Sitting around waiting for coverage of the Tour de France to start? Want to travel back in time nearly 40 years to see how they rode a Grand Tour in 1973? Well, I have the perfect movie for you, and it is on YouTube.
The film follows the 1973 Giro d’Italia and in his commentary Leth explains the fascination exerted by the great cycle races: “The most beautiful, most pathetic images cycling can give us involve extreme performances in classic terrain.” The action literally emerges on the move and the riders readily assume the roles tradition and epic necessity allocate to them, with the central conflict between the accustomed winner and greedy Belgian legend Eddy Merckx and the Spanish mountain specialist José Manuel Fuente. Stars and Watercarriers was created by a small film unit that use a vivid, documentary style to describe the race from close up and sometimes quite from within…