The Red Bulletin October 2013 – UK

a beyond the ordinary magazine

october 2013

HIGH SEAS Ups And Downhills At The Mountain Bike World Championships

the wild one Elliphant

And The Reboot Of Pop

The world’s Fastest Boats

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CONFIDENT WHEN IT MATTERS

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THE WORLD OF RED BULL

October 74 leap of faith

Shane McConkey died doing what he loved.

This is the story of what happened next

Welcome

You will never forget Elliphant. She is the woman on the cover of this issue, and quite possibly the next queen of world pop. This month we’re blessed with several stories of world’s best, such as the men who race and maintain the ‘F1 on water’ that is the World Powerboat Championship. It has the same high-octane competition as Formula One, but with less fanfare and, some would say, more risk.

Back on dry land, we get up close and personal “I realised I with the world’s best mountain bikers as they wanted music to be my life, gather in South Africa for their sport’s world championship, and find that home advantage isn’t not just some side project” always what it’s cracked up to be. Plus, we’ve got ice driving in Finland, the secrets of success on the Elliphant golf course, the biggest failures in box office history and much more. We hope you enjoy the issue.

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the red bulletin

THE WORLD OF RED BULL

at a glance Bullevard 20 news Sport and culture on the quick 24 me and my body Danny MacAskill 26 kit evolution In-car technology 28 Where’s your head at? Star of Thor and Rush Chris Hemsworth 32 winning formula Surfing science 34 lucky numbers Box office flops

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Features 36 Elliphant

smokin’ on the water

Behind the scenes of a world championship grand prix in one of motorsports’ greatest challenges: Class 1 offshore powerboat racing

42 Records And Breaks

Ireland’s word champion cyclist Martyn Irvine is back in the saddle

44 Kings Of Leon

cover photography: miko lim. photography: alfredo martinez/red bull content pool, miko lim, simon palfrader, nathan gallagher/red bull content pool, getty images (2), sven martin

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Pre-gig with the Tennessee rockers

46 The Boats That Rock Life on the edge at the World Powerboat Championship

54 Into The Night British clubbing 1979-2013 62 The Hot Stepper

92 Me and My BOdy

Scottish street trials rider Danny MacAskill has learned the hard way that glory doesn’t come without pain

The model-turned-MC leading the charge of new Swedish pop stars

on location in auckland

Musician Nick Dwyer shares his tips on where you can find the best food and music in New Zealand’s City of Sails

The world’s most successful stair runner on why he never takes the lift

64 Trophy Hunters

The best mountain bikers chase championship glory in South Africa

72 Journey Into Space

Intergalactic electro from Nanu Nanu

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74 Action Movie

Shane McConkey’s life on film

Action

54 a wheel test

The world’s best mountain bikers head to South Africa to fight for championship glory. One local hero refuses to budge the red bulletin

party times

From post-punk and rare groove to superclubs, drum ’n’ bass and grime: British clubbing through the ages

86 87 88 89 92 94 95 98

get the gear Eco-friendly equipment party Montenegro nightlife travel Ice driving in Finland training Get fit for golf My City A musician’s Auckland Playlist Jack Johnson save the Date Events for your diary time warp Man v flight, 130 years ago

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contributors Who’s on board this issue

The Red Bulletin United Kingdom, 2308-5894

Published by Red Bull Media House GmbH General Manager Wolfgang Winter Publisher Franz Renkin

Caroline Ryder

Bill Brewster In anticipation of the Red Bull Music Academy’s takeover of the London Eye to celebrate British club culture on November 14, who better to give us an overview of the last 35 years of nightlife in the UK? A former chef and football pundit, the Englishman has been a DJ for 25 years and, with Frank Broughton, he has written three books, one of which, Last Night A DJ Saved My Life, was voted, number 45 on a list of the 50 greatest music books by The Observer.

He recalls the raves, debunks the door policy myths and flashes back to the floor on page 54.

Noel ebdon A UK expat who has been living in Dubai for the last 16 years, Ebdon has worked as deputy editor of the Middle East edition of Car magazine, and editor of a golf magazine, a boating and yachting title and two men’s magazines.

For this month’s issue of The Red Bulletin, he uncovered the glamour and the grit of top-level powerboat racing (page 46).

Ebdon is the father of a one-yearold girl who he and Mrs Ebdon, “a fellow petrolhead”, he says, “hope will be the first female Formula One world champion”.

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The British writer’s work takes her deep into both fashion and music, with the resulting stories appearing in such in disparate places as The Village Voice and Cosmopolitan.

This made her the perfect foil for Elliphant, the on-the-move Swedish model-turned-MC. “It’s impossible to ignore her when she’s in the room,” says Ryder of her subject. “Her star quality is underpinned by an unself-conscious, almost naive, sincerity, and she curses like a sailor.” Read the rest on page 36.

Editor-in-Chief Robert Sperl Deputy Editor-in-Chief Alexander Macheck UK & Ireland Editor Paul Wilson Creative Director Erik Turek Art Directors Kasimir Reimann, Miles English Chief Photo Editor Fritz Schuster Production Editor Marion Wildmann Chief Sub-Editor Nancy James Deputy Chief Sub-Editor Joe Curran Assistant Editors Ruth Morgan, Ulrich Corazza, Werner Jessner, Florian Obkircher, Arek Pia˛tek, Andreas Rottenschlager, Daniel Kudernatsch (app), Christoph Rietner (app) Contributing Editor Stefan Wagner Design Martina de Carvalho-Hutter, Silvia Druml, Kevin Goll, Carita Najewitz, Esther Straganz Photo Editors Susie Forman (Creative Photo Editor), Ellen Haas, Eva Kerschbaum, Catherine Shaw, Rudi Übelhör Repro Managers Clemens Ragotzky (manager), Karsten Lehmann, Josef Mühlbacher Head of Production Michael Bergmeister Production Wolfgang Stecher (manager), Walter O Sádaba, Christian Graf-Simpson (app) Printed by Prinovis Liverpool Ltd www.prinovis.com Finance Siegmar Hofstetter, Simone Mihalits Marketing & Country Management Stefan Ebner (manager), Stefan Hötschl, Elisabeth Salcher, Lukas Scharmbacher, Sara Varming

ANDREAS ROTTENSCHLAGER In his role as Assistant Editor of The Red Bulletin, the Austrian wordsmith has watched hundreds of BASE-jumpers leap from a bridge, followed the lunch wallahs of Mumbai and chased the God Particle at CERN. This month, he is so good we name him twice: as author of profiles of Kings of Leon (page 44) and world-leading stairrunner Thomas Dold (page 62).

“They are down-to-earth guys who will talk about anything. He is a perfectionist always looking for ways to improve,” he says.

“ It’s impossible to ignore Elliphant when she’s in the room and she curses like a sailor” caroline ryder

Marketing Design Julia Schweikhardt, Peter Knethl Distribution Klaus Pleninger, Peter Schiffer Advertising Enquiries UK: Georgia Howie +44 (0) 203 117 2000, georgia.howie@uk.redbulletin.com Ireland: Deirdre Hughes 00 353 862488504, redbulletin@richmondmarketing.com

Advertising Placement Sabrina Schneider O∞ce Management Manuela Gesslbauer, Kristina Krizmanic, Anna Schober Distribution The Red Bulletin is published in Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, Ireland, Kuwait, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland, UK and USA Website www.redbulletin.com Head office Red Bull Media House GmbH, Oberst-Lepperdinger-Strasse 11-15, A-5071 Wals bei Salzburg, FN 297115i, Landesgericht Salzburg, ATU63611700 UK office 155-171 Tooley Street, London SE1 2JP, +44 (0) 20 3117 2100 The Red Bulletin Ireland Richmond Marketing, 1st Floor Harmony Court, Harmony Row, Dublin 2, Ireland +35 386 8277993 Write to us: letters@redbulletin.com

the red bulletin

Tuam otu s , Fren c h P o lyn e s ia

Vantage Point With apologies to Manu Bouvet and surfers everywhere, this might be one of those times when the photographer is more adventurous than the subject. “I took off in my motorised paraglider from an atoll in the middle of the Pacific,” says Ben Thouard. “I’d fly out, see a set of waves, then follow them in. Manu sees a set is coming because I’m getting closer to him.” The Frenchmen’s unspoken teamwork extends to stress management. “I didn’t tell him about the shark under his board or my broken engine.” www.benthouard.com Photography: Red Bull Illume/Ben Thouard

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An n ec y, Fr an c e

Out On A Limb Low tech high up was how Pierre Augier and Tim Alongi got the shot. “I used a football shin pad to attach my camera to Tim’s leg,” says Augier, a French lensman. Alongi is an aerobatic paraglider who finished third in his sport’s 2011 world cup and is currently among the best in the world. Augier’s portfolio is thick with action sports imagery, but he is also available for weddings. If you and your intended are the sort to say ‘I do’ before your chutes open/the bungee cord tightens, then he’s your man. www.pierreaugier.com Photography: Red Bull Illume/Pierre Augier

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B o u ld e r , U SA

Dirt Dished “Sometimes,” says Dave Trumpore, “the only way to capture the fine details of the action is to literally stick your face and camera right up in it.”

There’s mud in your eye. Until recently, the American would have been on the bike and not behind it. His decision to pick up a camera after retiring from pro mountain biking means he sees the angles that other photographers could not compute.

Shooting Joey Schusler on home turf in Colorado was, flying rocks aside, a perfect assignment. www.davetrumporephoto.com Photography: Red Bull Illume/Dave Trumpore

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c ali fo r n ia , U SA

pipe dream Think ‘log flume photo’ and you’ll see drenched theme-park goers pulling faces at a camera before splashdown. Then there’s this. Every 10 years, they drain the channel that carries felled trees down the mountains at Tehachapi. Geoff Rowley learned when it would next be empty, and called Anthony Acosta: “We’re going.” Four hours’ drive north of Los Angeles, at 4am, they had the place to themselves. Rowley worked the angles with his skateboard, Acosta did the same with his camera. A once-a-decade shot. www.instagram.com/aacostaa Photo: Red Bull Illume/Anthony Acosta

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Bullevard Sport and culture on the quick

Singular sounds Daft Punk’s helmets give them a signature look, but it’s not unique (Deadmau5, etc).

It’s safe to say that the below bands are true one-offs

Roll and Rock Ezequiel Galasso gives broken skateboards a new lease of life as electric guitars

The Zimmers Fifteen members aged 67 to 89 make these venerable vocalists the world’s oldest band. They’ve covered LMFAO and Beastie Boys.

The Vegetable Orchestra Tubers, not tubas: this 12-piece outfit makes new instruments for every concert, after which they cook up a delicious veggie soup.

Every passionate skater knows the deal: it’s easy to smash five decks a year. In 2011, Argentinian instrument maker Ezequiel Galasso was approached by pro skater Gianfranco de Gennaro with a stack of splintered planks and a bright idea: add a fretboard to a messed board and make a guitar.

Galasso can make an entire sixstring from two decks. Turns out, a skateboard is the perfect length and shape for a guitar neck. Ever since Mike McCready of Pearl Jam played one of Galasso’s creations at a live concert, demand for his instrument has been extremely high. But he hasn’t gone over to automated production: quality is important to him. If you want one of his $1,000 guitars, you’ll have to contact him personally.

Skate work: two decks make one guitar

www.facebook.com/galassoguitars Anamanaguchi Three New Yorkers who make pop punk rock using sounds from a Nintendo Game Boy and its big brother NES console.

Caninus Hard drums, distorted guitars... and two bulldogs on the mic.

Sadly, Basil had to be put down in 2011 and the band ceased to exist.

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phototicker

EVERY shot ON TARGET

Have you taken a picture with a Red Bull flavour? Email it to us at: phototicker@redbulletin.com Every month we print a selection, with our favourite pic awarded a limited-edition Sigg bottle. Tough, functional and well-suited to sport, it features The Red Bulletin logo.

Whistler

Martin Söderström hits the heights on a BMX in Canada at Red Bull Joyride.

Dale Tidy the red bulletin

$torie$

The three best-selling books in the history of literature

The little studio that could: the most unlikely, and one of the most crowded corners of music history

a tale of two cities Charles Dickens’ masterpiece, released in 1859.

Copies published: 200 million.

bilder: rex features, picturedesk.com, mr. gif, yael gottlieb, skate guitar, erwin polanc/red bull content pool, jay nemeth/red bull content pool

Cradle of hits Muscle Shoals is a one-horse town surrounded by cornfields in the middle of nowhere in Alabama. But, as a new documentary shows, music history was forged in this sleepy little backwater back in the 1970s. The Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Wilson Pickett: they all went there to record hits. Keith Richards, one of the many legends who make an appearance in Muscle Shoals, goes so far as to describe it as rock ’n’ roll heaven. Chief among its attractions was a group of four young local musicians who earned a reputation as the hottest rhythm section in the world. In the film, the four men, now of pensionable age, explain how it happened. Fellow veterans, like Richards, Mick Jagger and Jimmy Cliff pay tribute, as do a slew of younger musicians from Bono to The Black Keys. Regardless of age, they all love the Muscle Shoals sound.

Muscle Shoals is out now; www.muscleshoalsmovie.com

the lord of the rings The one with moredeveloped Hobbits.

Since three vols of 1954-5: 150m copies.

The Little prince Over 140m copies sold of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s 1943 fable.

Frankfurt Book Fair: Oct 9-13

“IT HAD TO HAPPEN”

A year after Felix Baumgartner’s historic leap, a new film tells the inside story of Red Bull Stratos the red bulletin: How has life changed for you since?

Felix Baumgartner: My private life has definitely suffered. I don’t find it as easy now to go to for a drink with friends. But I’ve built up a network of interesting people to hang around with.

On the personal level, I’m the same guy I always was.

Mission To The Edge Of Space: The Inside Story Of Red Bull Stratos tells a tale of great pressure... ...and of the great relief afterwards. The strain while we were preparing and during the actual jump was at the limits of what a human being can take. But I never doubted myself. I wanted to go to the stratosphere and come back safely. It had to happen.

What do you think now when you look back at the footage?

Sometimes it freaks me out.

I think to myself: how did you manage to deal with all the ups and downs! And also that I’ll never embark on a project of that magnitude ever again. But actually, if something came along which fascinated me as much as Red Bull Stratos did, then, well, I’d have to do it again.

What would you like those who see the documentary to take away from it?

That you can make whatever you have in your head come true – if you give your everything for it to happen.

The documentary will be available online from October 14 at: rdio.com/redbullstratos

October 14, 2012: on his way into history

WE HAVE A WINNER!

Yamaguchi Unseasonal Japanese weather made Red Bull Kart Fight wet work.

Jason Halayko the red bulletin

Seignosse Brianna Cope of the US prepares her board for the Swatch Girls Pro in the south of France.

Laurent Masurel

Linz

At Austria’s Gugl Games, cyclist Tom Oehler v Olympic 400m hurdles champ Felix Sanchez: Tom won.

Enrique Castro Mendivil

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Bullevard

Music for Movember: Koan Sound

Hair today, gone tomorrow

The long run For the 34th year, thousands of runners will line up to take on 26 miles of winding Georgian streets for the annual Dublin Marathon. Anyone struggling around the one-lap course will be pleased to hear that teams of physical therapists will be on hand to massage the aches away before, after or during the race, to help people over the finish line on Merrion Square North. www.dublinmarathon.ie

Dublin Marathon: Ireland’s largest

Bergen

Daredevil go-karters hurtle through the Norwegian mountains at Red Bull Soapbox Race.

Vegard Breie

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Silverstone

Racquet man: Karim Darwish

Hard hitter

Egyptian squash pro Karim Darwish is ranked five in the world and has been top 10 since 2007.

He’s better with batter but banter is banned Child’s play “Squash is popular in Egypt, second only to soccer. I started playing when I was seven and loved it.

I’m 32 now and just as passionate.

I still train like I’m 15 years old, for over 30 hours a week. It’s my job, my hobby, my life.”

London calling “Since the age of 10, I’ve often travelled to the UK to compete.

I love fish and chips. The way they cook the fish is special – you can’t find that anywhere else. Plus I’m a big Chelsea fan, so I always try to catch a match.”

Winning dream “James Willstrop, of England,

Spanish KTM rider Jorge Martin saddles up at the start of the Red Bull Rookies Cup. Gold & Goose

world number two, beat me this year, so I’m determined to win at the World Championships in Manchester this month. He has the home advantage, but squash crowds are fair in their support.

They applaud all good play.”

Little smasher “My wife is also a squash player, so our baby son, Omar, should have good playing genes. We’ve had to ban squash talk at home, though. Even we found that seven hours on the court followed by match analysing becomes boring after a year or so.” www.mensworldsquash championship2013.com

Haarlemmermeer The Red Bull Studio Connect stage at Mysteryland festival in Holland.

Arenda De Hoop the red bulletin

Words: Ruth morgan. photography: Koan Sound, Picturedesk.com, Tomislav Moze/Red Bull Content Pool

There’s a new way to support Movember, the event that asks men (and any able women) to grow hair on their upper lip for one month, and it is music to the ears of those lacking in facial follicles. Leeds-based label Inspected Records are selecting their top artists, including Koan Sound, Gemini and Asa, to create a track to benefit the charity, recorded in Red Bull Studios, London. Just download it, from early November, to be a part of things and feel less bad about your fur-free face. www.redbullstudios.com/london

www.marmot.eu l facebook.com/marmot.mountain.europe Klaus Kranebitter, Marmot PRO: Benny Purner Ice climbing – Norwegian style

Marmot Isotherm Hoody

Bullevard

Touch a nerve

me and my body

danny macaskill

The Scottish street trials rider, 27, has wowed millions online with his incredible biking abilities, but has learned the hard way that glory doesn’t come without pain. And a lot of outtakes

1 Armed and

3

“I tore a disc in my back filming a 12ft jump in 2009, but I didn’t realise immediately. I got bad pain in my back and my left knee too, as it was pressing on the nerve. After an operation to repair it in 2012, it took 10 months to heal.”

Pop your collar

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“Three times in six months I broke my left collarbone. First by falling on a pump track, then tripping up a kerb – I had a metal plate screwed to my clavicle that time. The third was on a downhill mountain bike in California. It was raining hard and I lost it, went over the bars and down a 10ft drop.”

dangerous

2 Heel hell

“I’ve broken my right foot twice, my left foot three times and torn ankle ligaments. It happens when you jump down off something backwards and land on an uneven surface. It doesn’t feel as bad as bruising your heels with an impact, though: that’s excruciating.”

Fowl play

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“This is an odd one: I was filming in rural Vancouver in 2011 and less than 30 minutes in I crashed off my trials bike. As I landed, my left foot trod in goose shit, slipped and twisted, tearing my meniscus. I needed keyhole surgery to fix it.”

redbull.com/imaginate

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the red bulletin

words: ruth morgan. photography: chris parsons

“A couple of years ago, riding a kids’ BMX in a dirt jump competition, I fell and now there’s a pin in my right wrist.

Then I crashed my mountain bike and got stones lodged in my forearm muscle. I needed an op and a lot of stitches.”

illustration: dietmar kainrath

Bullevard

the red bulletin

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Bullevard

Kit Evolution

Drive Time

How a wheel and a dash became a multifunction infotainment nerve centre

Holding Pattern

What better conjures a vintage sports car dashboard than a trim steering wheel with thin spokes? Beautiful to look at, a workout for the biceps and no thought whatsoever to safety in the event of a collision.

Tune In

Hot stuff

Everyone smoked back then, everywhere, all the time. The cigarette lighter assumes a suitably prominent position, conspicuously labelled CL.

1969

Mazda 110 Cosmo Sport

This avant-garde, two-seater coupĂŠ was the dream sports car of its time, officially sold only in Japan, hence the right-hand-side steering wheel. There was something special in the futuristic lines of this car with its Wankel engine, a status reflected in the interior: round panel instruments and wooden steering wheels were reserved for rare and expensive vehicles. This was the peak of automotive luxury as the 1970s loomed.

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A radio didn’t come as standard at the time. Even when you shelled out for in-car entertainment, such as the Sharp model built in here, you would not get stereo sound.

Mazda 110 S Cosmo Sport (1967-1972): the first production car with a two-rotor Wankel rotary engine; it managed 110hp

the red bulletin

Special Project The head-up display is projected on a clear panel. Readouts appear to be 1.5m away from the driver. That allows the eye to focus more quickly as it switches between street and data.

Hi-Tech Five

A dial to command the infotainment system, surrounded by five buttons – one per finger.

This means the driver can control applications without looking away from the road.

Easy Does It

photos : kurt keinrath, kurt printer (1)

The steering wheel is a multifunction console. It lets you operate a mobile phone via Bluetooth, and radar cruise control, too, which maintains a constant distance from the car in front.

2013

Net Result

Plug in a smartphone and bring the Internet into your car.

Mazda3

Today’s automotive designers and strategists face a challenge: how to relay a wealth of information to the driver without diverting attention from the road? Mazda3 manages this balancing act with a 7in screen, well-positioned instruments and projected head-up display. The interior also has to meet the highest standards for comfort, safety and ergonomics.

the red bulletin

The new Mazda3 features Skyactiv technology, conserving fuel while increasing driving pleasure www.mazda.com

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Bullevard

Where’s Your Head At?

Chris hemsworth It’s hammer time again as the mighty Thor returns to cinemas this month.

But what about that blond lad who plays him? What else has he got going on?

Change Gear

A Hem!

Out now is Rush, with Hemsworth as James Hunt, duelling with Niki Lauda for the 1976 F1 title. Its director, Ron Howard, says it will drive (yes!) new opportunity for the Hemster: “For Chris… a tremendous breakthrough.

People in Hollywood have seen him in the movie and offered him dramatic roles.”

Christopher Thomas Hemsworth was born in Melbourne, Australia, on August 11, 1983. His family moved between city, the outback – among, he says, “crocodiles and buffalo” – and Phillip Island, where he, older brother Luke and younger brother Liam, also now actors, perfected their surfing.

Soap Up

Los Hemsworth hermanos have all appeared in Aussie TV soap Neighbours. Chris also did three-and-a-half years on rival venture Home and Away, playing Kim Hyde.

Poor Kim: jilted at the altar; Pa may have offed Ma; stalker-killer girlfriend died in a gas explosion caused by candles on a wedding cake.

See Also

With films in the can, Hemsworth only has a dozen film credits; three as Thor, including box office smash The Avengers, and two as George Kirk, Captain’s dad, in the new Star Trek movies.

Of the rest, thriller A Perfect Getaway is not a perfect movie, but it’s well worth seeking out.

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Oh God

“I’ll find a way to save us all,” says Thor, aka Hemsworth, all cape, chainmail and flowing locks in Thor 2: The Dark World, released worldwide from October 30. With a chin like his, you believe he can take anything on it. Thor point: brother Liam also auditioned for the part (they’re still pals).

Michael Mann (Heat, Ali, Collateral) has just finished filming Cyber, a hacking thriller with Hemsworth in the lead. After that, our man has Avengers 2, due in 2015, and, we imagine, quality time with wife Elsa Pataky, who plays Elena in the Fast & Furious movies, and oneyear-old daughter India Rose.

www.marvel.com/thor the red bulletin

Words: Paul Wilson. Illustration: Ryan Inzana

Hack To The Future

/redbulletin

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Bullevard

HArd & FAST

Top performers and winning ways from around the globe

German F1 driver Sebastian Vettel returned from his summer holiday to win both the Belgian and Italian Grands Prix.

Listen up

Victory in the MX1GP of Great Britain gave Italian Tony Cairoli his fifth Motocross World Championship in a row.

Advice from band-blowing-up Blitz Kids: don’t follow advice Joe James, 25, is the frontman and main songwriter in Cheshire pop-rock four-piece Blitz Kids. After a 2013 that saw the band play some of the best UK festivals and sign a new record deal, he’s celebrating ignoring his careers adviser. the red bulletin: The Blitz Kids was the original name for the New Romantic movement in the 1980s. You don’t seem like that sort of guy. joe james: No, we took the name from this little gang my granddad was in as a kid. When the bombs were being dropped on London they’d sneak out to kick a ball around instead of going to the shelter. It was highly irresponsible, but a cool punk rock attitude.

This year has been pretty good to Blitz Kids. You’ve played to huge crowds, toured Europe and signed to Red Bull Records.

Yeah, it’s all been immense. Red Bull Records kept their eye on us for a while, which was good. We weren’t ready to sign to a big label a couple of years ago. We were treating it as fun.

You’re starting a UK tour this month, supporting Mallory Knox, playing some new tracks from your forthcoming second album, out in 2014. Is the new sound different?

It’s more positive. We’re not a preachy band, but part of the reason the album’s called The Good Youth is the message that you can actually do what you love as a job. At school, careers advisers just tell you to be a builder or a dentist.

Daniel Sordo of Spain secured his first win in the World Rally Championship – after 10 years of trying – by a margin of 53 seconds in the Rally of Germany.

A dream run in the Mountain Bike World Championships in South Africa gave the UK’s Rachel Atherton her second downhill gold.

www.blitzkidsofficial.com

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the red bulletin

Words: Ruth Morgan. Photography: Red Bull Records, Reuters, Ray Archer/KTM/Red Bull Content pool, McKlein/Red BUll Content Pool, Picturedesk.com. illustration: dietmar Kainrath

Blitz Kids (from left): Matt Freer, Jono Yates, Joe James and Nic Montgomery

Bullevard

winning formula

The Big Issue

break points “Wave particles usually oscillate in either the direction of propagation, like air particles in sound waves, or transversely, like a plucked string,” says physics brain and sports scientist Dr Martin Apolin. “But waves of water oscillate circularly, which you can see very well if you watch a floating cork (fig. 1). The particles underwater also move circularly, but with a decreasing radius as the depth increases.

“Due to this circular movement, deep-water waves are always cycloid in form – think of what happens if you place a dot on a rotating wheel and observe it move (fig. 2).

Point a in the diagram shows the dot at half radius; point b on the edge of the wheel. Waves of water have precisely the same form as shown in fig. 2, but in reverse.

“Thus we can extrapolate the maximum ratio of h, wave height, to λ, wave length. The length of the wave is equivalent to the circumference of the wheel, ie the rolling distance of one revolution, such that U = λ = 2r π, and the maximum height is h = 2r. Therefore λ = 2r π = h π.

For a wave to reach 8m in height, as in the picture, it has to be at least 8πm long, which is about 25m.

“To calculate speed in deep water, use vdepth = √ gλ/(2 π) where g is gravitational acceleration (9.81m/s²). So a wave of 25m in length is coming in at 6.25m/s, or about 23kph. The surfer needs to already be travelling at pretty much the same speed if he doesn’t want the wave to roll by him, which is why big-wave surfers often use jetskis to bring themselves up to speed.

“Water closer to shore is shallower, and particle movement becomes elliptical (see picture). The speed of shallow water waves is vshallow = √ gd , where d is the depth of the water. As the water gets shallower, the lower particles are constantly slowed down, while the upper particles move on unhindered. The wave breaks on the beach because of this inertia. If you fall, you run the risk of being dragged under the wave by the movement of the water. This means that big-wave surfers need one thing more than anything else: perfect timing.”

Point break What does a big wave feel like? “It’s like jumping out of a plane,” says Australian boardsman Ross Clarke-Jones.

“The acceleration, the centrifugal forces. You think it’s going to strip the fibreglass off your surfboard.”

The big-wave conquerors: www.stormsurfers.com.au

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Words: Martin Apolin. photography: storm surfers 3d/red bull content pool. Illustration: Mandy Fischer

How do giant waves form? And what’s it like to surf them? Men who know speak out

Brave: big-wave veteran Ross ClarkeJones at Ship Stern Bluff off the coast of Tasmania

Bullevard

lucky numbers

box office flops

Or, if you will, Unlucky Numbers: movies that wrote cheques their audiences could not cash

2,000

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Length of shoot: 18 days.

Production costs: $2 million.

Box office takings: $30. The independent US thriller Zyzzyx Road, starring Katherine Heigl of Knocked Up and Grey’s Anatomy, drew precisely six cinemagoers to the Highland Park Village Theater in Dallas in February 2006. Union rules led to a release; hiring the theatre cost $1,000.

Crystals and...

Katherine Heigl’s road to hell

120,000 Matthew McConaughey in Sahara

...Tars Tarkas from John Carter

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With 1,800 costumes, including a wedding dress studded with 120,000 Swarovski crystals, and over 2,000 visual effects, sci-fi epic John Carter (2012) cost $250 million to make: the fourth most expensive cinema production ever. A worldwide box office take of $282m seems good, but with at least $100m spent on promotion, the Red Planet movie is still in the red.

20.4

6

In 2011, animated sci-fi movie Mars Needs Moms gave Disney the greatest financial headache in its history. On its opening weekend, it pulled in just $7 million, against the $150m it cost to make (it eventually scraped $39m worldwide). A large part of the cost was the six-week motion-capture process lead actor Seth Green had to endure.

For the 2005 adventure Sahara – a film that would go on to lose $78 million or $105m, depending on which side of a subsequent court case you favour – 10 writers were used, at a cost of almost $4m.

About $240,000 was needed to placate local officials on location shoots in Morocco. A 46-second sequence of a plane crash, costing $2m, was cut from the final film.

Millions up in smoke: Cutthroat Island

Crash landing: Mars Needs Moms

On the morning of March 6, 1836, 200 Texans fought in vain against 1,800 Mexicans at the Alamo Mission, in a battle lasting six hours. To recreate it on film for The Alamo (2004), took over a month of filming on the biggest set in US cinematic history: some 20.4 hectares, about 30 soccer pitches. The $107 million movie brought in $26m at the worldwide box office. the red bulletin

words: ulrich corazza. photography: corbis (3), picturedesk.com (3), getty images

Flown in for the shoot, in Malta and Thailand, of Cutthroat Island (1995): horses from Austria, carpenters from England, stuntmen from Poland. Also on the bill: 2,000 costumes, 309 firearms, 620 swords, 250 daggers and 100 axes. Oh, and over $1 million for two full-size replica pirate ships.

Final budget: $98m. Recouped at the US cinemas: $10m.

2

Dennis Quaid in The Alamo

Marc Webber for Pepe Jeans London

This isn’t your momma’s ABBA. Meet Ellinor Olovsdotter, aka Elliphant, the model-turnedMC leading the charge of new Swedish pop stars Words: Caroline Ryder Photography: Miko Lim Styling: Holly Copeland

W E N GIRL 36

“ sweden was so rude to me. when I left sweden is when I became a human being�

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the red bulletin

the red bulletin

E

llinor Olovsdotter has the flu.

The rising star known as Elliphant often gets sick when she visits LA, she explains, raspy-voiced and half naked, completely unself-conscious about her body. The globe-trotting former model from the wrong side of the tracks is part of a Nordic new wave of fierce dance-pop divas, alongside fellow Swedes Icona Pop, Robyn, Lykke Li and MĂ˜ who are pushing the pop envelope.

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Her music is inspired by jamaicaN Dancehall, dirty dubstep, ’90s rock and techno

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the red bulletin

In interview, Ellinor Olovsdotter is subdued. It’s on stage, in music videos and during a photoshoot for The Red Bulletin that she really comes to life as Elliphant, a wild, whirling, joyous performer who infatuates the camera with her exuberance.

It’s this sense of self that informs her music. Inspired by Jamaican dancehall, dirty dubstep, ’90s rock and techno, her sound has drawn comparisons to M.I.A. and Santigold. She’s also been compared to Rihanna, a likeness with which Elliphant isn’t entirely comfortable.

“I’m a bit surprised by that because I would never have thought that people would think that we were alike,” she told Anthem magazine this year. “What I do is more experiential. It might be because of the way I use the words so it sounds like I have a Jamaican Patois dialect.”

With her ethereal, Jane Birkin-esque beauty and expletive-tinged honesty, Elliphant brings more to the table than your average pop princess. For starters, she’s lived a real life, growing up in the gritty Stockholm suburb of Katarina-Sofia, her mother a single parent with two kids by two different men, her father with four children from three different women.

“My mom was a junkie,” she says. “She had a lot of problems. Sweden was so rude to my mom. So rude to me. The Swedish system killed me. When I left Sweden for the first time, that’s when I turned into a human being. If I had never left and travelled places, this person, Elliphant, would never exist. I would have been angry. I would probably have two babies and be on drugs right now.’’

Despite the hardships she suffered growing up, Elliphant says music was always a big thing in her family.

“My mom loved music and she was into the whole ’90s thing,” she says.

“I was pumped with music; we would stand there waiting for her for hours while she was going through albums in record stores. She bought maybe 10 CDs a week when I was a kid. Everything from David Bowie to the B-52s, to early techno to Frank Sinatra. Everything.”

Olovsdotter suffered from attention deficit disorder and dyslexia as a child.

She struggled at school and couldn’t envisage a happy future for herself until her grandmother took her to India at the age of 15. The country struck a chord with her, she dropped out of school aged 16 to return there on her own, losing herself just to find herself in the colourful, cacophonous streets. She travelled to India regularly in her mid-20s, returning to Stockholm in between trips, where she dabbled in making music and funded her travels with kitchen work. She explored the urban music scenes of Berlin, London and Paris, where she met a Swedish producer who believed in her abilities.

“I met Tim Deneve in 2011, just before going to England,” she says. “He is half of the crew Jungle. When I met him in Paris we were really wasted and he put on

“I had all these ideas about music, but I never knew how they would turn out. certainly not like this”

some music and said he wanted to try to maybe write music for other artists, with his producing partner Ted Krotkiewski.

Then I went to London and I missed my flight home to Stockholm because of one of the volcanos erupting in Iceland.”

A natural disaster turned into an extraordinary partnership, and with Deneve and Krotkiewski’s encouragement, Olovsdotter morphed into Elliphant, writing lyrics and melodies while her producers took care of the beats.

“The real history of me and music started the first time I went to India and got into the jam sessions,” she says. “I felt the music and I really wanted to be a part of it somehow. I was into recording sounds.

I wanted to create the biggest sound bank in the world. I had all these ideas about music, but I never knew how they would turn out. Certainly not like this.”

With “this” she is referring to the break that burgeoning musicians dream of. The right person becomes your ally, the right producer sees your spark.

After creating some buzz in Stockholm, Elliphant teamed up with TEN, the Swedish music management company behind Icona Pop and Niki & The Dove.

In 2012, Elliphant was unleashed on the world. Track after track of dubstepinspired dancehall, such as Ciant Hear It, Tekkno Scene and breakout hit Down On Life, the video of which was lauded by Katy Perry, who tweeted: “One of the most bad ass music videos I’ve seen in a long time!” After Perry came interest from Dr Luke, the American producer who has masterminded one chart-topping song after another, and has an eye for female pop virtuosos like Perry, Ke$ha, Kelly Clarkson, Britney Spears and Rihanna. Dr Luke signed Elliphant to Kemosabe Records, his imprint at Sony.

“I was surprised by his interest in me,” says Elliphant. “He reached out to me.

I don’t really know how it happened.

I didn’t reach out to him. I think maybe it was because of Icona Pop becoming such a huge thing, suddenly all these big wolves in the industry were hunting for what else they have in Sweden.”

If all goes well, Elliphant has a shot at becoming one of Sweden’s biggest exports. But for now, she’s just happy to have a goal in life.

“It takes so much effort and so much time to make music, you have got to get something back and get economics to work,” she says. “I realised I wanted it to be my life, not just some side project.

Then I did Down On Life and I realised, ‘Let’s do this. Let’s be a performer.’” twitter.com/elliphantmusic

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martyn irvine

Records & Breaks From all-time high to career-threatening low in just a few weeks: it’s all in the game for Ireland’s word champion king of the track Words: Declan Quigley Photography: Richie Hopson

Rattling around in a taxi for 40 minutes on the way to a hospital in Taiwan, there were many thoughts swirling through world champion cyclist Martyn Irvine’s adrenalin-fuelled, painkiller-addled mind. ‘This is a rollercoaster of a year’ was not chief among them. At that moment, Ireland’s first track world champion for 116 years was more concerned with where he was going, where his team were and just when the paralysing agony of his shattered femur was likely to subside.

Irvine, winner of the scratch race at the World Track Cycling Championships in Minsk in February, is a man renowned in cycling for his capacity for suffering, but this was something else. Less than half an hour previously, he had been focused on finding a way to the front of the snaking peloton as the rain threatened to make stage four of the Tour of Taiwan a skating rink.

Within seconds of deciding to move towards the front of the race, Irvine found himself sliding along the road at 60kph, hands raised to his face to protect himself from an imminent concrete bollard. The top of his left leg took the full force of the impact.

“I knew straight away I wasn’t getting up,” remembers Irvine.

“I couldn’t even roll over. Nightmare.”

For a self-confessed former couch potato who dodged PE in school, the 28-year-old, born in Newtonards and now based jut outside Dublin in Lusk, has transformed from, as he says, “running around getting up to no good” to world champion sportsman. A chance discovery in his late teens that he could beat his mates on their fancy bikes led to years of toiling in the track cycling wilderness, pounding out countless thousands of laps of the velodrome in Majorca, to

which he was exiled because of Ireland’s lack of an indoor track racing facility.

The hard work paid off with a fairytale victory in Minsk. That, and his silver medal in the individual pursuit event (the one where two riders start on opposite sides of the track), about an hour before his gold in the scratch race (the one where several riders all start in a line), amounted to Ireland’s first track medals for a male cyclist since 1897.

teammates raced towards the stage finish, he was on his way to hospital.

“One of the nurses spoke a little English,” says Irvine. “They were asking me things like what sort of anaesthetic I wanted. I had to decide whether to have the operation in Taiwan or fly home.

In the end I decided to have it there and it turned out to be the right decision.

“They drilled the socket out and put a big screw in it, and then a plate goes down the femur and they bolt it onto the leg. They hollow out your hip and put a fake angle in it. Going through the airports is going to be fun from now on.”

Following six months of physiotherapy, Irvine returned to racing in the 11-day Tour of Portugal in August. He should have listened to the doctors who told him to draw a line under 2013 and build again for next season. On the fifth stage of the race, his bike’s front tyre came off the rim and he landed on the repaired hip. It stood up to the impact, but he was out of the race. He’s back on the bike and has raced domestically since.

“Next season, all being well, I’d like to start again with the team and focus on their calendar. I’m a strong guy. I love just riding hard. I think the team see me in a role of lead-outs and sprints.

I just need to get more practice with the team doing that.”

The Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in July next year is also a target, both on the road as well as the track, where Irvine believes he can win something. With that, the Road to Rio and a possible appearance at the 2016 Olympics begins in earnest.

“Next season I’d like to start again. I’m a strong guy. I just love riding hard”

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The medals added to the contentment of a contract to ride for the US-owned UHC team promising the joys of a proper wage and a road racing programme. It was already a bumper season, with the emphasis about to be placed on ‘bump’.

A month after Minsk, and three days into his Taiwan trip, Irvine was finding his road racing legs again and was eager to find out where he fitted into UHC’s plans for the season. Then, as his

www.twitter.com/martyn_irvine the red bulletin

Honours Board 2013: scratch race champion, individual pursuit runner-up, World Track Racing Championships, Minsk.

2012: scratch runner-up, individual pursuit runner-up, World Cup Classic, Edinburgh; runner-up, Irish Elite Time Trial Championship; omnium, 12th, Olympic Games, London

kings of leon

Back On The Throne After the release of new album Mechanical Bull, cousins and Kings of Leon guitarists Jared and Matthew Followill on life without music, Twitter for the single man and the secret of eternal happiness

A suite in the Ritz-Carlton, Vienna.

Matthew Followill flops down on the leather couch, exhausted. The lead guitarist’s cousin,bassist Jared Followill, hides his eyes behind black Ray-Bans – “Jet lag, man” – and draws on an electronic cigarette. Six hours to go until the gig.

j: Tell him what you play on [album track] Wait for Me. m: … j: He doesn’t want to say. He’s embarrassed!

Is it a recorder? m: You can hardly hear it, anyway: it’s a sitar.

How do Kings of Leon get over writer’s block in the studio? j: By taking a two-week break from music. m: Listening to music non-stop. All day long. After about a month in the studio, I reach a point where I’m floundering.

the red bulletin: What do the Kings of Leon do backstage right before a performance? jared: We form a circle and clap hands. Pure superstition, but if we didn’t do it, it wouldn’t feel right.

The most important rule of drinking? j: Don’t get too drunk. We all have varying tolerances. matthew: I don’t drink at all before a gig. I’ve messed up a few shows by being drunk. That’s when I realised: you have to be fit. j: I’ve messed up a few shows sober.

That’s when I realised: “F— this!

I need to drink more.”

When you’re in the supermarket and you hear Sex On Fire, do you Kings of Leon live: pre-show rituals, full power on stage think, “Cool, that’s us!” or, “Oh God, they’re playing our music Then I put on my favourite bands – the in a supermarket”? new Wild Nothing album or Thin Lizzy – j: It makes me happy. And when someone and then in the evening it’s flowing again. takes the last carton of milk right in front You grew up in religious families. of my nose, I think, “So what? That’s me Which Bible passage rocks hardest? on the radio – motherf—er!” m: The Old Testament! No, just kidding. m: I’d lay down an air guitar solo for j: The Old Testament is pretty brutal. I think the people in the store. most religions preach the battle of good j: Hearing your own songs on the radio versus evil. As a rock star the thing you is a great feeling. Especially when you go learn is: treat people well when you’re shopping with your wife. I mean, you career is on the up because they’re the want to impress her. same people you’ll meet on the way down.

What’s the better way to approach m: And as a songwriter you can find a new album: experiment, or refine great stories in the Bible. the classic sound? j: I’ll say one thing: Sodom and Gomorrah. m: I like experimenting and changing You didn’t have a TV at home as kids. things. On Mechanical Bull we have Was that a good time or a bad time? strings and a steel guitar. m: Probably a good time. But my parents 44

were divorced – when I wanted to watch MTV, I went round to my dad’s place.

You named your band after your grandfather, Leon. What has the old man taught you? j: Tons of jokes – and the secret of a good marriage. He says the two most important words for a husband are “Yes, honey.”

Another motto: “Do you want to be right or happy?” He’s been married a long time.

Can you remember the first song that infected you with the rock ’n’ roll bug? j: The first song that got me really excited, when I was 13 and old enough to understand music, was Where Is My Mind by the Pixies, from the album Surfer Rosa. m: I got one that is way less cool.

When I was nine, I heard More Than a Feeling by Boston, [sings] “More than a fee-eeling!” And I thought: ‘Wow, what a great song.’

Is Twitter a blessing or a curse for rock stars? j: I started tweeting when I was single. Social media is great when you’re single. That was the only reason I started using it.

It also gives you a chance to correct false rumours. j: Absolutely. And you can include the fans when you’re planning live shows. When a few hundred people on Twitter suggest you play a particular song, you should play it.

Do you still get goosebumps on stage? m: Absolutely. When everyone sings along, I can really feel it. j: When the audience starts singing or people jump up and down I get a shiver down my back. And when a girl in the front row lifts up her T-shirt: goosebumps. m: When I get a solo right: goosebumps. j: But mostly when someone takes off their T-shirt.

Mechanical Bull is out now: www.kingsofleon.com the red bulletin

photography: Dan Winters/sony, getty images

Interview: Andreas Rottenschlager

Kings of Leon, clockwise from top left: Followills Matthew (guitar), Jared (bass), Nathan (drums) and Caleb (guitar, vocals)

PHOTOGRAPHY: Simon Palfrader

Fendi Racing’s 8 LFF8 boat at the UIM Offshore Powerboat Grand Prix in Istanbul, Turkey

Smokin’ on the

water

Life on the edge at the World Powerboat Championship

Words: Noel Ebdon

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Powerboats smack across the waves in Istanbul, with Victory 3 out in front

This is Class 1 offshore powerboat racing, the highest class of its type

PHOTOGRAPHY: Raffaello Bastiani, Philipp Horak

he time is approaching midnight on the day of Race 1, and the pits are still buzzing. Mechanics and team members push past one another, some carrying replacement parts for performance machines in the highest class of their type, others carrying race-worn bits that need to be cleaned of seawater and dried. Discarded parts litter the ground, machines destined for the waste bin, when someone gets around to cleaning up. This is not Formula One. There’s less than 12 hours until the second race of the UIM Offshore Powerboat Grand Prix, in Istanbul, Turkey, and the Victory 3 boat has both engines removed. Earlier today, the boat, with its two pilots, driver Arif Saif Al Zaffain and throttleman Mohammed Al Marri, spun out in the first of the weekend’s two races, damaging the engines and creating a substantial job for the Dubai-based Victory Team.

“These things happen. It’s OK and we’re fine, although Mohammed took a heavy hit to his head” says Al Zaffain, after his accident. “We’ll be back in the second race, if they can get the engines fixed.”

The pits, also known as wet pits in powerboat racing, are in a well-worn area of a working marina. This is Class 1 offshore powerboat racing, the highest class of its racing type, so there are freshly livered team trucks and matching uniforms for the staff. There are no hospitality boxes overlooking the pits.

Instead, an unshaven guy in a dirty

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Team Abu Dhabi crash out.

Below right: Victory mechanics perform last-minute engine checks.

Left: the propeller from Fendi Racing’s boat. Above left: a team member tightens the safety harness of Fendi Racing’s Giovanni Carpitella

boats can either spin out and rotate across the top boatlifting crane watches the frenetic activity below him with a look on his face that says he would really rather be at home in bed at this time of night.

Under hastily erected spotlights surrounded by fluttering moths, the Victory Team mechanics carry out repairs. A software engineer drops down into the boat’s cockpit to put the electronics through their paces.

Victory 3 needs repairs, even though the hull stood up well to being flung at an unforgiving sea at high force. Both engines must be rebuilt, and all parts that aren’t replaced must be flushed of seawater. The team have a busy night ahead of them.

Across the way, the mechanics from Fendi Racing sit back in their camping chairs, enjoying a cold beer, revelling in the fact that their boat is prepped, cleaned and packed away, ready for tomorrow. These men know that it could so easily have been them toiling through the night. The sea doesn’t take sides when choosing its victims and water, when struck at speed, is anything but soft and cushioning. It can be as hard 50

as concrete and once it has destroyed your mode of transport, it’ll then try to drown you. The second Fendi Racing boat finished third in the first race, so those responsible can afford a celebratory beverage.

W

e can download all the engine data to a laptop to figure out where we are slow, and what the engines are doing,” says Stephen Phillips, an electrical engineer for the Victory Team.

“But we can only do this before or after the race, as they banned live telemetry a few years ago to try to keep costs down.”

Inside the cockpit, it’s damp and smells of drying sweat. The seats, with the driver’s on the right, are very close

together, separated only by a central support bar that runs through the cockpit. On the hull, to the front and to the side of each seat is a slit window.

In here, it feels more like a tank than a high-performance racing vehicle.

The controls are: two screens showing GPS information, some switches, a racecar-style steering wheel and two hand throttles. There is nothing here that doesn’t need to be here. This is the sort of place most people wouldn’t want to spend more than a few minutes.

Powerboat racing is a glamorous, sexy sport, where daring drivers pit their skills against each other in extreme danger, but taking part is hot, sweaty, unpleasant work.

Powerboat racing isn’t a young man’s game. Most competitors are over 40; many of their female companions are not. The men, like the women, are here simply for the thrill of it. Adulation and prize money are both relatively small. High-level sponsorship doesn’t exist here. Some teams are the playthings of rich men; others are backed by national tourism boards. the red bulletin

PHOTOGRAPHY: Philipp Horak (3), Raffaello Bastiani

of the water, or catch the edge of a wave and flip over

the red bulletin

The boats have a top speed of 128 knots (255kph). The hull is almost completely out of the water for much of the time.

Too little power and the boat won’t ride on the surface; too much and it will flip over backwards. “Keeping the boat up on the keel is critical,” says Ragesh Elayadeth, Victory Team’s manager.

“If you can get the boat running on that perfect level, then that’s the way to win.”

The power is controlled by the throttleman, using two hand throttles.

They are connected to cables that snake off under the cockpit, which in turn are connected to two very large V12 engines, hidden under the rear deck of the boat, each one capable of producing 850hp.

The driver takes care of the steering.

In making turns, the driver has to steer around tight enough to get around the bend, while the throttleman also uses the twin engines to help turn the boat.

If the two pilots are not in sync with one another, and with their vehicle, the boat can either spin out, skipping and rotating across the top of the water, or it can catch the edge of a wave and flip over.

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powerboat racing ranks among the world’s most dangerous motorsports

PHOTOGRAPHY: Simon Palfrader, Philipp Horak, Raffaello Bastiani

The action played out close to the rocks in Istanbul as Dubai-based Victory 3 (below) won the race. Team Abu Dhabi (left) came seventh

O

n Sunday, for Race 2, there are clear skies and it’s hot. Ten minutes before the start, the pilots put on their lifejackets and drop down into the cockpits. Hatches are dropped into place and locked. Starter motors whine and the engines kick into life.

A powerboat is designed so that its cockpit remains intact in the event of an accident, but what happens in real life and what happens by design are not always the same. When compared to other forms of motorsport, it ranks among the most dangerous in the world. Since 1972, 25 pilots have been killed racing offshore powerboats, including four accidents in which two men were killed and one in which three died. In the same period, 16 men have the red bulletin

died behind the wheel of a Formula One car, six of them during a grand prix.

Out on the sea in front of the marina, the boats head up to the start line, bumping along at low speed behind the pace boat. There’s no explosion of sound, like with the ignition of an F1 engine. With powerboats the sound is like a turbine at low speed, not at all loud or angry.

When the flag drops, the roar from the engines is loud, but far lower pitched than at an F1 start line. With their tiny windows and spear-like fronts, the boats have an evil look about them.

In the first moments of the race, they smack across the tops of small waves.

Victory 3 seems to be running without a hitch, not that the bleary-eyed mechanics know this. They are mainlining coffee in the team trailer. After only a few laps the boat of Team Abu Dhabi flips spectacularly, landing upside down in the middle of the course. The crew are OK, ungainly exiting through the escape hatch located on the bottom of the boat for just such an

it’s big & brash. money is the main entry requirement

occasion. The race is quickly brought to a stop with the officials’ red flags.

“We’re fine,” says the driver Faleh Al Mansoori, as he walks into the pits after the crash, and leaves without another word.

Flipping is just one of the many ways to sink a million dollars to the bottom of the sea in powerboat racing. There’s also ‘submarining’ where the boat launches off a large wave, before nose-diving under the surface. Such are the forces involved, this can often separate the deck from the hull, peeling open a boat like a can of sardines.

After the restart, Victory 3 powers home in first and back to top of the championship leaderboard. Fendi takes second place with the winners of the first race, Hub Team Australia, in third.

Offshore powerboat racing is big, brash and elitist. Money is the main entry requirement. For that reason it will likely always remain a niche sport. Yet that’s what makes it interesting. It is more exclusive than F1, but also more about the race itself than that which surrounds it.

Back in the pits, the head has been removed from one of the Abu Dhabi boat’s engine blocks and a mechanic is handcranking the engine, firing a fountain of water out of the piston chambers.

A mechanic carries a piece of broken bodywork away from the repair area.

“Another long night,” he says.

The final round of the 2013 World Powerboat Championship takes place in Dubai on December 5-6: www.class-1.com

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ixty-nine Dean Street is an inauspicious place to start a revolution. Today it’s a posh Soho hotel, but back in 1978 it was Billy’s, a dilapidated nightclub. Yet the Bowie night that began here was a laboratory for every peacock and fancy dan this side of Birmingham New Street, and sent shockwaves into the music world, providing what seemed like half of all 1980s pop stars – Marilyn, Visage, Spandau Ballet, Culture Club, Hayzi Fantayzee, Sade, Bananarama. Mark Moore, later of S-Express, went with a friend: “She said, ‘We’re going to go to this great club, which is full of weirdos, freaks, rent boys and prostitutes.’”

It was the birth of the club night, the door picker and the

All-dayers became an import aspect of 1980s clubbing.

Various tribes from different cities united for large-scale events of up to 4,000 dancers.

Regular events were staged at the Locarno in Birmingham, Nottingham Rock City as well as the National Soul Festival in Purley and the Caister Weekenders. They were an important outlet for a new form of music arriving from the US: house. “We played it alongside Mantronix or boogie,” says early house pioneer Rhythm Doctor. “It was faster, but it wasn’t seen as different.”

Until the arrival of acid house, most British DJs were obsessed with black America and its offspring: soul, funk, disco, electro, hip-hop. But by the early 1980s something split the jazz-funk scene and opened a path to the house music revolution. In some places it didn’t have a name, but in Manchester they called it electro-funk and then electro.

Greg Wilson in Manchester’s Legends club led the charge.

And in London it was Tim Westwood who helped coax the city over from soul, with sessions at an Oxford Street hovel called Spatz. “Tim was in it from dot, man,” says drum ’n’ bass don Fabio.

“He changed the game.”

From Bristol came a crucial party crew The Wild Bunch which gave a platform to Nellee Hooper, who went on to work with Björk and Massive Attack.

Manchester was an early adopter via DJs like Mike Pickering and Hewan Clarke at the Haçienda. In Nottingham, Selectadisc record shop employee Graeme Park played it alongside hip-hop, while in Sheffield, DJ Parrot featured it in varied sets that included everything from Cabaret Voltaire to electro. “You’d be thinking, ‘What is this?’” remembers Parrot. “But it seemed to fit perfectly.”

London was ruled by rare groove, a movement grown through pirate stations and warehouse parties. The music was often retro, rediscovering great funk and disco tunes such as I Believe In Miracles by The Jackson Sisters. At its helm were DJs like Judge Jules, Jazzie B and Norman Jay, whose Original Rare Groove Show was one of the best Monday night parties.

House had its supporters in the capital, among them was Mark Moore at Pyramid, who remembers it as a mission to convert: “People hated house music. It was all rare groove and hip-hop. I thought, ‘I’m not gonna give in.’ I’d play Strings Of Life and clear the floor.”

Then four DJs went to Ibiza for a week. Johnny Walker, Nicky Holloway, Paul Oakenfold and Danny Rampling, inspired by the sets at open-air Amnesia, resolved to bring the Ibiza vibe to London in clubs like Shoom, Future, Spectrum and The Trip.

THE BLITZ

54

Photography: Sheila Rock/REX Features, Jamie Baker/Ever ynight

s

promoter-led party. Rusty Egan and Steve Strange took a dead Tuesday night and filled it with the flyer’s promise of ‘fame, fame, fame’, all to a soundtrack of Euro-disco and, of course, David Bowie. It inspired other clubs in London and beyond, most notably The Blitz Club, from which The New Romantics got their original name, Blitz Kids. In Manchester, there was the prototype for the Haçienda, Pips, while in Leeds at the Warehouse, the cloakroom boy, Marc Almond, was inspired to start Digital Disco, before finding fame with Soft Cell.

INTO THE NIGHT T H E D O M I N AT I O N

OF THE DANCEFLOOR

British clubland 1978-2013.

Story by Bill Brewster Timeline by Phil Dudman

cream

“ It went from being this posey night with loads of well-dressed people to being ghetto” 56

On the techno side, clubs like Pure in Edinburgh, helmed by Twitch and Brainstorm, Morley in Yorkshire’s legendary Orbit, House Of God in Birmingham and London’s Lost, led by Steve Bicknell, carried the torch.

Then, as the government’s Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill stopped thousands of young people dancing in fields, so began the era of the superclub. There was Renaissance in Mansfield, Golden in Stoke and Cream in Liverpool, while Shindig in Newcastle and Leeds’ Back To Basics finely balanced punk rock attitude with superclub success. Celebratory night Twice As Nice brought back the dress-up vibe and helped propel UK garage into the charts. House music had a stranglehold on the UK club scene for the rest of the 1990s, despite some resistance.

Pure’s JD Twitch showed his disaffection with house music’s dominance by launching a Sunday evening club in Glasgow with friend JG Wilkes, called Optimo, dedicated to playing, well, pretty much anything. In Manchester, Haçienda refugees the Unabombers founded the long-running night The Electric Chair, while in London there was Gilles Peterson’s That’s How It Is, Coldcut’s epic Stealth and DJ Harvey’s New Hard Left (both in Hoxton club The Blue Note).

House music’s bubble burst on New Year’s Eve 1999, when clubs attempting to cash-in on the millennium celebrations by overcharging (some tickets were as high as £150), saw in 2000 with half-empty dancefloors. One of the real successes of the new era, which eschewed superstar DJs in favour of an avowedly underground approach, was Fabric in London’s Smithfield.

While Home, which launched at the same time, brought in Danny Tenaglia and Paul Oakenfold, failed and closed shortly after opening, Fabric is still thriving today.

POST PUNK THE BLITZ

the cult with no name

Photography: Homer Skykes, Dave Swindells, Rex Features (2), PYMCA (2)

It spread like wildfire, and house music went from being a secret held by clued-up kids to mass hysteria.

Acid house and the ecstasy taken with it changed Britain.

It democratised the dancefloor and killed the door policy.

Suddenly it was fun to go dancing and everyone was invited. From those small clubs in the big cities came the giant raves that fanned out from industrial wastelands and into the M25 orbital belt: Biology, Sunrise and Genesis, while in places like the south coast, Sterns in Worthing and the Zap in Brighton stood tall. In the north, the party spread from Manchester out to Blackburn, where abandoned warehouses and industrial units became party centres for one night only: Unit 7, Sett End, Bubble Factory, more commercialised versions of the original parties.

In 1991, there was an influx of money into the development of clubs, which led to the opening of the Ministry Of Sound and the launch of gay all-nighter Trade. There was also a split in house music between a harder-edged sound and the more traditional Chicago/New York recordings.

The harder music would eventually morph into techno and one of Britain’s first indigenous dance genres, drum ’n’ bass. Fabio recalls his and Grooverider’s early radical experiments in sound at their club, Rage: “It was just the craziest mixture of extreme madness. The old school crowd at Rage left, so it went from being this posey night with loads of well-dressed people, to being ghetto.”

1978

Bowie night launches on Tuesdays at Billy’s club in Soho, London. It became the first ‘club night’ of its kind in the UK.

1979

The Blitz Club opens in Covent Garden.

The Sugar Hill Gang release Rappers Delight, hip-hop’s first big hit.

TABOO

DRESSING UP

THE MUD

the wag

rare groove

DELiRIUM

1980

Duran Duran rehearse in the day and DJ at night at the Rum Runner club in Birmingham. The Face magazine launches.

1981

Norman Jay and brother Joey set up the Good Times Sound System at Notting Hill Carnival. Wigan Casino closes.

1982

The Haçienda in Manchester opens in May, destined to become one of the most famous and influential nightclubs.

1983

On Channel 4’s The Tube, DJ Greg Wilson introduces DJ mixing to the nation. His Funk Night later launches at the Haçienda.

1984

Madonna makes her UK debut at The Haçienda. UK TV show Ear Say documents 18-30 holidaymakers in Ibiza.

1985

Pirate radio station Kiss FM launches.

Alumni: Norman Jay, Tim Westwood, Trevor Nelson, Dave Pearce, Gilles Peterson.

1986

Pete Tong compiles The House Sound of Chicago, Vol. 1, Britain’s first house music compilation.

1987

Ibiza-inspired house clubs Sch-oom (later Shoom) and Project, and warehouse party Hedonism, appear in London.

1988

The second Summer of Love heralds a cultural high for the acid house generation and a moral tabloid panic.

1989

Raindance is held at a circus tent on September 16 in Beckton, East London – Britain’s first legal all-night rave.

1990

The Public Entertainments Act is used to bring an injunction against a rave in Norfolk, giving rise to superclubs.

ACCIEEEEED! SHOOM!

dressing down

Spectrum THE HACIENDA

HOUSE

1997

Gatecrasher buys the Republic venue in Sheffield. Daft Punk make their UK bow at the Glasgow Arches.

The Haçienda closes.

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1998

Clubs become festivals: Cream does Creamfields; Ministry of Sound vs Gatecrasher staged near Leeds.

1999

Human Traffic documents a weekend of fun in UK clubland.

Fabric nightclub opens in London’s Charterhouse Street.

2000

Ministry of Sound’s huge, free NYE party in the Millennium Dome in stark contrast to failed superclub bashes in 1999.

2001

UK garage apex at FWD» at London’s Velvet Rooms. Fatboy Slim attracts 60,000 to Big Beach Boutique in Brighton.

2002

MBE for services to music for Norman Jay. Second Big Beach Boutique attracts 250,000: one person dies, over 100 injured.

1991

Beginnings: Glasgow Arches; Back To Basics and Orbit in Leeds; Ministry Of Sound in London; Pete Tong’s Radio 1.

1992

More beginnings: Cream in Liverpool; Renaissance in Mansfield; the DJ mix CD: Mixmag Live Vol. 1.

1993

Tribal Gathering at Lower Pertwood Farm, Wiltshire, has 25,000 attendees.

Gatecrasher launches in rural Worcestershire.

1994

Criminal Justice Bill introduced to ‘discourage’ outdoor raves. Drum ’n’ bass label Metalheadz is founded.

rage

1995

Dance Tent erected at Glastonbury. Skint Records’ club night The Big Beat Boutique opens at Brighton’s Concorde club.

1996

Norman Cook introduces Fatboy Slim. Trainspotting soundtrack boosts Underworld and Born Slippy.

CREAMFIELDS

RAVE

MINISTRY SPECTRUM

superclubs

Photography: PYMCA (3), Dave Swindells (2), Rex Features (3), Kevin Cummins/Getty Images, Naki/Redferns/Getty Images

FABRIC

dRUM ’n’ BASS

METALHEADZ

SPECTRUM

2003

Orbit closes. Cult house night Circo Loco moves from Monday mornings in Ibiza to a residency at Ministry Of Sound.

2004

Mylo releases seminal Destroy Rock & Roll album to critical acclaim. Stealth nightclub opens in Nottingham.

2005

Digital Mystikz launch the DMZ night at Mass in Brixton, London: a milestone in the development of dubstep.

2006

Openings: Below, for daytime deep house, at the Rainbow Pub, Birmingham; The Warehouse Project in Manchester opens.

2007

UK smoking ban forces a rethink. Smoke rises over Sheffield as Gatecrasher catches fire and is later demolished.

2008

Turnmills closes.

The Cross, Canvas and The Key shut after a final NYE blow-out ahead of venue redevelopment.

UK garage

BOOMBOX

twice as nice TRASH

SECRETSUNDAZE

ESKIMO DANCE

GRIME 2009

The End in London closes after 14 years.

Cable opens in London. House night Face launches at The Rainbow Courtyard.

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2010

Technics discontinues the SL-1210 turntable.

Rinse FM goes legit after 16 years as pirate radio. Boiler Room start live DJ streams.

2011

June sees Secretsundaze celebrate 10 years of colourful house and techno parties across London.

The fallout from the superclub era was summed up by the success of Gatecrasher in Sheffield. It had become so big, clubbing was no longer cool. It needed to go underground again. And it did.

FWD>>, the proto-dubstep club which began in 2001 at London’s Velvet Rooms, but soon became synonymous with Thursdays across town at Plastic People amid an acrid fog of weed. It was not only the place that incubated the sounds of everyone from Wiley to Skream, but it retained its own intimate atmosphere.

“There was a real community,” says style journalist Emma Warren. “There was a sense that people felt it was theirs.”

Large clubs have opened and closed, while small basements flicker with strobe delights. The superclub may never return. The success of Shoreditch has led to the London clubbing scene reaching farther into the most unlikely of settings.

Elsewhere, the small parties and the DJ collectives have stopped waiting to be discovered and are now doing it for themselves. It’s really how all good clubs begin: with a lot of heart and very little else.

Celebrate Red Bull Music Academy’s 15th birthday and UK clubbing history at Revolutions in Sound on the EDF Energy London Eye on November 14. Each capsule will be kitted out like a UK club, from Danny Rampling’s Shoom and Steve Strange’s The Blitz Club to Fabric and Motion. All 30 will be streamed live online. www.revolutionsinsound.com

2012

British club culture features in Trainspotting director Danny Boyle’s London Olympics opening ceremony.

2013

About four million people go clubbing in the UK each weekend.

The industry is worth £2bn. Dance music as mainstream as rock.

Photography: PYMCA (2), Getty Images, Davide Bozzetti, Verena Stefanie Grotto

“There was a sense that people felt it was theirs”

“... the blindness and paralysis remain but the fear has gone ... I’m not scared anymore, just keen to continue exploring the boundaries of what is possible.”

I WEDS•13TH NOV 2013•7.30PM

5k and 10k DUBLIN• CORK• BELFAST• LONDON • MANCHESTER • • POP-UP EVENTS WORLDWIDE •

n July 2010 blind adventure athlete Mark Pollock fell from a second story window.

He cracked his skull, his chest and torso filled with blood and his back was broken in three places. He had no feeling from the waist down.

Mark’s supporters created the Mark Pollock Trust and Run in the Dark to fund his ambition to walk again. Now Mark is using his body for research as he walks in Ekso robotic legs and follows an aggressive physical therapy programme.

Mark Pollock Trust and Wings for Life, the global spinal injury research charity, will benefit directly from each Run in the Dark entry.

THOMAS DOLD

The Hot Stepper The world’s most successful stair runner thinks like a Shaolin monk, swears by bananas and explains why you should never take the lift again Interview: Andreas Rottenschlager Photography: Alexander Schneider

I grew up in Steinach, a village of 3,000 people in the Black Forest.

I was part of the German national mountain running team when I was 17. When I was 19, I took part in my first stair race at the Donauturm [Danube Tower] in Vienna. A lot of mountain runners don’t deal well with steps, but with me it’s always been the steeper, the better.

Up to a million people can be cheering you on when you run a marathon, but when you’re in the mountains you can enjoy nature. The fascinating thing about stair running is the minimalism of it. No headwind.

No rain. No heat. You can forget all those excuses. Your heart rate is high. The blood runs to your legs.

By the time you reach the finish line you’re empty and have forgotten everything. It’s as if someone’s pressed a reset button in your brain.

I admire Shaolin monks. They don’t wear smart clothes or drive fast cars.

Only the essential things count. If you said to a Shaolin, “This exercise doesn’t work,” he’d say back, “As a matter of principle, everything works.” People once thought it would be impossible to smash iron bars on your head, as the Shaolin do. People also say climbing stairs is too much of a strain.

I know Goldman Sachs bankers in Frankfurt who work between the 50th and 60th floor of the MesseTurm [Trade Fair Tower] and walk down to the ground floor to get their pizza. That’s a good 200m of altitude. Anyone who doesn’t drink a bottle of vodka or smoke two packets of cigarettes a day can climb stairs. Make it into a game. Bet who’ll be the first to walk up 50 flights over the course of a week. Put a list up in the office and challenge your colleagues.

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In 2004, I finished the Donauturm run just 0.695 seconds behind the winner, Markus Zahlbruckner.

Markus won a flight to New York.

I won a toy truck full of savoury snacks.

It’s at times like those when you realise that it all boils down to details.

I’m staunchly economical. Costs, time and resources are what count for me.

At home, I work out the quickest way

“Taking two steps at a time is like running up a sloping plane” from the armchair to the fridge. When I’m travelling, my luggage is always one step ahead of me on the escalator so that I can get off as quickly as possible at the top.

At the Taipei 101 Run-Up in Taiwan, you can win $6,649 in prize money.

Minus taxes and even if the exchange rate is bad, you’re still left with $3,000.

So basically, a stair runner’s travel costs

eat up all his winnings, and I win practically everything. Which means even when you’re the best, you’ve got to have another job on the side.

[Dold works as an athlete manager.]

I won the Empire State Building Run-Up seven times in a row. If Usain Bolt was to run it against me, the race would probably be up for him at the 20th floor. [There are 86 flights of stairs in the building.] He’d either be out of breath or struggling with the stairs.

Bolt has an incredibly quick stride frequency. The problem with stair running is that you can’t just put your feet anywhere. The length of your stride has to be exactly the same as the step, including when you’re completely exhausted.

Before a race, I have muesli with water and bananas. After the race, I go for orange juice and honey to avoid the chesty cough you can get from the dry air. My stair formula is “two for the win”. If you take one step at a time, you’re running a staccato rhythm. If you take three, your movement is too heavy. But if you take two at a time, it’s like you’re flying up a sloping plane.

When I’m training, I listen to house music with about 130 beats per minute.

Let’s say I’m not that into soft rock.

During competition, I don’t expose my ears to noise. If I had an MP3 player on my arm, that’d be an extra 20g to carry.

I’ve achieved everything I wanted to achieve. In 2013, I’m being more specific in the competitions I choose to take part in. In February, I won the race at the tallest building in Qatar: 1,304 steps in 6 mi­nutes 32 seconds. What I definitely won’t do is travel somewhere just to come second. My motto is: “All in.” www.thomasdold.com the red bulletin

Born September 10, 1984, Wolfach, Baden-足 W端rttemberg, Germany Height/Weight: 1.79m/ 71kg Stair Well Four-time overall Tower Running World Cup winner; seven-time Empire State Building Run-Up winner; seven-time Sky Run Berlin winner

South African champion Tiaan Odendaal in full flight at the 2013 UCI Mountain Bike and Trials World Championships

y r o l g 64

S R E T N HU a to A f r ic t n e w s r h y sic a l n bike p i , t a s t a n f u d o m un r ld’s best . t h ey fo s l a d u r r e n de e s o m The wor t p i d h e s s n y fu c h a m pio o who re : S v en M art in an d c ra ig K o l esk r e h n c h a s i ng w o P h o t o g raph y a hom e t d n wers o a P s us g k n c A tra Words:

T 66

“if you can nail it for one run, you’re going to get the gold medal. you have to take every risk, because other people will too” to pay their respects. Afterwards, with seven months of pent-up emotion released, it was back to business.

“It’s world champs. There is no bigger race this year and the pressure on the guys at the top is unbelievable,” said race commentator Rob Warner.

“On the outside, they might be calm, but on the inside, it’s like full-blown terror. If you can nail it for one run, you’re going to get the gold medal.

And you have to take every risk there is, because other people will too.”

The riders needed no second invitation. The medical team wound up seeing 20 cases a day. Contused lungs, and broken ribs, legs and collarbones topped the list; followed by concussions and a slew of lacerations and road rash.

“This cross-country course is something special,” said Marco Fontana, after leading Italy to the XC team relay

gold medal. “It has really fast rolling sections, handmade rock gardens and tight, technical corners and singletrack. To podium in the men’s race would be really good. If you finish third, you are still a hero. If you are fourth, nobody cares.”

Seventeen-year-old Sybrand Strauss clearly didn’t get that memo. He had brought South Africa home in ninth in the team relay: on foot, with a bloodied elbow, blown tyre and snapped chain, almost in tears from the pain after being hunted down by a Russian pursuer in the final straight.

Two days later, on the first lap of the men’s cross-country, Fontana was faced with a replay of his 2012 Olympic Games heroics (he won a bronze medal despite a snapped seatpost) when he went down in the big rock garden and broke his saddle. The man-made the red bulletin

Credit:

hey say Africa’s not for sissies, and Ricardo Pscheidt would probably agree.

Seconds after finishing the mountain bike cross-country world championship race in Pietermaritzburg, the Brazilian rider crumpled to the ground. His trainer propped him up against the barriers, anxiously wiped down his face and loosened the zipper of his jersey. Pscheidt didn’t look good.

His eyelids fluttered and his head lolled.

Eventually he whispered something to the paramedic who was holding up a certain number of fingers in front of his face.

Pscheidt had crashed hard on the fourth of seven laps, and despite suffering a concussion, had pushed on through the pain barrier to finish just ahead of Renay Groustra, the first South African home. It was a spectacularly brave performance, one which blurred the line between risk and stupidity, and which hinted at how much was on the line at these UCI Mountain Bike and Trials World Championships, the first to be held on African soil.

But if Pscheidt finished a lowly 46th, how much more was at stake at the front of the bunch? Greg Minnaar would know. Ever since his win in Austria last year, the prospect of defending the downhill world title, at a track that was literally in his backyard, had been consuming him. Back then, the 2013 world champs had seemed like a once-ina-lifetime shot at glory for Minnaar and Burry Stander, his fellow countryman ranked No.2 in the world. But after tragedy struck and Stander was killed by a minibus taxi while on a training ride in January 2013, the world championships – for South Africans, at least – suddenly became a deeply emotional affair.

The day before competition started, a garden dedicated to Stander’s memory was unveiled track-side, and the international cycling community gathered

KEEPING IT PINNED

Credit:

Above: British rider Mike Jones took a radical line during practice, but recovered to finish third in the 2013 UCI Junior Downhill World Championship.

Left: Switzerland’s Nino Schurter put the hammer down from the start in the elite men’s cross-country race

“it’s such a great feeling to be racing at home, showcasing this great sport” Greg Minnaar

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ONE LIFE “I had to dig deep, man.

It hasn’t sunk in. It still feels like just a race win, but it’s bigger than that.

We’ve got the whole of South Africa here.”

Defending world downhill champion Greg Minnaar (facing page and far right) carried the weight of a nation’s expectations on his shoulders, but delivered in sensational fashion in his home town of Pietermaritzburg

obstacles and heavy G-forces in the swooping turns were wreaking havoc.

One rider went over his handlebars and smashed a photographer and his camera gear into a river. Race favourite Julien Absalon, unbeknown to his rivals, was riding with three broken ribs, and Manuel Fumic’s charge towards the podium was sabotaged by repeated crashes in the rocks.

Only the defending champion seemed untroubled. Nino Shurter dominated from start to finish, destroying the field and reducing what could have been a tactical battle into a desperate scramble for the minor places.

Even the trials riders were taken aback by the challenge laid down in Pietermaritz­burg. The obstacles weren’t as high as those on the World Cup circuit, but they were creative, fiendishly tough, and were tackled first in lethally wet conditions and then under lights on a bitterly cold evening. The local crowds, new to trials riding, were mesmerised by the sight of cyclists coiled over their saddleless machines, brakes creaking and tyres bulging, hopping and jumping their way around what seemed like a totally impassable course.

“The Pietermaritzburg guys really did a good job,” said four-time world champ Kenny Belaey. After breaking his wrist last year, recovering, then fracturing it again, the Belgian had to be content with a bronze medal in the men’s 26in competition. “The course was a lot more technical than in Europe, and it was long. I really liked it. You had to place your wheels very precisely, take off, and then hold on for dear life.”

The only riders who knew what was coming were the downhillers. They not only had the fastest DH track on the

circuit to contend with, but Greg Minnaar as well. The Maritzburg course is notorious for the flat, ‘pedally’ transition that links the steep, technical upper section to the flowing lower third, placing as much of a premium on sprint power as on bikehandling skills. Speeds were high, the jumps were big, and with the rock-hard surface complicated by a sketchy layer of dust and grit, if the bike started to slide, you were in real trouble.

W

hat is downhill racing about?

Consider doing the 400m sprint while simultaneously calculating complex maths equations and juggling a few tennis balls. Or, in Pietermaritzburg’s case, try hitting a 20m table-top jump at 73kph, landing a perfect backside on your exit, then carrying that speed flawlessly through the next series of jumps… all while your heart is knocking at 190 beats per minute. As Gee Atherton, the most successful downhiller this season, put it: “There really isn’t an area of your body that doesn’t get absolutely worked over during a downhill race.”

Minutes after crushing her rivals by more than eight seconds – and doing her first interview as a world champion while slumped on the grass – Rachel Atherton breathlessly echoed her big brother. “I’m exhausted!” she said, gasping for air. “My lungs and legs… I thought I wouldn’t be

able to walk ever again. It’s just on fire… your body’s wrecked… so much effort. But I’m stoked.”

On that Pietermaritzburg course, the fastest riders seemed to float over the rocks, effortlessly lowered by gravity.

They glided through the trees, every twist of the track burnt into their brains, and emerged from clouds of dust to bullet past at more than 50kph. What set Minnaar apart was his knowledge of every root and rut and crumbling berm on the hill. That, and the pressure. Minnaar already owned three world championship bronze medals, three silvers, and two golds. But only two riders had ever won three or more DH world titles, and neither of them had won at home.

Minnaar started fast, beating Mick Hannah’s scorching time by more than a second at the first split, before giving up most of that in the punishing second sector. With thousands of fans (and the track marshals) urging him on through a cacophony of vuvuzelas, chainsaws and cowbells, Minnaar dredged up some final strength and, despite a rear wheel puncture, stopped the clock less than half a second in the lead.

Minutes before Minnaar’s run, Sam Hill had bounced off his bike and face-planted into the dirt. Another favourite, Aaron Gwin, busted his shoulder, and Steve Smith blew his chances in the first corner. That left Gee Atherton to contend, but when it became clear that even he would be hopelessly off the pace, Minnaar leapt up in triumph, saluted his fans, and crowd-surfed into the history books. www.uci.ch

s e k i b t s e t s a f e h t orld w e h t n i

The world champion’s ‘granny gear’ – a monster 42-tooth cog

NINO SCHURTER’S

SCOTT SCALE 700

Saddle, carbon seatpost, pedals and cockpit components

by Ritchey

Scott Scale 700 carbon frame with DT Swiss XRC 100 carbon fork. Total bike weight of 8kg

Three-position fork lockout: normal; travel adjustment for steep climbing; and total lockout

Dugast tubular tyres, on DT Swiss carbon rims, pumped to 1.7 bar

Elite men’s cross-country Schurter debuted his 650B wheelset at the World Cup in PMB last year and it was fast enough to carry him to a second straight XC world title on the same track in August. He runs handmade tubular tyres, glued to the rims, for better rolling resistance and weight savings.

SRAM XX1 11-speed drivetrain, with a 36-tooth front chainring

Prologo X8 saddle

JULIE BRESSET’S

BH ULTIMATE

FSA stem and handlebars with silicone grips

Michelin Wild Race‘R Ultimate 27.5x2.25 tyres, pumped to 1.4 bar in the front and 1.5 at the rear

Sr Suntour Axonwerx RL-RC 650B fork

Elite women’s cross-country The most dramatic feature on her carbon monocoque BH Ultimate frame is the gracefully curved seat tube, which tightens up the rear triangle to deliver superior acceleration and climbing ability.

Bresset also switched to 650B wheels this season.

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Mavic SLR rims

FSA K-Force Lite carbon cranks, 36/24 chainrings, KMC X10SL Gold chain the red bulletin

I he 2013 UC ey t : t s e b e d to be th ons reveal the k e e n u o y at s m pi machine this is wh bike world cha g n i n n i -w n mountai ts on their race n com p on e

Maxxis Minion DHR II 26x2.4 tyres, pumped to 1.8 and 1.9 bar, front and back respectively

10-speed cassette, without the three biggest sprockets, became a 7-speed 11-19 cluster

Prototype Fox RAD spring shock, unavailable to anyone else at world champs

Santa Crux V10 carbon frame, with carbon Enve handlebars, seatpost and rims

Custom-tuned Fox 40 fork

GREG MINNAAR’S

SANTA CRUZ V10 Elite men’s downhill Minaar’s production V10 is probably the most developed carbon bike on the DH circuit: at 14.7kg, it’s 1.5kg lighter than most rivals’.

As a puncture fail-safe, he ran both tubes and tyre sealant in his wheels – and needed all the puncture resistance he could get.

Shimano Saint drivetrain: 170mm cranks for extra leverage; 39-tooth front ring

“I got the puncture in the last rock section, and I could feel it down the last few jumps!” – Greg Minnaar Shimano Pro Atherton saddle

Fox DHX RC4 rear shock

Continental Mud King 26x2.3 tyre, running at 1.8 bar

Crank Brothers Mallet 3 clip-in pedals Continental Der Kaiser Projekt 26x2.4 tyre, running at 1.8 bar

RACHEL ATHERTON’S

GT WORLD CUP FURY

Elite women’s downhill

Shimano XTR 7-speed 11-23 cassette

Atherton’s production aluminium GT Fury World Cup boasts a oneoff Union Jack paintjob, and a decal of the Welsh flag on the down tube, saluting her mechanic’s nationality. She geared up from her usual 36-tooth chainring to a 38-tooth front blade.

Nanu Nanu

Journey Into Space Intergalactic time-travellers with a penchant for killer alt-pop

Gold. Sheeran’s soaring vocals – her We played in Letterkenny, in the foyer In an otherwise unassuming corner of early solo work led her to be dubbed of An Grianan theatre, where the seats a suburban Dublin car park is the nerve ‘the Irish Bjork’ – mesh perfectly with were 20ft from the stage. After two centre of an alien pop band. Inside the layers of textured synths and beats. songs, everyone just got up and ran studio space known as Unit 1, brightly “What if aliens landed on Earth towards us. It was like closing the gap coloured furniture and UV strip lights and had the freedom to travel through between North and South Korea, an leap out against walls painted pitch history? What would they discover? amazing atmosphere. We know the live black. It is the ideal home for Nanu Nanu, That’s the concept of the album,” show dynamic we want to create. All the the electro-pop construct of engaged says Sheeran, and she gets away with house engineer has to do is make it loud.” couple Laura Sheeran and Marc Aubele. saying it, because tracks like Seahorse, Aside from the engineer’s job, “We filmed a party scene here, for which, she says, “explores the idea everything else Nanu Nanu is done the video for our song Dirt,” says of Atlantis”, are engaging enough

by Nanu Nanu. Within reason.

Sheeran, 26, aka Glitterface, the band’s without the cosmic underpinning, “We make our own costumes, videos,” vocalist, whose goth-meets-glam style and just a little bit more so with it. explains Sheeran, from beneath a newly is disarming. “The place looked like applied Stargazer UV hair dye. a Laser Quest. We had a pole in the “We wanted the band to stand middle of the floor and I handed alone from our other work, to have out wigs, goggles and costumes a strong visual image. I’ve always to get people in the mood.” loved creating looks, experimenting Formed in late 2011, Nanu with extreme make-up, insane Nanu band was named, as those photoshoots. My cousin gave me who can see Robin Williams the name Glitterface and it stuck.” wearing dungarees in their mind’s Aubele’s alter-ego was born at a eye will know, after the actorfestival. “We were walking through comedian’s catchphrase from the forested area of the Electric the TV show Mork & Mindy.

Picnic, late at night,” says Sheeran.

“We were brainstorming names “We spotted this guy walking in a pub and ‘Nanu Nanu’ came up,” towards us with a costume says Aubele, a Mohawk-sporting decorated with mirrors and multi-instrumentalist who goes by Other worldly: Mirrorman (left) and Glitterface’s stage show complimented him on his cool look. the stagename of Mirrorman. “We After an initial creative surge, Nanu He just pointed at Marc and, in a serious never contacted the TV company. The Nanu went on the back burner, because voice, said something like, ‘You shall be toughest thing was getting to the top its makers’ talents were in demand known as ‘Mirrorman.’ And so it was.” of the Google search. It took 10 months elsewhere: Sheeran’s vocals and Aubele’s In September and October, Nanu Nanu to knock ‘Mork & Mindy’ off top spot.” drum ’n’ keys contribution to the band will blast off for their first European shows.

Instead of a press release, Nanu Nanu Bell X1. They reteamed with a vengeance.

“It will be interesting to see how have a comic strip that outlines their “We got the songs into shape, with people react,” says Sheeran. “Some purpose; to send back musical reports of Rory Doyle [of Bell X1] on drums, and people miss the point, they’re sceptical life on Earth to their inter-dimensional then just gigged. We played everywhere, of bands with strong visual identities. mothership. It’s a gratifyingly wacky over 90 gigs in a year, places that don’t You’re trying to be different, creative, theme, reminiscent of George Clinton normally get much shows,” says Aubele, while others just see it as a gimmick. & Parliament Funkadelic, but their 33, who plays guitar and keyboards in “For us, the look is a crucial music is bold and ambitious.

Bell XI’s live line-up. “Some of the venues aspect,” says Aubele. “But some people Their debut album, Unit 1, opens were only used to booking cover bands, assume it’s style over substance and with the unsettling elctronica of country acts, so to bring a conceptual choose to ignore the substance.”

Babybug before exploding into life www.nanunanu.bandcamp.com show like ours was something different. with the edgy, pumping Pocket Of 72

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Additional Photography: nanu Nanu, www.aidanoliver.com

Words: Eamonn Seoige Photography: Aidan Oliver

The line-up Laura ‘Glitterface’ Sheeran – vocals, live vocal effects, synth Marc ‘Mirrorman’ Aubele – beats, synths, sampler Discography Unit 1 (album, 2013) Arena (EP, 2012) My Famous Cousin Sheeran’s first cousin is pop superstar Ed Sheeran.

She joined him on-stage at Dublin’s O2 Arena in January to perform a cover of Damien Rice’s Volcano.

Leap of Faith Shane McConkey died doing what he loved.

This is the story of what happened next

Photography: www.carroux.com

Words: Ann Donahue

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Shane McConkey and Miles Daisher BASE-jump from the Peak2Peak gondola in Whistler, Canada

“There is no way somebody can see the film of his life and say he wasn’t a loving father and husband”

The cold, hard truth is that in March 2009, Shane McConkey – an innovator in adventure sports, who pioneered the ultimate off-piste sport of ski BASEjumping – died at the age of 39 when his skis failed to properly release during a wingsuit jump in the Dolomites in Italy.

At 41 years old, Sherry was left a widow with a three-year-old daughter.

Originally from South Africa, Sherry is a petite, sinewy force. She lives in Squaw Valley, California and teaches rehabilitative yoga to athletes injured in ski accidents.

Her given name is Scheherazade, a nod to her Persian heritage, and in honour of the storyteller of One Thousand and One Nights. She wears a necklace with several pendants, one of which is Shane’s ring, another imprinted with a quote attributed to Leonardo da Vinci: “Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the 76

earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”

For Sherry, the four years since her husband’s death have been a dark, turbulent blur, with two major moments of clarity: one, that she had to corral her grief in order to set an example for her daughter, Ayla; and two, that despite her husband’s high-risk career, she had to prove Shane’s unquestionable love for his family. the red bulletin: How difficult is it for you to be involved in a documentary about Shane? sherry mcconkey: It’s been hard for me this whole time, but I know deep down inside that it’s what I want, it’s what Shane would want and I want Ayla to have something really incredible.

I knew it would take a long time and I knew it would be really trying and hard and emotional. I’m not moving on. I haven’t moved on. It’s because it’s in my face all the time and it’s a constant reminder. But it’s not a bad thing. I’m always going to remember him, whether I like it or not.

When Shane first died, I got a lot of negative remarks, comments online, like: “How could he be a good father? How could he love you if he went out and did this kind of stuff?” You just sit and spew about it in your brain. There is no way somebody is going to walk away [from the film] and say that that man wasn’t a loving father and an incredible husband.

Has Ayla seen the movie?

She’s watched her segments and our wedding. She wrinkles her nose in delight and I’m behind her just like [mimics sobbing]. That was hard for her, and it’s really hard for me to cry in front of Ayla.

You know, we’re attached. We had an umbilical cord. And you remember when you saw your parents cry, you freaked out.

It’s awful. They don’t cry and when they do, it’s something big. But my friend said sometimes it’s good for her to see that emotion of how I love Shane. So when she saw the movie, I told her, “I have to tell you, I’m going to cry, because it’s really hard for me. I miss Daddy.” You could see it was upsetting to her, but she got it and the red bulletin

Photography: Brigitte Sire, Ulrich Grill/Red Bull Content Pool

S

herry McConkey remembers a conversation she had with her husband, Shane. It was one of those giddy moments in a relationship, where the questions are quick and unrelenting and the thirst for details – no matter how tiny, no matter how silly – is of the utmost importance.

“When you die, what do you want to come back as?” asked Sherry. Shane’s answer was instantaneous.

“An eagle,” he said.

At that point, Sherry knew all that she needed to know about Shane McConkey.

Because she wants to be reincarnated as an eagle, too.

Shane McConkey’s life and career is chronicled in McConkey, available for download on iTunes on October 8. Left: Sherry McConkey

right after her scene, it goes to Italy, and she was like: “Are they going to show Daddy dying?” Of course, they don’t.

But it’s wrenching nonetheless to see the build-up to the final jump.

It was a big conversation. I was petrified they were going to show it, and it was not necessary. But it was totally handled appropriately. For me, I would have rather not seen the exit [of the jump] because that was his last moment, and it’s not fun to see him. I’m his wife and obviously I’m going to hate it. If everyone in the world thinks it’s fine, I’m still going to hate it. But it’s beautiful, the scenery, and this is what he did. His last moment was a double flip. I trusted the directors, if they thought it was necessary, but they were going to stop it where I wanted to stop. And they listened to me.

What was the premiere like at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year?

Going to New York, I had this anxiety, more than I ever had in my life. It was like I was going to a wedding and funeral at the same time. I was excited because part of me was going to move on, but it’s also 78

a chapter that’s going to close. I was so nervous for people to perceive Shane the way we wanted them to perceive him.

I’d seen it several times, but I was super scared to watch it in front of people.

I’d only watched it in front of a couple friends and I would have to walk away.

It was super hard. I had an escape route if I wanted to leave and I had my friends around me, and it was just... rad. I looked around at one point, and I was obviously crying, and everybody was. It was like, “Oh. Duh. Everyone is going to cry at this part, because it’s hard, and it’s beautiful.”

The movie is going to go on tour and be screened around the US. Are you going to go to any of the tour stops?

I’m not sure how many times I can watch the movie. I’m very excited for Squaw. It’s my family here and they are so excited to see it, and they’ve been so unbelievably supportive over the last years. I’d also like to see it in a city and not a sports town like here. There was a woman who stood up in New York and said, “Now I’m going to live my life.” That’s what we wanted.

This incredible man was so funny and

Photography: Brigitte Sire, Christian Pondella/Red Bull Content Pool

“There was a woman who stood up after a screening and said, ‘Now I’m going to live my life.’ That’s what we wanted”

Shane McConkey BASE-jumps from the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa hotel, in Nevada, USA

Photography: Red Bull Content Pool

ACTION! McConkey had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in April. More info at: mcconkeymovie.com

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Shane on the big screen For the athletes who knew Shane McConkey, the documentary of his life is an incisive look at following your passions – despite the ultimate cost

Charles Bryan (right) Skydiver, BASE-jumper “The movie was a great experience.

I didn’t know Shane for his skiing, as most everyone else did. We were skydiving and BASE-jumping buddies. I only learned of his fame and influence in skiing later on in our friendship. It’s a sad reality, the inherent dangers in aerial sports. All sports, for that matter.”

Miles Daisher (left) Skydiver, BASE-jumper “The film stirred up an array of emotions for me. It was good to laugh at his crazy humour and remember some great moments in our lives. The ending was rough.

You knew it was going to happen, even if you didn’t know Shane, as the foreshadowing began at the start of the movie.”

dorky, and he didn’t care what people thought. It wasn’t even the fact that he was a crazy, amazing athlete – it was his personality that was so contagious.

How did you and Shane meet?

I’d seen him around town, but I didn’t know him. He was a skier, I was a snowboarder: different crowds.

We started mountain biking together and then it was inevitable. We had so much fun together. He’s so fun. He was a dork and he made me laugh.

But he was famous. Was that weird?

He was never famous to me. I’d see his movies or see him on the slopes and be like, “Wow, that was amazing,” but he didn’t seem famous. He was humble – well, not humble, but he knew what he was capable of doing. It was his passion.

He wasn’t cocky about it. It was what he loved to do and naturally it just bubbled out of him. I think he’s more famous now.

One of the best moments in the film is when you do your first BASE-jump.

The first one I did, I was so scared, but then it was amazing. I wanted to do it more, so I did it a couple more times.

It’s one of those sports where you really want to be a good skydiver. You really want to be one of those quick athletes in your brain, where you figure out scenarios fast. I feel like you want to start when you’re young and you have more balls. I started when I was 35, which is really old, and then I went to skydiving and I got a little more comfortable with it – and then I got knocked up [laughs].

Now I can’t do it. No way.

After Shane’s death, why did you start the Shane McConkey Foundation?

At first I just did it to hold something on the anniversary [of his death]. I felt a lot of pressure. People were looking at me: “What are you going to do?” And it was an opportunity to raise money and awareness. We did one of these wacky things he liked to do – taking the mickey out of snowblading and acting like a dork

“ Everyone is going to cry, because it’s hard, and it’s beautiful” 82

Sherry McConkey with her dog, Pedro, in Squaw Valley

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JT Holmes (right) Skier, BASE-jumper “It’s a great tribute and a triumph considering the daunting task of doing Shane’s life and legacy justice. Sure, there was a lot to work with as far as story and compelling content, but the expectations from those who knew him are extremely high. The movie is one to be very proud of.”

Chris Davenport (right) Big-mountain skier “Telling the story of any life lived to the fullest, even a short life, is a difficult task. Shane was the consummate jokester and lover of all things fun. The film succeeds, because even though his passing and the story behind it is sad, the viewer is reminded that having fun in life is of the utmost importance.”

Q&A: Scott Gaffney A longtime friend of Shane McConkey’s, the co-director at freeskiing production company MSP Films, is one of the directors of McConkey

Photography: Brigitte Sire (1), Red Bull Content POol (3), Action Images (1)

the red bulletin: What

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were the challenges of going through all of Shane McConkey’s sports footage? scott gaffney: I get ridiculed by the other guys at MSP Films for being a geek and knowing too much about our footage. But I happened to be there as a cinematographer for roughly 80 per cent of Shane’s ski career. I know what happened where and when, and what his emotions were. But BASE-jumpers are video geeks, too. If Shane and three others went to jump an antenna, three of them probably had helmet cameras rolling. So it took a while, but I knew what meant a lot to him and what was just another shot.

How did you work with his widow, Sherry, to create the film?

We wanted Sherry to have ultimate say in the outcome. Her interviews were obviously instrumental, awesome and a core to the film.

We were all proud with how awed she was by the film in the end.

What did having McConkey premiere at the Tribeca festival mean for the film?

Just being accepted to Tribeca was affirmation that Shane was someone worthy of attention outside our action-sports world. We are kind of pigeonholed into being ‘adrenalin junkies’, yet Shane constantly dismissed that label. What he did meant so much more to him.

and not taking life so seriously. It’s a competition, a downhill on snowblades, which is ridiculous, and everybody dresses up. Like belly dancers, or whores, or both [laughs]. We do a gala; it’s super fun. [With the proceeds] we’ve started [educational] Green Teams in the schools here, and I want to do more environmentally conscious events.

It sounds like a lot of work.

It’s a full-time nonpaying job [laughs].

For me, it’s prolonged not moving on, but I don’t think I’ll ever move on.

Why should I? I loved him. He was my soulmate. I want Ayla to see that both her dad and her mom were passionate about this world and I’ll continue trying to do as much as I can. I know it’s for some reason, through Shane. He gave me so much. It wasn’t only love and a soulmate – he gave me the courage to do things I would have never done in my life.

What have you learned about grief?

The only way I’ve gotten through all this grief is obviously Ayla. I want to be a strong mother and I want to show her that her dad gave me the courage to do the things I needed to do. And exercise.

If I didn’t have my mountain bike, I don’t know what I’d do. That’s where I can go and get all my anger out or be alone for hours and see how beautiful this world is. I don’t have Shane to get pissed off at any more [laughs], so I get to beat it out on a mountain bike ride.

Do you visit Shane’s memorial at the top of Squaw Valley often?

Squaw gave him Eagle’s Nest [a challenging ski run renamed in his honour] and it was so appropriate. We had this connection with eagles. We discussed, “When you die, what do you want to come back as?”

And we both said, “Eagles, duh.” You get to soar, you get to fly. And it couldn’t be a more appropriate tribute to Shane. The most beautiful view, looking down on one of his favourite mountains in the world.

I’ve got pictures of a golden eagle up there sitting right next to the eagle [statue that commemorates McConkey]. I went up there on Shane’s birthday, there was one flying.

I went up there on his anniversary and there were golden eagles flying. It’s so weird.

I don’t know – I’d never seen an eagle there before and now I see them all the time. www.mcconkeymovie.com

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WingS FOr All TASTES.

THE TASTE OF crAnbErry, limE Or bluEbErry.

THE EFFEcT OF rEd bull.

Sound investment: the keys to making music on an iPad. Music, page 94

Where to go and what to do

ac t i o n !

T r a v e l / G e a r / T r a i n i n g / N i g h t l i f e / M U S I C / p a r t i e s / c i t i e s / c l u b s / E v e n ts

Lap land Hurling a supercar around Finland’s frozen lakes takes driving to the next level

photography: ARNAUD TAQUET

Travel, page 88

Slide rules: ice driving fun in a Lamborghini Gallardo

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Action!

going green

get the gear

earth-friendly gear

made in the shades Look good and feel good in these sustainable bamboo sunglasses; buy them and a pair of glasses is donated to someone in need. wearpanda.com

Jason McCaffrey is director of surf at Patagonia

Out with the Neo surfing patagonia’s eco wetsuits are manufactured with plant-based products

take an eco hike Made from recycled materials, the Earthkeepers GT has the traction and stability needed to trek through the worst of conditions.

With a goal of reducing the amount of environmentally harmful neoprene in wetsuits, Patagonia worked for four years with Yulex, a company based in Arizona that taps the natural rubber of the guayule plant. The result is a high-performance garment, 60 per cent of which is made from biodegradable, non-synthetic rubber. The only indication? It smells vaguely of eucalyptus – all the better for leaving it in your car. “I did the Pepsi challenge with our surfers,” says Patagonia’s director of surf, Jason McCaffrey.

“I sent them the new suit without saying anything. And they were like, ‘Yeah, it fits great. Same old, same old...’ ” McCaffrey couldn’t hope for a bigger compliment.

timberland.com

ski the treeline With an incredibly low carbon footprint, these sleek all-wood skis are a great ecofriendly option for the slopes.

Photography: Jeff Johnson/PAtagonia, Kanoa Zimmerman/Patagonia

grownskis.com

Naturally good After Patagonia was successful in revamping its popular R2 front-zip wetsuit into an eco prototype with the new material, the company invited the rest of the industry to use Yulex with a goal of eradicating neoprene in a few years’ time.

It’s next challenge is to make wetsuits 100 per cent renewable.

Guayule Grows in arid climates, like southwest America

Biorubber Ideal for those who have allergies to latex

Wool The interior is lined to keep the wearer warm

www.patagonia.com

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Action!

party

Block party: Club Maximus is in Kotor’s city walls

monte movies Three films to put you in their place

Slav to the rhythm

Words: florian obkircher. Photography: radoje Milic (4)

KOTOR Monaco comes to Montenegro with a superclub of models, yachts – and ancient city walls Sexy house beats, a powerful sound system, flashing laser beams, moving video screens, go-go girls and a dancefloor full of supermodels. A night in Kotor’s glitziest club promises sensory overkill. Maximus is the night-time companion to the noble harbour on the Montenegrin coast. By 2014, Kotor will have 50 landing stages for superyachts: more than Monaco. Maximus won’t just impress the well-heeled clubgoer.

The club is built into the city walls, which date from the Middle Ages and are a major part of the city’s status, since 1979, as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The walls, which are 2m thick, once protected Kotor from the Ottomans. Now they ensure that a nightclub’s neighbours are not disturbed.

MAXIMUS Stari Grad 433, Kotor, Montenegro www.discomaximus.com

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The Dark Side of the Sun Brad Pitt’s first lead role, shot in Montenegro in 1988, before the wars in the former Yugoslavia broke out. A lightweight romantic drama, but there are great sunsets.

With a capacity of 4,000, Maximus regularly hosts big-name concerts

Get Ye r C oat, Dragi Three chat-up lines in the local language

1 Your eyes are the same colour as my Porsche.

Casino Royale The most famous film to be set in Montenegro wasn’t even filmed there.

When Daniel Craig is supposedly hounding his way through Kotor, he is actually in the Czech Republic or the Bahamas.

Tvoje ocˇi imaju istu boju kao moj Porše.

2 I’ve lost my number.

Can I have yours?

Izgubio sam svoj broj.

Mogu li da dobijem tvoj?

3 Don’t I know you?

You look like my next girlfriend.

Da li se znamo, jer puno licˇiš na moju budu´cu djevojku?

Smash & Grab A 2013 documentary about the Pink Panthers, a gang of jewel thieves with their roots in Serbia and Montenegro. They bagged half a billion dollars’ worth of loot in more than 500 raids.

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Action!

travel

Cold play: 100kph in a Lamborghini Gallardo on a frozen lake in Lapland

And anoth er thing The Finnish Line

Excite Adrenalin to spare? Jump on a snowmobile and power through a forest in search of the Northern Lights. www.experienceisosyote.fi

Snow drift

While children dream of a trip to Lapland to meet Father Christmas, adults are sent into a similar frenzy by the thought of going there to drive at 100kph on ice. Not that kids are forbidden from swapping Santa for supercars.

“Last year we had an 11-year-old driving a Lamborghini,” says Daniel Eden, owner of D1 Ultimate-GT, a motorsport tour organiser.

“There are no rules or regulations on frozen lake circuits at all. Anyone can get behind the wheel.”

But it’s adults who most commonly layer up for a sub-zero spin. “I’ve driven lots of race and high-performance cars before,” says German entrepreneur Frank Scheelen, who travelled to Finland last year, “but this is how you learn to really push a car to the limit. There are no barriers on the lake, and I had four-time WRC champion Juha Kankkunen by my side giving advice as I went, the car was our classroom.

“The Porsche 911 was great, you’re essentially drifting. But most fun was the Lamborghini Gallardo.

It’s so powerful. You have to be quick-witted to stop it spinning at 100kph, but that’s Prices start from where the adrenalin kicks in. €3,569 (plus tax) You really feel the power of for an all-inclusive three-day, two-night the car. It was actually an emotional experience. I know trip including one full day at the track. I won’t find the freedom of www.ultimate-gt.com driving like that anywhere else.”

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Eat “Did he say turn left at the snowdrift?”

Advice from the inside Cold as ice

“Be aware of the weather,” warns Daniel Eden.

“As soon as you arrive in Lapland it hits you. It might be as low as -40°C. Even though we send out info on how to prepare, many still turn up at the airport in T-shirts; we’re all dressed like Eskimos.”

Home improvement

“Every driver should try it,”

says Frank Scheelen. “On ice you can safely push the car, find where the limits lie. Then you’re a better driver on the street and in a racecar. I’m calmer now. I know what to do in almost every situation.”

For a most Finnish of feasts, it has to be reindeer, whether that’s reindeer ravioli, sautéed neck or a simple steak. www.monterosa.fi

Explore For a break from engine noise, take a husky-drawn sled out to explore the wilderness in almost total silence. www.visitrovaniemi.fi

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Words: Ruth Morgan. Photography: arnaud taquet, juha kankkunen driving academy, Shutterstock (3)

ice Driving Ever wondered why the Finns excel at motorsport? For them, drifting a Lamborghini around a lawless frozen lake racetrack is child’s play

Action!

workout

What you putt in GOLF Flexibility and air-dried meats are key elements in the make-up of a champion golfer

Words: Ulrich corazza. Photography: getty images, chris garrison/red bull content pool. illustration: Heri Irawan

In 2010, aged 17 years and 188 days, Matteo Manassero became the youngest winner of a European Tour event at the Castello Masters in Spain

Matteo Manassero puts in the hard yards for the year-round slog that is professional golf. “Training should consist of both endurance and strength exercises,” says the Italian, who turned 20 in April, the month before he won his fourth European Tour event, the BMW PGA at Wentworth.

“The most important thing in golf is to have springy muscles, especially in your hips and legs. So I go for a low number of explosive reps, about eight.” Manassero tops off his training with Pilates and stretches, to give him the core stability and flexibility he needs. What’s also important before a five-hour round of golf is a nutritious feed: “I’ve got into the habit of eating a bit of bresaola [the beef equivalent of prosciutto] and white rice.” twitter.com/manasseromatteo

the aim gam e don't be green on the greens What’s the formula for the fewest putts?

“On the one hand, it’s a matter of technique,” says Manassero, “but mainly it’s a matter of confidence in getting the ball in the hole. You can only get that by practising. My routine consists of 15 minutes of putting technique exercises, 20 minutes of putts from 1.2m and then 20 minutes from 6m.”

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Pitch perfect: Manassero uses Pilates to keep in the swing of things

co r e valu es “Two things I always include in my training routine,” says Matteo Manassero, “are squats and various Pilates moves.” Here’s how to make like Matt.

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Stand with your feet pointing slightly outward and shoulder-width apart, and a barbell on your shoulders. Pick a weight you're comfortable with.

Bend knees and squat. Breathe out on the way down; in on the way up. Never fully straighten your back or take your knees past 90º.

2

Lift both legs and bend your knees about 90º. Lift your upper body off the mat, with your chin down to your chest and your hands on your lower legs.

Stretch your legs while making semi-circles with your hands above your head and tensing your stomach muscles. Repeat 12-15 times.

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Action!

buyer’s guide a doorway at home. You can practise hold types from a whole hand to two fingers. £80/€95 beyondhope.co.uk

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Game on

Whether you do your stuff on the pitch, piste or in the pool, these are the best gadgets to help you up your game

1. NSD 250Hz Autostart Powerball A powerful sphere that proves not all training products need to be hi-tech to be relevant.

It’s powered by a gyroscope that resists when you spin the rotor, putting out 40lbs of resistance and thus giving shoulders, biceps, forearms, wrists and fingers a vigorous, non-impact workout. A digital counter records the number of rotations per session, which the really competitive can record on the company’s website scoreboard. £30/€43 powerballs.com 2. Nabaiji 2.0 MP3 Player Serious swimmers have long recognised the benefit of a beat to help them keep an even pace during training.

This music player not only stores 2GB of tunes and stays waterproof up to 3m, it also helps analyse your session. It has an inbuilt stopwatch and a distance

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tracker: just enter the length of the pool to generate data on speed, distance, intervals and calories burned. Connect it to a computer to analyse stats and compare with others at swimwith.nabaiji.com. £85/¤100 www.decathlon.co.uk 3. Sony Action Cam, with AKASM1 Surf Board Mount Surfers can now capture all of their moves in HD quality with the camera that enters swells with them. A specially designed mount keeps it glued to the board, while the waterproof case keeps it happy up to 60m down (we hope you never go that far under). The inbuilt SteadyShot technology minimises shake to give smooth footage and allows visual insight into what’s going right, and wrong, during a session.

Camera £259/€306.

Mount £32/€38 www.sony.co.uk

4. GolfSense In a sea of golfing aids, this one stands out as the only device to sit on your glove rather than your club shaft.

It measures the ‘hand path’ of a swing, then sends 3D data wirelessly to any Apple or Android device via Bluetooth, detailing the plane and path of the swing, speed, tempo, backswing position and, using the gyroscope and accelerometer on your phone from the free app, even your hip rotation. £100/€118 www.zepp.com 5. Metolius Wood Grips Compact Fingerboard If a climber can’t hang on long enough to make the next move, no amount of bodily brawn will help them get to the top. Enter the fingerboard. This wooden device is not only easier on the skin than its resin counterparts, it’s easy on the eye when placed above

6. IPONG PRO by Joola There’s only one problem with getting serious about ping-pong: it takes two people to play. But this gizmo means a trip to the table tennis club can be reserved for showing off new skills honed at home.

It can shoot out 100 balls before it needs reloading.

Select speeds from easy to extreme, add backspin or topspin and set the base to oscillate, which varies the landing position. Many gadgets claim to be useful for both beginners and masters; this one absolutely is. £190/€225 www.bribartt.co.uk 7. Smith I/O Recon Goggle The technology in these snow goggles will make even an average boarder or skier feel like a cyborg. They’re packed with GPS, Bluetooth, an accelerometer, gyroscope and altimeter to give you every possible stat about your ride, which then appears in your view in a ‘heads-up’ display. You can also track your friends on the slopes and connect to your phone, so you can view calls and text messages as they come in. They even flag up your position on a virtual resort plan, meaning you can put away that soggy piste map. £560/€660 www.snowandrock.com

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8. Adidas Nitrocharge football boots with miCoach Intelligent boots don’t quite signal the end of coaching, but they do a lot more than many shouty men on touchlines. In addition to features such as Energy Sling, a panel on the sole which gives extra stability, they have miCoach capability, a slot on the sole for a small intelligent cell which talks to any iOS device via Bluetooth to record the distance, speed and number of sprints during a match. Then you can prove how well (or not) you did over the post-match pints. £200/€246 with miCoach www.adidas.co.uk

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Words: Ruth Morgan. Photography: Luke Kirwan. Prices correct at time of going to press

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Nick Dwyer’s work has taken him to more than 70 countries, but he’s never happier than when he’s hanging out in the Auckland suburb of Ponsonby. The DJ, TV producer and musician used to be embarrassed when overseas friends came to visit him. “If you hang out with musicians and artists you get instant and inside access to the heart of a city.” he says. “They know all the coolest spots. I used to freak out when friends came to my town because I didn’t know where to take them. There wasn’t much happening.” Not anymore.

The city has been transformed in the last few years.

“We’ve got some really cool places to go now,” says Dwyer. “Britomart in downtown Auckland has really taken off, the dining in the city has improved and Ponsonby has gone through some incredible changes.”

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TOP FIVE MY Auckland HIGHLIGHTS

1 CONCH RECORDS & CAFE 115a Ponsonby Road “The team at Conch is keeping the spirit of the local independent record store alive. The music is always on point and their backyard café serves the most amazing Central/South American cuisine.”

organic coffee beans in this converted 1930s post office, so the coffee is incredible.

I love my meat, but this is the one place where I’m happy to embrace my inner vegetarian.”

4 GOLDEN DAWN orner of Richmond C & Ponsonby Road “This place reminds me of a cool, hipster beer garden in Berlin.

They’ve got a great music policy and the outdoor area has a cool vibe in the summertime.”

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Another ferry ride will take you to the sleepy seaside town of Devonport.

North Head was a military stronghold during World Wars I and II, and the old tunnels and the views back across the harbour make this a popular day trip.

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2 EL SIZZLING CHORIZO 136-138 Ponsonby Road “Corra, the owner, is from Argentina and used to have a food truck on Waiheke Island. We think we have a barbecue culture in New Zealand, but Argentinians are the barbecue masters.”

3 KOKAKO CAFe & ROASTERY 537 Great North Road “They roast their own top-quality

5 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM 86 Ponsonby Road “‘One man’s trash is another man’s treasure’, or so the saying goes, and that’s certainly the case at this second-hand store. Old cookbooks, paintings and knickknacks are crammed into a space that rewards a good rummage.”

U2 wrote a song called One Tree Hill in honour of their New Zealand roadie Greg Carroll, who died in 1986. In 2000, the Auckland volcano the song was named after became No Tree Hill, after Maori activists attacked the tree with a chainsaw.

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Photography: richard edghill, graeme murray

AUCKLAND Music and food make Nick Dwyer’s world go around. he shares his tips on where you can find the best of both in New Zealand’s ‘City of Sails’

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There are 48 volcanoes in the Auckland region and Rangitoto Island is the most well-known. Catch a scenic ferry ride across Auckland Harbour and climb to the summit, 260m high.

Run fast if you see smoke.

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“Happy to embrace my inner vegetarian”

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Nick Dwyer: tracking down his hometown’s best beats and bites

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music

Pop art Jack Johnson: songs covered around a beach campfire near you

Music and surfing are Jack Johnson’s areas of excellence. He qualified for the Pipeline Masters surf championships in his home state of Hawaii when aged just 17, the youngest man in the field. Yet rather than pursue a life on the ocean waves, he went to California to study film and make music.

Johnson’s first five albums of summery folk songs have sold 15 million copies worldwide.

To mark the release of a sixth, From Here To Now To You, the 38-year-old reveals inspirational songs for you, here, now.

Chords and boards Playlist Jimi Hendrix confused him into playing guitar. Fugazi filled him in on punk. The surfersongsmith on music that moves him

Musicians swapping vinyl for oils

Bob Dylan is currently exhibiting at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Can you pick out his work, and match the others with their mainly musical creators?

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2 Fugazi

3 Michael Kiwanuka

“I often went camping with my dad when I was a kid and always had the tape of the Hendrix album Elec­tric Ladyland in my Walkman. It had auto reverse so I’d fall asleep with that album on. I found this song incredible. I couldn’t work out how he was making the noises on his guitar. It was pure magic and it made me want to start playing guitar myself.”

“One time I was listening to the radio on the way to school and this song came on and hit me in a big way. It was different from anything I’d heard. Such a driving sound, with that teenage energy to it where I felt, like, if we [him and his friends] get together and turn our amps loud enough, we can sound like that. I think I formed my first band because of that song.”

“Michael’s voice reminds me of Bill Withers and Otis Red­ding, but it’s unique.

Also, he’s the sweetest human being I’ve ever met. I hung out with him in Australia at a festival. My wife and I got a babysitter so we could go and watch him play. He’s one of those guys where now that I got the chance to know him a little bit, I love his music even more.”

4 Tame Impala

5 Violent Femmes

“Four years ago in Australia, some guy gave me his band’s first album and it was all I listened to on the rest of our tour. Lonerism, their second album, is even better. Tame Impala took a sound off The Beatles’ Revolver album and made a genre out of it. I don’t mean that in a way that every song sounds the same, but it’s like they took that sound and built a new branch on the same tree.”

“When I was 12, my older brother made me my first mixtape. It included this gentle song by Vio­lent Femmes, which I still like to play now at soundchecks. I like how there’s so much energy in the song. It has a punk mentality, but it’s on acoustic guitar. Sort of like, you can get a lot of energy, but still play acoustic instruments. I learned a lot from them.”

Feels Like We Only Go Backwards

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Patti Smith Marilyn Manson

keyed u p Portable piano, man

Miselu C.24 This will make the iPad a must-have for travelling musicians with the emphasis on the travel: a two-octave keyboard that connects to the tablet and doubles as a protective cover. Ingenious and genius. www.miselu.com

Paul McCartney

Bob Dylan

the red bulletin

Words: florian obkricher. Photography: universal music, picturedesk.com (3), Rex features (4), reuters, getty images

1983... (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)

Answers: A - Patti Smith, B - Bob Dylan, C - Paul McCartney, D - Marilyn Manson

1 Jimi Hen­drix

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save the date

don’t miss ink these dates in your diary

11 october

Kick-off The national football teams of England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland face another important round of qualifiers for the 2014 FIFA World Cup to decide who will be heading to Brazil. www.fifa.com

20 october

premiere Down to earth: hanging on in the Mud Runner Classic

October 20

Words: ruth morgan. photography: getty Images, Action Images, Demotix/Corbis, Peachsnaps Ltd

Stick in the mud

Tonnes of thick, boggy mud can make seven miles feel like 27, as anyone who has tackled the Mud Runner Classic can testify. It’s held at the picturesque Eastnor Estate in Herefordshire on a churned-up Land Rover test circuit.

People get stuck waist-deep in the stuff, making it half race, half rescue mission as everyone helps each other get around. Top tip? Tie your shoelaces tight. www.mudrunner.co.uk October 31 November 4-11

Serving the city

Until October 17

Electro house Bedroom producers Bondax are leaving their Lancaster hometown to take their electronic sounds on the road. www.facebook.com/bondax

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The London ATP World Tour Finals see greats including Federer, Nadal and Murray (right) battle it out in tennis’s seasonending ‘fifth Major’, in a bid to finish as the world’s No.1 player. The $5m prize pot is a nice accompaniment to the bragging rights, too. www.atpworldtour.com

Bright night For something different this Halloween, head to Dublin for the Celtic festival of Samhain.

To mark harvest and the coming ‘dark half’ of the year, people in bright or ghoulish costumes (to ward off evil spirits) gather for one of the biggest outdoor events on the city’s calendar.

Over 20,000 people watch the procession of everything from goblins to samba dancers wind through downtown Dublin for a huge fireworks display. www.dublin.ie

The best of the big screen will be celebrated at the 57th London Film Festival, with its biggest stars in attendance.

It also includes the European premiere of the Tom Hanks making-of-MaryPoppins movie Saving Mr Banks. www.bfi.org.uk

26 october

First try Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium hosts the first match of The Rugby League World Cup 2013 with Australia v England. Will they also contest the final on November 30? www.rlwc 2013.com

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Fast and furious action! r e t a w e whit

Get your adrenalin pumping with Lee Valley White Water Centre’s ultimate raft adventure.

You’ll be paddling the Olympic Course, tackling steep rapids and descending 5.5m as 13,000 litres of nerve jangling white water gush past you every second. If that’s not extreme enough, we’ll up the fun and fear factor with each run of the course. So get a bunch of friends together and take on the challenge!

Thrill seekers will also enjoy the buzz of hydrospeeding – an exhilarating

activity similar to body boarding.

You’ll be carving and surfing your way along the 160m long Legacy Loop.

Keen paddlers can choose from a range of kayaking and canoeing sessions created for all levels – from beginners through to advanced. Once you complete our kayaking competency assessment you can take on the Legacy Loop and Olympic Course – this is where Team GB took gold and silver at London 2012. If you’re new to kayaking, Hot Dog sessions are a great introduction, navigating the rapids in a two man inflatable.

For full information and to book, visit: gowhitewater.co.uk or call 08456

770 606

COMPETITION We’re giving two lucky readers the chance to win a white water experience at Lee Valley White Water Centre.

To be in with a chance of winning please visit www.visitleevalley.org.uk/redbulletin and answer our simple question: How many metres is the descent on the Olympic Course?

Terms and Conditions apply.

h s a l Make a sp at Lee Valley White Water Centre

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Book now at gowhitewater.co.uk 08456 770 606 *Terms & Conditions apply

Time warp The Wright stuff

Photography: imagno/getty images

On a hill in north-east Germany in 1893, Otto Lilienthal (below) embarked on a series of human-powered glider flights that would break distance records and inspire a sibling duo of inventors in America, dreaming of taming the skies. “The world owes to him a great debt,� said Wilbur Wright, of Otto, whose man-can-do attitude will be seen, 120 years later, at the Red Bull Flugtag in the Islamic Art Museum Park in Doha, Qatar, on November 1.

the next issue of the red bulletin is out on Nov 4 98

the red bulletin

Today’s essential music makers tell the stories behind their beat: Fireside Chats on rbmaradio.com