Guest Anatomy of a Photo: Here We Rest

photo by Camille McMillan

@steampunk dropped this beauty of a photo on us. Volumes being spoken here, none of which makes being a pro look so great. Thanks Steamy.

VLVV, Gianni

I’ve waxed lyrical on the darker side of le métier on these pages in the past””on the physical and psychological demands that pro riders endure. But this photograph requires even more of the cycling fan. Tan lines? Check. Eye wear? Well placed. These are pro, right?

But this kind of voyeurism almost inspires an awkward kind of guilt. Witness: the still-open door; the suitcase stand still leaning against the wall””suitcase dumped on the floor beside it; shoes (as beaten and worn down as the rider) askew in the general vicinity of the shoe mat. How do we process these? Dingy hotel. Emaciated rider. Sun-burned face. Chapped lips. Hunched shoulders. Heavy head. Distant eyes. Broken. Total, utter, complete fatigue. And tomorrow they expect panache. Again.

Steampunk

In never-ending search for la voluptÃ©, Steampunk is an unreconstructed Canadian west coaster transplanted to Ontario, where he rides on every opportunity and sometimes shows up to work as a professor of history. He is a careful student of the Rules and la vie Velominatus, but is not beyond (occasionally) distilling them down to a single path: la vie Cognoscentus. The BFGs are always locked and loaded (that sound you just heard was your soul being crushed by their power). On a more serious note, he is a staunch advocate of commuting by bike and he also fundraises for Bikes to Rwanda.

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View Comments

wiscot says:

Jan 4 2013 at 2:38 pm
TBONE says:

Jan 4 2013 at 2:44 pm

You guys are reading too much into this. Barry is merely wondering how he's going to get some proper maple syrup into his gullet before the start of tomorrow's stage. He's going through withdrawal, having been gone from his home and native land for so long.
brian says:

Jan 4 2013 at 3:12 pm

i'm canadian.sorry,all i see is a cheat.
brian says:

Jan 4 2013 at 3:16 pm

on a lighter note,see this team sky rapha unveiling,

The range consists of more than 130 items, of which every rider will receive multiples - a staggering figure of 703 pieces per pro. Along with the expected bits of cycling kit for every weather condition, they'll also receive jeans, trousers, shirts, and even branded merino wool boxers

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/gallery-team-sky-unveils-rapha-2013-team-kit 703 piece of kit,for each rider,wow.
the Engine says:

Jan 4 2013 at 3:20 pm

@allezfignon

I wonder if he had to wash his own jersey and hang it on the back of the chair to dry like The Prophet did in "La Course en Tete"...

Nope - Sky have a washing machine and tumble drier built in to the team bus - roughly where the suitcases go on a normal touring coach...
allezfignon says:

Jan 4 2013 at 3:21 pm

I think he is worried about getting stuck in the Formula 1 Hotel shitter...
the Engine says:

Jan 4 2013 at 3:38 pm

Yup, he looks like a man who's finished a day's work and has another one to look forward to tomorrow. However he's got to get rid of the photographer; get his kit off and with the soigneur pronto and then have the shower and the crap he's been putting off since he rolled over the finish line an hour ago - five minutes after the stars had started their press interviews.

Then it's in to the team casual kit and downstairs for that well balanced meal and a meeting with the DS with or without coffee - depending on how the day went.

Massage will be fitted in when the GC men have had theirs.

Maybe there'll be time for a call home and the opportunity to have a "domestic" before a non-air-conditioned night. Leave the window open for air and get eaten by mozzies or shut the window and sweat?
moby doug says:

Jan 4 2013 at 3:57 pm

@razmaspaz No politics in pro cycling?! Think again, amigo. Or read the accounts of Lance and his teammates, or of the aging Hinault when he didn't want his young teammate Lemond to overshadow him.....
Steampunk says:

Jan 4 2013 at 4:31 pm

I seem to have failed to credit Camille McMillan for the photo (which also appears in later editions of Barry's Le MÃ©tier).

@wiscot

Not sure I agree"”B&W or sepia would likely remove the impact of the dull faux-wood colours in the hotel room. What I like about the colour is that there are plenty of sepia tones in here already. I think it's the utter absence of ambience that gives this picture its real character. That said, @brian seems to be seeing it in pretty B&W terms, so you could ask him what it looks like from there.

@razmaspaz

I think that's precisely the point. But nobody romanticizes your cubicle. And yet: we romanticize the shit out of pro cycling. When you get home from the office, you go for a ride to clear the cobwebs and frustrations. Imagine riding to the point where you lose all pleasure in it.
PeakInTwoYears says:

Jan 4 2013 at 4:51 pm

@Steampunk

@razmaspaz

I think that's precisely the point. But nobody romanticizes your cubicle. And yet: we romanticize the shit out of pro cycling. When you get home from the office, you go for a ride to clear the cobwebs and frustrations. Imagine riding to the point where you lose all pleasure in it.

Precisely what I was thinking. The pathos of the image is in the sickening distance between a harsh reality and something we fantasize.