Tour de France Mood Board, part 2

I like to picture modern racing heroes in old black and white, tires strapped elegantly and efficiently across their shoulders, cap flipped up. Tadej Pogačar has elements of a young Jacques Anquetil, don’t you think? Jonas Vingegaard, his face creased beyond his 25 years, seems made for aviator goggles and a singlespeed. And Mathieu van der Poel, he reminds me of someone. Can’t put my finger on who.

These photos are arranged in roughly chronological order because the ways our sport has changed, and the ways it hasn’t, are an endless source of fascination.

If you missed part one of this series, which explains the premise, you can find it in the first Mood Board. The short version is that these are photos dumped into a folder on my desktop over years, each pulled out and saved because it sets some mood I want to someday replicate or capture. As before, we’re limited to photos we have rights to, mostly via the Getty Images archive. But there’s plenty to peruse nonetheless.

We set off in the 1930s, as Victor Cosson, a year after his third-place finish at the Tour de France, collects himself post-stage.