Philippe | LBCC Founder
Hello, I'm Philippe.
Asked to reflect on my love of cycling, the whys and wherefores of this passion, I was able to return to the pages of my Master’s thesis to unearth this passage where I describe how my passion for etching slowly made me slide towards cycling and vice versa:
”Perhaps it was etching that pushed me towards cycling. While practising it, I developed a rather romantic appreciation of it. It eventually led me to the bike, to appreciate this sport differently from other sports. By becoming an etcher, you accept to get dirty, to have your hands blackened with ink and your fingers smelling of copper. That’s what comes with the privilege of activating the hand-operated press. We accept the fact that the body becomes a slave to the movements imposed by the mechanisms of the machine.
On the bicycle, the feet are attached to the pedals, the body is welded to the machine which imposes us to activate it. And as with the press, our body unfolds to draw circles. In the activation of the press, when the muscles contract and relax in turn, I think of the bicycle. And conversely, when I am on the bicycle and I turn my legs, I imagine myself turning the big wheel of the Hurel press. In fact, my two passions are one.”
