I had the idea for this image because in 2024 the Tour started abroad again, this time in Italy. The second stage finished in Bologna and went twice up the climb of San Luca, which is very famous and iconic. Since we had wanted to go back to Bologna for a while, and I wanted to photograph a real stage of the Tour for once, we decided to drive there to make an image.

We were actually already in Bologna the day before, so the evening before we could go up to the climb and look at the course. The atmosphere was really nice, because the road had been freshly paved and fans were painting the names of their favorite riders onto it. I hadn't picked out an exact spot to shoot from, but I had some good ideas for possible images. The next day we got to the climb about four hours before the race, because I thought that would surely be enough, though Marie had said we should leave earlier, and the hill was already packed. Alongside the climb there is an old arcade running a little above the road, a landmark of the city, which I would have loved to have in the picture, but I couldn't find a place from where I was able to include it. I was again close to not making a picture at all, but Marie said I should, so I decided to try holding my tripod up behind the fans who were standing in the windows of the arcade. Because my cable release is too short, Marie had to stand on the railing and trigger the shutter at the right moment. Beforehand I set the focus through a small gap between the fans, and when the riders came I held the camera up and hoped everything would work.

In terms of content, this is the image I like the "least" of all of them, and I thought for a long time about whether to exhibit it, because it didn't turn out at all the way I originally wanted. But I found that it fits well with the other cycling pictures, and when I look at it apart from what I had imagined, I actually like it a lot. I'm simply glad that I made the image, even though I was again close to not making it because of my poor planning. It showed me that I always find some way to make a picture I'm happy with, even when the planning is bad or doesn't work out. Still, in the future I want to document more races with more planning, so I can enjoy that part of the process on location a bit more.