Daily Cycling Facts 03.06.12

This photograph, taken at the 1921 Paris-Roubaix, is
believed to show Henri Pélissier, Léon Scieur and René
Vermandel.

The ninth edition of La Flèche Wallonne, which took place on this day in 1945, was the first to be held since Belgium was liberated from Nazi occupation. It ran between Mons and Charleroi, as it had done in the previous two years, but took a different route which was 5km longer at 213km in total. The winner was Marcel Kint for a third consecutive year - nobody else has yet matched his achievement.

The thirteenth edition of La Doyenne, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, was held on this day in 1923. The winner for the first of two consecutive years was René Vermandel. This was the only time that the race was held on this date.

Evgeni Berzin, the man who should have been great

Evgeni Berzin
Evgeni Berzin, born in Vyborg on this day in 1970, won Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 1994. Two months later, he won the Giro d'Italia too - one of the few truly heroic Grand Tours of the last few decades, coming at the end of a race in which he wore the maglia rosa for 19 days. Being only 24 at the time, the cycling world immediately hailed him as the next great hero, a man who would follow in the footsteps of Hinault, Merckx, Anquetil, Coppi and Bartoli, but it was not to be - Berzin proved to be one of those unfortunate cyclists who peaks early in his career and can never quite live up to that early promise.

Berzin first appeared on the radar in 1988 when he formed part of the winning National Junior Championships Pursuit team, then formed part of the Russian Junior squad that won the same race at the Worlds. This was followed in 1989 with a National Amateur Team Pursuit title, which was repeated in 1990; the year he also rode with the victorious Amateur Pursuit team at the Worlds and took the World Amateur Individual Pursuit title for himself. In 1993, he turned professional with Mecair-Ballan, the team with which he would remain for five years through numerous sponsor changes and the gradual transformation into Gewiss-Playbus in 1997, taking second place at the 1995 Giro in addition to his overall victory the previous year, then winning Stage 19 in the Giro and Stage 8 in the Tour de France of 1998.

His performances in several other stages (and races) that year were good too, with numerous podium places, which persuaded the world that his form was simply not what it had been the year before but, as tends to be the way when a rider enters his late 20s, he'd get better than ever. With that in mind, La Française des Jeux took him on in 1998. The Tour that year was in fact his fourth, as he had competed in 1995 (abandoned), 1996 (20th overall) and 1997 (abandoned); and he came 25th overall. Alarm bells started ringing: the Tour is the hardest race of all and sometimes a top-notch rider will get a bad result through no fault of his own, but the man Russia hoped would be its first Tour champion had been expected to do better and, when his contract expired at the end of the year, he could not find a team at the same level that would take him, so instead he went to Amica Chips-Costa de Almeria - but 1999 was much worse and he won nothing. Amica too let him go, but this time he was more fortunate and found a ride with Mobilvetta Design-Rossin, a team in the same class - but then 2000 turned out not to be much better, his only good result being third place in the little 53.2km Broni criterium. Berzin, it could now be seen, was not having a couple of bad seasons before a glorious flourishing into his best years; he was a rider who had already declined. After a second season with Mobilvetta (during which he again won no races), he called it a day.

Karel Kaers

Karel Kaers

Nowadays, many people will tell you that when 21-year-old Lance Armstrong won the 1993 Elite World Championship Road Race in Oslo, he was the youngest rider to have ever done so. In fact, he was only the third youngest: Jempi Monseré was one week younger when he won in Leicester in 1970, and Karel Kaers - who was born on this day in 1914 in Voselaar - had only just passed his 20th birthday when he won on his first attempt at the race in Leipzig, 1934; an achievement made all the more remarkable by the fact that up until then he was known primarily as a track rider.

Kaers began racing during childhood and won the Belgian Boys' Championship along with 36 other races in his first two years, then he became a Junior in 1931 and won a National Sprint Championship, after which he moved up a gear and became an independent, remaining so when he was selected for the Belgian team in 1934, then turned professional the following year for F. Pélissier-Hutchinson (the team lasted only a season, and he moved on to Bury later in the same year). Over the next few years, he flitted back and fourth between Bury, Colin-Wolber, Bristol and Alcyon-Dunlap, and it was with the latter that he achieved his second great claim to fame - winning the 1939 Ronde van Vlaanderen without intending to do so.

Acht van Chaam criterium 1938, won by Kaers (Gerrit Schulte was second, Theo Middelkamp was third)

It is, perhaps, a tale that may have been somewhat embellished for the sake of legend and one that might not stand up to scrutiny should anybody who thinks facts are more important that a good story decide to dissect it. Kaers, it's said, had no plans to compete for the victory but, since the race started not too far from his home, it offered a good chance to get in some valuable race training. So, he put his bike in his car and drove to Kluisberg before riding the 40km to the start line in Ghent where he signed up and set off with the bunch. His plan was to ride with them to Kwaremont and then drive back home again, so when the race arrived at Kluisberg he attacked and leapt away from the field, going at full throttle up the 11% hill without worrying about conserving energy for the remainder of the race and by the time he got to the top he had a lead of one minute. However, his car was not where he'd left it; rather than find a policeman or a phone to report the theft, he decided that he may as well press on and finish the race. After he'd won, his manager admitted that when he'd seen how well Kaers was going on the hill, he realised that the rider had the potential to win; so he'd broken into and moved the car himself.

In retirement, Kaers bought and ran a bar near the entrance to Antwerp's Sportpaleis velodrome. He died in the city on the 20th of December, 1972.

Joachim Halupczok

Joaquim Halupczok,
03.06.1968 - 05.02.1994

Polish Joachim Halupczok, born in Ozimek on this day in 1968, won his nation's Junior Cyclo Cross and Elite Road Race Championships in 1987; then won the World Amateur Road Race Championship, the National Amateur Road Race Championship, the Under-23 GP Liberazione and the General Classification at the Rheinland-Pfalz Rundfahrt in 1989. Those results were good enough to get him a professional contract, and he rode for Diana-Colnago in 1990 when he finished in third place on Stage 8 at the Giro d'Italia, was second in the Trofeo Baracchi and eight overall in the Giro del Trentino.

In 1990, Halupczok was discovered to be suffering from cardiac arrhythmia and announced his temporary retirement; but just over a year he returned and took part in the Vuelta a Espana of 1992, before being ordered to stop cycling by his doctors at the end of the season. Fifteen months later, as he warmed up before playing in an indoor football match, he collapsed and died at the age of 26, leaving behind his wife and two young children. Many people suspected that he was another victim of EPO, but it has never been proved one way or the other if he was a doper.


Mary Grigson, born in Wellington, New Zealand on this day in 1971, was Australian National Cross Country Mountain Bike Champion in 2000, 2001 and 2002 and was named Australian Female Mountain Biker of the Year in 2000 and 2001.

Cathy Moncassin

Cathy Moncassin, born in Bonnetage on this day in 1977, became French Junior Individual Pursuit Champion in 1994, then took the Elite title for the same discipline in 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2007 - a well as Points Champion in 2003 and a host of track silver and bronze medals along the way.

Vincenzo Zucconelli, who was born in Jolanda di Savoia, Italy on this day in 1931, won the Under-23 GP Liberazione in 1951 and was a professional rider between 1954 and 1958 - a short career during which he won Stage 11 at the 1955 Giro d'Italia (the same year that 35-year-old Fiorenzo Magni became the oldest General Classification winner in Giro history), came second on two other Giro stages (Stage 8, 1955 and Stage 8, 1956) and third on another (Stage 14, 1955).

Rossano Brasi, born in Bergamo on this day in 1972, won the very first edition of the Vattenfall Cyclassics - then rather overlooked and known as the HEW Cyclassics, HEW at that time being the name of the Vattenfall electricity plant that still sponsors the race to this day - in 1996

Trine Schmidt, born in Copenhagen on this day in 1988, became National Scratch Race Champion - at Elite level - in 2004, when she was sixteen years old (and also became National Junior Independent Time Trial Champion). In 2006, she won Stages 1 and 2 and came second in the General Classification at the Silkeborg Viborg Hammel; then in 2007 the VDO Ladies Cup and Stage 4 at the Gracia Orlova before winning no fewer than three National titles for the Individual Time Trial on road and Scratch and Pursuit on the track. She added another National Pursuit win in 2009.

Boguslaw Fornalczyk, born on this day in 1937, was Polish National Road Race Champion in 1958.

Olympic Time Trial, 1912

István Müller, born in Hungary on this day in 1883, rode with his National team (in fact representing the Austro-Hungarian Empire) at the Olympics of 1912 - the first time that Hungarian riders took part in the the cycling events (and the first time since the advent of modern Olympics that no track cycling events featured in the Games). He was 73rd out of 123 (94 finished) in the Individual Time Trial, taking 12h39'28" to complete the 315.39km parcours.

Liz Hatch, who was born in Austin, Texas on this day in 1980, began racing at the comparatively late age of 26 and realised immediately that Belgium was the place for any female cyclist to be, traveling there that same year. Two years later, she became one of the founding members of the  Vanderkitten road racing programme, one of the top teams in the sport, then signed to Lotto Ladies in 2009. Intelligent and sometimes outspoken, Liz is one of the "go to" riders whenever magazines or newspapers need a handy soundbite (the fact that she happens to look like supermodel helps, too). Among her finest is this description of cycling, published by The Sporting Life:

"I thrive off of the pain. I keep telling myself that it´s just another form of pleasure. Once you tell yourself that it hurts too much to continue, you may as well get off your bike and get a real job. It´s the races that really hurt, that really put you in your grave; that you remember and cherish."

Other births: Fabio Masotti (Italy, 1974); Tim Phivana (Cambodia, 1940); Jean-Marcel Brouzes (France, 1953); Vittorio Marcelli (Italy, 1944); Jair Braga (Brazil, 1954); Errol McLean (Guyana, 1952); Tjow Choon Boon (Malaysia, 1945); Ira Fabian (Antigua and Barbuda, 1964).

Daily Cycling Facts 02.06.2012

Pascale Jeuland

Jeuland (dark blue) and Giorgia Bronzini

Pascale Jeuland, born in Rennes on this day in 1997, is one of France's best-known female road and track cyclists and has spent her entire professional career to date with the Vienne Futurscope team. Her first notable successes came in 2004 when she won the National Junior Pursuit Championship, then retained it and added the Points the following year, a well as winning two silver medals and a bronze at the European Championships. In 2006, she moved up into the Elite class and won bronze for the 500m and silver for the pursuit at the Nationals.

In 2007, Jeuland became Elite National Points Champion, a title she won again in 2008 and 2009, and made her first mark in road racing with second place in the Calan criterium (won by team mate and older sister Nathalie). A silver medal in the Under-23 European Championships and third place in the Gran Prix de France International Féminin road race came in 2008, then gold at the National Pursuit  and World Scatch Championships in 2010 along with good results at the Tour of Qatar and GP Ciudad de Valladolid. In 2011, she concentrated on track but was 6th at Tielt-Winge, beating Amy Pieters, Liesbet de Vocht, Elisa Longo Borghini and several other names from the very top level of women's cycling, and in 2012 she took second place at the GP Cholet-Pays de Loire when she beat Emilie Moberg, Maaike Polspoel and 31 others in a final sprint.

Tyler Farrar
Born in Wenatchee, USA on this day in 1984, Tyler Farrar began racing at the age of 13 and showed enormous potential whilst still a young amateur, winning the Junior National Championship titles for Individual Pursuit, Team Pursuit and Olympic Sprint, the Tour L-Abitibi (along with Stage 4) and the Three Days of Axel in 2002. Unsurprisingly, these victories showed up on team radar and he turned professional with Jelly Belly for 2003, repaying them by winning the Four Bridges of Albin and a Madison world cup qualification round.

Tyler Farrar, 2011

In 2004, he signed to HealthNet-Maxxis and won Stage 7 at the Tour de l'Avenir, a race designed to reveal young riders who have may have the potential to distinguish themselves in the Grand Tours - which he confirmed when he won Stage 2 the next year, also becoming National Criterium Champion and earning an invitation to move up a gear and ride with Cofidis. As is often the case when a rider makes the jump to the top level (Cofidis, since relegated to Pro Continental status, were then a Pro Tour team), his first year with them was quiet and passed without wins while he concentrated on upping his performance; then in 2007 he won a stage at the GP CTT Correios de Portugal before leaving for Slipstream-Chipotle, the team that would become Garmin-Barracuda and where he remains to the present day.

With Garmin, Farrar has developed from a promising hopeful to one of the most successful sprinters of his generation with a number of Grand Tour stage wins and excellent results in other races to his name. The first of those came in 2009 when he won the Vattenfall Cyclassics, Stages 1, 2 and 4 at the Eneco Tour, Stage 3 at Tirreno-Adriatico, Stages 1, 2 and the Points competition at the Circuit Franco-Belge, the prologue, Points competition, Young Rider category and General Classification at the Delta Tour Zeeland, six top five finishes at the Tour de France and - the icing on a very satisfactory cake - Stage 11 at the Vuelta a Espana. 2010 brought more Grand Tour victories - this time, he added first place for Stages 5 and 21 at the Vuelta to the Stages 2 and 10 he'd won at the Giro d'Italia earlier in the year, as well as revealing himself to have what it takes for the Classics when he was fifth in the Ronde van Vlaanderen. In 2011, Farrar decided to join Leopard Trek in withdrawing from the Giro following the death of his friend Wouter Weylandt. Later, Garmin won the Stage 2 team time trial at the Tour, then he won Stage 3 as well before adding three more top five places.

Farrar in 2008

There is little doubt that, had Farrar have been born in any other era, he'd almost certainly have been hailed as the fastest man in the peloton and would have dominated sprint finishes - however, his career has coincided with that of Mark Cavendish, perhaps the only man in the history of cycling with an ability to consistently sprint ever faster. It's little surprise, then, that the two have not always seen eye-to-eye - after Stage 15 at the 2011 Tour, Farrar seemed dubious (in front of US TV news cameras) if Cav's powers of recovery might be down to something other than natural talent, but later said "I should have kept my mouth shut."

In 2012, Farrar was second at Scheldeprijs - another excellent Flanders Classic result that, combined with his friendship with and respect for Weylandt, his fluent Dutch and decision to make his home in Ghent has won him the love of the Flemish fans.

Early days with Vibor

Roberto Visentini
Born in Gardone Rivera on this day in 1957, made it clear while he was still a teenager that he was going to be a great cyclist when he  won the Junior National and World Championships in 1975. Two years later, he was third overall at the Tour de l'Avenir, and the year after that - his first as a professional, riding for Vibor - he took second place for three stages and was 15th overall at the Giro d'Italia, which also earned him the Young Rider victory.

In 1979, having moved onto the CBM Fast team that would last just one season Visentini was 10th overall at the Giro and won the Elite National Pursuit Championship on the track, then in 1980 he was 9th at the Giro and won the Prologue and Stage 16 at the Vuelta a Espana and a year later upped his Giro performance to 6th, making it apparent that, sooner or later, he was probably going to win a Grand Tour - as would have been the case in 1983 had Giuseppe Saronni not pulled out all the stops and ridden the race of his life to take first. In 1984, he won another stage at the Giro, then abandoned so as not to ruin his chances in his first Tour de France, where he seemed to find himself out of his depth, finishing Stage 7 in 7th place and snatching a handful of other good placings, but in general finishing outside the top 50 before abandoning in Stage 14. The 1985 Giro got off to a better start with second place in the Prologue, but then fell ill and abandoned: a crushing blow, as he had promised the tifosi he'd win - but less crushing than the defeat he'd almost certainly have suffered at the hands of Bernard Hinault, who won. Later that year, he once again found that the Tour operates on an entirely different level to all other races and could only manage 49th overall.

1986 was his year. The competition at the Giro was tough, with Saronni, Francesco Moser and Greg Lemond all in absolute peak physical condition, each of them also displaying that mysterious related-yet-other quality excellent form too - especially Lemond, who had come second at the Tour the previous year and was the easy favourite to win this race. Luck was on Visentini's side, however; Lemond and Moser lost time in crashes and, while Saronni took the lead in Stage 6 and kept it to Stage 15, gradually things came together for Visentini and he crept up the leadership tables, then donned the maglia rosa for Stage 16. From that point onwards, he rode intelligently and without unnecessary risk, making sure he retained a sufficient lead to not lose everything in the Stage 18 individual time trial where he knew Moser would beat him.

Visentini in 1987, the year of the infamous
Marmalade Massacre

Visentini might have won a second Giro in 1987, had he not have become involved in a clash of personalities with team mate Stephen Roche - a clash that led to one of the most notorious incidents in the history of professional cycling, the Marmalade Massacre. Visentini arrived at the race with every intention of winning and looked more than capable of doing so in the Prologue and Stage 1a, but Roche beat him the Stage 1b individual time trial and then took the leadership when their Carrera Jeans-Vagabond won the Stage 3 team time trial. In Stage 13, by which time Visentini was again in the lead, Roche was ordered to ride for him by team management, but chose to ignore it. Instead, he attacked his leader throughout the stage, the savage onslaught regaining him the GC leadership.

Roche incurred the wrath of the tifosi for ever more, but earned the eternal friendship of many others - especially as he'd pulled off the Massacre with virtually no support, Eddy Schepers being the only team member who took his side against Visentini. Instead, he enlisted the aid of old friends Millar and Phil Anderson (both with Panasonic-Isostar, but with whom he had ridden when the trio were first trying to break into European cycling with the legendary Athletic Club de Boulogne-Billancourt). Millar and Anderson broke ranks and joined forces with Schepers, then encircled Roche on the ascent of Marmaloda, protecting him from attacks and ensuring that he finished with a time sufficient to guarantee his victory. A few days later, Visentini crashed. His injuries were not major, but with his spirit crushed he abandoned the race


Michał Kwiatkowski, born in Poland on this day in 1990, turned professional in 2009 for MG Kvis-Norda Pacific after winning the European Junior TT Championship in 2008, then joined Caja Rural for 2010 and made his way into the upper echelons with RadioShack in 2011. At the end of that season, he was one of the riders whose contracts were not renewed to make room for those from Leopard Trek when the two teams merged to form RadioShack-Nissan and he moved on to Omega Pharma-QuickStep. Kwiatkowski's best professional result to date was third place overall at the 2010 Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen - he won the prologue at the same race in 2011 and again in 2012, when he also finished 10th on Stage 6 at the Giro d'Italia.

Kurt Hovelijnck, born in Eeklo, Belgium on this day in 1981, achieved numerous good results in races at home and in France between 1999 and 2007, when he took third place in Stage 6 at the Tour of Britain. 2008 and 2009 were quieter, then his career was nearly brought to an end when his rear wheel collapsed during a training run and left him critically ill with a fractured skull. Fortunately, he made a full recovery and returned to racing the following year; then once again began achieving excellent results.

Janez Zakotnik, born in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia on this day in 1950, won the Istrian Spring Trophy a record four times - 1971, 1971, 1974 and 1977. Now a UCI 2.2 race that attracts an international field, when Zakotnik won it was a small, regional race reserved for local riders and little-known on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

Other births: Wojciech Matusiak (Poland, 1945 - winner of the 1969 Tour of Poland); Lee Seon-Bae (South Korea, 1939); Aleksandr Perov (USSR, 1955); Rino De Candido (Italy, 1954); Rostislav Vargashkin (USSR, 1933); Manuel Riquelme (Chile, 1912); Xavier Isasa (Spain, 1966); Csaba Pálinkás (Hungary, 1959); Bohdan Bondarev (USSR, 1974).

Daily Cycling Facts 01.06.12

Arthur Markham, with what probably wasn't a very
typical bike even in 1868

On this day in 1868, Britain's first organised bike race took place at the Welsh Harp Reservoir in North West London (correctly the Brent Reservoir), one day after the world's first bike race (or at least, the first we know definitely happened) had been held in the Parc St. Cloud, Paris. The winner was Arthur Markham, who was awarded a silver cup supplied by the landlord of the Old Welsh Harp Hotel that gave the reservoir its name and used his prize money to travel by coach to Bath four weeks later, where he won another race (and saved a man from drowning). Coincidentally, the winner of the race at Parc St. Cloud, James Moore, is believed to be buried next to the reservoir.

The race was the beginning of a long association between cycling and the park surrounding the reservoir, which as a result became home to one of Britain's first cycle race tracks. Today, it's overgrown and almost forgotten, though it can just be made out from the air at the northern end of the reservoir, and cycling is banned almost everywhere within the park.

Michael Rasmussen
Born in Tølløse, Denmark on this day in 1974, Michael Rasmussen rose to fame in 1999 when he won the World Cross Country Mountain Biking Championships, then for abandoning mountain biking in favour of road racing, then for his two Tour de France King of the Mountains victories, then for being kicked out of the 2007 Tour by his own team due to irregularities concerning the details of his  whereabouts supplied to anti-doping officials and finally for the two-year ban he received as a result. His decision to resort to doping was unfortunate both for cycling and for him, because he would undoubtedly have remained a great talent had he have ridden clean.

Michael Rasmussen

Rasmussen's nickname is The Chicken, due to his scrawny physique - at just 60kg, he was the lightest rider in his category; the name dating from his mountain biking days when his team mates named him after a character in Danish TV show Bamses Billedbog, about a chicken and a bear (the team's large and hairy mechanic became The Bear). It's a build naturally suited to climbing, in which every excess gram of weight translates into unnecessary effort, reduced speed and, ultimately, pain on the challenging slopes found in races, something that he understood very well: he was obsessed with keeping his own weight down, counting the grains of rice he ate and pouring water rather than milk on his cereal at breakfast, as well a reducing that of his bike, from which he peeled stickers and removed a water carrier. The Colnago Extreme-C machine he favoured is a light bike anyway, but when he'd finished with it the weight was reduced to 6.91kg - 10g above the minimum limit set by the UCI.

Rasmussen was at the centre of a famous and much retold controversy dating from 2002, the year  mountain biker Whitney Richards claims Rasmussen asked him to take a box containing his favourite cycling shoes through customs and deliver them to an Italian training bases. Richards says he became suspicious and opened the box, finding within it numerous doses of Hemopure - a bovine haemoglobin-based oxygen carrier, at that time approved only for veterinary use in Europe and, since no test had been developed to detect it, of very obvious interest to those athletes willing to resort to doping. Richards also says that he destroyed the drug and that Rasmussen was angry when he found out, asking "Have you any idea how much that shit cost?" Whether the incident really  happened has never been proved nor disproved.

Alf Engers
Alfred Robert Engers, born in Southgate on this day in 1940, won numerous time trial titles from the late 1950s through to the late 1970s and set several world records - including being the first man to complete 25 miles (40km) on road in under fifty minutes.

Alf Engers

During childhood, Engers showed athletic promise as a runner but was forced to give the sport up after a bike crash left him minus one kneecap - finding that cycling, as a non-impact activity, suited him he joined Barnet CC in 1952. Fortunately, he turned out to be good enough to make some money from it because, a rebellious teen, he was expelled from school and turned out into the wide world without a qualification to his name. Of course, racing didn't bring in enough to live on and so he worked nightshifts in bakery to make ends meet; however, a dose of reality wasn't enough to prevent bad behaviour and he received the first of numerous warnings from the Road Time Trials Council (now known as Cycling Time Trials, the governing body of the sport in Britain) whilst still only sixteen.

His reputation as a trouble-maker would prove problematic - after spending two years as an independent (which permitted him to enter both amateur and professional races), he applied to British Cycling and the Road Time Trials Council for amateur status (ex-professionals were not allowed to compete against amateurs even after retirement, meaning that their racing days were effectively over when they could no longer remain competitive in the professional classes - a factor that seriously limited the number of professional cyclists Britain produced until the rule was eventually repealed); both would refuse for the next seven years. He stuck it out, finding a sponsor in bike shop Ted Gerrard (the first bike shop offer a mail order service), winning races and setting record times, until he was finally granted an amateur licence in 1968. Over the next ten years, during which he became the most respected rider in British time trialing, he would clash with organising bodies time and time again with most rows caused by his tendency to read rule books and form conclusions that varied considerably from theirs regarding what was and was not permitted in races. Nevertheless, his was a talent too great for them to push him out of racing - his 1978 25-mile record, the fifth he set for the distance - stood until 1990, and he was National 25-mile TT Champion six times.

Engers was added to the Golden Book of Cycling in 1991. He still competes in triathlons, but now spends more of his time fishing.

Marino Basso
Born in Italy on this day in 1945, Marino Basso was one of the most respected sprinters in professional cycling during the 1970s and won a total of 15 stages in his thirteen Giri d'Italia, six in a single edition of the Vuelta a Espana (1975) and six in his four Tours de France. He won the Giro' Points competition in 1971 and became World Road Race Champion in 1972.

Sylvester Howard Roper

Sylvester Howard Roper, who was born on the 24th of November in 1823, was an inventor and proponent of steam-powered bicycles and, later, cars. Something of a child prodigy, he built his first steam engine when he was twelve years old, despite having never seen one. On this day in 1896, he rode one of his own steam bikes to the Charles River racing track at Cambridge, Massachusetts, where some of the greatest track riders of the day attempted to beat it - among them was Tom Butler, who three years later would be beaten in the World 1-mile Championship by Marshall Taylor, but even he couldn't beat Roper's machine.

When he attempted to compete a flying mile (and recorded an average speed of 64kph), he got into difficulties and crashed, dying instantly from a head wound. A post mortem also discovered that he had suffered a heart attack, though it was not known if the heart attack caused or a result of the crash. His Steam Velocipede, built in 1867, is widely considered to be the world's first motorcycle.


The 1st of June is, it seems, a good day to aim for if you happen to be Swedish and hope that your offspring will become professional cyclists: Erik Bjurberg (1895, died 1976), Erik Bohlin (1897, died 1977) and Roger Persson (1974, still alive) were all born on this day.

On this day in 2011, just four months after a self-administered blood transfusion nearly killed him, it was reported in the press that Riccardo Ricco was about to sign a contract with the Meridiana-Kamen team and would ride for them at the Tour of Serbia - despite his previous claims to have given up cycling for good. Ten days later, he was formally suspended from competition by the Italian Olympic Committee and ten days after that he was banned from professional cycling for twelve years.

Other births: Mevlüt Bora (Turkey, 1947); Constantin Kabemba (Congo, 1943); Stoyan Georgiev Demirev (Bulgaria, 1932); Erin Hartwell (USA, 1969); Jozef Simons (Belgium, 1952); Kim Jung-Mo (South Korea, 1974); Daniel Butler (USA, 1944).

Daily Cycling Facts 31.05.12

The World's First Bike Race
On this day in 1868, a small group of cyclists gathered at the fountains in Paris' Parc de St Cloud, then at 3pm raced their machines to the park fence and back again - a distance of 1.2km on gravel. It was, so far as anybody knows, the world's very first organised bike race (the world's first unorganised bike race would of course have happened the first time that there were two bikes on the same stretch of road).

Right: James Moore; left: second place
hean-Eugène-André Castera

The winner was James Moore, an Englishman who had been born in Bury St. Edmunds and moved to Paris as a child with his parents. Some time later, a group of cycling officials that included Géo Lefèvre (the man who first came up with the idea of the Tour de France) decided that a commemorative plaque was in order, and one was commissioned and put into place. It's since vanished, presumably stolen (hopefully as a souvenir, in which case it may still exist, rather than for its scrap metal value), but Moore's bike can be seen in the City Museum in Ely, Cambridgeshire.

Moore is also lost - though he lived until 1935, nobody knows exactly where he was buried. His grandson believes he probably lies near the Welsh Harp Reservoir in North London - where, coincidentally, Britain's first bike race was held one day after the race in Parc de St Cloud.

According to the Cycling Record, the riders travelled "at the speed of lightning" - though Moore's winning time of 3'50" reveals his average speed to have been 18.78kph or a little over 11.5mph. Perhaps lightning was slower in those days?

(There is some - rather persuasive, if we're honest - evidence that at least five bike races had been organised and taken place in France prior to Moore's victory. You can believe what you wish, but facts should never be permitted to get in the way of a good story.)

Robert Gesink

Robert Gesink

Born in Varsseveld on this day in 1986, Robert Gesink signed to Rabobank's Continental squad after a few years with amateur teams, then progressed to the ProTour team after rapidly revealing that he had the makings of a General Classification rider and has stayed with the team ever since.

After coming to the world's attention with eighth place in the time trial and sixth in the road race at the 2004 Junior World Championships, Gesink was invited to join Löwik Meubelen but, just a year later, had won the Under-19 National TT title, which brought Rabobank to his door. In his first year with them he won the General Classifications at the Circuito Montañés and the Settimana Ciclistica Lombarda - but, better still, he was second at the Tour de l'Avenir, a race that serves to highlight young riders who may one day be destined for Grand Tour success. The following year, racing in the ProTour team, he won the Youth classifications at the Tours of California and Germany and then in 2008 he was fourth at the Paris–Nice, the Flèche Wallonne and the Critérium du Dauphiné and seventh overall in the Vuelta a Espana, an amazing first attempt at a Grand Tour.

Gesink at the Tour of
California, 2008

Having now confirmed himself as a rider with serious potential, he went to the Tour de France in 2009 but left with a broken wrist after crashing in Stage 5. Later the same year he would come sixth in the Vuelta and many certain that had be have enjoyed better fortune he'd have finished the Tour in the top ten - and he proved himself capable of doing so in 2010, when he was sixth. 2011 seems less impressive with 33rd overall, but the fact that he beat Fabian Cancellara in an individual time trial at the Tour of Oman early in the year is evidence of the master plan: keep up his already prodigious talent in the mountains (as seen when he won Stage 6 at the 2010 Tour de Suisse) and as an all-rounder while also developing and improving as a time trialist, then go after the big prizes.

At the time of writing, Gesink is on the cusp of turning 26, the age at which most cyclists enter their best years. There is a very high likelihood that he will have won a Vuelta, a Giro d'Italia or a Tour within five years.


Track cyclist Sally Hodge, born in Cardiff on this day in 1966, won the Points Race and the Pursuit at the 1988 World Championships. In 1987 and 1988, she won silver medals in the British Road Race Championships.

Primož Čerin, born in Ljubljana on this day in 1962, won the Tour of Yugoslavia in 1983 and two stages of the Österreich-Rundfahrt in the years before he turned professional with the Italian team Malvor-Bottecchia-Vaporella in 1986. With them, he entered the Tour de France that year - his results (19th, Stage 12; 33rd overall) didn't set the world alight, but he was the first Eastern Bloc rider to compete.

John Allis, born in the US of A on this day in 1942, began cycling while at Princeton University and led the US team at the 1963 World Championships in Ronse, Belgium. They finished outside the time limit in the road race and were 20th in the TT, but had become the first US team to manage any sort of presence in European since the days of Major Marshall Taylor at the turn of the 20th Century.

Schultheis and Sprinkmeier

Sandra Sprinkmeier, born in Mainz, Germany on this day in 1984, is one half of the two-woman team that has held the World Artistic Cycling Championship title since 2007. Her team mate is Katrin Schultheis. (Artistic cycling, incidentally, is a form of gymnastics performed on fixed-gear bicycles - not enormously different to flatland BMX but, dating back to 1888, much older.)

Born in Berchtesgaden, Germany on this day in 1952, Karl Bartos was, for fifteen years between 1975 and 1990, a member of Kraftwerk, the band that created cycling's anthem, Tour de France - he is credited as co-writer on the record. Fritz Hilpert, who joined the band in 1987 (four years after Tour de France was released) was born in Amberg on this day in 1956.

Frans Brands, born in Berendrecht, Belgium on this day in 1940, won Stage 18 at the 1963 Tour de France, Stage 8 at the 1965 Giro d'Italia and eight place overall at the Tour the same year and won the Tour of Luxembourg in 1967. With numerous criterium and one-day race wins on his palmares, he should be far more well-known that he is. However, few cycling fans will have noticed when he died on the 9th of February in 2008.

Other births: Carlo Scognamiglio (Italy, 1983); Yuri Barinov (USSR, 1955); Johnny Dauwe (Belgium, 1966, died 2003); Aleksandr Sharapov (USSR, 1971); Edward Barcik (Poland, 1950); Alex Wrubleski (Canada, 1984); Shaun O'Brien (Australia, 1969); Masoud Mobaraki (Iran, 1953); Alfred Tonna (Malta, 1950); Éric Louvel (France, 1962).

Daily Cycling Facts 30.05.12

Igor Abakoumov

Igor Abakoumov

Igor Abakoumov, born on this day in 1981 in Berdyansk, Ukraine, when it was a part of the USSR, became a Belgian citizen on the 15th of September 2001 and, the following year, signed his first professional contract and began riding with the UCI 3 team Van Hemert Groep. Gradually, he amassed results sufficient to earn himself a place with the Pro Tour team Astana in 2007 - and was then left in the lurch when sponsors withdrew their support following the drugs scandals of 2007, even though he had never tested positive.

""I have no news: [Marc] Biver is 'dead'; Bruyneel is 'dead'; the UCI was told to wait. I have a contact, it's true, but I prefer to remain in the ProTour," he said, expressing his frustration at not knowing what was going on and whether Astana would secure new funding in time to apply for a ProTour licence in 2008 or whether he would have to start again, hoping another ProTour might pick him up. In the end, he could wait no longer and it became apparent that only the top riders stood a chance of being taken by the other teams, so great was the stigma that Astana riders bore in the wake of Operacion Puerto. He had to accept an offer from the ProContinental team Mitsubishi-Jartazi instead, and has remained at that level ever since.

Gabriella Pregnolato

Gabriella Pregnolato
Gabriella Pregnolato, born in Italy on this day in 1971, won the GP della Liberazione in 1991 and the National Time Trial Championship in 1996 and 1997. In 1998, she won the Giro del Friuli and in 1999 Stages 1 and 12 at the Giro Donne, Stage 14 at the Tour de France Féminin and a third National TT title. In 2000,  her penultimate season, she won it or the fourth time and, after many attempts, the Road Race Championship too.

Tim Gould
Tim Gould, born in Matlock on this day in 1964, had already enjoyed a successful career in cyclo cross (with six consecutive Three Peaks Championship titles from 1984) when he turned to mountain biking in the early 1990s - and became even more successful. In 1990, he took a bronze medal for the World Cross Country Championships and gold in the hill climb, the latter being the discipline at which he excelled. In 1991, he became British XC Champion and won two rounds of the Grundig World Cup in addition to the Grundig Challenge Cup.

Perhaps his greatest claim to fame was beating the horse in the William Hill Man v. Horse v. Bike race of 1990 - and event in which a runner, a horseback rider and a mountain biker compete to be the fastest over a cross country course. Jacqui Phelan (co-founder of NORBA, founder of the Women's Mountain Bike & Tea Society and famous for riding mountain bikes fitted with drop handlebars) had lost to the horse by a few seconds in 1985, when bikes were first added to the race, but since then the horse had easily won - Gould was the first human being to win.

A Wright Cycle Co. racing machine

Wilbur Wright, a bicycle builder, died on this day in 1912. He's better known - alongside brother Orville - as the inventor of the first working heavier-then-air aircraft, and as the brothers never made bikes in any great quantity they probably wouldn't be any better-remembered than any other small-scale turn-of-the-last-century bike builders today had it not have been for their aircraft. However, we owe them thanks for one innovation: they were the first to come up with the idea of machining the threads of the left-hand side of the bottom bracket and crank in an anti-clockwise direction, thus preventing the crank from loosening in use.

Other births: Zdeněk Košta (Czechoslovakia, 1923); Peter Wrolich (Austria, 1974); Olavi Linnonmaa (Finland, 1920, died 1995); Mario Traxl (Austria, 1964); Tom Cordes (Netherlands, 1966); Virgilio Pereyra (Uruguay, 1928); Hugh Walton (Canada, 1955).

No surgery for Vos, will race Giro Donne

Marianne Vos will not need surgery to repair the broken collarbone she suffered at the Parkhotel Valkenberg and has already returned to training, her Rabobank team have revealed.

The Dutchwoman, who finished the race in second place despite obvious pain, was fortunate enough to sustain a "good break," with a simple fracture that will heal rapidly on it own, doctors at the Meander Medisch Centrum in Amersfoort said last Friday; a prognosis since confirmed by the Centre's Dr. van Olden after further tests were carried out.

Image credit: Rabosport

Vos, who celebrated her 25th birthday two weeks ago and is widely considered the best rider of her generation, also revealed that she will make her comeback at the Giro Donne - the last Grand Tour of women's cycling and due to start on the 29th of July, fans had worried she might miss it in order to concentrate on the Olympics. "My participation in London is in no doubt whatsoever," she said , "but it now looks like I'll be able to ride at the Giro Donne too. It's my next planned race and an excellent course with a view to the Olympics. In the Giro, I can gain hardness and rate rhythm. There you go - that what I'll now be focusing on."

Meanwhile, she does not plan to defend her National Road Race Championship title as the race will be held on the 23rd of June. "That's a little bit too soon," she explained. When you're Marianne Vos, missing out on a National Championship isn't a problem - you can always win it next year instead.

Daily Cycling Facts 29.05.12

Houa was born in Liege on the 8th of November 1867 
and died on the 31st of January 1918 at Bressoux 

On this day in 1892, 33 amateur cyclists met in the Belgian city of Liege and embarked on a race organised by the local cycling union and the Pesant Club Liègois. The event was financed by L'Expresse, a newspaper then published in French-speaking Belgium and Northern France, and by their request the race stayed within Wallonia. The winner, Léon Houa, took 10h48'36" to complete the 250km parcours and the last of the seventeen riders to finish crossed the finish line five hours and eighteen minutes later. Few would ever have believed that in 2012 the race would still be going; often called La Doyenne, it is Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the oldest, most venerable and, for many, the most prestigious of the five Monument one-day races.

Louis Mottiat, 06.07.1889 - 05.06.1972

Liège-Bastogne-Liège has fallen on this date on two other occasions, 1921 and 1930, but as it's now held from mid to late April so as to fit in with the other Classics (the so-called Northern Classics all take place within weeks of one another), it will never again be held on this date. 1921 was the 11th edition as the race was not held for a period of fourteen years from 1894 and stopped again during the First World War. The parcours covered 209km and was won for the first of two consecutive years by Louis Mottiat, who would win four stages at the Tour de France that same year. The 20th edition, taking place in 1930, was won for the first time by a German, Hermann Buse -  German fans would have to wait almost half a century until 1979 for another victory.

Hubert Opperman
Born in Victoria, Australia on this day in 1904, Hubert Opperman was the son of British-German immigrants who made a living from any sort of work that came their way. His father was variously employed as a butcher, a lumberjack, a coach driver and a miner and, whilst still a child, Hubert earned extra money driving a horse-drawn plough - and by delivering telegrams on a bicycle, which he turned out to be rather good at riding fast.

Hubert Opperman

Aged 17, he entered his first race. Coming third didn't win him the prize he'd been hoping for - a Malvern Star racing bike - but it did bring him to the attention of Malvern Star proprietor Bruce Small, who sought the rider out after the race and offered him a sponsorship. Less than three years later he repaid the company with victory in the National Road Race Champion of 1924, and then again in 1926, 1927 and 1929.

In 1927, three newspapers - Australia's Melbourne Herald and Sporting Globe, alongside New Zealand's Sun - joined forces and started a fund to send an Australasian team to the Tour de France. Australian riders had first appeared at the Tour in 1914 but had not made much of an impact; now - in the brave new world between the First World War and the Great Depression, the nation saw sport as a means to increase its profile on the international stage. By 1928, enough money had been raised and Opperman, accompanied by Harry Watson of New Zealand and Australians Ernie Bainbridge and Percy Osborne, was on his way to France. Journalist René de Latour noted what he called "a marked contrast" between the attitudes of Opperman and the other men: whilst to them it was " a trip in which to collect a few souvenirs to take home, to the eager Oppy it was a wonderful chance to reach the top in international competition." Nevertheless, the Europeans failed to recognise that a serious, if yet not fully-formed, talent had arrived in their midst. "Whom did he beat over there, anyway?" they asked one another. "Let's see him on the road, then we'll know. We've yet to see any classy Australian road rider."

Opperman had been to Europe before, in 1928 when he took part in the Bol d'Or 24-hour classic racing behind tandem pacers (and had won on a borrowed utility bike after persons unknown sabotaged his chain), and he realised that the team would now be competing against rivals performing on a far higher level that those they had faced at home; so he applied for a place for the team on a Vélo Club Levallois training camp run by rider-turned-coach Paul Ruinart. They were accepted and, after a few weeks, were entered into their first European race - the now defunct Paris-Rennes. 32 riders took part, among them some of the finest of the day including Nicolas Frantz (who, the previous year, had won the Tour de France) and Gaston Rebry (who had won Paris-Nantes and would later add an impressive selection of Tour stages), meeting at a cafe in Paris at midnight before riding away into a night full of rain and hailstorms when the race started at 2am. Frantz won, Eugène Archambault was second and Rebry third - but Opperman proved he had the ability to make a name in European racing when he finished in eighth place. At Paris-Brussels shortly afterwards, he cam third behind Georges Ronsse and Frantz.

Opperman rode from Perth to Sydney, a distance of 4,110km, in 1937. The time he took to
complete the journey - 13 days, 10 hours and 11 minutes - held as a record for 30 years

The Tour was to start one month later; however, despite Opperman's success, the team entered with a serious deficit in numbers - while other teams consisted of ten men, the Australasian's plan to recruit six European riders had come to nothing and they still had only four. To make things worse, the aging Bainbridge was far slower than he had once been and tended to be the first man in the autobus, generally after no more than 70km or so. Time and time again, they were defeated by stronger squads. Help came from an unexpected source. Perhaps Ludo Feuillet, manager of the mighty Alcyon team, saw potential in Opperman and wanted to make friends so that he'd be able to poach him for his own team in the future or perhaps he just felt sorry for the Australian who was putting in so much effort only to be soundly defeated day after day - no matter; he took him under his wing and ave him advice on tactics, equipment and so on, and was largely responsible for him finishing in 18th place overall.

Oppy, as he was becoming known, never did win a Tour de France, though he improved his result to 12th place in 1931. Meanwhile, he did well in other French events such as Paris-Brest-Paris that same year, which he won against Frantz and Maurice Dewaele (who had won Oppy's first Tour) and, in time, was adopted as a national hero. Still with Malvern Star, which acted as sales agent for the British manufacturer BSA, he came to Britain during the time when road racing was still banned by the National Cycling Union. Setting new records - provided the rider wore dark, normal clothing rather than anything that might give away the fact that he or she was up to anything that might be deemed competitive upon the King's highway - meanwhile, was not; and he set a new record for Land's End to John o'Groats, then the 1000 Miles, then London-York and the 12 Hours.

Back in Australia five years later, he broke no fewer than 100 records during a single 24-hour race before signing up to the Royal Australian Air Force. He would end the War as a flight lieutenant, one step down from squadron leader, but as was the case with so many riders of the day the conflict took away many years during which he might still have been winning races. He returned to competition in 1945, but now in his forties he was simply unable to perform as he once had and retired in 1947.

After his racing career was over, Opperman realised that he could still serve his nation by putting his fame to good use and getting elected into government. Though an ardent Socialist, the Labor Party's doctrines were too close to Communism for his tastes and so instead he joined the Liberal Party, where he would eventually become a parliamentary whip. Among his many accomplishments, perhaps the most honourable were his efforts to relax Australia's notoriously strict (and, to our modern eyes, shockingly racist) laws barring entry to immigrants of mixed ethnicity and he received well-deserved recognition for his humane views, becoming an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1953 and, fifteen years later, a Knight Bachelor; yet was never so pleased as he was when half a million French fans voted for him as L'Auto's Sportsman of the Year. He continued to ride his bike every day until the age of 90, when his wife Mavys persuaded him to stop for fear that he might not survive an accident, and died on his stationary bike on the 18th of April in 1996.

Greg Ball
Paracyclist Gregory Ball, born in Ipswitch, Queensland on this day in 1974, broke the 1km Time Trial World Record during his first year competing for Australia, then took a gold medal for the Team Sprint at the 2000 Paralympic Games. Two years later he won the 1km TT at the World Championships, then went on to even greater Paralympics success with gold for the 1km TT and the Team Sprint.

In 2011, Ball set a new 1km TT World Record - and failed a voluntary anti-doping test afterwards. He still claims that the drug that was discovered in his sample - anabolic steroid stanozolol, the same drug that saw Ben Johnson stripped of his gold medal at the 1988 Olympics - got there through "an honest mistake," most likely the pills given to him by a friend and which he says he assumed were vitamins that he believed would help him to cope with depression.

There are those who say that he must be innocent, because why else would he have voluntarily submitted himself to a test? We need to bear in mind, of course, that had he have refused the test when it was suggested, his achievement would immediately have been called into doubt. Finally, what athlete, in 2011, would willingly swallow any pill without knowing first of all what it was and secondly that he or she could trust the person giving it to them? The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority apparently thought along the same lines and, on the 26th of October 2011, upheld Cycling Australia's decision to ban him from competition for two years. He will also have to repay Aus$27,500 granted to him by the Australian Sports Commission and will not attend the 2012 Paralympics - at the age of 37, his racing days are almost certainly over; a sad end to the career of a man who seemed to be an inspirational athlete.


Kathryn Curi, born in Goshen, Connecticut on this day in 1974, became National Road Race Champion in 2005 and, three years later, the Geelong World Cup.

Other births: Stefan Ciekański (Poland, 1958); Horacio Gallardo (Bolivia, 1981); Valentina Yevpak (USSR, 1960); Franco Ongarato (Italy, 1949); Norbert Dürpisch (East Germany, 1952); Eom In-Yeong (South Korea, 1971); Milan Křen (Czechoslovakia, 1965); Lu Suyan (China, 1965); José Mercado (Mexico, 1938); Eric Magnin (France, 1967); Magdaleno Cano (Mexico, 1933, died 2009); Choy Mow Thim (Malaysia, 1947); Łukasz Kwiatkowski (Poland, 1982);