A Beautifully Shot 1965 Film About the Picturesque Tour du St-Laurent Bicycle Race Across Quebec

60 Cycles is a short film from 1965 about the 1964 Tour du St-Laurent, a picturesque bicycle race that stretches 2400 km (~1,500 miles) across the Gaspé countryside in Quebec over 12 days.

This short documentary follows the 11th St-Laurent long-distance bicycle race held in Quebec in the summer of 1964. There, participants from 13 countries covered 2 400 km of Gaspé countryside in 12 days–a course longer than those of Italy, Belgium or Spain.

The National Film Board of Canada commissioned the film with Jean-Claude Labrecque as director. Labreque utilized telephoto lenses for the film’s quintessential long shots and a car-mounted camera to fully capture the nonstop action against such a stunning backdrop.

The long shots of curving landscape and open road are set to a mesmerizing soundtrack in this documentary, and the results are spellbinding.

60 Cycles

via Nag on the Lake

Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.

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