Video: Spectacular high-wire bike ride launches Bristol’s year as Green Capital

Bristol’s year as European Green Capital was launched in spectacular fashion last night as one of the world’s leading tightrope walkers rode a bike along a 120-metre long wire 100 feet above the ground, with his wife suspended below.

It took Jade Kindar-Martin around 15 minutes to cycle the length of the wire between the A Bond warehouse and the B Bond warehouse, which now houses the Create Centre, in the Hotwells area of the city.

His wife, Hollywood stuntwoman Karine Mauffrey, performed an aerial trapeze routine, wearing a specially designed dress that lit up through the use of LED technology, as shown in the video below of the dress rehearsal.

The event, put together by Bristol-based Cirque Bijou, was accompanied by light projections onto the buildings as well as a musical score specially composed by Dom Coyote.

Called Bridging The Gap, the performance aimed to “symbolise the difference between our green intentions and our actions – and the bridge that we all need to cross to start living more sustainably,” according to the Bristol 2015 website.

The website Bristol 24/7, which posted the video of the dress rehearsal to YouTube, says that thousands of people watched yesterday evening’s performance.

Kindar-Martin and Mauffrey introduce themselves in this video released ahead of last night’s event.

After last night’s performance, which took place without a safety net, Mauffrey told the Bristol Post: “I was a little bit nervous beforehand, just that something technical would go wrong with the winch getting me up the building or my dress.

“We had one or two problems in rehearsal which were making me a bit nervous. But I was mostly excited, and it never once crossed my mind anything would go wrong or we would fall.

“I trust my husband 100 per cent. He has been doing this for a long time. We got married on a high wire ten years ago - so this felt almost like a ten-year anniversary celebration.

“Back then I was wearing a white dress just like the one I have on now, so we were talking about that after we finished the stunt,” she added.