Stars and Watercarriers

Maybe the second best cycling movie made, possibly behind A Sunday in Hell. If you click on the "play all" on the right hand column in YouTube you can sit back and enjoy. (Note the doctor's yellow car. At that same time I was driving a similar Fiat 124 Spyder, only in a spiffy Italian red. Ah, youth.) So, enjoy:

It's hard to watch this and not get absorbed by the differences between yesterday and today. Those mountain roads were were just brutal - cyclocross anyone?. In spite of all the improved technology, training, and dare I mention drugs (?), I get the feeling that strong men were still strong men. Drop Eddy Merckx into today's peleton and he's still be a tough man to beat. Even riding his "primitive" bicycle. And it's hard not to love his tactics. There was none of this nursing an 8 second advantage for a week. He went out front himself and slowly ground them into submission. Then when they were dying, he attacked and just rode away.