[Leica] IMG: La Vuelta in Jijona

[Howard L Ritter Jr]

Thanks for the evocative images, Nathan. Bike road racing is my and my family’s favorite spectator sport (and for my younger son, his favorite participatory sport). We’re all glued to the TV coverage of the TdF every July since 2001. (Love Phil and Bobke, and mourn Paul.) The only ones we’ve seen in person were when my cyclist son and I saw the finish of the Tour in Paris in 2005, and 1981 when my then-wife to be and I saw it come through Wiesbaden, Germany, when we were stationed there with the U.S. Air Force. We were that close to the riders then too.

—howard

> On Aug 21, 2021, at 9:08 AM, Nathan Wajsman <photo at frozenlight.eu> wrote:
> 
> The Vuelta a España bicycle race started last weekend. After a series of relatively flat stages, yesterday things got serious. Stage 7 contained six mountain passes over 152 km, finishing in the mountains near Tibi, one of my cycling destinations. So I took the afternoon off to go and see the race. I planned to cycle to Tibi and catch the Vuelta at the top of the penultimate mountain pass of the stage. But the climb to Tibi is very tough, and inland temperatures were going to hit 40C during the afternoon. Driving was not an option (you go to see a bicycle race on a bicycle, or else you stay home and watch on TV). So instead, I cycled to Jijona, about 24 km away, and found a great spot with shade, shared with a nice local family. It was on a steep uphill, so the speed of the cyclists would be moderate (all relatively speaking, of course), and at that point the cyclists would have 120-125 km and four passes in their legs, so I knew the peleton would be nicely spread out, and it would take 20-30 minutes for everyone to pass. And so it was.
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> What I like about cycling from a spectator’s point of view is that in no other professional sport can you get so close to the competitors. I could have touched the cyclists if I had wanted to. But I settled for photos, and a small gallery of 29 images is now uploaded. Some of the images are not technically perfect but I included them anyway because they show the effort and suffering of the cyclists. Where I could identify the cyclists, I have done so in the captions. It’s all here:
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> https://www.greatpix.eu/La-Vuelta-in-Jijona/ <https://www.greatpix.eu/La-Vuelta-in-Jijona/>
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> As always, comments and critique are welcome and appreciated.
> 
> Nathan 
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> Nathan Wajsman
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> Alicante, Spain
> http://www.frozenlight.eu <http://www.frozenlight.eu/>
> http:// <http://www.greatpix.eu/>www.greatpix.eu
> PICTURE OF THE WEEK: http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws <http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws>Blog: http://nathansmusings.wordpress.com/ <http://nathansmusings.wordpress.com/>
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> Cycling: http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/belgiangator <http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/belgiangator>
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> YNWA
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> "I’m not arguing, I’m just explaining why I’m right"
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