Weight Weenies

Leaving aside the the merits of the photographer and his/her equipment, the pictures of the earlier era are "better" than current era because of no sunglasses, and to a lesser extent, no or less obtrusive helmets.

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Fair point about the lack of glasses and helmets at that time, you can really see people's faces. Hard to imagine riding without shades these days, let alone helmets.

The camera, a Mamiya 6, was a medium-format rangefinder often termed a 'large Leica'. Not as expensive as a leica but far from cheap. It took 120 rollfilm and gave you 12 6x6 images per roll. There were three interchangeable lenses for it and I had the standard 75/3.5. They all had leaf shutters so could sync with flash at any shutter speed. I used an external flashgun to give a belt of light and to freeze the action. The flash affects the foreground and leaves the background unaffected. The weather that day was warm and increasingly cloudy so there was no sunlight to throw deep shadows. Not long after the riders passed there was a bit of a thunderstorm and some rain. We walked back down the road in among a mass of walkers, cyclists and vehicles, found our car and drove back to Ferney-Voltaire.

Very nice pics. Absolutely love it!

Isn't this Gilbert 'Gibus' Duclos-Lassalle in the Z shirt? 2 times Paris-Roubaix winner and the pavé sector named after him (Pont Gibus) was back in the parcours of Paris-Roubaix 2013.

Or is this Ronan Pensec, the famous domestique of Greg Lemond?

Looks like E.Van Lancker, M.Sargeant, G. Duclos Lasalle and A.Kvalsvoll...

basilic wrote:Thank you Miller, that's wonderful.
I like the riders' positions, arms flexed, upper body relaxed (eg Indurain).
The nostalgia: La Suisse on Pascal Richard's jersey was the popular newspaper in Geneva (gone now), and Villiger still made their frames in the country. (The insurer Helvetia ia atill around)

Although VIlliger made barely any of the team's frames as they used TVT 92HMs.

Wingnut wrote:Looks like E.Van Lancker, M.Sargeant, G. Duclos Lasalle and A.Kvalsvoll...

Thanks for the identities, I remember those names but couldn't have picked them out.

In today's 'wrapped tighter than a sausage in the name of aero' those jerseys look like mtn biking clothing!

I miss skinny tubed bikes.

Big sigh.

M

Wow!

Twenty odd years, feels like ages ago.

OMG Fignon, looks like a suit plonked straight onto a bike
[RIP]

Absolutely awesome photos.

Now on the Cycling Inquisitions blog with some supporting text.

http://www.cyclinginquisition.com/2013/ ... -1991.html