Hell on Wheels
February 2006 Reviewed by: Marc Mickelson Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

Lance Armstrong's amazing career has brought professional cycling a larger audience, yet it remains a sport that even hard-core sports junkies here in the US have a hard time appreciating. I know -- I didn't take to it until I started watching the Tour de France, the most famous bike race of them all and, along with the World Cup, the biggest sporting event on Earth.

Hell on Wheels shows just how big the Tour has become -- rather like a Super Bowl that occurs in a different city each day for three weeks. The movie follows four riders from the T-Mobile team as they compete in the 2003 Tour de France, which was famous for crashes by three of Lance Armstrong's top rivals. With this as a backdrop, we see T-Mobile plan their strategy and talk in frank terms about the "suffering" that bike racers endure. When you see what one of the subjects of the movie, Eric Zabel, goes through, you know that "suffering" is literally what it takes to compete on the highest level of cycling.

Some of the movie's best moments occur while the riders are simply talking to the camera, as Zabel often does, confessing at one point that no matter how hard he and teammate Rolf Aldag train, they will never compete with the elite riders of the world. This is quite an admission for a world-class athlete to make, but it's an honest one. The Tour de France is a long stage race with high mountains. Zabel is a sprinter; it is not his kind of race.

The movie, which is in German with English subtitles, features some stunning camerawork that captures the beauty of the French countryside along with the frenetic pace of the race. The high point of the movie -- literally -- is the 14-kilometer climb up Alpe d'Huez, with its 8% grade and 21 hairpin turns. It is the Tour's equivalent of Yankee Stadium -- a site of legendary performances.

The DVD's colorful and sharp picture makes me wonder if the original was shot in high definition. Extras include seven minutes of deleted scenes and a photo gallery. Because of the movie's collage-like construction, both are worth a look.

Lance Armstrong is a ghost in Hell on Wheels -- there are only glimpses of him here and there. But this isn't any one rider's story. Rather, it is an inside view of a punishing sport. If you just don't get cycling, watch this movie and you'll comprehend it a little better.

• Go Back