Paris Is Still Far Away: Sensory Sensations from a Hundred Years of the Tour de France

The sentence was on the lips of countless cycling legends such as Joop Zoetemelk, Fausto Coppi and Jacques Anquetil: 'Paris is still far away'. Peter Ouwerkerk, an astonished follower of the Tour de France for thirty years, brings the tension, despair and pure, physical emotions of the cyclists during that multi-day battle of attrition tangibly close in 'Paris is still far away'. He puts himself in the shoes of the Tour cyclist and his pedals, handlebars and saddle as the sizzling reception station of a highly intensified perception of reality. Ouwerkerk knows better than anyone how to make the sensory experiences of the cyclist tangible: he feels the pulse, tastes the irritation and in passing also registers the underexposed, the snowed under, the unspoken, the quasi-innocent. In 'Paris is nog ver' an inside perspective unfolds on the human, all too human Tour story without the seemingly all-determining neurosis of winning and losing. Ouwerkerk delves into the wondrous DNA of the Tour de France and brings the sensory stimulation of the traveling village in the past and present to life. With photos by Tour photographer Cor Vos.