Sorry if this has come up here before but following a passing mention in one of the cycling podcasts, I've just started watching a documentary series - on YouTube - on the Tour of Flanders, with one for each year since the centenary 2016 edition. Think A Sunday in Hell without the patina of age and the distinctive voice-over commentary, but with a lot more cameras and a lot more stories. There are cameras in several of the team cars, in the commentary booths (variety of languages), with on-course announcers, camera motorbikes, the race director's car, with the spectators, the media co-ordinators, on the farm of the parents of one of the young Flemish riders, in the bars, oh, and with race footage as well. And they're edited together so an incident on the road will show reactions throughout the microcosm (macrocosm?) of the race. I assume by the latest edition it will include on-bike cameras. I've only seen 2016 and 2017 and the rhythms are very similar to A Sunday in Hell. The overriding impression is one of organized chaos, with the chaos threatening to overwhelm the organization as the race progresses. The 2016 one was good, the 2017 one better, so I have I high hopes of the remainder.
A little bit of flavour: during the relatively relaxed early stages - break has been established - a rider leans in on team car (can't remember which one - Bora, I think) and asks for toilet paper. Director asks who for, as mechanic rummages through wheels, bidons, snacks, spare shoes and whatever else is kept at the back, improbably finding and passing up a roll. 'Me' answers the rider, 'and quick'. Team director tears off and hands out a few sheets: 'That's the best, I use it on my boy's bum and you're like a son to me'. Rider rides off. Brief pause then director mutters, with perfect timing: 'Good luck finding somewhere to poo in the Tour of Flanders'. There could well have been a camera at the selected place, but, if so, it didn't make the cut.
If you're intereted, this is the first:
https://youtu.be/XFqfqO6CQko
