This past weekend brought the return of Greenpop’s Reforest Fest in the magical Platbos forest! A weekend of camping in one of South Africa’s ancient forest jewels while enjoying some great tunes, good food, morning yoga, cool vibes, and tree planting! A cutoff of 250 volunteers  planted 2001 trees during the day and spent their evenings having loads of fun under the forest canopy while enjoying musical performances by Jeremy Loops, Nate Maingard, Touchwood, Bobzyouruncle, and more. BOS Ice Tea was there to keep the volunteers hydrated.

Platbos forest has been deforested over the years because of agriculture. This has now become unsustainable and alien vegetation has taken over, posing a huge fire threat to the precious part of the original indigenous forest that remains.
A record 2001 trees were planted over 2 days in an ongoing attempt to replant and grow the forest to its former glory!

photos courtesy of Greenpop volunteers

This Mother’s Day The Country Club Johannesburg hosted ‘Party in the Park’.  Families spent the day picnicking in Aukland Park and were entertained by international music sensation Goldfish and Chiano Sky. 2000 people attended with their own picnic baskets in tow. The BOSsewa was a hit with the hundreds of kids that joined in the family day.

BOS Ice Tea has launched the first new flavour in its refreshing collection of iced teas: BOS Berry.

A delectable blend of strawberries and blackberries – BOS Berry is a bold and beautiful response to consumer demand for more flavours, and with its modish packaging and invigorating taste, it’s sure to surpass expectations.

In anticipation for the launch Andrew Berry, we-are-awesome blogger extraordinaire and friend of BOS used his influence and fantastic name to promote the new BOS Berry in a Berry inspired shoot! http://we-are-awesome.com/blog/2012/05/bos-berry/

We are expecting great things from this new addition to our family.Launched onto market yesterday, you should start seeing the BOS Berry in restaurants, deli’s and shops very soon.

Every so often an event comes along that is so random in focus that it’s brilliant. The STIHL Lumberjack Festival that took place at Lievland Wine Estate was one of these events. Justin Nurse of ‘Laugh It Off’ conceptualized this weekend of macho. Brave souls who attended were treated to a weekend of action centering around various Lumber Games and outdoor fun including:

-Stock Saw Standing Block Chop

-Single Buck Underhand Chop

-Jack and Jill Obstacle Course

-Log Rolling

-Axe Throwing

-Tree Sculpting

-Tree Climbing

-Giant Swing
-Slip ‘n’ Slide
-Three-legged Races, Sack Races, Egg & Spoon Races
-Fun Run
-Carnival Rides
-Lake swimming
-Obstacle Course
-Live Music
-Barn dancing

We all got a chance to rock out with our flannel shirts and Timberland boots while we drank BOS and beer and chucked axes at freshly chain-sawed logs! Men, Women and children all let their masculine side run wild in this festival dedicated to a decidedly underrated profession. And until next year’s installment we shall be keeping our ears open for any other zany ideas Justin has up his sleeve. Astronaut Batmitzvah? Clergyman triathlon? We’re in!

photos courtesy of: Heartfelt photography, BOS Ice Tea

Starting on Wednesday South African powerhouse St Leger & Viney,  hosted Design Focus, a one-day featuring a series of local and international design stars including famed British interior whizz Nicky Haslam. ‘Designer to Rock Stars & Royalty’ and owner of NH Design, he is an icon in the interiors world and his insight, knowledge and anecdotes were a highlight to the event.

Held at Johannesburg University Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture this event was attended by architects, designers, decorators, artists and art dealers, property developers, builders, hotel managers and housekeepers, estate agents, aspirant decorators and lifestyle enthusiasts and BOS kept everyone’s thirsts quenched at our lunchtime refreshment stand.

Thursday night SA Fashion Week’s Spring Summer 2012 Collections got off to a star-studded start in Johannesburg with the country’s hottest celebrities taking to the ramp in the Sheer Glamour Collections Show.

The fashion event that ended on Sunday showcased the collections of 41 top S.A. designers. BOS was on board as a sponsor and we had a fridge constantly stocked back stage for the designers, models and hair and make-up artists to rehydrate and re-energise while they glammed up.

Today and tomorrow you can find BOS at the buyers lounge at Crown Plaza Hotel’ where boutique owners get the chance to shop and shop and shop….

Now in its third year and well established as the most zany and fun kid in town, The Flamjangled Tea Party, rolled back into town with a clickity-clack. Set on the Contermanskloof Wine Farm, the Flamjangled Tea Party once more set the bench mark for uniqueness in this colourful weekend long party and artistic expression.

The psychedelic ‘Mad Hatters Tea Party’ theme encouraged people to parade around in outlandish costumes and the eclectic line-up and 3 dance floors ensured that people were dancing hard till the early hours of the morning. Our BOSsewa was parked close to the Market Stage where people could quench their thirst in the heat and lounge under the umbrellas to watch the performances and DJ sets.

Spirits were high and as always, Flamjangled lived up to high expectations, we were transported to a magical parallel universe for a weekend and we can’t wait to get back next year!

This past Christmas BOS pledged to help sponsor  South African Team Keep A Child Alive at the auspicious Extreme World Races Centenary South Pole Challenge 2011/2012. Starting from the frozen coastline of Novo and set in the coldest, driest and highest desert on the planet, competitors race 745km to be the first to the Pole. The South African team consisting of James Raaff, Gavin Moran and Frank Runge – were raising awareness and funds for International NGO Keep A Child Alive. Keep a Child Alive is dedicated to providing life-saving AIDS treatment, care, nutrition, support services and love to children and families affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa and India by directly engaging the global public in the fight against AIDS.

The race event started in late December 2011 with an acclimatization phase (non-racing) at the Russian base Novolazarevskaya on the coast of Antarctica. Seven teams started the race – 4 teams had three members, three teams were pairs. With the threat of multiple crevasses, snow bridges, kabatic winds of up to 100mph, temperatures as long as -50C, the threat of blinding snowstorms and whiteouts whilst rising to over 3000m on the high polar plateau … the South Pole is the ultimate extreme challenge. Only 3 teams managed to finish completely unassisted. 6 teams reached the pole. One team was evacuated after a medical emergency.  Team Keep A Child Alive made it to the South Pole in 21 days!

Friend of BOS, James Raaff, carried a few cans of BOS Ice Tea with him all the way to the South Pole! We are now the first commercial beverage to ever make it to the South Pole! GO BOS!

Read up more about Team Keep a Child Alive’s experience of this incredible adventure including training, technical assistance and day by day routines that kept them alive in Jame’s Raaff’s extract below:

“This story began nearly 2 years ago when Gavin Moran and his long time business colleague, Frank Runge decided that they wanted to tackle the challenge of the Antarctic. They watched BBC TV’s “On thin ice”, the story of UK rowing Olympic medalist/World Champion James Cracknell and Ben Fogle’s race to the South Pole. In awe of the experience, they did some research, contacted Extreme World Races (www.extremeworldraces.com) and entered the auspicious Centenary South Pole Challenge 2012.

James Raaff, Gavin Moran and Frank Runge – Team Keep a Child Alive

I met Gavin at the very start of his training. He had picked up some injuries and sought help at the House of Holistic Health, our Integrative Medical practice in Cape Town. We found solutions to his problems and also became friends – until he and Frank asked me to join them on a rather special adventure…

We are no longer friends. We are more like brothers now! I also feel something like old war veterans must feel for those that they fought alongside.

Sparring at -30° and nearly 3000m above sea level

They needed a third member to join them in the 800km race to the South Pole. It is the coldest, driest place on earth and has some of the most extreme weather. An opportunity like this does not come around often and I accepted quickly, keen to hear the details.

The race event would start in late December 2011 with an acclimatization phase (non-racing) at the Russian base Novolazarevskaya on the coast of Antarctica. Seven teams would start the race. Most teams had three members, three teams were pairs. One team was evacuated after a medical emergency. Only 3 teams managed to finish completely unassisted. 6 teams reached the pole. We were one of them.

All contestants and race staff slowly climbed through the mountains to gain altitude, acclimatize and complete final training touches. For instance, we had to assess the weight of our loaded pulks (sledges) and determine what we would take on the race and what was deemed unnecessary and left behind. The training phase was the most fun in that we eased into the distances that we had to ski and there were spectacular views in the mountains.

Gavin and Frank on the training leg. “Ulvetanna” (Wolf’s Teeth) in the background

The EWR staff moved around in amazing dream vehicles built by Emil Grimsson’s Icelandic company, Arctic Trucks. Emil and his team have revolutionized the way humans move around the Polar regions – safely, quickly, environmentally consciously and in very cool style! The Arctic Truck story is just beginning and I’m sure these super-vehicles will make their appearance all over the hard to reach places on this planet (and others… NASA take note).

A new kind of caravan in a very cold desert – Arctic Trucks gently get the job done!

Training for a race this long meant that we needed to build enough strength, endurance and resilience to handle the acclimatization phase (10 days, 120km, 3000m of altitude) and then have enough left to race the nearly 800km in exceedingly testing conditions. We knew we couldn’t train those distances; we would probably peak during the race and have to finish in a state of gradual breakdown. Hopefully our training would delay hitting the “wall” that so many endurance athletes speak of, so we had enough left in us to finish. The balancing act of hard physical work daily, eating enough, maintaining proper hydration and facilitating speedy recovery/resting was a real juggle – in training and the same on the race.

Pre-event preparation included:

• the initial compulsory meeting of the race organizers
• compulsory expedition training in Norway with the EWR expedition racing training staff
• further team trips to Norway to gain expedition experience and train
• expeditions to Icelandic glaciers to gain more experience
• all along we followed gym training programmes focused to build strength and endurance as well as condition the metabolic systems that are used during extreme distance cross country skiing

A gym training session would typically consist of:

• Running – tempo runs of 5-8km, 10km runs, longer slower runs and trail runs for uphill power.
• Cross trainer warm-ups at the gym – 20min – 1 hour
• Strength endurance training of the driving muscles – squat variations, lunge walks, single leg squats, balance squats using unstable surfaces
• Full-body functional exercises – split stance squat into overhead press, “wood-chop” type rotational exercises with cables/resistance bands
• Global core training – using arms and legs to create trunk challenges
• Some balance training – which we incorporated into strength exercises
• Stretching, massage and recovery techniques, including acupuncture from our team Traditional Chinese Medical practitioner and cranio-sacral therapy from our team Osteopath.

For the “expedition training” we travelled to Norway or Iceland, where we would map a route up a glacier and along the top of the glacier. We would take our skis and pulks and all the kit we planned to use on the race and “test” the equipment and our skills.

We drilled the navigational elements and skiing techniques, the pitching of the arctic tent and the melting of snow for water and such things that take up the daily routine of expedition racing. Naturally we improved with repetition and the Icelandic weather helped us gain valuable experience in dealing with “white-out” blizzards and snow-storms of the nature that the Antarctic may throw at us.

Training in Iceland

Helping the rescue team in a blizzard in Iceland

We also learned to specialize our roles within the team, i.e. one of us would always carry fuel, one carried food and the third member carried the tent. As we reached our daily goal distance/time, we would get busy with our tent drill roles and that way we cut down the time to pitch tent to a few minutes. The same went for cooking, in-tent admin, sleeping bag drill and all the other tasks that we repeated many times over during the race.

A day consisted of around 10-12 hours skiing, which we broke down into 2-hour stretches. 10 minute rests between each stretch were planned, during which we would eat, drink and make any clothing or venting adjustments to our technical clothing. The breaks shortened to a little over 5 minutes as the extreme cold began to freeze extremities. After a break we needed 10 minutes of skiing while vigorously swinging arms and legs to increase blood flow and warm up again. It was clear that once moving, the increased circulation was the only way to survive.

Of course fuelling our bodies was critical to being able to keep moving. We had worked out what we required in terms of energy and how best to plan foods for the race with the help of the EWR training staff and also private consultation with a performance nutrition specialist, Ian Craig. Spreadsheets of carb, fat and protein content and daily calorie counts plus numerous trials of different freeze dried expedition foods and day-bag snacks later – we narrowed down the 6000-7000 kCal to the following daily eating plan:

Breakfast was an 800 kCal freeze dried porridge with strawberries and at least a litre of water. Sometimes we also ate a few nuts and dried fruit from our day bags before setting off for the day’s skiing. Day bags, which we carried on us, were filled with nuts, dried fruit, dried meat (South African biltong) and dried sausage as well as Hammer Nutrition bars (up to 5 per day each).

We also took a high dose daily multimineral, multivitamin, 1000mg Omega3 fatty acids and a mixed carotenoid phytonutrient (to add the pigments from fresh fruit and veg that we were missing).

For rehydration, we melted snow and ice to prepare 3 litres of water into which we mixed 2-4 scoops of Hammer Nutrition’s Perpetuem. We also each filled a flask with hot water and added an electrolyte blend (Hammer’s Endurolytes Fizz). At the early part of the race this was fine but when the temperatures fell below -25, the cold water bottles, which were insulated, froze to slush then solid within a few hours. We changed to mixing only 1,5L of cold Perpetuem and added top-ups of hot flask water to prevent it from freezing later in the day.

After the days skiing, we stopped pitched the tent, got the cookers going and began melting snow again. First thing we had was a warm drink of water and Hammer’s Recoverite. Making sure we recovered as fully as possible each day was going to be critical. The race was nearly a month long and we had long days with little rest.

Seeing the other competitors after the race, we looked relatively healthy and well sustained, we certainly got the fuel and rehydration part right. We lost around 9kg each while some of our competitors lost nearly 18kg over the 40 days in Antarctica.

Hammer Bars natural largely raw ingredients meant they did not freeze!

The race was not without drama. After the first few days Frank had found it increasingly hard to eat ,then he began struggling to keep any food down and quickly began to weaken. We eventually had to stop, pitch the tent and get him some help from the race doctor. His system was struggling to keep up with the physical demands and higher speed of processing of food and water with little rest. He recovered well after a day and we carried on with a huge task to try to make the halfway point (CP1) before the cut off date.

The race course

Later in the first stage, we encountered problems with the fuel or both cookers and we had difficulty keeping them going to melt the water we needed and heat the tent. On day 8, after hours of troubleshooting and maintenance, we had to call for technical assistance. We continued on to the Pole with one cooker most of the way, which slowed us tremendously and made the tent very cold. Sleeping bags, rated -45 saved us and we jumped into them as soon as we could each night.

With medical and cooker assistance, we could not compete against the Norwegian team’s fine detailed preparation, skiing speed and single-minded focus. But we continued each day until we did make it to the pole and overcame the challenge that had been consuming our minds for the months before. It took 21 days.

The Norwegians finished the race in 16 days, smashing the previous South Pole Race time by 1 day, 23 hours and 27 minutes. They really do know how to operate in these extreme conditions very well and deserved the victory.

Over 1 millions steps… only few to go!

Team Keep a Child Alive at the South Pole

Our nominated charity “Keep a Child Alive” – we raised a few hundred thousand pounds for their great cause.

I don’t believe any of the competitors would go back to Antarctica again. It’s a once in a lifetime place for many reasons. It is harsh and barren and besides getting to the pole there is not much else for an expedition racer to see. Antarctica is not meant for humans – it is fragile and critical for the planet’s survival. The less we mess with it the better. The Centenary South Pole Challenge was a great challenge and we are all glad to be able to say we have been where very few have gone before.”

As one of South Africa’s most highly anticipated exhibitions, Decorex Durban showcases the latest in international and local trends in décor, lifestyle and home living as it celebrates its 10th birthday in 2012.

From 21 – 25 March BOS once again was involved creating the exquisite BOS Bar designed by Nicholas de Klerk of Design and Display. Our stand was a colour explosion – centred around the BOSsewa people could enjoy BOS cocktails while chilling amongst the colourful lounge and munch on delicious snacks catered by Sublime Catering. BOS combos with gourmet bunny chows, mini meze platters and amazing focaccias kept a constant flow of people around the stand. We were delighted to be announced as this years Most Interactive Stand!

Thanks to everyone who came and to all our fans support! We are looking forward to take part again next year. Take a look at the Decorex website for more details on all the participants and dates for next year

This past Sunday Miki Smith, co-owner and chef of Hout Bay institution Suikerbossie Restaurant and his determined band of friends (including ex-professional cyclist Manfred Oelz) pulled off one of the craziest stunts the Cape Argus Cycle Tour has ever seen. They rode the longest timed cycle race in the world on our retro BOS ice cream bikes all to raise awareness and funds for the Hout Bay based charities Bright Start and Demi’s Dream.

5 of the Demi's Dream Team Miki Smith, George Dimopoulos, Manfred Oelz, Costa Dimopoulos, Michael Petersen and Grier Fisher.

When we were first approached by Miki requesting to borrow our ice cream bikes for the Argus we thought he had to be joking – the Argus is one of the most gruelling and physically taxing cycling races in the world even when riding the most high-tech racing bicycles let alone on bulky tricycles with one gear, one break and absolutely no aerodynamic ability! But his enormous enthusiasm and dogged determinism combined with our love for wacky ideas and admiration for the work that Bright Start and Demi’s Dream do brought us firmly on board.

Waiting to kick off at starting time 8:30

They rode through 30+ degree heat on bikes that people struggle to ride on flat roads and completed it in 7.5 hours! BOS had 5 stop points where the guys (and 1 gal) filled up their bikes and sampled to the public who couldn’t get enough BOS in the sweltering heat. People were surprised and delighted that instead of handing out drinks to the cyclists they were getting ice cold drinks instead!

Miki explains, “The first 5km were the hardest but with the support of the crowd cheering us on we managed to reach our goal. It was a great team effort!”

This initiative has raised over R50 000 for Bright Start and Demi’s Dream to help sponsor underprivileged kids through their entire school careers. Founded in 2008, Bright Start is a community-based organisation that places underprivileged children from Hout Bay into schools with proven educational standards. This initiative provides continuous guidance to both the children and parents through its Support and Mentorship Programme. Equally charitable is Demi’s Dream, which was formed by Lucielle and Garth Abrahams in honour of their daughter who passed away two years ago in a tragic car accident. In an effort to keep Demi’s spirit alive, the initiative aims to educate children through the Bright Start Programme. In addition to school fees, these children will benefit from extra murals, transportation, after care and two meals a day. Funds raised from Biking Trikes in the Cycle Tour this year will aim to offer similar opportunities to three more children in the Hout Bay community. If you would like to donate to this amazing cause click here.

A big thank you and congratulations to Miki and the rest of the Demi’s Dream Team, Suikerbossie Restaurant and RBS Katz Breskal for everyone’s hard work! They truly captured the spirit of GO BOS!

riding stretch tandem

The BOS Models team, lead by BOS Brand ambassador and badass Mark Fawzy, brought the BOS spirit to the tournament. They may have not won the tournament but they certainly upped the cool factor by bringing beauty, brawn and tight white vests into the mix.