[Leica] IMG: La Vuelta a España 2023

[Douglas Barry]

Great pix indeed, Nathan. For those of you bewildered by the appeal, I 
love cycling, probably as I've done it competitively in triathlons back 
in the 80s and appreciate just how hard it is.  I've been watching every 
stage of this live on Eurosport every day - sadly, bar yesterday.

I had to allow myself to being mauled to within an inch of my life by my 
two year old grandchild instead: we had to mind him and keep him amused 
for four hours. It was supposed to be here in Monkstown, but plans 
changed and, instead, we had to go into Dublin to mind him. Forgot to 
record the stage and had to settle for the highlights which started with 
67k to go. You were 80k to go, so your global audience dropped by one...

As you probably know, the first group is led by Dylan van Baarle - 
winner of the Paris-Roubaix race last year. For non cyclists, in the 
complex world of team cycling of bluff and counter bluff, he is used as 
a super domestique in the three week races to break the resistance of 
other teams. I see Stefan Bisseggar wearing the pink of the EF Education 
team in the third,  and Kevin Vauquelin of Arkea Samsic collecting a 
bottle in the fourth.

I can't watch today's stage either as I have a tasting with my wine 
society this afternoon, but I have the Vuelta set to record as I type.

Douglas


On 02/09/2023 20:49, Nathan Wajsman wrote:
> There are 3 grand tours in professional cycling—the Giro d’Italia in the spring, the Tour de France in July, and the Vuelta a España in August/September.  Today, the 8th stage of the Vuelta passed through what I call “my playground”, the mountains in the interior of Alicante province. As usual, I picked a spot to watch the race that would allow for good photo opportunities: going uphill (meaning relatively slow speed) and late in the stage, so that the peloton would be broken up into several groups. I drove to a bar 6 km from the penultimate mountain pass of the stage, a place which I visit on two wheels myself, and things worked out great. I had a nice vantage point and took a lot of photos. These are the initial serving that I particularly liked:
>
> https://www.greatpix.eu/Vuelta-a-Espa%C3%B1a-2023/
>
> Tomorrow, I will climb the Carrasqueta on bicycle (unless it is raining—cycling uphill on wet roads is OK but descending on wet curvy roads is not OK).
>
> Cheers,
> Nathan
>
> Nathan Wajsman
> photo at frozenlight.eu
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> http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws
> http://www.greatpix.eu
> http://www.frozenlight.eu
>
> Слава Україні! Героям слава!
>
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