“For some reason I thought, you know what, maybe I could pretend to go up the road and take a pee. So I sorta noodled up the side of the road, kinda got, you know a few hundred meters ahead. The road was really twisty and turny out of Paris, and I looked back and they couldn’t see me for a second, and I just throttled it man, just put in 12, out of the saddle, just went as hard as I could… Within 10 minutes I had a couple minute lead—and I was out of sight, out of mind.”
Alex Stieda’s storytelling of he and the 7-Eleven team’s first Tour de France experience in the new Rapha Continental short is compelling. Not unlike a delicious appetizer worthy of a main course, I wished the video was longer.
The quote at the top details the genesis of his donning the Maillot Juane for one day at the ’86 Grande Boucle. Love the “Let’s go to the Tour de France!” quote too. Shows how nieve the team was yet simultaneously ready for anything that was thrown at them.
As always, the Conti videos provide copious images of Rapha livery wrapped in slo-motion suffering and dramatic high-speed scenes of sweeping descents. I, for one, am not against this.
The camerawork, editing, and score do a fantastic job showcasing Alberta, Canada’s pristine countryside.
It also reintroduced us to the magic of a groundbreaking hero from cycling’s past. Check out Rapha’s video as well as the backstory on the rides.
Links
Post & video: Rapha Continental Alberta, Canada with Alex Stieda
Website: Alex Stieda Cycling
Blog: Stieda Cycling: Skills, Tactics, Advice & Fodder
Twitter: @alexstieda