Just saw A Sunday In Hell for the first time...
Absolutely brilliant. One very minor quibble was the lack of subtitles, but I guess that just adds to the ambiance.
What struck me most was how little the race has changed in 31 years. Ignore the woolen jerseys and the lack of helmets, and you coulda been watching O'Grady emerging from the dust clouds instead of Demeyer* or Moser. Other sports evolve, sometimes very quickly (watch a rugby match from 1976 and then re-watch the world cup), but cycling essentially stays the same. I like that.
*who I had to look up on Wikipedia
What struck me most was how little the race has changed in 31 years. Ignore the woolen jerseys and the lack of helmets, and you coulda been watching O'Grady emerging from the dust clouds instead of Demeyer* or Moser. Other sports evolve, sometimes very quickly (watch a rugby match from 1976 and then re-watch the world cup), but cycling essentially stays the same. I like that.
*who I had to look up on Wikipedia
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Manchester Wheelers
And when I said about subtitles, I should have said that you don't actually need subtitles because a) there's an English narrator and b) most of the film is of the race, so there's not much dialogue. There's just a small part at the beginning of a team meeting, the winner's interview at the end and various small snippets in between. Like I said, it adds to the ambiance.
Thanks for the spoiler
Merckx seriously damaged his back after a track crash that claimed the life of his derny pacer and kept adjusting the height of this saddle to alleviate back pain. Allegedly. Maybe he did, but I think he was probably just mind-phuqing with the opposition, the way that Nigel Mansell would make up all sorts of car problems, even if he won, to make him appear the master of any situation.
Bromley Video has it. Not cheap, though:
http://www.bromleyvideo.com/shop/shop.php?c=viewproduct&pid=26&cat=5
Pah, Breaking Away is where it's at.
Made me sling my leg over a bike anyway.
That film is the biggest load of censored . The worst film ever produced about any sport bar none!
Manchester Wheelers
http://youtube.com/watch?v=mB5a_H4k9sc
No I am not American, and no you obviously do not understand the concept of irony
Monty, monty, monty...how is a man supposed to concentrate on his work of an afternoon when you go conjuring up images like that?? Makes my office look pretty dull I'll tell you...
Now I've seen this too. Not as good as ASIH. Obviously, it's harder to fit a three week race into 90 minutes than it is a single-day race, and it definitely shows.
ASIH had narrative... a plot line, even. But Stars and Watercarriers was all over the place. There were very little explanations of what was going on, and some parts were just bizarrely edited.
All the way through we watch as the Spanish climber Jose Manuel Fuente battles to win a stage, and when he finally does get a victory with an epic breakaway over four mountain passes, the film cuts away without showing his win! Annoying!
Overall, it was 90 minutes of pretty pictures of a peloton streaming through some amazing scenery, but that was pretty much it. ASIH has focus, tension, and a plot. S&WC is really something that only true cycling geeks would enjoy.
Still, it came with The Impossible Hour on the same dvd, a 45 minute documentary about Ole Ritter's attempt at the hour record in Mexico City. I enjoyed that a lot more than the main feature.
Rooooooooo-baaaaaaaayyyyyy
Excellent film. Best bit? The beginning where Moser's mechanic cleans his bike and fettles the brakes with a hammer handle to get them right. Ahhhh bliss, I could watch that sort of s**t for hours :oops:
On your disc braked Ti crosser?
Here is some more romance. ignore the schmalzzy melodramatic Yank commentator
http://youtube.com/watch?v=QvAdfqo43s0&feature=related
are you mental??? That's the best bit!!!!!
That's got us through many a tough winter training run, with the spray kicking off rear wheels, splattering us with sh*t, wind howling, cold temperature, heavy rain,etc and then some bright spark (usually me) starts up the chorus.........everyone hunkers down and gives it a bit of stick and we're there duelling it out in the Arenberg forest.
As for it being dated - hell yeah! Gotta love those sideburns they're all sporting
Yes the music's great, like a Werner Herzog film.
Manchester Wheelers
Thanks Andy-I downloaded it together with three other films-some really lovely scenes, just flicking through-can't wait to see it properly
Not cheap, but not ridiculous. Watched it last week, agree I like the choir and the horrendously dated interior shots are cool. It's a bit strange watching it, almost hypnotises you. The sheer physical effort required of the riders never really comes across, (almost makes it look easy, just along a road a bit, then some cobbles, then a track) but it's quite trance-like as a result.
Very enjoyable all the same, I'm going to watch "Overcoming" next
I beg to differ. "Cobbles baby" is a documentary by a chubby guy from San Francisco who goes to Europe for the first time and to Paris-Roubaix. He manages to mispronounce everything, even "pavees". He meets up with Frenchmen and blathers incoherently then is surprised when they can't offer him directions. It's like Mr. Bean goes to PR.
Best scene: Sean Kelly walks into the pub at Compeigne, and the producer says, "my god, it's Stephen Roche".
Documentarian then strips naked at showers in Roubaix-it gets worse from there.