If you’ve never seen the documentary A Sunday in Hell, I urge you to seek it out. It follows the 1976 edition of the Paris-Roubaix one-day race and is essentially a paean to cycle racing filmed during the golden era or Merckx, Maertens and de Vlaeminck. I recently rediscovered it on Youtube and found it still has the power to mesmerise. Not least because it reminds you how far we’ve come since those pre-health-and-safety culture days when bikes were made of steel, helmets were optional and members of a team’s backroom staff could ride on the roof of a support vehicle rather than inside it. Possibly while plastered on absinthe. It also reminds you just how tough the Spring Classics races are, and what a shock to the system they…
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Bikes Etc (Digital) - 1 Issue, May 2019