a film

Alrighty for all you tour fans out there, today's pick is "Hell on Wheels".

This is a doco that goes behind the scenes of the tour de France with a German team focusing on 2 riders in particular.

I watched it twice.

It contains interesting scenes looking at the teamwork involved in the race, although I would have liked a bit more of this to learn a bit more about the tactical side.

It was really nice to hear some of the live sounds of the race - like the sound of a whole pile of bikes wizzing past, and the huffing and puffing of some riders - sounds which you don't get to hear on the tv broadcast.  You also get to see things which the broadcast doesn't show you either, like the clean up van up the back that picks up the riders who have dropped out, and the promo vehicles that go ahead of the race, and the rubber ducky car.

There are also some wonderful bits of archival footage of old races back in the early days.

Plenty of crashes, too many massages, and unfortunately it's in German so you miss a lot of the pictures trying to read the subtitles, which is why it's good to watch it twice - there are some great pictures taken from really different perspectives.