Here’s some classic TdF eye candy for you: the short film Vive Le Tour has been put on YouTube in all its New Wave glory. The video and sound quality are both fantastic (for YouTube conversion from 1962) and it’s a highly-recommended watch—and an expensive purchase in meatspace.
The first two minutes are not narrated, but if you’re the impatient sort, stick it out—it picks up dramatically. Contains some great sequences on things you just don’t see anymore (cafe raids) and an interesting view of doping before oxygen-vector drugs.
(via duexkilometres)
Cool! Thanks for posting this . . . What I always notice in old cycling films is the way that climbing styles were different thirty or forty years ago. Back then, even the best guys would grip the bars near the center, lean forward, and rock their shoulders back and forth. You don’t see that style very often anymore: these days you’re either out of the peddles and dancing, or gripping the brake hoods and trying to keep your back steady. I think it may have something to do with the fact that saddle positions are higher now.
Uh, I think their riding must be a result of too many brewskies. I’d be rockin’ too!
I think the climbing style might be a result of higher gears. I get the impression watching Hinault attack climbs that there was a certain element of machismo in gear selection.
Eddy Merckx said in an old Cycle Sport that he used 42/21 for all the climbs, except Puy de Dome, which was too steep. Also, after years of dumpster-diving and cleaning up old bikes, I don’t think I’ve ever come across a 39 tooth chainring or a freewheel with more than 25 teeth.
Definitely due in part to the gearing. I think it was more than machismo. I don’t think the technical ability wasn’t there. You couldn’t design something for a 25t cog and still be able to get down to a 12t or 13t.
Also, people probably thought that it was better to do a heavier gear at a lower cadence than a lighter gear at a higher cadence. Part of it is about trends and fashion. They had short shorts; some riders these days have bibs almost to their knees.
At a certain point, the triple crank would make sense, but definitely there would be some “Granny” jokes.
I think gear-selection is pretty much a non-factor these days w/ 10-speed. Back when you only had 5-6 in the back made choosing the right cogs essential. It was always more manly to run the “corn cob” in the back. Merckx was riding a 5-speed right?
I wonder what the performance improvement modern 10-speed drives add?
I picked wrong week to downgrade my Internet connection speed. 160MB of flash video at 1Mbps requires patience. And yeah, I had to watch in high quality. Downloading ~26MB of a Windows Update at the same time didn’t help. Thx for posting.
Re gearing: When I raced as a junior (with a gear restriction of about 52×15), we had only 6 cogs in back (~1990), we had a sufficient range of gearing but lacked the one-tooth increments I enjoy today. Chainrings were almost always 42/52.
Does anyone know who the rider is who falls off his bike (number 20)? Or who is the guy being airlifted with the cracked skull? Thanks for posting this! Amazing how different the race looks.
Hek: According to French Wikipedia, #20 in the 1962 Tour was the Italian, Guiseppe Zorzi. (fr.wikipedia.org is a great resource for these sorts of questions, since it has a complete start list for almost every post-WWII Tour.)
Awesome find, Sebastian.
Yep, kudos on the vids. Very, very cool.
In the first video … there is a quick shot … and I’d swear it was a Sean Kelly clone. Now to find it again.
Thanks, Sebastian!
Didn’t gear selection for climbing also have to do with the fact that downtube shifters made it very difficult to shift while climbing? I always thought you’d have to be in a gear that was slightly ‘too big” for sitting and slightly ‘too small’ for standing.
I read on rec.bicycles.racing that this documentary was by famed director Louis Malle: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056662/
extremely nice film! The jerseys…sooo cool. Too bad you apparently have to have 10 or more sponsors to keep your team on the road these days…
https://www.diquigiovanniandroni.com/corridori.html