Daily Cycling Facts 12.04.2014

Crupelandt in 1912

Paris-Roubaix was held on this date in 1914, 1925, 1936, 1953, 1959, 1970, 1981, 1987, 1992, 1998 and 2009. Charles Crupelandt won for the second time in 1914, having previously done so two years earlier, and thus became the last man to win before the race was suspended during the First World War, and the start was moved to Suresnes where it would remain until 1928. Crupelandt  was injured in the war but survived and was awarded the Croix de Guerre, one of France's greatest honours and a medal reserved for those who have demonstrated heroic courage in combat.

However, at some point after being demobilised - there is a lack of clarity concerning the dates which vary from 1914 to 1917 to three years after the war ended - he was charged with a crime and sentenced to two years in prison. In response, the Union Vélocipédique handed him a lifetime ban, almost certainly after being pressured into doing so by Crupelandt's rivals. He was able to continue racing under the aegis of another organisation and won the unofficial National Championships in 1922 and 1923, but it spelled the end of what had been a very promising career - one that Henri Desgrange once predicted would lead to victory in the Tour de France - and which led to the eventual destruction of his life and health. When he died in 1955 - at Roubaix - both his legs had been amputated and he was blind. To mark the centenary of the race  in 1996, the commune of Roubaix laid a 300m stretch of cobbles along the centre of the Avenue Alfred Motte on the final approach to the velodrome that hosts the finish line. Set among the cobbles are inscribed stones commemorating all of the winners int he first 100 years of the race, which has led to the section's unofficial name Chemin des Géants, Road of Giants. The official name is Espace Charles Crupelandt.

1925 winner Félix Sellier had won Stage 13 at the 1921 Tour de France after Henri Desgrange, who was angry that riders had refused to attack the eventual overall winner Léon Scieur and even more angry that as a first class cyclist he'd been assisted earlier in the race by riders in the second class, decided he'd punish the peloton by splitting two groups up and allowing the second class to set out two hours ahead of the first class. The first class, not wanting to be beaten by a bunch of amateurs, rode hard and fast to catch them up. They did catch most of them, but a few - including Sellier - stayed out in front and beat them to the finish line (the next year, Sellier was back as fully-sponsored professional. That time, he won Stage 14 and 3rd place in the General Classification entirely in his own merit, this proving that he didn't need a head start in order to win).

For a while in 1936, nobody was quite sure who had won. The Belgian rider Romain Maes was very clearly seen to be first over the finish line (which was located for the second and final time at the Flandres horse racing track), but the judges then declared Georges Speicher - who, completely coincidentally, happened to be French - the winner. The crowd were not impressed, with many of the French fans seemingly every bit as angry at the injustice as the Belgians. Things began to look ugly but, suddenly and for no obvious  reason, they settled down and accepted the result. The Belgians may have been cheated out of a win, but they were apparently content in the knowledge that their men had taken 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th place.

Germain Derycke turned professional in 1950 and, just a year later, took 2nd place at Liège–Bastogne–Liège - a sure sign of a Classics specialist if ever there was one. He won Paris-Roubaix in 1953 and would have taken 1st place at the World Championships that year too had it not been for Fausto Coppi, then at the height of his powers and near unbeatable. One year later he won La Flèche Wallonne and the Dwars door Vlaanderen, then added Milan-San Remo in 1955, 1st place at Liège–Bastogne–Liège in 1957 and the Ronde van Vlaandered in 1958. The Giro di Lombardia was the only Monument that remained out of his grasp.

Noël Foré won Paris-Roubaix in 1959, a year his victory in the Tour of Belgium and two years after he won the Dwars door Vlaanderen. Four years later, he added Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne and the Ronde van Vlaanderen to  palmares that totalled 53 professional wins. 1970 brought the second of Eddy Merckx's three Paris-Roubaix victories and his winning margin over Roger De Vlaeminck - 5'21" - remains the largest in the history of the race. De Vlaeminck got his revenge, however: seven years later he topped Eddy's three wins when he became the first and to date the only man to have won the race four times.

Even The Badger suffered at Paris-Roubaix
(public domain image)

1981 was the year that Bernard Hinault won his one and only Paris-Roubaix after an epic battle with De Vlaeminck's team mate Hennie Kuiper, who had defeated Hinault's attempted attack 8km from the finish. Kuiper was first into the velodrome, but when Hinault attacked one last time on the track he simply couldn't keep up and the Breton became the first French winner for a quarter of a century. After the race, Hinault told reporters: "Paris-Roubaix est une connerie!" - "Paris-Roubaix is bullshit!" He had crashed seven times, including once when a little black dog named Gruson ran out from the crowd and got between the Breton's wheels. Hinault, despite winning, was in a characteristically foul mood and, after returning the next year as defending champion when he came ninth, refused to have anything to do with the race from that point onwards. Gruson, by all accounts, was fine. That year also saw the first use of two cobbled sections, the 0.7km Mérignies to Pont à Marcq and the initial 1.1km of Cysoing to Bourghelles, an extra 0.3km being added to the latter section in 2006.

Eric Vanderaerden won in 1987, but sadly his victory did him few favours as, when taken into consideration alongside his earlier success in the other Classics and the Grand Tours, it served to confirm the belief among Belgian fans that he was destined to be the successor to their hero Eddy Merckx. Unfortunately, though an enormously talented cyclist, Vanderaerden was only a man; Merckx had seemed something greater. Knowing that he could never live up to their expectations, his career went into a decline in the following years and although his subsequent results were impressive (three editions of the Three Days of De Panne, a Tour of Ireland, the Dwars van Vlaanderen and Stage 17 at the 1992 Vuelta a Espana are pretty good by anyone's standards) it' generally agreed that he could have achieved much more. That year saw the first appearance of the 2.2km cobbled section from Troisvilles to Inchy, often one of the hardest sections as the road is frequently covered in mud that runs off the surrounding fields, despite the planting of a hedge in an attempt to keep it back. After the race, 1984 and 1986 winner Sean Kelly told the press: "A Paris–Roubaix without rain is not a true Paris–Roubaix. Throw in a little snow as well, it's not serious."

1992 brought the first of Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle's two wins - almost ten years after he'd formed a part of a breakaway that included Hennie Kuiper and Francesco Moser and which led to Kuiper's 1983 victory. Templeuve - Le Moulin de Vertain Pt 1 "Templeuve L", a 0.2km cobbled section was used for the first time and a 1.1km section from Bourghelles to Wannehain was added to the Cysoing to Bourghelles section that had first been used when Hinault won eleven years earlier, thus creating the Cysoing to Bourghelles to Wannehain stretch that, since the addition of an extra 0.km of cobbled leading to Bourghelles in 2006, is now cobbled for the full 2.5km length. Bourghelles to Wannehain had been discovered previously, but was not used in the race due to poor condition - however, it had been repaired using serviceable pavé taken from the old Péronne-en-Mélantois section that had featured in the race during the 1950s before falling into a state of irretrievable disrepair.

Franco Ballerini
(image credit: Eric Houdas CC BY-SA 3.0)

Franco Ballerini won for the second time in 1998. The race was marked by a horrific crash on the Trouée d'Arenberg in which Johan Museeuw shattered his knee. The injury later became gangrenous and he very nearly had to have his leg amputated, yet in time he made a full recovery and won the race two years later. Before retiring in 2004, Museeuw acted as mentor to Tom Boonen, who would go on to win Paris-Roubaix three times - his third win being on this date in 2009. That year, the 1.2km Auchy-lez-Orchies to Bersee cobbles were returned to use for the first time since 2006 following repair work. Chris Boardman, commentating for the Eurosport television channel, was asked live on air why he'd always refused to take part in Paris-Roubaix. "It's a circus," he replied, "and I don't want to be one of the clowns."

La Flèche Wallonne fell on this day in 1984, 1989, 1995 and 2000. 1984 was the 48th edition and it began at Charleroi and ended at Huy, as all editions have done 1998, covering 246km in between. The winner, Kim Andersen, was the first Dane to achieve victory in this event. 1989 was the 53rd edition, covering a 253km between Spa and Huy - the longest since 1947. It was won for a second time by Claude Criquielion, who had also won four years earlier. 1995 brought the 59th edition, which covered 205.5km between Spa and Huy - there has not been a longer parcours since. Laurent Jalabert won the first of his two victories, in the same year that he would win Paris-Nice and Milan-San Remo. The 64th edition, which took place in 2000, started in Charleroi and ended in Huy and covered 198km. The winner was the Italian Francesco Casagrande.

2000 also brought the third edition of La Flèche Wallonne Féminine, won that year by the Canadian rider Genevieve Jeanson. Jeanson's victory is probably undeserved - on the 25th of July 2005, she failed a test for EPO. Initially, she denied having ever doped and retired early in 2006 before being served a back-dated two-year suspension from the date of her failed test. In 2007, she admitted to a journalist that she had used the notorious blood-boosting drug "more or less continuously" since she was 16. As she was 19 when he won La Flèche, it seems likely that she did so with illegal chemical assistance.

Arsène Alancourt

English mountain biker Liam Killeen was born in Malvern on this day in 1982. His first major success was the Under-23 National Championship of 2002, which he repeated in 2004 before adding the Elite Championship in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. He won the Cross Country race at the 2006 Commonwealth Games and continues to win races at home, in Europe and in North America. In 2004, Killeen was Under-23 National Cyclo Cross Champion.

Arsène Alancourt, born in Clichy on this day in 1904, was a French professional cyclist who rode in the Tour de France in 1922, 1923 and 1924. He won Stage 13 in 1924, with help from a dog that ran under the wheels of Ottavia Bottechia who led the General Classification throughout the entirety of the race and caused him to crash, and finished in 7th place overall. He'd done better the previous year when he was 5th.

Christophe Moreau
Christophe Moreau, who was born in Vervins on this day in 1971, was a rider who spent much of his career with a very great weight upon his shoulders - he was France's greatest hope for a Tour de France win, which they had not had since Bernard Hinault's final victory in 1985.

Christophe Moreau
(image credit: Eric Houdas CC BY-SA 3.0) 

Beginning his career as a time trial specialist with Festina, Moreau was 2nd at the 1995 Tour de l'Avenir and won the prologue the following year before beginning to add stage wins in races such as the Route du Sud and 1st place overall at the 1999 Tour Poitou-Charentes. He rode his first Tour de France in 1995 and didn't finish, then managed a couple of finishes just outside the top ten in 1996 but was 75th overall. In 1997, he was 6th in Stage 20 and 66th overall, then 5th in the 1998 prologue but again didn't finish. In 1999 he was 4th in the prologue and 10th in Stage 2, this time finishing in 27th place overall,

In 2000, he managed 4th place overall and fans began to wonder if he was the man who would bring them the glory they hadn't felt for fifteen years. He won the prologue a year later and was in the top ten for Stages 10 and 11 but abandoned soon afterwards, then abandoned again in 2002 after disappointing results. 2003 saw a return to form and he was 8th overall, then 12th in 2004 and 11th in 2005. In 2006, he finished the Critérium du Dauphiné in 2nd place and won the Mountains Classification - a sure sign that a rider has the potential to win the Tour, as was confirmed that same year with 7th place.

Unfortunately, he was now 35 - beyond the age at which most cycling careers begin to trail off. He rode again in 2007 and was 37th, then again in 2008 and once more abandoned, again in 2009 and was 29th (in fact, a respectable result all things considered) and for a final time in 2010. That last year, when he was 39 years old, he was 22nd overall and 2nd in the King of the Mountains; leaving no doubt that, a decade before, he could  have won a Tour had it not have been for one unfortunate factor: his date of birth. He'd simply had the misfortune to have been born at a time that meant his best years coincided with those of Lance Armstrong. If they had come five years earlier or five years later, when Armstrong wasn't around and the other riders were not driving themselves beyond the limits in order to keep up, the French would in all likelihood have had the winner they've wanted for so long.

Moreau tested positive for anabolic steroids at the Critérium International. However, team manager Bruno Roussel supported him, telling the team's lawyers that the rider had been tricked into taking the drugs by a member of the support staff (a not-unknown occurrence, support staff having sometimes been paid by rival teams to "nobble" riders over the years). The court found in favor, and Moreau was not suspended - which would almost certainly have been the end of that story had in not have been 1998, the year that Festina soigneur was caught as he tried to cross the French-Belgian border in a car filled with enough drugs to open a small pharmacy. Investigators discovered a massive, organised doping regime in the team and began looking again at the history of Festina riders during the Tour; which led Moreau, Armin Meier and Laurent Brouchard to confess they had used EPO and, in response, they were disqualified from continuing the race. He received a six-month suspension.

Other cyclists born on this day: Mauricio Mata (Mexico, 1939); Eric Vermeulen (France, 1954); Peter Jonsson (Sweden, 1958); Pavel Soukup (Czechoslovakia, 1965); Henning L. Larsen (Denmark, 1955); András Mészáros (Hungary, 1941); Jim Rossi (USA, 1936, died 2005); Michael Lynch (Australia, 1963).

Daily Cycling Facts 11.04.2014

1909 victor Octave Lapize, pictured at the
1910 Tour de France

Paris-Roubaix was held on this date in 1909, 1954, 1965, 1976, 1993, 1999, 2004 and 2010. The 1909 edition - the last in which riders were allowed to be paced by another bike or tandem (they'd been allowed to be paced by cars and motorbikes too between 1898 and 1901) - was won by Octave Lapize, the first of the three victories that would make him the only man to have won in three consecutive year until Francesco Moser repeated the feat nearly seven decades later in 1980. Lapize would go on to become French National Champion in 1911, 1912 and 1913 and, after Stages 5, 9, 10, 14 and the overall General Classification at the Tour de France in 1910, would win Stage 6 in 1912 and 8 in 1914. When the First World War broke out, Lapize became a pilot in the French Army but was shot down on Bastille Day 1917 near Flirey. He survived the crash but succumbed to appalling injuries in hospital shortly afterwards. He was 29.

Raymond Impanis, winner in 1954, was another rider who also did well in the Tour (and the Vuelta a Espana and Giro d'Italia too, for that matter) - he did even better, meanwhile, in the Classics; winning the Dwars door Vlaanderen in 1949 and 1951, Gent-Wevelgem in 1952 and 1953 and the Tour of Flanders in the same year as his Paris-Roubaix victory (he also won Paris-Nice for the first time that year too, repeating it in 1960). All in all, he rolled across the Paris-Roubaix start line sixteen times - a record that was not equaled until Servais Knaven made his own 16th appearance in 2010, the same year that Impanis died.

Rik van Looy - first man to win all five Monuments
(image credit: Velorunner)

1965 brought the record-equaling third win for Rik van Looy. His previous victories, however, had been in 1961 and 1962, so he could not equal the three consecutive wins set by Lapize all those year before. However, by winning both Paris-Roubaix and Liège–Bastogne–Liège in 1961 and having already won  Milan-San Remo (1958) and the Tour of Flanders and the Giro di Lombardia (1959), he became the first rider in history to win all five Monuments, the toughest and most prestigious of the Classics (only two other riders - Roger de Vlaeminck and Eddy Merckx - have been able to repeat the achievement).

Belgian Marc Demeyer won in 1976 - the year in which the race was twice disrupted by angry protestors demonstrating against redundancies at Le Parisien, a newspaper that sponsored the race. Both incidents were filmed by a Danish crew for A Sunday In Hell, a movie that is considered one of the finest ever made on the subject of cycling and which is mandatory viewing for all historians and fans of the sport and which does an admirable job of depicting the sheer suffering involved in the race for those who have not been sufficiently fortunate as to have seen it for themselves. Less than six years later, on the 20th of January 1982, Demeyer died when he suffered a heart attack while sitting down doing a crossword at his home circumstances that would nowadays immediately suggest EPO (a synthetic version known as Epogen was undergoing clinical trials at the time, but was not available except to pharmaceutical laboratories). No link to doping has ever been proven, but as Willy Voet points out in his 1999 book Massacre á la Chaine, tests in the early 1980s were extremely rudimentary and, with the increasing elapsed time, any link to a drug available to Demeyer - if indeed such a link exists - is unlikely to ever be found.

Gilbert Duclos-Lasalle
(image credit: Eric Houdas CC BY-SA 3.0)

In 1993 the race was won by Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle who had formed part of a breakaway group with Francesco Moser (winner in 1978, 1979 and 1980), Marc Madiot (winner in 1985 and 1991) and Hennie Kuiper ten years earlier in 1983, when Kuiper won. 1999 was won by Andrea Tafi, who made such a name for himself in hard, dangerous races like this one that he was nicknamed Il Gladiatore. He won wearing the jersey of the Italian National Champion, thus achieving his greatest ambition - repeating the same feat that had been accomplished by his hero Francesco Moser in 1979. In 1993, race organisers reversed the direction in which the riders tackled the Trouée d'Arenberg: with the speed offered by modern bikes ever increasing, the notorious cobbles that are considered the hardest section of the entire race had become too dangerous even by the standards of Paris-Roubaix.

Magnus "Maximus" Bäckstedt became the first Swedish rider to win Paris-Roubaix in 2004 after beating Tristan Hoffman, Roger Hammond and Fabian Cancellara in a final sprint - Johan Museeuw, the favourite, had been robbed of his chances at becoming the second man to win four editions when he suffered a puncture on the crucial section at Hem. After the race, Jo Planckaert, who had come 2nd in 1997, told reporters: "This is a race that suits me when I'm having a good day. On the other hand, if you don't have the legs, this is the worst place you could possibly be." Cancellara - nicknamed "Spartacus" - won for the second time in 2010, thus becoming the most successful Swiss rider in the history of the race.

La Flèche Wallonne took place on this date in 1974 and 1990. 1974 was 38th edition of the race and ran for the first time as a loop, starting and finishing at Verviers; as it would for a total of six years. The total distance was 225km, 24km shorter than the previous year, and the winner was Frans Verbeeck. The 54th edition in 1990 ran for a fifth consecutive year between Spa and Huy, covering 208km - 45km down on the previous year. Moreno Argentin won for the first time, but in the coming years he would manage another two victories and equal the record.

Pat Hanlon

(image credit: Retrobike)

A decade and a half after her death, Pat Hanlon's name remains one of the most hallowed in the cycling world. However, few younger riders and fans know how she achieved her fame, let alone anything about her.

Prissie Jane Howell (as she was then known) was born on this day in 1915 and spent her early childhood in her native Cardiganshire, doing well academically but suffering a series of lung complaints due to the damp Welsh weather, so her parents decided to move her to Somerset. The drier weather suited her and she became healthy; however, as Welsh was her first language her studies went downhill fast. When she was 14, she was given a bicycle as a gift and discovered a talent for repairing it - a skill that in those days, despite the work carried out by women during the First World War when they had maintained machinery on farms and in factories while the men were away fighting, was considered most unbefitting a young lady.

Two years later, Pat went to live with an aunt in London and spent the next decade working as a "nippy," a waitress in a Lyon's Cornerhouse teashop. Often, she would wake at 3am to join the local cycling club for a 150km ride before returning to London in time to work the afternoon and evening shift. At weekends, she would ride to Somerset and back again to visit her parents - around 36 hours of riding in total. Soon, she was covering more than 24,000km each year and began to enter races; immediately enjoying some success which encouraged her to seek out a quality racing bike and finding one at McLean's, a famous bike manufacturer and shop based at 362 Upper Street, Islington (it closed in 1962), and she began to hang around the shop badgering the owners for a job. They would occasionally give her a job to do, but rarely if ever paid her for it.

The cellar at McLean's was the domain of the shop's elderly wheel builder - a man who, like many of those of achieve expertise in the art, gave the impression of being as much a wizard as a mechanic. She pestered him, too, trying to persuade him to teach her the skill, but he refused and told her that "women don't do jobs like that." Just as the First World War had forced Britain to give women the chance to prove they were equal to men, so the Second World War proved to be the opportunity Pat needed: one day, with the male shop staff all away fighting the Nazis, the boss told her that somewhat gruffly that as of the coming Monday she would be the on-site wheel builder. She remained there for almost twenty years.

At first - and as one might suspect - Pat faced awful prejudice, with many of the shop's customers making it perfectly plain that they would not be buying nor even trying wheels built by a woman. Pat, meanwhile, knew her wheels were good and refused to give up. In time, reports began to filter back from the more enlightened customers and those who bought their wheels without knowing who had built them - Pat's wheels were not good, they were excellent; magnitudes better than anything those who were fortunate enough to own them had ever ridden, light and strong and staying true on even the harshest roads.

Word of mouth is the best advertisement available, and in 1957 after her first marriage failed Pat left McLean's to set up her own shop in Tottenham (where, in the 1960s, she would employ a young man named John Berrisford; the very same one that taught your humble author how to build a wheel in the late 1990s). By this time, she was famous among cyclists throughout Europe and the great riders of the day would travel hundreds or even thousands of miles to buy Hanlon wheels. She was rarely seen in the shop, preferring to pay shop staff to deal with the likes of Jean Stablinksi, Jacques Anquetil, Tom Simpson and Rik Van Looy (who may well have been riding on Hanlon wheels when he won Paris-Roubaix on this day in 1965 - see above) when they showed up to buy the wheels she built in her private workshop. They sold as quickly as she could produce them: Mr. Berrisford told me that, in an attempt to meet demand, Hanlon would take her work home with her and build wheels while sitting down and watching television in the evenings, just as many women of her generation would knit. However, demand outstripped supply, and winning a Tour de France was by no means a guarantee that stock would be available when a hopeful cyclist visited in search of them.

Pat remarried in 1979 at the age of 64, sparking rumours that she would soon retire and sending shockwaves through cycling as riders realised that the supply of Hanlon wheels would soon dry up forever. She continued for four years, finally calling it a day in 1983 - sadly, husband Jim died soon afterwards. She outlived him by fourteen years, dying in Majorca on the 29th of December in 1997.

Supplies of new Hanlon wheels may have dried up, but many of those riders fortunate enough to have been able to lay their hands on a set still have them, and some still use them. Mr. Berrisford's dated to 1964, and he claimed that he had never had to true them.

Przemysław Niemiec
(image credit: WR100Mio CC BY-SA 3.0)

Ron Kiefel, who was born in Denver on this day in 1960, became the first American cyclist to win a Grand Tour stage when he was first over the finish line after Stage 15 at the 1985 Giro d'Italia. His career began in cyclo cross, coming 5th in the National Championships of 1980 and 1981 before he turned to road cycling and won the National Road Race, Individual Time Trial and Team Trial in 1983. Following his Giro stage win, he won stages in the 1986 Coors Classic, then the General Classification at the Tour of Tuscany and a second National Road Race title in 1988. Kiefel rode in six Tours de France and finished them all, with his best result being 69th overall in 1988 - however, two years later, he was 3rd in Stage 8.

Przemysław Niemiec, born in Oświęcim, Poland on this day in 1980, is a climbing specialist who won the Tour of Slovenia in 2005, the Tour of Tuscany in 2006, the Route du Sud in 2009 and the Mountains Classification and 2nd place overall in the 2010 Settimana internazionale di Coppi e Bartali, later taking the Mountains Classification and 3rd overall at the Settimana Ciclistica Lombarda that same year.

Other cyclists born on this day: Will Clarke (Australia, 1985); Marvin Angarita (Colombia, 1989); Franck Rénier (France, 1974); Rick Flens (Netherlands, 1983); Franck Dépine (France, 1959); Gonzalo Aguiar (Spain, 1966); Antipass Kwari (Zimbabwe, 1975); Toni Tauler (Spain, 1974); Gino Pancino (Italy, 1943); René van Hove (Netherlands, 1915); Frans de Vreng (Netherlands, 1898, died 1974); Benedykt Kocot (Poland, 1954); Anikó Hódi (Hungary, 1986); Thanos Mantzouranis (Greece, 1982); Aleksandr Averin (USSR, 1954).

Daily Cycling Facts 10.04.2014

Maurice Garin, shortly after winning in 1898

Paris-Roubaix was held on this day in 1898, 1955, 1960, 1983, 1988, 1994, 2005 and 2011. In 1898, the winner was Maurice Garin, who had also won the second ever edition of the race the previous year and thus became the first man to win in two consecutive years. Garin is better known, of course, as the winner of the first Tour de France which was held five years later (and he was declared Tour winner in 1904, too; but was subsequently disqualified for cheating). That year, the start was moved to Chatou where it would remain for two years and to where it returned in 1902, and motorpacing - not permitted in the first two years - was allowed for the first time before being banned forever in 1901 (pacing by another bicycle was permitted until 1910).

1955 winner Jean Forestier was also a successful rider in the Tour de France - in 1954 he had won Stage 16, and he would win Stage 20 in 1955 as well as Stage 16 in 1956 and Stage 8 in 1961, also taking the Points competition and coming 4th overall in 1957. Guiseppe "Pino" Cerami, winner in 1960, was Italian by birth but had taken Belgian nationality four years before the race He too had ridden in the Tour de France but was less successful, failing to finish in 1949 and 1959, coming 35th in 1957 and 1962. However, in 1963 he won Stage 9 and, as he was 41 years old at the time, he's the oldest stage winner in Tour history.

Hennie Kuiper
(image credit: Poortugaalse Polleke CC BY-SA 3.0)

1983 winner Hennie Kuiper also won three of the other four Monuments and as such is among the most successful Classics riders in the history of cycling. Francesco Moser - who had become the second man to win Paris-Roubaux in three consecutive years in 1983 - was in a breakaway with Kuiper and three other riders and attacked hard on the unforgiving cobbles of the Trouée d'Arenberg to set a blistering pace. Kuiper fell twice, but as Moser was by the strongest rider the other riders (Marc Madiot, who would win in 1985; Ronan de Meyer; Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle)  left him to deal with the Dutchman's counter-attacks alone. Moser was indeed strong, but Kuiper kept working away at him and managed to gain the upper hand, tiring out his opponent so that he was able to build up a lead of a minute and a half by the 16km to go point. Disaster very nearly struck when he had a puncture, but a team car was close enough to provide him with a replacement bike before he lost his advantage and he crossed the finish line alone.  That year was also notable for the first appearance of two cobbled sections - Hornaing to Wandignies-Hamage, though only a part of this section was used (the full 3.7km would be used for the first time in 1988), and the 2.4km Warlaing to Brillon. 1983 was also the year in which Albert Bouvet and Jean-Claude Vallaeys set up Les Amis de Paris–Roubaix, an organisation of fans who work to maintain the cobbled sections and locate new pavé roads for possible future inclusion in the race. It's entirely due to them that several famous sections are still in good enough condition to be used.

The full 3.7km Hornaing to Wandignies-Hamage cobbled section was used for the first time in 1988 (see above). The winner, Dirk Demol, had formed part of a group that broke away from the main pack after 27km and - for reasons never explained - the peloton then decided to let them get on with it, doing nothing whatsoever to reel them back in. Demol and a Swiss rider named Thomas Wegmuller then broke away from the breakaway as the finish line approached, but Wegmuller got into difficulty when a plastic carrier bag blown onto the course became entangled in his gears. His team car drew up alongside him and managed to free it, but he was unable to shift through the gears for the remainder of the race. Electing at such a late stage to continue rather than risk letting Demol blast off for an easy win while he swapped to a replacement bike proved an unwise move - the two men now had such a lead on the rest that Demol was able to take advantage of the situation by taking it easy in Wegmuller's slipstream, confident that he could make use of his working gears to print past him to victory.

Andrei Tchmil
(image credit: Eric Houdas
CC BY-SA 3.0)

In 1994, Andrei Tchmil was the first  rider from the ex-USSR to win the race. Like many of the Eastern Bloc cyclists who made it big on the European scene in the 1990s and first decade of the 21st Century (Ekimov, Vinokourov, Voigt and others), Tchmil was a product of a Soviet sports academy, facilities to which promising young athletes were sent so that they could be developed into world-beaters. A stupendously powerful rider who seemed able to only ride at full pace; Tchmil did poorly in stage races such as the Tour de France which he entered five times and finished just twice without winning any stages but proved devastatingly effective in the Flemmish Classics, winning the Dwaars door Vlaanderen, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Gent-Wevelgem and the Tour of Flanders in the years after his Paris-Roubaix victory and before a crushed thigh sustained in the 2002 Three Days of De Panne forced him to take early retirement.

Vansummeren rides alone in the
Roubaix Velodrime, seconds away from
his 2011 victory
(image credit: Thomas Ducroquet CC BY-SA 3.0) 

2005 was another year of firsts. Not only was it the first time Tom Boonen won (the Belgian has four victories - the record - to his name as of 2013, when he was kept away from the race by injury), he won on a bike with an extended wheelbase designed specifically to offer more stability and comfort on the cobbles - the first time that such a bike had been used in the race. The 1.7km Capelle sur Ecaillon to Buat cobbles made their first appearance - after a 4% decline over the initial 0.7km, the section then climbs from 66m above sea level to 400m - creating a 7% climb that is the steepest part of the race and about as steep as hills get in that part of the world. The remainder continues to climb, but at a far gentler 2%. For the first time since 1983, the Trouée d'Arenberg was not used - the road was in such poor condition (not helped by fans who often dig up the cobbles and take them away as a souvenir) that it required repairs costing a total of a quarter of a million euros to bring it up to standard for a return in 2006.

In 2011, the race was won by Johan Vansummeren after he attacked the other members of a four-man breakaway group some 15km from the finish, crossing the line with a 19" advantage.

Edgard de Caluwé

The Ronde van Vlaanderen fell on this day in 1938 and 1949. Edgard de Caluwé won in 1938 but, as was first over the line in a group of nine, he couldn't claim the 100 franc bonus that was on offer should the victor win with an advantage of or greater than 30 minutes. For the first time, the police played a major role in the organisation of the event: prior to 1933, their presence had not been required but as the race gradually increased in popularity it became necessary to have a few gendarmes keeping an eye on things, as had happened in 1933. However, in 1937 half a million spectators had shown up and caused chaos by driving between various points along the parcours so they could watch the peloton pass by several times - rather than face their race being closed down, organisers asked the police to provide support and the event became more like a modern race with large numbers of officers controlling the crowds, vehicles setting up rolling roadblocks and so on.

Fiorenzo Magni became the first Italian to win in 1949 and he would win again for the next two years, thus becoming the second man to have won three times and (as of 2013, following Fabian Cancellara's second victory) the only man to have won three consecutive times. Magni, who died in 2012, is often described as being "a rare Italian in the Flemish Classics," which at the time and for some years afterwards was true - riders from his country,  perhaps due to the difficulties involved until the comparatively recent advent of cheap air travel and good quality roads through the Alps and perhaps due to being accustomed to the Italian weather, rarely took part in the races of Northern Europe and when they did they tended not to perform well. This seems to be changing in recent years with a number of Italian winners in this race, Paris-Roubaix and others. In 1949, Sportwereld - the newspaper that had created the Ronde - merged with Het Nieuwsblad ato become its sports section and the last four riders to reach the finish line were given bottles of massage oil as prizes.

La Flèche Wallonne was held on this day in 1979, the 43rd edition of the race. After many years in which the distance had decreased, it was 25km longer than the previous year at 248km between Esneux and Marcinelle. The winner was the great Breton Bernard Hinault, who later on that same year would win his third Tour de France. The race has never been held on this date since.


Fumiyuki Beppu
Fumiyuki Beppu, born in Kanagawa-ken on this day in 1983, is one of Japan's most successful road cyclists and one of the very few to have made a breakthrough into the almost entirely white, Caucasian European cycling scene, where he enjoys enormous popularity among fans.

Fumiyuki Beppu
(image credit:  Josh Hallett CC BY-SA 2.0) 

Beppu received his first professional contract with Discovery in 2005 after winning the 2003 Under-23 National Road Race Championship and the King of the Mountains at the 2004 Ronde de l'Isard d'Ariege. He spent his first year with the team fulfilling his duties as a domestique, learning from the squad's more experienced riders and finding his feet after the big step-up that turning pro entails, also finding time to finish 3rd in the Youth category at the Circuit de la Sarthe that year; then in 2006 won both the National Time Trial and Road Race Championships at Elite level. 2007 wasn't a spectacular year with 2nd place for Stage 3 at the Tour de Romandie his best result, hence he experienced difficulty in securing a contract with a ProTour team at the end of the year when Discovery announced it would withdraw from cycling and the team folded. In the end, he had to settle for the ProContinental Skil-Shimano and remained with the team for two seasons.

In 2008, he finished 3rd on Stage 1 at the Tour of Qatar and won the road race at the Asian Cycling Championships which that year took place in his home nation, then in 2009 - when the team rode on a wildcard invitation - he took part in his first Tour de France; sharing with Europcar's Yukiya Arashiro the honour of being among Japanese riders to take part in the race (neither of them were the first, however, and not by a long way - Kisso Kawamura had been there more than eight decades earlier). He finished in 8th place in Stage 3, 7th in Stage 19 and won the Combativity award for Stage 21, while Arashiro managed 5th in Stage 2. Beppu was 117th overall compared to Arashiro's 129th.

He began 2010 with Skil-Shimano but left the team to join Johan Bruyneel's Radioshack in February, thus making his return to the upper echelons of the sport. The rest of the year was spent racing in Europe and achieving some good results in prestigious races including the Tour of Austria, Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen, Châteauroux - Classic de l'Indre and Tour of Poland, but overall victories remained out of grasp. 2011, however, proved to be his best year to date - he scored his best Grand Tour results yet with 2nd place in Stage 1 and 67th overall at the Giro d'Italia and won the National Time Trial and Road Race titles that he had lost in 2007. At the end of the year, the new Australian GreenEDGE team announced that Beppu would be joining them for the 2012 season and he went on to enjoy a good season, taking ninth place on Stage 3 and 13th place on Stage 18 at the Giro d'Italia, helped the team win the Team Time Trial at the Benelux Tour and came second in the Criterium at the Japan Cup. He stayed with GreenEdge - now renamed Orica-AIS - through 2013 and won the Saitama and Chigasaki Crits in Japan, then moved to Trek Factory Racing in 2014.

Ernie Mills and Bill Paul

Ernie Mills, who was born on this day in 1913, was a great English tandem rider who as an amateur with the Addiscombe CC set a number of records with team mate Bill Paul in the 1930s; including an official British 12-hour record in 1934 and an unofficial World record two years later, establishing a new tandem Hour Record  too when the covered 30 miles (48.28km). In 1937, Cycling magazine paid for them to travel to Italy where they made an appearance at the Velodromo Vigorelli in Milan, which still stands but has been converted into an American football stadium. Whilst there, they beat their previous Hour Record by covering 31.06 miles (49.991km) - a record that remained unbroken for 63 years. In 1938, they set a new 100 Mile record, completing the distance in 3h53'12". The record still stood at the time of writing, 73 years later. Strangely, the exact date and place of Mills' death are unknown (though it presumably wouldn't take an enormous effort to find out despite his common name) - as are the date and place of Paul's birth in 1910. The two men were honoured with a joint page in the Golden Book of Cycling in 1937, and two years later they were commemorated on Track Tandem Position, Card No.45 in the now highly-valuable John Player & Son cigarette card series Cycling 1839-1939.

Tetiana Stiazkhina
(image credit: Le Blog du Cyclisme Feminin)

Tetiana Stiazhkina (also spelled Tatiana Stiajkina and in numerous other ways) was born in Ukraine on this day in 1977. As an Under-23, she won the European Time Trial and Road Race in 1999 - and would win a National TT Championship at Elite level in 2002 and both the National TT and Road Race in 2008. Stiazkhina is one of the few riders who excels in both time trials and on climbs (though such a combinations seems to be less unusual among female riders than their male counterparts) - she has been fastest to climb the challenging El Boquerón in the Vuelta a El Salvador on one occasion and second fastest on another. She won Stage 4 and the overall General Classification at the Vuelta a El Salvador in 2008, adding to victory to a Stage 1 win in 2007, the General Classification at the Eko Tour Dookola Polski in 2003 and the Trophée d'Or Féminin in 2002.

Leonardo Duque, born on this day in 1980, was Colombian champion in Madison, Points and Scratch in 2003 - the same year he won a silver and a bronze at the PanAmerican Games. In 2006, he won the Tour du Limousin and a year later Stage 16 at the Vuelta a Espana. He was awarded the Combativity prize for Stage 19 at the 2009 Tour de France and was 12th in Stge 15, 2011.

Atle Kvålsvoll, born in Trondheim on this day in 1962, entered six Tours de France and finished four, his best result coming when he assisted Greg Lemond to victory in 1990 and took 26th place for himself making him one of the most successful Norwegian riders in the Tour after Thor Hushovd - whom he coaches. In 2011, he also took up a position as directeur sportif for the Plussbank Cervélo Continental team.

Other cyclists born on this day: Gary Trowell (Australia, 1959); Léonard Daghelinckx (Belgium, 1900, died 1986); Wernell Reneau (Belize, 1965); Sandra Ambrosio (Argentina, 1963); Ali Sayed Darwish (United Arab Emirates, 1977); František Trkal (Czechoslovakia, 1970); Fabio Placanica (Argentina, 1970).

Daily Cycling Facts 09.04.2014

Emile Masson jnr., depicted on a 1939
poster for Alcyon

Paris-Roubaix took place on this date in 1939, 1944, 1945, 1950, 1961, 1962, 1967, 1989, 1995, 2000 and 2006. 1939 was the last edition before the start of the Second World War brought it to a halt for four years, the next one being in 1943 when it was organised and held despite the Nazi Occupation. The start was moved back to Porte Maillot after having been relocated to Argenteuil for a year and the winner was Émile Masson jnr., who would twice win the Belgian National Road Race Championship after the war - his father, Émile Masson snr., had also been a successful Classics cyclist and was the winner of Bordeaux-Paris in 1923 (and, the year before that, Stages 11 and 12 at the Tour de France).

1944 was won by another Belgian, Maurice Desimpelaere, who also won the Dwaars door Vlaanderen in 1946 and Gent-Wevelgem in 1947. In 1945 it was the turn of Paul Maye who won Stages 10 and 19c at the 1936 Tour de France, had been National Champion in 1938 and 1943 and won Paris-Tours three times in 1941, 1942 and 1945. Fausto Coppi won in 1950 - he may have won the Giro di Lombardia Monument five times, but he could manage just the one Sunday in Hell.

Rik van Looy
(image credit: Dave's Bike Blog)

1961 and 1962 were won by Rik van Looy, who would go on to win again in 1965 and become one of only seven men to win the race three times in its long history. In 1967, Jan Janssen was the winner. Since film cameras had begun following the race some years previously, local mayors had begun to order their local roads to be resurfaced with tarmac the moment they heard the race would be passing through their locale and the cobbled roads that give Paris-Roubaix its character - and make it the cruel, vicious, unforgiving  and beautiful spectacle that it is - were becoming few and far between. In the early days of the race, organisers had not sought out the challenging, traditional cobbled roads - that's simply how roads were in those days; but realising that their race was in serious danger of losing the one thing that made it stand out as the hardest Classic of them all, they began to do so. Today, if a long-forgotten cobbled road is discovered anywhere near Paris-Roubaix's route, the local mayor doesn't have it resurfaced a soon as possible: he or she will be on the phone to the Amaury Sports Organisation begging them to direct the revered race through the area he or she controls. The finish line was at the Roubaix Velodrome for the first time in 1989, where it has remained ever since - Jean-Marie Wampers was the first to cross it. Franco Ballerini won in 1995, the first of his two wins; then in 2000 Johan Museeuw won the second of his three.

In 2006 Fabian Cancellara beat favourite Tom Boonen to take the first win by a Swiss rider since Henri Suter more than eight decades before in 1923. Cancellara's solo assault on the Carrefour de l'Arbre is among the most iconic footage of Paris-Roubaix; as it that of George Hincapie, dragging himself away from the road in agony with a smashed collar bone after the cobbles of the Mons-en-Pévèle caused his steerer tube to snap some 25km earlier in the race.

The Ronde van Vlaanderen has also fallen on this date, in 1966, 1972 and 1978. 1966 was won by Ward Sels, who was assisted by a crash roughly halfway through the race and which took down Walter Godefroot and Eddy Merckx before a final sprint proved him to be the fastest of a group of fourteen riders who escaped the peloton on the Muur van Geraardsbergen.


1972 brought the second of three victories for Eric Leman, who had spent much of a race - characterised by appalling weather and freezing temperatures that year - working with Merckx to escape the peloton. They were caught by five others with 10km to go and the new group approached the line together, then began to sprint. Leman was fastest - Merckx, who never did as well in this race as he did in most others, was 7th. The 1978 edition was won by Merckx's great rival Walter Godefroot - ten years after his first win. 47 finished out of 174 starters that year.


Linda Villumsen

Villumsen at the 2012 Olympics
(Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Born in Herning, Denmark on this day in 1985, Linda Villumsen came to widespread attention when she took a silver in the Road Race and a bronze in the Individual Time Trial at the National Championships of 2005, then came second at the Damesronde van Drenthe later that season. In 2006 she became national Road Race and Time Trial Champion in addition to Under-23 European Time Trial Champion, then in 2007 she retained the European title, was second overall at the Holland Ladies' Tour and won Stage 6 at the Tour de l'Aude. She regained both National titles in 2008 and finished the Road Race at the Olympics in fifth place, keeping the National titles in 2009 when she also came third in the Time Trial World Championship and won the Thüringen Rundfahrt.

In 2009, Villumsen became a citizen of New Zealand and has raced with a New Zealand license since 2010. She was third again in the Time Trial World Championship in 2010 but managed second in the same event at the Commonwealth Games. The following year she was second in the Time Trial World Championship and enjoyed more time trial success in 2012 with victory in the Stage 3 TT at the Emakumeen Bira, fourth in the Olympics and another third in the World Championships but also performed well in mass-start road racing, winning the Giro del Trentino Alto Adige-Südtirol.

Early in 2013, Villumsen became New Zealand National TT Champion. Considering her love of her adopted country - "My connection to Denmark will always be there, but it is here in New Zealand that I have found my life," she says - it's probably the trophy she cherishes most. She also signed that year for the British-registered team Wiggle-Honda and enjoyed great success, taking a series of top ten finishes before winning Stage 7 and the overall General Classification at the Route de France and coming second at the World Individual Time Trial Championship.


Charles Terront

Charles Terront
(public domain)

Charles Terront certainly started a trend - he was the first French cycling star. Born in Saint-Ouen on this day in 1857, he won 54 races during his 15 year career and due to the rather ambiguous nature of competition rules at the time achieved the unique honour of being both French and British Champion on two occasions.

Having taken up cycling in 1876 -with his brother Jules, he immediately began winning races and set numerous speed and endurance records, including with Jules aboard a tandem. In 1879, he set a new 24 Hour record at 546km and in 1883 he cycled the 3,000km between St. Petersburg in Russia and the new Vélodrome Buffalo (named after the Buffalo Bill Cody Wild West Show it once hosted) in Porte Maillot, Paris; a ride that took him 14 days and 7 hours. 

In 1891, he won the inaugural Paris–Brest–Paris, then called the Paris-Brest et retour. Rules by that time were strictly enforced and tended to be far more strict than today, so all riders were required to be entirely self-sufficient and carry all their own spare parts, food and clothing as well as sticking to one bike for the duration of the event. However, the race proved to be so popular that more than 300 would-be entrants showed up and, having already told seven women that they could not take part, organisers had to demand a five franc fee to whittle them down. Five francs was quite a lot of money in 1891, but they were still left with 207 or 280 (records disagree) riders, of whom 97 finished. Among the bikes they rode were several tricycles, tandems and a penny-farthing.

Charles Terront

Terront won, completing the 1,196km in 71 hours and 22 minutes on his British-built Humber; a bike fitted with the brand new Michelin pneumatic tyres that had been patented that very year. His rival Jacques Jiel-Laval, riding for Dunlop who had patented his own pneumatic tyres three years earlier (and was believed to be the inventor until it turned out that another Scottish inventor had patented his own version in 1846), was on a similar bike - both men had to stop and fix several punctures along the way, but the advantages offered by their tyres far outweighed the advantages of solid tyres. Jiel-Laval had a lead of almost an hour by the time they reached Brest, but then took a sleeping break. Spies recruited by Terront's manager, a man named Duncan, passed on the news and Terront rode hard to catch up, eventually overtaking and keeping the lead for the remainder of the race. He was met by a crowd of more than 10,000 fans in Paris, many of whom had stayed up all night to make sure they caught a glimpse of their hero.

Two years later, a collection of his memoirs as told to and written by journalist Louis Baudry de Saunier went on sale - making Terront the very first athlete to have a biography published within his lifetime. He died in Sainte-Marguerite-lès-Marseille on the 31st of October 1932, aged 75.


Graeme Brown
Graeme Brown, an Australian cyclist born in Darwin on this day in 1979, won numerous titles on track and on road, including several National Sprint, Pursuit and Scratch races, stages at the Tour Down Under and the Points competition at the Tour de Langkawi in 2003 and 2005. In 2004, he was implicated in a doping scandal when multiple Sprint and Keirin champion Mark French claimed that Brown, Shane Kelly, Joble Dajka and Sean Eadie were the co-owners of 13 phials of an equine growth hormone, injectable vitamins and used medical equipment that had been discovered in his room at the Australian Institute of Sport.

Dajka was later found to have lied when giving evidence, resulting in his suspension from competition and deselection from the Olympic team. No evidence was ever found to connect the drugs or equipment to the cyclists French had accused, so ultimately only he was the only cyclist other than Dajka in the case who was prosecuted - his lifetime ban was later ended at appeal, since there was also no evidence that he had taken the drugs.



Yvonne McGregor
Born in Wibsey, Bradford, United Kingdom on this day in 1961, Yvonne McGregor won the Points race at the Commonwealth Games and was National Pursuit Champion and Best British All-Rounder in 1994, National Pursuit Champion again in 1998, 1999 and 2000, World Pursuit Champion in 2000 and National Time Trial Champion in 2001. In 2002, she was awarded an MBE for services to cycling.

Australian Luke Durbridge, born in Greenmount on this day in 1991, became World Under-23 Time Trial Champion in 2011 after an illustrious junior career. For 2012 he moved into the top ranks with Orica-AIS, getting his season off to a good start by winning the National Individual Time Trial Championship - he went on to win Stage 3 and overall at the Circuit Cycliste Sarthe, the Prologue at the Critérium du Dauphiné and Stage 4 and overall at the Tour du Poitou-Charentes et de la Vienne. Still with Orica in 2013 he kept his National Champion title and became National Road Race Champion too, won Stage 2 at the Bay Classic and managed a sixth place stage finish at the Giro d'Italia. he won Stage 3 at the Bay Classic in 2014, then the Road Race at the Oceania Championships.

Robert Alban, born in Saint-André-d'Huiriat on this day in 1952, is a retired French cyclist who took 2nd place in the National Cyclo Cross Championships of 1977 and 1980; 19th in the 1979 Tour de France; 11th in the 1980 Tour de France; 3rd in the 1981 Tour de France when he also won Stage 18; 11th in the 1982 Tour de France and 38th in the 1984 Tour de France. He also won Stage 5 at the 1982 Critérium du 

Dauphiné and was 3rd in the same race one year later.

Ryan Cox, 1979-2007
(image credit: Paul Giovanni)

South African professional Ryan Cox, born on this day in 1979, won the Tour of Qinghai Lake in 2004 and the Tour de Langkawi and National Road Race Championship one year later. In July 2007, he underwent vascular lesion surgery in a knotted artery in his leg. Three weeks later, the artery burst and caused massive internal bleeding which led to heart failure. He received several blood transfusions but his condition did not improve, and he died at 05:15 on the 1st of August. He was 28 years old.

Maria Östergren, born in Södertälje, Sweden on this day in 1978, was National Mountain Bike Individual Time Trial Champion in 2001, 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007, National Mountain Bike Cross Country Champion in 2003, 2005 and 2006. She has also twice won the silver medal in the National Road Race Championships, in 2001 and 2005.

Margarita "Marga" Fullana, born in Sant Llorenç des Cardassar, Spain on this day in 1972, won the bronze medal in the Mountain Bike event at the 2000 Olympics, was World MTB Cross Country Champion in 1999, 2000 and 2008, National MTB XC Champion in 1999 and 2005 and European MTB XC Champion in 2006. On the 30th of August 2010, she was subjected to an out-of-competition anti-doping test that subsequently proved positive for EPO and made a full confession whilst provisionally suspended pending an investigation. "I’ve done the stupidest thing of my life. I have had a very bad year, both emotionally and physically... I am stupid and I am brave enough to admit it. So many years working hard on my career, and one lapse, and everything’s in the trash can," she said.

Nataliya Kachalka, born in Vinnytsya, USSR (now Ukraine) on his day in 1975, began her professional career with SC Michaela Fanini-Rox in 2001 and picked up promising results with them and other teams until 2005 when she tested positive for furosemide, a diuretic that has been used as a masking agent for performance-enhancing drugs. She received a ban running from the 30th of July 2005 to the 30th of July 2007, but has not returned to professional cycling.

Roar Skaane, born in Horten, Norway on this day in 1970, formed part of the winning Time Trial Team at the National Championships of 1989 and 1993.

Nikolas Maes, born in Kortijk on this day in 1986, scored his first professional victory with a stage win at the Vuelta a Burgos in 2009 and was reported to be joining RadioShack for 2010 - however, when the 2010 team roster was announced, his name wasn't on it and he went instead to QuickStep. Still with them as of 2013, he went on to win the Youth category at the 2011 Tour of Qatar and was sixth at the Dwars door Vlaanderen before going on to win the World Ports Classic. In 2014, he appears to be finding good form and was eighth at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne. He is not related to Sylvère, Romain nor any of the other 38 Belgian cyclists to have shared his surname (nor to Paul Maes, winner of 2nd place for Stage 2 at the 1966 Tour de l'Avenir, who is French).

Other cyclists born on this day: Henning R. Larsen (Denmark, 1931); Steve Bent (Great Britain, 1961); Gyula Mazur (Hungary, 1888); Daniel McConnell (Australia, 1985); Miroslav Vymazal (Czechoslovakia, 1952, died 2002); Harald Christensen (Denmark, 1907, died 1994); Viesturs Bērziņš (Latvia, 1974); Bernhard Doyle (Great Britain, 1888); Jacinto Brito (Mexico, 1938, died 1968); Max Jørgensen (Denmark, 1923, died 1992).

Daily Cycling Facts 08.04.2014

Can you be any more French?
Hippolyte Aucouturier, 1903

Paris-Roubaix was held on this date in 1903, 1920, 1928, 1951, 1956, 1979, 1984, 1990 and 2012. In 1903, it was won for the first time by Hippolyte Aucouturier, who would become the third man to win for two consecutive years in 1904. In 1920, the finish line was hosted for the first time at the Stadium Jean Dubrulle in Roubaix, where Belgian professional carpet maker Paul Deman was first across.

The 1928 edition was won by André Leducq, who would finish that year's Tour de France in 2nd place, then win in 1930 and 1932. 1951 was won by Antonio Bevilacqua who was World Pursuit Champion at the time. 1956 was won by Louison Bobet, going some way towards killing off the "Crybaby" nickname he'd been given by other riders of his day because crybabies do not survive - never mind win - Paris-Roubaix.

1979 brought the second of Francesco Moser's record-equaling three consecutive wins and saw the first use of five cobbled sections: the 1.4km Tilloy-lez-Marchiennes to Sars-et-Rosières, the 1.7km Orchies Chemin des Prières and Chemin des Abattoirs, the 1.2km Auchy-lez-Orchies to Bersee, the 1.8km Camphin-en-Pévèle with it's muddy right corner which has become infamous as one of the most challenging points on the parcours and the 2.1km Camphin-en-Pévèle to Carrefour de l'Arbre, now rated the second most dangerous section after the Trouée d'Arenberg and the section where the race has often been won or lost.

Tom Boonen
(image credit: Tete de la Course CC BY-SA 2.0)

1984 saw the return of the Trouée d'Arenberg, which had been closed by the Office National des Fôrets in 1974 and not used since the previous year and the first win by an Irish rider, Sean Kelly, who would win again two years later. 1990 was won by Eddy Planckaert, his second Monument after winning the Ronde van Vlaanderen in 1988.

In 2012, the Belgian rider Tom Boonen scored a superb victory after riding the last 50km solo and gradually building up a lead from that point onwards. By doing so, he equalled Roger de Vlaeminck's record of four victories and, having already won the E3 Harelbeke, Gent–Wevelgem and the Ronde van Vlaanderen in the same year (all of them falling within a 17-day period and the only rider to have ever done so), confirmed his status as the best Classics rider of his generation and one of the best of all time.

Alessandro Ballan
(image credit: Sławek CC BY-SA 2.0) 

The Ronde van Vlaanderen took place on this day in 2001 and 2007. 2001 was won by Gianluca Bortolami, who set the fastest ever average speed at 43.580kph when he took 6h10'23" to complete the 269km parcours and rode intelligently, making maximum use of the rivalry and lack of co-operation between the race favourites. Two years later, Bortolami tested positive for cortisone at the Driedaagse van De Panne on the 2nd of April and was later banned for six months.

The 2007 victory went to the Italian Alessandro Ballan - a breakaway group formed within the first 30km and led for much of the race before being caught by the peloton as they approached the Muur van Geraardsbergen with its maximum gradient of 19.8%. Ballan chose the Muur as the location for his final, decisive attack; knowing that favourite Tom Boonen was suffering after an earlier crash and would be unable to respond. Only Leif Hoste could remain with him to the end, but Ballan - who looks like a climber but excels as a sprinter - was marginally faster to the line.

Nicole Cooke - the second British rider to win
a Monument
(image credit: Gsl CC BY-SA 2.5)

British fans often complain at the lack of British success in the Monuments, moaning that other than Tom Simpson's three victories back in the 1960s (the Ronde in 1961, Milan-San Remo in 1964 and the Giro di Lombardia in 1965), the only chance they've had to celebrate was Mark Cavendish's 2009 Milan-San Remo triumph. However, they're forgetting - or, more likely, are completely ignorant of the fact - that Britain had a rider who won a Monument two years before Cav won his his: Nicole Cooke, the Swansea-born rider who is one of Great Britain's most successful athletes of all time and who won the Ronde van Vlaanderen voor Vrouwen on this day in 2007.


Walter Planckaert - the winner of the 1976 Tour of Flanders, the Dwaars door Vlaanderen in 1977 and 1984 and 71 other races during his professional career - was born in Nevele, Belgium on this day in 1948. His older brother Willy won the Points competition at the 1966 Tour de France and a Dwaars door Vlaanderen of his own a decade later, younger brother Eddy won numerous Grand Tour stages, the Tour of Flanders in 1988 and Paris-Roubaix on this day in 1990.

Julián Berrendero

Julián Berrendero, born in San Agustín del Guadalix, Spain on this day in 1912, won the third and fourth editions of the Vuelta a Espana in 1941 and 1942. In 1936, he won the King of the Mountains at the Tour de France after wearing the polka dot jersey for 13 stages; then won Stage 15 one year later. In addition to his two Vuelta General Classification victories, he won the Mountains Classification in 1942 and 1945 and a total of eleven stages in six years. He also held the title of National Road Race Champion from 1942 to 1944 and National Cyclo Cross Champion in 1944. Berrendero died in Madrid on the 1st of August, 1995.

The 2003 Norwegian Road Race Champion Gabriel Rasch, who was born in Hole on this day in 1976, has spent his entire professional career riding with his countryman Thor Hushovd, whom he credits with helping him take the step up to the Pro Teams. However, he was unable to move with Hushovd to BMC for the 2012 season and went instead to FDJ-BigMat. A year later he moved on to Sky.

Aleksejs Saramotins
(image credit: Ralf Seger
CC BY-SA 3.0)

Latvian Aleksejs Saramotins, who was born on this day in 1982, became National Road Race Champion in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2010.

Maarten Ducrot, born in Vlissingen, Netherlands on this day in 1958, entered five Tours de France and finished four - in 1985, he won Stage 9 and received the Combativity Award. Since 2004, he has been a cycling commentator on Dutch television and - with former professionals Steven Rooks and Peter Winnen - confessed on the Reporter show that he had doped; using cortisone, testosterone and Synacthen, a drug that stimulates the adrenal glands and which he called "a very bad medicine."

Melcior Mauri, born in Vic, Spain on this day in 1966, won the 1991 Vuelta a Espana. Since retiring from road cycling, he ha competed in mountain biking events and won the Moroccan Titan Desert Race in 2007.

Other cyclists born on this day: Mauro da Dalto (Italy, 1981); Medhadi Al-Dosari (Saudi Arabia, 1976); Kim Gwang-Seon (South Korea, 1946); Dick Paris (Australia, 1942); Luís Sepúlveda (Chile, 1974); Tim Peddie (USA, 1970); Alain Bondue (France, 1959); Pedro Sánchez (Colombia, 1940); Pete Loncarevich (USA, 1966).

Daily Cycling Facts 07.04.2014

Charles Creupelandt

The Paris-Roubaix Monument Classic took place on this date in 1901, 1912, 1957, 1963, 1968, 1974 and 2013. In 1901, the race started at Port Maillot for the first time since 1898 and motorpacing - riders cycling in the slipstream of a lead car or motorbike - was banned, though pacing by another bicycle or tandem would be permitted until 1910. The winner was the Swiss-born Frenchman Lucien Lesna, who would win again the following year. 1912 was won by Charles Creupelandt, who would win for a second time in 1914, and 1957 by Alfred De Bruyne who would win again the next year. 1963 was won by Emile Daems three days after his 25th birthday.

1968 was a year in which two of the most feared aspects in the history of the race made their first appearance: the first was Eddy Merckx, who achieved the first of the three Paris-Roubaix victories that would become some of the most impressive wins in a career that saw him widely recognised as the best cyclist of all time. The second was the Trouée d'Arenberg, the fast 2.4km cobbled section that had become known as the most challenging part of the race - and which has claimed several victims. Arenberg, roughly cobbled with uneven stones, was built to serve as a track along which equipment and material could be transported to and from the mines that lie deep below the surrounding forest and was first suggested for inclusion by 1958 Vuelta a Espana winner and 1962 World Road Race Champion Jean Stablinski, who had worked in the mines before he became a professional cyclist. Stablinski would later say, "Paris–Roubaix is not won in Arenberg, but from there the group with the winners is selected."

Arenberg: 2,400m of suffering
(image credit: Deruneinholbare CC BY-NC 2.0)

1974 may have been the first year that the 1.6km Verchain-Maugré to Quérénaing cobbled section was used - records are rather vague. The Trouée d'Arenberg, meanwhile, had been closed by the Office National des Fôrets and would not reappear in the race until 1984. The winner was Roger De Vlaeminck, his second victory in the race.

In 2012, Fabian Cancellara had been kept away from the race by a quadruple-fractured collarbone sustained at the Ronde van Vlaanderen a week earlier and Tom Boonen won; in 2013 Boonen was away with an injury and Cancellara - despite several crashes during practice for the race - won. Though far less decisive than Boonen's 2012 victory (he'd won by 1'39" following a long solo break), many fans considered Cancellara's to have been far more exciting: Cancellara had entered the Roubaix velodrome with Team Blanco (ex-Rabobank) rider Sep Vanmarcke and the pair put on a nail-biting display of tactics more commonly associated with track sprinting, virtually track-standing their bikes as they watched one another and waited to see who would go first. Vanmarcke did so but was immediately overpowered by the big Swiss rider, who sprinted past and took his third Paris-Roubaix victory. One week previously, he had also won the Ronde van Vlaanderen - only ten riders have ever achieved this, and only Boonen and Cancellara have done so on two separate occasions (Boonen in 2005 and 2012, Cancellara in 2010 and 2013).

The Ronde van Vlaanderen was raced on this day in 1985, 1991, 1996 and 2002. 1985 was held in some of the worst weather ever seen at the event with a storm that raged for most of the second half of the event and temperatures described by riders as "Siberian." Just 24 riders out of the 173 to start reached the finish line, enabling Eric Vanderaerden to claw his way to the front of the peloton after apparently exhausting himself when he rode at the front for 20km and he beat Australia's Phil Anderson by 41".

1991 brought further success for 1989 winner Edwig van Hooydonck when he beat Joan Museeuw by 45". Van Hooydonck retired a few years later when EPO was becoming the doping product of choice in cycling, saying that he couldn't remain competitive unless he too was to dope - which he refused to do.

Michele Bartoli
(image credit: Thomas Ducroquet CC BY-SA 3.0)

1996 was won by Michele Bartoli who, also winning the Omloop Het Volk in  2001, Liège–Bastogne–Liège in 1997 and 1998, Züri-Metzgete in 1998, La Flèche Wallonne in 1999,  the Amstel Gold Race in 2002 and the Giro di Lombardia in both 2002 and 2003 would go on to prove himself one of Italy's greatest ever Classics riders. That year also saw the first appearance of an Under-23 race to replace the Amateurs competition that had first been held in 1936 (and which was won over the years by several riders destined for future success in the Elite race) - the first U-23 winner was Ludovic Capelle, who won again the next year.

The Elite race was won in 2002 by Andrea Tafi; Italians in the last two generations seemingly doing increasingly well in the French and Flemmish Classics where, traditionally, they have suffered - two years previously, he won Paris-Tours and a year before that Paris-Roubaix. The Under-23 winner was Nick Nuyens, who would win at Elite level in 2011, and the Dorp van de Ronde was Aarsele.

La Flèche Wallonne started on this day - the earliest in its 76-year history - in 1977. The parcours was 223km long, nearly identical to that of the last three years and would be used again with few alterations the following year. Francesco Moser won, beginning his long run of success in the Classics (he won Paris-Roubaix for the next three years in a row); finally laying to rest the belief that Italian riders rode well only in Italy - a belief that had existed since the early days of cycling, despite the fact that Fermo Carmellini had one this race in 1948 and Jules Rossi had won Paris-Roubaix in 1937.


Andy Hampsten
Shirus Andrew "Ernie" Hamsten, born in Columbus, Ohio on this day in 1962, came to widespread acclaim in 1985 when - as a virtual unknown - he won Stage 20 at the Giro d'Italia, which earned him a full professional contract with Bernard Hinault's La Vie Claire team for 1986. That year, he won the Tour de Suisse and came fourth overall in the General Classification at the Tour de France, also winning the Youth Category as he supported team leader Greg Lemond to his first Tour victory - the first time it had ever been won by a non-European rider.

Andy Hampsten at the Tour de France, 1993
(image credit: Eric Houde CC BY-SA 3.0)

In 1987, having switched to 7-Eleven, Hampsten again won the Tour de Suisse and two stages at the Coors Classic. The following year proved to be his best when he won Stages 12, 18, the King of the Mountains and the General Classification at the Giro d'Italia (the first and, at the time of writing, only time the race has been won by a non-European) - however, many of those who were there to see it will remember his incredible performance during Stage 14 as the high point of his career. Displaying the sort of strength against adversity that hadn't been seen since the days of Charly Gaul, Hampsten battled against a blizzard high on the Gavia Pass, one of the most testing sections of any Grand Tour, where more than 30cm of snow lay on the ground. At the summit, musettes filled with skiing clothes were being handed out to the riders to protect them from hypothermia on the descent. Erik Breukink passed Hampsten as he stopped to put them on, but he was soon in hot pursuit. In the end, Breukink was first over the line, but Hampsten had ridden so hard and so fast that he took the race leader's jersey - and kept it for the remainder of the race.

In 1992, Hampsten won Stage 14 on the Alpe d'Huez at the Tour de France, beating Claudio Chiappucci who was then at the height of his powers and would go on to become the overall King of the Mountains that year. In the same season, he won the Tour de Romandie and came 5th in the Giro, then he won the Tour of Galicia in 1993 before retiring at the end on 1994. With his brother Steve, he now owns and runs Hampsten Cycles of Seattle and operates Cinghiale Cycling Tours in Italy.

Hampsten's nickname Ernie may be due to a resemblance to actor Barry Livingstone, but
some claim otherwise. What do you think, folks?

His nickname Ernie is commonly said to come from a resemblance to Barry Livingstone, the actor who played Ernie Douglas in the 1960s US TV show My Three Sons. However, Cyclopunk has been informed by no less reliable a source than Gary Fisher* that the name in fact comes from the Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie. Only you, dear reader, can decide.

*Yes, guilty as charged. Name-dropping with intent..

British cyclo cross rider John Atkins, who was born in Coventry on this day in 1948, was the son of the famous Edith Atkins who earned wordwide fame when she broke numerous endurance cycling records during the 1950s. John would become a rider of considerable note himself, winning his first National Cyclo Cross Championship in 1961 when he was only 19 years old. A stomach ulcer brought his career to a halt after he won second place the following year, but he recovered by 1966 and won the title again, keeping it for the next eight years. He came 2nd in 1975 and 1976, then won it back in 1977 and was 2nd again in 1978 before retiring to run a bike and toyshop in North Wales

Jack Bauer, who was born in New Zealand on this day in 1985, became National Road Race Champion in 2010 after spending his early cycling career riding mountain bikes, He switched to road cycling in 2007, later spending time in Belgium where he learned techniques from more experienced riders and began to won numerous races. Bauer holds a degree in physical education, is a born-again Christian and played bass guitar in the locally-successful rock band Dream Farm.

Ernest Chambers, a track cyclist and winner of a silver medal in the 2000m Tandem races at the 1928 and 1932 Olympics,  was born in Hackney, East London on this day in 1907. He died on the 29th of January in 1985.

Jobie Dajka

Jobie Dajka, 1981-2009

On this day in 2009, police found the body of Australian track cyclist Jobie Dajka, one of four cyclists accused of being the co-owners of 13 phials of an equine growth hormone, injectable vitamins and medical equipment, including used syringes, by sprint and keirin champion Mark French. The drugs and equipment had been found in a boarding room used by French at the Australian Institute of Sport. 


The four men French implicated - Dajka, Graeme Brown, Sean Eadie and Shane Kelly - were eventually cleared when the investigation found no evidence to connect them in any way to the drugs. French was found guilty of supplying doping products to other athletes and banned from competition for two years, but an appeal later decided that there was no evidence to link him to the drugs either and he too was cleared. However, Dajka was found to have deliberately misled the investigation by lying when giving evidence; a charge he insisted was false, saying that he had failed to be specific rather than lied, and he was suspended from competition for two years.


An appeal was not successful and the rider entered a deep depression, dealing with his disillusionment by drinking heavily. His weight increased dramatically and he began suffering further emotional problems that led to him carrying out a physical assault on Australian Track Team coach Mike Barras, for which he was banned for another three years. After an arrest for vandalising his parent's home he was placed under a restraining order and sought treatment, spending time in hospital in Adelaide. 


On the 22nd of December 2006, the two-year ban came to an end and, as he had strictly complied with the conditions of the restraining order and made efforts to retrieve his life, the three-year ban was ended early. Gradually, his health improved and he began to consider a return to racing; but on the 7th of April 2009 he was found dead at his home by police. He was 27.


Dajka is believed to have died three days before he was found and, though his death is not thought to have been suspicious, a cause has never been established.

Florian Schneider
(image credit: Those City Nights)

Florian Schneider-Esleben, a founder member of the seminal and cycling-obsessed German electronic music group Kraftwerk, was born in Düsseldorf in this day in 1947. Schneider left the group in 2008, having taken a typically-Kraftwerkian 40 years to discover artistic differences with co-founder Ralf Hütter.

Other cyclists born on this day: Giairo Ermeti (Italy, 1981); Jos De Beukelaere (Belgium, 1925, died 1969); Berndt Carlsson (Sweden, 1907, died 1991); Erny Kirchen (Luxembourg, 1949); Panagiotis Voukelatos (Greece, 1983); Waldemar Pedrazzi (Uruguay, 1955); Liu Fu (China, 1957); Andrzej Michalak (Poland, 1959); Yuichiro Kamiyama (Japan, 1968); Valdir Lermen (Brazil, 1977); Jaroslav Cihlář (Czechoslovakia, 1924); Aleksandr Krasnov (USSR, 1960); Carlos Gennero (Argentina, 1979); Michael McBeath (Zimbabwe, 1950); Yevgeny Sobol (Belarus, 1981); John Magri (Malta, 1941); Jesús Chousal (Chile, 1911); Henri Kellen (Luxembourg, 1927, died 1950).