The first film is a cycling film
December 28, 1895 is the official birth date of cinema.
On that day, Auguste and Louis Lumière screened the first projected film in the Salon Indien of the Grand Café in Paris. The 3 50-second films show workers leaving a photographic factory.
Nothing remarkable (apart from historical value of the footage).
What caught my eye were some workers with bicycles. That’s right, the first ever cinema screening and we have bikes in it.
Bikes and people. Not cars and people but bikes.
There’s also a dog.
Bruce Bennett, the author of Cycling and Cinema, writes:
In pushing their way past their co-workers and riding out of a photographic factory, the cyclists introduced 19th-century viewers to three-dimensional cinematic space, showing them the new ways of seeing the world offered by the cinema. Cycling is not an incidental element here; rather, the presence of moving bicycles in this film demonstrated the unique formal properties of this revolutionary medium: it is cycling that makes this film a film. In short, the first film is a cycling film.
Let me repeat this again: the first film is a cycling film.
Leave it with you for this thought to sink in.
The next next Eddy Merckx
As historians say, here we go again.
Remco Evenepoel asked the media 2 years ago to stop calling him the next Eddy Merckx.
Or is it the next next Eddy Merckx?
One advantage of being old is you remember things (and then you don’t). I remember a bunch of gifted riders, some Belgian and others not so much, being labeled the next Eddy Merckx.
Here is the list:
Tom Boonen
Peter Sagan
Wilco Kelderman
Edvald Boasson Hagen (c’mon)
Damiano Cunego (yes, Cunego)
Johan Museeuw
Claude Criquielion
Frank Vandenbroucke
Eric Vanderaerden
Freddy Maertens
I get it. As a cycling journalist, you want to spice your copy. And in this digital marketing age, there’s click bait to take into account. But, Cunego the next Merckx?
What did John McEnroe say about this?
Let’s recall: Eddy Merckx won everything under the sun and then some. He was the next Eddy Merckx before he became Eddy Merckx.
He started with Milan-San Remo in his first year as a pro and never stopped winning.
Remco Evenepoel?
Last year, after he won the Clásica San Sebastián, Merckx said:
He is ready for the big job. Can he follow in my footsteps? Maybe he will even get better. Remco has all the qualities to make it happen.
He does have the qualities, no doubt. But so did Tom Boonen at about the same age.
What does the next Eddy Merckx mean anyway?
For me, the next Eddy Merckx would have to win:
all Monuments
all Grand Tours plus at least one double
at least 5 Tour de Frances
at least one road world championship
more than 3 Northern Classics
a bunch of lesser Classics
cherry on a cake — Hour Record
This would be somewhat close, not exactly the Eddy Merckx, but good enough.
Right now, we’re talking about a 20-year-old kid. Massively talented but a 20-year-old still.
Let’s come back to it and discuss after he bags a couple of Tours, a Giro and the Ronde.
How about 7 Milan-San Remos? Or even 5?