By now, if you haven’t seen the One of Those Days trilogy, do yourself a favor. Candide Thovex makes skiing look about as fun as it possibly could. And breaking down the separate parts to his flick, his antics become even more intricate and radical. Like his jump over a moving helicopter, or flying across water to grab a ski rope. But because everything is in POV, it’s sometimes hard to get perspective on what he’s actually doing. So when snippets of behind the scenes action seep into the Internet strata, it only adds context to an iconic series of edits.
The above is a scene of the Frenchman flying over a bicycle peloton. On his Facebook page, he captions it, Tour de France. Not likely. Beautiful staging though. Here’s how it played out in the movie:
But in 2002, this dude, freeride mountain bike legend Dave Watson, gapped the Tour’s peloton on the Col du Galibier, a mountain pass in the southern region of the French Dauphiné Alps near Grenoble. He clears the gap–and thankfully, doesn’t land on any professional cyclists–but then completely eats S#@%. Check this out:
But wait, we have a theme here. Gapping the Tour de France seems to be a thing, and a wet dream of athletes not actually participating in the event (hoping to perhaps steal some mainstream thunder?). This is freeride mountain biker Romain Marandet, who’s jump is in a much less dramatic area, but he stomps it cleanly:
