Eileen Roe wins in Friesland

Eileen Roe (Team Ibis Cycles) won today's 31st Profronde van Surhuisterveen, making full use of her strong sprinting ability to cross the line ahead of Anouska Koster (2nd, Dolmans-Boels) and Trieneke Fokkens (3rd) after a race that saw difficult conditions caused by very heavy rainfall.

22-year-old Roe used a similar tactic to win the Colchester round of the Johnson HealthTech Women's GP in June, beating Vanderkitten's Ruth Winder and Twenty3c.co.uk-Orbea's Alice Barnes on that occasion. Her sprint seems, therefore, to be a powerful talent and is one that will be sure to bring her many more victories.

Chapeau Eileen - we'll be looking forward to seeing you race in the 2016 Olympics!

Armitstead on the issues facing women's cycling

Lizzie Armitstead

In an interview with Cycling News, Olympic silver medalist Lizzie Armitstead has hit out at "sexism and inequality" in cycling. That inequality exists is beyond doubt - it's common knowledge that many women even at the top level receive no salary at all while their male counterparts are paid a guaranteed minimum wage and the prizes awarded to race winners in women's cycling are, quite frankly, laughable compared to those in the majority of men's races. Many people will say that Armitstead is wrong in linking this to sexism and insist it's due to the harsh realities faced by the sport resulting from the simple fact that there is far less money in women's cycling. However, what the article doesn't make immediately clear is that she isn't saying that race organisers and UCI officials are overtly sexist (some of them may well be sexist, of course, but few of them would allow themselves to be seen as such) - she's saying that women's cycling's problems stem from a more deeply-rooted sexism, a belief in society that athletic competition between females can never be as exciting as athletic competition between men, and that the resulting smaller audience is why women's cycling doesn't get the attention it deserves. This  is a point of view that may not necessarily be correct; but it's a valid one shared by many and the UCI, as the body responsible for developing competitive cycling, has a duty to explore it.

Armitstead believes that one possible solution would be "forcing ProTour teams to have a women's team." That is certainly an option, and seems a good one at first - many people also support the idea of forcing race organisers to hold women's races alongside their men's events. But would it work? Would teams devote the time, money and media to their female riders as they do to their men?

When whether Team Sky should sponsor a women's team, Armitstead hits the nail on the head - "I think Team Sky is missing an opportunity," she says. That is the real answer: persuading, rather than forcing, teams that it is in their interest to have a women's team. That way, they'll give them the backing they deserve. Force them to run women's teams and they'll do so resentfully, fielding athletes who have been given the cheapest minimum of coaching, riding bikes that are only a fraction of the value and quality that the men on the team ride. Result: in the eyes of the public, who in many cases will not understand the underlying issues, female cyclists appear less talented and less competitive than the men. Sky have had plenty of opportunity to put together a women's team and have a budget more than high enough to run several; it seems clear, therefore, that they have no interest in doing so (note that they do sponsor female track cyclists - who enjoy a higher public profile than female road cyclists).

So, how can they be persuaded that women's teams will bring them more glory and, crucially, more sponsors? The riders themselves are already doing all they can - they ride to their limits, even if they've had to work a forty-hour week in order to be able to afford to be at the races in which they compete, and they raise the issues facing their sport whenever they can, just as Armitstead is doing. There are a few team officials and managers doing a superb job too - Stefan Wyman, owner of Britain's Matrix-Prendas, is a glowing example and has recently written a series of informative articles on the subject (the latest of which can be found here); so to is Karl Lima, manager of the Hitec Products-Mistral Home - both have fought for many years to get a fair deal for the athletes on their own teams and in women's cycling in general. Rabobank is another admirable case and provides excellent support for its highly successful women's team.

"The race with the Dutch girl and the English girl" -
Armitstead and Vos follow Olga Zabelinskaya

It seems, then, that it's up to fans. We can do a very great deal to save and improve the sport we love, especially right now - it's notable that people who have previously had no interest in cycling at all suddenly know the names Marianne Vos and Lizzie Armitstead because of the Women's Road Race at the Olympics (or at the very least are talking about "the race with the Dutch girl and the English girl" - hey, it's a start). We can help to make sure they keep talking about it - all we need to do is tell anyone who will listen why women's cycling is as great and as fascinating a sport as it is, write blogs about it, Tweet anything we find about it, share our knowledge and enthusiasm, go to races and encourage others to do so too. That way, we pass on the love to new fans and increase the audience, which in turn makes women's cycling far more tempting to potential sponsors - and it's their money that will persuade the teams and race organisers to make space for the women.

Daily Cycling Facts 31.07.12

Craig MacLean

Craig MacLean

Born in Grantown-on-Spey on this day in 1971, Craig MacLean had a very successful track career, having been selected for the Team GB Sprint team and becoming lead rider in 2004 he was a part of several successful victory attempts, also winning numerous Individual Sprints and Kilos. He announced his imminent retirement at the Manchester round of the World Cup in 2008, citing a back injury that had prevented him finding form throughout the season - at that event, he won a heat for the Keirin but was relegated by judges.

Two years after retiring - the minimum required by UCI rules - MacLean returned as able-bodied pilot for paralympic tandem competitions; at the 2011 World Championships he teamed up with retinitis pigmentosa sufferer Neil Fachie and piloted him to gold medals in the Tandem B 1,000m Time Trial and the Tandem B Sprint.

Rémy Di Gregorio
Rémy Di Gregorio, born in Marseilles on this day in 1985, won Stage 8 at the Tour de l'Avenir and came nineteenth overall at the Critérium du Dauphiné in 2005 - impressive results for a rider who had joined his first professional team, La Française des Jeux, only the previous season. The following year he finished Dauphiné in seventeenth place and won the King of the Mountains, which encouraged the team to select him for the Tour de France; unfortunately he crashed and broke his elbow during Stage 4. He was widely touted at the time as France's next great climber, but would never manage to match his early promise.

Rémy Di Gregorio, Tour de Romandie,
2010

In 2008, Di Gregorio returned to the Tour after coming third in the King of the Mountains at the Tour de Romandie, this time he won the Combativity Award for Stage 10 and finished in 59th place. 2009 brought him only one podium place (third, Stage 2, Route du Sud), though he was top ten twice at the Vuelta a Espana; then he finished the 2010 Vuelta in 21st place the following year. In 2011 he joined Astana, won Stage 7 at Paris-Nice and finished the Tour de France in 39th place; raising hopes that he might win his first Grand Tour stage the next year - but, on the 10th of July 2012, during the Tour de France's first rest day, he was arrested by French police as part of an investigation into doping. He was immediately suspended by his new team Cofidis and will be sacked if allegations against him are proved.


Svetlana Pauliukaitė, born in Mosėdis, Lithuania on this day in 1985, won the National Time Trial Championship in 2005, then the National Points Race Championship the following year. At the time of writing, she rides for the Forno d'Asolo-Colavita team.

Australian rider Henk Vogels, born in Perth on this day in 1973, came tenth at Paris-Roubaix in 1997 and 1999 and second at Gent-Wevelgem in 2003.

Tatsiana Sharakova, born on this day in 1984, was Belarusian Road Race Champion in 2005, European Under-23 Pursuit Champion in 2005 and 2006 and National Road Race and Time Trial Champion in 2007, 2008 and 2009. In 2011 she won the Points Race at the World Track Championships; to date in 2012 she has won the National titles for Pursuit, Sprint, Scratch, Points and Omnium and shares the Team Pursuit title.

Belizean rider Orlando Chavarria, born on this day in 1971, enjoyed a successful career peaking with 27th place in the 100km Team Time Trial at the 1992 Olympics and his 1995 victory at Belize's most prestigious race, the Holy Sunday Classic. Then, one day, he went to a race and came back "a different person," according to his sister Therese. He couldn't sleep and, having been a quiet and gentle person previously, began to shout and act in a threatening manner - and refused to discuss it with his family. Eventually enough was enough and against his will, the family enlisted the help of a doctor, Claudina Cayetano, who recognised the symptoms of schizophrenia. With care, attention and anti-psychotic medication, Chavarria soon regained his health and the world once again made sense to him; he was able to return to his job as a mechanic. He also returned to training and still races today.

Amir Zargari

Amir Zargari, who was born in Khomein on this day in 1980, is one of Iran's most successful cyclists with numerous stage wins in Middle Eastern and Asian races. In 2011 he won the UCI 2.2 Tour of Singkarak in Indonesia, which proved sufficient to earn him a contract with the World Tour French AG2R-La Mondiale team.

Auguste Daumain, born in Selles-sur-Cher in this day in 1877, won a bronze medal for the 25km Race at the 1900 Olympics and, following the disqualification of numerous riders for cheating, was awarded sixth place overall at the 1904 Tour de France.

On this day in 2007 Patrik Sinkewitz was sacked from the T-Mobile team after a sample taken at that year's Tour de France turned out to contain suspiciously high levels of testosterone; he refused his right to have the B sample provided at the same time tested and later confessed to using a testosterone ointment, then to EPO and illegal blood transfusions. Two years later, again in the 31st of July, Iban Mayo's two-year ban for EPO - upheld by the CAS after the Spanish Federation cleared him due to a clean B sample - came to an end; on that very same day Mikel Astarloza, who ridden for Euskaltel-Euskadi since 2007 (Mayo rode for the team ontil 2006), started a two-year ban after he too tested positive for EPO. Astarloza has continually insisted that he is innocent and says that doping amounts to "sporting suicide" due to the efficiency of modern tests; the team could find no reason to disagree and took the very unusual step of publicly stating that it would keep a place open for him once his ban expired; he rejoined them in August 2011.

Other cyclists born on this day: Diego Caccia (Italy, 1981); Franky van Haesebroucke (Belgium, 1970); Vitaly Shchedov (USSR, now Ukraine, 1987); Hermann Smiel (Germany, 1880); Rodolfo Rodino (Uruguay, 1937); Nils Henriksson (Finland, 1928); Vittorio Cavalotti (Italy, 1893, died 1939); Euripides Ferreira (Brazil, 1966).

New backer for Holland Ladies' Tour

Organisers of the Holland Ladies' Tour - among the most prestigious European women's cycling events now that the Giro Donne is the sole surviving women's Grand Tour - have revealed that they're successfully recruited a new main sponsor.

Chairman Marten de Lange announced at the end of January this year that the race had been temporarily suspended due to financial difficulties. However, around four weeks later he was able to confirm that the race would go ahead after other sponsors agreed to provide more backing, but that it would have to be a more "economical" event. "It would be a shame if this race was to disappear, especially now that it offers such a perfect prelude towards the world championship in Limburg one a week later," he said. "We are still negotiating with a potential sponsor. If that happens, we can make the race as good as previous years - which is what the successful women of Dutch cycling deserve."

The new backer, Brainwash, is a chain of hairdressers that will already be familiar to many fans, having maintained links to women's cycling for some years - it previously sponsored its own Brainwash team before becoming co-sponsor of the Rabobank Women's team. However, company managers had let it be known when the team closed that they remained keen to continue their support and presence in the sport: that they have now extended it is a promising sign that they've found the returns satisfactory. In difficult economic times that have seen numerous races and teams vanish due to financial problems, this goes a long way to encouraging other firms to become involved.

The race, which has been won in the past by such illustrious names as Leontien van Moorsel, Petra Rossner, Kristin Armstrong and new Olympic champion Marianne Vos, is due to take part between the 4th and 9th of September and will now become known as the Brainwash Women's Tour.

Congrats Lizzie!

Lizzie's success in winning Team GB's first Olympic medal of 2012 - even if she was unable to beat the fantastically-talented Marianne Vos of the Netherlands - is the best advert that British women's cycling could ever have hoped to receive. Many people who watched the race will have had little or no interest in cycling prior to Bradley Wiggins' historic Tour de France victory and were probably unaware that there is a whole world of professional cycling existing just beyond the range of most media; Lizzie's triumph and appearances on the nightly news brings the sport to the public's attention and attracts new fans.

Chapeau to her and the entire women's team!

Left to right: Lizzie Armitstead, Marianne Vos and Olga Zabelinskaya

Daily Cycling Facts 30.07.12

Bert Oosterbosch

Born in Eindhoven on this day in 1957, Bert Oosterbosch showed enormous potential as an amateur and won seven major races in 1978, the year before he turned professional with Peter Post's legendary Ti-Raleigh, then in his first season with the team he won six victories and became World Pursuit Champion.

Oosterbosch did well on the track throughout his career with three National and one World Champion titles, but he would become known primarily as a road time trial specialist. Yet he could also perform well enough on mass-start stages to place well in General Classifications, as was the case in 1980 when he won the Tour de Luxembourg and Stage 8 at the Tour de France. He would also win Stages 6 (time trial) and 8 (222km mass-start) at the Tour in 1983, and in 1985 he won the Prologue at the Vuelta a Espana.

All in all, Oosterbosch achieved around 91 professional victories, mostly for Ti-Raleigh or Panasonic, the team Post set up after Raleigh withdrew from racing. He would almost certainly have won many more had he not have been plagued by bad health - he had meningitis twice, and his career was brought to a premature end in 1988 when he developed severe knee problems. In 1989 his knees had recovered sufficiently that he came out of retirement, winning his first post-return race on the 13th of August. Five days later, aged just 32, he died of a massive heart attack, leaving behind his wife and two young daughters.

As is invariably the case when any young athlete dies, suspicions soon arose that Oosterbosch's death was caused by doping, specifically EPO which has been linked to numerous similar cases - if so, he would be one of the first victims of the drug. Willy Voet, the Belgian soigneur who was arrested with a car full of drugs and thus sparked off the notorious Festina Affair of 1998, claims in his book Breaking the Chain that Oosterbosch used Synacthen (tetracosactide), a drug that stimulates the adrenal glands and thus raises cortisol blood levels, at the GP des Nations in 1982. However, his statement that the rider came 18th because "the drugs initially blocked his ability to work hard" when he in fact came third may be an indication that Voet's memory is unreliable (perhaps as a result of his taste for the odd injection of Belgian Mix - a concoction of cocaine, heroin, morphine, amphetamine, caffeine and, apparently, anything else that happened to be around) or that - as many people believe - he is a liar; and it is equally possible that Oosterbosch's death was caused by a pre-existing heart defect, undiagnosed by the methods available at that time.


Ben Greenwood, born in Nether Kellet, Lancashire on this day in 1984, was British Under-23 Road Race and Time Trial Champion in 2005.

Aldo Bini, born Montemurlo, Italy on this day in 1915, won the Giro di Lombardia in 1937 and 1942. He also won Stage 2 at the Giro d'Italia in 1936 (and came second at the World Championships), 13, 14 and 19b in 1937 and 5b in 1946. His career lasted from 1934 to 1955.

Julio Alberto Pérez, born in Tlaxcala on this day in 1977, won the Giro del Trentino in 2005 and remains the only Mexican to have ever won the race. In 2002, he won Stages 13 and 16 and the overall King of the Mountains at the Giro d'Italia.

Ángel Madrazo Ruiz, born in Santander, Cantabria on this day in 1988, had won just enough races to be signed up by Movistar in 2011. That year, fans at the Tour Down Under made him the subject of their very fine tradition of picking the humblest non-English speaking domestique in the race and treating him like the greatest cyclist that ever lived, turning up at hotels in vast numbers, painting his name in vast letters on the roads and cheering him at every opportunity. He paid them back in 2012 with a superb performance for fourteenth place overall and later came fifth at the Tour Méditerranéen and fourth at the GP Miguel Indurain.

Mike Fraysse, born in the USA on this day in 1943, was president of US Cycling from 1979 to 1981 and again from 1994 to 1998, having sat on the Federation's board of directors from 1969 to 1994. As a result, he was involved in the coaching and development of some of the finest riders his nation has ever produced, among them Greg Lemond, Connie Carpenter, Rebecca Twigg, Andy Hampsten and Lance Armstrong. He also holds life membership of the Polish Federation, which awarded him its Medal of Distinction in recognition of his work with and support for the legendary coach Eddie Borysewicz. Fraysse designed and built the bike ridden to second place by Greg Lemond at the 1979 Junior Worlds, believed to be the first frame to use aerodynamic teardrop-shaped tubing, and now owns and runs a private training facility.

Other cyclists born on this day: Janez Žirovnik (Yugoslavia, 1935); Jiang Guang-Nan (Taipei, 1948); Joseph McClean (Great Britain, 1935); Vicente Reynès (Spain, 1981); Conor Henry (Ireland, 1970); Arnaldo Carli (Italy, 1901); John Lundgren (Denmark, 1940); Gilles Maignan (France, 1968); Håkan Karlsson (Sweden, 1958); Karl Hansen (Norway, 1902, died 1965); Rainer Müller (West Germany, 1946); Giorgio Morbiato (Italy, 1948).

Daily Cycling Facts 29.07.12

Vic Sutton

Vic Sutton, riding for
Libera-Grammont in 1960

Charly Gaul and Federico Bahamontes are rightly regarded as the greatest climbers in the history of professional cycling, but  they faced competition from an entirely unexpected source at the 1959 Tour de France - a skinny little British 23-year-old named Victor Sutton; British riders being considered in those days to be among the lower ranks of cyclists, despite Brian Robinson's Stage 7 victory a year earlier, and certainly not great climbers (indeed, to this day Britain has produced only two world-class grimpeurs, the Scotsman Robert Millar and Emma Pooley from England).

Born in Thorne, Yorkshire on the 3rd of December in 1935, Sutton has been so entirely forgotten today that Cycling Archives doesn't list a palmares for him and he has no page on Wikipedia, but his natural talent in the mountains, where he could keep turning a low gear at high revolutions per minute just like Gaul did, enabled him to climb from 109th place at the end of the first week of the Tour to 37th by the finish; on the Puy de Dôme time trial he recorded a time that remained the fastest for an hour and might have finished in the top ten in Paris had he not have shared Bahamontes' terror of descending - once over the summit, he seized up and lost large chunks of the time he'd gained on the way up.

He returned to the Tour in 1960, another year older and wiser and believed by some to now be in a position to beat the Eagle and the Angel, but his season up to the race had been too hard and he suffered a minor heart attack in Stage 18, the Tour's last day in the Alps. His doctor ordered him to give up racing immediately, but Sutton chose to continue to the end of the season. He continued cycling for pleasure for the remainder of his life, which ended on this day in 1999. Alongside Robinson, he was one of the first riders to show the world that British cyclists could compete at the highest level of the sport, and he should be far better known than he is today.


Canadian mountain biker Roland Green, born in Victoria on this day in 1974, won the National Championships in 1996, 1998, 2001 and 2003. He was World Champion in 2001 and 2002, also winning the World Cup the first year and a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in the second.

Massimo Podenzana, born in La Spezia on this day in 1961, won the Italian Road Race Championship in 1993 and 1994. In 1988 he won Stage 4a at the Giro d'Italia, in 1994 he finished in seventh place overall. He won the Giro di Toscana in 1995, then Stage 15 at the 1996 Tour de France. He is a brother-in-law of Ivan Basso.

Kilian Moser, born in Interlaken on this day in 1988, became Swiss Pursuit Champion in 2012. He is not related to the Italian cyclist Francesco Moser.

Faustino Rupérez, born in Piquera de San Esteban on this day in 1956, won the Spanish Road Race Championship in 1979, then the General Classification at the Vuelta a Espana one year later

Tommy Prim

Tommy Prim, born in Svenljunga on this day in 1955, had an extraordinarily successful junior and amateur career during which he won five National Championships and dominated the Swedish racing scene. He turned professional with Bianchi in 1980 (and would remain with them for his entire career), and won Stage 15 and the Youth category as well as fourth place overall and third in the Points competition that same year: a stunning Grand Tour debut by a new rider. The following year, he came second overall and for Points, then came second overall again in 1982. In 1983, Prim won Paris-Brussels, becoming the first Scandinavian rider to win a Classic; had his career not have coincided with that of Bernard Hinault, he might have been the second (after Gösta Pettersson, who won the Giro in 1971) to win a Grand Tour, too. After retiring in 1986, he opened a bike shop and later worked in a variety of jobs including at a mail order company, a saw mill and a fish smokery; he made his return to cycling as a manager for Team Crescent, which aimed to ind and develop Swedish promises.

Born on this day in 1990, British road and track rider Erick Rowsell became National Junior Time Trial Champion in 2007 and National Junior Road Race Champion the following year. He is the younger brother of three-time World Track Championships gold medal-winner Joanna Rowsell.

Eddy Mazzoleni

Eddy Mazzoleni, born in Bergamo on this day in 1971, finished third at the Giro di Lombardia in 1999, fifteenth at the Giro d'Italia in 2002, tenth at the Giro in 2003, thirteenth at the Tour de France in 2005 and third at the Giro in 2007, behind Danilo di Luca and Andy Schleck. Later that year he was implicated in the Oil for Drugs scandal, during which he and several other riders were investigating over their connections to Dr. Carlo Santuccione, who was accused of running a doping ring. Mazzoleni and others were caught out by a surveillance operation; he left Astana voluntarily and was later given a two-year ban.

Other cyclists born on this day: Laëtitia Le Corguillé (France, 1986); Sergei Kopylov (USSR, 1960); Kilian Moser (Switzerland, 1988); Atle Pedersen (Norway, 1964); Gabriel Niell (Argentina, 1941); Gwon Jung-Hyeon (South Korea, 1942); Janis Pratnieks (Russia, 1887); Sergey Kopylov (USSR, 1960); Chris Coletta (USA, 1972).

Idiocy at the Olympics does women's cycling no favours

So here we are, a week after a British rider won the world's greatest race and with cycling enjoying more popularity than ever before in Britain - and there's a major, international race going on courtesy of the Olympics. Great. Loads of people will be watching.

Which means loads of people will have just heard Chris Boardman's idiotic and destructive suggestion that the reason Jeannie Longo is still taking part in - and winning - races at the age of 54 must mean that women's cycling isn't as competitive as the men's.

Anyone who has ever watched a women's bike race will know that this is about as wrong as it's possible to be - so it's a pity that absolute morons come out with such utter tripe and discourage people who haven't seen a women's race before from doing so. It's precisely because of the smaller audiences, caused by this sort of thing, that women's cycling has difficulties in attracting sponsors and teams exist of annual budgets that wouldn't even cover the cost of the mood lighting on Sky's team buses.

Daily Cycling Facts 28.07.12

Théodore Vienne

Théodore Vienne

Born in Roubaix on this day in 1864, Théodore Vienne was an amateur cyclist himelf, but he is primarily remembered as one of the men who established a race that has become perhaps the most famous in the world after the Tour de France - Paris-Roubaix, the Hell of the North. Having become fabulously wealthy through his textile factories, he became involved in sports promotion (and of events that are sometimes mistaken for sport such as bull-fighting; he built Roubaix's torodrome and, on Bastille Day 1899, a fight between a lion and a bull - which descended into farce when the two animals refused to fight) after offering the grounds of one his factories to a bike race organised by the town's socialist-collectivist mayor Henri Carette, who saw sporting events as a way to improve the lives of the populace; it was such a success that Vienne recruited business associate and fellow amateur cyclist Maurice Perez and built a velodrome on a 46,000 square metre site. Among the many famous riders to compete there was "Major" Marshall Taylor, who made his first appearance before a wildly supportive French crowd at a time when he was banned from many velodromes at home in the USA because he was black.

The velodrome was enormously successful but, being entrepreneurs, Vienne and Perez wanted more. They soon hit upon the idea of holding a road race from Paris - where all the big races of the day began - to Roubaix, but this came with a problem: Roubaix had grown dramatically from 8,500 inhabitants in 1800 to more than 125,000 by 1890, but it remained a provincial industrial town, little known throughout the rest of the country and very much lacking the glamour of the capital. They also felt that they lacked the experience to organise both the start and end of the race, but realised that their event would immediately become more famous if it could be associated with an established race; so they contacted Louis Minart, editor of Le Vélo, suggesting that his newspaper might like to become involved with the race and enjoy a sales boost like that experienced by Véloce Sport through its Bordeaux-Paris. Minart was immediately keen but explained that the decision to back the race rested with the paper's director Paul Rousseau; he was, apparently, not entirely convinced that Rousseau would be convinced because Vienne and Perez changed their sales pitch, emphasising an idea that their race could be run as a preparation for Bordeaux-Paris. "The distance between Paris and Roubaix is roughly 280km, so it would be child's play for the future participants of Bordeaux–Paris," they told him, also mentioning that they had already arranged a prize of 1,000 francs.

Arenberg didn't feature in Paris-Roubaix until 1968; however,
as road were built like this in those days, Breyer probably
experienced many similar cobbles on his way to Roubaix

Rousseau was as favourable as Minart and sent his cycling editor Victor Breyer with a driver to reconnoitre a route; Breyer went as far as Amiens by car, then continued by bike. As has happened so many times in the race's future history, the weather turned unpleasant and he arrived at Roubaix  covered in mud and soaked through after a painful day on the treacherous cobbles that would later give the race its unique character. At first, he planned to send a telegram to Minart advising him that the roads to Roubaix were simply too hard, too dangerous for the race to go ahead; fortunately, once he'd had a bath, a hot meal and some good wine, he realised what a spectacle it could be (Breyer, incidentally, must have had a sadistic streak - it was he who, in 1910, persuaded Henri Desgrange to include the Tourmalet in the Tour de France) and the race went ahead on the 19th of April, 1896. More than half the riders that applied to take part didn't show up; among those that did were Desgrange, who failed to finish, and Maurice Garin - who did finish and would win the first ever Tour de France seven years later. The winner, Josef Fischer, remains the only German victor.

Vienne died on the 1st of March 1921. His race still takes place each year, whereas Bordeaux-Paris has not been held since 1988.

Julia Shaw
Julia Shaw, born in The Wirral, Great Britain on this day in 1965, took part in no sport after she left school and no longer had to do physical education lessons - in fact, it wasn't until she'd graduated from university and begun working that she began to take an interest, inspired by a triathlete colleague. She says that it was the friendliness of the other triathletes she met that kept her interested, but it would be another ten years before she began to take a serious interest in cycling. By that time, she was already in her thirties.

Fortunately, female athletes retain their ability to perform well in endurance sports for longer than their male counterparts, hence the relatively high numbers of riders in the late 30s in women's cycling when compared to the men's sport. Shaw was no different - she won the Best British All-Rounder competition in 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2010; only the legendary Beryl Burton has won it more times. She also won the Beryl Burton Champion of Champions Trophy for four consecutive years between 2007 and 2010, and she was National Time Trial Champion in 2005 (and third in 2009, then second in 2010 and 2011). Still racing at the age of 47, she came fifth behind Wendy Houvenaghel, Olga Zabelinskaia, Hanka Kupfernagel and Pia Sundstedt at the 2012 Celtic Chrono in Ireland.

Shaw was not considered for the 2006 Commonwealth Games, but was selected for the 2010 Games after her second place at the Time Trial Nationals and won a bronze medal, finishing 10" behind Tara Whitten and 5" behind Linda Villumsen. Shaw's 2010 50-mile British TT record, 1h46'49", still stands; as does her 100-mile record of 3h45'22" from the same year. She also holds a degree and master's degree in physics and is involved in fibre optic research science.


Rik van Linden, born in Wilrijk on this day in 1949, won the Belgian Junior Road Race Championship in 1968, the Under-23 Ronde van Vlaanderen in 1969, Paris-Tours in 1971 and 1973 and Milano-Torino in 1977. He also rode well in stages races, including the Grand Tours - he won Stage 2 and second place in the Points competition at the 1972 Tour de France, Stages 7 and 17 at the 1973 Giro d'Italia, Stage 5 at the 1975 Giro, Stages 1b, 19, 21 and first place in the Points competition at the 1975 Tour, Stages 3 and 15 at the 1976 Giro, Stage 2 at the 1977 Giro and  Stages 1, 5 and 6 at the 1978 Giro.

Iker Flores

Born in Galdakao, Euskadi on this day in 1976, Iker Flores turned professional with Euskaltel-Euskadi in 1999, then won the Tour de l'Avenir in his second year with the team. Flores was a rider who spent his entire career on the verge of becoming great, coming 18th overall at the Vuelta a Espana in 2003 and finishing Stage 7 at the 2004 Tour de France in second place, but somehow never quite found the little extra he needed to break through. Finally, Euskaltel let him go; he spent his last professional season with ProContinental Fuerteventura-Canarias, then retired in 2007. Flores was Lanterne Rouge at the Tour in 2005 - as was his older brother brother Igor three years earlier.

Vasil Kiryienka, born in Rechytsa, Belarus (then USSR) on this day in 1981, was National Time Trial Champion in 2002, 2005 and 2006. He also won the Points competition at the Critérium International in 2011 and was second overall, then came sixth overall at the same event in 2012.

Chepe González, born in Sogamoso, Colombia on this day in 1968, won Stage 11 at the Tour de France in 1996, Stage 20 and the King of the Mountains at the Giro d'Italia in 1997 and Stage 5 and a second King of the Mountains at the Giro in 1999.

Walter Bénéteau, born in Les Essarts on this day in 1972, competed in and finished every Tour de France between 2000 and 2006. His best result was 42nd, in 2001.

Jeanne Deley, long-term partner of Tour de France director Henri Desgrange following his divorce, was born in Creusot on this day in 1878. Deley was a rather bohemian artist, known for the spirited parties she held at their villa and to which she invited cyclists, artists, actors, eccentrics and - most exotic of all - Americans; Desgrange seems not to have disapproved, an interesting contrast to the stern, pompous character he is almost invariably portrayed as having been.

Cyclists born on this day: Maurice Moucheraud (France, 1933); Will Davis (France, 1877); Constantin Ciocan (Romania, 1943); Jan Bo Petersen (Denmark, 1970); Joe Waugh (Great Britain, 1952); František Kundert (Bohemia, now Czech Republic, 1891); Donald Eagle (New Zealand, 1936); Yvonne Schnorf (Switzerland, 1965); Viktor Manakov (USSR, 1960); Norbert Kostel (Austria, 1966); Baba Ganz (Switzerland, 1964); Adrian Prosser (Canada, 1956); Franco Gandini (Italy, 1936).

Daily Cycling Facts 27.07.12

Willy Kanis

Willy Kanis

One of the most successful Dutch track riders of all time, Willy Kanis - who was born in Kampen on this day in 1984 - began her cycling career at the age of six, riding in BMX competitions, and became a World Champion in that discipline in 2005 and 2006. She started track cycling in her teens and won two silver medals at the National Championships of 2003, then took two more in 2004 and another two in 2005 - and in 2006, won the 500m, Keirin and Sprint National titles to go with her second BMX gold medal.

Since 2007, Kanis has concentrated on the track, winning nine gold medals (including the 500m, Keirin and Sprint for a second time in 2008), silver and bronze at the Worlds in 2009, a third 500m National Championship in 2010 and a fourth 500m and third Keirin title at the Nationals in 2011. As of 2012, she rides for AA Drink-Leontien.nl, her home since 2010 and one of the strongest teams ever seen in women's cycling.


Colin Lewis
Born in Torquay, Great Britain on this day in 1942, Colin Lewis began racing in his late teens and finished his first big race - the 1960 Milk Race (now the Tour of Britain) - in seventh place. Good results in French races earned him a place in the traditional home of all promising riders from nations other than those that traditionally do well in cycling, the AC Boulogne-Billancourt, and in 1964 he was the best-placed British rider at the Olympics.

In 1967 Lewis faced a tough decision - go to the prominent French Peugeot team, with its big budget and good salaries, or go to the financially poorer British Mackeson-Whitbread team, which was offering him a salary of £4 a week (less than a fifth the average weekly wage in Britain at that time). He went to Mackeson-Whitbread, then got a pay rise to £8 a week by winning the National Championship and finishing the Tour de France in 84th place..

Lewis became the first rider to win the British road race champion title for two consecutive years in 1968 and took second place in the very first Tom Simpson memorial - had he have chosen Peugeot instead of Mackeson, he'd have ridden alongside Tom; as it was he rode with him on the Great Britain team at the Tour, then contested by national rather than trade teams. The two men were friends; they shared hotel rooms at the Tour in 1968, and Lewis was in bed wondering if Tom would be released from hospital to ride the next day when the news reached him that his room mate was dead.

Lewis realised that one of the main things holding back British riders was the culture shock they experienced when first racing in Europe, pointing out that the British amateur racing scene was decades behind its French, Belgian and Italian counterparts; British riders were therefore at a disadvantage right from the start and only the most exceptional - such as Simpson - stood any chance of catching up. He understood too that snaring a household name race sponsor was not always a good thing as more often than not they pulled out again after a year or so, deciding that cycling didn't give the returns they'd hoped, and that this created a feeling in the the mind of the public that the race had failed. Following his retirement, he became manager of Hackney's Eastway Cycle Circuit, since demolished to make way for the Olympic Velopark, and worked for seven years as training director at the South-East Centre of Excellence, using his experience to assist numerous young athletes develop into world-class competitors. He still owns Colin Lewis Cycles in Paignton, Devon, and is president of the Mid-Devon CC.

Allan Davis

Allan Davis

Allan Davis, born in Queensland, Australia on this day in 1980, started racing at the age of 10 and turned professional with Mapei-QuickStep in 2002 after being taken on as a trainee the year before. He began winning stages immediately.

In 2004, Davis rode his first Tour de France and took a handful of decent stage finishes; in 2005 he returned and came fifth in the Points competition, then won the Points at the Benelux Tour later in the year. 2006 got off to a superb start with second place on three stages at Paris-Nice, but his season was ruined when he was one of the riders implicated in Operacion Puerto and his Astana team was blocked from the Tour de France; all five riders from the team were subesquently cleared by the Spanish Federation and salvaged the year with victory at the Noosa International Criterium.

Davis began 2007 with the Discovery team, came second at Milan-San Remo and then won five stages (1, 3, 5, 6 and 9) at the Tour of Qinghai Lake. He also came within a hair's breadth of a Grand Tour when he came fourth, third and second on Stages 1, 3 and 7 at the Vuelta a Espana; oddly, he experienced some difficulty in securing a contract at the end of the season and had to settle for a ProContinental Mitsubishi-Jartazi for six months until ProTour QuickStep came knocking; he repaid them in 2009 with the General Classification and the Points competition at the Tour Down Under, then at the Giro d'Italia he again came close to a Grand Tour stage win with third place on Stage 6 and second on Stage 9.

In 2010, riding for Astana, he won the Points competition at the Tour of Poland and later took a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games. 2011, during which he remained with Astana, proved to be a quieter year without victories; nevertheless his results remained good enough to win him a place with the new Australian GreenEDGE team for 2012 and he won the Jayco Bay Classic for them.

Alison Dunlap

Alison Dunlap

American mountain biker Alison Dunlap is one of the most successful riders in the history of the sport, with eight World MTB Championships (1994, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2004), three National MTB Cross-Country Championships (1999, 2002 and 2004), three National Short-Track MTB Cross-Country Championships (1999, 2002 and 2004) and one MTB World Cup (2002) to her name. She was born in Denver on this day in 1969.

Dunlap also excels in cyclo cross and on road; she has been National Cyclo Cross Champion six times (1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2003), was National Road and Omnium Collegiate Champion in 1993, the year she also won the bronze medal at the National Road Race Championships. She now runs Alison Dunlap Adventure Camps in Moab, offering MTB coaching and holidays.


Jean-Marie Leblanc, born in Nueil-les-Aubiers (then Nueil-les-Argent) on this day in 1944, rode the Tour de France in 1968 and 1970. He finished both times, coming 58th overall the first time around and then 83rd the second, when he also managed his best stage result - tenth, on Stage 5a. Following his retirement in 1971 he became a cycling journalist; and in 1989 it turned out that the Tour wasn't quite finished with him yet - he became the race Director, a position he held until reaching retirement age in 2005, when he was replaced by Christian Prudhomme. He was the man responsible for the abolition of the red Intermediate Sprint and Combination jerseys and is remembered as a moderniser - his decisions, though not always popular with riders and fans, have stood the test of time.

Sep Vanmarcke

Sep Vanmarcke, born in Kortrijk, Belgium on this day in 1988, came second at Gent-Wevelgem in 2010, fourth at the E3 Prijs Vlaanderen-Harelbeke in 2011 and first at the Omloop het Nieuwsblad in 2012.

Alessanddro Bertolini, born in Rovereto, Italy on this day in 1971, won Paris-Brussels in 1997. Ten years later, he had a superb year in which he won the Giro dell'Appennino, the Coppa Agostoni, the Trittico Lombardo, the Giro del Veneto and the Coppa Placci and first place overall for points won in the UCI Europe Tour; the year after that he won his only Grand Tour stage victory, Stage 11 at the Giro d'Italia.

Swiss rider Hugo Schär, born on this day in 1948, participated in the Road Race at the 1972 Olympics but did not finish. In 1984, he filed a patent (US 4,458,556) for a new type of pedal that did away with the old-fashioned toe strap, using instead a specially-shaped pedal body and a strap that crossed the foot over the Lisfranc joint complex. This was intended to provide similar benefits to the clipless pedal that first became popular at about the same time and would prevent Schär's pedal becoming a success.

Other cyclists born on this day: Martijn Maaskant (Netherlands, 1973); Twan Poels (Netherlands, 1963); Nicola Loda (Italy, 1971); Julien Bérard (France, 1987); John Henry Lake (USA, 1878); Glauco Servadei (Italy, 1973); Omer Taverne (Belgium, 1904); Luis Alberto González (Colombia, 1965); Bohumil Kubrycht (Bohemia, now Czech Republic, 1886); Ludwik Turowski (Poland, 1901, died 1973); Robert Downs (Great Britain, 1954); Dieter Berkmann (West Germany, 1950); Karl Link (Germany, 1942); Claudio Vandelli (Italy, 1961); José Sánchez (Costa Rica, 1941); Rubén Placanica (Argentina, 1943); Massimo Brunelli (Italy, 1961); Erwin Tischler (West Germany, 1951).

Daily Cycling Facts 26.07.12

Uwe Raab at Paris-Roubaix

Uwe Raab, born in Wittenberg, East Germany in this day in 1962, won the Points competition at the Vuelta a Espana in 1990 and 1991. He also became World Amateur Road Race Champion in 1983.

Very few riders enjoy a career in competitive cycling as long as that of Geoff Cooke, who was born in Manchester on this day in 1944: his first major victory was the Sprint at the British Track Championships in 1963; almost half a century later he also won the Sprint for the 65-69 class at the World Championships in 2009. He has been a National Champion no fewer than 31 times, a World Masters Champion 18 times and held the World Masters Sprint Champion title for seven consecutive years between 1996 and 2002. In addition to racing, Cooke was a British Cycling coach for ten years and still works a youth coach to this day.


Julien Vermote, born in Kortrijk on this day in 1989, enjoyed an extremely successful amateur career and became Junior Champion of Belgium in 2004, came second in the Juniors Ronde van Vlaanderen in 2007 and was National Under-23 Time Trial Champion in 2009. He signed to  QuickStep in 2011 and, as tends to be the case when a rider first moves up to the top level of the sport, had a quiet year whilst adjusting to the increased competition; overall victory at the Dreidaagse van West-Vlaanderen and tenth place for Stage 21 at the Giro d'Italia in 2012 suggests he's finding his feet.

Spain has produced many great climbers, but few as good as Aurelio González Puente who was born in Valle de Villaverde on this day in 1940 and spent his entire career with KAS-Kaskol. In 1966, only his second year as a professional, he came third in the King of the Mountains at the Tour de France; the year after that he was third overall at the Vuelta a Espana, then won the King of the Mountains at the Giro d'Italia; in 1968, he won his first Tour stage (Stage 6) and the King of the Mountains. It seems likely that Puente could have been another Bahamontes, winning a Tour in a year when the mountains were given especial importance (and had Eddy Merckx not dominated it so entirely in the coming years); however, from 1969 he began to experience bad luck and failed to finish that year or the next. In 1970, he retired after a relatively short career of seven years.

Brice Feillu, born in Châteaudun on this day in 1985, won Stage 7 and came 25th overall at the 2009 Tour de France.

Christophe Laurent won the King of the Mountains at the Tour de l'Avenir in 2002 and at the Tour of California in 2007

Jef Demuysere

Born in Wervik, Belgium on this day in 1907, Jef Demuysere won Stage 10 and finished third overall at the 1929 Tour de France, then fourth overall in 1930. In 1931 he won Stages 15 and 18 and finished in second place behind Antonin Magne, a placing he repeated at the Giro d'Italia in 1932 and 1933. In 1934 he won Milan-San Remo, the third Belgian to have ever done so.

Other cyclists born on this day: Romain Lemarchand (France, 1987); Ivan Kovalev (Russia, 1986); Tiziano Dall'Antonia (Italy, 1983); René Jørgensen (Denmark, 1975); Honorio Machado (Venezuela, 1982); Rudi Valenčič (Yugoslavia, 1941); Stanisław Zieliński (Poland, 1912, died 1939); Gottlieb Weber (Switzerland, 1910, died 1996); Jeon Dae-Heung (South Korea, 1976); Glenn Clarke (Australia, 1963); Errol Walters (Jamaica, 1956); Richard Ball (USA, 1944); Paul McCormack (Ireland, 1963); Étienne Chéret (France, 1886); Arne Klavenes (Norway, 1952); Anders Adamson (Sweden, 1957); Emil Schöpflin (Germany, 1910); Chris Wheeler (Australia, 1914, died 1984).

STOLEN BIKE

STOLEN from Cromwell Road, Cambridge 24/25 July 2012

My black Carrera fixed-gear bike. I bought it specifically for my new job as

a schools cycling safety instructor; hence it has V-brakes front and rear - this

is quite distinctive as most fixie bikes have no brakes or a front brake only - and a flip-flop rear hub (ie; one with a fixed cog on one side and a freewheel cog on the other). It

also has very distinctive "LDN BIKE SWARM" stickers on the top tube of the

frame (probably the only ones in Cambridge, though these may have been removed)

and a slightly tatty saddle.

Having been out of work - and now unable to start my new job - I can't afford to pay

a reward to anyone who either finds it or provides information leading to its return;

however, I will most definitely buy you a beer or three and be happy to provide any bike maintenance you may need.

Cyclopunk@rocketmail.com

Daily Cycling Facts 25.07.12

Ruslan Pidgornyy, born in Ukraine on this day in 1977, began his professional career with De Nardi-Pasta Montegrappa in 2002 and won the Giro del Friuli Venezia Giulia in 2003. He became National Road Race Champion in 2008. In 2004, Pidgornyy and team mate Yuriy Ivanov were sacked by the LPR-Piacenzi Management SRL team after they were accused of assaulting and robbing a woman working as a prostitute near Emilia in Italy. According to news reports at the time, the pair attempted to drag the woman into a car but were unsuccessful, then stole €150 from her - both men admitted their guilt. Two other members of the team, Dimitri Konyshev and Andrey Karpachev, were also arrested but were not sacked as they had apparently taken no active part in the attack. Pidgornyy was offered a contract with the Irish Tenax team the following year and remained with them for four years, later joining ISD-Neri for two seasons and ending his career with Vacansoleil-DCM in 2011.

Stage 4, Tour de France 1904

François Beaugendre, born in France on this day in 1880, rode in the 1903 Tour de France - the first ever held - and came ninth overall, 10h52'14" behind winner Maurice Garin. He entered again the following year and finished Stages 3 and 4 in third place, but then failed to start Stage 5; after numerous riders were disqualified some months after the race had ended, he became official winner of Stage 4 and leader of the race with an advantage of 25'15" over eventual General Classification winner Henri Cornet. Beaugendre rode the Tour again in 1907 and 1908, coming first fifth and then thirteenth, and retired in 1911. His brothers Joseph and Omer were also cyclists - Joseph rode the Tour in 1909, Omer - who won Paris-Tours in 1908 - in 1910.

Wilfried Trott, born in West Germany on this day in 1948, won the Rund um Köln a record three times (1972, 1976 and 1979).

Other cyclists born on this day: Matt Illingworth (Great Britain, 1968); Nacer Bouhanni (France, 1990); Alfred Letourneur (France, 1907); Jean Eudes Demaret (France, 1984); François Beaugendre (France, 1880); Guillaume Levarlet (France, 1985); Wladimir Belli (Italy, 1970); Gerardo Moncada (Colombia, 1962); Peter Riis Andersen (Denmark, 1980); Kosaku Takahashi (Japan, 1944); Robert Farrell (Trinidad and Tobago, 1949); Declan Lonergan (Ireland, 1969); Maurice Gillen (Luxembourg, 1895, died 1974); Per Digerud (Norway, 1933, died 1988); Masaki Inoue (Japan, 1979); Alfred Gaida (West Germany, 1951); Kouflu Alazar (Ethiopia, 1931).

Who Had The Blingest Team Bus?

So the 2012 Tour de France is over, and the sideburns won it - cue OBE, a few weeks in which white vans will give way to cyclists and a general feeling of well-being among British cyclists and fans.

That means it's now time to announce the results of another competition, one that runs alongside the General Classification, King of the Mountains, Points, Youth, Teams and Combativity. It's unofficial, but the sums of money involved are stupendous. It is, of course, the legendary Who Had The Blingest Team Bus? competition.

RadioShack-NissanTrek

RadioShack-NissanTrek's Mercedes (extra blingpoints for the Merc badge) is a fine-looking beast  - and driver Vinny, seen here earning extra pocket money by washing it, is not without his charms either. Hang on a minute, though... Yes! Thought as much! It's the just old LeopardTrek bus given a quick going-over with a can of Dulux "Hot Paprika!" That's not very conspicuous consumption, is it? Minus 20% for that!

However, RSNT have a secret. To save in fuel costs, the bus's engine was removed and the rear wheels were connected to Jens Voigt's stationary bike. This means that it now holds the record for Fastest Bus in the World. Serious bling is, therefore, won back. Also, extra points for replacing the alarm system with a lion.

Cost: N/A if Brian Nygaard paid for it.

RSNT Blingrating: 83%

AG2R-La Mondiale

AG2R-La Mondiale's bus really split opinion among the panel of judges: 30% were reminded of chocolate and liked it, 30% were reminded of poo and didn't, the rest were more interested in how skinny Maxime Bouet's thighs are or had sneaked out for a smoke. Therefore your beloved writer decided to throw democracy to the wind and decide it alone - and it's a thumbs-up, because when it's all shiny and glossy, that shade of brown does indeed look appealing.

It's still a rubbish colour for their shorts though.

Cost: A large enough chunk of the team's budget for there not to be enough left over to buy nicer shorts.

AG2R Blingrating: 70%

Lampre-ISD

Lampre-ISD's pink and blue kit doesn't appeal to everyone, though it's far more popular than the old ; but when the colourscheme is reduced to a few tasteful stripes on their Euromar bus it looks rather stylish. However, since both Lampre and ISD manufacture steel and presumably have access to welding equipment, they could have modified it and come up with a much better vehicle. Fans will, therefore, be very disappointed if Lampre show up next year in anything less impressive that this...

Cost: Probably a fair bit

Lampre blingrating: 10% - it's far too restrained and tasteful to be bling.

Garmin-Sharp

Now that they're co-sponsored by Sharp, Slipstream Sports have more electronic gadgets than the Starship Enterprise and Stephen Fry combined - at a loss as to what they should do with them all, they decided to grab considerable blingpoints by sticking a great big flat-screen TV on the outside of their bus, thus enabling fans to keep up with the action without the effort of actually turning around and facing the direction of the race. Guys, that is class.

Cost: More money than you will ever have in your life

Garmin-Sharp blingrating: 100%

Argos-Shimano

Argos-Shimano are so proud of their bus that they've uploaded a YouTube video showing it off - and they should be proud, too, because it's got a sick paintjob (as the kids would say) and enough gizmos to out-do any one of the modified hot-hatchbacks that hang around the carpark of your local McDonald's every Saturday night. It's also got a multi-screen entertainment system more than capable of pumping out phat beatz, earning the team their unique place as the only non-ProTour squad to make it through to the finals of this exclusive competition. The team has since announced that for the 2013 Tour, the bus will be fitted with a computerised Tyler Farrar detector that will automatically lock the doors and windows if he comes within 10 metres.

Cost: If the bus was filled with 1 Euro coins, it probably wouldn't be enough to buy another one.

Argos-Shimano blingrating: 72% (points deducted for that urinal - why would you want your team bus to look like a public lavvy?)

Orica-GreenEDGE

Other teams thought new kids on the block Orica-GreenEDGE had brought their own private jet when they rocked up to Liège in this barge - which, a highly impressed Ned Boulting reported, was a whole metre longer than Sky's bus! Precisely how long it is was never made clear; Ned tried to estimate it but couldn't due to the rear end of vehicle being over the horizon but, according to rumours doing the rounds at the race, GreenEDGE practiced for some of the shorter stages by riding from one end to the other on the inside as it was being driven to the day's stage town (they didn't practice for the longer stages in the same way, though - that'd just be silly).

According to the International Ned Boulting Fan Club, what really impressed Ned was not the length nor even the revolutionary crash-proof front (achieved by making it an exact copy of a Nokia 3210 cellphone) - it was the on-board fully-fitted washing machine. That, ladies and gents, is bling incarnate.

Cost: Australia's entire GDP between 2006-2011

GreenEDGE blingrating: 100%.

Sky

This is Sky ProCycling's Volvo 9700 Tri-Axle and, no matter where you live, it is better than your house. Stood on end, it would overtake The Shard as Europe's tallest building and it comes fully equipped for intergalactic travel - when in orbit around Earth, it eclipses the sun. It has nine leather seats, sleeping facilities, two showers, two toilets (with super-luxury quilted bog roll), an office that can be converted into a massage suite and - a real essential for nine young men on a road trip - mood lighting. The 10 million watt sound system has reportedly now been reprogrammed to make it unable to play Lesley Garrett CDs.

Cost: probably enough to finance a thousand women's teams for ten years/end world hunger (probably both, with enough change for a bag of chips on the way home), but not nearly as much as sponsor Rupert Murdoch saves through tax avoidance each year.

Sky Blingrating: 95% - judges originally gave it 100%, but deducted 5% when it was pointed out that it doesn't have 24-carat gold wheels.

And the winner is...

Garmin-Sharp and Orica-GreenEDGE both receive 100% blingratings for their mobile überhotels, with GreenEDGE just edging ahead due to theirs being longer than a Jackie Durand solo breakaway. However, while it's not the biggest, Sky's bus with its massage suite is a hard to beat. That they have not one, but two of the monsters means that Sky ProCycling are hereby declared winners of the 2012 Tour de France Who Had The Blingest Bus? competition. Let our rejoicing be without boundaries, and so on.

Team GB prepare for the Games

For more photographs by Chris Davies, click here

The Cycle Show review

I had great hopes right from the moment this show was announced: after all, ITV4 (the broadcaster) and Century TV (the producers) seem intent on working together to ensure that the channel becomes "the home of cycling on British TV" - Eurosport having lost their claims to that title in the eyes of many cyclists when they decided to drop their coverage of an important stage at the Giro d'Italia this year in favour of motorsport.

Century TV operations director Sharon Fuller says that the show has been in the pipeline for two years, and it shows. Initial impressions were promising: it appears well-polished and the graphics, film quality and sound are excellent - this is a show in a much higher class to some of the cycling programmes that serve as little more than filler on certain cable/satellite stations. Main presenter Graham Little makes a good job of it too; his background in journalism combined with love of cycling (he began his professional career with Irish newspaper The Impartial Reporter and was team leader of the victorious squad at the 2009 Race Around Ireland) means that he is ideally suited to the show.

Co-presenter Rob Hayles hosted a segment filmed on Box Hill, the biggest climb on the Olympic road race course and a route familiar to many British cyclists. This also proved successful - while not imparting a great deal of information about the hill, hill climbing technique or the many races that have taken place there, there should always be space in any cycling show for the glorious sight of a peloton gaining altitude. The non-stop, low-volume background music throughout the segment was vaguely irritating, but that may be down to personal preference rather than anything else: for me, the most fitting soundtrack to cycling is screaming 900bpm splittercore techno; if you prefer relatively sedate generic rock (and most people do) you probably didn't even notice it. Meanwhile, we saw very little of Anna Glowinski, who only really appeared in the taster section for next week's show - I suspect that since each episode is only half and hour long (22 minutes with adverts), Glowinski and Hayles will have their time in the spotlight on alternative weeks.

The Cycle Show promises a heady brew of road cycling, MTB, BMX, commuting, leisure cycling, race coverage, bike and kit reviews, maintenance, safety, trivia and - most importantly, for many - "balanced coverage of women's cycling," the latter being especially welcome since women's cycling receives precious little coverage elsewhere. In episode one we were limited to the Box Hill segment and a short piece on cycling in cities (which was all good, practical advice; some viewers will doubtless take issue with guest and Team UK Youth owner Nigel Mansell's insistence that we should all wear helmets, but the issue is so contentious and emotive that it's not really worth discussing until somebody comes up with solid data either in favour or against); however, this being the first episode of a new series, much of the show was given over to introductory material - we'll see how things pan out in the coming weeks and whether it really is going to become the first show to give women's cycling the attention it so deserves, perhaps even put it on an equal footing with men's cycling.

Highlights
Graeme Obree, as ever, was interesting, impressive, likable, animated and articulate. The man truly is a national treasure and a genius in the best "pottering about in the garden shed" tradition; his willingness to show off his new record-attempt bike "Beastie" in these times when the big bike companies' R&D departments keep new machines under tighter wraps than Lockheed Martin's latest Skunk Works  stealth project was as refreshing. The bike, and the man himself, are fascinating.

The third guest was the very venerable Gary Fisher, one of the men credited as inventor of the mountain bike (and certainly one of the most important figures in its development from clunker to modern hi-tech thoroughbred. Fisher got to say little, giving the impression that he'd been included at the last moment simply due to being in London at the time, but his obvious admiration for Obree and the Scotsman's achievements was a highlight of the show - as was his very remarkable facial hair. The Rollapaluza roller sprint - in which Obree and Fisher went head-to-head on a pair of stationary bikes hooked up to a giant analogue meter - was a lot of fun and should prove a popular feature in future shows, and Century TV have dropped heavy hints that next week's guest Eddy Merkcx will be having a go.

Conclusion
All British cyclists should watch this show - first impressions are extremely promising and it has massive potential to become a uniting force in our sport. Fuller says that "If viewers get behind this series there will be more chance of being able to make a second series, and perhaps a series with one hour per show." They've already been given a massive boost by Bradley Wiggins' Tour success, with predicted viewing figures doubling from 250,000 to half a million overnight and a one-hour format would allow far broader coverage of cycling in general, this would dramatically increase the show's appeal. The only real criticism was the ITV4 continuity announcer talking over the "this show is sponsored by Chain Reaction Cycles" bit at the end of the closing credits - Chain Reaction have stumped up no less than 90% of the production costs and without their backing the show would never have happened, they deserve, therefore, to get their money's worth.

Episode 1 of The Cycle Show is also available on iPlayer and will be repeated at 16:45 on Saturday the 28th of July and at 10:50 on Sunday the 29th (both ITV4). Episode 2 airs at 20:00, Monday the  30th of July.


Early viewing figures have been greater than expected and, as a result, from the 13th of August each episode will be one hour long!


For a specialised listing of all the cycling on British TV over this week, click here.

Daily Cycling Facts 24.07.12

Ferdinand Kübler

Ferdinand Kübler

Born in Marthalen, Switzerland in 1919, Ferdinand Kübler - commonly called Ferdi, though he prefers Ferdy - is 93 years old today: making the oldest surviving Tour de France winner in the world today and the longest lived Tour winner in history. In his best years, Ferdy was like no rider seen before: an uncontrollable, impulsive, unstoppable rider every bit as likely to throw his chances away in a suicidal attack as to impress with his enormous talent. His career was ended by no less an opponent than Mont Ventoux, and he won more than 400 victories during his career. Had he not have been limited to Swiss races in the early days by the Nazi occupation of Europe, he might easily have come closer to Eddy Merckx's record 525.

Kübler's professional career began with the Cilo team in 1940 and he became National Pursuit Champion on the track that year; he kept the title and won a stage at the Tour de Suisse the following year when he rode for the P. Egli Rad team. In 1942 he won the National Hill Climb Championship and the General Classification at the Tour de Suisse, then in 1943 he won the Pursuit Championship for a third time. In 1944 and 1945, he won A Travers Lausanne for the fourth and then fifth time and, in the latter year, also became National Cyclo Cross Champion; with the war over he was free to compete in foreign events but had a quiet year. He entered the Tour de France with the Tebag team in 1947 and won Stages 1 and 5, wearing the maillot jaune for one day and abandoning in Stage 7; having won the National Road Race Championship, the Tour de Romandie and the Tour de Suisse in 1948 he returned to the Tour in 1949 (having won the National Road Race Championship again) and won Stage 5, this time he abandoned in Stage 18. Later that year he won the silver medal at the World Road Race Championships.

There are those who say that had Fauto Coppi not have broken his pelvis at the Giro d'Italia and had Gino Bartali's Italian team have stayed in the race instead of going with him when he abandoned after allegedly being threatened by a man with a knife, Kübler would not have won the 1950 Tour de France. Coppi may indeed have won if he was able to race; but he wasn't and that's how cycling works, so that point is irrelevant. Bartali was aging and coming to the end of his career - he had been one of the greatest Tour riders ever seen and was still capable of beating far younger men in the mountains, but in this edition the time trials counted for a great deal and he wasn't as fast as he once was. Magni, meanwhile, was a superb rider in the flat time trials, as can be seen by his second place finish in Stage 6 when he was only 17" behind Kübler; but he wasn't much of a climber. Kübler could climb and time trial, so it seems that his insistence that he'd have won regardless is probably correct. Either way, it was a fair-and-square victory and we'll never know what might have been. It should also be remembered that he had phenomenal form that year, winning thirteen other races, fourth place overall at the Giro and three Tour stages.

Kübler on the Tour, 1950

Kübler met his match on the 18th of July in 1955, the day his impulsiveness led him to make a serious mistake - underestimating Ventoux. The old volcano wasn't in the mood to go easy on anyone that day - as Jean Malléjac discovered, not even realised he'd collapsed when the doctors got to him, lying flat on the stony ground with one leg still trying to turn the pedals; and he didn't regain consciousness for a quarter of an hour (he was one of six men to collapse that day). Kübler had believed himself able to tame the mountain. Raphaël Géminiani tried to warn him: "Watch out, Ferdy - the Ventoux is not like any other col." Kübler, with his curious habit of referring to himself in the third person, replied: "Ferdy is not like any other rider." Then he tried to sprint to the summit, and hadn't got very far before he was reduced to begging for a push from spectators to get over. On the way down, ashen-faced and in a cold sweat, he found a bar and started drinking heavily - other customers persuaded him to continue and got him back on his bike, but he set off in the wrong direction and finished in 42nd place. "He is too old, Ferdy; he is to sick - Ferdy has killed himelf on the Ventoux," he told a press conference that night, then abandoned and never returned to the Tour. He won three races the following year, then retired in 1957.

After his racing years came to an end, Ferdy bought a flower shop and became manager of the Italian Gazzola team, home to Charly Gaul; another rider who sometimes foamed at the mouth when climbing, but one to whom even Ventoux paid respect. He was also a friend of Tom Simpson, who bore a passing resemblance to him - Simpson, of course, died on Ventoux in 1968. Kübler is still involved in Tour de Suisse public relations work to this day.

Daniel Morelon 

Daniel Morelon, born in Bourg-en-Bresse on this day in 1944, began cycling after going to see some races with his father and two older brothers. Having originally dreamed of a career as a road racer, he developed an interest in track cycling after watching Sante Gaiardoni winning the gold medals for the 1,000m Time Trial and Sprint at the 1960 Olympics; decided that his future lay in the velodrome, he entered his first race two years later and crashed (due to forgetting that he was on a fixed-gear bike, he said) yet still finished second behind Pierre Trentin, who would become his great rival.

On 1963, Morelon was summoned to complete his National Service with the French Army and joined the Insep National Sports Institute, which brought him into contact with coaches and training levels operating at the top levels of cycling. Within a year, he was specialising in the Sprint and was able to beat then World Champion Patrick Sercu - and two years later, he was World Champion himself: as he would be again in 1967, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1973 and 1975. Despite their rivarly, Morelon and Trentin often rode together in tandem events and became World Champions in 1966.

Morelon retired in 1977 and became National Coach; however, in 1980 he returned to competition and won silver for the Keirin and bronze for the Sprint at the European Championships. In 1990 he became chief of a training facility in Hyeres, where he coached Laurent Gané and developed a new rivalry with his Parisian counterpart Gérard Quintyn, the coach responsible for Florian Rousseau. Both men retired following the 2004 Olympics; while Morelon was taken on by the Italian team prior to the 2008 Games he decided instead to work for the Chinese, coaching Guo Shuang.


Josef Fuchs, born in Einseideln, Switzerland on this day in 1948, won Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 1981.

Daisuke Imanaka, who was born in Hiroshima on this day in 1963, became the second Japanese rider to ride the Giro d'Italia (1995) and the Tour de France (1996).

Cyclists born on this day: Gerard Bosch van Drakestein (Netherlands, 1887, died 1972); Deb Murrell (Great Britain, 1966); Radiša Čubrić (Yugoslavia, later Serbia, 1962); Alberto Ongarato (Italy, 1975); Levi Heimans (Netherlands, 1985); Bob Downs (Great Britain, 1955); Aitor Pérez (Euskadi, 1977); Gabriele Missaglia (Italy, 1970); Adriano Durante (1940); Bjørn Stiler (Denmark, 1911); Bent Pedersen (Denmark, 1945); Heinz Richter (East Germany, 1947); Vratislav Šustr (Czechoslovakia, 1959); Arturo Gériz (Spain, 1964); Dania Pérez (Cuba, 1973); Tanasije Kuvalja (Yugoslavia, 1946); Kleanthis Barngas (Greece, 1978); Robert Pfarr (USA, 1920, died 2006).