Friday, October 23, 2009

Race Across My Eyes

Saw the King of the Mountains Doug Jansen last night in semi darkness, indoors. He was silent, smiling, and eyeglassed. Sounds creepy doesn't it?

I guess the same could be said of yours truly since we were exiting the Lowell Showcase watch other people doing things, eat, and get fat Cinemas. The place is astoundingly huge- but maybe that's a reflection of my myopic Concordianess.

Boys, the movie that played was the Race Across The Sky - 75 minutes of Leadville 100 shot from motos, on foot and from helicopters. Friggin awe-inspiring shots of some of the ridge riding with pulse quickening orchestral tension as Lance seems to speed from land to sky. Well, it was a bit overly dramatic, but it was real footage with several interview breaks, personal vignettes of coming back from injury, including tears jerked as some got pulled when they failed to make checkpoints within the allotted time. Touching. sniffle...

Dave Wiens, who arguably owns the race after winning 6 times, is featured but man, I know quite a few of us groan when Lance is at the center, and he very much was in the film just as he was during the pre-movie panel dicussion/inteview. Yep, the movie was presaged and closed out with a supposed live panel in a theater - Travis Brown, Wiens, Armstrong, the race promoter and Trek MTB slave, er...domestique Matt Shriver. Pretty cool, almost natural.

The movie was a great depiction of this year's Leadville 100- from start to finish. Amazing that the guys who shot it did so only 2 months ago.

Go see it, buy it or whatever. It's a thrill. The trailer (click on the wee button)