Daily Cycling Facts 30.03.2014

Lucien Lesna

Paris-Roubaix was held on this date in 1902. Having begun at Saint-Germain in 1900 and Porte Maillot in 1901, the race returned to its previous starting point at Chatou - where the start line would remain until 1914. The winner, Lucien Lesna, was born in Switzerland in 1863 but had taken French nationality before the turn of the century and as such is not considered the first Swiss Paris-Roubaix winner (they had to wait until 1923).

The Ronde van Vlaanderen was held on this day in 1958, 1959, 1969 and 1980. The 1958 winner was Germain Derycke - nowadays it's always one week before Paris-Roubaix, which Derycke won in 1953, but was two weeks before that year. The winning time of 6h7'00" was shared by all ten riders first over the line. Derycke had won Stage 23 at the Tour de France in 1951, but then became a Classics specialist - in between his Paris-Roubaix  and Ronde successes, he won La Flèche Wallonne and the Dwars door Vlaanderen in 1954, Milan-San Remo in 1955 and Liège–Bastogne–Liège in 1957.

Michel Pollentier - the last man who will
ever win the Ronde van Vlaanderen in
March.
(image credit: Rynoventoux)

The Ronde was held on the same date the following year, 1959, when Rik Van Looy won despite a crash on the Muur van Geraardsbergen. He too was a Classics specialist, but went further than Derycke by becoming the first man to win all five Monuments - a feat achieved since by only two other men, Roger de Vlaeminck (perhaps the greatest Classics rider of them all) and Eddy Merckx (widely claimed to have been the greatest cyclist of all time). Out of 143 starters, only 58 finished the race that year; one of the main reasons for that being the Valkenburg, featured in the race for the first time: climbing from 45m to 98m, the hill has a maximum gradient of 15%.

1969 brought the first of two victories in this race for Eddy Merckx, the Belgian superstar who is widely regarded as the most successful cyclist of all time. The race was run in awful weather with heavy rain and strong winds which proved too much for lesser men, so Merckx led for much of the race. Then - in search of revenge against the other riders who, like much of the cycling world at the time, spent a great deal of time jealously sniping at him because of  how many races he won - he launched a solo breakaway on the Muur van Geraardsbergen and rode the remaining 70km alone. When he crossed the finish line, he did so 5'36" ahead of 2nd place Felice Gimondi and 8'08" ahead of the chasing group that included the British rider Barry Hoban. However, this race was a challenge even for him and it would be six years before he won for a second time.

In 1980 Michel Pollentier beat some of the greatest Classics riders of all time, defeating Francesco Moser, Jan Raas, Roger de Vlaeminck, Marc Demeyer, Freddy Maertens and Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle in a final sprint. Oddly, Pollentier was not himself known as a Classics man, having performed best in long stage races and the Grand Tours - he won a total of six Grand Tour stages, twice finished the Tour de France in 7th place, finished the Vuelta a Espana in 6th position in 1977 and 2nd five years later and won the Giro d'Italia in  1977. 1980, the 64th held, was the last time the race was held in March. Since the race is now held on the 14th Sunday of the year to ensure it falls one week prior to Paris-Roubaix, it will never be held in March again as the earliest possible date is the 1st of April.


Mari Holden

Mari Holden
(image credit: James F. Perry
CC BY-SA 3.0)

Mari Holden, born in Ventura, California on this day in 1971, was twice selected to compete with the US National Junior Triathlon team in the early 1990s and was elected Junior Triathlete of the Year in 1991, coming 7th on the Junior Triathlon World Championships that same year.

Gradually - as has often been the case with athletes who compete in other sports - Holden found that she enjoyed her cycling training more than any other part, and she became better on the bike as a result. However, it wasn't until 1992 when she relocated to Colorado and began training with the US Cycling Team that she decided to concentrate on cycle racing rather than triathlon. The next year, she entered the National Time Trial Championship and finished in 6th place.

In 1994 she sustained a spinal compression fracture, thus bringing a temporary halt to her new career, but a year later she won the National Time Trial and set a new American 40km time trial record at 51'36.24", also winning the Louisville Criterium and the Point Mogu Criterium and coming third in the presitigious Redlands Bicycle Classic. She won the Time Trial Championship again in 1996 and in 1998, 1999 and 2000, thus becoming the first US female cyclist to win the title for three consecutive years - and she won the Road Race Championship as well in 1999. She won the World Time Trial Championship in 2000.

In 1998, she won the Mountains Classification at the Women's Challenge, repeating that result in 1999 and developing her abilities so far that she was able to win the Mountains at the 2001 Giro Donne. Today, Holden uses her considerable expertise to run cycling training camps and clinics, also acting as a consultant to companies manufacturing women-specific bikes and components and to the cycle racing world in general. She has also served as athlete's ambassador to USADA.

Bill Bradley
Bill Bradley, born on his day in 1933, received a suspension from the National Cycling Union in 1958 after he was found to have competed abroad without their permission, but was then invited back to take part in the Berlin-Warsaw-Prague race later than year. He won the Tour of Britain - at that time known as the Milk Race as it was sponsored by the Milk Marketing Board in return for the words "Drink More Milk" embroidered n the jersey of every rider - in 1959 and again in 1960.

Bradley is notable in that he remained an amateur - probably so that he could avoid the NCU rule stating that once a rider had been a professional he could never race against amateurs again, even after retirement - for ten years until he was finally tempted by an offer from Falcon Cycles, and for his Stage 6 victory at the 1957 Österreich-Rundfahrt when he set a race record time for climbing Austria's highest mountain the Großglockner in 56'53" - a record that stood for many years and which beat one set six years earlier by none other than Charly Gaul, perhaps the greatest climber to have ever lived.. He died on the 30th of June 1997.


Laurens Schmitz Meintjes, born in Aberdeen, South Africa on the 12th of July 1868, was the winner of the first ever World Stayers Championship at the ICA Track Cycling World Championships in Chicago, 1893. He died on this day in 1931.

Jean Fischer, born in France on this day in 1867, was nicknamed Le Grimpeur, which suggests he specialised in climbing. However, he won the Paris-Tours, a race over relatively flat parcours that had first been held in 1896 and was originally run every five years, in 1901. In 1903, he finished the first ever Tour de France in 5th place, 4h58'44" behind winner Maurice Garin.

Rebecca Romero
(© johnthescone CC2.0)

On this day in 2007, Rebecca Romero - who had already enjoyed a successful career as a professional rower - made her international competitive cycling debut at the UCI Track World Cup in Moscow. She won a silver medal in the 3km Pursuit.

Other cyclists born on this day: Jens-Erik Madsen (Denmark, 1981); Ensio Nieminen (Finland, 1930); Klaus-Jürgen Grünke (East Germany, 1951); Bengt Asplund (Sweden, 1957); Tamotsu Chikanari (Japan, 1929); Cor Schuuring (Netherlands, 1942); William Kund (USA, 1946); Mohamed Ali Acha-Cheloi (Iran, 1951); René Rouffeteau (France, 1926); Ben Luckwell (Great Britain, 1966); Sven Hamrin (Sweden, 1941); Darren Lawson (Australia, 1968); Fabien Sanchez (France, 1983); Anton Tkáč (Czechoslovakia, 1951); Manuel Fumic (Germany, 1982).

Daily Cycling Facts 24.01.2013

Rebecca Romero
(© johnthescone CC2.0)

Rebecca Romero
Rebecca Romero, who started her professional career in sport as a rower and then became a National, World and Olympic Champion cyclist, was born on this day in 1980.

Romero's debut as a cyclist came at the 2006 Track World Championship in Moscow where she won silver, having been just beaten by Northern Irish Wendy Houvernaghel. She became National Time Trial Champion the same year, the National 3km Pursuit Champion the next and added another World Championships silver for the same event. In 2008, she won it individually and as part of the British squad in the Team Pursuit, then won gold for the Individual Pursuit at the Olympics.

In October 2010, she announced that she had decided to leave the British Olympic team before the 2012 Games in London, citing "several set-backs at crucial points" during the previous season. However, she continued her athletic career, taking fourth place in the 2011 National Individual Time Trial Championship and competing in triathlon.


Cindy Pieters was born on this day 1976 in Veurne, Belgium. She turned professional in 1999, the year she became National Road Race Champion and came 3rd in the Flèche Wallonne Féminine. In 2000, she came 3rd in the National Time Trial Championships, improving her result to 1st the following year and then 2nd a year later.

Retired Spanish professional Fernando Escartin was born on this day in 1968 in Biescas. He entered nine Tours de France between 1992 and 2002, missing only 1998 and 2001. His best year was 1999 when he won Stage 15 and came 3rd overall. He was more successful in the Vuelta a Espana, which he entered seven times between 1993 and 2001, missing 1995 and 1999 - he came 2nd overall in 1997 and 1998.

On this day in 1854, Thomas Stevens was born in Birkhamstead, Hertfordshire. Aged 29, he set out from his family's adopted home in San Francisco on a penny-farthing fitted with cutting-edge nickel-plated wheels - a ride that, a year and a half later, would earn him the title of the first man to circumnavigate the globe on a bicycle. He died on the 24th of January 1935 and is buried in London's St. Marylebone Cemetery.

Cycling Weekly

In 1891, the first ever copy of Cycling Weekly - known to generations of British cyclists as "The Comic" - was published. A few years afterwards, it was briefly renamed Cycling and Moting as it was believed that moting, a name that never quite caught on for motoring, would supercede cycling and that cycling would die out as a result.

Later on, editor H.H. England misunderstood the feelings of the British cycling public and steered the magazine toward support of the National Cyclists' Union's continued ban of bicycle racing on roads, a ban that dated from an incident in the 19th Century when some racing cyclists upset horses pulling a carriage; the occupant of the carriage making a complaint to the police as a result. This led to a belief that were road racing to take place, the police would respond by banning bicycles altogether from the roads. Readership fell as a result and rival titles sprang up, supporting Percy Stallard and his British League of Racing Cyclists in their attempts to establish road races of the type taking place overseas (when they did manage to organise a race, the police supported them). The two best-selling rivals, The Bicycle and Sporting Cyclist, enjoyed good sales at first but would eventually merge with the older publication.

In the late 1950s, still under H.H., the magazine changed its name once again to reflect the increasing popularity of mopeds, becoming Cycling and Mopeds. England was certain that this move would drive sales and draw moped riders into cycling, but it had the opposite effect and sales dropped dramatically - cycling had proved to be far more than the brief craze some felt it would be and the magazine dropped the mopeds. Eventually, he was pushed out and new editor Alan Gayfer, a considerably less conservative character, was brought in as his replacement. Gayfer's first move was to drop the mopeds and broaden the racing coverage so that the magazine included news of all the forms of cycling then in existence. He also took on two new reporters who would go on to become the biggest names in British cycling journalism - Les Woodland and Phil Ligget.

Other cyclists born on this day: Josef Moser (Austria, 1917); Georges Valentin (France, 1892, died 1981); Remo Sansonetti (Australia, 1946); Sal Sansonetti (Australia, 1946); Bogumiła Matusiak (Poland, 1971); Erik Friborg (Sweden, 1893 died 1968); Carsten Bergemann (Germany, 1979); Jos Alberts (Netherlands, 1960); Mok Sau Hei (Hong Kong, 1941); Ernst Streng (Germany, 1942, died 1993); Silvio Pedroni (Italy, 1918, died 2003); Angelo De Martini (Italy, 1897, died 1979); Scott Mercier (USA, 1968); László Halász (Hungary, 1959); Sławomir Chrzanowski (Poland, 1969).

Daily Cycling Facts 30.03.2013

Lucien Lesna

Paris-Roubaix was held on this date in 1902. Having begun at Saint-Germain in 1900 and Porte Maillot in 1901, the race returned to its previous starting point at Chatou - where the start line would remain until 1914. The winner, Lucien Lesna, was born in Switzerland in 1863 but had taken French nationality before the turn of the century and as such is not considered the first Swiss Paris-Roubaix winner (they had to wait until 1923).

The Ronde van Vlaanderen was held on this day in 1958, 1959, 1969 and 1980. The 1958 winner was Germain Derycke - nowadays it's always one week before Paris-Roubaix, which Derycke won in 1953, but was two weeks before that year. The winning time of 6h7'00" was shared by all ten riders first over the line. Derycke had won Stage 23 at the Tour de France in 1951, but then became a Classics specialist - in between his Paris-Roubaix  and Ronde successes, he won La Flèche Wallonne and the Dwars door Vlaanderen in 1954, Milan-San Remo in 1955 and Liège–Bastogne–Liège in 1957.

Michel Pollentier - the last man who will
ever win the Ronde van Vlaanderen in
March.
(image credit: Rynoventoux)

The Ronde was held on the same date the following year, 1959, when Rik Van Looy won despite a crash on the Muur van Geraardsbergen. He too was a Classics specialist, but went further than Derycke by becoming the first man to win all five Monuments - a feat achieved since by only two other men, Roger de Vlaeminck (perhaps the greatest Classics rider of them all) and Eddy Merckx (widely claimed to have been the greatest cyclist of all time). Out of 143 starters, only 58 finished the race that year; one of the main reasons for that being the Valkenburg, featured in the race for the first time: climbing from 45m to 98m, the hill has a maximum gradient of 15%.

1969 brought the first of two victories in this race for Eddy Merckx, the Belgian superstar who is widely regarded as the most successful cyclist of all time. The race was run in awful weather with heavy rain and strong winds which proved too much for lesser men, so Merckx led for much of the race. Then - in search of revenge against the other riders who, like much of the cycling world at the time, spent a great deal of time jealously sniping at him because of  how many races he won - he launched a solo breakaway on the Muur van Geraardsbergen and rode the remaining 70km alone. When he crossed the finish line, he did so 5'36" ahead of 2nd place Felice Gimondi and 8'08" ahead of the chasing group that included the British rider Barry Hoban. However, this race was a challenge even for him and it would be six years before he won for a second time.

In 1980 Michel Pollentier beat some of the greatest Classics riders of all time, defeating Francesco Moser, Jan Raas, Roger de Vlaeminck, Marc Demeyer, Freddy Maertens and Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle in a final sprint. Oddly, Pollentier was not himself known as a Classics man, having performed best in long stage races and the Grand Tours - he won a total of six Grand Tour stages, twice finished the Tour de France in 7th place, finished the Vuelta a Espana in 6th position in 1977 and 2nd five years later and won the Giro d'Italia in  1977. 1980, the 64th held, was the last time the race was held in March. Since the race is now held on the 14th Sunday of the year to ensure it falls one week prior to Paris-Roubaix, it will never be held in March again as the earliest possible date is the 1st of April.

Mari Holden

Mari Holden
(image credit: James F. Perry
CC BY-SA 3.0)

Mari Holden, born in Ventura, California on this day in 1971, was twice selected to compete with the US National Junior Triathlon team in the early 1990s and was elected Junior Triathlete of the Year in 1991, coming 7th on the Junior Triathlon World Championships that same year.

Gradually - as has often been the case with athletes who compete in other sports - Holden found that she enjoyed her cycling training more than any other part, and she became better on the bike as a result. However, it wasn't until 1992 when she relocated to Colorado and began training with the US Cycling Team that she decided to concentrate on cycle racing rather than triathlon. The next year, she entered the National Time Trial Championship and finished in 6th place.

In 1994 she sustained a spinal compression fracture, thus bringing a temporary halt to her new career, but a year later she won the National Time Trial and set a new American 40km time trial record at 51'36.24", also winning the Louisville Criterium and the Point Mogu Criterium and coming third in the presitigious Redlands Bicycle Classic. She won the Time Trial Championship again in 1996 and in 1998, 1999 and 2000, thus becoming the first US female cyclist to win the title for three consecutive years - and she won the Road Race Championship as well in 1999. She won the World Time Trial Championship in 2000.

In 1998, she won the Mountains Classification at the Women's Challenge, repeating that result in 1999 and developing her abilities so far that she was able to win the Mountains at the 2001 Giro Donne. Today, Holden uses her considerable expertise to run cycling training camps and clinics, also acting as a consultant to companies manufacturing women-specific bikes and components and to the cycle racing world in general. She has also served as athlete's ambassador to USADA.

Bill Bradley
Bill Bradley, born on his day in 1933, received a suspension from the National Cycling Union in 1958 after he was found to have competed abroad without their permission, but was then invited back to take part in the Berlin-Warsaw-Prague race later than year. He won the Tour of Britain - at that time known as the Milk Race as it was sponsored by the Milk Marketing Board in return for the words "Drink More Milk" embroidered n the jersey of every rider - in 1959 and again in 1960.

Bradley is notable in that he remained an amateur - probably so that he could avoid the NCU rule stating that once a rider had been a professional he could never race against amateurs again, even after retirement - for ten years until he was finally tempted by an offer from Falcon Cycles, and for his Stage 6 victory at the 1957 Österreich-Rundfahrt when he set a race record time for climbing Austria's highest mountain the Großglockner in 56'53" - a record that stood for many years and which beat one set six years earlier by none other than Charly Gaul, perhaps the greatest climber to have ever lived.. He died on the 30th of June 1997.


Laurens Schmitz Meintjes, born in Aberdeen, South Africa on the 12th of July 1868, was the winner of the first ever World Stayers Championship at the ICA Track Cycling World Championships in Chicago, 1893. He died on this day in 1931.

Jean Fischer, born in France on this day in 1867, was nicknamed Le Grimpeur, which suggests he specialised in climbing. However, he won the Paris-Tours, a race over relatively flat parcours that had first been held in 1896 and was originally run every five years, in 1901. In 1903, he finished the first ever Tour de France in 5th place, 4h58'44" behind winner Maurice Garin.

Rebecca Romero
(© johnthescone CC2.0)

On this day in 2007, Rebecca Romero - who had already enjoyed a successful career as a professional rower - made her international competitive cycling debut at the UCI Track World Cup in Moscow. She won a silver medal in the 3km Pursuit.

Other cyclists born on this day: Jens-Erik Madsen (Denmark, 1981); Ensio Nieminen (Finland, 1930); Klaus-Jürgen Grünke (East Germany, 1951); Bengt Asplund (Sweden, 1957); Tamotsu Chikanari (Japan, 1929); Cor Schuuring (Netherlands, 1942); William Kund (USA, 1946); Mohamed Ali Acha-Cheloi (Iran, 1951); René Rouffeteau (France, 1926); Ben Luckwell (Great Britain, 1966); Sven Hamrin (Sweden, 1941); Darren Lawson (Australia, 1968); Fabien Sanchez (France, 1983); Anton Tkáč (Czechoslovakia, 1951); Manuel Fumic (Germany, 1982).

Daily Cycling Facts 24.01.2013

Rebecca Romero
(© johnthescone CC2.0)

Rebecca Romero
Rebecca Romero, who started her professional career in sport as a rower and then became a National, World and Olympic Champion cyclist, was born on this day in 1980.

Romero's debut as a cyclist came at the 2006 Track World Championship in Moscow where she won silver, having been just beaten by Northern Irish Wendy Houvernaghel. She became National Time Trial Champion the same year, the National 3km Pursuit Champion the next and added another World Championships silver for the same event. In 2008, she won it individually and as part of the British squad in the Team Pursuit, then won gold for the Individual Pursuit at the Olympics.

In October 2010, she announced that she had decided to leave the British Olympic team before the 2012 Games in London, citing "several set-backs at crucial points" during the previous season. However, she has continued her athletic career, taking fourth place in the 2011 National Individual Time Trial Championship and competing in triathlon.


Cindy Pieters was born on this day 1976 in Veurne, Belgium. She turned professional in 1999, the year she became National Road Race Champion and came 3rd in the Flèche Wallonne Féminine. In 2000, she came 3rd in the National Time Trial Championships, improving her result to 1st the following year and then 2nd a year later.

Retired Spanish professional Fernando Escartin was born on this day in 1968 in Biescas. He entered nine Tours de France between 1992 and 2002, missing only 1998 and 2001. His best year was 1999 when he won Stage 15 and came 3rd overall. He was more successful in the Vuelta a Espana, which he entered seven times between 1993 and 2001, missing 1995 and 1999 - he came 2nd overall in 1997 and 1998.

On this day in 1854, Thomas Stevens was born in Birkhamstead, Hertfordshire. Aged 29, he set out from his family's adopted home in San Francisco on a penny-farthing fitted with cutting-edge nickel-plated wheels - a ride that, a year and a half later, would earn him the title of the first man to circumnavigate the globe on a bicycle. He died on the 24th of January 1935 and is buried in London's St. Marylebone Cemetery.

Cycling Weekly

In 1891, the first ever copy of Cycling Weekly - known to generations of British cyclists as "The Comic" - was published. A few years afterwards, it was briefly renamed Cycling and Moting as it was believed that moting, a name that never quite caught on for motoring, would supercede cycling and that cycling would die out as a result.

Later on, editor H.H. England misunderstood the feelings of the British cycling public and steered the magazine toward support of the National Cyclists' Union's continued ban of bicycle racing on roads, a ban that dated from an incident in the 19th Century when some racing cyclists upset horses pulling a carriage; the occupant of the carriage making a complaint to the police as a result. This led to a belief that were road racing to take place, the police would respond by banning bicycles altogether from the roads. Readership fell as a result and rival titles sprang up, supporting Percy Stallard and his British League of Racing Cyclists in their attempts to establish road races of the type taking place overseas (when they did manage to organise a race, the police supported them). The two best-selling rivals, The Bicycle and Sporting Cyclist, enjoyed good sales at first but would eventually merge with the older publication.

In the late 1950s, still under H.H., the magazine changed its name once again to reflect the increasing popularity of mopeds, becoming Cycling and Mopeds. England was certain that this move would drive sales and draw moped riders into cycling, but it had the opposite effect and sales dropped dramatically - cycling had proved to be far more than the brief craze some felt it would be and the magazine dropped the mopeds. Eventually, he was pushed out and new editor Alan Gayfer, a considerably less conservative character, was brought in as his replacement. Gayfer's first move was to drop the mopeds and broaden the racing coverage so that the magazine included news of all the forms of cycling then in existence. He also took on two new reporters who would go on to become the biggest names in British cycling journalism - Les Woodland and Phil Ligget.

Other cyclists born on this day: Josef Moser (Austria, 1917); Georges Valentin (France, 1892, died 1981); Remo Sansonetti (Australia, 1946); Sal Sansonetti (Australia, 1946); Bogumiła Matusiak (Poland, 1971); Erik Friborg (Sweden, 1893 died 1968); Carsten Bergemann (Germany, 1979); Jos Alberts (Netherlands, 1960); Mok Sau Hei (Hong Kong, 1941); Ernst Streng (Germany, 1942, died 1993); Silvio Pedroni (Italy, 1918, died 2003); Angelo De Martini (Italy, 1897, died 1979); Scott Mercier (USA, 1968); László Halász (Hungary, 1959); Sławomir Chrzanowski (Poland, 1969).

Daily Cycling Facts 30.03.12

Lucien Lesna

Paris-Roubaix was held on this date in 1902. Having begun at Saint-Germain in 1900 and Porte Maillot in 1901, the race returned to its previous starting point at Chatou - where the start line would remain until 1914. The winner, Lucien Lesna, was born in Switzerland in 1863 but had taken French nationality before the turn of the century and as such is not considered the first Swiss Paris-Roubaix winner (they had to wait until 1923).

The Ronde van Vlaanderen was held on this day in 1958, 1959, 1969 and 1980. The 1958 winner was Germain Derycke - nowadays it's always one week before Paris-Roubaix, which Derycke won in 1953, but was two weeks before that year. The winning time of 6h7'00" was shared by all ten riders first over the line. Derycke had won Stage 23 at the Tour de France in 1951, but then became a Classics specialist - in between his Paris-Roubaix  and Ronde successes, he won La Flèche Wallonne and the Dwars door Vlaanderen in 1954, Milan-San Remo in 1955 and Liège–Bastogne–Liège in 1957.

Michel Pollentier - the last man who will
ever win the Ronde van Vlaanderen in
March.
(image credit: Rynoventoux)

The Ronde was held on the same date the following year, 1959, when Rik Van Looy won despite a crash on the Muur van Geraardsbergen. He too was a Classics specialist, but went further than Derycke by becoming the first man to win all five Monuments - a feat achieved since by only two other men, Roger de Vlaeminck (perhaps the greatest Classics rider of them all) and Eddy Merckx (widely claimed to have been the greatest cyclist of all time). Out of 143 starters, only 58 finished the race that year; one of the main reasons for that being the Valkenburg, featured in the race for the first time: climbing from 45m to 98m, the hill has a maximum gradient of 15%.

1969 brought the first of two victories in this race for Eddy Merckx, the Belgian superstar who is widely regarded as the most successful cyclist of all time. The race was run in awful weather with heavy rain and strong winds which proved too much for lesser men, so Merckx led for much of the race. Then - in search of revenge against the other riders who, like much of the cycling world at the time, spent a great deal of time jealously sniping at him because of  how many races he won - he launched a solo breakaway on the Muur van Geraardsbergen and rode the remaining 70km alone. When he crossed the finish line, he did so 5'36" ahead of 2nd place Felice Gimondi and 8'08" ahead of the chasing group that included the British rider Barry Hoban. However, this race was a challenge even for him and it would be six years before he won for a second time.

In 1980 Michel Pollentier beat some of the greatest Classics riders of all time, defeating Francesco Moser, Jan Raas, Roger de Vlaeminck, Marc Demeyer, Freddy Maertens and Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle in a final sprint. Oddly, Pollentier was not himself known as a Classics man, having performed best in long stage races and the Grand Tours - he won a total of six Grand Tour stages, twice finished the Tour de France in 7th place, finished the Vuelta a Espana in 6th position in 1977 and 2nd five years later and won the Giro d'Italia in  1977. 1980, the 64th held, was the last time the race was held in March. Since the race is now held on the 14th Sunday of the year to ensure it falls one week prior to Paris-Roubaix, it will never be held in March again as the earliest possible date is the 1st of April.

Mari Holden

Mari Holden
(image credit: James F. Perry
CC BY-SA 3.0)

Mari Holden, born in Ventura, California on this day in 1971, was twice selected to compete with the US National Junior Triathlon team in the early 1990s and was elected Junior Triathlete of the Year in 1991, coming 7th on the Junior Triathlon World Championships that same year.

Gradually - as has often been the case with athletes who compete in other sports - Holden found that she enjoyed her cycling training more than any other part, and she became better on the bike as a result. However, it wasn't until 1992 when she relocated to Colorado and began training with the US Cycling Team that she decided to concentrate on cycle racing rather than triathlon. The next year, she entered the National Time Trial Championship and finished in 6th place.

In 1994 she sustained a spinal compression fracture, thus bring a temporary halt to he new career, but a year later she won the National Time Trial and set a new American 40km time trial record at 51'36.24", also winning the Louisville Criterium and the Point Mogu Criterium and coming third in the presitigious Redlands Bicycle Classic. She won the Time Trial Championship again in 1996 and in 1998, 1999 and 2000, thus becoming the first US female cyclist to win the title for three consecutive years - and she won the Road Race Championship as well in 1999. She won the World Time Trial Championship in 2000.

In 1998, she had also begun to show a rare talent among time trial riders - an ability to ride fast up hills - when she won the Mountains Classification at the Women's Challenge, repeating that result in 1999 and developing her abilities so far that she was able to win the Mountains Classification at the 2001 Giro Donne. Today, Holden uses her considerable expertise to run cycling training camps and clinics, also acting as a consultant to companies manufacturing women-specific bikes and components and to the cycle racing world in general. She has also served as athlete's ambassador to USADA.

Bill Bradley
Bill Bradley, born on his day in 1933, received a suspension from the National Cycling Union in 1958 after he was found to have competed abroad without their permission, but was then invited back to take part in the Berlin-Warsaw-Prague race later than year. He won the Tour of Britain - at that time known as the Milk Race as it was sponsored by the Milk Marketing Board in return for the words "Drink More Milk" embroidered n the jersey of every rider - in 1959 and again in 1960.

Bradley is notable in that he remained an amateur - probably so that he could avoid the NCU rule stating that once a rider had been a professional he could never race against amateurs again, even after retirement - for ten years until he was finally tempted by an offer from Falcon Cycles, and for his Stage 6 victory at the 1957 Österreich-Rundfahrt when he set a race record time for climbing Austria's highest mountain the Großglockner in 56'53" - a record that stood for many years and which beat one set six years earlier by none other than Charly Gaul, perhaps the greatest climber to have ever lived.. He died on the 30th of June 1997.


Laurens Schmitz Meintjes, born in Aberdeen, South Africa on the 12th of July 1868, was the winner of the first ever World Stayers Championship at the ICA Track Cycling World Championships in Chicago, 1893. He died on this day in 1931.

Jean Fischer, born in France on this day in 1867, was nicknamed Le Grimpeur, which suggests he specialised in climbing. However, he won the Paris-Tours, a race over relatively flat parcours that had first been held in 1896 and was originally run every five years, in 1901. In 1903, he finished the first ever Tour de France in 5th place, 4h58'44" behind winner Maurice Garin.

Rebecca Romero
(© johnthescone CC2.0)

On this day in 2007, Rebecca Romero - who had already enjoyed a successful career as a professional rower - made her international competitive cycling debut at the UCI Track World Cup in Moscow. She won a silver medal in the 3km Pursuit.

Other births: Jens-Erik Madsen (Denmark, 1981); Ensio Nieminen (Finland, 1930); Klaus-Jürgen Grünke (East Germany, 1951); Bengt Asplund (Sweden, 1957); Tamotsu Chikanari (Japan, 1929); Cor Schuuring (Netherlands, 1942); William Kund (USA, 1946); Mohamed Ali Acha-Cheloi (Iran, 1951); René Rouffeteau (France, 1926); Ben Luckwell (Great Britain, 1966); Sven Hamrin (Sweden, 1941); Darren Lawson (Australia, 1968); Fabien Sanchez (France, 1983); Anton Tkáč (Czechoslovakia, 1951); Manuel Fumic (Germany, 1982).

Daily Cycling Facts 24.01.12

Rebecca Romero
(© johnthescone CC2.0)

Rebecca Romero
Rebecca Romero, who started her professional career in sport as a rower and then became a National, World and Olympic Champion cyclist, was born on this day in 1980.

Romero's debut as a cyclist came at the 2006 Track World Championship in Moscow where she won silver, having been just beaten by Northern Irish Wendy Houvernaghel. She became National Time Trial Champion the same year, the National 3km Pursuit Champion the next and added another World Championships silver for the same event. In 2008, she won it individually and as part of the British squad in the Team Pursuit, then won gold for the Individual Pursuit at the Olympics.

In October 2010, she announced that she had decided to leave the British Olympic team before the 2012 Games in London, citing "several set-backs at crucial points" during the previous season.


Cindy Pieters was born on this day 1976 in Veurne, Belgium. She turned professional in 1999, the year she became National Road Race Champion and came 3rd in the Flèche Wallonne Féminine. In 2000, she came 3rd in the National Time Trial Championships, improving her result to 1st the following year and then 2nd a year later.

Retired Spanish professional Fernando Escartin was born on this day in 1968 in Biescas. He entered nine Tours de France between 1992 and 2002, missing only 1998 and 2001. His best year was 1999 when he won Stage 15 and came 3rd overall. He was more successful in the Vuelta a Espana, which he entered seven times between 1993 and 2001, missing 1995 and 1999 - he came 2nd overall in 1997 and 1998.

On this day in 1854, Thomas Stevens was born in Birkhamstead, Hertfordshire. Aged 29, he set out from his family's adopted home in San Francisco on a penny-farthing fitted with cutting-edge nickel-plated wheels - a ride that, a year and a half later, would earn him the title of the first man to circumnavigate the globe on a bicycle. He died on the 24th of January 1935 and is buried in London's St. Marylebone Cemetery.

Cycling Weekly

In 1891, the first ever copy of Cycling Weekly - known to generations of British cyclists as "The Comic" - was published. A few years afterwards, it was briefly renamed Cycling and Moting as it was believed that moting, a name that never quite caught on for motoring, would supercede cycling and that cycling would die out as a result.

Later on, editor H.H. England misunderstood the feelings of the British cycling public and steered the magazine toward support of the National Cyclists' Union's continued ban of bicycle racing on roads, a ban that dated from an incident in the 19th Century when some racing cyclists upset horses pulling a carriage; the occupant of the carriage making a complaint to the police as a result. This led to a belief that were road racing to take place, the police would respond by banning bicycles altogether from the roads. Readership fell as a result and rival titles sprang up, supporting Percy Stallard and his British League of Racing Cyclists in their attempts to establish road races of the type taking place overseas (when they did manage to organise a race, the police supported them). The two best-selling rivals, The Bicycle and Sporting Cyclist, enjoyed good sales at first but would eventually merge with the older publication.

In the late 1950s, still under H.H., the magazine changed its name once again to reflect the increasing popularity of mopeds, becoming Cycling and Mopeds. England was certain that this move would drive sales and draw moped riders into cycling, but it had the opposite effect and sales dropped dramatically - cycling had proved to be far more than the brief craze some felt it would be and the magazine dropped the mopeds. Eventually, he was pushed out and new editor Alan Gayfer, a considerably less conservative character, was brought in as his replacement. Gayfer's first move was to drop the mopeds and broaden the racing coverage so that the magazine inclused news of all the forms of cycling then in existence. He also took on two new reporters who would go on to become the biggest names in British cycling journalism - Les Woodland and Phil Ligget.

Other births: Josef Moser (Austria, 1917); Georges Valentin (France, 1892, died 1981); Remo Sansonetti (Australia, 1946); Sal Sansonetti (Australia, 1946); Bogumiła Matusiak (Poland, 1971); Erik Friborg (Sweden, 1893 died 1968); Carsten Bergemann (Germany, 1979); Jos Alberts (Netherlands, 1960); Mok Sau Hei (Hong Kong, 1941); Ernst Streng (Germany, 1942, died 1993); Silvio Pedroni (Italy, 1918, died 2003); Angelo De Martini (Italy, 1897, died 1979); Scott Mercier (USA, 1968); László Halász (Hungary, 1959); Sławomir Chrzanowski (Poland, 1969).

Tomorrow: René Pottier and the first mountain in the Tour; Denis Menchov

Rebecca Romero quits Team GB

Rebecca Romero
(© johnthescone CC2.0)

Citing "several setbacks at crucial points" as the reason, Olympic gold medalist Rebecca Romero has announced her decision to leave the team in the run-up to the 2012 Games.

Surrey-born Romero, winner of the Individual Pursuit event in Beijing, is known as both a track cyclist and a rower. An ex-British individual time trial champion, she went on to win gold in the 3km and Individual Pursuits at the 2008 Worlds. She also won gold in the Quadruple Sculls at the 2005 British Rowing Championships and silver for the same event in the 2004 Athens Olympics.

"I believe I’m no longer on a pathway which will see me fulfil my Olympic ambition to win a second Olympic gold medal," she told British Cycling. "I’m proud to have contributed to the cycling team’s great Olympic triumph in Beijing and I thank all the amazing people within British Cycling who were central to my success. I wish my current team mates every success in London next year."

Whilst her loss is undoubtedly a major set-back so close to the Games, team performance manager Shane Sutton remains confident that the British team will be able to do well in 2012. "I’m confident we can remain on track to hit our performance targets in the lead up to and during the London Olympic Games," he said.