1923: The Mystery of Lot 212 and a Tour de France Obsession

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And so – in the same way that, today, Bianchi and Peugeot and Gitane are owned by the same company – Alcyon had subsidiary brands in its portfolio. It is interesting, but it takes a lot of attention away from the main topic – the race and the stage 4 winner, Theofile Beekman.

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This manic on-this-day-in-history ‘Not The 1923 Tour’ strand takes up a large part of 1923 and when you join the dots – see the pattern! Boulting’s focus on Belgian rider Théophile Beeckman, the main protagonist of the film reel about whom very little is known, reminds me of that feeling when you pass someone on the street and realise that, although you’ll most likely never cross paths with them again, they have complex lives, relationships and stories of their own.

It’s that rich, because if you stare hard enough at any moment of recorded time, it will reveal shards of both the past and the future.Ned set about learning everything he could about the sequence - studying each frame, face and building - until he had squeezed the meaning from it. The pandemic arrested the usual rhythms of his life: “I measured out my life in yellow jerseys,” he notes, when he’s ­confined to providing commentary from the studio, biking to Kent rather than the mountain passes of France.

I cannot recommend it more highly, especially since I have the same palpable feeling of loss once the tale has been concluded.After Henri Desgrange gives the signal for the riders to restart after a two-minute stop to sign-in at the control in the town of Lorient, the peloton gets underway again. A WATERSTONES BEST BOOK OF 2023: SPORTLONGLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 'An absorbing mix of historical sleuthing and travel writing' The Telegraph'[a] fascinating and often touching book… Wonderful' The TimesThe story of an obsession. And all this from a video clip that is only a small part of the original film and that would likely have been lost and forgotten had Boulting’s friend not spotted it in an online auction.