Daily Cycling Facts 22.12.2012

On this day in 1894, Alfred Dreyfus was falsely convicted of treason in France - thus beginning the Dreyfus Affair that inspired Jules Albert De Dion to join forces with other wealthy anti-Drefusards and establish the L'Auto newspaper as opposition to the pro-Dreyfus Le Velo newspaper. L'Auto did not sell well during its first few years and its owners demanded that the editor, an ex-professional cyclist named Henri Desgrange, came up with a scheme to improve circulation; on the 20th of November in 1902, he and his staff came up with the idea of holding a bicycle race. None of them could have guessed that, more than a century later, it would still be held annually; nor could they have known that it would grow to become the biggest and, as far as millions of people worldwide are concerned, the greatest and most important sporting event in history - the Tour de France.

Marcel Molinès
Marcel Molinès is frequently listed as the only black winner of a Tour de France stage. That there had been one would be wonderful, since professional pelotons in Europe and the USA are even to this day oddly white with only an occasional East Asian to break the monotony.

Marcel Molinès

Unfortunately, there's a slight issue in that he wasn't black, as can be seen very clearly in photographs. He was, however, the first African-born stage winner (the probable reason behind the error), having been born in Chibli in French Algeria on this day in 1928. The stage he won was Stage 13 in 1950, a 215km flat route between Perpignan and Nimes on a day that was searingly hot with temperatures reaching as high as 40C. Molinès and his team mate Abdel-Kader Zaaf (who was black, but neither won a stage nor finished this one), being accustomed to the heat of Algeria, were not so badly affected as the European riders and, for a while, Zaaf even led the race when the pair managed to build up a 20 minute lead.

Later on, they began to suffer and stopped for a drink; Zaaf was handed a bottle of wine and drank it. As he'd never consumed alcohol before due to his Muslim faith, he was entirely unprepared for its effects and began to wobble dangerously, so he lay down in the shade under a tree to sleep it off (when he woke up, he set off in the wrong direction and became a celebrity) while Molinès continued and was able to win the stage by four minutes. However, back down the road was a peloton powered by the fearsome Ferdy Kübler (often spelled Ferdi, but here spelled how Ferdy himself spells it - the big Swiss rider is now a charming elderly gent who bears little resemblance to the rider he once was), Louison Bobet, Antonin Magne and Gino Bartali: a peloton like that isn't going to allow a virtual unknown to take all the prizes and, though Molinès won the stage, Kübler retained the race lead and kept it for the rest of the race.

Happy birthday Siobhan Dervan!
(image credit: Fanny Schertzer CC BY-SA 3.0)

Molinès finished the Autun criterium two years later and retired in 1954; many books claim that he then vanished and some even say that it's not known whether or not he has died. In fact, he returned to his previous job as a taxi driver but continued to race as an amateur and in 1980 won a veteran's race against 60 other competitors - and, at the time of writing, is still very much alive


Italian cyclist Bruno Pellizzari, winner of a bronze medal at the 1932 Olympics, died on this day in 1991. He was born on the 5th of November in 1907.

Five-time Irish National Road Champion Siobhan Dervan was born on this day in 1978. In 2012, she was third in the Individual Time Trial and second in the Road Race at the Nationals.

Louise Moriarty, born in Dublin on this day in 1978, first came to prominence with fifth place in the Irish National Individual Time Trial Championship of 2001, then a year later improved to second place and took third in the Road Race Championship too. She then had a couple of quieter years before coming third again in the National Road Race; then in 2006 and 2007 she became National Individual Time Trial Champion. 2008 would be a remarkable year - first she set a new national record in Individual Pursuit at the Newport Velodrome, shaving three seconds from the previous best time, then became Irish champion in the 500m Time Trial, Individual Pursuit, Scratch and Points race champion before going on to win two stages and the overall General Classification at the Ras na mBan road race in addition to coming second and third at the National Road Race and Individual Time Trial Championships respectively.

Jacques Bossis, winner of the Intermediate Sprints classification at the 1978 Tour de France, was born in Jonzac, France on this day in 1952.

On this day in 1900, Oscar Aaronson died a few days after he was injured in a crash at New York's Madison Square Garden Six Day Race. Before his death, other riders expressed concern that the crash "might prove fatal to six-day racing itself."

Other cyclists born on this day: Albert Kägi (Switzerland, 1912); José Jaime Galeano (Colombia, 1945); Scott McGrory (Australia, 1969); Leif Lampater (Germany, 1982); Aleksandar Milenković (Yugoslavia, 1967); Marcus Hurley (USA, 1883, died 1941); John Dean (New Zealand, 1947); Barbara Blatter (Switzerland, 1970).

Daily Cycling Facts 21.12.2012

Iljo Keisse

Happy birthday to Iljo Keisse, who finally returned to competition in 2011 after a doping investigation that has seen him banned, cleared and re-banned before ban was overturned. Keisse was born in 1982 in Ghent, Belgium, where his ban remained in place until the 27th of January 2012 - a few months later, at the Tour of Turkey, he crashed near the end of Stage 7 when his chain came off; he was able to put it back on and remounted to win just ahead of the chasing pack. In addition to a superb track cycling palmares, Keisse finished 6th overall in the 2006 Tour of Britain.

Marcel Cadolle was born in Paris on this day in 1885 and turned professional in 1905. His 2nd place finish at the 1906 Paris-Roubaix (when he was beaten by 1904 - and youngest ever - Tour de France winner Henri Cornet) and Stage 4 win at the 1907 Tour de France suggest that he would probably not be so forgotten as he now is and might even have been among the greats had his career not have been ended prematurely during Stage 7 at the 1907 Tour when he crashed and seriously injured his knee. He died on the 21st of August, 1956.

Scheuenman in 2007

Niels Scheuneman
Born in Veendam, Netherlands on this day in 1983, Niels Scheuneman is the son of Bert Scheuneman who rode for Kondor and other teams during the late 1970s and early 1980s and won stages at the Österreich-Rundfahrt, Milk Race (Tour of Britain) and Tour of Luxembourg. Despite coming from a cycling family, Niels was not particularly interested in bikes during childhood and preferred other sports; however, when he was finally persuaded to give cycling a go that his natural talent - few riders in his age group could keep up with him - was discovered. He then enjoyed an extremely promising amateur career that included a silver medal at the Junior World Road Race Championship in 2001, suggesting that he was destined to outdo his father's palmares and leading many to predict that he was the next big star of Dutch men's cycling. His medal earned him a place on Rabobanks's GS3 development team, where he remained for two years during which he won a stage at the Triptyque Ardennais which, combined with numerous second and third places at various prestigious races, including at the 2003 Under-23 World Individual Time Trial Championship, earned him his first full professional contract with Relax-Bodysol for the 2004 season. Rabobank GS3 had been rated UCI 3 whereas his new team were UCI 1; finding the increased level of competition too great, Scheuneman failed to impress with only one notable result (in a team time trial) all year.

In 2005 Scheuneman returned to Rabobank with a junior contract, this time riding at ProContinental level; remaining for two years he rode his first Grand Tour, the Vuelta a Espana, that year. 2006 got off to a bad start when a crash at the Nokere Koerse in March left him with an elbow injury that put him out of action for some time, though he recovered in time to take third place at the LUK Challenge duo time trials in July. Rabobank chose not to renew his contract at the end of 2006 and he moved to Unibet, but was unable to race for much of the season due to Unibet's row with the Amaury Sports Organisation that resulted in the team being kept away from many events. At the end of the season, having decided that he wasn't destined to make in the world of professional cycling, he retired; less than a year later he changed his mind and found a contract with the Continental class KrolStone team, where he apparently found his niche - that same year he won a stage at the Tour de Loire-et-Cher, then in 2009 he won the Omloop Houtse Linies and took second place on Stage 6 at the Tour de Normandie.

At the end of the 2009 season, Scheuneman announced his retirement from road racing. He has not retired from cycle sport altogether, meanwhile, and rides for the Belgian-based Fuji MTB Masters mountain bike team.

Daily Cycling Facts 20.12.2012

Rik van Looy, the Emeror of Herentals and the King of the
Classics

Rik van Looy
King of the Classics Rik van Looy was born on this day in 1933 in the town that bears everyone's favourite Belgian placename, Grobbendonk. Rik became the first man to win all five Monuments - Milan-San Remo, Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Liège–Bastogne–Liège, Giro di Lombardia, a feat since repeated by only Roger De Vlaeminck and Eddy Merckx.

In addition, he won nineteen stages at the Vuelta a Espana (including eight in 1965 alone, also overall Points classification in 1959 and 1965), twelve stages at the Giro d'Italia (and Mountains classification in 1960), seven stages at the Tour de France (and overall Points classification in 1963) and many other races; yet never won a Grand Tour with his best results being 3rd overall in the Vuelta for 1959 and 1965. He was also a skilled track rider, winning eleven six-day events.

Van Looy grew up with a love of cycling and took a paper-round during his youth so that he could save up for a second-hand racing bike. In his first race, he was lapped five times and left in a bad mood, vowing that he would never race again - however, at some point it occurred to him that a far better course of action would be to train hard and ensure he never again suffered such a humiliating defeat. That drive to win would manifest itself again in his professional career when he became a team leader - colleagues remember him as a hard taskmaster who expected all members to ride for him at all times and would not tolerate anything other than total, unquestioning obedience.

Known for his lightning-fast sprint, van Looy - like many sprinters - was simply to heavy on account of his muscular physique to win a Tour because he suffered in the mountains. Yet, he won the Mountains Classification at the 1960 Giro d'Italia, a feat that cannot be easily explained. All in all, he is thought to have won around 500 races during a career that spanned 17 years and came to an end only because of his anger at younger cyclists who, in his opinion, failed to show him the respect he felt he deserved.

Lucien Petit-Breton,
18.10.1882 - 20.12.1917

It's also Michael Rogers' birthday. Born in 1979 in Barham, New South Wales, the Australian cyclist won both the Tour of California and Vuelta a Andalucía in 2010. He has been World Time Trial Champion twice and finished 9th overall in the 2006 Tour de France and 7th in the 2009 Giro d'Italia.

Lucien Petit-Breton
On this day in 1917 Lucien Georges Mazan was killed when he crashed into a car near the WW1 front at Troyes. He had emigrated to Argentina with his family when he was six years old. Some time in 1898/9, he won a bicycle in a lottery competition and began racing under the false name Louis Breton so he could keep his sport secret from his father who wanted him to get a "proper job."

Despite taking Argentine nationality, Mazan was drafted into the French Army in 1902 and returned to his native country to serve. He continued racing, winning the Bol d'Or in 1904, but had to change his name once again, adopting Petit so avoid confusion with another rider name Lucien Breton. In 1907, he won the first Milan-San Remo and then entered the Tour de France. By the end of Stage 5, he was far down the leadership and appeared to have no chance of a good result - the race was decided on points in those days and, while Petit-Breton was in second place, leader Emile Georget was way ahead. Then, in Stage 9, Georget's bike broke and he had to finish on a replacement. Since the rules of the day demanded that riders fixed broken bikes without assistance unless the bike had been declared beyond repair by judges, which it had not, he was fined 500 francs. Then, in Stage 10, organisers rather unfairly decided that their previous decision was an insufficiently harsh punishment and docked him 44 points by relegating him to last place for the stage - putting him in 3rd place overall and Petit-Breton in first, a position he held for the remainder of the race.

A year later, he won Paris-Brussels, the Tour of Belgium and a second Tour of France, including Stages 2, 7, 9, 11 and 14 - and thus became the first rider to win two Tours, since Maurice Garin had been disqualified and stripped of his second win for cheating in 1904.

In 1978, six decades after his death, Petit-Breton became the hero of a rather peculiar episode of the TV drama series Les Brigades du Tigre in which he was played by Jacques Giraud. In it, two detectives are assigned to follow the 1908 Tour where a mystery man has been murdering cyclists, leading most of them to want to abandon the race for their own safety. Petit-Breton, meanwhile, is far braver than the rest and manages to persuade them to continue. The series is available on DVD but, to be fair, only really worth seeking out by obsessive Petit-Breton fans, if such people still exist.

Michael Albasini
Born in Mendrisio, Switzerland on this day in 1980, Michael Albasini is a rare climber who can also sprint; a combination that saw him win the Mountains and Points competitions at the Tour de Suisse in 2006. He had first come to note when he won the Under-19 National Road Race Championship in 1998, then became Under-23 European Champion four years later before going on to win the Points competition at the Tour de Suisse in 2005. In 2009 he won the Tour of Austria and was ninth at La Flèche Wallonne; a year later he won the Tour of Britain and in 2011 the Mountains competition at the Tour of the Basque Country.

Albasini in 2009

Albasini joined the Australian GreenEDGE team for 2012 and was selected to race at the Volta a Catalunya. Although he was not one of the favourites for the race, after he won Stages 1 and 2 the team made a magnificent job of protecting him throughout the remaining five stages and, despite finishing outside the top ten on all but one of those five stages, he ultimately finished in first place overall with an advantage of 1'32" - which had not changed since the end of the second stage.


Paralympian cyclist Matthew Gray was born in Perth, Australia on this day in 1977. At the 2000 Paralympic Games he won gold medals in the LC1-3 Sprint and LC1 Time Trial, setting a new world record in the latter. He was later awarded the Order of Australia for his efforts.

Karel Kaers, a Belgian professional, died on this day in 1972. Among Kaers' 30 wins were a World Road Championship title (aged just 20, he won the first time he entered and became the youngest ever world champ), National Pursuit and Road Champion titles, the Six Days of Paris, Copenhagen, London and Brussels, a Tour of Flanders and the Circuit de Paris. He was born on the 3rd of June 1914, making him 58 when he died,

It's the anniversary of the death of Albert van Vlierberghe in 1991, the Belgian professional rider and winner of three stages in the Tour de France and Giro d'Italia. Vlierberghe's sixth place result after one stage of the 1979 Deutschland Tour is controversial since notorious ex-soigneur Willy Voet claimed that he gave the rider a lift in his car so as to avoid a hilly section - whether or not this is true will probably never be known and opinions must be based entirely on personal opinions of Voet and his capacity for lying.

Daily Cycling Facts 19.12.2012

Zulfiya Zabirova (image credit: James F. Perry CC BY-SA 3.0)

Zulfiya Zabirova
Zulfiya Zabirova, the Russian-Uzbek professional rider with the Bigla Cycling Team, was born on this day in 1973. Zulfiya won a gold medal in the Time Trial at the 1996 Olympics, the same year she became National TT Champion, and has gone on to add trophy after trophy to her impressive palmares including  first place in the 2002 UCI Worlds TT, first overall at the Thüringen-Rundfahrt, first overall at Castilla y Leon, first place at the Tour of Flanders and Primavera Rosa.

Now living and training in Switzerland, she relocated from Uzbekistan to Russia two years after the fall of the USSR so as to be able to continue cycling when the Islamic fundamentalist-led government of her homeland introduced new laws designed to prevent women taking part in sport. Highlights of her career include victory in the Individual Time Trial at the 1996 Olympics, four victories at the Chrono des Herbiers (including three consecutively between 1997 and 1999), Stage 10 at the Women's Challenge and Stages 4, 7 and 9 at the Giro Donne in 1999, Stages 9 and 13 at the Tour de France Feminin in 2000, the General Classification at the Thüringen-Rundfahrt in 2000 and 2001, the World Individual Time Trial Championship in 2002, the General Classification at the Vuelta Castilla y Leon in 2003, the Ronde van Vlaanderan and the Thüringen-Rundfahrt in 2004 and the National Road Race and Individual Time Trial Championships of Kazakhstan in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Your loss, Uzbekistan!


Happy 44th birthday to Jens Lehmann, the German cyclist who won two gold medals and was part of the team that recorded the first sub-four minute 4000m team pursuit time, yet is best known for being the man caught by Chris Boardman aboard the revolutionary Lotus 110 in the 1992 Olympics. He was born in Stolberg on this day in 1967.

Note: Some sources state that Lucien Petit-Breton died on this day in 1917. However, most have his death as the 20th of December which is why he's not included here (he is tomorrow, though).

Other cyclists born on this day: Nicolas Fritsch (France, 1978); Petr Matoušek (Czechoslovakia, 1949); Hung Chung Yam (Hong Kong, 1967); Nencho Staykov (Bulgaria, 1955); Michal Klasa (Czechoslovakia, 1953); Maurice Moutat (Cameroon, 1954); Feng Yong (China, 1985); Noel Taggart (Ireland, 1941); Augusto Castro (Colombia, 1986); Jürgen Schneider (Switzerland, 1949); Roland Hennig (East Germany, 1967); Dave Watson (Australia, 1946); Andrew Myers (Jamaica, 1968); Gerben Broeren (Netherlands, 1972).

Daily Cycling Facts 18.12.2012

Lizzie Armitstead (image credit: johnthescone CC BY 2.0)

Lizzie Armitstead
Happy birthday to Lizzie Armitstead, the British track and road cyclist born in Otley on this day in 1988. Armitstead has built up such an impressive palmares that her youthful age comes as something of a surprise: already, she has won numerous one-day and stage races and achieved excellent results in a whole host of national and international championships.

Armitstead had no interest in competitive cycling until 2004, when her school was visited by the British Cycling Olympic Talent Team. Inspired, she obtained a bike and was spotted by the national federation's Olympic Podium Programme a short while later - by the following year, she had won the silver medal for the Junior Scratch race at the World Championships. In 2007 she signed to the Global Racing Team managed by legendary women's cycling directeur sportif Stef Wyman and won the Cheshire Classic, a brace of Belgian races and the Scratch at the Under-23 European Track Championships; then the following year with Halfords Bikehut she took three Belgian races, the Six Days of Amsterdam (with Alex Greenfield), the Under-23 European Scratch Championship and, riding with Katie Colclough and Joanna Rowsell, the U-23 European Team Pursuit Championship before going on to win three events at the Manchester round of the World Cup and two more in Melbourne.

2009 marked Armitstead's first move to a foreign team, Lotto-Belisol. That year, she became Elite National Points and Scratch Race Champion, was part of the victorious World Team Pursuit Championship squad and enjoyed her first big road racing success when she won Stage 6 (sharing the victory with Grace Verbeke) and finished third overall at the Tour de l'Ardèche - while she has continued to race on the track in subsequent years and has performed superbly with two silver medals at the World Championships in 2010 and gold for the Omnium at the Beijing round of the 2011 World Cup, she has gradually began to concentrate on road racing and it is in that discipline that she has found worldwide fame. In 2010 she won Stage 1 and was third in the overall Sprints and Youth classifications at the Tour de l'Aude,  finished the National Road Race Championship in second place, won Stage 6 and was fourth overall at the Route de France then returned to the Tour de l'Ardèch where she won Stages 3, 4 and 5 before finishing the season with ninth place in the World Road Race Championships and second in the Road Race at the Commonwealth Games. In 2011 she won Stage 1 at the Tour of Chongming Island, became National Road Race Champion, won Stage 7 at the Thüringen-Rundfahrt and was seventh at the World Road Race Championships.

Armitstead in 2012

In 2012, Armitstead achieved the remarkable by becoming a household name in Britain, something no other female cyclist has done since the days of Beryl Burton. That she had good form was evident to cycling fans early in the season when she was tenth at the difficult Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and she confirmed it with good stage finishes at the Emakumeen Saria, Emakumeen Bira, Giro Donne and Thüringen-Rundfahrt, leading to an expectation that she would also do well at the Olympics. She did not disappoint, taking an excellent second place when she recorded the same time as the unstoppable Marianne Vos, and by doing so became the subject of newspaper headlines.

Janez Brajkovič
Janez Brajkovič, born in the Slovenian town Metlika on this day in 1983, became World Junior Time Trial Champion in 2004 which earned him a neo-pro contract with the Discovery Channel team despite the fact that, due to obligations to his previous team, he couldn't ride for them for the first half of his first professional year. In 2005, he won the World Time Trial Championship.

In 2007, he won both the General Classification and the Youth Category at the Tour de Georgia and one year later the World Time Trial Championship, then the National Time Trial Championship in 2009. The next year, he won the Critérium du Dauphiné and entered the Tour de France for the first time, finishing in 43rd place. He was expected to do better at the Tour in 2011 but was forced to abandon following a crash in Stage 5.

Choppy Warburton

Choppy with some of his cyclists. The very short one in
the middle is Jimmy Michael, the others appear to be the
Linton brothers (Arthur in the fleur-de-lys jersey?)

James Edward "Choppy" Warburton, who died on this day in 1897, was perhaps the first soigneur in cycling - and also the first to introduce the sort of nefarious activities that would culminate in the arrest of his spiritual descendant Willy Voet, born one century later.

Choppy was born on the 13th of November 1845 in Coal Hey, Lancashire and inherited his nickname from his father, a sailor who when asked how the conditions on his latest voyage had been would always reply "choppy." He came to note as a runner, turning professional at the late age of 34 (sports at that time being the pursuit of wealthy gentlemen, which Choppy - raised single-handed by his mother after his father died - was not) and went to the USA in 1880 where he won 80 races.

Anti-doping tests of those times were non-existent, so the sport relied on athletes and trainers being caught red-handed. Choppy never was and neither were any of the cyclists he trained, but there is some apparent evidence against him. A writer named Rudiger Rabenstein stated that Choppy's star rider Arthur Linton was "massively doped" during the 1896 Bordeaux-Paris race, and biography of the cyclist written after his death by an anonymous author who claimed to have known him well agreed. Also, Choppy's cyclists seem to have had a tendency to die young - very young, in some cases. Linton was only 24, his death being recorded variously as typhoid or strychnine poisoning (strychnine in small doses acts as a stimulant) and, eventually, considered the first doping-related death in any sport. Arthur's younger brother, also a cyclist, was 39 when he died, the cause once again being recorded as typhoid. Jimmy Michael, the Welsh-born 1895 World Champion, was also in Choppy's care, was 28 when he died in mysterious circumstances. No link to any form of doping, administered by the soigneur or otherwise, was ever proved (nor has been since) and at least one modern researcher has concluded that the deaths were in fact down to typhoid; but suspicions were sufficiently high for him to be banned from working in any capacity within professional cycling.

Vélodrome Buffalo by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
On the bike - Jimmy Michael; with hat and greatcoat - sports
journalist Frantz Reichel; bending over to look in bag: the
notorious Choppy Warburton.

He died in Wood Green, Haringey, North London. Choppy appears in a sketch made by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in preparation for an advertising poster commissioned by Jimmy Michael's sponsor Simpson Chains and which also features the rider. The sketch, of which Toulouse-Lautrec made and sold many lithograph copies, is still popular and frequently reproduced to this day.


Canadian Michael Barry, born in Toronto on this day in 1975, won the 1997 National Under-23 Road Race Championship. He has also won stages at the Volta a Catalunya, Vuelta a Espana, Österreich-Rundfahrt (where he also won the Points classification), Tour de Romandie and Tour of Missouri.

Other cyclists born on this day: Guglielmo Pesenti (Italy, 1933, died 2002); Brian Walton (Canada, 1965); Agustín Alcántara (Mexico, 1946, died 1979); Ruslan Ivanov (Moldova, 1973); Bechir Mardassi (Tunisia, 1929); Henri Duez (France, 1937); Benny Schnoor (Denmark, 1922); Algot Lönn (Sweden, 1887, died 1953); Narihiro Inamura (Japan, 1971); Claus Martínez (Bolivia, 1975); José Andrés Brenes (Costa Rica, 1964); Nelson Mario Pons (Ecuador, 1967); Raymond Reaux (France, 1940); Jiří Háva (Czechoslovakia, 1944); Mitsugi Sarudate (Japan, 1962); Hong Seok-Han (South Korea, 1975); Adan Juárez (Mexico, 1969); Takafumi Matsuda (Japan, 1951); Iván Álvarez (Spain, 1981).

Daily Cycling Facts 17.12.2012

Moreno Argentin
(image credit: James Herman,
CC BY 2.0)

Happy birthday to "Il Capo" Moreno Argentin, the retired Italian cyclist who was World Champion in 1986, National Champion in 1983 and 1989, won thirteen stages at the Giro d'Italia and two at the Tour de France, Liège–Bastogne–Liège four times, the La Flèche Wallonne three times and the Ronde van Vlaanderen and Giro di Lombardia once, along with a hist of track titles. He was born in 1960.

Maureen Kaila Vergara, born in San Francisco, USA on this day in 1964, is a retired Salvadoran cyclist who raced professionally between 1990 and 2001.

Santos González, born on this day in Crevillent, Spain, was National Time Trial Champion in 1999 and 2001. In 2000, he won Stage 21 at the Vuelta a Espana - unsurprisingly an individual time trial - and came 4th overall in the General Classification.

On this day in 1886, Thomas Stevens completed the last bicycle stage of his successful attempt to circumnavigate the globe as far as possible by bicycle. He then took a ship from China to first Japan and then to San Francisco, where he arrived in January 1887. He did the journey on a Columbia 50" penny-farthing made by the Pope Manufacturing Company, which kept it as an exhibition piece up until 1940 when it was donated as scrap for the war effort.

Czech rider Pavel Padrnos, born in Petrovice on this day in 1970, won the Bayern Rudnfahrt in 1994 and the Peace Race in 1995.

On this day in 1903, bike shop owners/mechanics Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully completed what is thought to have been the first controlled and powered flight by a heavier-than-air craft, the Wright Flyer.

Other cyclists born on this day: Fernando Camargo (Colombia, 1977); Blair Stockwell (New Zealand, 1949); Claude le Chatellier (France, 1946); Nathael Sagard (Canada, 1967); Paulo Jamur (Brazil, 1964); Harry Wittmann (USA, 1885, died 1968); Tony Ledgard (Peru, 1971); Arnstein Raunehaug (Norway, 1960); Damdinsürengiin Orgodol (Mongolia, 1956).

Daily Cycling Facts 16.12.2012

Charly Mottet
(image credit: Eric Houdas CC BY-SA 3.0) 

Charly Mottet
Charly Mottet was born in Valence, France on this day in 1962 and rode professionally from 1983 to 1994 - a period during which he earned widespread acclaim as one of the strongest French riders in the post-Hinault era with some 67 race victories. He never won a Tour de France but twice came fourth (1987 and 1991), also coming sixth in 1989 and winning Stage 15 in 1990 followed by 11 and 12 in 1991. He won Stages 9 and 11 at the 1986 Vuelta a Espana, but his best Grand Tour results came from the Giro d'Italia - he won the Youth Classification in 1984 and Stage 16 in 1990 when he was second overall in the General Classification.

Mottet's other successes - which include the Tour de l'Avenir in 1986, the Tour du Limousin in 1987 and 1993, the Tour de Romandie in 1990 and three editions of the Critérium du Dauphiné (1987, 1989 and 1992) suggest that the rider could have won a Grand Tour, perhaps even the Tour. However, as he was becoming known among fans for his successes, he was also becoming known among riders for what seemed a strange eccentricity at the time - his steadfast refusal to resort to any form of doping or performance-enhancing drugs whatsoever. When we bear in mind that he was racing at a time when the vast majority of riders would swallow or inject anything their soigneurs suggested without even momentary consideration for what they might be doing to themselves, Mottet's refusal to do so - and continued success against riders who were quite literally doped up to the eyeballs - is both remarkable and evidence of a truly great, heroically strong rider.

Roy Schuiten

Dutch cyclist Roy Schuiten, who took part in two Tours de France and four Giro's d'Italia, was born on this in 1950. His best results were winning the Grand prix des Nations in 1974 and 1975, winning also the Rund um den Henninger-Turm in the latter year. He won the Trofeo Barrachi twice, with Francesco Moser in 1974 and with Knut Knudsen four years later, and three stages in the 1974 Tour of Britain. He died as a result of a stomach haemorrhage on the 19th of September 2006, aged 55.

Cartoon from the New York World
report on Aaronson's crash

Happy birthday to Jared Graves, the Autralian BMX and 4X and downhill mountain bike rider. Jared was 4X World Champion in 2009 and won four out of six rounds to take the 2010 UCI 4X World Cup. He was born in Toowoomba, Queensland, in 1982.

On this day in 1900, Swedish Oscar Aaronson (also spelled Aronson) was involved in a crash at the Madison Square Garden Six Day Race in New York. He died six days later (contemporary report) from a combination of his injuries, exhaustion and pneumonia - before his death, other riders expressed concern that the crash "might prove fatal to six-day racing itself."

Tommaso de Pra, who was born in Mortara, Italy on this day in 1938, won Stage 10 and wore the yellow jersey for one day in the 1966 Tour de France. He also won Stage 6 at the 1966 Tour de Suisse and Stage 3a at the 1968 Vuelta a Espana.

Cesare Cippolini, older brother of Mario and himself a retired a professional cyclist, was born on this day in 1958.

Jo Planckaert, winner of stages at the Tour de Wallonie, Tour du Limousin, Vuelta a Andalucia and the Tour of Swede, was born on this day in Deinze, Belgium in 1970. He is the son of Willy Planckaert, the winner of the Points Competition at the 1966 Tour de France. His best result was second place at the 1997 Paris-Roubaix.

Joseph Gottschalk
Joseph Gottschalk, born in Dallas on this day in 1950, attended a Catholic seminary during his youth and was remarkable only in that he was "nerdy, even by seminary standards" according to those who knew him. However, he revealed himself as possessing a very fine backbone indeed when he refused point-blank to do anything to assist the war effort after he was drafted to fight in Vietnam, spending lengthy periods in tough military prisons yet never giving up his pacifist beliefs.

In 1976, he got married and settled down, vanishing from the public eye and raising four children. He divorced in 2000 and spent the next three years living as quietly as he had done during his marriage. Then, in 2003, he decided that he wanted to encourage people to appreciate the human form and personal liberty - which he expressed by riding his bike around San Antonio dressed only in a thong. He quickly came to attention of local news programmes glad for an amusing "And finally..." story that was subsequently covered by the Associated Press service, bringing him to international fame as Thong Man. On the 17th of June that year, he dropped the thong in favour of a "tan bag" - covering only his genitals - which proved too much for the police to tolerate and he was arrested and charged for indecent exposure. Gottschalk argued that the charge was "morality based on appearance" and became a hero for some (though the majority of the public in conservative San Antonio were outraged by his behavior). Four days later, his naked corpse was discovered lying at the bottom of a 30m cliff in Big Bend National Park. Police ruled the death a suicide, but many of his supporters and fans believe that he was murdered by persons unknown.

Other cyclists born on this day: Anna Baylis (Australia, 1976); Kristel Werckx (Belgium, 1969); Roberto Heredero (Cuba, 1950); Alberto Rodríguez (Uruguay, 1947); Michaela Brunngraber (Austria, 1964); Antonio Urquijo (Chile, 1960); Yousef Shadi (Libya, 1969); Cesare Cipollini (Italy, 1958); Robin Reid (New Zealand, 1975); Edgardo Simón (Argentina, 1974); Norbert Verougstraete (Belgium, 1934); Sean Bloch (South Africa, 1973).