Le Ride follows Phil Keoghan and his friend Ben Cornell as they attempt to
recreate the original route of the 1928 Tour de France. Averaging
240 kilometres a day for 26 days, Phil and Ben traverse both the unforgiving
mountains of the Pyrenees and the Alps, on original vintage steel racing bikes
with no gears and marginal brakes.
The documentary takes inspiration from the remarkable true story of
Australians Sir Hubert Opperman, Ernie Bainbridge and Percy Osborne, and New
Zealander Harry Watson as the first English speaking team to compete in the Tour
de France. They arrived after six weeks at sea, under-trained and
under-resourced, untested and completely written off by the French media. The
1928 Tour was the toughest in history a hell on wheels race of attrition. Only
41 finished out of 161 starters yet remarkably three were from the
Australasian team.
This extraordinary story of achievement against the odds has never been told
on film until now.