Review: Eyes Wide Open; the making of Cyclepassion 2011

Some time between Christmas and the New Year I was trawling through Twitter and Markus from Cyclefilm, who I follow, threw out the request for reviews of Eyes Wide Open…I was on that like a fly on honey, a week or so later the DVD arrived. Cyclefilm provide some of the footage for the Sufferfest Training Videos that I have talked about in the past, and who produce some wicked cool cycling videos of their own including the Recon of the L'Etape 2010 - The Road to Tourmalet and Liz Hatch; Come ride with me!, Recon So what’s the premise well Cyclepassion well it’s best described as what happens when eight elite women pro-cyclists trade in their lycra for latex, lace & leather to pose for the 2011 Cyclepassion Calendar. I think the appeal of this movie is best summed up by the founder of the Cyclepassion, Anke Wilken ;

“…cycling involves gear and technology, to us women it’s a mystery how men can admire bit’s and pieces of their bikes for hours”

Now that being said there is more to it than watching some very talented women pose with bikes, each photoshoot provides somewhat of an insight into these athletes psyche, their background in the sport and their training. Interesting there are some really candid moments where they talk about insecurities and fears in their chosen sports. Drawn from across the raft of cycling, including Cyclocross, MTB and Road you get a glimpse of what goes on behind what is perceived to be the glamor of being a professional bike rider. Glamor and glitz it aint!

In no particular order the riders are:

Willow Koerber (USA) - Trek/Subaru - MTB
Heather Irmiger (USA) - Trek/Subaru - MTB
Liz Hatch (USA) - Lotto Ladies Team - Road
Veronica Andreasson (Sweden) - Lotto Ladies Team - Road
Julie Krasniak - (France) Look - Road
Fabienne Heinzmann - (Switzerland) BMC - MTB
Mona Eiberweiser (Germany) - CentralPro - MTB
Hanka Kupfernagel (Germany) Road/Cross

Here are a couple of sneak peeks from the Cyclepassion Website

The Making of Cyclepassion from markus ★ cyclefilm.com on Vimeo.

The Making of Cyclepassion II from markus★ cyclefilm.com on Vimeo.

The wall calendar has long since sold out…go figure right but there are some desk ones left and of course you can pick up the Eyes Wide Open which is now on sale! Trust me the miles slip by on the trainer watching this!

This DVD was provided free of charge by the good folks at CycleFilm. See previous gear reviews in the sidebar on the right. If you have a product you’d like reviewed, contact me at quadrathon@gmail.com.

Saturday night at the movies…

I caught up on both of these during the week.

The first follows the story of four athletes from diverse backgrounds; two working professional (not professional athletes), a cancer survivor and partially blind runner/tri-athlete, it’s a bit focused on longer distance events; marathon, Ironman etc but the real story is finding the balance, the motivation, over coming obstacles and reaching goals.

The second is a made for TV (by ESPN) movie about Roger Bannister and the four minute mile. It’s  huge story to tell in 90 minutes and there’s a lot of things that are touched on and have no real depth, the rivalry between Bannister and Wes Santee and John Landy being one of them, that being said it does document Bannister’s, unothodox at the time, training methods and captures the mood very well.

Both are available through Netflix and Athlete you can stream direct to your computer or Roku.

Popcorn anyone?

Meet Serge & Nicole

This is Serge and Nicole Roetheli, in February 2000 they left their home in Switzerland to embark on a journey that I cannot even begin to comprehend; to run around the world!

Running the equivalent of a marathon every other day, Serge runs, over 25,400 miles in five years, while his wife Nicole rides her Yamaha motorcycle. Using their personal camera they captured the footage used in this film. Excerpts from Nicole’s personal diary reveal their experiences, adventures and accomplishments throughout their journey together and have resulted in the creation of this movie; "Beyond the Epic Run".

They traveled through 37 counties on six continents. Risking everything for this experience. It’s an amazing story of an athlete and his loving wife’s physical and mental strength.

The movie can be seen in selected cities check the website for more info, I will have a DVD giveaway for this soon so stay tuned. Here's the trailer and and an interview with Dean Karnazes talking about it. There are several more videos available at YouTube.

The best damn $8 you'll spend next week, period!

I managed to snag some tickets to this back in February, well now you have the opportunity to go. It’s on limited release for July 31^st only. Trust me it’s well worth money, check out the website to see which theater near you is showing it.

Like the man said…“sure it’s about running, but mostly it’s about life”…