Daily Cycling Facts 24.11.2012

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. In 2012, Sánchez was selected to compete for Spain at the Olympic Games and was expected to do well in the Individual Time Trial; however, fortune was not on his side - his chain came off at the brginning of the race as he descended that start ramp, then a second mechanical problem later on ruined any chances he'd had of making up time. He was luckier later in the season with a well-earned and spectacular victory at the Clásica de San Sebastián following a solo breakaway in the final few kilometres.

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 Sturmey (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 and is sometimes called cycling's first superstar. 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 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 due to other nations' disatisfaction at Great Britain entering separate teams for England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland and then claiming all medals they won for Great Britain (as a result of this, Britain was not permitted to join the new organisation for some years).

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 (see the section on the International Cycling Association, above), 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 23.11.2012

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 a Grand Tour when he completed the 1971 Giro d'Italia in 97h24'04" after wearing the 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 second overall the next year.

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 first 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, more than half a century after Drobach's death one day after his 57th birthday.

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.

O'Neill 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 was born in 1985.

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.

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 cyclists born on this day: Thierry Détant (Netherlands, 1965); Albert Micallef (Malta, 1958); 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 22.11.2012

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 that sold in enormous numbers and financed the development of some excellent 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, born on this day in 1959. 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 Michael Vink, 2011 New Zealand Under-23 Road Race champ, who was born in Christchurch on this day in 1991.

Other cyclists born on this day: 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 21.11.2012

Dani King and Lauren Kitchen

Lauren Kitchen and Dani King

Danielle King, born in Southampton, UK on this day in 1990 and more commonly known as Dani, formed part of the winning Team Pursuit events at the World (Elite) and European Track (Elite and Under-23) Championships in 2011 and at the London round of the World Cup, the World Championships and the Olympics in 2012.

King shares her birthday with Lauren Kitchen, born in Amidale, New South Wales in the same year and the winner of three National Championship titles in 2011. In 2013 they will ride together with the new British-registered team DTPC Honda alongside Rochelle Gilmore, who both owns and manages the team; if their first year is as successful as many expect it to be - and with a quite literally extraordinary amount of proven talent and young potential, there's no reason it shouldn't be - the 21st of November 2013 is likely to be the date of the biggest party women's cycling has ever seen.

Jimmy Michael, 1877-1904

Jimmy Michael
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.

Having turned professional for the Gladiator team - where he rode alongside the Linton brothers and, like them, was coached by the notorious Choppy Warburton who is credited by some as being the first man to introduce cycling to doping (he probably wasn't, but he certainly helped make it the problem it would become), Michael's 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. (For much more on Michael's life, career, row with Warburton and downfall, click here.)

Denise Ramsden, born in Yellowknife, Canada on this day in 1990, was Junior National Road Race Champion in 2007, then became Elite National Road Race Champion in 2012 - the same year she was 19th in the Individual Time Trial and 27th in the Road Race at the Olympics.

Kaat Hannes, born in Herentals, Belgium on this day in 1991, achieved podium finishes at the National Road Race Championship in 2007 and at the National Cyclo Cross and Individual Time Trial Championships in 2009. Her best result in 2012, when she raced for Lotto-Belisol, was fourth place at Erpe-Mere.

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 announced that Pelucchi would 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 cyclists born on this day: 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 20.11.2012

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, the story goes, 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 was the true "Father of the Tour," it might 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 underwent surgery on her ankles during childhood, but something went wrong and, aged just 13, she was left in a wheelchair. She learned to ride a handcycle, a vehicle both steered and powered by the hands and arms. She became good at it, then in 2008 was involved in a road accident that left her paralyzed in boith legs. She continued handcycling, however, and became even better at it - so good, in fact, that she won two silver medals at the Paralympic Games in Beijing.

In March 2010, when she was 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, during which she would 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. However, the contract lasted just seven months before Rabobank released a press statement in which it claimed the team's doctors had advised van der Vorst not to continue; they would provide no further information and said it was up to the rider to reveal all if she chose to do so. Some sections of the media suspected another angle, perhaps relating to the earlier confusion about her disability and what she could and couldn't do whilst affected by it following claims by witnesses that she had been seen to stand up and walk after races, but as of yet none has emerged. Meanwhile, several news reports have suggested that, if it can be shown that she was able to walk at the time she won her medals at the Paralympics, she would have been incorrectly classified for the events in which she took part - in which case, she could be stripped of her medals.


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, was born on this day in 1961. 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 who won 97.

Other cyclists born on this day: 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).

The State of Women's Cycling 2012

Amber Neben

It's the end of another year in women's cycling. What a year it's been - the racing, as ever, has been first rate, just as you'd expect in a sport full of highly professional, competitive athletes spurred on by their own love for what they do rather than by their love of fat bank balances (and, if any women out there are thinking of taking up cycling as a way of becoming rich, think again. The salaries - if you're fortunate enough to get one, many "professional" female riders don't - remain a joke, as are the prize funds at most races. As an example, the winner of the men's Chrono des Nations received €5,785, the winner of the women's race at the same event received €379. The women's race was shorter at 20.87km, 43% of the 48.5km men's race; but Amber Neben's prize was equal to only 6.55% of that received by Tony Martin).

What's different now compared to where we were at this point last year? Not much, at first glance. The season got under way with the usual bad news that races were being cancelled due to organisers being unable to secure the sponsorship they needed in order to keep them going: the Tour de Languedoc Roussillon and GP Ciudad de Valladolid are two examples of races that are no longer with us (but, with luck, may reappear in future years), the Giro del Trentino Femminile was cut to two days from its usual three and even the famous Holland Ladies' Tour got into trouble with organisers announcing it might have to be cancelled until a new sponsor - the hairdressing chain with a long-standing connection to cycling, Brainwash - came onboard and saved the day. The UCI still says it's fully committed to women's cycling, but still seems unwilling to do very much: women's cycling, it claims, is insufficiently developed at present to justify greater financial input; however, it has apparently decided that rather than putting in the cash required to develop it, it will instead wait for a magical fairy to come along and start the process.

Emma Pooley

Perhaps the two biggest and most depressing stories of the year were Emma Pooley's announcement that she was considering leaving cycling, either temporarily or forever, and Rabobank's decision to pull out of the sport. Pooley, who has for some years now been one of the most prominent voices in the sport, indicated that she'd had enough of her well-thought-out and reasoned campaigns for the women to get a fair deal resulting in nothing of any consequence being done by the UCI and needed time away to concentrate on completing her PhD. Rabobank, which has enjoyed enormous public exposure from the highly successful teams it sponsors (especially the women's team, home to world number one Marianne Vos), announced it would be ending its long connection with cycling because it was no longer confident in the wake of the US Postal/Lance Armstrong investigation that the UCI was able to bring doping to an end. It would, therefore, be ending its sponsorship of both the men's and women's teams, in spite of the fact that doping is virtually non-existent in women's cycling when compared to men's cycling (it said it would, however, continue sponsoring Vos who, as the 21st Century's Eddy Merckx, is every sponsor's dream come true; Vos, being the star that she is, replied that it doesn't work like that and that she and the team come as a package).

Earlier in the year, British Cycling failed to notice that female cyclists competing at the top level of their sport are rock hard, stupendously fit athletes and, in a peculiarly Victorian way, mistook them for weak-willed delicate creatures unable to race on two consecutive days, so it tried to persuade the organisers of the Smithfield Nocturne to drop the women's criterium in order that riders wouldn't be too tired at a (British Cycling) event the following day. The thing is, the Smithfield Nocturne is massively popular event that draws thousands of fans (and generates new ones) in addition to - crucially - getting TV coverage, whereas the British Cycling race isn't. It is, therefore, simply too important to be allowed not to go ahead. Team Mule Bar Girls were first on the case and got a promise from the organisers that, provided a sufficient number of riders signed up, they'd go ahead and run the race anyway. Then, realising that they too could help, fans joined in by Tweeting, Facebooking, blogging and doing all manner of things that have required new words to be added to the English language over the last few years. The race was saved, and it didn't take very long to save it.

The Olympic Women's Road Race was watched by millions

This may yet prove to be the biggest thing that has happened in women's cycling in 2012: the rapid emergence of a new "activism meme" among fans, fueled at least in part by the unexpected success of the Women's Road Race at the Olympics which generated viewing figures far higher than anyone had hoped. We have realised that we do not have to be - and should not be - the silent partner in the riders/organisers and federations/audience triumvirate and that, as the majority of riders, directeur sportifs and race organisers are already doing all that they can, it's down to us to use collective effort to pressure federations, raise funds and get more people to races - by doing so we can help make the changes that the UCI won't, even though the millions of people that watched the Women's Road Race at the Olympics proves a potential audience exists.

Indicative that this is the case is the success of two new projects - namely the Women's Cycling Social Media Jersey and the Fan-Backed Women's Team. When the Media Jersey project began, organisers Sarah and Dan hoped to raise a few hundred dollars to award a t-shirt and a small cash sum as a prize to the rider decided by a poll (which ultimately received 4,605 votes, a fantastic response) to have done most to raise the sport's profile - within only days, it became apparent that they were going to raise enough to much more: the overall winner would receive a t-shirt and $500 and the riders decided to have done most at the Giro Toscana and the Tour de l’Ardèche and Brainwash Ladies Tour would receive $250, while the two runners-up would receive $100. Perhaps the first person to spot the emergence of this trend was Stef Wyman. Wyman is a man with a dream - he wants to see women's cycling become everything it can and should be and he wants professional female cyclists to be on equal footing, both in terms of recognition and salaries, with professional male cyclists - but he is not a dreamer: in fact, as the manager of Matrix-Prendas, the team he has built up through hard times into one of the most successful in cycling, he's about as much a realist as anyone could be. Back in September, Wyman wrote an article for Cyclismas in which he posited the idea that a fan-backed team, in which development would be driven by fans' passion for the sport rather than by sponsors' wallets, might be one way in which women's cycling could be taken forward. It was an idea that proved to have legs as strong as those on the riders in his team and he immediately began getting emails from people who were willing to get involved and provide funds; already the Fan-Backed Women's Team has grown to become more than just one team and is becoming involved with race promotion.

The general feeling is that we don't need to rely on the reluctant UCI - they're not going to help and we don't need them to do so; in the very near future, as a direct result, we might look back on 2012 as the year when women's cycling turned the corner and entered the final sprint into its glorious future. Despite the many problems still facing the sport, I'm more optimistic about the future of women's cycling than I have been at any time since I began following it, and I'm not the only one.

Daily Cycling Facts 19.11.2012

Richard Virenque
Morocco-born French rider Richard Virenque, winner of a record seven King of the Mountains classifications in the Tour de France - an achievement that would be as impressive as it first sounds had at least some of these wins not been attributable to his EPO use - and, as such, held up by some as the greatest climber cycling has ever known, was born on this day in 1969 in Casablanca.

Virenque claims to have had no interest in cycling during childhood but was bitten by the bug when his brother persuaded him to accompany him to a race. Their grandfather was a cyclist and encouraged the young Richard to join a local club, where he began winning races as soon as he had his racing licence. His skill as a climber - spectacular even without EPO - was immediately evident and, when he joined the Army to complete his National Service, he was attached to a battalion that served as a home for talented sportsmen. With his Service over, he would soon become a professional with RMO in 1991 and then, the next year, rode his first Tour as a substitute for Jean-Philippe Dojwa and says that he immediately began dreaming of becoming King of the Mountains. He would wear the yellow jersey for the first time that same year.

In 1998, as all cycling fans know, Willy Voet was apprehended by customs officials and found to be in possession of a vast haul of doping products, kick-starting the furore that had been waiting to happen for many years and which, due to the team for which Voet worked, became known as the Festina Affair. The team's directeur sportif, Bruno Roussel, claimed during the shameful "it's not my fault, they made me do it" rows that followed that when Virenque heard that Voet had been busted, his first reaction was to say: "My stuff! What am I going to do now?"

A number of Festina riders admitted to having used drugs, but Virenque continued to plead not guilty and escaped without the six-month ban that they received. He rode in the 1999 Giro d'Italia, but Tour organiser Jean-Marie Leblanc tried to prevent him from taking part in the Tour that year after his name began showing up in the investigation into Bernard Sainz, the shady Dr. Mabuse who would eventually be jailed for working as a doctor despite having no medial training. However, the rider had not yet been found guilty of anything and under the far less strict rules of the time, the UCI decreed that he would ride. He came 8th overall. That same year, he wrote a book and gave it the name Ma Vérité, "My Truth," and included within it a number of directions in which he said the Tour, UCI and other organisations should be taking in their efforts to stamp out doping. It is, quite frankly, virtually unreadable, valuable only in that now we know what we know about Virenque, it provides an insight into his rather disagreeable and dislikable character (meanwhile, some readers might find it useful to read before Voet's Breaking The Chain as, in comparison, Voet writes like a Classical poet).

In 2000, when the investigation led to trial, Virenque at first continued to protest his innocence and performed a cringe-making wounded angel routine before finally breaking down and confessing, but attempted to claim that he had been doped by others without his knowledge. Voet, meanwhile, who by this time had decided that the best course of action was to admit everything, said that the rider had not only doped through his own free will but had been involved in drugs trafficking. He was handed a nine month suspension, which was widely regarded as too lenient and resulted in many calls for an increase to a year (the maximum for a first offence, but it was eventually reduced at an independent tribunal to six and a half months. He returned to cycling once the ban was spent, but found himself persona non grata and experienced difficulty in finding a new contract - Cofidis apparently told him they might be interested, but would not take him for at least a year until the flack had died down. He was eventually taken on by Domo-Farm Frites, who had been supplied with extra financial assistance by Eddy Merckx after their sponsors refused to provide the money needed to take him on. He immediately proved himself by winning Paris-Tours; however, as Paris-Tours is a race for sprinters rather than climbers, this led many to wonder if his climbing abilities had always come from a syringe. Then.  2003, he moved on to Quick Step and won his sixth King of the Mountains. He won his seventh, a record, the next year.

The saddest thing about Virenque is the large amount of evidence, obvious from his early and post-Festina success, that he would have been a great rider even without resorting to doping - had he relied on honest hard work rather than drugs, he still would have enjoyed a remarkable career. However, his greed meant that being a great was not enough; only domination would do - the doping culture in cycling during the 1990s provided him with an easy route.

Marijn de Vries
(image: Pelfort.eu)

Marijn de Vries, born in Sleen, Netherlands on this day in 1978, was a professional journalist of note who, at the age of 30, decided to test herself by seeing how far she could get in the world of professional cycling. The answer, it turned out, was "to the top." Having revealed herself as an exceptionally strong rider right from the start, she won her first professional race for Leontien.nl in 2010 and has continued adding respectable results. In 2012 she finished Stage 4 at the Gracia Orlova in third place, then took fifth at the Chrono des Nations. Being one of the friendliest and most articulate (her English is exceptionally good even for a Dutch woman - and all Dutch people speak English better than many English people do) riders in professional cycling, Marijn can frequently be found chatting with her many fans on Twitter and the race reports complete with unique, often very funny insights into the racing world, are eagerly read by women's cycling fans around the world.

Happy birthday to Jessica Varnish, the English track cyclist and winner of a gold medal at the European Track Championships in Appeldoorn in 2011. She was born in 1990 in Bromsgrove.

Happy birthday also to Daniel Kreutzfeldt, the Danish track cyclist who was born today in 1987 in Roskilde.

James Lewis Perry, the South African rider who found fame with the defunct British team Barloworld for the 2003/4 season, then left and rejoined them for their final 2006/7 season, was born on this day in Cape Town, 1979.

Whittingham's 2003 Hour Record

Jess Varnish
(image credit: Nicola CC BY-SA 3.0) 

On this day in 2003, Sam Whittingham set a new IHPVA/WHPVA (recumbent and faired bikes) Hour Record at 83.71km in Uvalde, Texas. At the time of writing, he has broken his own record three times (and the current record - held by Francesco Russo - stands at 91.562km).

Other cyclists born on this day: Philipp Wasleben (Netherlands, 1987); Alice Maria Arzuffi (1994); Maris Bogdanovics (1991); Jarlinson Pantano Gomez (1988); Lijun Bai (1988); Eric Bennett (1986); Stuart Shaw (1977); Mosquera Miguez; Jorge Contreras Vargas (1983); Francesco Reda (1982); Nikolay Kazakbaev (1982); Gianni Vermeersch (1992); Vincenzo Ianniello (1986); Itmar Esteban Herriaz (1983); Genki Yamamoto (1991); Prajak Mahawong (1981); Svitlana Galyuk (1987); Davide Mucelli (1986); Cinthya Coto; Andrzej Kaiser); Gerda Fokkerr.

Daily Cycling Facts 18.11.2012

Jacques Anquetil, 1934-1987

Jacques Anquetil
Black arm bands on for today, folks - it's the anniversary of the death of Mr. Chrono, the great Jacques Anquetil. Anquetil was the first cyclist to achieve five overall victories in the Tour de France, including his incredible win in 1961 when he wore the maillot jaune in every stage of the race. He also won the Giro d'Italia twice, the Vuelta a Espana once, the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré twice, Liège–Bastogne–Liège and Bordeaux–Paris once, Paris-Nice five times and the Grand Prix des Nations nine times, among many other victories. Bernard Hinault, who detests being compared to the cycling giants that came before him, says that being compared to Anquetil "is an honour." He was 53 when he died of stomach cancer in 1987.

Henri Pépin

Born today in 1864, Henri Pépin was an independent with the means to ride the Tour de France simply for the experience of doing so - in the days when other independents (and sometimes, professionals) scraped by on little and lodged wherever they could find and afford, Pépin hired a pair of riders named Henri Gauban and Jean Dargassies to support him (and who, as a result, are the first riders to have ridden a Tour purely to support another rider rather than to attempt a win for themselves - the first domestiques) as he rode at his own pace, staying at the finest hotels each night and dining at the best restaurants in three Tours. In 1907, he was given the race number 59 (in a field of 112) but didn't race by any definition of the word - in those days, the winner was decided by the amount of points gathered rather than by shortest elapsed time and so Pépin was able to treat each day as nothing more than a leisurely jaunt about the countryide with no fear of being kicked out due to time limits. In fact, they finished Stage 2 a whole twelve hours and twenty minutes after winner Emile Georget, the more serious riders having set off at 5.30am while Pépin was busying himself in what is delicately referred to as "conversation with a lady."

A little surprisingly, the crowd didn't assume Pépin was nothing but a useless, spoiled playboy and he soon earned the affectionate nickname Count or Baron Henri. Their good nature, however, was deserved: one day, Pépin and his proto-domestiques came across another rider named Jean-Marie Teychenne who had fallen into a ditch and was too hungry to pull himself out and continue. Teychenne insisted that for him the race was over; he was content to be left there until the broom wagon came for him.

"Nonsense!" Pépin told him, instructing Gauban and Dargassies to pull the man out of the ditch. "We are but three but we live well and we shall finish this race. We may not win, but we shall see France!" The three were now four, with Pépin merrily taking Teychenne along for the ride and paying for him also to enjoy the highlife.

In Stage 5, Pépin decided he'd had enough of the game and paid his assistants a sum equal to the prize awarded to the race winner, then caught a train home. Dargassies - who, it appears, knew Pépin from the 1905 Tour which they had both ridden - went with him while Gauban elected to continue with the race and did rather well for a while, narrowing the enormous gap that had opened up between himself when he was with Pépin and the race leader to just 36 minutes. He was then beset by misfortune and abandoned during Stage 11. He had entered every Tour since it began, but this was his last. Dargassies also never entered again, but Pépin returned in 1914, the year that he died of what was then termed "athleticism" - most likely, a heart attack.

Bobby Julich

Bobby Julich, born on this day 1971 in the Texan town of Corpus Christi, was one of those riders who probably could have achieved Tour greatness - as is suggested by his 3rd place finish in 1998, the year he also won the Critérium International - but was instead content to ride as a domestique supporting others; perhaps due to an unwillingness to push himself as hard as he otherwise might due to a heart condition diagnosed shortly after his professional career got under way with Motorola where he rode alongside fellow  young Americans George Hincapie and Lance Armstrong.When Motorola pulled out of cycling at the end of the 1996 season, he went with Armstrong to Cofidis, remaining with them through 1998 (the year of the Festina Affair) when Armstrong was out of contention due to cancer. He never quite achieved the same results as that year, but enjoyed results that by anyone's standards were successful and won a time trial bronze medal at the 2004 Olympics. Tyler Hamilton, who won the race, confessed in 2011 to having doped at the event, making his victory void; which means that Julich should now be listed as having taken second place. At the time of writing, this change has not yet been made.

On this day in 1912, Ernest Alfred Johnson was born in Putney, London. Johnson won bronze medals for the team pursuit events at the Olympics in 1932 and 1936. He died in 1997, nine days after his 85th birthday.

On this day in 1933 Marcel Berthet of France set a new hour record at 49.99km - the current Official (bikes deemed not significantly different to that ridden by Eddy Merckx when he set his own record many years later), Best Human Effort and IHPVA/WHPVA categories had not yet been established; Berthet's record was, therefore, the official world record at the time though it's now classed as an IHPVA/WHPVA record. It was not his first - he'd also set an hour record in 1907 and two in 1913.

On this day in 1941, The Pedal Club was formed. Originally a cyclist's luncheon club (a group of people who meet weekly or monthly to have lunch and discuss shared interests, something that seems to be dying out), it grew to become a powerful organisation frequently attended by the most important and illustrious names in the sport. It still meets monthly to this day, with membership and guest lists described as a "Who's Who" of British cycling.

Other cyclists born on this day: Sajjad Zangi Abadi (Iran, 1992); Michael Kurth (Germany, 1986); Eiichi Hirai (Japan, 1990); Petra Bernhard (Austria, 1980); Annet Eendhuizen (Netherlands, 1974); Joachim Parbo (Denmark, 1974); Adam Semple (Australia, 1889); Bob Martens (Netherlands, 1988); Twin brothers Anton and Dmitri Samokhvalov (Russia, 1986); Niklas Arndt (Germany, 1991); Marielle Kerste (Netherlands, 1986)