freshened things up.” other blokes there to look after me!

In the main, I used to try to stay away The physical side of this notoriously Don’t worry, be happy from contact as much as possible.” brutal game cannot be underplayed.

“Don’t take everything too seriously. You have to The fact that he was there at all Back in 2015, a physicist working at be chilled. If you’re too serious all the time, you’ll still remains something of a mystery Imperial College London reported that be constantly worrying about your performance, to a man who doesn’t take himself too the forces involved in a modern-day or your training, or the next game. You need to seriously. Fishing and surfing were the rugby collision equate to being hit be a good person, too. Never lose sight of who you are and what’s really important.” by a fridge freezer dropped from a two dominant passions of the Nowell height of 2m. Anyone seeking proof family when young Jack attended the of Nowell’s physical prowess need only village primary school. The thought of watch his displays of strength in the a career in rugby wasn’t just fanciful, it was as distant as a trawler on the horizon – indeed, the lively recent Red Bull Pro project, where he was challenged to six-year-old, who’d watch as his dad disappeared to sea for eight complete a gruelling beach course in record time. days at a time, hated the sport when he was first introduced to it.

“That was great fun,” he says. “I’m always happy to take on a challenge! I’m lucky enough to have had a gym built in my Nowell’s mum delighted in revealing this detail to the house shortly before [lockdown] happened. I couldn’t really national press when he was first picked for England, but it have picked a better time to get it finished. There are a few bits remains a bone of contention. “I’m still so angry with my mum missing, but Red Bull sent me some dumbbells that are heavy for saying that,” he says, cracking an involuntary grin. “Rugby

Gaining advantage

36

THE RED BULLETIN

Flash mob: Nowell at our photoshoot – a marginally less brutal experience than his day job

Hard knock life: seven operations in as many years threatened to derail Nowell’s career

Jack Nowell

“For me to get the best out of myself

I need to be calm.

I can’t run around like a headless chicken”

wasn’t in my family at all. I’m not too sure what made them think about taking me to rugby – maybe they thought it would be a good way for me to burn off some energy on a Friday night. But I absolutely hated it. I didn’t know anyone there, and I refused to join in for the first month or so.”

Then Nowell’s dad offered him a pound for every try he scored. “That was a big turning point for me!” says Nowell. “At the start, it was three or four tries, then one game I scored 12 or 15 tries. At the time, I was the highest-paid six-year-old in English rugby – almost semi-professional!” With money tucked in the piggy bank, Nowell was about to embark on a journey that would take him further – literally and metaphorically – than he or any of his family could ever have imagined. “I remember being in the car – I think it was for my first trial at Exeter – and being very nervous because we were going to Devon. That was a long way for me. We’d normally only go that far if we were driving to the airport to go on holiday. When I watched my first game at Twickenham, it seemed to take us days to get there.”

It’s a measure of Nowell’s character that, having made it to the top tier of English rugby after emerging from a county with only one professional sports team (Cornish Pirates) and overcoming a raft of injuries en route, he’s largely unchanged from the kid who took his first nervous steps in the game all those years ago. Nowell – who plays on the wing, but is equally comfortable at centre or full-back – has proved himself at every level.

Though his Cornish village upbringing made Nowell an unlikely candidate for international rugby stardom, it now helps to keep him down to earth – and at the top of his game.

“Whenever I go home, I’m treated in the same way I was as a kid,” he says. “I don’t get put on a pedestal – my mates still take the piss out of me, my family take the mick out of me.

And that’s the way it should be.”

Nowell still lives in Newlyn, two doors down from teammate and lifelong friend Luke Cowan-Dickie. “We both played for the same club, we went to school and college together, both signed contracts with Exeter [Chiefs] together, and then played for England together, too,” he says. “Now we’re fighting for the title of ‘most famous sportsman from the village’!”

Given his competitive streak, you get the impression that Nowell is only half-joking, although Newlyn’s inhabitants are unlikely to afford either man too much leeway. After all, that’s what has kept them so grounded for so long. It’s served Nowell well. By his own admission, he didn’t watch a huge amount of rugby growing up, and it’s the same now. During lockdown, Nowell says, he tried to sit down and catch up with some of the action when the league resumed in New Zealand, but he ended up distracted, not least by his two-year-old daughter

THE RED BULLETIN

Nori and the newest arrival – Nowell’s girlfriend Zoe gave birth to their second daughter, Zimi, during lockdown.

“I wasn’t one of these people who watched every single game and knew every single player,” he says. “When I was first picked by England, I was pretty naïve about the whole thing.

I was pretty chilled. I see some young players come in and get very worked up about the situation – they lose who they are as a person and lose sight of what they can do on the pitch.”

But it would be a mistake to judge Nowell’s relaxed attitude to sport and life as indifference. “Don’t get me wrong, winning means everything to me, and that’s what dominates my thoughts going into the game – I always want to do the best I can for my team,” he says. “But for me to get the best out of myself, I need to be calm. I can’t get flustered and run around like a headless chicken. I don’t really think about a game on a Saturday until I’ve finished the warm-up. That’s when I’ll really start to focus on the game. I spent a lot of time as a kid being nervous.

Sometimes I would be knackered [due to nerves] before I had even played. I learnt the hard way.”

These are the sorts of lessons that make the man. Learning how to get the best out of himself is what made Nowell one of the driving forces behind Exeter’s rise from a footnote in English rugby to a front-runner. The club’s Premiership triumph in 2017 remains one of domestic sport’s great fairy-tales, matching Leicester City winning football’s Premier League the previous year. The post-match celebration after Exeter had sealed the title against Wasps also reveals much about the importance of the team to Nowell.

“When we got to the stadium and saw all our friends and family, it really hit home how much this meant to everyone,” he says. “Not just the team but everyone who had helped us get there in the first place. Then we had the night out, and I got home at 5am the next morning. I lay in bed for half an hour, but then I had a taxi beeping outside my door because I was flying from Heathrow to New Zealand with the Lions. I was feeling very sorry for myself, and I was also gutted. I didn’t want to leave the [Exeter] boys just as the party was getting started.”

Now, with the Six Nations in his sights, Nowell is hungry for victory and itching to get back out onto the pitch for another chance at glory, with the same attitude that’s got him this far.

“You always need to stay positive,” he says. “You need to be as fresh and fit mentally as you are physically. That’s massively important at a time like this. It’s huge – not just for me, but for everyone in this country. I’ve done everything I can. I feel strong. I’m going to hit the pitch running.”

Italy, you have been warned.

England play Italy in their concluding 2020 Six Nations game on October 31; sixnationsrugby.com. To watch Jack’s episode in the Red Bull Pro series, visit redbull.com 39

Copyright © 2020 MNA, Inc. All rights reserved.

TH E ENTI RE RI D E OUT, TH ERE WAS NEVER A S EC OND THOUG HT.

WHAT AR E YO U BU IL DIN G FO R ?

150 years of engineering progress. Check it out at www.BFGoodrichTires.com/150years .

GAMERS

LIKE US

For true fans, video gaming is about community and making a connection without barriers such as language and distance.

But the perception of gamers as mostly straight, white and male remains. Increasingly, those who don’t conform to this stereotype are using their talents and their love of gaming to forge a more inclusive community. We spoke to four of them…

Words CHRISTINE FENNESSY Illustrations PETRA ERIKSSON THE RED BULLETIN

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GENEVA HEYWARD, 20 NEW YORK, US Student While playing video games as a kid, Geneva Heyward – who favours the pronouns ‘they’ and ‘them’ – felt bad for Mario when he fell into the lava.

Heyward was fascinated by how their choices could change the fortunes of characters in visual novels. And they got very attached to a robot in a cyberpunk adventure game.

It was this sense of connection and constant interaction with storylines and characters that made Heyward – a tech-savvy kid who loved storytelling – change plans from their initial dream of being an animator to becoming a videogame designer. And the games they create today make use of that interaction to tell stories that foster awareness.

While in high school, Heyward attended two game-design programmes, and won two national student competitions for their game Green Hero.

“It’s about a hero without powers trying to fight climate change,” says Heyward.

“I was just worried about the world.

I could have just made people more aware about it, but I wanted to do something more and be like, ‘Hey, you can do something as simple as turning off electronics to help the Earth.’”

Heyward has since won numerous additional awards and recognition for their games, including one called Skate & Date, a roller derby game about highschool-aged lesbians, in which the player must help a girl named Maggie dodge other skaters while impressing a competitor she has a crush on.

“I made sure there was a diverse cast of characters, and I wanted it to be an ‘E for Everyone’ type of game,” says Heyward. “When I was in high school and finally found games that reflected me, I was like, ‘Wow, this is great. Where has this been all my life?’”

Heyward now teaches at the School for Interactive Arts while studying videogame design as a sophomore at New York University, and has received consecutive Computer and Video Game Arts 42

“When I was in high school and finally found games that reflected me, I was like, ‘Wow, this is great.

Where has this been all my life?’”

scholarships from the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) Foundation.

The scholarship programme supports the next generation of video-game developers by providing tuition, mentorship, and access to industry events for networking opportunities.

Heyward says that the programme gives them hope for what they call a “very messy” industry, in part because

of its lack of diversity and inclusivity.

It’s an industry they say could benefit from more diversity in play-testing games, consistent recognition of preferred pronouns, and gender-neutral toilets at events. “I want the games industry to change for the better,” says Heyward. “A game came out last year with a character-naming screen that was worded, ‘What’s the name that your parents gave you?’ That’s not OK. The industry needs to acknowledge that different types of people exist.”

Heyward intends to make that happen. They plan to work for a small studio, making fun games that are inclusive and “not super cis white male straight and whatever”. Games that raise awareness about the many ways people live this life, helping all of us understand ourselves – and each other – a little better.

THE RED BULLETIN

Inclusivity in gaming

ANASTASIA STATEN, 40 WASHINGTON DC, US Executive director, ESA Foundation

“I want to champion people with passions,” says Anastasia Staten, executive director of the ESA Foundation, the charitable arm of the Entertainment Software Association. The foundation leverages video games to create educational opportunities for kids, and provides funding for schools and non-profit organisations across America. It has also partnered with Red Bull to create We Are, an initiative to connect, educate and inspire women from diverse backgrounds in the gaming community.

“I sometimes cheekily refer to it as ‘cradle to career’,” says Staten, meaning her empowerment of dreams starts with the very young. Staten will go into middleschool classrooms, ask who loves video

games, and watch almost all the hands go up. Then she’ll watch half those hands go back down – often along gender lines – when she asks who wants to make games. They don’t like science, they say; they’re not good at maths. “I’m not good at [maths] either!” she tells them. But do they also love art? Fashion? History? Do they want to be a make-up artist, run a production crew, or be a lawyer? All these jobs – and more – exist within the gaming industry, she tells them. “We show them role models and try to get them to think outside the box,” says Staten. “Many of these schools have a lot of underrepresented students, so if you see it you can believe it. You can be it.”

High-school kids who become ESA scholars receive money for tuition or other college expenses, and for attending industry events. There, they’ll get mentorship from professionals, which can end up launching their career. These students, Staten says, embody what she never had while growing up: a singular, life-defining passion. “To help remove the economic barrier to a quality education and give them access into the industry so they’re in the best position to get a job – that’s the most fulfilling part of my work.”

Staten admits that money alone won’t fix the problem of underrepresentation, however: “If we want change, we have to create a network where we’re nurturing talent, bringing women into the industry and retaining them.” The We Are initiative targets college students and those early on in their careers, hosting events that connect them with each other and with professionals in gaming and esports. “One of the primary challenges is that people don’t feel their voice is valid because they’re women, and part of why certain cultures develop [while others don’t] is the lack of diversity,” says Staten. By sharing their experience and expertise, the female industry veterans of We Are are inspiring the next generation, who will further diversify those cultures.

“If we want change, we have to create a network where we’re nurturing talent, bringing women into the industry and retaining them” THE RED BULLETIN

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“If we want esports to be more mainstream, it needs to represent the community. There’s a diverse fanbase, and you’ll get much more out of them if you meet them where they are”

AMANDA STEVENS, 32 NEW YORK, US Esports journalist, host, analyst Amanda Stevens calls herself the Esports Unicorn. Her previous gamer tag, SageGnosis (gnosis is the Greek word for ‘knowledge’), was proving hard to remember, and even harder for some to spell. While contemplating the new name, Stevens decided that since unicorns were her thing – and people were used to seeing the colourful, Japanese-inspired Tokidoki Unicornos toys pinned to her backpacks and clothing – the tag made sense. But the name is about more than 44

that. “I’m a marginalised person twice,” says Stevens. “I’m African American and I’m also queer and trans. There are not a lot of queer, trans Black people in esports, especially in the content creation sector.”

Stevens has coupled her work as a multimedia journalist, host and analyst with her background in diversity training – she was a student coordinator for the Safe Space Program at her university – to make a niche for herself in the gaming industry. As a former judge for the card game Magic: The Gathering, she didn’t always feel safe or comfortable at some of its bigger events. She began holding seminars at judge conferences in both the US and Canada on how to make game stores and tournaments more inclusive. These attracted the attention of the Organized Play Foundation, a global organisation that regularly brings gamers together, and Stevens helped to influence the group’s policy changes on behaviours that warrant a game loss in Magic tournaments.

“Being misgendered five, six years ago wasn’t culturally considered threatening language, and [offenders] only got a warning,” Stevens explains. “Imagine you’re a queer person and someone is being completely homophobic to you.

Well, that wasn’t considered threatening language [either] – the most the person got was a warning. How does that make you feel at a Magic tournament?

I became very loud about [how] this policy does not work, not just for queer people but across the board.”

In esports, Stevens is just as vocal.

She uses her platform to talk about systemic racism in the industry, the use of transphobic language, and how the inherent expenses in online games – a dedicated computer and fast internet – contribute to a lack of diversity in esports. At conventions, she works at booths for organisations promoting diversity and inclusion, and she sits on panels to discuss women’s increasing contribution to the gaming world, not only as team managers or streamers but as business developers and CEOs. Right now, she says, her project is challenging organizations to make their LGBTQ and POC event activations more honest and meaningful, beyond mere token uses of pride colours once a year.

“There are trans people, bisexual people, asexual people, and people in those communities don’t think the rainbow is this great signifier that unites us. Or maybe it’s Black History Month and you’d like to see representation for someone who is mixed [race]. If we’re pushing for esports to become more mainstream, it needs to represent the community. The industry has a diverse fanbase, and you’ll get so much more out of them if you meet them where they are.”

THE RED BULLETIN

Inclusivity in gaming

DANIELLE UDOGARANYA, AKA EBONIXSIMS,

LONDON, UK Content creator

28

“Since it doesn’t exist, I’m going to make it myself.” With that thought, Danielle Udogaranya, aka EbonixSims, started making content for life-simulation video game The Sims 4, creating characters that look like her, represent her culture and embody her experience as a halfNigerian, half-Bajan (her mother is from Barbados) woman living in London.

The first thing she made was a dashiki – a colourful, loose-fitting shirt commonly worn in West Africa – which wasn’t easy.

“Hairstyle is my main content because it’s been one of the most important things to me in real life. I wanted this content for the longest time, so I’m happy to share it” THE RED BULLETIN

“The first time I opened Blender [opensource 3D graphics software], I closed it straight away,” Udogaranya laughs. “I was like, ‘No, not today.’ But I always tell new creators not to be scared to try new things. You have to have patience.”

That was five years ago. Today, she’s a Twitch partner, a recipient of a 1000 Dreams Fund Twitch BroadcastHER grant, and a full-time content creator. Under the pseudonym EbonixSims, Udogaranya is beloved by her online community for the hairstyles she creates – braids, locks, curls, Afros – all made available for free download. “Hairstyle is my main content because it’s been one of the most important things to me in real life. Hair is something in Black culture that is amplified. Like when you have a really nice hairstyle, it’s always commented on first. I wanted this content for the longest time, so I’m happy to share it.”

Being asked to describe the response to her work leaves Udogaranya briefly speechless. Then she talks about the woman who messaged about her niece who loved The Sims but never created one that resembled herself because she didn’t like how she looked. The woman asked if Udogaranya could create a hairstyle for the girl, and, when she did, the woman wrote to say her niece had fallen in love with her Sims self and wanted her own hair done the same way.

Udogaranya could relate to that girl – she remembered playing The Sims 2 as a 13-year-old and being unable to make characters that reflected herself. “It made me feel bad about myself. So I was able to change how a little girl perceives herself, and that will sit with me always.”

She thinks the industry may be listening, noting that The Sims now includes more representative hairstyles.

“For me, it’s the element of having to pay for that content that makes it feel like a microaggression,” Udogaranya says.

“It’s like, ‘OK, we’ve made it, but now you have to pay extra for it, just to make a character that looks like you.’”

But she’s hopeful. And she’s thinking about the future, and her own role in ensuring that everyone can see themselves in games. Something along the lines of a chief diversity officer, but not just for a single entity, for the whole industry. “All companies could tap me for advice on being inclusive when it comes to content creation,” Udogaranya says.

“And I could say, ‘Hey, it’s not quite right.

This is what you need to do.’”

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Meet the ‘underground astronauts’ whose subterranean adventures are helping to illuminate our past – and shape our future Words MARK BAILEY

ROBBIE SHONE

Inside a circular shaft at India’s Um Ladaw Cave, where scientists last year discovered a new species of subterranean fish

Into the

Underworld   47

We all live our day-to-day lives on the surface of our planet.

But beneath this familiar crust is a mysterious labyrinth of caves, crevasses, sea caverns and subterranean lakes.

We have explored the poles, the mountains and the Moon – and yet more than half of Earth’s caves remain undiscovered. As the writer and academic Robert Macfarlane relates in his 2019 book Underland: A Deep Time Journey, this secret world feels impenetrable and unknowable: “Look up on a cloudless night and you might see the light from a star thousands of trillions of miles away, or pick out the craters left by asteroid strikes on the Moon’s face. Look down and your sight stops at topsoil, tarmac, toe.”

Even the world’s largest known cave, Vietnam’s Hang So’n Đoòng, was first mapped as recently as 2009. At 38.5 million cubic metres, it could house an entire block of 40-storey skyscrapers. Yet, last year explorers discovered that the cave is 1.6 million cubic metres bigger than previously thought. This cave has its own river system, jungle and climate, with 30m trees, 70m stalagmites, and crystallised ‘cave pearls’ the size of baseballs.

Deep in the underworld, scientists have found organisms that produce antibiotics; microbial life akin to the earliest life forms, in existence billions of years ago; and fantastical rocks and dunes as alien to us as the deserts of Venus. In 2017, NASA experts revived microbial life forms that had lain dormant in gypsum crystals in a Mexican cave for up to 50,000 years, raising hopes that alien organisms could be found in extreme environments on distant planets.

“I’ve caved all over the world and seen some of the most spectacular things,” says cave explorer and microbiologist Dr Hazel Barton, who worked with NASA in Mexico. “And my eyes were the first to see those [microbes]. When you think about the first Moon landing by Neil Armstrong… that ‘first man on the Moon’ experience is a rare phenomenon. But in caves you can do that on a regular basis.”

Cavers must squeeze through vice-like cracks and navigate in total darkness. Just knowing where to start is hard enough. “Caves are unique in that you can’t see them,” says Dr Barton. “Mountains can be

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seen, space can be seen. Perhaps the best comparison we have is the deep ocean, but you can map that with sonar. Ground-penetrating radar systems are lucky to pick up anything 30m underground. So the only way to do it is human exploration.”

Humans are drawn to the darkness. It’s where cavers seek life-affirming thrills and where families bury their dead. It’s where we store valuables but dispose of waste; where we extract precious metals but install dark-matter laboratories. As Macfarlane explains, “The same three tasks recur across cultures and epochs: to shelter what is precious, to yield what is valuable, and to dispose of what is harmful.”

But, as climate change and pollution increases, ice caps melt and drug-resistant infections proliferate, exploring the underworld has never felt more urgent. Glaciologists are abseiling into ice holes to monitor melt rates, microbiologists are going deep in search of new antibiotics, and divers are plunging into caves to expose the vulnerability of our drinking water supplies. Macfarlane says the underworld invites a ‘deep time’ perspective that extends far beyond our own short lifespans.

Paleoclimatologists are studying stalagmites that shed light on climate change 650,000 years ago, while European Space Agency astronauts are crawling into lava caves as training for a possible mission to Mars.

Caves are also a metaphor for the gaps in our everyday knowledge. “Out of sight, out of mind – that’s the problem,” warns environmental anthropologist Dr Kenny Broad. “We have trouble envisioning that more than 95 per cent of the world’s drinking water is stored beneath our feet as groundwater.” With less than one per cent of accessible freshwater stored in surface rivers and lakes, invisible groundwater is the primary lifesupport system for all human and animal life.

But, as we continue to pollute and poison the planet, the amazing photographs, stories and discoveries of cave explorers are helping to raise awareness of the beauty and fragility of the underworld. They force us to reflect on where our water comes from, where our rubbish goes, and how much we still have to learn. Here, we celebrate the ‘underground astronauts’ who are finding visions for the future in the darkness of the underworld.

ROBBIE SHONE

This is humankind’s forgotten frontier.

THE RED BULLETIN

Underworld Dr Hazel Barton found potentially life-saving microbes in New Mexico’s Lechuguilla Cave

The microbiologist Dr Hazel Barton Dubbed the ‘Lara Croft of microbiology’, Dr Barton has explored caves on six continents, from Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico, USA, with its 240km of passages, to the vast Cloud Ladder Hall in China’s Er Wang Dong – caves so big they have their own weather system.

“I work out every day – you need to be in top shape for this,” says the 48-year-old, who directs the Integrated Bioscience PhD Programme at the University of Akron, Ohio. “I took a yoga instructor caving and she said it was like a sixhour yoga session. The Lechuguilla expeditions usually last eight days underground. Carrying

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17-20kg packs, we squeeze and rappel through tight spaces. I’ve hacked through the Borneo jungle to caves that are 25-27°C. They’re full of leeches, you’re waist-deep in water, and swifts are banging your head. Like anything in life, for 100 per cent effort you might get three per cent return. But that three per cent is worth it.”

Dr Barton’s headline research is in antibiotic resistance. Antibiotics – derived from natural compounds made by microbes in soil – help treat infectious diseases. But their overuse has led to harmful microbes developing resistance, making it harder to treat conditions such as pneumonia and tuberculosis. The United Nations has warned that deaths from drug-resistant infections could reach 10 million per year by 2050, calling it “one of the greatest threats we face”. But Dr Barton made a discovery in the almost 500m-deep Lechuguilla Cave that could help us fight back.

“I knew that no one had ever been in this passage,” she says. “It’s pristine. For rainwater to percolate from the surface, it takes 1,000 years – long before the 1940s, when the first antibiotics were used to treat infections. So we tested the bugs in this pristine environment and they were resistant to every type of antibiotic used in medicine. Yet this cave has been isolated since it formed four million years ago. It suggests antibiotic resistance is hardwired and ancient.”

As cave microorganisms must fight for limited resources, they use ‘chemical weapons’ – or antibiotics – to defend themselves from rivals. These rivals then mutate to build resistance. “Learning how these mechanisms evolved buys us time to find new ways to

“Cave exploration is very similar to science as you’re solving problems and developing perseverance” prevent this happening in medicine,” says Dr Barton. She also plans to screen a million different cave bacteria to find novel microbes that could form the basis of new antibiotics.

The Bristol-born academic began caving at the age of 14 and loved the thrill of exploring in three dimensions. While doing her doctorate at the University of Colorado, she would visit caves in South Dakota and New Mexico. And it was during postdoctoral research with the eminent microbiologist and caver Professor Norm Pace that she realised she could fuse her two passions.

“A lot of scientists aren’t interested in doing these epic, sweaty, scary trips, so it gave me an opportunity to go to caves that a microbiologist had never visited,” she says. “That’s when I began finding new things. Cave exploration is very similar to science as you’re solving problems and developing perseverance, and cavers think outside the box. Nothing is intimidating or scary [to us], so we try things no one has done before.”

A thirst for exploration remains central to Dr Barton’s work. “About 70 per cent of our sample sites are just places where I’ve seen something that looks weird and decided to go back and sample it. Then you find something amazing.”

Dr Barton studies a centuries-old gypsum formation in Lechuguilla Cave

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DAVE BUNNELL, STEVE DUNCAN/UNDERCITY.ORG

Urban explorer Steve Duncan braves the sewers of Aachen near Cologne, Germany

THE RED BULLETIN

Underworld

The urban explorer Steve Duncan Armed with chest wader boots, hooks, ropes and torches, urban explorer Steve Duncan slips through manhole covers and secret doors into the dark subway tunnels of New York, the slimy sewers of London and the bone-filled catacombs of Paris. His eye-catching underground adventures provide a jolting reminder of the fragility of urban ecology.

“We know that learning about nature can be useful, but there’s not that same attitude to urbanised environments,” explains Duncan, 41, who lives in New York. “We assume people are experts at running cities. We turn on the tap, water comes out. But going underground and seeing where water comes from – and where it goes – changes all that. In New York, if the water from 40-120 miles [65-195km] away was cut off, we’d be without water within THE RED BULLETIN

a day. The city has been doubling its water supply system twice a century. How long before the entire US – more than three million square miles [almost eight million km] – becomes New York’s watershed?”

Exploring sewers has convinced Duncan there’s no distinction between natural and human environments. Modern sewers follow old underground rivers, the sewers of coastal cities experience tidal surges, and water obeys gravity. “Flooding is a human construct.

That doesn’t mean there’s water in unexpected places – we put buildings where water wants to collect. With climate change, we’re going to see lots more urban flooding.

If New York or London are to last another 1,000 years, we need to lose this urban/ natural divide and focus on sustainable infrastructure and smarter planning.”

Duncan grew up in Maryland, but he first explored underground while at college in New York, sneaking into steam tunnels for daring adventures. “It was the coolest thing ever to find this entire underground layer of structures; that feeling of ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe this exists.’ It’s amazing that when you’re underground you can feel a fear of confined places and also a fear of heights.

Anything seems worse when it is happening where no one can hear you scream. But, over time, fear was replaced by a fascination.”

The explorer has had narrow escapes with trains, been arrested for trespassing in New York and Paris, and almost drowned in a tidal surge. But he neutralises his fear with preparation. “I believe in trying to assuage one’s fear with intelligent measures and baby steps. Knowing about storm drains and tidal flows helps. And I carry a four-gas meter to check for hydrogen sulphide – sewer gas. I don’t want to pass out and drown in two inches of sewer water.”

Duncan has been hospitalised three times by infections, but even these illnesses yielded insights. “It was a reminder that waterborne pathogens have been one of the biggest killers of urbanised people in history.

Our sewers are the biggest public-health triumph ever, but we still have these pathogens in water beneath our cities.

Why do we still mix dirty water with clean precipitation water in combined sewers?

We need to make our waterways cleaner.”

He hopes his photographs arouse curiosity and inspire people to think more deeply about the cities they live in. “Modern maps are an incomplete reflection of urban landscapes,” Duncan says. “The reality is much more three-dimensional.”

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The glaciologist Around 10 per cent of Earth’s land surface is covered in ice caps, ice sheets and glaciers, the movement and melt of which is critical for the study of climate change and sea-level rises. To analyse glaciers in Switzerland, Greenland and Antarctica, Dr Sam Doyle – a field glaciologist at Aberystwyth University – abseils deep into vertical ice shafts known as moulins, which are formed when meltwater carves out a hole in the glacier over time.

“It’s extremely physically demanding, cold and wet,” explains Dr Doyle, 34.

“You’re in a confined, slippery space and there’s always the risk of water rising or coming down. So we do this at 2-3am in the autumn when it’s freezing cold, because you don’t want melt while you’re down there. Using skills from caving and ice-climbing, we seek out the holes that mountaineers try to avoid. On Gorner Glacier in Switzerland, we explored a vertical moulin to a depth of 86m. Our super-skinny 7mm ropes – which we were using to save weight – became iced up, so our descending devices started to slip unnervingly. The descent became very fast and hard to control.”

Dr Doyle also bores holes with hotwater jets so he can deposit sensors to monitor changes in water pressure and movement. “Surface melt flows to the bed and can speed up or slow down a glacier, depending on the conditions,” he says.

“My research is asking: is the ice sheet going to speed up if the climate warms?

And is more ice going to be discharged into the ocean?”

Working at night in temperatures of -10°C can be daunting. “You have to control any fear by assessing the risks and having the right knowledge,” says Dr Doyle, who grew up caving in Sheffield and Scotland. “But going below the ice is incredible. Everything is a striking blue. And ice structures form much faster than in rock, so they are often bigger.

The moulins are spectacular, but some glaciers have long canyon systems and elaborate [frozen] waterfalls.”

With more than 600 million people worldwide living in coastal areas less than 10m above sea level, Dr Doyle hopes people wise up to climate change. “What happens to glaciers and ice sheets has big consequences for society as sea levels rise when the ice melts,” he says. “We now need to make progress in reducing emissions and changing behaviour.”

ROBBIE SHONE

Dr Sam Doyle

Underworld

“It’s extremely physically demanding, cold and wet…

We seek out the holes that mountaineers try to avoid” Ice on the ropes proved hazardous for Dr Sam Doyle and his team while abseiling a vertical moulin on Switzerland’s Gorner Glacier

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Underworld

“I had a vivid reaction to the darkness and adrenalin of the underground world the first time I went caving”

ROBBIE SHONE

Enormous stalagmites in China’s spectacular Er Wang Dong – caves so vast they have their own weather system – as shot by British caver and photographer Robbie Shone

Underworld

The subterranean photographer Robbie Shone British photographer Robbie Shone captures stunning cave images that he hopes will inspire a sense of wonder and respect for the world beneath our feet. His highlights include Georgia’s 2,212m-deep Veryovkina Cave – the deepestknown on Earth – and Borneo’s vast 164,459m2 Sarawak Chamber, which is long enough to house eight Boeing 747s nose-to-nose.

“When I began caving, it was purely for the thrill, and I still get a rush from hanging on a rope in total darkness,” says Shone, 40, who lives in Innsbruck, Austria. “But I especially love photographing caves where no one has been. On New Britain, an island in Papua New Guinea, I explored caves formed long before the dinosaurs were around. They had never been seen by human eyes before, and might never be again.”

Shone began caving in the Yorkshire Dales while studying fine art and photography at Sheffield Hallam University. “I had a vivid reaction to the darkness and adrenalin of the underground world,” he says. He later deployed his new rope skills when cleaning skyscrapers as a way to fund caving trips, before magazines and scientists began commissioning his work.

“Some caves are like a giant obstacle course,” he says. “One minute you’re abseiling into the dark, then at the bottom the passages might be so tight you have to turn your head sideways just to squeeze through.” On his 2018 expedition to Veryovkina, he was caught in a freak flood pulse. “I remember the noise of the water like a Tube train coming towards me.

When I climbed out the chamber, the water was pummelling me. I had to keep my head horizontal just to breathe, as the lip of the helmet created an air space… The experience affected me for months. I got drunk. Even sleeping was difficult.”

He regained his confidence through self-talk.

“I reminded myself that caves are normally super safe. The walls don’t move. They don’t cave in like mineshafts built by humans. But I also took an open-water diving course to build up my confidence. The Veryovkina team now always have someone on the surface. Forecasts aren’t enough for a two-week trip underground.”

Shone enjoys documenting the work of microbiologists, scientists and geologists – he even accompanied ESA astronauts into the lava tubes of Lanzarote, where geologists taught them how to collect rock samples for a future mission to Mars. “Meeting scientists has filled a void and brought extra meaning to my work.

I hope my photographs inform the public and reveal the amazing scientists who are helping us to learn about – and save – this planet.”

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The environmental anthropologist Dr Kenny Broad Dr Kenny Broad is not your typical professor.

The 53-year-old scientist flies helicopters, has worked as a Hollywood stuntman, and prefers scuba gear to slide shows. As an environmental anthropologist at the University of Miami, he dives into underwater caves everywhere from the Bahamas to Mexico to study climate change, evolution and freshwater management.

“Exploring caves is like entering Santiago de Compostela Cathedral, but instead of walking on a path you’re weaving up into the arches and 56

down into a minute feature,” says Dr Broad. “It’s a sensory overload of beauty, but you’re also multitasking. ‘Am I breathing the right gas? Where is my buddy?’ There’s an amazing feeling of flow.”

A former National Geographic Explorer of the Year, Dr Broad learned to dive as a boy, and the hobby has become central to his research.

The sediment and stalagmites in marine caves contain vital clues about past climate change, and the anoxic (oxygen-less) environment preserves fossils; his team has found the remains of previously undescribed birds and vertebrates.

Dr Broad dives into ‘blue holes’ (submerged marine caverns) in the Bahamas that serve as important analogues for ancient oceans. “The life forms there are linked to the earliest forms

of life, from two-and-a-half billion years ago. They are also as close as we can get to what may be going on in other planets. I spoke to someone from NASA, because there might be something equivalent [a subsurface ocean] under the crust of Europa [one of Jupiter’s moons]. They’re very interested in extremophile forms of life.”

He also explores freshwater caves to monitor groundwater supplies threatened by pollution and saltwater intrusion as sea levels rise: “People don’t think about it, but this is our drinking water.” Population growth also has an impact: draw too heavily from coastal freshwater wells and saltwater starts to seep in, contaminating drinking water. “This is happening in coastal areas around California and Florida,” he says.

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WES C. SKILES/NATGEO, JILL HEINERTH, ROBBIE SHONE

Dr Kenny Broad swims through the Blue Holes of the Bahamas

Underworld

“By exploring caves, we can look back at times in the past when the climate has changed quickly and ask, ‘What were the effects?’”

The paleoclimatologist Dr Gina Moseley

Dr Broad has appeared in documentary series such as National Geographic’s One Strange Rock (narrated by actor Will Smith) and enjoys sharing his research with schools and businesses. This is as important as the science, he says, “because it won’t be another paper on ‘climate reconstruction from the late Holocene’ that changes public policy or individual behaviour on water use”.

Despite the potential hazards of cave diving, Dr Broad believes that deep-water explorers such as himself bring valuable life lessons back to the surface. “When diving, you get so close to the fundamentals of being alive. Every breath matters. Then it hits you: ‘I’m swimming through our water supply – the veins of the Earth.’ It reminds you how fundamental and fragile life is.”

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Caves are time capsules that help scientists explore the past – and forecast the future.

“They’re connected to, but protected from, the surface, so they trap information about climates over hundreds of thousands of years,” says Dr Gina Moseley, a paleoclimatologist at the Innsbruck Quaternary Research Group.

“We have unprecedented, rapid climate change right now, but we can look back at when the climate has changed quickly in the past – with CO2 released into the atmosphere – and ask, ‘What happened? What were the effects?’”

For the past 2.6 million years, known as the quaternary period, the Earth has varied between glacial (ice age) and interglacial (warm) cycles, driven by the planet’s orbit relative to the sun. Warm periods trigger ice melt and suck C02 out of the deep ocean and into the atmosphere, which accelerates the warming, and studying these helps predict future climate change. Dr Moseley currently leads the Greenland Caves Project. The Arctic region is especially vulnerable to climate change, and the consequences will be felt worldwide through rising sea levels and changing weather systems. To reach the remote Greenland caves, Dr Moseley endures multi-day hikes and boat 57

Caves such as Lechuguilla unlock the past for paleoclimatologist Dr GIna Moseley

ROBBIE SHONE

Underworld

Underworld

journeys, carrying drills, hammers and rope.

On one trip, she found and ate an old tin of US Army rations (best before date: 1955).

“I research stalagmites – the candlesticks you find on cave floors, formed by dripping water. That water brings with it a chemical signature of temperature, how wet it was, if there were trees above the caves, and any human influences. All this information is trapped in the stalagmite, so we cut it open and analyse it. Our timescale is 650,000 years, so we get long records. In Greenland, we found beautiful flowstones formed by thin sheets of flowing water. They prove that although the land is covered in permafrost, it must have been warmer and wetter in the past. We use this information to see what might happen if temperatures change again.”

Dr Moseley, originally from Cannock in the West Midlands, first tried caving while on a family holiday in Cheddar, Somerset, aged 12.

“I got the bug,” she recalls. “I’d save up my paper-round money to go caving.” She later explored caves in the Bahamas for her PhD in Geographical Sciences at Bristol University: “When I found out it was possible to work in caves as a science, everything came together,” The extreme isolation of caves teaches her self-reliance, she says: “In remote places, you learn to get on with what you have.”

Dr Moseley sees adventure and science as twin weapons in the battle against climate change. “People might have their eyes opened by the adventure side of things,” she says, “but if that gets them interested in climate change, I’m happy.”

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Free

’ n i l y t S

BMX supremo KRISS KYLE has conquered his craft by fearlessly expressing himself. Now he’s jumping into a whole new arena: fashion Words STUART KENNY Photography FRED MURRAY

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Kriss Kyle

K

riss Kyle is covered from head to toe in tattoos, but one piece of body art stands out among all the others. Written in italics on the right side of his neck is the legend ‘Unit 23 Home Forever’ – a declaration deeper and more indelible than the tattooist’s ink. At the age of 14, the professional BMX rider moved out of the family home in the small Scottish coastal town of Stranraer and into Unit 23 – the UK’s largest indoor skatepark – about 160km away in Dumbarton. He ended up living there for the next six years, and, now aged 28, still rides there regularly. It is at Unit 23 that The Red Bulletin finds him on a sunny July day.

“Sometimes I would ride this hall until half four in the morning,” Kyle says. “Not much has changed here since then. That’s what I like about it. I travel around the world to ride my bike, and I love it, but it’s always great to come back to this place.”

In the time since he first moved into Unit 23, Kyle has gone on to compete and film around the world, launch his own line of bikes, and firmly establish himself as one of the most creative riders on the planet. In January last year, he dropped from a helicopter and onto the helipad – 212m above sea level – of Dubai’s iconic Burj Al Arab hotel; the YouTube video of the stunt has had more than 13.2 million views and rising.

As a kid growing up in Stranraer, Kyle would watch his brother riding his BMX at the local skatepark and beg his parents for a bike so he could join in. For his 10th birthday, he was given a 16in [40cm] Haro 360 – his first BMX. “It took over my life,” Kyle says. “It’s called ‘freestyle’ BMX for a reason – there are no rules. You ride the bike the way you want and express yourself by doing it.”

The young BMXer devoured magazines on the sport and watched the Road Fools film series that showed pros riding around America. He made his first trip to Unit 23 at 12 years old. “I walked through the doors and saw an 8ft-high [2.4m] quarter pipe,” Kyle says. “I couldn’t believe it.

I was used to riding 3ft [90cm] stuff, so this felt like a vert ramp. It felt like Everest.”

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A three-hour train journey from Stranraer, with a change in Glasgow, Unit 23 wasn’t exactly around the corner from Kyle’s home. As his brother got older and fell out of love with BMX, Kyle found himself increasingly making the journey alone.

“I would’ve gone to hell and back to ride that bike,” he says. “It was a lot coming from such a small town and going through Glasgow city centre, not really knowing what I was doing, but I would have travelled for days to ride here if I had to.

“I was a quiet kid, but eventually I made friends up this way. They’d say, ‘You can stay at mine and we can ride tomorrow if you want.’ I’d call my mum up and she’d say, ‘Fine, but make sure you’re back for school on Monday.’ Eventually I’d return home and go to school, but I’d be sitting in a classroom and thinking, ‘I’m wasting my life. I just want to be riding my bike.’

“I’d be thinking about BMX all day, and sometimes I’d fall asleep in class. I was never bad,

“I’d be sitting in a classroom and thinking, ‘I’m wasting my life.

I just want to be riding my bike’” THE RED BULLETIN

Kriss Kyle shooting a TikTok trick in Glasgow this July. “You can win a contest and people talk about it for maybe a week, but if you make a great video, people are going to talk about it for years�

This image is a composite of Kyle performing the same trick twice, with a clothing change in between. Such is the precision of the 28-year-old BMXer that the two passes match seamlessly

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THE RED BULLETIN

Kriss Kyle

getting on that bike. It was sheer love, and I felt like it really was part of me. It was what I’d be thinking about when I fell asleep at night, and the first thing on my mind when I woke up.”

It would have seemed unimaginable at that time, but Kyle has since been back to talk to kids at a local primary school, to emphasise the importance of following your dreams. “I always dreamt about being a professional BMXer, but coming from Stranraer I never thought it was possible,” he says. “What I think now is that if you’re passionate about something and you have the drive, you can do it, no matter where you’re from. We’re all made of the same stuff.

If you want it badly enough, you can bloody do it.”

D

but they’d send me to timeout [detention] and I’d just walk home, get my bike and go out riding. My mum was a teacher, my dad was the janitor at the school, and my brother-in-law was my geography teacher, so school was quite a [big thing]. Mum would call to ask where I’d been, and I would say that I’d gone home because I didn’t feel well. But really I’d been out riding.”

Kyle came up with increasingly creative excuses to get out of school, including making fake vomit using a bag of crisps and a bottle of Coke. He laughs at the memory, but admits that he didn’t fully realise the toll his behaviour was having on his parents.

“My attendance got so bad that the school thought there was something wrong with me,” he says. “It was only when my mum started crying in the car one day that it hit me – I was putting them through hell. She had to keep making excuses for me. I felt really fucking bad, but I was so passionate about riding that nothing would stand in the way of me

“I don’t like showing off, and I hate riding in front of people.

Even now, I get so nervous” THE RED BULLETIN

edication was never a problem for Kyle when it came to riding. Eventually, his parents let him move closer to Unit 23. He couch-surfed for a few months before eventually the owner of the skatepark invited him to move in. “It was like every kid’s dream,” says Kyle.

For the first year, he was living there by himself.

“I was riding every day and working in the café in the kitchen, serving people chips and cheese,” he remembers. “It was amazing, but it was also scary at night. I’d be shitting my pants. Then a few of my friends moved in and it got a lot better. We had the best childhood in the world. It was our passion, and Chick Mailey, who owns Unit 23, was like a stepdad to us.”

Kyle shows us the first place he slept when he moved into Unit 23 – a room at the end of a dark corridor with a light that doesn’t work. We walk into a room that is now home to a huge half-pipe, and he laughs. “This used to be full of couches,” Kyle recalls. “We had a rat problem, though. There’d be rats running over us, and we used to try to hit them with a shovel. When I think back to it now, it’s absolutely mad.” He goes on to describe an incident where a burglar tried to break in during the night and a friend had to chase away the criminal with a baseball bat. Despite it all, you get the feeling Kyle would happily move back in.

It wasn’t all rats and robbers at Unit 23, though; there was a makeshift cafeteria cinema, too, and even a four-person hot tub – “I think our record was 14 people,” Kyle says. They also had a tattoo gun that was put to regular use. “I completely ruined one of my friend’s legs one day,” he laughs, also pointing out an anchor he inked onto his own hand, and a few leg tattoos. “The people who lived here were from all around the country. It was like the Lost Boys [from the book Peter Pan]. It’s weird, but now I have the best friends in the world. They’re like brothers to me. We all have Unit 23 tattoos; even my fiancée has one.”

Subsequently, an actual dormitory was built, which is still there now. “It’s messy because nobody 65

“I’ve had modelling jobs,” says Kyle, an ambassador for apparel brands such as SkatePro. “When I get offered these jobs, l always say yes. I enjoy it”

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Kriss Kyle

“I wonder if I’m going to be 50 and still doing this. I don’t think you can ever switch it off” lives here any more,” says Kyle, “but the rooms are actually quite nice.” Boasting 12 rooms, with the Scottish saltire hanging at the end of the corridor, the dorm looks like your standard student-halls set-up, perhaps even nicer. “That was my room,” Kyle says, tapping one of the doors on our way out.

“It was the biggest.”

Having a skatepark for a living room brought instant rewards for Kyle and his riding. He picked up a Nike sponsorship at the age of 14, signed on to Glasgow-based bike company BSD not long after, and joined Red Bull on his 19th birthday. Kyle wasn’t only making a living from BMX, he was travelling the world and having a great time doing it. “I’d be calling my mum and dad from South Africa or Australia,” he recalls. “I still can’t believe it. I still feel like that 14-year-old kid. I get the same buzz to go out on my bike every day.”

Kyle took to the filming side of BMX more than to competition. “I don’t really like showing off, and I hate riding in front of people,” he says. “Even now, I get so nervous. I prefer trying a trick for hours and hours until you’re bleeding and sweating and running on nothing. But when you finally get it, there’s no greater feeling. You can win a contest and people talk about it for maybe a week, but if you make a great video, people are going to talk about it for years.”

H

is breakthrough film, Kaleidoscope, comes up in conversation. The 2015 project, which has garnered more than five million views to date on YouTube, transported Kyle to a geometric sci-fi dreamworld where he landed an array of world-first tricks in a blaze of creative ingenuity. One of these involved a 360 footplant, landing on a trampoline and front-flipping off it. “When I watched the video back at the end, it was almost like a trophy in itself,” he says.

Kyle is an avid Instagrammer. “Social media is the best tool for growing the sport,” he says. His creativity shines through in the clips he uploads from the streets of Glasgow. “Sometimes I feel like I’m insane,” Kyle laughs. “Even when I go on holiday I’m always looking at stairs or a handrail or a roof. I wonder if I’m going to be 50 years old and still doing this. I think I will. I don’t think you can ever switch that off.”

The BMXer is as creative with his editing as he is with his riding, even on the shorter clips. The photography that accompanies this feature was shot

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during filming for a recent TikTok for Red Bull, which showed him riding the exact same line numerous times in a range of different outfits.

When spliced together, it looks as if the clothing miraculously changes during one single trick – the riding line he takes is precise every time, with the exception of a painful miscalculation when he can’t see out of an inflatable T-Rex costume.

It’s a great analogy for how the different sides of Kriss Kyle all come together for the same end result; whether it’s BMX, mountain bike, motocross or anything else, he’s driven to express himself.

His latest manifestation of this is launching his own fashion label. “I’ve always been into fashion,” explains Kyle, who has done a fair amount of modelling work alongside his BMX career. “When I was a young kid, before skintight jeans were even a thing, I tried to find some and had to buy little girls’ jeans because I was a wee guy. I was wearing women’s jeans.

“I’ve always wanted to start my own clothing brand, and now feels like the right time. I’m working with a designer; my sister is helping out, too. [The brand] should drop in November, and it’s called Nevontaii. The name is derived from a powerful tribe [the Novantae, circa 100-200AD] that lived in the region between Dumfires and Galloway where I was born. I’ve taken a lot of what I like and put it into my line.” This presumably includes wee jeans. “Fashion is like BMX in that way,” he says. “People who do extreme sports are creative individuals who like to express themselves. Fashion flows nicely through it.

It’s about wearing something in your own way.”

P

lans for his own clothing brand are just one of many changes in Kyle’s life over recent years.

He now has his own house; he has been a stunt double in a Hollywood movie (for Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft in 2018’s Tomb Raider); he’s just become the owner of a new puppy (a chocolate Labrador named Albert Kyle); and if it wasn’t for lockdown he would have got married to his fiancée Kayleigh and been off celebrating their honeymoon in Bali rather than talking to us. The wedding is now planned for 2021, alongside a number of other fermenting Kriss Kyle projects. “At least it’s been beautiful in Scotland,” he says. “I’d be lying if I said I’ve not been enjoying myself.”

As we wrap up our tour of the skatepark, Kyle takes a moment in the huge Hall Two. “If it wasn’t for Unit 23,” he says, “I wouldn’t be where I am today. I owe it all to this place.” In many other ways, Kyle is still the same kid who moved here at 14.

Whatever has changed, it’s clear that one thing has not: Unit 23 is forever his home.

For the latest on Kyle and his clothing brand, keep an eye on his Instagram: @krisskyle. You can watch his TikTok clip at tiktok.com/@redbulluk 67

Flexible working

She has earned a world record for her handstands, performed yoga moves while suspended from a paraglider in flight, done the splits on a snowy mountaintop in the Alps, and hung one-handed from a streetlight on the Strand in central London.

Austrian contortionist and self-proclaimed extreme sports star STEFANIE MILLINGER is constantly stretching herself Words PAULINE LUISA KRÄTZIG Photography RICK GUEST 68  

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Balanced perspective: Stefanie Millinger strikes a pose on the rooftop sign of Hotel Daniel in Vienna

Stefanie Millinger

“My ambition slips into stubbornness quite often – that’s my big weakness”

I

t’s hard to know exactly how to describe Stefanie Millinger. The Austrian is an acrobat, a contortionist, a hand balancer, an extreme sports star – but none of these terms quite does it.

That’s because 28-year-old, 5ft 1in-tall [1.54m] Millinger has created an unlikely niche for herself, performing feats of incredible strength and flexibility such as completing 342 L-seatstraddle-press-to-handstands (moving from a mid-air splits position, balancing on her hands, to a handstand) in 52 minutes, which earned her an unofficial world record, and supporting her entire body weight using only her mouth (really).

But you’re just as likely to find her balancing on a rooftop, swinging from a bridge or hanging off a cliff, almost always with no safety net. Her selfbelief, Millinger says, is the only security she has.

This applies in day-to-day life as much as it does on a cliff edge. Despite making tricks like doing the ironing with her feet look easy, Millinger has had to work menial jobs to pay the rent while devoting six-to-10 hours every day to training, all while ignoring the many critics who couldn’t see a future in her unusual, mind-bending acrobatic displays. But now, with more than 400,000 Instagram followers, requests to promote big brands, and high-profile fans including US comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan, Millinger is proving she can carve out her own path – while mostly upside down, using only her feet.

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Deep inking: Millinger has 12 tattoos – the line running down her left side is meant to represent her love of pushing the limits

Mast class: Millinger sets sail on the roof of Hotel Daniel – the boat, Misconceivable, is an artwork by the Austrian Erwin Wurm

Stefanie Millinger

the red bulletin: Have you always had a taste for acrobatics? stefanie millinger: My mum could tell you a thing or two about that. When I was a kid, I constantly used to cartwheel my way around the place and dangle from branches or anything up high.

Did you get that from your parents?

My father’s an undertaker and my mother works for Austrian telecom.

No one else in my family is an acrobat or gymnast.

So how did you discover your love of contortion?

I started vaulting when I was 13 – that is, doing gymnastic exercises on horseback, including from the handstand position.

I liked the position and the range of motion that comes with the handstand, and I experimented with it at home.

Then I couldn’t stop. It’s the same with tattoos – I wanted to stop at 10, but two weeks ago I had my 12th.

© MISCONCEIVABLE BY ERWIN WURM/COURTESY OF HOTEL DANIEL VIENNA, AUSTRIA

Did you have an idol or a specific purpose when you started out?

Neither. I was just doing it for myself.

I enjoyed the sensation, and I gradually increased the number of minutes I could stay balanced on my hands. I cobbled together a training plan of core, strength and stretching exercises, and I got up at 4am every day so I could practise my vaulting before school.

When did you first consider making hand balancing a career?

During and after school, I was just as clueless as most people about what to do in the future. In my careers advice tests, I got “something with animals”, nothing very specific. But you’ve got to start somewhere. I often played circuses when I was a kid. I’d build a circus ring out of chairs, make popcorn and then do all the acts for my audience; I was an animal, an acrobat and a clown.

I took a look at the facts and found something I enjoyed and that I wanted to build on.

In 2014, you spent three weeks with Cirque du Soleil in Canada…

There have been four requests by Cirque du Soleil, which is a huge honour for me, but I realised that showbusiness isn’t my thing. I see myself as an artist, and I need constant change. I want to reinvent myself every day.

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“When I was a kid, I used to dangle from branches or anything up high” You were very successful at equestrian vaulting – in 2015, you and your partner Evelyn Freund won a bronze medal in the pas de deux at the European Championships. Why did you give it up?

I was 25 years old at the time, and I needed to make a choice. Vaulting is a marginal sport. You can put a lot of money into it, but you don’t earn anything from it. It was no longer working for me as a hobby. I don’t do things by halves.

Back then, you couldn’t have known that handstand artistry would be any more lucrative…

That’s true. In the early years, I just had to grin and bear it and do jobs on the side.

I’d deliver newspapers, hand out flyers…

You must have been very sure of your talent as an acrobat…

People think I was born hypermobile, but I wasn’t. I’ve just always been very ambitious. The fact that my anatomy is suited to all these contortions is down to hard training. I train six-to-10 hours a day, every day, and have done for eight years. No exceptions, even on holiday.

What advice would you give to others who want to follow their passion?

Persevere and don’t give up, even when things look bad. Give everything and live for the thing you love.

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Shaping up: “My body recovers quickly and is very forgiving,” says the 28-year-old.

“It’s a miracle”

Stefanie Millinger

Achieving a world record used to be on my bucket list, too.

So, when do you give your body and mind time off?

When I sleep.

You set an unofficial record in July this year: 342 handstands in 52 minutes without your feet touching the ground. Congratulations!

I trained for that for many years.

Guinness World Records kept turning me down, so I decided to film it for myself under regular competition conditions and then upload the video. Then the Record Holders Republic [an alternative register of exceptional feats] approached me and recognised the record.

But isn’t recovery time essential?

My body recovers quickly and is very forgiving, which is very special. It’s like a miracle, how quickly my body recovers.

Scientific tests have shown that it takes much longer for most other people.

In January 2019, you broke the scaphoid bone in your right wrist...

Which is pretty much the worst that can happen to a handstand artist! But I have a very strong mindset, I push myself very hard. I was able to push beyond my limits; doing the seemingly impossible is what makes me unique.

I can switch off the pain.

STYLING: SIMON WINKELMÜLLER, HAIR & MAKE-UP: INA MAURER

How is your hand now?

For six months, I could only do handstand training in a relieving posture – on my fist – and there’s still chronic pain. But hey. At the time, the doctors had said I’d never do a handstand again. Only five days later I was performing again.

Most of your stunts take place at extreme heights and/or sheer drops.

Why so risky?

I define myself as an artiste and extreme sportswoman. As such, I constantly challenge myself, and part of that for me is extreme kicks. The worst thing for my job is routine or habit – it doesn’t get you anywhere, and it makes you incautious.

The first second of a stunt is where you have to have the greatest reverence for what you do. If I then – completely high on adrenalin – repeat it too often, I risk losing the sense of danger. As for my stunts, don’t try them yourself – I’ve practised them for years.

As a rule, you perform unsecured.

Why is that?

Because it’s the only way I want to experience this feeling, this specific feeling of freedom. In these situations, you’re in your own world, extremely focused. Your senses are totally sharp.

You know you can’t make a mistake.

But what about when something doesn’t go the way you want it to?

If circumstances beyond my control get in the way, I can live with that and forget about it. But if a stunt fails because of my THE RED BULLETIN

“People think that I was born hypermobile, but I wasn’t. I’ve just always been very ambitious”

ability, I’ll persevere until I get it right.

My ambition often slips into stubbornness – that’s my big weakness. I don’t want to accept that you can’t access the highest level of performance every day. Then I get angry because I can’t go flat out, and then I’m angry because I’m angry. It’s a total block. I definitely have to work on that.

Are you a bad loser?

I don’t begrudge others success. Back when I did vaulting, winning was important, but not any more. As an artist, it’s not about winning, it’s about finding myself, maintaining my own style. Art is not about competition, it’s about creating something special. Having said that, of course I want to improve. Aiming deliberately high is what motivates me.

Winning an Olympic medal used to be my goal. It was my dream, even though vaulting isn’t an Olympic discipline.

Where does that absolute belief in yourself come from?

I don’t compare myself to others – that only distracts you from the path you want to take, or brings you down. I focus on what I’ve achieved and what I still want to achieve. If I’ve put my mind to it, I do everything in my power to achieve it.

Does your family support the extraordinary path you’ve taken?

Many family members still say I should learn to do something respectable. My mum is the only one who has supported me from the outset. She is the best – she has always understood how hard I am working on myself. And she has always let me be the person I’ve wanted to be.

Does anything unsettle you?

I would be lying if I said that criticism doesn’t affect me. It’s hard when people I don’t know insult me just because they don’t like me or my art. I get strength from people who believe in me and support me, like from my mother and my friends. But getting hate on social media is what really unsettles me.

How do you deal with it?

I have considered deleting my social media accounts. But then I’m happy to have 400,000 followers, and it really is amazing when someone like the American comedian Joe Rogan posts on Twitter that my account is one of the most inspiring out there. The very best moments are the ones in which I achieve something really special, though; moments in which I am fully myself.

In those seconds, the only thing that matters is that I’ve mastered something and that I’m aware of it, regardless of whether or not someone else has seen it.

Instagram: @stefaniemillinger 75

WIIINGS FOR YOUR SUMMER. WITH THE TASTE OF WATERMELON.

VITALIZES BODY AND MIND.

VENTURE Enhance, equip, and experience your best life

KEEPING UP WITH THE ATHERTONS Dyfi Bike Park, Wales

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VENTURE Travel Dan Atherton leads a train of riders out along Dyfi’s slate trails. Below, left to right: Dan and his brother Gee survey 650 acres of bike park; Al Bond musters riders for a coaching session at Dyfi; executing a tailwhip over a tabletop

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VENTURE Travel

“Trails lead off everywhere, snaking through a fantasy land of rivers and forests, with gobsmacking views” Al Bond, Level 2 British Cycling MTB coach

I

’m standing just below the 667mhigh peak of Tarren y Gesail in Snowdonia, Wales, high above the canopy of the Esgair Forest and the sandy beaches of Cardigan Bay. Here is where the trails begin, swooping down through the Dyfi Valley before ending almost at sea level. This is Dyfi Bike Park – 650 acres of terrain that constitute the biggest bike park in the UK, and the training ground of champion downhill mountain bikers the Athertons.

Dan Atherton, the technician of the family, originally built the trails in these hills for his siblings Rachel and Gee – both winners of multiple World Cups and Championships – to train on; the location is also home to Dan’s most fearsome baby, the Red Bull Hardline course. Last year, the bike park was opened up to the public so that everyone, including perhaps a new generation of world-class UK downhill riders, can enjoy it.

I’ve been riding with the Athertons since I was 17, and in the Dyfi Valley ever since Dan made his early trails. I learnt from them and raced World Cups and Red Bull Hardline, as well as becoming the 2011 British Elite overall downhill champion, before injuries put a stop to my racing. Now I coach riders in the art of mountain biking, here at the park.

Riding the landscape here is unlike anything else I’ve experienced in the UK. Standing at the top, the trails lead off everywhere, snaking along rivers and through forests, with gobsmacking views, delivering a gravity-assisted descent that you normally only experience in the

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Alps. There are trails for all types of rider, with evocative names like the Slab Track, Super Swooper and El Hippo. The latter two are brand-new red runs where the lesser experienced can learn new skills before progressing to the challenge of the black tracks.

The one I’m riding today is the 50 Hits, named after the half-century of jumps it puts you through. It starts at an elevation of 400m, right under the flight path of the RAF Low Fly Zone. For more than 3,600m, it tracks the ridge like the fighter jets that scream overhead. Even at a pro-race pace, that’s eight minutes of adrenalin-pumping descent across a continuous flow of tabletops.

Each jump is crafted to launch you into the air so you land in the sweet spot to hit the next jump at the correct speed; I barely have to put a pedal stroke in. This repetition sets off a good learning process – it’s easier to learn to jump when you can hit 50 safe jumps in a single trail. The same applies to riding berms and turns; in a pressured situation on a narrow, rocky trail lined with trees, your brain can only process so much information.

A Land Rover might ferry you up to the top in 11 minutes, but you’re going to have to earn your ride down. With every tabletop or drop, your arms and legs act as suspension while your upperbody muscles keep you in position and your core holds everything together.

Doing strength-based training before you visit will deliver a massive boost to your ability, and working on your flexibility means you’ll be able to position 79

VENTURE Travel FRAME Progressive geometry ensures the best body position for steep descents while also allowing efficient pedalling

FRONT FORKS AND REAR SHOCK Suspension forks and a DW6 suspension platform with 150mm of rear travel to absorb landings

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THE DESIGN Influenced by Dan Atherton’s many years of enduro-racing experience

How modern trail bikes like the Athertons’ ride are built to ‘flow’ downhill

The Super Swooper Multiple UCI World Champion Rachel Atherton breaks down one of Dyfi’s new red-graded trails

Dyfi Bike Park Location The southern border of Snowdonia National Park Area 650 acres (2.64km2) Trail length 0.62km to 3.6km Ride times 5-10 mins per trail Climbing Uplift (needs vehicle) only Grading Red to triple black diamond

dyfibikepark.co.uk

Liverpool Dyfi Bike Park

“This track adds berms and jumps to your skillset, which you can then combine with the all-mountain singletrack skills of more traditional, trail-centre riding to become more well-rounded.

“The track runs from the top of the mountain, and during those first 15 berms on the upper mountain the views of the whole surrounding area are epic.

“You swoop from one berm to the next, almost like a bird. You’re just grinning and whooping the whole time, before riding through three big timber tunnels that go under the downhill track and jump line.

“Then you drop into the trees with more berms. We dug the roots out, so they’re really fun to ride, too. There are also two easy-to-ride tabletops, which really build your confidence for jumping.

It’s the most fun track I have ridden in years.”

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MATT RAY

yourself better on the bike and maybe even avoid a few crashes.

The harder tracks here have to be treated with respect, but you also have to approach them with confidence. Of the riders I coach, those who believe they’ll have a good day are more likely to do so. Turn up with a positive attitude, and make a conscious decision to learn something, and you can avoid being that rider who just laps the tracks without making any improvement. Anyone can self-coach simply by focusing on a single skill for the day, whether that’s jumps, steep sections or riding berms.

The secret to Dan, Gee and Rachel’s success is going out into the woods and building their own jumps and trails. Their combined knowledge on how to match jumps to the speed and the gradients of the slope, and understanding how all the turns flow, make for cleverly planned trails. When a trail flows, you don’t have to work your ass off to go fast, and it helps you accelerate. Focus on the lines you find most comfortable to ride, then consciously keep your eyes looking ahead.

By the time the final descent fires you down the road to the base, you’ll have a huge feeling of accomplishment, buzzing from being able to ride the same trails that the world’s best riders train on every day.

Atherton Bikes Enduro 29in

DAN GRIFFITHS/MOONHEAD MEDIA, ALAMY

WHEELS A wheel size of 29in can take bigger hits than the old 26in standard

VENTURE Equipment RIDE

Old dog, new tricks

TIM KENT

Banzai Skateboard Series #1

Each hand-brushed deck comes with urethane wheels, ceramic bearings, lightweight trucks, and a tool in a leather case

The mid-’70s heralded the birth of modern skateboarding, when Santa Monica surfers the Z-Boys translated their wave-riding skills to LA’s drought-drained backyard pools. As the Z-Boys shaped the tricks, skate brand Banzai defined the vehicle with an aluminium deck sporting the first front and back kicktails. This replica comes in two sizes (60cm and 72cm) and five colours, all boxed with an art print. The Jade edition (right) has a piece

by David Carson, former art director of Ray Gun and Transworld Skateboarding. banzaiskate.com THE RED BULLETIN

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TREK

Travel light Backpacks that take the strain 82  

Most of the energy expended while walking comes not from the distance covered or even the weight carried, but from your centre of mass shifting up and down with each step. A great backpack literally takes the weight off your feet, isolating its movement from your own. These packs have got your back. This page, clockwise from top left: TOPO DESIGNS Klettersack, topodesigns.com; GROUNDTRUTH RIKR Range 24L, groundtruth.global; THE RED BULLETIN

TIM KENT

VENTURE Equipment

DAKINE Ranger Travel 45L, dakine.com; CONSIGNED Torrett Twin Pocketed Flapover, consigned.co.uk; MARMOT V10, marmot. com; FINISTERRE Drift Waterproof Roll Top, finisterre.com; BACH Dr Duffel 30, bachpacks.com; HEIMPLANET Transit Line Travel Pack 34L Castlerock, heimplanet.com. Above, clockwise from top left: JACK WOLFSKIN EcoLoader 24, jack-wolfskin.co.uk; PICTURE Atlant 18L, picture-organic-clothing.com; COTOPAXI Allpa 35L Travel Pack Del Dia, cotopaxi.com; OSPREY Archeon 30 Men’s, ospreyeurope.com; COLUMBIA Unisex Convey 25L Rolltop Daypack, columbiasportswear.co.uk; DOUCHEBAGS The Hugger 30L, douchebags.com; THE NORTH FACE Explore Haulaback, thenorthface.co.uk; HAGLÖFS LIM 35, haglofs.com THE RED BULLETIN

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TRAIN

Space force The OYO NOVA Gym began life as a weight-less gym for weightless astronauts keeping fit in zero gravity. Now the appeal of this revolutionary workout tool is rocketing right here on Earth, too For astronauts, the journey into weightlessness is quick.

Just eight minutes after lift-off on Earth comes the point where loose objects begin to float. This is a magical moment – but microgravity poses challenges to the human body. After a long space mission, astronauts can lose up to 20 per cent of their muscle mass, and as much as 30 per cent in the weightbearing muscle of the legs.

The problem is, earthbound weight-training equipment is useless in the absence of gravity. Finding a solution was a priority for NASA while developing the International Space Station in the late ’90s.

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“The NOVA Gym allows you to perform exercises in all planes of movement, without extra equipment like a bench”

oyofitness.com THE RED BULLETIN

OYO FITNESS

PAUL FRANCIS Founder and CEO, OYO Fitness Last year, the 65-year-old’s contribution to innovation saw him inducted into the Space Technology Hall of Fame

Architect-turned-inventor Paul Francis had a solution. “I saw an article on [US astronaut] Shannon Lucid, who had just come back from the Russian Mir space station,” says Francis, now founder and CEO of Kansas-based OYO Fitness.

“She’d lost a lot of bone and muscle mass. They basically had to carry her off the craft.”

Francis had been working on a muscle-training system, the Interim Resistive Exercise Device (iRED), which doesn’t use weights but instead a rubber polymer tightly wound into discs; when connected to a spiral pulley, these provide linear – rather than upward – resistance of up to 136kg.

NASA’s studies showed the system delivered comparable results to regular weight training back on Earth. In 2000, iRED was installed on the ISS, where it kept a rotation of 50 astronauts fit for the next nine years.

In the meantime, Francis found that his invention also produced amazing results on Earth. After licensing his technology, patented as SpiraFlex, to various homegym businesses for several years, in 2012 Francis launched OYO Fitness. Last year, the firm developed the NOVA Gym – Kickstarter’s most-funded fitness product ever, raising more than $4.4 million [more than £3.3m].

Resembling a hunter’s bow that flexes like an elbow, and employing the same discsand-pulleys system Francis pioneered for NASA, the NOVA Gym gives resistance of up to 18kg in each hand and can work every muscle group.

“As it doesn’t require gravity, you can perform exercises in all planes of movement, without extra equipment like a bench,” says OVO’s fitness director, Nick Bolton.

And because the NOVA Gym only weighs 1.1kg and fits into a backpack, you can take it anywhere. To space and back, even.

FLORIAN OBKIRCHER

VENTURE Fitness

VENTURE Fitness

The NOVA Gym comes with four snap-on discs called ‘Flex Packs’, each adding 4.5kg of resistance per arm to a total of 18kg, yet the device weighs only 1.1kg. The accompanying OYO Coaching App for iOS, designed by Nick Bolton, features more than 60 workouts including resistance training, cardio, HIIT, yoga and Pilates, to build everything from your chest, back and core to your abs, arms and legs

PROMOTION

New horizons: Jenny Tough pauses for thought during her 2017 bikepacking adventure in the Balkans

INTO THE UNKNOWN How komoot takes the stress out of exploring

Travelling by two wheels can be one of the best ways to explore the world around you, leaving memories that last a lifetime. But when tackling new terrain, there’s always the risk that the only thing memorable about your experience will be finding yourself lost miles from home.

Enter komoot, the route-planning and navigation app that is taking the world by storm. Komoot allows you to unearth new experiences without the headache of bad decision-making.

It’s able to do this as komoot’s robust algorithm prioritises the type of roads and trails you prefer to ride, and by basing suggested routes on other riders’ recommendations.

Komoot will get you to your destination using rider-approved

paths, and highlight some hidden gems worth a detour.

Simply enter your start and finish points, fitness level, and specify the type of riding you’re doing – be it road, gravel or mountain biking – and komoot will tailor the route to you. The app will provide a turnby-turn journey, complete with distance, elevation profile, and even the types of surface you’ll be riding on – meaning no nasty surprises along the way.

One person who enjoys breaking new ground while also knowing

what’s around the corner is Canadian-born endurance explorer Jenny Tough. “Searching for komoot Highlights that other users have contributed, and then finding a new way there, is a good way to have new adventures from home,” says Tough – now based in Scotland – whose accolades include winning the women’s category of the 2020 Atlas Mountain Race, a 1,145km bikepacking ride across Morocco’s rugged interior.

She adds, “When planning a road ride, you want to make sure you’re travelling on nice roads, and komoot Highlights will point you towards bike paths and quiet climbs, while with MTB it’s hard to know where the good spots are [if you’re outside trail centres]. Komoot lets riders share their favourite hidden spots, so you can plan fun rides!”

Follow Jenny’s adventures here

VENTURE Equipment RUN

High achievers

TIM KENT

Merrell MQM Flex 2

Tongue-integrated lacing and a merinolined insole contoured to your foot provide comfort and support on any terrain

Mountain trekkers fall into two groups – those who hike and those who run – and if you ever wanted to tell them apart at a glance (assuming they were standing still), you’d look at the footwear. That’s changed in recent years as hikers have warmed to wearing trail-running shoes on their walks, and now Merrell has designed a shoe specifically for them.

The MQM stands for ‘Move Quickly in the Mountains’, and in that regard they deliver, with a ‘mountain-grade’ grippy outsole; flexible grooves on the midsole that assist with ground contact; and an air-cushioned, shock-absorbing heel.

A thermoplastic polyurethane toe-cap and a rock plate beneath the cushioned midsole add protection from sharp stones, and the waterproof mesh upper, breathable GORE-TEX membrane and bellows tongue sort out the rest of the elements.

They look so good, you might even wear them in the city. merrell.com

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VENTURE Equipment PROTECT

Keep your lid on The best full-face bike helmets

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Constructed from fibreglass with 11 screened air vents, removable cheek pads and a tool-free attachable visor

TIM KENT

For protecting your brains while on a bike, wearing a helmet is a no-brainer. But if you’re heading off-road or downhill, consider fullface coverage. The best full-face helmets meet CE (European) and CPSC (US) safety standards, but there are other factors to weigh up. Will you be able to take off the helmet midride? If not, choose one with plenty of airflow, both over-brow and around the mouth and nose. A bad fit increases the chance of injury; the helmet should be snug, with a 2cm gap above the brow for clear visibility. Look for light, durable materials such as carbon fibre or fibreglass.

Other features include countermeasures against twisting impact, quickrelease cheek pads and a breakaway visor. Most are designed for one impact, but many brands will trade a used lid for a new one.

Look after it and your helmet should serve you well for years. Left to right, from top: BELL Full-9 Fusion MIPS MTB, bellbikehelmets.co.uk; SCOTT Nero Plus, scottsports.com; MET HELMETS Legit Carbon, met-helmets. com; SPECIALIZED S-Works Dissident w/ANGI, specialized.com; POC Coron Air Spin, pocsports. com; ENDURA MT500, endurasport.com; TSG Squad Graphic Design, ridetsg.com; SILVERFISH 100% Aircraft Carbon, silverfish-uk.com; SADDLEBACK Troy Lee Designs D4, saddleback. co.uk

Features MIPS (multidirectional impact protection system), which reduces the effects of rotational forces on brain tissue

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VENTURE Equipment

Beneath the limitededition artwork by famed Californian motocross helmet painter Troy Lee is a carbon-fibre shell THE RED BULLETIN

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10 ISSUES

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BEYOND THE ORDINARY The next issue is out on Tuesday 13 October 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 never imagined what it would become. You don’t think about it until it happens, then you’re like, ‘Oh, it is a big deal.’”

Rolling back the years

It shaped players’ taste in music

“Hearing all the [punk] music for the first time made a big impact,” says Riley Hawk.

“Those songs are burnt into my brain. I don’t think many kids of that age would have been listening to anything like that if it wasn’t for this game.”

The legacy of an all-time gaming classic, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater The end of the 20th century was a big time for Tony Hawk.

In June 1999, the Californian skateboarder landed the first-ever 900 (two-and-a-half rotations in mid-air), then quit competitive skating. But what he’s most remembered for that year is a video game.

With its punk soundtrack, and gameplay that let you step into the Vans of the sport’s biggest talents, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater was a cultural moment for all those who experienced it – the players, the skaters, and Hawk, who became a global superstar.

A year later, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 was released to even greater acclaim.

Two decades on, the two games have been remastered as Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2, and a new generation of skaters have joined the original line-up (who appear at their current age). Here, three of the featured pros talk about the effect the series has had on their lives…

It was more intense second time round

Chip off the old board: skateboarding progeny Riley Hawk as he appears in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2

my mum, ‘I guess I became a pro skater.’ I did the thing I said I was going to do 20 years ago.”

It wasn’t an obvious hit at first

Riley Hawk, 27, is the son of the skating legend. At the age of six, he’d play pre-releases of the original game at home.

“I had a short attention span,” he says. “I’d play for a minute, then go do something else.

I thought it was crazy that you could play a skate video game.

ACTIVISION

JAKE TUCKER

It made me famous

“It’s an unbelievable thing that just fell into my lap,” says US skater Elissa Steamer (below, right), who appeared in the original game when she was 25. “It was weird to go places where people weren’t skating and they’d be like, ‘Oh, you’re in Tony Hawk’s!’ I became super recognisable to people who didn’t even ride.”

It encouraged me to turn professional

Leo Baker (above, right) is a gender-queer, non-binary skater from California, who THE RED BULLETIN

makes their debut in the remaster. “I had the game for the Nintendo 64 when I was eight,” says Baker, now 28. “It was sick to see Elissa in there.

I thought there was only me and her in the world; everybody else who skated was a guy.

Just the title, Pro Skater, made me realise it could be a career.

You’d imagine doing the tricks, skating the levels. Now that I’m seeing myself in the game, it’s hard to describe. I texted

“[When making] the first game, you had a couple of meetings, talked about what you wanted to wear, brought in clothes, and they shot a few photos of you,” says Steamer of the creative process. “[Making the new] one was basically the same, except they had this big ball of [360˚] cameras with flashes. I’m super light-sensitive and that hit me hard for three days – all I could see was balls of light.”

It’s inspiring a new generation

“Ever since I’ve posted on Instagram that I’m in the game, so many people who identify as queer, non-binary and trans have said they wish they’d had that when growing up,” says Baker. “I’m just happy for those young queer kids who get to see a trans person in a video game and feel like they can do it, too.”

It brought us together “I think it’s a common thread between skateboarders, non-skateboarders and video gamers,” says Steamer.

“Everybody you ever meet is like, ‘What do you do?’ And you’re like, ‘I skateboard.’ And they’re like, ‘Oh, you know Tony Hawk? You ever seen the video game?’ That’s always the first question.”

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 is available now on PS4, Xbox One and Windows; tonyhawkthegame.com 91

VENTURE Equipment

OMNIPROTECT’s selfdisinfecting Livinguard fabric is scientifically proven to kill yellow fever and some strains of coronavirus, SARS and influenza, omniprotect.co.uk

The SA1NT Nano Mask – from the team that makes motorbike jeans stronger than steel – has a liquid-repellent and anti-bacterial nanocotton coating, saint.cc

UNDER ARMOUR’s Sportsmask has three layers: an anti-microbial barrier that stays cool against the skin, a breathable mid-layer, and an outer fabric that promotes airflow, underarmour.com

Adventure brand KEEN’s reusable masks come in packs of two and are made from 100 per cent ethical and sustainable cotton, keenfootwear.com

SHIELD

TIM KENT

Saving face Wear the best mask for your daily needs 92

THE RED BULLETIN

VENTURE How to...

TRACK

Natural direction

MICHA THEINER, SCEPTRE BOOKS

MATT RAY

This British explorer aims to make our mobile maps app redundant. All we need to do is read the navigational clues around us “It’s like learning to read the most beautiful map ever created,” says Tristan Gooley of his special talent. The 44-year-old Brit is a natural navigator, a traveller who uses only nature’s signposts – no instruments or gadgets – to find his way around.

It wasn’t always this way.

An experienced adventurer and the only living person to have both flown and sailed solo across the Atlantic, Gooley became disillusioned by what he calls the “systems management” of modern computerised navigation.

After conducting research on ancient techniques discovered by the Pacific Islanders and Vikings to navigate the ocean simply by watching the waves, he set off on a lifelong quest to practise these methods and help keep the traditions alive.

At the start of this education, Gooley recalls, he would have been surprised if there were more than 50 natural navigation techniques.

Now the author of six books on the subject says he can spot 1,000 methods from a single point on the South Downs.

“It’s a skill anyone can learn,” he says. Natural navigation is about recognising and filtering the important information presented by our environment every second. So put away your phone and tune into the world around you…

THE RED BULLETIN

Reading light

Natural navigators rely on the sun, but often it’s obscured.

“The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and rainbows always appear opposite the sun [see above],” says Gooley.

“So, early in the day, rainbows are going to be in the western sky. You can refine that further in different seasons, because sunrise and sunset change by almost 90° over the year.”

Water marks

“Next time you’re walking through a wet area, study the plants by your feet,” says Gooley. “Then, as you walk to slightly higher ground, look at the plants and trees around you again.” In the UK, rivers are lined with purple wild flowers such as loosestrife and Himalayan balsam, along with willows and alder trees.

“Try to spot the water before you can see it. The presence of a river has been painted into the landscape from a couple of kilometres away.”

City signs

You don’t have to travel to the countryside to practise reading signs in your surroundings. “TV satellite dishes point southeast in towns,” says Gooley. “And major roads such as dual carriageways are generally

better than staring at your phone at street level.”

aligned to the compass. So, in the north of a city, a major road is most likely to run north to south, whereas in the west it’ll be east to west.”

Wilderness techniques also apply in urban environments.

“The Dayak [one of the indigenous groups of Central Borneo] head to the top of a hill and climb a tree. Even by going to the top of a department store you’ll do

Wave forms

“Downwind of an island, there’s a patch of calm water, a ‘shadow’ where wind and waves don’t reach,” says Gooley. “Then, further downwind, a crosshatching effect on the surface shows where the waves that have bent around the island meet again.” This is a sign that Pacific Island sailors have known for thousands of years.

“Looking at a pond, you literally see crosses in the ripples. When out at sea, this turbulent effect shows there’s land upwind of you.”

Test patterns

Tristan Gooley An author, natural navigator and seasoned explorer, Gooley has led expeditions across five continents – on land, sea and in the air. His most recent book, Wild Signs and Star Paths, is published

by Hodder & Stoughton naturalnavigator.com

“Once a day, ask yourself, ‘Which way am I looking?’” recommends Gooley. “Before checking your smartphone, see if the landscape is giving any clues, such as wind patterns. Knee-high grass growing in exposed areas bends in the current wind direction, but shorter grass in sheltered areas is often bent in the general wind direction over a course of days, and that’s usually southwesterly.

Testing your emerging navigation awareness can make a 2km walk feel like a serious expedition.”

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VENTURE Calendar

25

to 27 September KING’S CUP GRAVEL FESTIVAL

8

This new gravel-focused MTB event comes complete with live music, camping, and the first British Gravel Championships. Riders and spectators must pre-register to ensure safety and physicaldistancing measures, and contingency plans are in place to move the event to October or later, if needed.

King’s Forest, Suffolk; kingscupgravel.com

September onwards GO FAST PULL UP: THE JIMMY LEVAN STORY In 1998, a 24-year-old Jimmy LeVan landed a jump on his BMX from the top of the stairs at St Mary’s Church in Austin, Texas, to the pavement on the other side of the road. This has become known as the ‘Austin Church Gap’, attempted by countless others but so far only achieved by LeVan, the X Games rider who went on to carve out a profoundly influential career in street BMX and create the renowned Metal Bikes brand. It’s just one moment in his amazing life story, as documented in this captivating film, which also details a terrifying spill he took in 2007. “I flatlined and died four times in my coma,” LeVan tells the camera, matter-of-factly. redbull.com

11

to 13 September DRAG RACING: ‘NOT’ THE EUROPEAN FINALS Europe’s most prestigious dragracing event may sadly have been cancelled, but it takes more than lockdown to stop vehicles that can reach speeds of 480kph, burning rubber on the drag strip. This replacement for the annual Euro Finals welcomes all the favourites, from nitro-powered top-fuel dragsters to jet cars and, of course. monster trucks. Santa Pod Raceway, Northants; santapod.co.uk 94

8

September onwards OPEN THE DOORS This documentary was intended to be a celebration of a newly minted F1 race team – Scuderia AlphaTauri, formerly Toro Rosso.

But, following the cancellation of the Australian Grand Prix in March, it became an unprecedented glimpse into the mindset of an F1 team during lockdown, and their eventual debut at the Austrian GP in July. redbull.com THE RED BULLETIN

VENTURE Calendar

8 8

September to 14 February ELECTRONIC

CHRIS RYE, SANTA POD, RED BULL CONTENT POOL, DESIGN MUSEUM, NICK PUMPHREY, MARGUS RIGA

This musical exhibition – staged in a club-like setting and subtitled From Kraftwerk to The Chemical Brothers – examines the intersection between electronic music, art and fashion. Highlights include props such as Aphex Twin’s masks, and a 3D presentation of The Chemical Brothers’ Grammywinning track Got to Keep On. The Design Museum, London; designmuseum.org

25

October RED BULL BASEMENT If you’re a student with an innovative idea that could enact positive change in the world, this global tech project is providing an outlet.

Get your application in

by October 25, and the selected winners will receive mentoring, workspace and microfunding to help realise their idea, before showcasing it at a global workshop in December. redbull.com

THE RED BULLETIN

September onwards A LAND SHAPED

BY WOMEN Freeride snowboarders Anne-Flore Marxer and Aline Bock spent a winter making this film – set in the inspiring landscape of Iceland, a country ranked top for gender equality by the World Economic Forum 11 years running – about the push for equal rights in a sport historically dominated by men. redbull.com

8

September onwards RETURN TO EARTH This year will likely be most remembered for long periods spent indoors.

Thank goodness, then, for this cathartic biking movie, which celebrates the feeling of just letting time fly and enjoying it. Filmed in stunning locations worldwide – from the deserts of Utah to the mountains of Patagonia – and featuring the kinetic skills of riders including Brett Rheeder, Thomas Vanderham and Casey Brown, this cinematic journey will help you reconnect with nature or, at the very least, make killing time at home more enjoyable. redbull.com

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Imprint

GLOBAL TEAM

THE RED BULLETIN WORLDWIDE

The Red Bulletin is published in six countries. This is the October cover of our German edition, featuring film and TV actor Daniel Brühl For more stories beyond the ordinary, go to: redbulletin.com

The Red Bulletin UK. ABC certified distribution 153,505 (Jan-Dec 2019)

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Editor-in-Chief Alexander Macheck Deputy Editor-in-Chief Andreas Rottenschlager Creative Director Erik Turek Art Directors Kasimir Reimann (deputy CD), Miles English, Tara Thompson Head of Photo Eva Kerschbaum Deputy Head of Photo Marion Batty Photo Director Rudi Übelhör Production Editor Marion Lukas-Wildmann Managing Editor Ulrich Corazza Copy Chief Andreas Wollinger Design Marion Bernert-Thomann, Martina de CarvalhoHutter, Kevin Goll, Carita Najewitz Photo Editors Susie Forman, Ellen Haas, Tahira Mirza General Manager & Publisher Andreas Kornhofer Managing Director Stefan Ebner Head of Media Sales & Partnerships Lukas Scharmbacher Publishing Management Sara Varming (manager), Ivona Glibusic, Bernhard Schmied, Melissa Stutz B2B Marketing & Communication Katrin Sigl (manager), Alexandra Ita, Teresa Kronreif, Stefan Portenkirchner Head of Creative Markus Kietreiber Co-Publishing Susanne Degn-Pfleger & Elisabeth Staber (manager), Mathias Blaha, Raffael Fritz, Thomas Hammerschmied, Valentina Pierer, Mariella Reithoffer, Verena Schörkhuber, Sara Wonka, Julia Bianca Zmek, Edith Zöchling-Marchart Commercial Design Peter Knehtl (manager), Simone Fischer, Alexandra Hundsdorfer, Martina Maier, Julia Schinzel, Florian Solly Advertising Placement Manuela Brandstätter, Monika Spitaler Head of Production Veronika Felder Production Friedrich Indich, Walter O. Sádaba, Sabine Wessig Repro Clemens Ragotzky (manager), Claudia Heis, Nenad Isailovi c,̀ Sandra Maiko Krutz, Josef Mühlbacher MIT Michael Thaler, Christoph Kocsisek Operations Melanie Grasserbauer, Alexander Peham, Yvonne Tremmel Assistant to General Management Patricia Höreth Subscriptions and Distribution Peter Schiffer (manager), Nicole Glaser (distribution), Yoldaş Yarar (subscriptions) Global Editorial Office Heinrich-Collin-Straße 1, A-1140 Vienna Tel: +43 1 90221 28800, Fax: +43 1 90221 28809 redbulletin.com Red Bull Media House GmbH Oberst-Lepperdinger-Straße 11-15, A-5071 Wals bei Salzburg, FN 297115i, Landesgericht Salzburg, ATU63611700 Directors Dietrich Mateschitz, Dietmar Otti, Christopher Reindl, Marcus Weber

THE RED BULLETIN United Kingdom, ISSN 2308-5894 Editor Ruth McLeod Associate Editor Tom Guise Culture Editor Florian Obkircher 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 getredbulletin.com 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 Christian Eberle-Abasolo Proofreaders Hans Fleißner (manager), Petra Hannert, Monika Hasleder, Billy Kirnbauer-Walek Publishing Management Bernhard Schmied Sales Management Alfred Vrej Minassian (manager), Thomas Hutterer, Stefanie Krallinger anzeigen@at.redbulletin.com

THE RED BULLETIN France, ISSN 2225-4722 Editor Pierre-Henri Camy Country Coordinator Christine Vitel Country Project M ­ anagement Alessandra Ballabeni 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 Advertising Sales Matej Anusic, matej.anusic@redbull.com Thomas Keihl, thomas.keihl@redbull.com Martin Riedel, martin.riedel@redbull.com

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 Director of Publishing Cheryl Angelheart Country Project Management Laureen O’Brien Advertising Sales Todd Peters, todd.peters@redbull.com Dave Szych, dave.szych@redbull.com Tanya Foster, tanya.foster@redbull.com

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OTL

READY TO JOIN THE CHARGE?

2020

The aston martin red bull racing official teamline 2020 has LANDED. available worldwide now at redbullsop.com / redbullshopus.com and in the red bull world stores in salzburg and graz.

Action highlight

Winging it

The next issue of THE RED BULLETIN is out on October 13

98

THE RED BULLETIN

DANIEL WAGNER/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

In his latest video, Ride at the Museum, Adrian Guggemos flips his bike off the wing of a Concorde. That’s what happens when you give a freestyle trials rider the keys to Germany’s Technik Museum Sinsheim for the night. Problem is, now the 26-year-old will want to take the stunt to the next level – an altitude of 18,000m, perhaps? To watch Ride at the Museum, go to redbull.com

ALPHATAURI.COM

your favourite trails have never, ever been more fun. cannondale.com

A trail bike with its priorities on point: playful agility, progressive design, and killer capability –

FEATURED BIKE: HABIT SE

Habit SE Second Nature.