Wednesday 30 January 2008

Beer and Bicycling Go Together

But is this what the world needs? A recent news item from Bloomberg:

Carlsberg Will Sell $400 Beer, World's Most Expensive
By Christian Wienberg

Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Carlsberg A/S ads say it's "probably the best beer in the world.'' At $400 a bottle, it's now the most expensive.

The brewer, Scandinavia's biggest, introduced a beer today that costs 2,008 Danish kroner ($396.47), the price being based on the year of its introduction. The Vintage No. 1 brew will be sold at three Copenhagen restaurants, including Noma, a holder of two Michelin stars and the world's 15th-best restaurant in 2007, according to S.Pellegrino.

The product, costing 357 times more than Carlsberg's main Danish lager brand, has been developed to challenge luxury wines in the gourmet restaurant market and capitalize on rising individual wealth. Denmark, a country of 5.4 million, has 16 dollar billionaires, according to a list published this month by Berlingske Nyhedsmagasin magazine. The number of billionaires worldwide rose 21 percent last year to 946, Forbes magazine said.

"We can feel that there's an increasing market for this type of product, as some of our customers order extremely expensive wines without blinking an eye,'' Lau Richter, restaurant chief at the Noma restaurant, said today by phone. "Ten years ago, it was a rare event selling a 1,000 kroner bottle of wine at a Danish restaurant, now we do it every day.''

Carlsberg has produced 600 bottles of the 10.5 percent proof beer, each of 37.5 centiliters (0.8 pint). Another version costing 2,009 kroner will be introduced next year and one for 2,010 kroner the year after, the company said today in an e-mail.

Prune, Caramel

The number of Danish breweries has increased ten-fold since 2000 with the opening of about 90 microbreweries and brewpubs specializing in gourmet beer. Carlsberg, whose Danish market share has declined from a peak 81 percent in 1971 to 63 percent last year, in 2005 opened the Jacobsen microbrewery in Copenhagen to tap increasing demand for specialty brews.
"We're trying to raise the bar for what a beer can be,'' Jens Eiken, the brew master at Jacobsen who developed the product, said today by phone. The beverage is "cheap'' considering the amount of time the brewery spent developing it, he said.

Eiken wouldn't disclose how long Vintage No. 1 took to develop, saying only that the amount of time spent on it was such that the company doesn't expect the project to be profitable.
The beer contains hints of prune, caramel, vanilla and oak tree from the French and Swedish wooden casks in which it is stored, Eiken said. It has a chestnut brown color, little foam and goes well with cheeses and desserts, he said.

"Exceptional Quality"

Noma will have "no problem'' selling the "small amount'' of Vintage No. 1 it ordered, Richter said. "We expect they will all move,'' he said, declining to specify the restaurant's order.
Carlsberg, which sells more than 150 different beer brands in as many countries around the world, has no plans yet to export Vintage No. 1. Some bottles will be offered for sale next week on the brewer's Web site.

"There are people at restaurants paying 20,000 kroner for a bottle of wine or port, and why wouldn't they pay the same for a beer of exceptional quality,'' Eiken said.

Vintage No. 1 will be the world's most expensive beer, according to Eiken. That title is currently held by Boston Beer Co.'s Utopia, which costs about $100 for a 72 centiliter bottle, according to the Web site Most-expensive.net.

Bierodrome, a London bar, sells Belgian beer Vielle Bon Secours for 635 pounds ($1,260) per 15 liter bottle, which is 12 times less than the liter price of Vintage No. 1.

Saturday 26 January 2008

300 Cols in 30 Days: One Tough Ride

Just to show you that there are really no limits to what you can do if you set your mind to it, I came across an interesting story recently from the UK. In order to raise money for a charity dedicated to anti-personnel mine removal, MAG (Mines Advisory Group), Phil Deeker of Salisbury, celebrating his 50th birthday on August 1, went for a big bike ride. In the Alps, the Pyrenees and the Cevennes. Altogether his 29 day trip, with 26 of actual riding, covered 4600 km and, get this, 82 vertical kilometers! The 319 cols that he climbed appear to include all the great rides of the Tour de France. He began the ride with another rider who lasted only as long as the first stage (a mere 7 cols!). On one of the toughest days he climbed 22 passes. I think to date the most I have done in one day is, uh, four.

Phil was assisted by his wife, driving the team support vehicle, and he was occasionally joined by other cyclists but it is very impressive that in addition to having the physical stamina necessary he had the motivation to keep going in some rather poor weather conditions. But at the end he persevered and raised £6,600 for MAG. Epic indeed--well done, Phil!

You can read the story here and check out lots of fog in the slideshow here.

If I am going to look half as good on the cols this summer as Phil did, I may have to push up the training a bit more...

Friday 11 January 2008

The Passing of A Giant: Sir Edmund Hillary


This is not a posting about cycling but about the death yesterday of an extraordinary person whom I admired deeply. Sir Edmund Hillary is most famous for the conquest of Everest with Tenzing Norgay as part of the Hunt Expedition of 1953, but in fact his accomplishments are far greater.

In 2003, when I was living in Washington, DC, I visited Explorer's Hall at the National Geographic Society. There was a wonderful exhibition marking the 50th anniversary of the climbing of Mt. Everest, with models of the landscape showing the route the expedition took, and including the equipment, primitive to our eyes, that the climbers used. The history of the expedition is fascinating, but what was also interesting was the part of the exhibition showing how the Sherpas live. There was even a cut-away house and videos showing how they cooked and worked the land. Sir Edmund was deeply involved in efforts to assist the people of Nepal and the small charity he founded built schools and carried out other worthwhile projects there. He also was a keen conservationist and spearheaded a movement to clean up Nepal, littered as it was with all the equipment from climbing expeditions.

He was apparently an extremely modest person but reading the obituary prepared by the Associated Press below it is clear that his achievements were anything but modest. In a world where almost anyone can be described as a "hero" and where "role models" often have feet of clay, here is an example of a life well-lived by a man who did the Right Thing.

He deserves the State Funeral he will receive in New Zealand. Rest in peace, Sir Ed!


Sir Edmund Hillary, 88
RAY LILLEY
Associated Press
January 10, 2008 at 7:10 PM EST
WELLINGTON — Sir Edmund Hillary, the unassuming beekeeper who conquered Mount Everest to win renown as one of the 20th century's greatest adventurers, has died, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark announced Friday. He was 88.

The gangling New Zealander devoted much of his life to aiding the mountain people of Nepal and took his fame in stride, preferring to be called “Ed” and considering himself just an ordinary beekeeper.

“Sir Ed described himself as an average New Zealander with modest abilities. In reality, he was a colossus. He was an heroic figure who not only ‘knocked off' Everest but lived a life of determination, humility, and generosity,” Ms. Clark said in a statement. “The legendary mountaineer, adventurer, and philanthropist is the best-known New Zealander ever to have lived,” she said.

Sir Edmond's life was marked by grand achievements, high adventure, discovery, excitement — and by his personal humility. Humble to the point that he only admitted being the first man atop Everest long after the death of climbing companion Tenzing Norgay.
He had pride in his feats. Returning to base camp as the man who took the first step onto the top of the world's highest peak, he declared: “We knocked the bastard off.”

The accomplishment as part of a British climbing expedition even added lustre to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth four days later, and she knighted Sir Edmond as one of her first acts.
But he was more proud of his decades-long campaign to set up schools and health clinics in Nepal, the homeland of Tenzing Norgay, the mountain guide with whom he stood arm in arm on the summit of Everest on May 29, 1953.

He wrote of the pair's final steps to the top of the world: “Another few weary steps and there was nothing above us but the sky. There was no false cornice, no final pinnacle. We were standing together on the summit. There was enough space for about six people. We had conquered Everest.

“Awe, wonder, humility, pride, exaltation — these surely ought to be the confused emotions of the first men to stand on the highest peak on Earth, after so many others had failed,” Sir Edmond noted.

“But my dominant reactions were relief and surprise. Relief because the long grind was over and the unattainable had been attained. And surprise, because it had happened to me, old Ed, the beekeeper, once the star pupil of the Tuakau District School, but no great shakes at Auckland Grammar (high school) and a no-hoper at university, first to the top of Everest. I just didn't believe it.

He said: “I removed my oxygen mask to take some pictures. It wasn't enough just to get to the top. We had to get back with the evidence. Fifteen minutes later we began the descent.”
His philosophy of life was simple: “Adventuring can be for the ordinary person with ordinary qualities, such as I regard myself,” he said in a 1975 interview after writing his autobiography, “Nothing Venture, Nothing Win.”

Close friends described him as having unbounded enthusiasm for both life and adventure.
“We all have dreams — but Ed has dreams, then he's got this incredible drive, and goes ahead and does it,” long-time friend Jim Wilson said in 1993.

Sir Edmond summarized it for schoolchildren in 1998, when he said one didn't have to be a genius to do well in life.

“I think it all comes down to motivation. If you really want to do something, you will work hard for it,” he said before planting some endangered Himalayan oaks in the school grounds.
The planting was part of his program to reforest upland areas of Nepal.
Sir Edmond remains the only non-political person outside Britain honoured as a member of the Britain's Order of the Garter, bestowed by Queen Elizabeth on just 24 knights and ladies living worldwide at any time.

Throughout his 88 years, he was always the atypical “typical New Zealander” who spoke his mind.

He recalled his surprise at the huge international interest in their feat. “I was a bit taken aback to tell you the truth. I was absolutely astonished that everyone should be so interested in us just climbing a mountain.”

Sir Edmond never forgot the small mountainous country that propelled him to worldwide fame. He revisited Nepal constantly over the next 54 years.

Without fanfare and without compensation, Sir Edmond spent decades pouring energy and resources from his own fund-raising efforts into Nepal through the Himalayan Trust he founded in 1962.

Known as “burra sahib” — “big man,” for his 6 feet 2 inches — by the Nepalese, Sir Edmond funded and helped build hospitals, health clinics, airfields and schools.
He raised funds for higher education for Sherpa families, and helped set up reforestation programs in the impoverished country. About $250,000 a year was raised by the charity for projects in Nepal.

A strong conservationist, he demanded that international mountaineers clean up thousands of tons of discarded oxygen bottles, food containers and other climbing debris that litter the lower slopes of Everest.

His commitment to Nepal took him back more than 120 times. His adventurer son Peter has described his father's humanitarian work there as “his duty” to those who had helped him.
It was on a visit to Nepal that his first wife, Louise, 43, and 16-year-old daughter Belinda died in a light plane crash March 31, 1975.

Sir Edmond remarried in 1990, to June Mulgrew, former wife of adventurer colleague and close friend Peter Mulgrew, who died in a passenger plane crash in the Antarctic. He is survived by his wife and children Peter and Sarah.

His passport described Sir Edmond as an “author-lecturer,” and by age 40 his schedule of lecturing and writing meant he had to give up beekeeping “because I was too busy.”
By that time he was touring, lecturing and fund-raising for the Himalayan Trust in the United States and Europe for three months at a time, speaking at more than 100 venues during a tour.
He was known as ready to take risks to achieve his goals, but always had control so that nobody ever died on a Sir Edmond-led expedition.

He was at times controversial. He decried what he considered a lack of “honest-to-God morality” in New Zealand politics in the 1960s, and he refused to backtrack when the prime minister demanded he withdraw the comments. Ordinary New Zealanders applauded his integrity.

He got into hot water over what became known as his “dash to the Pole” in the 1957-58 Antarctic summer season aboard modified farm tractors while part of a joint British-New Zealand expedition.

Sir Edmond disregarded instructions from the Briton leading the expedition and guided his tractor team up the then-untraversed Shelton Glacier, pioneering a new route to the polar plateau and the South Pole.

In 2006 he climbed into a row over the death of Everest climber David Sharp, stating it was “horrifying” that climbers could leave a dying man after an expedition left the Briton to die high on the upper slopes.

Sir Edmond said he would have abandoned his own pioneering 1953 climb to save another life.
“It was wrong if there was a man suffering altitude problems and was huddled under a rock, just to lift your hat, say 'good morning' and pass on by,” he said. “Human life is far more important than just getting to the top of a mountain.”

Named New Zealand's ambassador to India in the mid-1980s, Sir Edmond was the celebrity of the New Delhi cocktail circuit. He later said he found the job confining.
He introduced jetboats to many Ganges River dwellers a decade earlier, in 1977, when his “Ocean to the Sky” expedition travelled the Ganges by jetboat to within 200 kilometres of its source.

The last segment was by foot, and two mountain peaks near Badranath, where the Ganges rises, were also climbed.

Sir Edmond didn't place himself among top mountaineers. “I don't regard myself as a cracking good climber. I'm just strong in the back. I have a lot of enthusiasm and I'm good on ice,” he said.

Despite his fame, he spoke of being “really embarrassed” even when introduced at a lecture.
“I really am an ordinary person with a few abilities which I've tried to use in the best way I can,” he said.

Honoured by the United Nations as one of its Global 500 conservationists in 1987, he was also awarded numerous honorary doctorates from universities in several parts of the world.
Throughout his life Sir Edmond remembered his first mountain he climbed, the 2,930-metre Mount Tapuaenuku — “Tappy” as he called it — in Marlborough on New Zealand's South Island. He scaled it solo over three days in 1944, while in training camp with the Royal New Zealand Air Force during the Second World War. “Tapuaenuku” in Maori means “footsteps of the Rainbow God”.

“I'd climbed a decent mountain at last,” he said later.

Like all good mountaineers before him, Sir Edmond had no special insight into that quintessential question: Why climb?

“I can't give you any fresh answers to why a man climbs mountains. The majority still go just to climb them.”