What's your BikeQ?

There's not much been going on since the Koksijde CX race this afternoon, so we thought we'd formulate a cycling quiz to amuse you all.


How many can you get right without cheating and resorting to Google or Wikipedia?

Take the quiz

Daily Cycling Facts 26.11.11

Anna Millward
Anna Millward, an Australian cyclist born in this day in 1971, came to the sport late after spending much of her early life studying science and law; for which she has an honours degree. It was whilst studying for her degree that she discovered he love of cycling when she traveled to and from university each day on a bike. Cycling is as good way to make new friends as it is a way to keep fit, so she soon met other women who shared he love of the sport and took part in Great Victorian Bike Ride, a strictly recreational and non-competitive organised cycling event that, like all events of its type, inevitably features hundreds of unofficial, inpromptu races and revealed that she could ride fast. Soon afterwards, she entered a race organised by her local club and won it.

Anna Millward
(image credit: James F. Perry CC BY-SA 3.0)

By 1996, Millward was ranked 18th in the UCI World Listings and was selected for her national Olympic team. She also won the prestigious Women's Challenge race in America. One year later, she was National Time Trial Champion. In 1998, she won the Points Classification at the Giro d'Italia Femminile, the Discovery Channel Women's Classic and the Commonwealth Games time trial. Then in 1999, the results really started coming in: by the end of the season, she'd won silver medals in the road race and the time trial at the World Championships as well as the Road World Cup, the GP Tell Cup, the New York Women's Challenge, the Athens Twilight Criterium, Boulder-Roubaix, the Sea Otter Classic and several other races along with stages at many of these and more. She set a new Hour Record in 2000 and won the Women's Challenge General Classification while also coming second on Points and third in the Mountains, then became National Time Trial Champion.

In 2001, she was ranked the best female cyclist in the world in the UCI rankings. However, she later tested positive for lidocaine, a drug banned under UCI rules. She voluntarily stepped down from racing during the investigation and explained at the court hearing that the positive test had been caused by an ointment used to relieve insect bites during the Tour de l'Aude, claiming that the ointment had been supplied to her as part of the official, approved medical kit provided by the Australian Institute of Sport. Further investigation revealed that this had indeed been the case and that had she ticked a box declaring she'd used it on a drugs test form, the result would not have been recorded as positive. As a result, she was given a full exoneration and was able to continue racing.

Isaac Galvez, 1975-2006

On this day in 2006, Spanish rider Isaac Gálvez López suffered internal bleeding after he hit crash barriers following a collision with Dimitri De Fauw during the Six Days of Ghent, dying in the early hours the following day. He was 31 years old and had been married for three weeks. De Fauw suffered terrible depression after the accident and committed suicide on November the 6th, 2009.

Marshall Taylor, 1878-1932

In Indiana, 1898, Marshall "Major" Taylor was born. Taylor's cycling prowess was evident from an early age - he won his first race aged just 13. Two years later he beat the Indianapolis track 1 mile record for amateurs: however, this achievement was not celebrated. In fact, the 15-year-old boy was booed by spectators and immediately banned the track, all because he was black. The following year, he competed in and won a 75 mile race in which he faced racist taunts and threats of violence from both fans and other riders and decided as a result to relocate to Massachusetts as the state was known to be a little less backward. He began a professional career in 1896 and rapidly earned a reputation as "the most formidable rider in America," winning several races both at home and in Europe where he met with less prejudice, especially among the French who took him to heart. Taylor retired at the age of 32, listing racism as the main reason for his decision. Today, there is a velodrome named after him in Indianapolis.

Happy birthday to Liquigas rider Ivan Basso, born in 1977, twice overall General Classification winner of the Giro d'Italia and one of the best climbers of his generation..

In 2008, the Sports Journalist's Association of Great Britain named Chris Hoy Sportsman of the Year - the second cyclist to receive the honour after Tommy Simpson in 1965.

Arthur Vichot was born on this day in 1988. Vichot's results to date suggest great things to come, but his best race must surely have been the 2010 Tour Down Under when he became subject to a tradition unique to the race in which fans choose a non-English speaking lowly domestique and treat him like one of the greatest cyclists to have ever lived, painting his name in huge letters on the roads, cheering him whenever he appears and gathering in huge crowds outside his hotels.

Vincent Jérôme, born on this day in 1984 in Château-Gontier, is a rider who came to attention when he won the Under-23 Paris-Tours in 2004. In 2011 he won the Tro-Bro Léon, a race in Brittany that is sometimes known as Le Petit Paris–Roubaix on account of the harsh conditions and rough roads the cyclists face.

Other births: Anton Hansen (Norway, 1886, died 1970); Peter Doyle (Ireland, 1945); Kevin Brislin (Australia, 1942); David Scarfe (Australia, 1960); Cédric Ravanel (France, 1978); Jan Smyrak (Poland, 1950); Colin Fitzgerald (Australia, 1955); Doug Ryder (South Africa, 1971);  Todd McNutt (Canada, 1964); Ab Sluis (Netherlands, 1937); Dino Verzini (Italy, 1943).

Dane Searls dead at 23

Dane Searls, 1988-2011
(image credit: BMX Main)

Australian BMX star Dane Searls, who was left in a comatose state after he tried to jump from a nightclub balcony into a swimming pool, has died in hospital according to reports.

Searls was celebrating a new world record in which rode a series of ramps - 9m, 12m, 15m and 18m, each said to have been two storeys high - when the accident happened. Witnesses said that he misjudged the distance between the balcony and the pool, diving head-first onto concrete. He suffered serious head and spinal injuries.

More at the Sydney Morning Herald (including video).

Garmin-Cervélo Pro Women budget slashed

Emma Pooley is rated among the top
cyclists in the world

Garmin-Cervélo's women's team, one of the best-known and most successful in the sport, is facing financial difficulties with the departure of sponsor BigMat. Rumours suggest that it's just had its budget cut by as much as 50%, causing some members to start looking elsewhere.

This is dire news for women's cycling which has seen several teams and races vanish due to lack of funding over the last few years. The team - home to some of the best riders in the world such as Emma Pooley, Lizzie Armitstead, Sharon Laws and Lucy Martin - is one of the few that has always placed its female members on an equal footing with its male members, guaranteeing them a minimum wage when some teams don't pay any salary at all to female riders; though in the opinion of many, team manager Jonathan Vaughters has not shown anything like the enthusiasm for the women's team that Cervélo founder Gerard Vroomen demonstrated with the women's TestTeam.

Vaughters, meanwhile, stated his case on Twitter, pointing out that he can't take money from the men's team to finance the women (which is fair enough, just as it would be were he to refuse to take money from the women to bolster up the men's team should they lose a sponsor) and suggests that if fan are angry they should take it up with the company and ask why they'll be continuing to sponsor FDJ - who don't have a women's team - in 2012. He also insists that he is "trying to get the best solution possible for the women." That BigMat is still sponsoring FDJ seems to suggest that Garmin-Cervélo is another victim of women's cycling's biggest problem - it doesn't get the exposure it deserves and, as a result, sponsors decide they're not getting value for money and withdraw support. Cycling News reported in October that the team would be able to take BigMat to court to seek compensation, saying that its lawyers would decide on whether or not this course of action would be taken "in the near future."

Cyclopunk asked Vaughters if he'd be willing to confirm the cut is 50% as rumoured, but received no reply. However, when we expressed hope that he'd find a new backer, he replied "Me too."

As such, it has led the way towards the ultimate goal of increasing the profile of women's cycling to a state at which it is taken as seriously and receives the same exposure as men's cycling; enjoying a great deal of success along the way and  picking up a string of race victories. To lose a team such Garmin-Cervélo, perhaps the organisation best placed to lead women's cycling forward, would thus be a disaster, in addition to being evidence that the sport is in a worse state than previously though.

More: Sarah Connolly "suggestions that Garmin spend more on the hospitality budget for their men’s team than their entire women’s team budget added together…."

Daily Cycling Facts 25.11.11

Romain Bellenger, 1894-1981

Romain Bellenger, the French cyclist who came third in the 1923 Tour de France, died at the age of 87 on this day in 1981. Bellenger was a large man for his day and physically strong, a fact that in view of his palmares suggests that he may have been one of the many potential winners for whom things never quite worked out. In fact, he was the leading Frenchman in the 1921 (though never the race leader - Leon Scieur of Belgium had taken the yellow jersey from his countryman Louis Mottiat after the first stage and kept it for the remainder of the Tour). Unfortunately, the water from a mountain spring at which he had stopped to drink was too cold for his overheated body, causing crippling stomach spasms and he dropped several places while recovering. The water, it seems, wasn't only cold - not long afterwards, he developed chronic diarrheoa and was forced to abandon on the Col de Portet d'Aspet.

Angelino Soler, born in Alcazar in Spain on this day in 1939, was the winner of the 1961 Vuelta a Espana, during which he won Stage 6 and shared victory in the Stage 1a Team Time Trial. In 1962, he won Stages 3, 16 and 18 and the King of the Mountains at the Giro d'Italia.

Dutch track cyclist Petrus "Piet" Ikelaar, a bronze medalist at the 1920 Olympic Games, died on this day in 1992. He was 96 years old.

Lene Byberg
(image credit: MTBRaceNews)

Lene Byberg, born on this day in 1982, is one of the few cyclists to have given up road racing in favour of mountain biking (the other way round, meanwhile, is very common). She has competed in both disciplines in the Olympics and won a silver medal in the 2009 World Cross Country Championships.

Steven de Jongh, born in Alkmaar in the Netherlands on this day in 1973, was a professional rider first with TVM from 1995, moving to Rabobank until 2005 and then spending his final three seasons prior to retirement with Quick Step. He became National Under-23 Road Race Champion in 1995 and won a stage at the Tour of Poland that same year, then showed his skill in criteriums before winning a stage and the General Clasification at the Postgirot Open (Tour of Sweden) in 1998. He would return to the same race in 2002, the last year it was held, and won two stages. For the remainder of his career he concentrated chiefly on one-day races, winning Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, the Nokere Koerse semi-classic and others, adding a stage win at the Tour of Qatar in his penultimate professional career. In 2010, he became directeur sportif at Team Sky. "The tension you experience during races is greater in the team car than it ever was on the road," he says.

Kristjan Koren, born on this day in 1986, is a Postojna-born professional whose best results to date have been the Slovenian National Championship in 2007 and two stages in the 2009 Under-27 Giro d'Italia. He rode his first Tour de France in 2010. Working out his average finish shows an improvement between the two years, with 93 in 2010 and 71 in 2011.

Charles Albert Brécy raced at turn of the 20th Century, as an individual and later as a professional. He died on this day in 1904 after a crash at the Parc des Princes velodrome managed by Henri Desgrange.

Other births: Carlo Westphal (Germany, 1985); Rudolf Maresch (Austria, 1934); Ivan Kučírek (Czechoslovakia, 1946); Luis Zárate (Mexico, 1940); Stéphane Operto (Monaco, 1966); Louis Verreydt (Belgium, 1950); David Brink (USA, 1947); Manon Jutras (Canada, 1967); Dalbir Singh Gill (India, 1936).

Tour will start in Corsica for 2013

Corsica, the most mountainous island in the
Mediterranean, promises a spectacular opening
stage in the 2013 Tour

For the first time in what will then be the 110 year history of the race, the Tour de France is due to visit Corsica, starting off from the Mediterranean island in 2013.

Corsica has long wanted to host a stage and Tour organisers are known to have looked into taking the event there on several occasions. However, the logistics involved in transporting riders, 4,000 officials, 1,600 vehicles and infrastructure to and from the mountainous island, which lies some 143km from the French coast at the narrowest point, has previously made doing so impossible. The island's relatively low level of economic development - the lowest in France - has not helped either.

The announcement was made by Paul Giacobbi, Corsica's representative at the National Assembly of France, and Tour director Christian Prudhomme and reported by the French Cycling Federation. Further details will be given during an official presentation on the 6th of December. Corsican newspaper Corse Matin says that three stages will be held on the island, promising a spectacular start to what will be the 100th Tour.

Prudhomme confirmed the rumours, stating that "In general, we announce [each Tour's starting point] a year and a half before the deadline. But for the 2013 Tour, we'll do it a little before."

Stage 1 runs from Bastia to Porto-Vecchio, north-south for 146km along the eastern side of the island and is almost entirely flat. The route is likely to follow the N193 along the coast, then inland to pass by the Etang de Biguglia lake before reaching the town of Borgo. It then becomes the N198 and heads back to the coast near Figareto and Santa-Lucia-di-Moriani before dipping back inland to pass the Etang de Terrenzana and Etang d'Urbino, passes through Ghisonaccia and once again follows the coast from Solenzara. Moving inland for the last time, it heads south-west and into Porto-Vecchio.

Calvi, final point on the Tour's Corsican excursion

Stage 2, from Bastia to the island's capital and largest city Ajaccio, is a medium mountain stage of 147km. The most likely route is to once again take the N193 south, but remain on it rather than following the N198 near Borgo. This leads into the heart of the island and through the mountains of Monte before heading south to Vivario, then south-west and up to around 1,200m along the way to the capital.

Stage 3, 155km from Ajaccio to Calvi, will feature a number of challenging climbs including the Calanques de Piana, a steep-sided cove known for its natural beauty. A World Heritage Site, that it is sometimes termed "a Mediterranean fjord" reveals how steep the descent in and climb out are likely to be. The most likely route would be the D81 to Piana and Marine de Porto, then inland to Suare before joining the N197 on the northern coast and following it west into Calvi.

Daily Cycling Facts 24.11.11

Happy birthday to Thomas Ziegler, born on this day in 1980 in Arnstadt. The German professional announced his retirement from racing when he was just 27 and opened a bike shop in Hanover.

Luis León Sánchez
(image credit: Astana-Würth)

Luis León Sánchez Gil
Luis León Sánchez, who born in Mula, Spain, on this day in 1983, began his career with Liberty Seguros-Würth and immediately demonstrated ability in time trials. In recent years, he has also developed his climbing ability, enabling him to ride well in hilly races such as Stage 9 of the 2011 Tour de France. He rose to international prominence when he won the General Classification and young riders' competition at the Tour Down Under in 2005, a race at which he came 2nd overall in 2006, winning the Youth classification at Paris-Nice too.

In 2008, he became Spanish National Time Trial Champion for the first time. He would lose the title the following year, but then regained it in 2010 and 2011. He won his first stage at the Tour de France in 2009 while racing with Caisse d'Epargne - the mountainous Stage 8 which included the highest paved road in the Pyrenees, the 2,400m Port d'Envalira. He would then confirm his status as a force to be reckoned with in Grand Tours by finishing the Vuelta a Espana in 10th place overall and the Tour in 11th the following season. Now with Rabobank, he finished the 2011 Tour of Beijing in 6th place - his Grand Tour final results, however, were not so impressive, with 53rd in the Vuelta and, despite the Stage 9 victory, 57th in the Tour.

León is not his given middle name. He adopted it, at first in honour of his grandfather and later for his brother who died in a motorcycle accident. He has one older and one younger brother, both footballers - the younger playing professionally with Real Madrid.

Zimmerman may have been
a little free in what
he  considered "amateur,"
but he was by all accounts
a superb rider and won
more than 1000 races
during his career

The International Cycling Association
On this day in 1892, representatives from Great Britain, Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, the USA, Germany, France and Denmark met at the Agricultural Hall in Islington, London, and formed the International Cycling Association - the world's very first cycle racing regulatory body. The meeting had been organised by one Henry Sturmer who would later join forces with James Archer and begin producing the famous hub gears in an effort to produce a definition of the term "amateur" which had been widely abused, especially by cyclists traveling from and to overseas - with especial attention paid to one Arthur Augustus Zimmerman, who would become the first ever World Champion the following year. The meeting decided that the the house, furniture, "enough silver plates, medals and jewellery to stock a jewellery store," land, numerous horses and carriages, six pianos and 29 bikes that he had won or bought with the money he won in races, along with - most crucially - money paid to him by Raleigh in return for appearing in their adverts, was stretching the previous definition of the term somewhat and forced him to declare himself a professional rider. The ICA was effective for just eight years until 1900, when the Union Cycliste Internationale - cycling's governing body to this day - took over.

Peter Drobach, 1890-1947

Today is the anniversary of the death of American track cyclist Peter Drobach who died in 1947, the day after his 57th birthday. Drobach specialised in six-day races, winning the Six Days of Buffalo (1910 and 1913), Newark and Indianapolis (both 1913).

On this day in 2007 Sarah Ulmer - the first New Zealand cyclist to win an Olympic gold medal and holder of several world cycling records, formally announced her retirement.

Guido Trentin, now retired, was born on this day in Grandate, Italy, in 1975. Trentin was never really a Grand Tour General Classification contender but could hold his own in the peloton, winning Stage 5 at the 2002 Vuelta a Espana and two more at the 2006 Trofeú Joaquim Agostinho and Tour de Wallonie.

John Wilson, a Scottish rider who represented his country at the 1912 Olympics when England, Scotland and Wales competed as separate nations, died on this day in 1957. He was 81.

On this day in 2011, Martin Reimer - a German rider born the 14th of June in 1987 - announced his retirement. Just 24 at the time, he'd been National Champion and come 3rd overall at the Tour of Britain in 2009 but had not experienced much success afterwards, his best result since then being 2nd in Stage 2 of the 2010 Critérium du Dauphiné.

Other births: Federico Cortés (Argentina, 1937); Carl Sundquist (USA, 1961); Brian Sandy (Great Britain, 1932); Miguel Martorell (Spain, 1937); Heinrich Schiebel (Austria, 1926); Ian Hallam (Great Britain, 1948).

Daily Cycling Facts 23.11.11

Gosta Pettersson
(image credit: Bunsesarchiv CC BY-SA 3.0)

Today is the anniversary of the death of Giovanni Brunero, winner of the Giro d'Italia in 1921, 1922 and 1926. He also won the Giro di Lombardia twice, Milan-San Remo once and a stage of the Tour de France (1924). He was 39 when he died in 1934.

Gösta Pettersson
Gösta Pettersson born on this day 1940 in Alingsås, Sweden, became the first - and, so far - the only Swede to have won the Giro d'Italia when he completed the 3,621km race in 97h24'04" and held the leader's maglia rosa jersey from Stage 18 to the finish. The previous year, he had come 3rd in the Tour de France.

With his brothers Erik, Sture and Tomas (known as the Fåglum Brothers for reasons of some Swedish naming convention), he would win the World Amateur Team Time Trial Championship three times, a silver medal at the 1968 Olympics and the Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal awarded annually to the performance judged to have been the most important by a Swedish sportsman or sportswoman. Individually, he would win the Tour de Romandie, Coppa Sabatini, Giro dell'Appennino and the Giro delle Marche.

After his Giro win, Pettersson managed 7th place and a stage win in the 1973 Tour de Suisse before improving it to 2nd overall the next year. Then, like so many cyclists before and since, he faded away in retirement and nothing is known of his life since.

Peter Drobach Snr.

Peter Drobach Snr., an American cyclist who enjoyed success in six-day track racing, was born on this day in 1890. His forst major win came at the Six Days of Buffalo in 1910, and he would win the same event in 1913 along with the Six Days of Newark and Indianapolis. In retirement, Drobach made a living repairing and sharpening tools, cashing in on the popularity of track racing at the time when his fame attracted customers. He built the firm up into a construction equipment hire business which is still operating and still independent to this day.

Nathan O'Neill
Nathan O'Neill, born in Sydney on this day in 1974, began cycling at the age of 15 when a school friend asked him to accompany him to a 16km race - and he won. Before long, he was racing at Junior level in the National Track Championships and was then selected Oceania Cycling Championships in 1995, winning a bronze medal even though he'd entered the event with a broken pelvis. By 2006, he was representing his nation in the Commonwealth Games and won a gold medal for the time trial in 2006 at Melbourne.

He became involved in a complicated doping case a year later after providing a sample that tested positive for Phentermine, an appetite suppressant listed as a controlled substance in Australia and several other nations for its amphetamine-like effects on the body (that same year, he would break a hip when his car rolled over in a crash). O'Neill admitted using the drug and said that he had done so off-season (off-season use is not banned by anti-doping agencies, national federations or the UCI) and that the drug had remained in his system for longer than expected. He was sacked by his HealthNet team and then, in June the next year, the Court for Arbitration in Sport (CAS) declared that he would receive a 15-month ban for failing to declare that he had used the medicine, stopping short of a two-year ban as there was "no significant negligence" demonstrated by the rider, ie no evidence that he had used to drug to gain a competitive advantage.

The UCI, World Anti-Doping Agency and Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority made a joint appeal to the CAS, saying that while there was no evidence of significant negligence O'Neill had also not proved that he had not used Phentermine for illicit purposes. CAS then decided that, even if the rider had used the drug during the off-season, he had done so because he felt he would not be competitive when the next season began without it.  As a result, the ban was extended to two years.


Happy birthday to Liu Ying, the Chinese cross-country mountain bike rider who became World Champion in 2007. She's 26 today.

Raymond Castilloux, born on this day in 1934 in Quebec, is one of the very many cyclists who came to the sport after riding a bike as part of a summer fitness regime for speed skating. Having lived in the USA since he was 14, he later took US citizenship and represented his adopted country in the 1964 Olympic Road Race, but was unable to finish the course.

Miyataka Shimizu

Miyataka Shimizu, born in Saitama, Japan on this day in 1981, turned professional in 2004 after graduating from the National Institute of Sports and Fitness. He won Paris–Corrèze in 2008, becoming one of the very first Japanese riders to achieve race success in Europe and went on to win the Tour de Martinique in the Caribbean and the Tour de Hokkaido in Japan.

Happy birthday Nathan O'Neill, seven-time Australian Time Trial Champion prior to a suspension after testing positive for the appetite suppressant Phentermine in 2007.

Thomas Russell "Nick" Carter, silver medallist in the Road Race event at the 1950 Commonwealth Games and a competitor in the 1948 London Olympics, died on this day in 2003. He was 79.

Other births: Thierry Détant (Netherlands, 1965); Albert Micallef (Malta, 1958); Gösta Pettersson (Sweden, 1940); Robyn Wong (New Zealand, 1970); Noël Soetaert (Belgium 1949); Aavo Pikkuus (Soviet Union, 1954); Miloš Hrazdíra (Czechoslovakia, 1945, died 1990); Frans Mintjens (Belgium, 1946); Robert Sassone (France, 1978).

Daily Cycling Facts 22.11.11

Guiseppe Olmo was born today in 1911 in Celle Ligure. During his professional career, he would win a total of twenty stages at the Giro d'Italia (including ten in 1936, when he finished in second place overall), Milano-Torino, Milan-San Remo twice and the Giro dell'Emillia. In retirement, he proved a canny businessman; setting up the Olmo bike manufacturer with which he would produce an enormous variety of low-cost, low-quality bikes as well as some top-end racing bikes. Under his leadership, the firm would branch out into different areas and became the Olmo Group. It still exists today and still makes bikes, motorbikes and a range of other products. Olmo died on March the 5th, 1992.

Happy birthday to the Columbian cyclist Fabio Parra, who is 52 today. Parra won stages in both the Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana, coming third overall in the 1988 Tour. His two younger brothers, Humberto and Ivan, were also professional cyclists.

Johny Schleck, ex-Luxembourg National Road Race Champion, winner of a stage in the 1970 Vuelta a Espana and a competitor in seven Tours de France was born on this day in Assel, Luxembourg, in 1942. He's the father of Frank and Andy.

David Clinger was born on this day in Los Angeles in 1977. In 2010, he fell foul of a USADA dope test that revealed synthetic testosterone and Modafinil, a drug said to increase endurance. The rider received a two-year ban which was later extended to a lifetime ban as the test had been carried out while he was still suspended from a previous positive test that had shown traces of Clenbuterol.

Happy birthday to Trek-Livestrong cyclist Michael Vink, 2011 New Zealand Under-23 Road Race champ, who was born today in 1991.

Other births: Wendy Oosterwoud (1995); Anthony Saux (1991); Thomas Berkhout (1984); Malcolm Lange (1973); Chun Te Chiang (1984); Shao Yung Chiang (1984); Tom Dernies (1990); Christophe Premont (1989); Jose Vega (1987); Shinpei Fukuda (1987); Andrew Roche (1971); Nick Stopler (1990); Heinrich Berger (1985).

Daily Cycling Facts 21.11.11

Jimmy Michael, 1877-1904

Today is the anniversary of the death of 1895 World "Stayers" Cycling Champion Jimmy Michael, born in Aberaman, Wales in 1877. Standing just five feet and one and a half inches tall (156.2cm), the crowds laughed when he first took part in races, but rapidly fell silent once it became clear that he was a cyclist of remarkable prowess, beating far more experienced and physically larger riders. His fame spread and, by 1896, 22,000 French fans turned out to watch him race in Paris. Sadly, Michael lost his winnings through gambling and developed a drinking problem. He was just 27 years old when he died in 1904.

Danielle King, the Southampton-born British rider who formed part of the winning Team Pursuit events at the World (Elite) and European Track (Elite and Under-23) Championships in 2011, is 21 today. Happy birthday, Dani!

Antonio Karmany Mestres was born on this day 1934 in Sant Joan, Spain. He won Stage 2 in the 1959 Vuelta a Espana, then another stage and the Mountains Classification as well as coming 4th overall in 1960. A year later, he took Stage 15, won the Mountains again and came 8th overall. In 1962, he won the Mountains for a third time.

Mattei Pelucchi, born this day in 1989 in Guissano, Italy, rode with Geox-TMC in 2011. At the end of the season, Geox suddenly announced that they'd be ending their sponsorshop, leaving the team members frantically searching for new contracts. Europcar have announced that Pelucchi will ride with them in 2012.

Happy birthday to Cornelius "Cees" Bal, the Dutch cyclist who won the Tour of Flanders in 1974 and built up an impressive palmares during his ten-year professional career. He was born in 1951 on Kwadendamme.

Happy birthday to Serge Pauwels, the Belgian rider currently with Team Sky, born in 1983 in Lier.

Another happy birthday to Luc Jones, the Welsh 200m track champ, born on this day in 1991.

Rob Hayles, who rides with Team GB on track and Endura on road, was born today in 1973 in Portsmouth. His best year was 2008 - though he was pulled out of the World Track Championships and suspended for two weeks following a blood test that revealed a haematocrit reading 0.3% over the legal limit, he later became National Road Race Champion.

On this day in 2008 it emerged that despite his election promise to turn London into "a city of cyclists," mayor Boris Johnson had provided just 25% of the funds London boroughs needed in order to bring cycling infrastructure up to scratch.

On this day in 2007, Floyd Landis appealed to the Court for Arbitration in Sport to have his two-year ban for doping overturned. The appeal was unsuccessful and, on the 10th of November 2011, he was convicted of hacking into CAS computers in an attempt to destroy evidence against him and received a one-year suspended jail sentence.

Other births: Graeme Jose (Australia, 1951, died 1973); Harry Ryan (Great Britain, 1893, died 1961); Urs Güller (Switzerland, 1967); Jørgen Frank Rasmussen (Denmark, 1930); Cristian Moreni (Italy, 1972); Victor Georgescu (Romania, 1932); Jamil Suaiden (Brazil, 1972); Allan Juel Larsen (Denmark, 1931); Liubomir Polataiko (Ukraine, 1979); Oleg Tonoritchi (Moldova, 1973); Elisabeth Osl (Austria, 1985); Unai Etxebarría (Venezuela, 1972); Mark Kane (Ireland, 1970); Kozo Fujita (Japan, 1967); Fabio Parra (Colombia, 1959).

Daily Cycling Facts 20.11.11

1902: a new race is born

Géo Lefèvre

On this day in 1902 Henri Desgrange, the editor of a sports newspaper named L'Auto, called a crisis meeting. The paper had been set up by a group of wealthy industrialists including the Comte de Dion and Édouard Michelin, all of them opponents of the Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus who had been (falsely) charged with treason, to compete with rival publication L'Velo which was edited by Pierre Giffard who was sympathetic towards Dreyfus. Giffard had become so angered by de Dion that he declined to carry advertising for the Comte's car manufacturing company in the paper and de Dion wanted to put him out of business as revenge.

L'Auto's circulation figure reached 20,000, then got stuck. Now, the owners wanted to know why and what Desgrange was going to do to improve matters. Desgrange had his talents, but thinking up new ideas independently was not one of them and so he called a crisis meeting and asked his staff to come up with suggestions. None of the first ideas have been recorded, but Desgrange was apparently not impressed and  turned in desperation to the paper's 23-year-old cycling and rugby reporter Géo Lefèvre.

Lefèvre, it seems, had not been expecting his editor to stoop so low as to ask him for an idea and he hadn't bothered to spend any time considering the issue; he said later that he had to think fast and blurted out the first thing that came into his mind. "Let's organise a race that lasts several days, longer than anything else. Like the six days on the track, but on the road." Desgrange pondered this for a moment or two.

"If I understand you correctly, petit Géo," he replied, "you're proposing a Tour de France?"

The name and concept had been used before for automobile races, but it was the first time that it had been used in the sport with which it would forever be associated. By the end of the first Tour the following year, L'Auto's circulation had trebled. Five years later, figures hit 250,000 and by 1923 they'd reached half a million a day. Desgrange was not at first convinced that the Tour would be a success and stayed away for the first year but later, when it showed signs of becoming much bigger and more profitable than anyone ever imagined, he was happy to take full credit for it. Many authors, historians and fans alike tell us to never forget that it's a lowly 23-year-old reporter that we should really thank for what has become the greatest sporting event the world has ever seen. However, this may not in fact be the case: L'Auto had organised an earlier race, Paris-Brest-Paris (a single-stage 1,200km event) in 1901 and had enjoyed a big upturn in sales as a result. It seems unlikely, therefore, that Lefévre was the only man to have thought of a bike race; it is far more likely that somebody else - possibly Desgrange - had already suggested a long-distance race as one option and the group was trying to think of a way in which their new event could be made different from all those that had come before. It may be the case, therefore, that despite over a century of claims that Lefévre, rather than Desgrange, was the true "Father of the Tour," it may in fact have been first thought up by Desgrange after all - or possibly even by somebody else altogether.

Monique van der Vorst

Monique van der Vorst
(image credit: Rabosport)

Cycling is a hard, dangerous sport and, as such, has led to countless tragedies as riders from the upper echelons of the professional world to people who take the bike out for a few miles on a sunny Sunday afternoon have met with untimely ends at the bottom of cliffs, under the wheels of vehicles and in a variety of other ways.

Once in a while, though, miracles happen too. Perhaps the greatest example of that is the story of Monique van der Vorst. Born on this day in 1984, van der Vorst developed a problem with her legs during childhood needed an operation. Something went wrong and, aged just 13, she was left paralysed in both legs.

She learned to ride a handcycle, a vehicle both steered and powered by the hands and arms. She became good at it. So good, in fact, that she won two silver medals at the Paralympic Games.

In March 2010, now aged 25, her handcycle was rammed by another cyclist who lost control while traveling at high speed. What could so easily have been another tragedy turned out to be something very different - as she recovered from the crash, van der Vorst began to feel a tingling sensation in her legs, the first sensation she'd had in them for 12 years. Slowly but surely, full feeling returned and with the help of a physiotherapist she was able to learn to walk - and, before too long, ride a conventional bike.

In November 2011, Rabobank announced that it had signed van der Vorst up to its new Women's Team for the 2012 season. With them, she will race alongside riders such as Sarah Düster, Annamiek Van Vleuten and the team's star rider Marianne Vos, widely acclaimed as the best cyclist in the world.


Graeme John Miller, the New Zealand professional cyclist who retired at the age of 42 due to a back problem and then returned to competitive cycling six years later, winning the Sinclair Packwood Memorial Road Race in 2008, is 51 years old today. Earlier in his career, Miller won two gold medals in the 1990 Commonwealth games. Happy birthday, Graeme - here's to many more successful years!

Happy birthday to Northern Irish cyclist Michael Hutchinson, who set a new record for completing 30 miles in 55'39" in 2011 and has been 50 mile National Time Trial champion since 2000. With 51 time trial titles to his name, he comes second in greatness only to the legendary Beryl Burton with 97.

The Tour of Rwanda should be starting today in the African nation - however, since their website is down and no other sites seem to have any information, this is not confirmed!

Other births: Joni Silva Brandao (1989); Noel Martin Infante (1989); Tyler Day (1989); Dominique Stark (1988); Eloy Teruel Rovira (1982); Linea Fredang (1982); Daizon Mendes (1981); Jean Zen (1981); Crystal Anthony (1980); Gijs Strating (1990); Mark Christian (1990); Marta Bernini (1963); Jianren Man (1988); Christoph Pfingsten (1987); Joelle Numainville (1987); Martijn Knol (1987); Wilson Zambrano Larrota (1980); Rhae Christie Shaw (1975); Petra Zehentner (1973); Silvija Latozaite (1993) Takahiro Yamashita (1985); Kahlen Young (1984); Sue Forsyth (1984);