Film, Le Ride

[Dave_C]

Last night I went to the local cinema in Edinburgh to watch Le Ride. It had been promoted on a local cycling forum through Demand Film. I bought a ticket and was pleasantly surprised to find out it was a film about a few American's who were recreating the 1928 TdF on original racing bikes. The scenery and soundtrack were superb, featuring lovely pictures of the Pyrenees in the shots. They wove the tale of the 1 Kiwi and 3 Aussies, who entered the 1928 Tour (expecting 6 other European riders to make up a team of 10) into the story of their recreation of the tour. Riding as much of the original route as possible on original 1920s bikes, they had a good support team and motorcycle rider filming their ride, but the sheer enormity or the ride was awe inspiring.

If you have not see it I would heartily recommend seeing if Demand Film has any plans to show it near you.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

https://uk.demand.film/le-ride/ suggests it will be playing in London at 20:45 Thursday 07 December.

I think some of the same riders tried doing PBP15 in the 84hr group and timed out.

[Ripio]

Saw it in Glasgow last night, great film.
The main film maker was Phil Keoghan who is a New Zealander not an American, athough he lives in the States.
http://philkeoghanleride.com/

[De Sisti]

I think some of the same riders tried doing PBP15 in the 84hr group and timed out.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

If they hadn't insisted on all pulling out when it stopped being fun for one of them, I reckon most of them would have squeaked in. I suppose that wouldn't have looked so good though.

[Ham]

Looks interesting, reading down the stages timetable I assume the southern France middle-of-the-night starts are to avoid the heat of the day in June. Glad they had LED lights to show the way back in 1928.  I'm trying to imagine what it must have been like to descend an alpine road, in the dark (saving acetylene light?), without brakes to speak of.  (Eg Nice/Evian to Grenoble, must involve some substantial ascent/descent)

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Riding without lights or poor lighting is quite pleasant when there is no other road traffic or extraneous lights to spoil your night vision. I grant that old-time road surfaces, particularly in the mountains, would be a pain at times.

[Ham]

Night riding in quiet countryside is enjoyable, which is why I was saying the issue is for the descents, where gravity has so much say in the matter. While it was scheduled for a full moon it doesn't take much cloud or tree cover to radically alter your ability to see the hole, rock, sheep or badger in the road.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

There were no mountain top finishes back then and riding main roads was commonplace, so most of the night-time roads were fairly benign. That said, riders were reported as crashing into hazards at night; it was considered part of the risk of racing.