Rapidité Rapidité | On the elegance of French racing bicycles is a photographic publication by Niels Schubert, published by Hartmann Books in 2024. The title quotes the motto of the speeding postman François in Jacques Tati’s 1949 film Jour de fête. Rather than presenting itself as a comprehensive history, the project brings together 22 French racing bicycles from the 1930s to the 1990s, drawn from the collections of Alexander Philipp / Subsonico and Karl Heinrich, to illustrate the elegance, beauty and variety of bicycles designed in France during that period. The photographs are by Niels Schubert, based in Stuttgart. Design is credited to Sophia Rau, Linda Enrich and Niels Schubert.
The publication is issued in card format rather than as a bound volume: 22 cards with 22 illustrations, together with one folded A2 poster, in a cellophane envelope, measuring 21 × 15 cm. Text is given in French, German and English. The publisher’s own specification is followed here for these edition details, in preference to distributor listings that describe the format differently.
An exhibition at Galerie Neo art&culture lab von VogelART, Nice, took place from 16 to 21 July 2024. The evidence documents the exhibition and the publication’s shared connection to the project and its subject; the exact relationship between the two is not specified and is therefore not asserted here. The book’s subject is the racing bicycle as a designed object, and the selection is presented as an illustration of a period’s visual variety rather than a complete survey.
