Daily Cycling Facts 08.11.12

November the 8th 2011

Frantz

Today marks 62 years since the death of Paul Kroll during the Berlin 1000 Laps at the Funkturm Track velodrome in 1949.

It's been 26 years since the death of Nicolas Frantz, the Luxembourg-born winner of the Tour de France in 1927 and 1928. Riding his first Tour in 1924, Frantz won two stages and achieved second place overall behind the great Ottavio Bottechia and was National Road Champion from 1923 to 1934. He died four days after his 86th birthday in 1985.


Happy birthday to Jan Raas, the Dutch ex-World Road Champion (1979) and winner of ten stages in the Tour de France. Raas also won two Ronde van Vlandaarens, a Paris-Roubaix, Milan-San Remo and five Amstel Gold Races during the 1970s and 80s. He later became manager of Team Rabobank, a position he held until 2003.

George Pilkington Mills, an English cyclist who won the first Bordeaux-Paris in 1891, died on this day in 1945.

...and happy birthday to John Orbea, cyclist and blogger who is 37 today!