Michael Kiwanuka / David Lama / Brandon Semenuk / Spiritualized / Alexis Thompson / Leonardo da Vinci / Woodkid
a beyond the ordinary magazine
april 2012
Dow our f nload re App e iPad now !
Sir James Dyson
Inventing the future Gaza Strip
Surfing for freedom
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RED BULL Stratos scarlett johansson
code breaker Tadhg Kennelly Ireland’s king of Aussie Rules back home to lead a GAA generation Down Under
red Bull gives you wings. get yours with one of five internships at red Bull racing. to apply, visit redBull.co.uk/racing
applications close May 4th. open to all uk citizens aged 16 and over.
THE WORLD OF RED BULL
April 22
WHERE’S YOUR HEAD AT: SCARLETT JOHANSSON With bombshell looks fit for movies’ golden age, the youngest old pro in Hollywood is saving the world in The Avengers, 2012’s first blockbuster. Here’s the makings of a leading lady
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BIRTH OF A TRICK When freestyle moutain bikers show off their tricks, difficult manoeuvres come across as second nature. Star French freestyler Yannick Granieri reveals the secrets of this success, including a trampoline, and a single-minded coach on double time
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COVER PHOTOGRAPHY: PATRICK BOLGER. PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTY IMAGES, DOM DAHER, DPPI, CIRQUE DU SOIR
Welcome You’ll forgive us, we hope, for this month producing a magazine with something of a two-wheeled theme. The bicycle has been described by some as mankind’s greatest invention and while that’s a bold claim, few could argue that in an age of austerity, eco-angst and demands of personal mobility, the bike is more relevant than ever. We celebrate it with a look at some of the great European road climbs any true cyclist should tackle (page 84), a brief history of great technical innovations in mountain biking (page 30) and a whimsical reflection on how Leonardo da Vinci first invented a machine that might be called a bicycle – if, in fact, he did. We get out of the saddle too, to soar from terra firma, with an in-depth look at how Red Bull Stratos hero Felix Baumgartner earned his licence to fly the balloon that’ll take him to the edge of space (page 74). It was a wild adventure, but at least he’s now clear for take-off. As are we with this issue. Enjoy the ride. Your editorial team
TRAVEL: NO MOUNTAIN HIGH ENOUGH
If you’ve ever fancied yourself as a Lycra-clad, Tour de France road warrior, these are the eight hill climbs that’ll give you pedal cred
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WELCOME TO THE PLEASURE DOME
Cirque du Soir, London – a mind-bending, big-topthemed night out with Moulin Rouge atmosphere, clubbers of all stripes and an in-house funfair
THE WORLD OF RED BULL
April 44
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‘SENDING EMAILS IS NOT WHY I COME TO WORK’ James Dyson reinvented the world – at the very least, the way we think about it and the way we keep it nice. In an exclusive interview with The Red Bulletin, the billionaire innovator, engineer and inventor reveals the plusses of perseverance, his gin-less wonder and his plans for 2027
SOMETHING BOLD SOMETHING NEW As the only man to win the top team honours in Aussie rules and Gaelic football, Tadhg Kennelly knows a thing or two about top-level, cross code success. Now he’s facing one of the biggest challenges of his career
24 ART AND SOUL
For a creative control freak such as Yoann Lemoine, aka Woodkid, shooting videos for Katy Perry and Vogue Italia would never be enough. Now he’s making music, film, photography and animation, on his quest for artistic enlightenment
26 A HEAD FOR FILM
Footage from a first-person perspective takes the viewer into the heart of the action, yet the ‘helmet cam’ has been around longer than you think
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RAISING THE GIANT The balloon taking Felix Baumgarter to the edge of space for his Red Bull Stratos free fall stretches wider than the wingspan of three Boeing 777s. Inflating it requires a lot of skill, patience and precision – the same qualities needed to take it up
THE WORLD OF RED BULL
88
GET THE GEAR Last year, US golfer Alexis Thompson became the youngestever winner on the LPGA tour. She’s since turned 17, and here she turns out her golf bag to show us what’s required to get a girl to the top of the leaderboard
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PHOTOGRAPHY: SUKI DHANDA/GUARDIAN MEDIA, GETTY IMAGES, WOODKID, KURT KEINRATH, RED BULL STRATOS ROBERT SNOW/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, SÉBASTIEN AGNETTI, ANDREW MCCONNELL/PANOS, LICOLN CLES
IN SEARCH OF LOST YOUTH
From the Cote D’Azur to the deserts of America, via Seinfeld and Sonic Youth, Anthony Gonzalez, alias M83, mines his memories to make epic electronica for the little kid in him – and all of us
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Alexis Thompson
I never go anywhere without my pink-and-white travel cushion
David Lama Adjusting his body position, he saw where he should grab, hauled himself up, realised he could do it, and then fell
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SURFING THE STRIP
Freedom is a much-prized commodity in Gaza, Palestine. For a small but increasing number of its residents, the sea offers an escape from a war-torn world. A 12-page photo reportage
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THE TAMING OF CERRO TORRE How David Lama passed one of the last great mountaineering milestones and became the first person to free climb a mythical Patagonian peak
28 Me And My Body: Canadian Freeride mountain bike champion Brandon Semenuk 54 Leonardo! A possible history of the Renaissance and how da Vinci divined the bicycle
THE WORLD OF RED BULL
April “
If I knew exactly what made a good song, I’d be a millionaire
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APRIL’S GUEST CHEF
Tanja Grandits, from Restaurant Stucki in Switzerland, creates two menus at Ikarus Restaurant at Salzburg’s Hangar-7
87 WAY TO PHO!
The Vietnamese breakfast dish has become one of the world’s favourite bowlfuls. Make your own today
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HIGH ACHIEVER
How do you stay in shape for cliffdiving? Czech plummeteer Michal Navratil lets us in on the secrets of the training regime that lets him master mid-air manoeuvres
10 Pictures of the month 93 Take 5 94 World in Action 96 Save the Date 97 Kainrath 98 Mind’s Eye
PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTY IMAGES, ROMINA AMATO/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, RED BULL HANGAR-7, FOTOSTUDIO EISENHUT & MAYER
Michael Kiwanuka
OUT NOW: MICHAEL KIWANUKA One young man demonstrating that simple, soulful ingredients are still a recipe for great pop music
THE N EW ! P P A TI E L L U B RED
N
E E R F DOWNLOAD
Fusing high-end magazine editorial with eye-catching moving images. The essential addition to the print title.
www.redbulletin.com
ALTA VE R APA Z , G UATE MAL A
OF THE MONTH
rock star
Credits
Petr Kraus’s bicycle adventures begin at the point where other people get out their climbing equipment. On a recent journey around Guatemala, the Czech biking acrobat hurtled his way down the hot ash tracks of the Pacaya volcano – “it feels like snowboarding” – and then devoted himself to cave exploration by trials bike, which he found “muddy, slippery, a great experience”. But what did he take home from Central America? “A flat tyre and so many unforgettable memories. I always say that the best way to get to know a foreign country is on two wheels.” Watch video by searching for ‘petr kraus’ at www.redbull.com Photography: Agustín Muñoz/Red Bull Content Pool
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Credits
n E w yo R k c iT y, U SA
OF THE MONTH
bubble head
Credits
Photographer Romain Laurent has a history of taking unusual pictures on the streets of New York. For his L’Horizon photo series, he shot a bare-chested surfer waiting to cross at traffic lights while sitting on a surfboard that was floating above the sidewalk. Similarly surreal is the man-in-a-bubble that Laurent photographed for another project, entitled Something Real. Says Laurent: “The pictures symbolise a moment in time when a person is disconnected from reality while still being a part of it.” See all the pictures in the series at www.romain-laurent.com Photography: Romain Laurent/Bransch Europe
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Credits
PAR i S , FR An c E
insane bolt
It’s Independence Day meets Storm Chasers as a bolt of lightning appears to strike the Eiffel Tower on a stormy night in the French capital. About three miles across town, Bertrand Kulik, a concert violinist and amateur photographer, had his camera and his wits about him, and snapped this remarkable image. The blue glow is part of the landmark’s series of regular nighttime costume changes, thanks to the lights installed for Millennium Eve celebrations in 1999. www.tour-eiffel.fr Photography: Bertrand Kulik/Caters News
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OF THE MONTH
Helly Hansen catwalk
Scandinavian Design is the cornerstone in all Helly Hansen gear. The optimal combination of purposeful design, protection and style. This is why professional mountain guides, patrollers and discerning enthusiasts choose Helly Hansen.
cOnFIDent wHen It MatteRs
Bullevard Sport and culture on the quick
Famous faces in the crowd The rise of the celebri-fan
OFF THE CHAIN
The sculptor getting a big reaction from his body parts in bike parts KYLIE & DANNII MINOGUE Australia’s sisters of pop have shown solid homecountry support for Red Bull Racing’s F1 Aussie, Mark Webber.
JOHN CUSACK The High Fidelity star doles out high-fives to his beloved Chicago Cubs ballplayers from a pitch-side seat at Wrigley Field.
Seo Young-Deok isn’t a pro cyclist, but every year he gets through more bike chains than the whole Tour de France. His most remarkable piece, Nirvana, an outsized head over 7.5m tall, took him a year to create, using 1.5km of bike chains that cost him in the region of €30,000. This welded masterpiece is just one of a number of bike-chain bodies, torsos and part-bodies in Young-Deok’s Dystopia exhibition, which this year will be coming to the west for the first time after a successful run in Seoul. Its first stop outside South Korea will be the SODA Gallery in Istanbul. youngdeok.com
BEN STILLER Whether it’s Wimbledon or the US Open, the actor (here with wife Christine Taylor) does the side-toside head thing at the tennis.
Seo Young-Deok and his Nirvana ‘head o’chains’
PICTURES OF THE MONTH
EVERY SHOT ON TARGET
JAY-Z Blue Ivy Carter’s poppa part-owns the New Jersey Nets basketball team, soon to be (after a move to his hood) the Brooklyn Nets.
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Taken a picture with a Red Bull flavour? Email it to us: phototicker@redbulletin.com Every month we print a selection, and our favourite pic is awarded a limited-edition Sigg bottle. Tough, functional and well-suited to sports, it features The Red Bulletin logo.
Wellington
Breakdancers do their thing at the Red Bull Lab Stage of Homegrown Festival. Sean Aickin
Kid in play The wonder of wunderkinds
DUBBLE GOOD When the hits go down: old rap dogs Cypress Hill learn new licks
WORDS: FLORIAN OBKIRCHER, RUTH MORGAN. PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTY IMAGES (3), DDP MOGIGUSANT/SOLENT NEWS (2), MARCIN OLIVA-SOTO, IMAGO, PORTLAND JUNIOR PIRATES, CHRISTOPH SCHÖCH, CYPRES HILL (2)
Jonny Greenwood (l) and Krzysztof Penderecki (r) flank conductor Marek Mos after a 2011 concert
From six-string to 48 violins Music lovers are awestruck in the presence of Jonny Greenwood, lead guitarist with Radiohead and composer of haunting film soundtracks for movies such as There Will Be Blood. And yet the boot was on the other foot when Greenwood met avant-garde composer Krzysztof Penderecki. “I shook his hand after a concert like a sad fan-boy,” recalled Greenwood. “His pieces make such wonderful sounds.” Penderecki’s radical works from the 1960s are Greenwood’s particular favourites. After that initial encounter, Greenwood visited the 78-year-old at home, near Kraków in Poland, and they went on to perform a concert together in September last year. A new album features studio recordings of the works they played live, including Penderecki’s 1961 classic Polymorphia, for 48 stringed instruments, and Greenwood’s homage to it, 48 Responses To Polymorphia. It’s a record with the feel of a Stanley Kubrick film: epic, full of fine details and eerily beautiful. Krzysztof Penderecki and Jonny Greenwood’s album is out now: www.nonesuch.com
TAKEFUSA KUBO Aka The Japanese Boy Messi. The 10-year-old’s exceptional soccer skills saw him snapped up by Barcelona last year.
OLIVER WAHLSTRÖM In 2009, aged nine, at a NHL game show, scored hockey’s best-ever goal. For real: YouTube him.
KELLY SILDARU The 10-year-old Estonian with a load of tricks up her sleeve is considered the greatest future talent on the freeskiing scene.
Cypress Hill have spent two decades injecting hip-hop with slowed-down melodies and blissed-out beats. Now they’re venturing onto the dancefloor. The Californian trio have made a record with young British musician Rusko. The five-track EP, Cypress x Rusko, is bass-heavy and inspired by dance music’s hottest genre, dubstep. Skrillex, a figurehead for dubstep, won three Grammys in February: the rap veterans are bang on course with the new direction they’ve taken. How did Rusko and Cypress Hill start working together? : We actually only wanted to produce one track, but the work we did with Rusko went so well that we
got a whole album out of it. We knew dubstep before we’d met Rusko but we had no idea that it was such strong, intense music. Was it a clash of generations? Dubstep and hip-hop aren’t that different, but when we heard our voices over those heavy beats for the first time, it sounded very natural. Yes, Rusko is 26 and we’re all about 45, but we got along very well and we have no qualms about working with young musicians. Have you figured out how to dance to dubstep? Not yet. I can move to hiphop, but I need something new now. Maybe I should dance naked? We’ll see. Listen to samples of the EP at www.cypresshill.com
From right: Sen Dog, Rusko, DJ Muggs and B-Real
WE HAVE A WINNER!
Hokkaido Only 178 other boarders to beat to triumph at Red Bull Snow Charge. Hiroyuki Nakagawa
Abu Dhabi
At Red Bull Car Park Drift, Abdo Feghali partakes of the burning of the rubber. Naim Chidiac
Kapstadt Giant tricks in front of Table Mountain at kiteboarding’s Len10 Megaloop Challenge. Craig Kolesky
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B U L L E VA R D
Kriss Kyle, boldy seeking BMX spots
In a spin
Daniel Wang does more than disco
IN A SPIN
Outspoken Berlin-based Chinese-American DJ and producer Daniel Wang, 42, travels the world playing his own blend of left-field disco
Online opinion poll toppers Stonefree
House music Thanks to the power of the web, Donegal four-piece Stonefree have won the first phase of band battle Red Bull Bedroom Jam Ireland without leaving the house. The rock outfit, named after a Jimi Hendrix song, beat more than 130 other bands to top the fortnightly buzz chart and will now be filmed performing live. Five more will join them, before three are chosen to play Ireland’s big music festivals. But only one band can win the grand prize: a full week recording in the Red Bull Studios. Band performances are available to view – and vote for – online now. www.redbullbedroomjam.ie
Lucca Crowd support in extremis at the Italian extreme enduro race, Hell’s Gate. Olaf Pignatarob 20
Antigua
Bad beats. “In the past 30 years, technology has made it possible for a lot of idiots to make so-called music. House and techno sound so musically wrong to me. My sound gets categorised as disco because it involves people who can actually play.” Low fly zone. “I don’t have millions in the bank, but I have balance. I get to travel to amazing places and enjoy life in Berlin. DJ Paul van Dyke was in the air for 285 days one year: that’s how you get rich.” Not shy. “I only really discovered Kajagoogoo and their big hit Too Shy about 10 years ago. I think it has one of the best bass lines in pop music history – and that voice! That hair! They were on TV recently and still sounded great.” God is a DJ. “In London you meet people who are sincerely into music, it’s like preaching to the converted. But I love it. People appreciate the rare. You don’t get away with playing old standards.” Daniel plays electro mini festival Airbound in London on Easter weekend, April 6-8, www.airbound-london.net
Czech three-time world trials bike champ Petr Kraus at the ‘other Antigua’, Guatemela. Agustín Muñoz
Muscat In Oman, the Red Bull boat gets stuck in round one of the 2012 eXtreme 40 sailing series. Sabine König
WORDS: RUTH MORGAN. PHOTOGRAPHY: VINCENT PERRAUD, AL BUTLER, NIGHT FLIGHT (2)
Rising BMX star Kriss Kyle, 20, from Stranraer, Scotland, has been doing what he loves best in some amazing places for new film Any Which Way, out now. His top three spots: Toulouse, France “The streets over there are just like a skatepark, it’s unbelievable. The locals were all super nice – they even invited us round for barbecues.” Arizona, USA “We flipped out of these drainage ditches like halfpipes in the middle of the desert, then rode a swimming pool at an abandoned mansion. Insane.” Barcelona, Spain “Amazing city, but the police shut you down. They had us against a wall, but we got away with it. It added to the experience.” www.bsdforever.com/anywhichway
b u l l e va r d
where’s your head at?
Scarlett JohanSSon
With bombshell looks fit for movies’ golden age, the youngest old pro in Hollywood is saving the world in 2012’s first blockbuster. Here’s the makings of a leading lady Mr
st Woody Allen, a man with a string of movie muses, has thrice cast Joh ansson – in Match Point, Scoop and Vicky Cris tina Barcelona. The first gig came sight uns een. “I could have arrived there with a mohawk and he would have been totally scr ewed,” she joked. She kept her reg ular do, and Match Point led to her fourth and most recent Golden Globe nomination.
hellO, the twin s
When Hunter Johansson came into being on November 24, 1984, his mother, Melanie, had not long recovered from giving birth to her third child, Scarlett, just three minutes earlier. The twins, and their older bro and sis, have Danish father Karsten to thank for Scandinavian genes. Scarlett may have inherited the performing bug from Karsten’s father, a writer and radio host.
VOw! Fla p! CiaO!
little Miss sCarlett
On July 10, 2009, a nerd supercouple was born. Ryan Reynolds was announced as Green Lantern; he was already married to SJ, aka Black Widow in Iron Man 2. But Green and Black got the blues: they divorced last year.
Few successful child actors maintain their early-years eminence. Remarkably, for someone who turns 28 in November, this is Johansson’s 20th year in the business of show. It was 1993 when she began auditioning; an early, unsuccessful try for Jumanji is just the cutest YouTube clip.
waits -in G Ga
At the beginning of 2003, SJ was known chiefly as the girl in The Horse Whisperer and one of the two girls in Ghost World. By year’s end, she had moved on to being the young woman in Lost In Translation – perhaps her finest work – and the girl in The Girl With The Pearl Earring, playing, respectively, above and below her then age of 18. Lost found her winning a Best Actress BAFTA.
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pieCe OF KiC K-a ss
DOn’t MinD the Gap In 2004, Johansson, having already worked with Redford, Sean Connery, Bruce Willis and Bill Murray, confessed that she had only ever been starstruck twice: by Bill Clinton and Patrick Swayze. Both fellows to set hearts a-flutter, so no shame on Scarlett for double-taking. She has grown to like the older man: in 2011, she spent five months on the arm of Sean Penn (b.1960).
This summer’s blockbuster movies season begins with a big bang. The Avengers is thick with existing movie superheroes, including Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man. Scarlett again plays Russian spy-assassin Black Widow, whose leather catsuit is the only thing tighter than her death grip. The Avengers is out worldwide late April/early May: marvel.com/avengers_movie
words: Paul wilson. illustration: lie-ins and tigers
hO rs e pl ay
After her film debut in Nor th (1994) and a turn as the elder sister of the Macau lay Culkin replacement in Home Alone 3 (1997), Johansson’s first major role was as the girl who also nee ded a quiet talking-to in The Hor se Whisperer. The film’s star and director, Rob ert Redford, felt the impressively mature you ng lass was “13 going on 30”; she called him Booey. He actually prefers Bob.
Oh, GrOw Up
Me
Many actresses sin g, but Johansson is the on ly one with an album of Tom Waits covers. Eleven of the 12 songs on Anywhere I Lay My Head came from the gravel ly voiced songsmith. David Bo wie provided backing vo cals. Waits, Johansson sai d, gave his blessing; she ga ve a fine, husky tribute to Wa its’s rasp.
b u l l e va r d
Playing against tyPe
Words: Florian obkircher. PhotograPhy: Josh shinner
Joseph Mawle has overcome much worse than bad reviews to take his seat at Hollywood’s top table Joseph Mawle doesn’t cut corners. as a child, he was diagnosed as severely dyslexic. When he left boarding school at 16, a viral infection left him partially deaf. yet he never lost sight of his ambition to become an actor. this month, the 38-year-old shares the screen with bruce Willis and sigourney Weaver in action thriller The Cold Light Of Day.
Mawle played Jesus in the 2008 BBC drama The Passion, and in 2010 he played the Yorkshire Ripper in Channel 4’s Red Riding
Does dyslexia affect your ability to read scripts? if i’m enjoying it, it’s an easy read. it’s when it’s not making sense that it’s a struggle. it takes me half a day to read a script, where someone else could do it in their lunch break. but that’s because i’m dyslexic, and also because i want to really make sure i’ve been able to visualise it.
You’ve played serial killers and racists. Not so keen on audience sympathy? i think it’s ok not to pander to the audience. besides, characters like those have a pleasant side to them, they’re all human, and that’s what you’re looking to find in them. the element that makes them tick. so you’re playing against the monster. What kind of special skills do you need to make an action movie? i went to a gun school with a worldchampion sniper. he taught me how to breathe out. it’s literally when you’ve got no breath that you’re most relaxed and most still, and that’s when you fire, when you get your straightest line. i play cool much better since learning that. The Cold Light Of Day is at cinemas now: www.thecoldlightofday.com
b u l l e va r d
Art And soul
woodkid
Woodkid’s Iron video: Powerful battle imagery and thunderous beats
The new single/EP Run Boy Run is out on Green United Music
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his client list features the likes of lana del rey, taylor swift, moby and Katy Perry. not bad for a guy who’s still only in his late 20s. yoann lemoine, indeed, has already collected his fair share of fame, kudos and prizes to go with the A-list client list: for example, five lions at the Cannes lions international Advertising festival, the most important competition for makers of commercials. in recent years he’s made a splash as a director of music videos and lately came up with powerful images for lana del rey’s Born To Die, notably one composition of twin tigers flanking the new queen of retro pop under a majestic Baroque vault. lemoine recently appeared on stage with del rey as a singer, marking an ascendant musical career that launched in 2011 with his first eP, Iron, under the pseudonym Woodkid. the black-and-white images that accompany the fanfare blast of the title song illustrate what happens when yoann lemoine is in control of everything from the first note to the last still. Perfectionism! All-enveloping art!
Words: Arno rAffeiner. PhotogrAPhy: KArim sAdli (2), WoodKid (1)
For a creative control freak such as Yoann Lemoine, shooting videos for Katy Perry, Lipton and Vogue italia could never suffice. Now he makes music, film, photography and animation, in the quest for artistic perfection
PhotogrAPhy: getty imAges (1), ACtion imAges (2). illUstrAtion: dietmAr KAinrAth
b u l l e va r d
lemoine comes from a Polish background, grew up in lyon and as a constantly occupied creative is equally at home in Paris and new york. he is, then, a jack-of-all-trades whose expressive urges threaten to explode. such energy requires him constantly to seek new outlets for his creativity, whatever the field. he refers to them as “avenues of expression,” and describes his life as being an artistic balancing act with at least four competing forces pulling him ceaselessly in this direction and that (and then in two others): film and music, photography and illustration, always with tension between lucrative contract work and self-realisation. But lemoine waves off such turbulence airily. “it’s only difficult for my schedule,” he says. “thinking it all up is no problem. for me, everything hangs together. When i work with sound i have images in my head, and when i work with images, i have music in my head. that’s completely natural.” Woodkid’s first album, due to appear this year, is pretty Name much in the can. titled The Yoann Lemoine Golden Age, it’s a work about Born adulthood and the loss of March 16, 1983, in innocence. lemoine talks about Tassin-la-Demi-Lune it like a romantic who still near Lyon, France believes in the genuine and Million hits man unadulterated within all of Lemoine’s graffiti animation for an AIDS us. “With Woodkid,” he says, awareness campaign “it’s really all about finding brought toilet wall the inner wild child.” scribbles to life. The for the recording he was Cannes-crowned clip currently has around 10 assisted by orchestre national million hits on YouTube. de Paris, as well as sebastiAn, upstart producer ed Banger. Keys to success Lemoine has two large But he could probably have keys tattooed on his handled it all solo. At root, forearms. One for lemoine prizes simplicity images, one for sound? given perfect form. his music leans towards classic songwriting, but even simple chord progressions are opulently arranged, with horns, strings, timpani – no stop unpulled. Cinemascope, if you will. Just like his video clips, which are really short films, although they relate a feeling instead of following a conventional narrative. it’s no coincidence that lemoine’s major ambition is to make a feature film. “i always said i wanted to make my first feature film before i’m 30,” he declares. “i now realise that’s not going to happen, but that’s oK. it’s better to come up with a really good first feature than rush through any old shit. i have more respect for film than any other area i operate in. for me, it’s really something holy.”
HARd & FAST
Top performers and winning ways from around the globe
Jamie Roberts (left, with Leigh Halfpenny and Scott Williams) was a key member of the Wales side that won rugby’s Triple Crown for the 20th time.
At the Pro Gold Coast in Australia – the first stop on surfing’s 2012 ASP World Tour – South Africa’s Jordy Smith went out in the semi-finals and finished third.
With victory in the World Cup giant slalom in Åre, Sweden, Lindsey Vonn (USA, centre) won a fourth overall World Cup skiing title in five years.
www.yoannlemoine.com/woodkid
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B U L L E VA R D
KIT EVOLUTION
A HEAD FOR FILM
HEAVY-METAL GSAP 16MM FAIRCHILD GUN CAMERA, 1940 Sherman M Fairchild (1896-1971) is a true unsung hero of World War II. In 1919, he devised the first reliable, accurate aerial camera. Twenty years later, with his camera company grown into a multi-division corporation, 90 per cent of cameras in Allied aircraft were of Fairchild origin or manufacture. Many of those were the 26
so-called ‘gun cameras’, which sprang into action when a fighter pilot pulled the trigger on his machine gun, and captured the ensuing air battle on 16mm film. The example shown above comes from the collection of the Leica camera shop in Vienna, and is in all likelihood a one-off piece that was the product of the busy
fingers of a United States infantryman. The soldier, who was perhaps part of a reconnaissance party or army film unit, attached a 16mm Fairchild gun camera, with a Bausch & Lomb lens, to an infantry helmet. Good neck muscles were required: helmet and cam together weigh 2.16kg. www.leicashop.com
WORDS: ANDREAS ROTTENSCHLAGER
Footage from a first-person perspective takes the viewer into the heart of the action, but the ‘helmet cam’ has been around longer than you think
B U L L E VA R D
PHOTOGRAPHY: KURT KEINRATH
LIGHT FANTASTIC GOPRO HD HERO 2, 2012 When Nicholas Woodman was surfing in Australia in 2002, he was not as happy as he should have been. The hours in the water were unforgettable, but the pictures the Californian and his friends took were entirely forgettable, not least because they were taken from the beach. So Woodman began to experiment, mounting cameras
on a surfboard, and an idea took hold. He raised money selling Balinese beaded belts, went back to Cali and formed GoPro, to market the cameras that would allow regular surfers – and bikers, jumpers, gliders and fliers – to ‘go pro’ and capture amazing shots of themselves mid-action. The GoPro HD Hero 2, shown here attached
to the helmet of US freeride mountain biker Paul Basagoitia, takes 11-megapixel stills, shoots HD video and is waterproof. With battery and housing, the camera weighs just 167g; helmet plus cam weigh 1.42kg – that’s 33 per cent less of a brain ache than its wartime counterpart. www.gopro.com
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B U L L E VA R D
ME AND MY BODY
BRANDON SEMENUK Being at the top of freeride mountain biking doesn’t come for free: the Canadian world champion trains every day and regards scars as part of the job
FUEL
THE SHOW MU ST GO ON
Injuries so far… I’ve broken both collarbones and one wrist. I have a permanently dislocated rib and some torn ligaments. What else? I let the body do what it has to do and try to let injuries heal properly. It knows how to deal with problems best, even if some parts don’t come together like they used to. Once I’m on the bike, it’s not a problem.
SCAR TISS UE
I’m very glad my body has a good self-repair mechanism. It produces scar tissue on the pelvis and on the front and back of my lower legs for when the bear’s claw pedals carve into my flesh [due to slipping] and any other poorly cushioned parts of my body. We need to move easily as freeriders, and too much protection would hinder our movement, so we use as little as possible. Even at the Red Bull Rampage I just wear a T-shirt and shorts.
BR AN DO N UN BR AN
DE
D I don’t have a single tattoo, which is pretty unusual in this job. Andreu Lacondeguy, for example, has now becom e a mutating work of art and almost every ride r on the FMB Tour has at least one or two tattoos. But I’m completely as nature inte nded. Not because I don’t like tattoos. It’s just that I haven’t yet found a design that I like so much I want to have it under my skin till the end of my days.
GRE AT LEG S
, When I started riding mountain bikes to used I . iding freer with do to it had nothing be a cross-country racer and I trained really hard for it. I still draw on the all the work I put in back then and r my legs are still stronger than my uppe body. This is why when I’m working out, , I need a lot more time for my upper body body. back and arms than I do for my lower
SHUT UP AND RID E!
Since my teens, I’ve tried out my trick s first in the foam-pit at home. I try to spend some time on the bike every day and my home town of Whistler in British Columbia is a freeride paradise. The only thing you want to do when you’re there is get up into the mountains and ride. Mountain biking is such a versatile sport that it automatically trains a number of musc les. I get the extra I need for my upper body through press-ups and chin-ups.
Watch the Freeride Mountain Bike World Tour live at: www.redbull.com/bike
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WORDS: WERNER JESSNER. PHOTOGRAPHY: CHRISTOPHER MORRIS
I eat everything. Not junk food, but whatever fruit, veg and meat I like – and I love Mexican food. There’s not much meat on my ribs, which is both a blessing and a curse: a bit more natural padding in the form of fatty tissue can be very handy in my sport, but that’s probably not going to happen. So when a crash goes wrong, I have to try to be like a cat and work out a way of avoiding the full impact.
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LUCKY NUMBERS
MOUNTAIN BIKING
A whole generation has now grown up with the world’s most versatile piece of two-wheeled sporting equipment. Quantifying such a vast subject matter is tricky, but we’ve tried anyway
At the first Mountain Biking world champs, in Durango, Colorado in 1990, US rider Greg Herbold, known as H-Ball, waited at the start of the downhill race with a prototype sprung fork on his bike, boasting 50mm of spring deflection. He won the race convincingly. The RockShox RS-1s bike suspension came on the market soon afterwards.
Markus Stöckl
Anne-Caroline Chausson
1990
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The greatest excesses coincided with the millennium. The Italian manufacturer Marzocchi produced the Super Monster sprung fork with 30cm of spring deflection, 10cm more than is common today. It weighed 5.8kg and was harmful to any bike’s geometry (and thus to the way it rides). The fad disappeared just as quickly as it had emerged.
Greg Herbold
1988
The Mountain Bike Hall of Fame is in Crested Butte, Colorado. Since 1988, 120 people have been honoured, in the categories of Advocacy, Industry, Journalism, Pioneers, Promotion and Racing History. There are at least three, and at most seven, new honourees every year, but the first intake comprised 10 lucky folk, including Jacquie Phelan, a dominant force in the sport’s early years and one of 17 women honoured to date.
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Jumps were just hops and ramp jumps, disc brakes and full suspension nonexistent in 1990, when Walter Arthofer from Waidhofen an der Ybbs pulled off the first mountain bike backflip. In a cow field. With bales of straw for safety. In 2011, New Zealander Jed Mildon succeeded in completing the first-ever triple backflip.
Marzocchi Super Monster
1896
Engineers have been tinkering with the connection between man and pedal for over 100 years. American firm Sager was granted a patent on clips with leather straps in 1896. Bernard Hinault won the Tour de France in 1985 for the first time using clipless pedals by Look. Shimano presented its off-road SPD system, with cleats on the soles of shoes and no clips, in 1990.
Bernard Hinault
4,418
222
In 2000, Frenchman Eric Barone set the current mountain bike speed world record of 222kph on an aerodynamically optimised prototype in the Alpine resort Les Arcs. Almost as crazy, and perhaps more impressive, is the 210kph that Markus Stöckl clocked in 2007, on a conventional bike and wearing outdoor shoes.
Twelve-time world and eight-time European downhill champion, four-time World and twice European dual slalom champion and 55 victories in the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup: Anne-Caroline Chausson is the all-time greatest mountain biker. As if that wasn’t enough, the 34-year-old Frenchwoman qualified for the BMX at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and took a sensational gold.
The world’s longest mountain bike race is the Tour Divide, which lasts for 4,418km along the American Great Divide from Banff in Alberta, Canada to Antelope Wells, New Mexico. In 2010, Matthew Lee, won in 17 days, 16 hours, 10 minutes. Of the 43 starters, 23 finished the course: the last of whom was 10 days, 8 hours, 41 minutes behind the winner. Mountain Bike Hall of Fame
Watch the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup, iXS Cup and FMB Freeride Tour live at www.redbull.com/bike
WORDS: WERNER JESSNER. PHOTOGRAPHY: MAURICO RAMOS/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, GETTY IMAGES (2), DPPI, MARZOCCHI, MTN BIKE HALL OF FAME & MUSEUM
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1
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Surfing
the Strip
Freedom is a much-prized commodity in Gaza, Palestine. For a small but increasing number of its residents, the sea offers an escape from a war-torn world Words: Ruth Morgan Photography: Andrew McConnell/PANOS
Mohammed Abu Jayab catches a wave at dusk as street lights start to come on in Gaza City behind him
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“People wash their horses in the sea every day in Gaza,” says McConnell. “Just after this picture was taken, this guy got on the horse, headed out and kept going. He was just messing around, having fun, and the horse seemed to enjoy it. The sea’s a real release. People love to go into the water and swim.”
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ovement isn’t free for Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. Restrictions are such that the area is referred to by some locals as ‘the biggest open-air prison on Earth’. The Israeli blockade and a clampdown on exit permits have led to a mass of densely populated refugee camps that are home to a people in limbo. A small but dedicated number of boys, men and even girls find temporary escape through surfing. Photographer and sometime-surfer Andrew McConnell travelled to Gaza City to document them. “When I heard about the Gaza surfers I knew I had to go and meet them,” he says. “Surfing in Gaza sounds surprising at first – you don’t imagine it existing – but it actually makes perfect sense. Where is that sort of freedom more needed than in Gaza? “When I went in December 2009, I stayed with a family in a little town in the north. There were strange noises at night: tanks moving, air strikes. I heard missiles being fired from nearby into Israel – then there was the inevitable retaliation. Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are suffering. To them, in a place with no parks 35
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Mohammed Abu Jayab with his children in one of the narrow passageways of the
Al-Shati Refugee Camp, known as Beach Camp
Surfers melt candle wax onto a board – surf wax is impossible to find in Gaza. Each waxing requires about 12 candles and an hour of careful work
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Back at home, Abu Jayab teaches his young son to surf
Surfer Ali Ayrhim prays before taking his board to Sheik Khazdien beach
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or gardens, no forests, no open spaces, no respite from the concrete, the sea has become hugely important. “Palestinians in the Gaza Strip started surfing in the mid-1980s. Mohammed Abu Jayab (previous page), a fisherman and carpenter, is one of the pioneers of the scene. He built his own board out of wood, after seeing people on TV riding waves. It was a really heavy, rock-solid thing (lucky for him he has a new one now), but he stuck with it for a long time. In a region where life is marked by conflict and struggle, surfing is one of the only means of escape, and so it became something very important. “Today there are around 30 surfers, a number which is dictated by the number of boards available. It’s impossible to find surfing equipment in Gaza. The surfers are forced to rely on outside donations of kit. Getting hold of it means negotiating a lot of red tape – shipments can be held at customs in Tel Aviv for two years or more. Many are simply turned back. As a result, the sport is still very much in its infancy here, despite it having been around for nearly three decades. “However, once people get out on the waves, the city’s problems are literally behind them. Every surfer I spoke to told me that the overriding feeling surfing gives them is one of freedom. One said when he catches a wave, it’s like he’s flying. They get to leave Gaza and head for the horizon. For a short time, they get to escape the prison.” www.gazasurfclub.com
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“This is a Friday night and Sheik Khazdien beach is packed,” says Andrew McConnell. “During the summer, it’s just chock-a-block with families and kids.
You can’t see many women here
as they don’t like to be photographed. You can see surfer Ali Ayrhim’s name on his board. It has a Palestinian flag design, so it’s red, green, black and white. The surfers hang out at the lifeguard towers along the beach, as do local policeman. They’ll be on their horses just out of shot, patrolling along the sand.”
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“These surfers still get strange looks,” says Andrew
McConnell, “it’s nowhere near the norm here yet.” Amer Al Dous paddles out
Sabah Abo Ghanem (left) and Kholoud Abo Ghanem, Gaza’s only female surfers. The girls, aged 11 and 10 respectively, surf on borrowed boards, and will have to stop when they reach puberty, as their older sisters did before them. Surfing is not considered an acceptable pastime for a woman
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Momen Abo A’ase, emerges from the water on his board by Gaza City beach
Mohammed Shamalak paddles away from Gaza’s tower blocks
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Andrew McConnell
Irish photographer Andrew McConnell was born in 1977. He began his career as a press photographer covering the closing stages of the conflict in Northern Ireland. In 2004 he moved into documentary photography and has since worked all over the world, including Africa, where he now lives. His photos have appeared in National Geographic, The New York Times, The Guardian, Vanity Fair and Der Spiegel. His portraits of the Sahawari people of the Morocco-Algeria border won a first prize in the World Press Photo 2011 awards. www.andrewmcconnell.com
Twilight: surfing by the day’s last light at Gaza City
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‘sending emails is not why we come to work’ James dyson reinvented the world – at the very least, the way we think about it and the way we keep it nice. The billionaire innovator reveals the plusses of perseverance, his gin-less wonder and his plans for 2027 44
h
e has many qualities, but above all James Dyson has resolve. after devising a totally new technical vacuum cleaner concept in 1978, it took 15 years, 5,126 prototypes, and continual rejection from existing vacuum cleaner companies before he launched a product under his own name: the Dyson DC01. it turned out in his favour that potential partners and investors didn’t believe in him, because that meant he had to finance his company himself. today he is the sole owner and, consequently, one of the world’s richest 500 people. Dyson’s reinvention of everyday items like heaters, fans and hand-dryers points the way to a future of clever, compact commonplace surprises. in person, Dyson, who has been Sir James since 2007, is amused and very relaxed.
PhotograPhy: Suki DhanDa/guarDian newS & MeDia
Words: Herbert Völker
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makings oF a man
James Dyson and Dyson Ltd – a timeline of innovation
1970 / SEA TRUCK Dyson, 23, and a student, is invited to project-manage the Sea Truck, a fast, sturdy ship for carrying heavy cargo. Dyson’s degree was furniture and interior design; Sea Truck’s success turns his focus to engineering.
1974/ BALLBARROW Dyson reinvents the wheelbarrow, using a pneumatic ball. Its investors squeeze a cash-strapped Dyson out of his controlling interest. Two lessons learned: the ball works (see later vacuums); never relinquish control.
PhotograPhy: DySon (5), reX FeatureS (1), getty iMageS (3)
THE RED BULLETIN: Shall we talk about vacuum cleaners? JAMES DYSON: Sounds exciting. You’ve radically improved objects that no one else thought could work differently. Can we expect more surprises like this from you? yes, there’s no end of possibilities, particularly now that the environment is so important. we make products that are more efficient, that work better, use fewer materials, less electricity, less water – and less energy. this makes engineering and the development of new technology much more fun, much more interesting, much more complex and also much more challenging. it’s a wonderful time to be an engineer or a scientist. What is the most important quality in a person who believes in something and actually makes it a reality? if you want to do something that is different, you must think it is better. you can’t ask anybody for advice, because no one else knows what the future is going to be, or whether your idea will work. So you have to make the decision for yourself. and you don’t know for sure, you’re only guessing, but it isn’t entirely intuitive. you can use logic to explain why you might be correct, but doing something different, something new – there is only so much logic you can use. you don’t know whether people will like something just because you do. you have to be stubborn as a mule, because usually most people think your idea will fail. here’s an example: our vacuum cleaners are transparent. you can see the dirt. Many people were irritated by this, and therefore shops didn’t want to sell our product. So i said, “well, i’m sorry, but that’s how my vacuum cleaner is.” Seeing your own ‘emissions’, as it were, is interesting. The American author Erica Jong once described her shock at sitting on a German shelftype toilet for the first time and catching a glimpse of the legacy she left behind before flushing. at first i found it shocking as well. i thought they’d installed the toilet
bowl back to front – the water in front, and the pan behind. But it was still an interesting experience. Many doctors recommend taking a backward glance so that we understand our bodily functions. But we’re digressing. It’s said that long-distance running helped you to become stubborn and determined. Long-distance running is a quite a lonely thing to do. you do it on your own. Most people slow down when they feel tired, but you have to accelerate when you get tired, simply because everybody else gets tired. in life, most people give up at the point when they are about to be successful. So, if you want to make a breakthrough, if you want to do something nobody has done before, you have to go through that pain barrier, even though you might collapse at the end of it. herb elliott [australian winner of 1,500m gold at the 1960 rome olympics] ran up and down sand dunes in his training. that’s very painful. i grew up in north norfolk, and i ran up and down the highest sand dunes i could find. The people you admire include philosophers, scientists, inventors and engineers. If you had to pick one as a stand-out, who would it be? i choose Brunel. [isambard kingdom Brunel, 19th century civil engineer; builder of railways, bridges and steamships.] i particularly like him because he had a pathological desire to completely innovate with everything he did. he couldn’t repeat anything, do anything that anyone else had done. i admire that enormously. whatever he did looked beautiful, extremely elegant. he never talked about it, but i learned from him that engineering in itself and engineering innovation is beautiful. you don’t have to try to design something if the engineering is beautiful. How does a person conceive of something as bold as a technological leap? Slowly, slowly. you must only make one change at a time, otherwise you don’t learn what it was that made it worse or better. that doesn’t stop you making a big leap, but you must get there by learning how you got there. So you take one step after the other. it’s no use saying, “i reckon that’s how it will work best.” you simply have to do empirical testing. it’s still the edisonian principle of trial and error. That sounds like it’s straight out of the Formula One textbook. A couple of years ago you put rolling bearings, similar to those used in Formula One
1978-1983 / THE BIG IDEA Dismayed at the poor performance of his vacuums, Dyson sets out on his life’s great path. He climbs the fence of a nearby sawmill to observe its dustremoving cyclone. He and his team make 5,127 prototypes of a bagless cleaner. He is told ‘No’ by everyone he approaches, but never listens.
‘to make a breakthrough, you have to go through the pain barrier. herb elliott ran on sand dunes. it’s painful. i did the same thing’ ‘i love the mini, and its designer, alec issigonis. how it looked came about because of the technology inside. that’s a significant part of the dyson recipe’ ‘Brunel had a pathological desire to completely innovate with everything he did. he couldn’t do anything that anyone else had done. i admire that enormously’
1986 / G-FORCE
1993 / DC01
The first bagless vacuum goes on sale in Japan, after Dyson licenses the tech to a firm that also imports Filofaxes. Money made from the sales enables Dyson to put his own name on the next product on his drawing board…
…the DC01. Made and sold in the UK, retailing for £200, the DC01 also has a carrying handle, a long stairs hose, onboard tools and a clear bin. The bin is thought to be a hindrance – who wants to see all that dirt? – but two years later, the DC01 is the UK’s bestselling vacuum cleaner.
2000 / CR01 After fighting off patent infringements in the UK and USA, Dyson unveils his second cleaning device – a two-drum washing machine that mimicked the more efficient motions of hand washing. Too expensive, and perhaps too grey for buyers of white goods, it was discontinued in 2005.
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2003 / DC11
2006 / AB01
The first Dyson cleaner for homes without a cupboard under the stairs. The telescopic wand at the end of a long hose meant this also was the first Dyson to appear on driveways on Sunday mornings as car-cleaning kit.
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2011 /AM04 Dyson’s most recent innovation, the Dyson Hot heater, takes many of the principles of the Air Multiplier fan and uses them to heat (and cool) a room quickly and efficiently. Forty years on from his first productions, Dyson is still a world leader of innovation and smart thinking.
2009 / AM01
Known as the Airblade, Dyson’s hand dryer blasts air at 640kph over wet paws that still instinctively reach for the paper towel dispenser. Various claims and counterclaims have been made about its hygiene properties, but it’s greener and cheaper than paper and other dryers.
From Airblade to blade-less: the Air Multiplier fan is Dyson’s most wow-factor product. It works by forcing pressurised air over and out of certain shapes, a process that also draws in surrounding air and requires a similar balancing act as used by birds of prey on their wings.
2006 / DYSON DIGITAL MOTOR Is Dyson’s leastknown invention his best? Seven years in development, this small carbon-free electric motor lasts four times longer than its forebears, thanks to fewer moving parts. First used in the Airblade.
CreDit:
something, and i don’t necessarily get the opportunity to change it every week. when i go to a grand prix, i enjoy the pace, seeing how they do things – the technology, the electronics, materials – but i think it’s a little unfortunate that it all comes down to the aerodynamics. while aerodynamics is exciting, it’s slightly difficult for the layman to understand what’s going on. when you see the cars, you can hardly tell the difference between them. therefore, for me as an engineer, it’s less interesting than it could be. if there were no rules, if you were allowed to design any sort of car, it might be more interesting. obviously you’d have to have strict safety rules, but why penalise someone because they make a car that hugs the ground very well? why make a rule that prescribes a certain distance from the ground? it seems to me that some of the rules try to even things up, but they are detrimental to the development of new technology. Whereas free-rein development of new technology is a fundamental aspect to what you do. we do all the research ourselves, our 800 engineers. robotics, batteries, electric motors, carbon nanotubes and other things i can’t talk about. we research all of the areas. Being a private PhotograPhy: DySon (4), reX FeatureS (2), CorBiS outLine (1)
cars, in a washing machine. Are there other similarities between your work and that of a Grand Prix race team? yes, of course. when we built a very special washing machine with two big drums, we needed the absolute best bearing we could find that could take lateral loads. this came from motorsport. it was very expensive, and very beautiful. McLaren had used it. there’s also common ground in aerodynamics, like creating negative pressure through clever ducting of airflow. this applies as much to our new fan as it does to an F1 car’s diffuser. then there’s the problem of high revs. a Ferrari engine tops out at 19,000rpm; the electric motors in our hand dryers go at 110,000rpm. the advantage of speed is that you can make everything much smaller and much more efficient. the efficiency of our electrical motor is about 87 per cent, so we are only wasting 13 per cent of the electricity. the best conventional ones are 46 per cent efficient. with our new motors, a battery would last twice as long. also with our motors, there’s no emission of carbon dust. Conventional motors have brushes; we don’t have them at all. a chip provides the signal, so there is nothing to wear out: the motors last from 3,000 to 4,000 hours, while conventional ones are limited to 600 hours. So, no emissions, no nasty black carbon dust, they are much smaller, and use far fewer materials, hardly any copper. But it’s difficult to go fast. getting out of balance at that speed results in a lateral force of about 40 tons, so keeping motors together at that sort of speed is difficult. Do you follow Formula One closely? i’m not an F1 race addict, but the technology behind it interests me. i like, for instance, how at the end of the race they dismantle everything completely and examine it closely. it’s almost the opposite of what i do. i have to make millions of
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‘to do something different, you must think it is better. no one else knows the future’
‘we put a lot of money into r&d. we’re working on equipment for 15 years’ time’
company, we can afford to think very long term. no one else wanted to invest, so i own all the shares. we put a lot of money into research and development. we’re working on equipment that’ll come onto the market in 15 years. So, might you be working on something like regenerative braking [harnessing the energy created in a vehicle’s braking for another use]? true. we are developing many technologies in this direction, although we’re not working on an actual product. What sort of cars do you like? i’ve always loved the Mini. i have one that was cut in half longitudinally so you can see how it works. i’m a great fan of its designer, alec issigonis. what i really like about him was that he drew the entire mechanical operation of the Mini in a three-dimensional sketch – layouts, how it would work – while sipping gin on a balcony in Cannes. It was probably Gordon’s gin. It is said that the Mini had a sliding window, not a winding window, to leave room for a storage cavity in the door into which a Gordon’s bottle could fit. his way of developing a vehicle was absolutely brilliant – and the fact that
how it looked came about because of the technology inside. that’s a significant ingredient in the Dyson recipe for design. a good product should also look really good. Design shouldn’t be driven by marketing, but instead should express a product’s function. it should be an integral part of developing the technology and engineering of the product, not something that’s done at the end to make it look good. Design is not an isolated activity, it’s a continuous process of engineering and developing new technologies. Do you sketch your designs yourself? yes, my engineers and i do it by hand. in that way, we can quickly explain our ideas. But we don’t have a glass of gin in hand – although it’s not a bad idea. i tend to leave the gin out now, and stick with just the tonic and the lemon. you don’t really notice a difference because gin doesn’t have much taste. it’s the smell of gin that’s nice. anyway, we each have a book in which we develop ideas and communicate them to each other. the best engineers and designers are the ones that can draw the best. Sometimes the drawings are quite crude and done quickly; other times they have to be very accurate. above all, a sketch must convey an idea, that’s very important. Do you still avoid using email? i don’t want people to become a slave to their emails, to feel as though they have to answer every single one. Sending and answering emails is not creative, and that’s not why we come to work. you come to work to interact with people, to discuss your view of things, to change and improve things. email doesn’t progress that. Knowing that some people, such as Napoleon, needed just four hours of sleep is very irritating. You need 10 hours, and this a comforting thought. in bed before 10.30pm, up just after 7.30am. there’s no secret, it’s just how i’m built. it can’t be too wrong. Do you have a museum on your premises? no, we’re interested in the future, not the past. Do you collect things privately, like trophies from technological history, or old or new art? i hate collections. i find something slightly odd about the squirrel-like collection of things. i don’t have the desire to do that. i didn’t even have the desire to collect stamps as a boy. things should be used, not collected and not used. www.dyson.co.uk
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BIRTH OF A
TR IC K When freestyle mountain bikers show off their tricks in competitions, difficult manoeuvres come across as second nature and make what they do look easy. French shooting star Yannick Granieri allows us a glimpse behind the scenes and what we find is a lot of hard work Words: Werner Jessner Photography: Dom Daher
A
gymnasium in Craponne, a one-horse town not far from Lyon, in central France, and a place famous for its gymnasts. Franck Rousson is lean, with short, thinning hair. A former French trampoline champion, Rousson now trains up-and-coming talent. One of his greatest-ever talents was a slovenly 14-year-old called Yannick Granieri, but that all changed on the eve of an important competition, when Granieri came flying off the trampoline having got a jump combination completely wrong. The resulting injury meant the end of any career in gymnastics for the wild child. (Anyway, stubbornly working his way through set programmes was getting on his nerves. Where was the room for creativity in that?) Granieri turned to mountain biking, got seriously into it and was at the top level of freeriding not long after turning 20. Now aged 25, he is one of the biggest names in the business and was in the top three of the overall standings for much of the 2011 FMB World Tour, until a lousy second half of the season dragged him back down to seventh place. Granieri is one of the glitziest and most unpredictable riders on the tour. One of many examples: at the 2010 Red Bull Rampage event in Utah, he plumped for the ballsy line over a 15m drop, pulled off the landing and followed it up immediately with a backflip, which he also landed,
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Night rider: Yannick Granieri practises in the gymnasium until midnight
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but he then rolled into some prickly shrubs. Other, crestfallen riders might have chosen to simply roll on down to the finish, but not Granieri. Just for the fun of it, he did another backflip and came down hard. It’s a professional freerider’s job to not let anything show – to be invincible, immortal, as cool as ice, a party animal, to pick up girls and to be a shining example for young people all the while – but not many are made of such tough stuff. At 9pm in Craponne, the last gymnasts have left the gym. All that remains is their stench. The lights are still on by the large trampoline, where Rousson, the only person left, is waiting for his prodigal son. This is where the two of them come up with new mountain bike tricks together. They’re currently working on a backflip 360, ie one rotation around the longitudinal axis and another around the vertical axis, both rotations overlapping. A backflip 360 is an entry ticket into the world of the elite. There are 7m between the trampoline and the gymnasium ceiling, and the spot is conspicuous for being the only place not to have spotlights. “We had to take them down,” says Granieri, “otherwise I’d have knocked them off. There’s a lot to be said for using a trampoline. If I was jumping into the foam-pit on the bike, then I’d need five minutes per attempt, and that’s if all goes well. Pushing the bike into position, getting ready, jumping, getting the bike out of the foam-pit, clambering out myself, taking a breather, starting over… “On the trampoline I can do 20 backflip 360s a minute if I feel like it, whatever the weather, all year round. And there’s less chance of getting injured at the
Skydiver
Granieri’s safety on the trampoline is plain to see. He knows his position at any given time. A note to laymen: “Always keep your eyes open. A somersault in the air is not the same as a flip. The rotation only begins once you’re in the air.”
gymnasium. Also, the trampoline is less forgiving of mistakes. No, that’s wrong. Franck is less forgiving of mistakes than the dirt.” His trainer is fastidious in making sure that Granieri lands his jump in a perfectly straight line. “There are only two ways to end a jump on a trampoline: exactly in the direction you
took off in or in precisely the opposite direction,” says Rousson. Granieri adds: “A degree of lateral misalignment is acceptable on the bike because you have the handlebars to correct you.” Anyone who can pull off difficult tricks precisely on a trampoline has greater reserves to fall back on in case of unforeseen circumstances during
“Ooh!” in instalments
What was that just then exactly? As it is virtually impossible for onlookers to appreciate the multiple elements of trick combinations with the naked eye, we dissect a backflip 360 for you here.
Yannick Granieri, 25: The former gymnast is one of the most stylish riders on the FMB World Tour
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The takeoff has to be relatively straight. Longitudinal rotation can only begin once both wheels are in the air.
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“We had to take the spotlights down – otherwise I’d just knock them off” competition proper – wind, a slippery or weak take-off – and can win over the judges with smoother execution. In order to get a feeling for movement and positioning in the air, Granieri begins practising new tricks without any equipment, just like in the old days when he was a regular gymnast. The next step is to have an old BMX handlebar in his
hands: “That gives me a sense of my transverse axis and what it will feel like later under real conditions.” Things get more serious when it comes to simulating the position for the rotation around the longitudinal axis, for which Granieri puts a foam block between his legs. This not only requires more strength, it is also more demanding in terms of
co-ordination. Every single degree of a skewed landing is mercilessly visible. The final level of escalation involves training with a padded bike-frame without wheels. Granieri can no longer simply do jump after jump; every landing ends on a mattress that Rousson pushes into place on the trampoline. This reduces rebound, and enables Granieri to land and stay still, which again improves control. Watching Granieri at this stage, it becomes plainly obvious that the number of mistakes is still too high. He is basically pulling off his backflip 360s, but he isn’t doing so reliably. Rousson urges his protégé to start his rotation around the longitudinal axis earlier, but he refuses. “That only works on the trampoline, not on the bike. I have to factor the mass inertia from the rotation of the wheels into my movement and the fact that I can only commence rotating on the bike once the front wheel has taken off. I don’t want to cheat on the trampoline.” As so often happens, the lights in the gym don’t go out until midnight. At some point this season, Yannick Granieri will conjure up a backflip 360 out of nowhere on the FMB tour and he will make it look easy. Very easy. He won’t be thinking then of the nights spent in the sweaty haze of the gym. He’ll be focusing instead on the kick he gets from his run, on the adrenalin, the show, the judges. In the meantime, Rousson will be sitting with his laptop in his office at the gym, also enjoying Granieri’s run, but analysing it, looking for some mistake or other that can be ironed out at the next training session. You can be well sure of that. Watch the Freeride Mountain Bike World Tour live at www.redbull.com/bike
And you’re done. On a trampoline, you could start over again. If you’re on dirt, wait for your next take-off.
Now twist. Accelerate the latitudinal rotation so as to have one eye on your landing position.
And down. Land in the direction you took off. Finish any fancy extras – no-foot, handlebar spins, etc – in good time.
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LEONARDO!
A possible history of the Renaissance and how da Vinci divined the bicycle
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Words: Herbert Völker
ne day in the Renaissance, a couple of bright sparks are sat in front of the Palazzo Spini, in Florence, discussing a text by Dante. Leonardo da Vinci is just walking by and they want to hear what he has to say about it. Leonardo begins an answer, but gets impatient and says: “Here comes Michelangelo, ask him.” Michelangelo, a young lad, doesn’t expect anything pleasant from Leonardo, and starts to berate his elder: “You haven’t even finished that horse up in Milan.” Exit Michelangelo. On a loose leaf of paper, Leonardo is jotting. Patience helps against a scolding like clothes help against the cold, but right now no amount of clothing is going to be warm enough. The boy is right: Leonardo has too much unfinished business. Bad luck that the Milanese had to use the bronze for his giant equestrian sculpture to build cannons. Instead, everyone is now gawking at the tight bum of the David sculpture, 5m high, six tons of marble. Everyone’s talking about Michelangelo. He’s 22 years younger than Leonardo.
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CARTS AND MULES EXASPERATE HIM. A SLENDER VEHICLE IS NEEDED, WITH A PAIR OF CARTWHEELS ONE IN FRONT OF THE OTHER
hile the most beauteous details are wonderfully documented, there is still the occasional hefty chunk of history missing. We’re in Florence in the year 1504, now taking small sidesteps away from the known path, but always in keeping with the spirit of Leonardo. He is 51, considered ancient in those days. Still, he’s in good shape (he knows why: no meat, little wine, no women – all sacrificed without too much effort). Not long ago he clambered around in the Alps because he believed it would be pitch black that far above the Earth, but he didn’t quite manage to get up high enough to find out. The exquisite beauty that was vaunted about young Leonardo has now turned to dignity. The white head of hair flows into the cascades of the city’s mightiest beard – at least the best groomed, without tangles or strands, in elegant waves. War has raged around him much of the time: Florence against Pisa, Venice against the Turks, Milan against the French, Cesare Borgia against all, and a man of his talent of course often became drawn in. In fact, he was a military engineer at the time he created The Last Supper. Everyone needs a hobby. Ultimately
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he loved peace, and the wildest of his inventions stayed a secret, as sketches, “because of the viciousness of people”. Could you hand them a torpedo to sink galleys? Lately, he’d had little time to paint, is more involved in product development for the military, and a thousand different pipe dreams yield nothing. Nothing? Clockwork and drill, mechanical mandrel and car jack are all mighty useful, but the other stuff? The flying machine, the parachute, the underwater breathing apparatus – for what? His latest eccentricity is anatomy. There are only assumptions from the ancient Greeks about how the inside of the body works. Leonardo must autopsy corpses himself to find clarity. No one can help him. The elegant gentleman rummages around in stinking guts, dissects muscle fibres, saws bones – and draws the inner workings of the body, fibre for fibre, drunk with the excitement of the secrets he discovers and reveals in flawless beauty. Appropriate corpses are kept for him at the Hospital Santa Maria Novella. Leonardo takes the young and the old, women and men, however they arrive, from the ward to the morgue. From his studio, which also serves as a living room for him and his students, the route leads him through the screech and judder of city traffic. The wretched mule carts trundle along annoyingly. Leonardo developed a decent wheel bearing long ago, but he cannot explain to every single greengrocer how they should pimp their carts. At least the vehicles don’t have to deal with deep ruts in the road. The Republic of Florence has laid cobblestones on many of its major residential streets. Still, the alleys are jammed with the wide carts and the irritating complacency with which they obstruct each other. Mules are not known for their helpfulness when it comes to dodging. At the Vigna Vecchia, a bird handler awaits Leonardo, who always buys a specimen from him. He chooses a slightly bedraggled chaffinch and watches as it flies away. He loves animals, from the sparrow to the horse. At the hospital they’ve put aside the best corpse for him. They hand him a black gown, a saw, a chisel, the foot rule. Rough sketches are enough; he’ll save his increasingly clearer picture of how everything is linked until he returns to the studio. He’s often asked how he can stand the stink of the post-mortem room. ‘What stink?’ he asks, now changed into rose-coloured clothes. Impatiently, he heads for home, always with the constant exasperation of carts and mules. A slender vehicle is needed,
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more nimble than the trotting creatures. Maybe the pair of soon as you gather momentum, you shift your body weight cartwheels could be placed one in front of the other, rather as is necessary. The machine will follow. than side by side, and not so clumsy and stiff. It should be Wouldn’t the master like to come? a mule-less vehicle, and off fly his thoughts to the cogs and No, he only wants to hear how it all went. screws and chains that are his most beloved toys. The things t took ages for Salai to come back. Two mule cart drivers he’d build from these, from a forge to the ‘endless’ screw. had cornered him and given him a good beating. He had At home in his studio, which he calls Bottega, with its living only attempted very slight gradients. The steering had quarters for apprentices, there’s the usual bread soup with plenty worked, even with the rigidly fixed front wheel. But then, said of marjoram and bay leaves. He tells Salai about his single-track Salai, we need a solution for stopping, otherwise you constantly ideas. (Salai is, in a manner of speaking, an A-student. In a crash into mules. At least they’re softer than house walls. manner of speaking because nobody really wants to know. Salai Leonardo had more pressing tasks than to invent a brake. is a very pretty boy, moderately gifted as a painter, unreliable as Salai sold the two wheels and kept the wooden frame for a servant, but a cheeky hound with a talent for stealing. Leonardo the cooler autumn days – the master would be delighted pulled him out of the gutter when he was a child, but he will with a roaring hearth fire. have his reasons for putting up with so much.) Leonardo finished the sketch board painting of the silk Could a person, asks Leonardo, keep balance on a cart with dealer’s wife, he wiped away the last traces (well, not quite) just a front and a back wheel? Legs down and always keep that were reminders of Salai’s features. pushing? Of course. How else? Yet something about the bride of the silk If only he wasn’t so infatuated with all the handler still seemed a little impertinent, chains and cog stuff – a single-track cart would something troubled him about the corners actually be an easy exercise. …is something we’ll never know. of her mouth. They cordially agreed to Ten thousand academics around the world are still at odds. It all hangs on alai has gone too far this time. Again, cancel the order. Later though, Leonardo a chalk drawing that probably happened he’s pocketed 30 soldi from the did paint the sketch in oil and took the in the year 1504, around Mona Lisa’s household purse. He was moody while picture on the three-month journey to time. This sketch, clearly identified posing, and pulled stupid faces. Leonardo the Château d’Amboise in the Loire Valley, as a treasure among Leonardo’s loose can’t be bothered finishing the sketch, let once the snow on the passes had melted. papers, is clumsy: a student must have alone painting the real thing. He blends The King of France had summoned copied it from Leonardo’s original. Indeed, it’s consistent with the ideas of Salai’s portrait with the sketches of the him. Leonardo da Vinci had never given the master at that time, including the silk handler’s wife. At least she stays still one of his pieces a name. That was always sprockets and chain. Even the principle when posing, although she does look done instead by his contemporaries, of steer through shifting weight worked a little insipid. She’s not that young anymore The Last Supper, Adoration of the Magi, in Leonardo’s various machines. The – 25 or 26. The cheekiness in Salai’s sketches Lady With An Ermine. wooden model that was recently built for makes the women a touch more enigmatic. Francis I of France, The Renaissance the Leonardo Museum in Vinci confirmed the elated expectations of the fans. Leonardo will come back to the sketch in King, was delighted with the gift. And Our story remains in its period a couple of months. the name of this painting? Leonardo couldn’t Salai, who is supposed to keep the master’s context, and fantasy only kicks in where think of a title, but it had something to do we talk about the construction and loose papers in order, has quietly snuck away with Lisa, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo testing of the machine. There was to a carpenter with the sketches of the small a Florentine cloth merchant. Good, then it’s nothing but Leonardo’s sketch back cart. Couldn’t he build this? Leonardo has left La Gioconda. then (the original was lost) and the inept copy, without a prototype. the suggestion of cogs and belts unfinished, In Italy – where for centuries they had to Running counter to this popular after all he knows how it goes. Salai has settle for the legend “mysterious beauty’s history, a new theory arose 14 years hastily finished the drawing, somewhat painting” – they said Mona Lisa. ago: that a monk allowed himself ham-fisted. No matter, the transmission The balancing machine remained nameless a little joke while cataloguing mechanics would have been too sophisticated for 400 years. Leonardo’s sketches in the 1960s. for a simple craftsman anyway, right now the Then, ‘bicycle’ somehow seemed obvious. Further scientific research is virtually impossible, as all the original papers focus is solely on the balancing contraption. have been sealed in plastic. And That spring, Salai surprises his master somehow the meddlesome monk with a cloddish wooden frame, with two doesn’t quite fit into our picture… cartwheels. Leonardo is touched, although quite a few of his ideas are missing. He sends Salai a couple of blocks down the road where the good cobblestone streets begin. Giulio should go with him, because of the mules. You will be able to avoid them, that’s what’s great about the machine. How should it work? You choose the direction anyway by pushing off. And as
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The whole truth...
ILLUSTRATION: FACSIMILAR REPRODUCTION/GIUNTI EDICTION/CODEX ATLANTICUS
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PhotograPhy: lincoln ElsE
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The peak of Cerro Torre lies in southern Patagonia, north of El Calafate in the border area between Argentina and Chile
the tAminG of Cerro torre How David Lama passed one of the last great mountaineering milestones and became the first person to free-climb a mythical Patagonian peak Words: christian seiler
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Cerro torre is Considered one of the most diffiCult mountAins in the world Mount DooM
Legends and dramas on Patagonia’s hardest climb The ‘first ascent’ of Cerro Torre is, like the summit itself, shrouded in fog. Italian climber Cesare Maestri says he and Austrian climber Toni Egger got to the top on January 31, 1959. On the descent, Egger was swept off the mountain by an avalanche, along with the bag containing camera and film of them at the top. In 1970, Maestri returned, as part of a six-man team and used a compressor drill (below) to embed bolts into the rock face. He stopped short of the very top, arguing that the ‘ice mushroom’ would be blown away some day. A four-strong Italian team, without Maestri, made the first undisputed ascent in 1974. Lama’s first free ascent now adds another chapter to the story.
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t about 1pm on January 21 2012, David Lama let his gaze sweep over a panorama of Patagonian granite formations and mountains. Lama’s was a rarely beheld, precious view that only a handful of people had enjoyed before him. He stood there in bright sunshine, sub-zero temperatures and, oddly, in view of all that had gone before, no wind. He would have had every right to yell with joy, or at least allow a broad grin across his face. But what the young man actually did was look deep within himself. He’d made it. The plan to free-climb Cerro Torre, a huge and sometimes overwhelming project lasting three long years, was now a ready-made legend, a historical moment to be filed under ‘achieved’ in the 21-year-old’s strict, personal records of adventure. But on the summit, for a brief moment, Lama felt strangely empty. He became aware of the absence of the task that had challenged him, hung over him and plagued him, and which had now passed on, like a runaway balloon deflating the second you catch it. Things did get a little bit more jolly after that, especially when Peter Ortner, Lama’s partner on this mountain climbing tour de force, decided to dance naked on the mushroom cap of ice that covers the peak of Cerro Torre. There was something worth celebrating after all.
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hat day in January marked the end of a series of three expeditions that had begun in 2008 with a flip through a climbing magazine. Lama, then 17, the son of an Austrian mother and a Nepalese sherpa father, saw for the first time the glassy headwall of Cerro Torre, a mystical granite needle in the very south of South America, and began to read the picture as only a climber of his quality can. He defiantly contemplated the mountain, which had then only been climbed by a small number of mountaineers. He thought that it might be possible to free-climb Cerro Torre, and that if it was possible, he had to do it. Lama is part of a new climbing generation. He acquired the essential technical skills when still a child, won junior titles aged nine and joined the competitive indoor climbing circuit as a teenager. He
PHOTOgrAPHy: LiNCOLN ELSE, kEN rOBiNSON
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steepeD in Difficulty The key routes up the southeastern face of Cerro Torre Compressor route Free-climbing route Lama/Ortner
ICEd TOwErs
BOLT-TrAvErsE (around 2,600m)
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free-ClimBinG meAns usinG Pitons, Bolts, roPes And Any other teChniCAl equiPment only for sAfety eAsons Cerro Torre is considered one of the most difficult mountains in the world due to its topography and exposure: there are only a few days a year when the weather will allow for an attempted climb. Hurricanestrength winds are often the order of the day. When Lama first visited Patagonia, he was literally blown off his feet in the trekking village of El Chaltén. Climbing exposed faces in these conditions would be impossible, free-climbing unthinkable. Free-climbing means using pitons, bolts, ropes and any other technical
summit 3,133 metres HEAdwALL
equipment only for safety reasons, and the existing, natural features of the rock face for the climb itself. No one had managed to free-climb Cerro Torre before Lama; it seemed like a futile exercise. The stories of past attempts talk volumes. When doubts were raised that italian climber Cesare Maestri, who claims to have made the first ascent of the Torre, had actually conquered the peak, he made a second attempt in 1970 and chose to use a compressor drill on his way up the headwall – the final, long, smooth wall beneath the summit – leaving a highway of bolts to pull both himself and the compressor drill up. Maestri ended up leaving the compressor on the rock face and the straight-line route he took up the mountain is known as the Compressor route. Lama wanted to use the same route to the top, only without the bolts Maestri had used to help him ascend.
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n their first attempt in the winter of 2009/10, Lama and former partner Daniel Steuerer paid the price for adverse weather conditions and their own naivety. They didn’t get close to the summit and came a cropper several times halfway up on the so-called Bolt Traverse, sometimes in the middle of the night, in howling winds and under dramatic circumstances. But the time that Lama invested that winter – the Patagonian summer – in sizing up the landscape and getting a better feel for the climate and the dangers of the wind, avalanches and icefalls, would ultimately pay off. When he came back a year later, with east Tyrolean mountain guide and toplevel alpinist Peter Ortner as his partner, he already knew some of the things to look out for on the Torre, his new, affectionate name for the mountain. Lama knew that every let-up in the weather had to be exploited. To get further than he had the previous year, to have a chance of making it all the way to the summit, he was willing, if need be, to aid-climb, and use the bolts left by the Maestri expedition. Only a close inspection of every difficult passage would shed light on whether the actual idea of free-climbing the Torre was feasible. For all their focus, when it came down to it, the chance to make an ascent came as a surprise. As the Torre was shrouded in a stormy haze, Lama and Ortner had done a different excursion on the secondhighest peak of the Mount Fitz roy range, and returned to their trailer in El Chaltén late one evening. The next morning, the weather had changed for the good.
PHOTOgrAPHy: kEN rOBiNSON
enjoyed great success, winning the World Cup in 2008 and several European Championship titles. Lama’s decision not to stay among the elite of the circuit, battling for titles and prize money, was down to his yearning for the mountains. He wanted to climb on rock faces like his long-time trainer, reini Scherer, had done. Lama started going to the mountains with friends to, as he put it, “prepare projects”. By this he meant taking on increasingly difficult climbing challenges, in the Alps or elsewhere, yet to be accomplished by anyone. The climbing ability Lama developed, on both indoor and outdoor climbs, enabled him to overcome the most complicated aspects of climbing. A finely honed technique and ultimate body control meant he possessed skills beyond most other mountain climbers. He was young, strong and talented. He wanted experience. it was clear that he wouldn’t settle for anything small-scale. The idea of free-climbing Cerro Torre was also no doubt an attempt by Lama to get his name in the annals alongside the legends of mountain climbing. Argentina’s
lAmA sCAnned the fACe for CrACks And feAtures thAt would Allow him to free-ClimB. whAt he sAw left him oPtimistiC
on tArGet
david Lama (wearing the orange jacket) sets about circumventing the Bolt Traverse Above: Lama and Ortner after reaching the icy ‘mushroom cap’ summit
the finAl Push
david Lama (above) and Peter Ortner on the last pitches in the headwall before they reach the summit
Cullecturi quae etusand antius, vellace rchitatur? Uda nos dolore accus plia exernatintur autem dis il min et estentium, sitatio mintiorit endit, to illa que omnimil iberume
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They set off quickly and after five hours’ climbing they reached their first camp, Nipo Nino. After that they slept for three hours and then got climbing seriously. The conditions remained good. They negotiated the Bolt Traverse, reached the area known as the iced Towers for the first time and then continued aid-climbing along the Compressor route. Lama scanned the face for cracks and features that would allow him to free-climb. What he saw left him optimistic, and they carried on toward the summit. After flying thousands of miles and waiting for many weeks, the pair were about to make the final push towards the peak’s plateau. But one more obstacle lay in their path: the ladder of bolts on the Maestri route was covered in thick ice. Lama and Ortner had to divert onto an ice gulley that was both tough to climb and at risk of icefall. Sure enough, a piece of ice the size of two footballs broke off, struck Lama on the head, leaving a gash in his helmet, and whacked him on the shoulder. For a moment, he felt at risk, that he had failed, until he began to rotate his head and realised that nothing too bad had happened. The two of them climbed on, overtaking a Canadian party. They passed Maestri’s compressor, wedged where he’d left it more than 40 years ago. The sky was a golden yellow as Lama and Ortner climbed the mushroom cap of ice to reach the summit. The sun had already long since set. The light, Lama said, was more beautiful than anywhere else in the world. it was a moment of huge emotions. After a couple of minutes, Lama said, “Let’s go,” and he and Ortner began to make their way down, abseiling into the Patagonian night.
PHOTOgrAPHy: kEN rOBiNSON, COrEy riCH
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avid Lama was optimistic as he set off, for a third time, to Patagonia in January this year. The weather, which he’d been monitoring closely for weeks via a series of websites, looked like it would be good. regular periods of high pressure and little wind, unlike in recent years: all good omens for the expedition. Lama said that if the outside conditions were perfect, the taming of Cerro Torre might be possible. Lama and Ortner were having a lie-in, in the very same trailer in El Chaltén they had used the year before, when they received an alarming piece of news. Two mountaineers – Jason kruk of Canada and Hayden kennedy of the USA – had aid-climbed Cerro Torre using only a limited number of bolts and on the way down they had knocked out over 100
DaviD & peter The success of david Lama (right) and his climbing partner Peter Ortner is the subject of a documentary set to be released next year. The yet-to-be-titled film will focus on the pair’s ascent of Cerro Torre and the phenomenal history of the mountain itself.
bolts from Maestri’s Compressor route. Their logic was that they were thus correcting a monstrous error as far as climbing ethics were concerned. Somewhat loftily, kruk and kennedy compared their clean-up action to hacking away at the Berlin Wall. When Lama was awoken by members of the film crew documenting his trip and informed that some of the bolts he had been planning to use to secure himself during the free-climb had been removed, he reacted coolly: “i couldn’t care less.” He thought the clean-up action itself excessive, especially as mountaineers in El Chaltén had voted in 2007 on whether or not the bolts should remain in the rock face, and decided to let them remain in place. “you can’t turn back time,” Lama said, but he was calm about any additional complications this would mean for his free-climbing expedition. He would rely on nuts, friends and pitons instead of the bolts, Lama said. Things then started to move very quickly. The weather was good. Lama and Ortner decamped to Nipo Nino and slept for a couple of hours so that they’d be ready to start their ascent at 3am. Four
Any mistAke miGht hAve led to A roCk fAllinG on ortner And then PullinG lAmA off the roCk fACe
and a half hours to make it to the next stopping point, the Shoulder, or ‘Collado de la Paciencia’, where they would remain until 1pm. While there they would eat – soup and a couple of expedition snacks – then continue up to the Bolt Traverse, which would include the crux of the climb: a pitch rated ‘8a’, unusual difficulty in such alpine terrain. Here Lama fell during his first attempt, the safety rope breaking his fall. Same thing on his second attempt: “i thought, ‘Maybe this pitch is impossible to free-climb.’” On his third attempt, he changed his body position, adjusted his approach as to where he should hold and pull himself up, realised that it could work, took another fall, but his general sense of insecurity was evaporating and giving way to euphoria at the imminent solution to the problem. Even though Lama didn’t believe that it would all be fine on the next attempt, he climbed through the most difficult section of the free route up Cerro Torre on his fourth go and, once he was back in a safe place, thought to himself, “We’ve cracked it.” He had climbed through the section in one go, without using anything to secure himself, thus satisfying the terms of free-climbing. Lama and Ortner then carried on up to the iced Towers, where they hacked a small platform out of the ice field to bivouac on. They slept the night in a sitting position, held up on their ropes. They set off again at 6am the next morning, and were at the start of the headwall by nine. There were three pitches that Lama described as “tough”. Based on his fondness for understatement, this no doubt barely touches upon the dramatic difficulties theses pitches posed. The rock face there consisted of loose granite rock, which Lama could only exert pressure on with extreme caution so as not to fall. Shaky pieces of rock had to be negotiated gingerly, because any mistake might have led to a large chunk of rock falling on Ortner coming up behind him, and pulling him off the rock face altogether. This, Lama recalled later, was, “not good.” At about one in the afternoon, Lama and Ornter were finally at the summit of this most difficult of mountains, where Lama needed all his coolness not to be overcome by the emotion of the situation. The first free ascent of Cerro Torre had just become fact. A new chapter of mountaineering history had been written. Ortner danced naked in the snow. And what did Lama say? “Let’s go.” www.david-lama.com
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In search of lost youth
From the Cote D’Azur to the deserts of America, via Seinfeld and Sonic Youth, Anthony Gonzalez, alias M83, mines his memories to make epic electronica for the little kid in him – and all of us
The lights go out. The Shepherd’s Bush Empire, that time-honoured London venue, is packed to the rafters. Blue spotlights come on, piercing the smoke on stage and passing through an expectant audience. A staccato synth strikes up. It sounds like an old sci-fi film. Someone enters the stage and the mobile phone cameras go up in the air along with the whoops and cheers. The someone is wearing an alien mask – big, black, bulging eyes, a ghoulishly grotesque face, dishevelled hair – and matching gloves. 64
The rest of the outfit is black. Slowly, deliberately, the monster raises its clawlike fingers. The synth mantra swells. The cheering gets louder. And then it all stops. Has someone pulled the plug? Slowly, a sweet melody begins to emerge from the cacophony and the fans recognise it immediately: Intro, the opening track on M83’s latest album. At centre stage is Anthony Gonzalez. He has taken off the alien costume and is now accompanied by three other musicians. A synthesizer fortress, drums and flashing lights. “Carry
on, carry on,” he sings into a microphone, his voice slightly gravelly. This charismatic leading man captivates his audience for the next couple of hours, and says a sweaty goodbye at the end of it all with a colourful stroboscope fireworks display and the synth epic, Colours. The fans go on cheering as the twinkling hail of stars on the stage screen slowly goes out. The next morning, Gonzalez is lolling on a couch in the sterile backstage area. He has dark blond hair, cut short like a schoolboy’s, bright blue eyes and a smile
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Words: Florian Obkircher Photography: Sébastien Agnetti
The man behind M83: French musician Anthony Gonzalez is a self-confessed nostalgic who tries to capture the light-hearted nature of childhood innocence in the epic sounds he creates
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“You’re not scared of anything when you’re a child. I miss that feeling. My music is a tribute to youth” that is both friendly and shy. Muscular upper arms peep out from beneath his T-shirt. He is wearing jeans and trainers. This is not how rock stars are meant to look. At first glance you might think the 31-year-old Frenchman was a sports science student with ‘perfect son-in-law’ written all over him. “I’m really not a performer,” Gonzalez says, when the subject of last night’s show comes up, and gives an impish grin. So who was that on stage last night then? That energetic, selfconfident fellow singing into the mic? “Thanks very much for the compliment,” he says. “I’ve slowly been growing into the lead-singer role and I don’t have to hide behind my synthesizers any more.” Gonzalez is a master of understatement. He formed M83 11 years ago, naming it after the Messier 83 galaxy 15 million light years from Earth. His sixth and latest album Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, was released in October last year and went straight in at number 15 on the US Billboard charts. The epic scale of M83’s songs mean they are often used in films, from indie dramas like Stranger Than Fiction to sports documentaries like The Art Of Flight. M83 have already supported bands such as Depeche Mode, The Killers and Kings Of Leon on tour. Gonzalez says he’s adopted a few things from those bands’ frontmen, but in truth he’d much rather be at home in his studio tinkering with sounds and working on new pieces. M83’s records are playful, harmonious and dreamy, with ethereal melodies and a wall of synths. They release the happy hormones at the same time as evoking the comforting melancholy you get leafing through yellowing photo albums. Gonzalez discovered his love of flashy sound boxes when he was seven, watching a concert by French musician Jean Michel Jarre on TV. “He was surrounded by all these amazing vintage synthesizers. He looked like a musician from the future,” he recalls. “And then I got a Bontempi keyboard from my parents for Christmas. It was very cheap, but good enough for a kid.” From then on, he would experiment with sounds in his bedroom for days on end, the only unusual element in an otherwise normal upbringing in the southern French coastal town of Antibes: going to the cinema, fooling around with 66
his friends, a first kiss when he was 10. “It wasn’t pretty,” he says. “In the summer we’d meet in the evenings in the garden of the estate where we lived and do stupid stuff. I was hanging out with older kids and they decided I was ready for my first snog. I was shy and actually not prepared at all and the girl was really ugly.” As Gonzalez tells these stories, a smile is plastered across his face. Memories such as these spark a longing in this selfconfessed nostalgic, who tries to capture the light-heartedness of childhood innocence in his music. “You’re not scared of anything when you’re a child,” he says. “You know that everything will be OK. I miss that feeling. My music is a tribute to youth. It’s therapy and a diary all in one.” Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is the first album Gonzalez wrote and recorded in Los Angeles. He moved to California two years ago, to the city that fascinated him as a child as the metropolis of film and all the clichés that went with that. At first, he spent a lot of time alone, which helped him gain a clear view of his music through the clutter of those memories. Gonzalez was disillusioned after M83’s successful and relatively accessible previous album, Saturdays = Youth, which came out in 2008 and marked his international breakthrough. The question was, Where should the journey take him next? Gonzalez found his answer in the Mojave Desert. “I’d often just put two synthesizers, some weed and a computer in the boot,
rent a cabin and go,” he says. “It was so inspiring. When you play music out there at night, you can see the stars, you’re by yourself and you’re scared of the coyotes. I really felt a connection with my music out there, for the first time in ages.” With the addition of Gonzalez’s vocals, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming ended up darker, more epic and with more detail than Saturdays = Youth. It took him a long time to come to terms with his voice; on earlier albums he used guest singers and would only contribute vocals in a whisper or under effects. New songs such as Midnight City, for example, are something of a liberation. Gonzalez sings. He screams. “When I’m working in my studio, I often have a film on for reference,” he says. “Once I had Aguirre, The Wrath Of God, with Klaus Kinski, playing. I could see him screaming, the anger on his face, and I thought, ‘God, I should sing,’ which is how it started. I wanted to do what I felt like doing, regardless of what people thought of it.” No compromises. Just go for it. This attitude is a recurrent theme throughout Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming. There is Seinfeld-style slap bass and there are saxophone solos, ’80s hangovers as uncool as they come. And there are 22 songs. Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is a double album, a very bold move in the digital age where most listeners’ attention span is challenged by a five-minute song. “The double album is a statement,” Gonzalez says. “I’m trying to say that I prefer the old way of listening to music. I grew up going to the record stores, waiting for the new Sonic Youth album to arrive for so long. I couldn’t stop listening to it for weeks. Now you’re excited about one album for 20 minutes and then you go out and check the next one. What I like about these albums is, that they’re a way to connect to my past. That’s not the case anymore, there are too many releases.” Gonzalez is currently touring the album. The day before yesterday he was in Singapore. Tomorrow he’ll be in Belgium. In April and May there’s a tour of the US, then a string of dates on the European festival circuit. So how have his live shows changed over the years? “I realised I needed to be more confident about myself. This time now could be the peak of my career, and I don’t want to look back at some point and wonder why I didn’t have the heart to come out of myself,” he says, and then pauses for a moment, thinks, and, still smiling, adds, “Yeah, and I probably wouldn’t have put on an alien mask five years ago either.” Tour dates, videos and remixes at ilovem83.com
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BEYOND THE ORDINARY THE RED BULLETIN
“THE AVERAGE LIFESPAN OF AN AFL CAREER IS FOUR YEARS”
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Tadhg Kennelly was one of the bravest early Gaelic football pioneers who made it big in Aussie Rules. Now he’s ready for a new cross-code, cross-hemisphere challenge Words: Declan Quigley Photography: Patrick Bolger
Tadhg Kennelly is retired but he’s still getting used to it. Standing on County Kerry’s Ballybunion Beach on a bitterly cold winter’s morning, Ireland’s only australian Football league (aFl) Premiership winner surveys the miles of wet sand he pounded up and down for year after year, whipping himself into shape for another body-slamming season of “footie”, and contemplates aloud the possibility of a little jog just for old time’s sake. he’s already wearing a pair of trainers, so blowing the cobwebs off with a quick tilt against the biting atlantic wind is convenient and appealing, especially as, for once, there’s no pressure on him to do it, no nagging training schedule drumming its fingers in his conscience. But: “nah, I don’t have to do it and that’s exactly why I’m not going to,” he says. “I think I might head to the pub for a couple of hot whiskeys instead.” The decision is punctuated with raucous laughter, an infectious trademark
guffaw that peppers the conversation of an affable, engaging man invigorated by the new possibilities of life unfolding before him as an ex-aFl player and the giddy realisation that his ravaged body will now be allowed to mend itself. “My joints are very loose,” he explains. “I’m constantly dislocating fingers and my shoulder dislocated about nine times in 2008. I had surgery at the end of that season. So my body has been through a lot. I’ve had 15 sports operations. Shoulder, knee overuse; groin [injuries]. nerve endings. I’ve been all over the world and cut open. They’re very good medically [at Sydney Swans, his club]. I’ve been sent to america, germany and China for surgery. They don’t care about the cost. They just get you the best. and I’ve never had any problems. I’ve gone in and got it done and they’ve fixed it.” So now he can turn his back on a blast down the beach without guilt, 69
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the dreaded ladder interval sessions already a fast-fading memory. at just 30 years of age, Kennelly’s had a good innings by aFl standards but at home in Kerry, where there is only one code, the speculation has been relentless that he will attempt a reprise of his successful one-off 2009 campaign for an all Ireland Football medal with the county team. even if he does don the green and gold sometime in the future, you sense that the sheer violence of aussie rules physical preparation can never be repeated. he stretched out his sojourn at the top level longer than most and to extend it further would be tempting fate. “The average lifespan of an aFl career is four years,” he says. “The turnover is huge. I was lucky because until I was 26 I had nothing and then probably the last four years I started noticing wear and tear. “The enormous distances we were travelling… We were running between 15 and 24km per game, 25 weeks in a row. and that’s without getting any bump or tackle. you get to cope with it because you have a massive pre-season that goes on for three months.” now though, it’s time to pause and contemplate life without a weekly 120-minute adrenalin fix after 10 seasons in two stints at Sydney Swans – including that 2009 gaelic football sabbatical – that equated to stats of 197 games and that career-defining 2005 Premiership medal. Several ex-aFl players phoned him in the wake of his announcement, to warn of the pitfalls of retirement. Kennelly alludes to the depression suffered by many expros, but you sense he has been planning for the end of his playing career almost since the start. living in the Sydney suburb of Coogee from the age of 18, it would have been easy for a young tearaway from listowel to get distracted, but Kennelly showed a steely resolve that belied his happy-go-lucky exterior. he describes himself as “challenge oriented” and, for all the laughter in his quickfire delivery you have no difficulty believing him. “I was on my own, and I was going to make it because one thing is for sure, I was not going back home as a failure,” he once declared. The kid who’d never been on an aeroplane until the Swans came calling and who thought he’d got on the wrong one when it touched down in Bangkok for a stopover, regularly cried himself to sleep in the early days. he stuck it out. after almost two years of “chasing the rabbit”, his evocative description of the often frustrating task of controlling the unpredictable oval ball, Kennelly made the breakthrough to the 70
“WE WERE RUNNING BETWEEN 15 AND 24KM PER GAME, 25 WEEKS IN A ROW”
Kennelly enjoyed success with the oval ball in Australia with the Sydney Swans (top) and helped Ireland defeat Australia in last year’s International Rules Series (above); he broke into a very light jog along his old training ground of Ballybunion Beach for The Red Bulletin photoshoot
Swans team and his career was under way. extra training sessions with his mentor, george Stone, an avuncular influence in his football and life development, paid dividends as the rabbit became “a tortoise”. But for all the stresses due a young man playing catch-up in an alien game, he still found time for college. Kennelly the kidder, the social animal, still had the foresight and maturity to understand at 18 the temporary nature of his employment and he signed up for a teacher training course at the university of new South Wales. It was no cushy sports scholarship joyride, either, as the callow foreigner juggled occasional tensions between his college and his employers, neither of whom was eager to adjust their schedules to fit his needs. It’s different now, with the university embracing the prestige offered by international cricketers, cyclists and the like, who enjoy a more flexible timetable
thanks in no small part to the perseverance a decade ago of a young man from Kerry. Kennelly says he’ll hardly use his teaching degree now, but concedes that the skills acquired will still be of value in his new role as a coach and mentor with the australian Institute of Sport-aFl academy. This new job seems to be the product of a clear aptitude for sales, having designed a role attracting overseas players to the aFl starting with Ireland and then selling the idea to the aFl and the gaa. The ease with which he’s slipping into coaching and administration suggests a man keener than many not to ignore the signals that his body was less fit for the rigours of the aFl than it had been. he has a clear memory of the first moment when the fight to maintain fitness gave way to a seed of doubt: playing hawthorn at the MCg [Melbourne Cricket ground] late last season, he found himself racing to get to the ball against a rival and good
addITIonal PhoTograPhy: InPho (2), geTTy IMageS (2)
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Dad Tim and (below) his brother Noel
friend (he won’t say who beyond admitting he would probably be among his impending wedding party), he realised he wasn’t going to get there first despite being, by his standards, in rude health. a player he would normally expect to beat had edged him and in that moment a career spanning 10 seasons and almost 200 games began winding to a close. athleticism had always been Kennelly’s advantage. his older brother noel possessed the silken skills that helped Kerry to all Ireland victory in 2000, but at half-forward Tadhg could run faster, further, than anyone around – the cornerstone of an attacking playing style that mirrors his up-front personality. he shudders to think where he would have ended up had noel not been around to provide a muse for a youngster dreaming of emulating a famous father. Tim ‘The horse’ Kennelly won five all Ireland medals and captained the
winning Kerry team in 1979. It was a lot to live up to, but noel and Tadhg had a ball, a wall and the competitive zeal of sibling sons of a legend. “only for noel, I wouldn’t be half the player I am,” says Tadhg Kennelly. “I’m very lucky that he was such a good footballer growing up and we were so competitive that if he hit the sign there 10 times then I’d have to hit it 11 times. “he was a lot more skilful as a gaelic footballer than I was. I was more of an athlete. I had a lot of attributes growing up, but he’s got a freak of a football brain. It was him that brought me on. I often wonder what would have happened to me if I never had a brother. “We grew up above a pub and there was a big gable wall. That was our Croke Park. Bang, bang. rain, hail, shine. My mother would pull us in out of there and my father would be going: ‘are you mad, ’cause the paint’s destroyed.’ “he’d paint the house and we’d be down the road for a few days and then we’d be back. There was a Carlsberg sign that was our target. Boom, boom, boom.” Tadhg is modest about his skillset. While noel went on to be a Kerry Minor team prodigy at 15, his younger brother rebelled. displaying an early aptitude for talent transfer, he embraced soccer and, to the collective dismay of the north Kerry gaa community, Tim supported Tadhg’s flirtation with the ‘foreign’ code. ‘The horse’, who died suddenly at 51 in 2005 just weeks after watching Tadhg’s aFl Premiership medal-winning display in the MCg, drove his son to training and matches the length and breadth of the country, as Tadhg made it as far as the Ireland under-15 soccer team before the Kerry Minor team selectors called and he was ushered back into the fold. Still, there was tension, a recurring theme in his sporting and personal life. right now it’s the call of home versus his career in his adopted nation, a conflict that looks like it has been won for the time being by australia. It was less clear-cut back when he was a teenager and the path to emulate his father’s all Ireland success was opening up before him. Sydney Swans dialled the number of Tim Kennelly’s listowel pub and Tadhg, who had impressed at an aFl training camp in Kildare, took a chance. “I do remember we had a camp and none of us could kick or handle the oval ball and I was in a one-on-one, and the ball hit the ground,” says Kennelly. “he was big and waiting to tackle me and I hand-balled the ball under his legs and went around him. I didn’t know what 71
“MANY KIDS HAVE GONE OVER, NOT MADE IT, AND BETTERED THE GAME OF GAELIC FOOTBALL”
Fact File
Name: Tadhg Kennelly Age: 30 DOB: July 1st 1981 From: Listowel, Kerry Height: 190cm Weight: 90kg Gaelic Athletic Association Honours: All Ireland Football medal winner (Kerry) 2009; All Star Selection 2009 (half-forward) Australian Rules Honours: Sydney Swans 2001-2008; 2010-2011; games: 197; goals: 30; AFL Premiership Winner 2005 (half-back) International Rules Honours: Ireland 2001-2011; goals: 6; International Rules Series winner 2011
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The INTerNaTIoNal QuesTIoN Tadhg Kennelly’s brief in his new job with the AFL is to attract players to the domestic professional league, but as he’s quick to point out, there is a thriving amateur international game with Ireland at the forefront. “I watched the final of the International Cup last year and I was pleasantly surprised at the standard,” he says. There are more than 100,000 players worldwide playing Australian Rules and the fourth AFL International Cup was scooped for the second time by the Irish Warriors at the MCG in Melbourne last year. The Irish women’s team, the Banshees, also scooped top honours at the tournament and there is considerable pride in the Australian Rules Football League of Ireland at the achievement of their international teams. “The Irish men’s and women’s teams currently hold every international cup in the nine- and 18-person game,” says Ciarán Óh Eadhra, President of the ARFLI. “The Warriors beat Papua New Guinea in the final, a country that has a much greater player base. At the moment we have six men’s teams and three women’s teams in the league, with up to 300 players involved each season. “Tadhg Kennelly has been very supportive of our efforts and we’re proud of all the Irish connections at the top level in the AFL.”
addITIonal PhoTograPhy: SlaTTery MedIa grouP (1)
Below: Kennelly meets members of the Irish International Cup side at Lakeside Oval, Sydney
I was doing, but I think I must have been doing something different at the time. They probably thought, ‘This kid’s got something going on here. I’ve never seen anything like it in aFl.’” describing himself as a “cute” player who knew when to commit to the physical contest and when to avoid a bruising encounter, Kennelly took his then-scrawny body to Sydney where he embarked on the twin tasks of bulking up by 15kg and taming the “rabbit”. his intelligence and physical aptitude was never in question, but was there the will to match them? With no ryanair short-hop safety valve, the emotional maelstrom of late adolescence had none of the familiar outlets for expression. “That was the biggest shock when I went over to Sydney originally,” says Kennelly. “When you’re growing up as a young fella, and I had a fight with a girlfriend or whatever, I’d just go up to the football field but when I went over to Sydney I was in a totally different country, a totally different game and I had no place to settle myself. It was something I struggled with drastically.” Twelve years on from those extra training sessions with george Stone, now at the other end of his odyssey, looking back, he found himself consulting with his mentor once more. This most intelligent and detached of aussie rules players had grown to love the game, the lifestyle that went with it and his role in helping to change Sydney Swans from a team with a soft underbelly that other teams would tickle, into aFl Premiership winners. “I knew in myself it was time to stop,” he admits, and he got little resistance from Stone. With another lucrative contract still on the table he surprised many by walking away, but not without a carefully constructed exit strategy. having long been cited as one of the few success stories in the so-called ‘Irish experiment’ (a phrase he detests – “I’m not a lab rat”) Kennelly has seen the good and bad side of aFl teams over the years, trawling the gaa for potential stars with the potential to put bums on seats. With controversial australian player agents sporting a cavalier attitude to inter-county squads, feathers were ruffled in Ireland and it was inevitable that most players were discarded before making an impact on the game. as his playing days drew to a close, Kennelly approached the mandarins of both codes to outline his strategy for the future. “I’ve spoken to Padraig duffy [gaa director general], and Pat daly [gaa
director of games] in Croke Park. I’ve also spoken to andrew demetriou [Chief executive officer of the aFl]. They all said: ‘great, let’s do it.’ It’d be more legit, more above board, people know what’s going on. It’s not a case of some young fella at 16 getting five grand from a club not to sign with any other club until he’s 18, because you can’t take a kid from Ireland when he is under the age of 18. “That stuff was happening 30 years ago in australia. It’s illegal and you can get fined because it’s outside the salary cap, but it irritated me the way it was being done. everything was behind doors. “I said I’ll have a training camp and it’s not a case of, ‘there’ll be 30 players from Ireland going to australia next year’. What I want to do is get one or two and bring them over for a few weeks. Take them to as many clubs as are interested and the clubs take their pick and that’s it. and that’s all I want to do every year. “I’m not the bad man coming to take all the kids away,” he continues, “and that’s the point I’m trying to get across to people. First of all there are numerous kids going over that are not going to make it. There are so many that have gone over, not made it and come back and bettered the game of gaelic football.” It’s not just about Ireland. his new duties include talent development in the South Sea Islands, africa and north america, as aFl develops its brand to meet the expectations of a recently minted auS $1.25bn TV contract. Kennelly seems as comfortable discussing the commercial aspects of aFl football as the playing terminology and he has a head for heights when it comes to courting the powers that be. he had the honour of being chosen as the retiring player to give the traditional valedictory speech at the aFl grand Final last year, an oratorical tour de force in front of the australian Prime Minister Julia gillard described as the best in 10 years. he has no problem admitting that he viewed the speech as a “job interview”, an opportunity to impress the great and good as he heads into a new phase of his professional life. With his wedding to fiancée nicole the next major project in his life to go with his new aFl job, talk of a return with Kerry during the aFl off season is not ruled out – but you sense it’s not a priority (although he seems to be enjoying the speculation).For the time being he’s letting his body rest while his mind remains active. Find out how to get involved in Australian Rules Football at www.arfli.com
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The Red Bull Stratos helium balloon holds around 850,000 cubic metres of gas, at takeoff it stretches over the wingspan of three Boeing 777s and transports Felix Baumgartner three times higher than the cruising altitude of the world’s largest airliner. The logistics and precision behind the balloon lift-off are breathtaking Words: Werner Jessner
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PHOTOgRAPHy: JOERg MITTER/RED BuLL STRATOS
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Raising the giant
About Red Bull Stratos Red Bull Stratos is a mission to the edge of space, on which Felix Baumgartner will ascend 36,576m in a helium-filled balloon and skydive back to earth, gaining valuable data and breaking world records set by Joe Kittinger in 1960. The records Baumgartner intends to establish are:
1. The speed of sound unaided 2. Free fall from highest altitude 3. longest free fall time 4. Highest manned balloon flight
The Red Bulletin is following the mission closely, each issue focusing on a specific topic. All back issues can still be downloaded for the iPad.
IN FeBRuARY, we began with interviews with Felix Baumgartner 1.1 and Joe Kittinger 1.2. lAST mONTH we took a close look at Baumgartner’s
capsule 2.1, its interior 2.2 and the cameras on board 2.3.
THIS mONTH is all about the balloon that will take Baumgartner into the stratosphere. 3.1 Balloon Tech: how and when to launch 3.2 Ticket To Ride: Felix Baumgartner obtains his balloon licence.
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3.1
Balloon Tech: how and when to launch
P
ity the meteorologist, that most common of all scapegoats. “We’re always to blame,” says Don Day. “It’s part of our job description.” Of course, the Cheyenne weatherman’s modesty is misleading. A vital lynchpin of the Red Bull Stratos Team, Felix Baumgartner and co are consistently impressed by Day’s uncanny accuracy. The trick? More than simply weather prediction, Day practises weather pre-calculation. “Many factors must come together to get a balloon of this dimension off the ground,” he says. “Firstly, no wind. We can’t have wind of more than 3kph at ground level, and with our three weather balloons at an altitude of 60m, 6.5kph is the limit. Even in a region that is perfect for balloon starts, like New Mexico, you only get this sort of calm just before sunrise. “Secondly, you need none or very few clouds, the lowest possible humidity. Over the entire surface of the balloon, water droplets very quickly add up to become a burden of several hundred kilos. Third, we need good visibility. And fourth, on the way up, there must not be any strong winds, which could push Felix far off course. “Only when these parameters are met can I give the OK and Red Bull Stratos can lift off.” For this, Day has data up to 40,000m altitude available to him – the highest ascertainable point for meteorology, even higher than Baumgartner will climb. By combining computer-calculated weather simulations, data from various weather balloons at different altitudes, stored recordings, and finally a smidgeon of meteorological genius, it is possible to form a prognosis three days prior to the start: be prepared to lift-off on Wednesday. Beginning 24 hours before the start, the prognosis is
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so precise that Day can be persuaded to talk about “90 per cent accuracy”. Whether today is the big day must be decided eight hours before takeoff. It actually takes that long to run the entire start procedure. The man who gets the balloon airborne is Launch Crew Chief Ed Coca. While he may be an old hand in the business, he hasn’t seen many ventures like that planned by Red Bull Stratos. “After all,” he says. “It’s not every day you get such a huge balloon off the ground.” How many 850,000 cubic metre balloons has he launched before? “This is my first.” Four and a half hours before the start, Coca calls Day to find out the exact direction of any possible breezes (no more than 3kph). The balloon, the capsule parachute and the capsule are all connected in a train-like configuration – the ‘flight train’ – and spread out accordingly on the airfield
“It’s not every day that you get such a huge balloon off the ground” in Roswell, New Mexico, with the capsule attached to a crane. To ensure controlled launch, the light breeze permitted should ideally blow directly against the capsule, and on no account from the opposite direction or at an angle to the runway. The Red Bull Stratos balloon is made of a gossamer-thin, transparent polyethylene film that is reminiscent of the type used for dry-cleaner bags. The thickness of the envelope wall varies, but at any given place it’s substantially less than a millimetre. Construction of the balloon, as you might well imagine, is a task that requires exacting precision. There
Waking up the Giant How do you erect a thing as high as a 75-storey building in just one hour’s time? This is how
Inflation 1. One hour prior to takeoff, hoses leading from two trucks, carrying 10,194 cubic metres of helium between them, are used to begin inflating the balloon. 2. A launch arm keeps the balloon in place. Inflation goes from top to bottom. 3. The top of the balloon starts to rise. 4. The launch arm slowly moves the balloon along its length.
A
Helium is lighter than air. The top of the balloon rises
Helium comes in through two inflation hoses Helium is brought in two large trailers
The balloon is under a balloon restraint
Balancing
B
The crane moves the capsule under the balloon centre
This is the ‘train’ with the parachute that will bring the capsule safely down
C Takeoff
After the removal of the launch arm the balloon fully rises
1. The crane releases the capsule. 2. Red Bull Stratos takes off.
PHOTOgRAPHy: JOERg MITTER/RED BuLL STRATOS. ILLuSTRATION: ALBERT EXERgIAN
At an angle of 20 degrees, matters start to get delicate
1. The launch arm releases the balloon. 2. A crane still holds down the bottom of the balloon with the capsule. 3. The balloon rises into fully upright position. 4. With the balloon at an angle of approximately 10-20 degrees, the capsule is released. 5. The crane manoeuvres the capsule exactly under the centre of the balloon.
Weather balloons indicate wind directions
The capsule is held by a crane Baumgartner is already seated inside his capsule
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Even one hole in the balloon, no matter how small, can spell trouble, so it’s scanned with a special light
HelIum lighter Than Air Helium (He) is a colourless, tasteless, nontoxic noble gas. It is the second lightest and second most abundant element in the universe (after hydrogen). most of it was formed during the Big Bang. For commercial use, helium is extracted by fractional distillation of natural gas. One cubic metre of helium weighs just 179g, while one cubic metre of air weighs approximately 1.3kg (depending on temperature and composition).
Helium
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is no room for error. Moreover, there is the not so small task of building in a reflective tape so that the empty envelope that floats down to earth after the capsule detaches can be located via radar at any time. Even one hole in the balloon, no matter how small, can spell trouble. For this reason, the entire balloon (and there are two just in case) is scanned with a special black light before being taken from the long table where the individual lengths of material are glued and loaded into the transport box. So that the delicate balloon doesn’t become damaged when it’s spread out on the asphalt, a protective layer of Herculite, a specially selected industrial synthetic material, is placed between the ground and the balloon. There is a strict dress code for the 15 men who lay out and launch the balloon: cotton gloves; no zips; no eyelets; no jewellery. And no force: every contact, every movement of the balloon, poses a risk that could cause a potential weak spot. And any temptation to give it a hefty pull into the correct position must be resisted – the balloon envelope alone weighs 1,682kg, as much as a mediumsized vehicle. Once the sleeping giant is finally spread out on the ground, the detachment mechanisms are armed which, when Baumgartner has landed safely, will sever the balloon from the capsule. In the course of this, the balloon envelope will tear along a predefined line, the helium will release into space and the balloon envelope will begin its slow descent to Earth, where a ground crew will gather it up and bring it back to Roswell in the bed of a very large truck. But we’re nowhere near this point yet: for starters, Baumgartner’s airship first has to lift off. An hour before takeoff, Mission Control OKs launch preparations. Fifty-five minutes before takeoff, the filling of the balloon with helium begins. For this, two trucks filled with
helium are needed, each has a capacity of 5,097 cubic metres. In order to fill the balloon as close to launch possible, the decision was made to use a dualinflation method, which means that the helium is pumped simultaneously from two hoses into the upper end of the transparent beast. Eventually, the balloon lifts its head and heaves itself up as a gigantic bubble. In the following minutes the bubble becomes bigger and firmer, and the arm that holds the balloon on the ground attached to a truck plays out more balloon length centimetre by centimetre. At the other end of this giant, the polyethythene sausage still lies on the ground, and inside the capsule Baumgartner sits ready. This capsule in turn is held aloft by a specially modified mobile crane that’s driven by one damn good truck driver. The moment that the launch arm releases the balloon, it begins its initial vertical ascent, hoisting the unfilled portions from the ground. The balloon still climbs and should be headed in the direction of the crane; Baumgartner’s capsule begins feeling its first twinges of tension. When the balloon reaches somewhere around a 10 to 20-degree tilt – a rule of thumb for veteran balloon launcher Ed Coca – the crane supporting the capsule begins to move. It must now be manoeuvred precisely under the balloon, which is something like balancing a broomstick on the tip of your finger, admittedly on a slightly different scale, while the balloon pulls on its load from above. Coca guides the crane, but stands on the runway a short distance away: “Standing to the side gives you a better view and feeling for how you best manoeuvre the capsule under the centre of the uplift.” Calm at the start is a good thing. Even in a space as big as an airfield, the amount of square mileage is not unlimited and the moment Coca gives the OK, the crew need to release the towline sooner rather than later. In the long, long pause before the moment when Felix Baumgartner rises up into the clear morning skies above Roswell, none of those watching will dare breathe. “Even though we’ll have already overcome huge hurdles at the moment of lift-off, we’re not finished by a long shot,” says Baumgartner. “This is just the beginning.”
3.2 My
Beautiful Balloon PHOTOgRAPHy: JOERg MITTER/RED BuLL STRATOS (2), BALAzS gARDI/RED BuLL STRATOS, SvEN HOFFMANN/RED BuLL STRATOS CREDIT:
H
ow do you manoeuvre a balloon? Well, there’s no arguing with the wind, but if you’re a sufficiently savvy and experienced balloonist, you’ll know how high, for how long and which way the wind is blowing. So you’ll understand that a gentle northerly at 200m can be a fresh southerly at 400m. you’ll be moving at 40kph or more, but you won’t feel it, because you’re moving with the wind. Only when the wind turns do you feel it: first in the face, then in your clothes. you control the altitude of a helium balloon with a valve that allows the gas to escape – you sink – or through dumping ballast – you rise. The system works with incredible precision, although with a lag of around half a minute. Adjusting to this is a part of the art of ballooning: never would you throw sandbags over the side, like you see in some dreadful adventure movie. For starters, a bag could land on the head of some poor rambler below and second it would be a very crude method. It’s normally enough to empty the large sandbags by just a scoopful to gain height. Ballast is the balloonist’s gold. Once you’ve thrown it all overboard you’re robbed of a crucial navigating aid. It’s not just that you can’t climb any more – say there are mountains ahead – but more importantly you can’t use the higher atmospheric layers to steer. If you’re desperate, the only option is to throw equipment over the side, but that’s obviously the last resort. My Red Bull Stratos balloon trip is only one way – up! – but I still had to
Before you can jump from a height of 36km, you have to get up there. And if you’re planning to ascend to the edge of space in a huge balloon, you’ll need a legit licence. Here’s how Red Bull Stratos adventurer Felix Baumgartner went about getting his Words: Felix Baumgartner
Action
Ballooning sure has its adventurous moments. I had to find that out the hard way
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“I had just two days to learn ballooning . On the third day President Obama was expected”
that’s a packed schedule to build up enough practice starts and landings, but soon I was getting to grips with the tactical game of the winds and memorising wind directions at different altitudes. I feel most at home in the air: it’s where I’m ‘in my element’. After two days of ballooning I felt ready for the examination. Joe Kittinger, our mission consultant, had assured me that in my case I wouldn’t have to sit the written test, so I was surprised when my examiner – a tall, white-haired gentleman from the Federal Aviation Administration ordered me upstairs and sent Joe away. It’s not in my nature to do things by halves and when I have to do something, I want to do it perfectly. So I hate being faced with a tricky situation that I’m not prepared for. I’m also brutally honest, so I told the examiner I was there on the understanding that I wouldn’t have to sit a written exam, so I hadn’t studied for it. I explained the project to him and that I didn’t plan to fly around with balloons after Red Bull Stratos and I definitely didn’t intend to transport passengers. To my surprise, he heard me out and produced an aeronautical chart outlining a route. I’m more than familiar with aeronautical charts, thanks to my helicopter flying, and I spotted the trick question the examiner had slipped in and I showed myself sufficiently competent for the stern old gentleman to give me the thumbs up and do the practical test the next day. The balloon was tethered on a large, fenced football field. A couple of cars were parked at the fence, which I thought
“Getting a balloon licence is a bit more involved than passing a driving test” were too close, but the examiner and the teacher both reckoned it would be fine… We floated up without a problem, but after a couple of metres the uplift stopped and we shaved a wing mirror off one of the cars and put a hefty dent in the roof – not that either my teacher or examiner seemed particularly concerned! We just managed to scrape over the fence and I felt a bit bad. But my two companions both told me not to worry, that it had been a ‘false lift’. It dawned on me right then that getting a balloon licence was a bit more involved than passing a driving test. False lifts aren’t dishonourable – just ‘one of those things’ that can happen. They’re caused by wind pushing on the lower part of the balloon and creating lift. you let the line go thinking you have strong lift. But it stops at exactly the moment the balloon has reached the speed of the wind. In our case, that was right at the height of the car’s side mirror. I’d wanted to start from further back and both the examiner and the teacher had assumed we were far enough away – so I was off the hook. A little while into our flight we began to approach a mountain. The examiner suggested tossing out a couple of spadefuls of sand, but I said I thought we’d be OK. The tester suggested we make a bet on
PHOTOgRAPHy: SvEN HOFFMANN/RED BuLL STRATOS
undergo balloon training. It started by filling 25 or 30 sandbags. After the fourth I assured my balloon teacher that I’d understood the system thanks very much, but he showed no mercy. If only they’d let me build a sandcastle! But after the fun came the serious stuff: focusing on precise communication with the meteorologist. That’s the be-alland-end-all of good preparation. A good meteorologist prepares you for the diverse wind conditions at different altitudes so you can plot your route, regardless of whether you’re going from A to B and back again, or in a triangular flight path: the most common ballooning routes. The balloon itself stands on the ground ready to go: helium is expensive so it’s not normally released. you just refill missing gas. gas balloons are costlier to run than hot-air balloons, but the gas balloon pilot is higher up the balloonists’ pecking order. (And for Red Bull Stratos, a gas balloon is the only option, due to the lack of atmosphere.) One of my first learning experiences with ballooning is that it’s sport for early risers. you start to prepare at 3am, to be airborne before the sun rises and the first winds spring up. you always aim to have as little wind as possible when starting off. I did my balloon training in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and by coincidence, I seemed to attract some action to the place. Three days after my arrival, a no-fly zone was announced for the entire airspace because President Obama was due to be there. That left me just two hectic days to learn ballooning –
I obtained my ballooning licence in Albuquerque, New mexico. I even had to fill the sandbags myself!
CREDIT:
Ballooning is a sport for early risers. Preparation starts at three in the morning, you become airborne by sunrise
whether or not we cleared the mountain. I said, “Sure.” It was close, but we made it without dumping any ballast. Slowly, I felt I was getting a feel for it. On the other side of the mountain we caught a stiff wind – around 80-90kph, causing us quite a lot of turbulence. We were approaching another mountain range and on the other side there weren’t really any suitable places to land. So we needed to get down fast. I pulled hard on the cord to release the gas and let the balloon descend quickly. unfortunately, the surface winds were still at 40kph and I was getting worried. We prepared for the landing, put on our helmets and pulled the sandbags into the basket so they wouldn’t be ripped open from a rough landing and allow us to rise again. The landing area wasn’t large: it was a field, at least, but fenced with barbed wire, so there weren’t many options for rectifying a landing error in a slow-reacting balloon. We definitely needed to get it right first time. When the ground rushes up at you at 40kph it feels as if you’re going really fast and the landing was wild! The basket tipped over and we were dragged across the ground. We were all tugging hard on the valve to let the gas out of the balloon and stop our ride. We tucked our heads in and tried to keep our arms and legs inside the basket. “Pull, pull, pull,” shouted the examiner as the basket ploughed across the ground. We couldn’t move, but at last the rope was wound in, the vent was open wide, the helium released, and the whole load ground to a standstill. Silence. “Are you guys OK?” We clambered out to see the 80m scar the basket had ploughed into the field. Ballooning has its wicked moments! Still: exam passed.
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Next month
A close look at Baumgartner’s pressure suit
www.redbullstratos.com
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Contents 84 TRAVEL IDEAS Cycling the roads of Europe Tour de France-style 86 Global food One top chef’s inspiration and a recipe to follow 88 GET THE GEAR Alexis Thompson and her golf kit 89 TRAINING Cliff diver Michal Navratil’s top tips 92 BEST CLUBS Cirque du Soir, London 92 OUT NOW Folk-soul from Michael Kiwanuka 93 TAKE 5 Spiritualized frontman’s musical picks 94 WORLD IN ACTION 96 SAVE THE DATE 97 KAINRATH’S CALENDAR
Photography: Samo Vidic/Red Bull Cliff Diving
98 MIND’S EYE
Czech cliff diver Michal Navratil is a master of mid-air manoeuvres – read about how his tough training regime helps him fall with grace on page 89
MOre BODy & MinD
The Stelvio Pass: Feel the burn then enjoy 60 hairpin bends on descent
2 Col du Galibier france another epic of the tour and far older than the also-fabled alpe d’huez, the col du galibier celebrated its centenary in last year’s Grand Boucle. to mark the occasion, riders had to scale both its approaches, each time grinding up its 2,645m. andy schleck had the honour of winning the tour’s highest-ever stage finish. near the peak is a memorial to the founder and first director of the tour, henri desgrange. a wreath is laid thereon whenever the col du galibier is included on the tdF route. the truly insane/oaken-thighed might consider taking in the huez and the galibier in a day’s riding, as they’re a mere 60km apart. only for the brave.
2 WHEELS GOOD THIS MONTH’S TRAVEL TIPS
Ain’t no mountain high enough EUROPEAN CYCLING ROUTES
if you’ve ever fancied yourself as a lycra-clad tour de France road warrior, these are the climbs that’ll give you cred
1 Alpe d’Huez france the French call it ‘la mythique’ – the mythical one – and such is its status in road cycling lore no tour de France feels complete without it. it tops out at 1,860m after 21 switchbacks that give the legs momentary rest. But make no mistake, the adh is 13.8km of burn, at an average gradient of 7.9 per cent and to see the tour riders blast up here as if they’re sprinting on the flat is a pilgrimage every cyclist – nay, every sports fan – should make. First included in the tour in 1952, it has featured almost every year since. italian master Fausto coppi was the first winner, keeping the yellow jersey to the finish – a feat later achieved by laurent Fignon and lance armstrong.
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5 The Stelvio Pass italy one for the cycling purist: the stelvio is just as fabled as its French alpine cousins and is a monster climb that rewards riders with a hugely enjoyable 60-hairpin descent. a giro d’italia regular, the stelvio grind starts north of Bornio and winds up to 2,757m, making it the second-highest alpine paved route, after the col de l’iseran (2,770m). its height means that changes in weather conditions en route are inevitable, giving rise to the definitive stelvio experience: start in short sleeves – climb – chill – don jacket – keep climbing – freeze – crest – descend – grin – thaw. it’s as intense as cycling gets.
Words: anthony roWlinson. photography: ddp (1), dppi (2), action images (2), map: andreas posselt
Col du Galibier: Follow in Andy Schleck’s tyretreads
3 Col du Tourmalet france/spain a switch of ranges takes peak-seekers south-west, to the pyrenees and the mighty col du tourmalet, which, at 2,115m is the highest pass over these border-defining mountains. another of the tour’s ‘hollywood’ ascents, it has been raced up (and down) since 1910, making it the climb most featured on the tdF. and if one racing ascent per year isn’t enough, punishment gluttons might also find themselves competing for summit honours on the route of the Vuelta a españa – spain’s less starry tour equivalent. riders can find inspiration of a sort at the summit, where there’s a statue of octave lapize, the first tourmalet stage winner, gasping for air. 4 Mont Ventoux france the mountain forever associated with tommy simpson, Britain’s world champ cyclist who, in 1967, collapsed and died less than 1km from the finish line, whispering ‘put me back on my bike’ with his last gasps. it’s reckoned to be among the most demanding of pro tour climbs, largely on account of its unremitting nature. you get on and you don’t stop climbing till you reach its moonscape summit, where mistral winds of up to 200mph have been recorded. if you make it to the 1,909m finish line, you’ll have passed tommy’s memorial, where riders – pros and ams alike – leave tubes, bottles and bars in silent homage to the late great.
Grossglockner: But leave winter to the pros
6 Alto de L’Angliru spain the angliru is to the Vuelta what the alpe d’huez is to the tour: a showbiz chainbreaker. deliberately chosen by Vuelta organisers to make even the hardest of pros whimper, it rises to 1,573m, but – get this – its steepest gradient is 24 per cent! and it gets harder as you go higher. nasty. it was first included in the Vuelta route in 1999 and has since provoked anguished reaction to its intensity. Vicente Belda, manager of the Kelme team, was quoted in 2003 as saying: “What do they want? Blood? they ask us to stay clean, then they make the riders tackle this kind of barbarity.”
Mont Ventoux: There’s 200mph winds up here…
7 Monte Zoncolan italy here’s how one semi-pro rider recently described the Zoncolan: “it’s one of those chain-breaking epics that the pros need compact chainsets to get up.” [a lowergeared ‘compact’ chainset makes for an easier climb.] even the name sounds evil – like some kind of Bond villain – and its western approach stands alongside the angliru as a pro’s worst nightmare. its 1,750m have featured four times in the giro d’italia, starting from the gorto Valley and ascending for 10.1km with gradient peaks of 22 per cent. its most notorious stretch starts at liariis, 8.5km from the summit: over the next 6km riders climb 900m. ouch… 8 Grossglockner austria Welcome to austria’s highest mountain and the second highest alp, at 3,798m, after mont Blanc. With italy adjacent, a grossglockner stage has twice featured on the route of the giro d’italia – in 1971 and, in a surprise reprise, in 2011. the view from the top – should you manage to get there – is reckoned to be one of the finest from any alp, stretching 240km over more than 150,0002 km. if you fancy giving this one a go, make sure you don’t ride in winter when the grossglockner-hochalpenstrasse (the high alpine road) is closed. www.climbbybike.com
A Grossglockner stage has twice featured on the route of the Giro d’Italia
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MORE BODY & MIND
THE WORLD’S BEST CHEFS WHAT’S ON THE MENU AT HANGAR-7
Match ’n’ sniff
TANJA GRANDITS A unique talent for harmony results in a wonderful world of aromas, textures and colours
‘My Joyful World Cuisine’ is the sub-heading of Tanja Grandits’ first cookbook, published in 2007, and it serves as an explanation of its less expansive title: Pure Aroma. Not that it necessarily needs explanation, as the petite Swiss chef with German roots puts aroma front and centre in her work. And her great talent is to find harmonies – natural and coherent – where you would least expect them: passion fruit and cumin, for example. Or grilled sea bass with ajowan (an Asian spice) and served with corn cream and grapefruit salsa. Or mango polenta with corn soup, egg yolk and white truffles. Or Arctic char (a member of the salmon family) with carrots and prunes. “Wellness for the senses” is Grandits’s confident description of her wonderland of aromas, textures and colours. It’s a confidence reflected in her working set-up: she runs Basel’s Restaurant Stucki, once the domain of Hans Stucki, the father of Swiss cuisine who died in the ’90s. “Being able to work here fills me with awe,” she says. It was Hans Stucki, though, who once apparently observed that women can’t cook. “Oh? Really?” is Grandits’ wry reply.
MY PHILOSOPHY
MY RESTAURANT Restaurant Stucki Bruderholzallee 42 4059 Basel, Switzerland Tel: +41 61 3618222 www.stuckibasel.ch In 2008, Tanja Grandits, then 34, and her husband René Graf took over the celebrated Restaurant Stucki. Their renovations brought a breath of fresh air to the venerable space, but the name of the restaurant remained – as a mark of respect to Hans Stucki, the towering legend of Swiss cuisine.
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Liberty “For me, success is being able to do whatever I want from morning to evening.” Harmony …And not just in culinary composition, but in life as well: Tanja Grandits draws strength from yoga and jogging, while days off are devoted to the family, to lazing around and playing – particularly drawing – with her four-year-old daughter Emma. Serenity For all her Michelin-starred restaurants and Gault Millau points, the woman who so casually cooks in the domain of Hans Stucki (though she never met him), cares little for acclaim. “Points and stars were never important to me,” she says. “It’s all about freedom and joy in the kitchen.”
Hangar-7 Guest Chefs Every month, a top guest chef comes to the Ikarus Restaurant in Hangar-7, at Salzburg airport, and teams up with the in-house kitchen staff to create two special menus. The guest chef for April is Tanja Grandits, from Restaurant Stucki in Basel, Switzerland. Learn more about her menus and other guest chefs at Ikarus at www.hangar-7.com or www.facebook.com/hangar 7. To book a table or make enquiries send an email to ikarus@hangar-7.com or call +43 662 2197-777.
PHOTOGRAPHY: HELGE KIRCHBERGER/RED BULL HANGAR-7 (2), JÜRG WALDMEIER/RED BULL HANGAR-7
Arctic char, carrots and apricots
MORE BODY & MIND
COOK GLOBAL LET THE WORLD BE YOUR KITCHEN
THE RECIPE
WORDS: KLAUS KAMOLZ. PHOTOGRAPHY: FOTOSTUDIO EISENHUT & MAYER
Way to Pho!
PHO BO, VIETNAM A breakfast soup that has managed to conquer the world
Pho bo, a noodle soup that’s eaten for breakfast, originates from near Hanoi but has become, as The New York Times once put it, “a national passion”. It blends French and Chinese influences: China contributed the noodles, their French colonial overlords added beef. Until then, the cow had been regarded locally only as a beast of burden and a working animal. The first Pho restaurants opened around 1920 and the soup then went on to conquer food stalls, too. But it was the Vietnam War that made Pho famous around the world: refugees took it with them wherever they went. Pho bo has now reached number 28 in a CNN list of the world’s tastiest dishes. The authentic way to eat this Vietnamese soup is with a pair of chopsticks and a plastic spoon.
Serves four For the soup’s contents: For the soup: 250g rice noodles (pho) 2ltr strong beef stock 1 bunch Thai basil 5cm ginger, sliced 1 bunch coriander 1tsp sugar 2 spring onions, sliced ½ onion, sliced 4 to 5 red chillis, sliced 1 star anise 100g bean sprouts 1 stick cinnamon 1tsp sugar 4 cloves 250g uncooked beef fillet, sliced finely ½tsp ground coriander seeds 2 limes 2 tbsp nuoc mam (fish sauce) Ip essi. Lis nis ametum irillan drercipis nos amconsenisi Chilli sauce tat niatuer susciduis nullam irit vulla con hendre do dolorperoHoisin etuer alit vero od min et lute verat, sauce quisi bla corperostrud tat nos ex ero odit, volortie erciliquisl ut ute dignim vel et vel ea feugue velestrud modolob orperilla facil ut ulla faccumsan eum Slowly warmnum the zzrit beeflore stock thetie ginger and sugar. Adddio quatin venisit modwith tat. Dui minciliquis num dipis the rest ofnisl soup ingredients simmeripit onutthe hob for nismodo around et, consequis in vulputem augaitand irit wiscilisl wismolenis 45 minutes. Strain contents through a sieve and discard, sumsan heniam niam the ad tem dolor acinisi tis alis ex ercilis ating ex esenisl then put the stock backvenim on the heat. Soak thefeum rice eugiate noodlesdoindunt ea consequi blaore dolum zzrit, sustie dolore cold water. Divide the Thai basil, coriander, spring onions, chillis, praesto od dunt aliquisis alit, conulput nim aliquipis aliquatue ea corperit bean sugar and place bowls. Next,zzrit add dui erosprouts digna at and lor suscidui bla faci tat. into Ut wisserving nisl dolor suscipsum the drained noodles. the desired amount beef fillet, add to lortinit wisl ulputat. HentTake etuerciduis am velisim inibhof esto od tissi. your bowl and cover with piping hot soup. Cut the limes into quarters, squeeze over and serve with chilli and hoisin sauces to taste.
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Life in the fast lane
ALEXIS THOMPSON Last year the 17-year-old American won three professional golf tournaments to join the world elite. And she did so with style, as her equipment demonstrates 1. Red Bull golf cart This pimped-up Red Bull cart with rear spoiler and chrome rims has a powerful sound system on board. It’s been souped up, too, so I can get around the practice course pretty quickly.
5. iPod touch (pink case) I love music and listen to it all the time when I’m travelling, practising, or warming up for competition; Linkin Park and the rapper Drake are my current favourites.
7. Alignment sticks These two red sticks are always in my golf bag when I’m practising. I lay them down on the ground on the driving range so that I can check on my swing.
10. Puma PG Tallula golf shoes The Fast-Twist spike system on these leather golf shoes with a cushioned insole guarantees maximum grip on the course.
8. Puma Duo Swing graphic shirt/pleated tech short The light, moisture-resistant CoolMax fabric has silver ions in it to make it antibacterial, and it provides UPF 50+ UV protection.
11. Puma Heritage grip bag I keep my mobile phone, passport, and make-up, of course, in my pink grip bag.
9. Red Bull peaked caps As a fashion-conscious young woman, I make sure that my peaked caps never clash with the rest of what I’m wearing when I’m on the golf course.
6. Canon EOS Rebel camera I’m a passionate amateur photographer. I use the DSLR camera to photograph the most beautiful places and golf courses in the world when I’m on my travels.
2. Cobra S2 driver (8.5°) I can hit the ball around 275m with this driver, which has a Fujikura ZCom Six shaft (S-flex).
12. Cobra golf tour bag My golf bag is very neat and tidy, with its three-point harness system. It has six pockets for clubs, eight for clothes, balls, and drinks, and a holder for visors and towels.
13. Cobra golf clubs My tools need to get me a low score for every round of golf I play: Cobra S3 3-wood (15°) with Graphite Design Quattro Tech MD6 stiff shaft; Baffler 2H (17°) wood hybrid with Aldila NV 85 stiff shaft; Cobra S2 forged-iron (3-PW) with Rifle Project X 5.0 shaft. 14. Puma Soleil trainers These trainers are light but sturdy and are what I wear when I’m travelling; they’re eerily comfortable and quick to take off and put back on again during security checks at the airport. www.alexis-thompson.com
GET THE GEAR
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3. Black Puma rain suit This jacket protects me against the rain and the wind, which is incredibly important on rounds of golf that can last for up to six hours.
ESSENTIAL PRO KIT
4. Travel cushion I’m never without this pink and white cushion on any journey. It helps me relax the way I need to, especially when I’m on those long flights to tournaments.
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WORDS: ULRICH CORAZZA. PHOTOGRAPHY: BOB CROSLIN
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more body & mind
Man at work
There’s no such thing as a day off for this active athlete. Even when he’s at sea, his spare time is spent in the gym or the pool
Leap of faith: Navratil competes in Athens, Greece
Monday Early start with warm-up at the pool including stretches, handstands and trampoline work. Practice dives from 3m, 10m and 17.5m. Then I perform in two shows.
Friday Variation on Tuesday’s workout, focusing on a single muscle group towards the end . “I try to switch it up constantly to keep my body guessing.”
Tuesday Gym: 20 minutes cycling. Squats holding weights: 100 reps. Quad machine: 32 reps increasing weight. Hamstring machine: 32 reps increasing weight. Ten front lunges on each leg holding weights. Thirty standard sit-ups, then 30 with legs raised. Twenty push-ups, then 20 reps bringing my legs up to my chest in push-up position. Chest press: 12 reps with 30kg dumbbell. Repeat routine at least three times.
Saturday A one-hour warm-up session, involving stretching, diving from 3m, 10m and 17.5m, and trampoline exercises, before two evening shows.
Wednesday A 45-minute stretch before a 10-mile run on the ship’s track. Thursday A variation on Tuesday’s workout followed by a rock climbing session on an indoor wall. “The demands this places on my core really helps improve my handstand control, which is important in cliff diving.”
work out
words: ruth morgan. photography: red bull Content pool (3)
Training wiTh The pros
High jump Michal Navratil the Czech cliff diver is a master of mid-air manoeuvres thanks to a tough training regime
In 2011 Czech high-dive champion michal navratil finished third in the red bull Cliff diving world series and this year has his eye on the top spot – which means practice, practice and more practice. when not competing he performs dive shows on a Caribbean cruise ship, which is also his training base. “I can’t sit still,” he says. “I’m always doing something active. and diving is my passion. I do cardio circuit training and gymnastics for flexibility and balance, but I stay away from heavy weights as big muscles restrict mobility while diving – it’s about balance.” what’s inside also counts. “I mix a sport multivitamin, a glucosamine supplement, a vitamin b complex and a fish oil supplement, and wash it all down with an amino acid protein smoothie.” tasty.
Sunday Same as Saturday. “Other than the shows, Sunday should be a day to relax, but my body craves activity.”
“When I’m not on the ship I have a similar routine, but I also run with my dog twice a day, go inline skating and mountain biking – all the things I can’t do at sea”
Flexible approach: Stretching is vital
Keep it fresh
Navratil stays ahead of the game and ready for anything by constantly reinventing his dives and hunting out exotic new locations to practise in “During the European winter, I try to always prepare at least one new dive for the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series competition season,” says Navratil. “I start off picturing it in my mind, and then I turn my creative visualisations into actual dives. Unfortunately, that often involves crashing, which, from the heights we train at, can be painful. But I want to constantly push myself and keep my dives as difficult as possible.” And working aboard a cruise ship means practice never gets old. “I take advantage of the many places I come across,” he says. “For example, I once found a great dive spot off a hotel roof on the Caribbean island of St Maarten – you can see the results of that on YouTube. When the ship enters a new port I’m straight off to scout out the possibilities for diving.”
www.redbullcliffdiving.com; www.youtube.com, search for ‘Michal Navratil’
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“Good songs are timeless”
All the fun of a fancy-dress fair at Cirque du Soir
Out nOw essential listening
MichaeL KiwanuKa a young man demonstrates that simple, soulful ingredients are still a recipe for great pop
party the world over
Welcome to the pleasure dome cirque du soir, London this mind-bending big-top-themed night out has a moulin rouge atmosphere, drag queens and an in-house funfair
The club was born... to create a night like no other, a club that provides more than simply drinks and music. we wanted people to leave feeling wowed. circus performances change every night, with special acts and surprises. From outside, it looks like... nothing special – and that’s the whole point. previous clientele are in the know and tell others what goes on behind the two black doors. When you walk in, you see... the rabbit hole from Alice In Wonderland. a lit-up entrance then leads guests into a moulin rouge-themed chamber. The night gets going at... 12 midnight on the dot [doors open at 11]. Our regulars are... a show-stopping mix of models, drag queens and people with broad minds. no two regulars are the same. The craziest night was... halloween last year. sold out three weeks in advance, 92
the police sent crowd control because so many more people turned up, all in costume. we decorated the club as a forest. the atmosphere was crazy. The track that makes the crowd go nuts right now is... lykke li’s I Follow Rivers. Take a break from the dance-floor at... the funfair area, complete with popcorn and candyfloss machines, and interactive installations. caricature and make-up artists join the revelry, with photo booths at hand to capture the fun. Best for nearby late-night munchies are... the restaurants in chinatown, and there’s balans on old compton street in soho for a full english breakfast. Tom Eulenberg, marketing and PR director, Cirque Du Soir Cirque Du Soir 15-21 Ganton street, London W1F 9BN, UK www.cirquedusoir.com
Michael Kiwanuka topped the BBC’s Sound Of 2012 poll
words: florian obkircher. photography: cirque du soir (2), sam butt (1)
Best CluBs
from recordings a man, a guitar, from back then. a good song. for a Such as? long time, this was the way someone pop music’s essential like sam cooke or mix, but in recent marvin gaye used times it has been Warm songs his voice. they had under threat from auto-tune effects and combining folk a language of their and ’70s soul own, their own way heavy beats. michael of phrasing. their kiwanuka is fighting vocals are usually slightly back. the 24-year-old behind the beat, which gives from north london, son the song a certain swing. of parents who escaped Is a good song enough idi amin’s uganda, writes to be successful now? folk-like songs in the absolutely. the current tradition of Van morrison success of adele, whom and bill withers. great i toured with last year, tunes wrapped up in proves that. boy bands warm 1960s and ’70s garb, might be able to palm composed only of his soulful anything off on their voice and acoustic guitar. hysterical fans, but on his first tV music show that’s got nothing to appearance, the co-billed do with music. a good björk and anthony kiedis song is just timeless. were left speechless, while What makes a good his debut album is currently song a good song? causing a worldwide emotion, abandon, a good wave of goosebumps. melody, good lyrics. if i the red bulletin: knew exactly, i’d probably Are you nostalgic? be a millionaire by now. kiwanuka: no, but old music just had class. you can barely find that level Home Again (Universal) of finesse and technical skill is out now. Tour dates at www.michaelkiwanuka.com in pop today. i learn a lot
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Take Five
“Can taught me the beat”
The music ThaT influenced The sTars
Spiritualized Jason Pierce thinks differently. his music floats, he plays concerts in the arctic circle and draws inspiration from records way beyond the usual pop canon
words: florian obkircher
Jason Pierce makes music for astronauts. he joined his first band, spacemen 3, when he was 17 years old, and with his own musical project, spiritualized, formed in 1990, he writes breathtakingly beautiful, free-floating songs. it’s music that sounds like psychedelic-era beatles experimenting in a space capsule – Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space is the apt title of spiritualized’s legendary third album, whose spirit and beauty prompted The NME to compare it in 1997 to The beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. spiritualized are the only band ever invited to perform in the cern laboratory. “but sadly,” rues Pierce, “it didn’t happen because of a scheduling conflict.”
Master of floating guitars: Jason Pierce, alias J. Spaceman
at least he is able to take some consolation from giving his music an airing under the northern lights in the arctic circle: “You can’t reinvent music, but you can put it in unusual situations and develop it further in that way,” Pierce reflects. it’s something he achieves on the new spiritualized album Sweet Heart Sweet Light. he moves deftly between experimental sounds and big melodies, between sheets of guitar and hypnotically bluesy pop songs. “The obvious masterpieces, like the beach boys’ Pet Sounds aren’t important to me,” says Pierce. “i’m inspired by forgotten treasures, overlooked pearls, the backbone of pop music so to speak.” Pierce picks out his five most inspirational records.
Link Wray – Be What You Want To Most people know Wray through songs like Rumble from the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. But he’s got more to offer than his ’50s guitar thing. This album of gospel, rock and blues is a revelation, particularly when Wray steps up to the microphone. I own a lot of records that are not waving flags, they’re these quiet ones that sit in my collection but never disappoint. Link Wray albums are like that.
Acetone – Cindy It’s a sad story, the fate of this Acetone record from my friend Richie Lee, who died much too young. It came out in 1993 and was completely overlooked – even by their record company. They wanted a Britpop album and didn’t know how to deal with Richie’s great eccentric surfcountry songs. More people should know about this record, it’s worth it.
Rocket from the Tombs – The Day the Earth Met I found this record in a shop in Detroit and right away I was riveted. Furious, astonishing proto-punk, recorded live at concerts in 1974. It’s impossible to cover the Stooges but they do them absolute justice. The members later formed bands like Pere Ubu and Dead Boys, but this here is far superior.
Can – Delay 1968 I never liked Can when I was a kid because it was so beat orientated. With Spacemen 3 I thought the beat is access and anchor. If you’re not careful it holds everything you do into the earth. So the drums were always quiet in my music. It was only later that I recognised the magic of the hypnotic Can beat. Delay 1968 isn’t one of the band’s classics but it’s a properly complete record. And it’s angular and stuffed with ideas that don’t necessarily sit next to each other comfortably. I also like the simple sleeve, and thanks to that beat, I hear drums like they’re not only beats but an instrument.
Royal Trux – Accelerator This record contains one of the greatest songs ever written: Stevie – an absolute amazing jam. Accelerator was actually was made for a major label; bands often get more conservative in that situation. But not Neil Hagerty and his band Royal Trux: the album is completely squashed. It rumbles and jolts, sometimes the sound is so messed up, it almost sounds wrong. But that’s exactly why I revere it. Every pore contains so many ideas; every riff, every melody sounds familiar but at the same time completely different from anything you’ll have ever heard on a record.
Sweet Heart Sweet Light comes out on April 13. Tour dates and sound samples at: www.spiritualized.com
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World in Action April 2012
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A GLOBAL ROUND-UP OF SOME OF OUR FAVOURITE THINGS TAKING PLACE OVER THE NEXT FEW WEEKS
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Sport 03-14.04.12, BELLS BEACH, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA
ASP (Women’s) World Tour As tradition has it, Hells Bells by AC/DC will again ring out every morning before the male and female surfers hurl themselves into the Indian Ocean. The Rip Curl Pro on Bells Beach, 110km southwest of Melbourne, began in 1961, making it the oldest surfing contest on the tour. Last year it was dominated by the Australians: in the men’s final, Joel Parkinson beat Mick Fanning and in the women’s category, Sally Fitzgibbons got the better of the USA’s Carissa Moore.
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08.04.12, LOSAIL INTERNATIONAL CIRCUIT, DOHA, QATAR
Qatar Moto Grand Prix Champion Casey Stoner is the man 3 World to beat in the first race of the Moto season at this 5.4km track, which was completed in 2004. Last year, the Australian won here, launching him on his way to a second Moto Grand Prix title. In addition to the Moto2 races, there’s the muchanticipated Moto3 series, which is being run for the first time in place of the 125cc category.
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The world’s best freestyle motocrossers are preparing to break out the aerial acrobatics for the first round of this year’s Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour. The tour will be making a total of six stops, including three new venues in California, USA, Istanbul, Turkey, and Munich, Germany. This year’s proceedings will once again get under way under the imposing skyline of Dubai. This is where last year’s winner, Spanish rider Dany Torres, wowed the judges and captivated 15,000 fans.
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FIVB Brasilia Open
05-08.04.12, AUGUSTA NATIONAL CLUB, GEORGIA, USA
There could hardly be a better place than Rio to kick off the new beach volleyball season. Men and women will do battle for prize money but more importantly, the points that will help them qualify for the London Olympics. Last year, the South American sand provided rich pickings for the American duo Rogers and Dalhausser. In the 2011 final, the 2008 Olympics gold medal winners comprehensively beat the home partnership of Emanuel and Alison by a score of 21-18 and 21-13. The ladies enjoyed more success on home soil with Brazilian team Larissa and Juliana taking the win.
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PGA Masters Tournament 2
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Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour
15-22.04.12, RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL
Sally Fitzgibbons masters the waves
The coveted Green Jacket has been fought over at one of this most beautiful of golf clubs since 1949. Last year, South African Charl Schwartzel mastered the famous course, beating the rest and securing his first Major with final tally of 14 below par. This year, a rejuvenated Tiger Woods will be on the lookout for his fifth win after finishing fourth last year.
13.04.12, DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Casey Stoner is vying for another victory in Qatar
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PHOTOGRAPHY: SIMON WILLIAMS/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, IMAGO, FIVB, DANNY CLINCH/WARNER BROS, DIEGO G. SOUTO/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, PICTUREDESK.COM
13-15.04.2012, THAILAND
Songkran
The Thai New Year celebrations are also the world’s biggest water fight. People go wild as they make their way through the streets carrying buckets, hoses and water-pistols. And the timing’s not bad either: April is the hottest month of the year in Thailand. Symbolising spiritual cleansing, the most intense celebrations can be found in the northern city of Chiang Mai, where the water pours for six days.
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18-29.04.2012, NEW YORK, USA
Tribeca Film Festival Robert De Niro brought this festival into being with two of his colleagues in 2002. It was both a creative reaction to the September 11 attacks and an attempt to breathe new life into the Tribeca district of Manhattan. And it’s been a big success. There have already been three million visitors at the 1,500 film presentations, discussion panels and concerts. The Tribeca Film Festival is the perfect place for independent directors to make new contacts and an ideal platform for them to present their works to a wider audience.
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FIVB title defenders Dalhausser and Rogers (left)
21.04.2012, BILBAO, SPAIN
BreakOnStage Head-spins, power-moves, top-rocks… At BreakOnStage in northern Spain, one of the major B-Boy competitions in Europe, international crews such as Vagabond from Paris, Fusion Rockers from Madrid and the Hoochen Crew from Brussels turn into human spinning tops. There are also dirt-jump and slackline shows, a Red Bull BC One Cypher and a closing concert from Spanish hip-hop star Rapsusklei.
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Culture
The aquatic Thai New Year celebrations
13-15.04.2012/20-22.04.2012, INDIO, CALIFORNIA, USA
30-31.03.2012, STUDIO COAST, TOKYO, JAPAN
Coachella
no doubt this is the coolest US festival. 6 There’s Even Leonardo DiCaprio and Kirsten Dunst clamour to get up close to the headliners (this year Radiohead, The Black Keys and Snoop Dogg all feature). But those without an entourage attending to their every whim should take care when choosing what to wear. Day temperatures can reach 38°C; at night it’s bitterly cold.
Red Bull BC One dancers take on Spanish B-Boys.
SónarSound Tokyo
Before the Sónar Festival turns its hometown of Barcelona into an electronic music Mecca in June, it’s making a quick trip to Japan. Digital funk monster Squarepusher’s sound system will raise the roof, as will big-screen electronic artists The Cinematic Orchestra, veteran hipster Vincent Gallo and a plethora of artists on the Red Bull Music Academy stage.
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Coachella headliners The Black Keys
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Save the Date
April & May 2012 GET DOWN, GET DIRTY AND BREAK A SWEAT FOR THE BEST FORTHCOMING EVENTS IN THE UK AND IRELAND
APRIL 28
It’s hard to take an event called The Craic Mad Mad Assault Course seriously – but that’s the point. With tyre tunnels, river crossings, mud pits and water slides, this Dublin 5km or 10km race has one entry requirement: that you can move and laugh at the same time. But there’s method in the madness: it benefits the Irish Heart Foundation. thecraiceventsco.com
Dai’s Diamond League challenge starts in Doha MAY 11
APRIL 28
Greene of the desert
Illum Sphere, aka Manchester producer and DJ Ryan Hunn, is a Red Bull Music Academy graduate attracting attention. He’s already supported the likes of Thom Yorke, Mary Ann Hobbs and Gaslamp Killer, and he runs a top club night. Hoya:Hoya, held in his home town’s Roadhouse, is an almost-monthly platform for Hunn and the Hoya crew to serve up a mix of beats to a growing number of devotees. hoyahoya.tumblr.com
In 2010, 400m hurdler Dai Greene became both Commonwealth and European champion. In 2011 he won gold at the World Championships in Daegu, Korea, after a nail-biting final. In 2012 there’s only one way in which the Welshman can further this career progression: by adding Olympic champion to his title collection. Greene’s preparations for the biggest race of his life begins in earnest in just a few weeks’ time, with the Diamond League track and field series (which, yes, he won last year). The 14-event competition takes the 25-year-old’s road to London 2012 winding across Europe and America, but his winter training will first be put to the test in the heat of Doha, Qatar.
North stars
www.diamondleague.com
MAY 7
On the ball Entries are now being accepted for Red Bull Street Style, the ultimate test of freestyle football skill. Britain’s best will battle in London for the prize of representing the nation at the World Finals in Italy in September. With a ‘3 minutes, 2 players, 1 ball’ format, ballers display their best trickery in 30-second sets. Three judges rate them on variety, control and style. Enter now at www.redbull.co.uk/streetstyle
Can he kick it?
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APRIL 28, 29
National pros The best of British two-wheeled talent is gearing up for the Red Bull Pro Nationals 2012 this month. The seven-stop race series kicks off near the village of Landrake, Cornwall, with a two-day festival of mud, music and motocross. Alongside the MX1 and MX2-class feature races, the Red Bull Elite Youth Cup and the Fuchs Silkolene 2 Stroke Championship ensure the action is non-stop. With last year’s MX1 winner Brad ‘Ando’ Anderson now racing in Australia, second-place rider, Martin Barr
Brad Anderson won the Mx1 class last year
from Northern Ireland, has his eye firmly on the top spot in 2012, while Red Bull Elite Youth Cup 2011 winner Nathan Watson is raring to make his MX2 debut. www.redbullpronationals.com
WORDS: RUTH MORGAN. PHOTOGRAPHY: RUTGER PAUW/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, OLAF PIGNATARO/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, IAN ROXBURGH/RED BULL, JOHN SHIELS
Craic-ing Up
illustration: dietmar kainrath
K a i n r at h
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do hope the new F1 Ferrari never wins a race. That is not a bad-sport declaration by a partisan Red Bulletin columnist, but an anguished confession that when Ferrari admits to an expedient aesthetic flaw, all is not right with the world. No other manufacturer of anything, anywhere has added more to the world’s thin deposits of man-made beauty than Ferrari. But here is a Ferrari, the F2012, that looks like a school project. It seems improvised, incomplete, tentative: as if it were released with two or three development stages to go. No gasps of awe at the Maranello launch. Just clucking of tongues and shaking of heads. Only beautiful cars deserve victory. Or what’s the point? It’s a basis of classical thought that beautiful means good. And it was always the engineer’s belief that if it looked right, it was right. That was a principle of Enzo Ferrari. Like the hulls of racing yachts, racing cars should respond to natural laws of fluid dynamics with fine shapes. But the rules of Formula One are so tormented with maddening detail that elegant solutions appear elusive. Even the 2012 Red Bull has an awkward stepped nose just aft of the front bulkhead, but it is more finely sculpted than the Ferrari. Still, when Adrian Newey, the Bulls’ technical chief, has to talk about recourse to styling, we are in strange territory. Rules, they used to say, are an inspiration to genius, not an impediment to it. Apparently, no more. I have always been as interested in the art of racing cars as in the racing itself. When as a child I saw my first Lotus XI, I was thrilled by its voluptuous beauty. I didn’t know the term ‘aerodynamics’ at six, but something in engineer Frank Costin’s approach to drag and lift inspired me. The Lotus 49 continued my design education. Here was a racing car as a pure graphic of functionalism: when you need neither to add nor to subtract anything from a design, you have reached perfection. “Simplify and add lightness”
Mind’s Eye
Race Seats for Aesthetes Only beautiful racing cars deserve success, says Stephen Bayley, and especially if they’re F1 Ferraris was the credo of Lotus guru Colin Chapman. And Enzo Ferrari’s must surely have been: “beautiful cars go faster”. The catalogue of truly ugly racing cars, which the 2012 F1 Ferrari joins, is small, but has instructive lessons. Often their names reveal the fault. Just as today’s oafish, super tall, City of London skyscrapers have nursery names which betray their banality, Cheese Grater and Shard, for example, ugly racing cars soon acquire dismissive tags. In 1950, Briggs Cunningham had the very bad idea of re-bodying a gross Cadillac Coupe de Ville and entering it at Le Mans. With the charm of an inflated maggot, this Caliban of a car became known as ‘Le Monstre’. It did not do well, although it did surprisingly well as a Cadillac. The following year, Giannino Marzotto, who raced with great success in a doublebreasted suit and tie, commissioned Reggiani and Fontana of Padua to design a body for his Ferrari 166 chassis. The hideous, ovoid shape became known as L’Uovo. Eggs are very good in frittata, but not as racing cars. In 1962 the
gastronomic metaphors were continued by Piero Drogo’s Breadvan Ferrari. It was so called by boorish English journalists who did not realise delivering focaccia is a proud calling in Italy. Be that as it may, it was nonetheless very difficult to look at. And when Jim Hall of Midland, Texas, scrupulously read the rules, the result was his Chaparral 2J. Two snowmobile engines were fitted to drive fans which sucked air from beneath the car. It worked, up to a point (and that point was not far from the start line, as it was very unreliable), but looked like a fast sewage works. Racing cars should make you dream of romance, not feel anxious about drains. Aesthetic errors in F1 are more rare, hence more remarkable. The March 711 had the aspect of a failed sex toy, a description made more sinister because of sponsorship by STP, a high-performance lubricant. Then there was the Ensign N179 with its ziggurat of rectangular nose intakes. The Brabham BT34 resembled a violently dismembered lobster, claws stretched across its front elevation. And when it comes to seeing where close-reading of the rules takes you, the prosecution evidence is the six-wheeled Tyrrell P34, a cynical exploitation of the letter-of-the-law whose ungainliness drained enchantment from a sporting world that once accommodated the lovely Maserati 250F and Alfetta 159. Ugly racing cars are a moral outrage. Motor racing may be on the edges of ethical acceptability in these straitened times, but a justification of the excesses involved has always been that the cars are so very beautiful. But there’s something else. Serge Gainsbourg, the grizzled and permanently drunk chanteur, said with maximum Parisian weariness: “Ugliness is superior to beauty because it lasts longer”. Maybe, but I doubt that it goes faster. Stephen Bayley is an award-winning writer and a former director of the Design Museum in London
THE RED BULLETIN United Kingdom: The Red Bulletin is published by Red Bulletin GmbH Editor-in-Chief Robert Sperl Deputy Editor-in-Chief Alexander Macheck General Managers Alexander Koppel, Rudolf Theierl Executive Editor Anthony Rowlinson Associate Editor Paul Wilson Contributing Editor Andreas Tzortzis Chief Sub-editor Nancy James Deputy Chief Sub-editor Joe Curran Production Editor Marion Wildmann Chief Photo Editor Fritz Schuster Creative Photo Director Susie Forman Deputy Photo Editors Valerie Rosenburg, Catherine Shaw, Rudolf Übelhör Creative Director Erik Turek Art Director Kasimir Reimann Design Patrick Anthofer, Martina de Carvalho-Hutter, Miles English, Esther Straganz Staff Writers Ulrich Corazza, Werner Jessner, Ruth Morgan, Florian Obkircher, Arkadiusz Piatek, Andreas Rottenschlager Corporate Publishing Boro Petric (head), Christoph Rietner, Nadja Zele (chief-editors); Dominik Uhl (art director); Markus Kucera (photo director); Lisa Blazek (editor); Christian Graf-Simpson, Daniel Kudernatsch (iPad) Head of Production Michael Bergmeister Production Wolfgang Stecher (mgr), Walter Omar Sádaba Repro Managers Clemens Ragotzky (head), Claudia Heis, Nenad Isailovic, Karsten Lehmann, Josef Mühlbacher, Thomas Posvanc Finance Siegmar Hofstetter, Simone Mihalits Marketing & Country Management Barbara Kaiser (head), Stefan Ebner, Elisabeth Salcher, Lukas Scharmbacher, Johanna Troger; Peter Knehtl, Martina Ripper (Design); Klaus Pleninger (sales); Peter Schiffer (subscriptions); Nicole Glaser (subscriptions and sales marketing) A product of the Advertising enquiries Deirdre Hughes +35 (0) 3 86 2488504. The Red Bulletin is published in Austria, France, Germany, Ireland, Kuwait, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland, the UK and the USA. Website www.redbulletin.com. Head office: Red Bulletin GmbH, Am Brunnen 1, A-5330 Fuschl am See, FN 287869m, ATU63087028. UK office: 155-171 Tooley Street, London SE1 2JP, +44 (0) 20 3117 2100. Austrian office: Heinrich-Collin-Strasse 1, A-1140 Vienna, +43 (1) 90221 28800.The Red Bulletin (Ireland): Susie Dardis, Richmond Marketing, 1st Floor Harmony Court, Harmony Row, Dublin 2, Ireland +35 386 8277993. Printed by Prinovis Liverpool Ltd, www.prinovis.com Write to us: email letters@redbulletin.com
THE NEXT ISSUE OF THE RED BULLETIN IS OUT ON MAY 2, 18 & 20
ILLUSTRATION: VON
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