As anyone with any interest in it whatsoever will already know, Stage 3 of the 2014 Tour de France is to start in Cambridge before heading into London for the end of the British leg of the race. Good reason for my much elation among Cantabrigian cycling fans - and, since the Tour brings with it vast numbers of money-spending tourists and is watched by an estimated 3.5 billion people around the world, good news for Cantabrigians in general, non?
Apparently not, going by some of the comments to have appeared alongside local paper Cambridge News' articles reporting the announcement. Of course, there are the usual trolls that will already be familiar to any regular readers, making the same tired comments they make every time there's a story even vaguely related to bikes and cycling, but in among them are some more interesting comments. Reading through them it becomes clear that, despite the race having existed for more than a century and despite it being arguably the biggest sporting event the world has ever seen, a surprisingly high number of people know virtually nothing about it.
Here's a selection, with answers and explanations by me.
Better get the roads fixed up first before Cambridge faces more law suits for injuries sustained from....
3.5 billion people around the world watch the Tour. Many thousands will travel from other parts of Britain and overseas to see the stage. Cambridge Council - just like French councils, when they hear the Tour is to pay them a visit - won't want to look like it can't look after the roads it's supposed to maintain. So they'll fix 'em, just like the French councils do. Better roads; good for drivers and cyclists alike.
Great, a pile of cyclists and roads closed disrupting everyones day. Just what we need.
The Tour de France was first held in 1903 and has been held every year since with the exception of 1915-1918 and 1940-1946. 2014 will, therefore, be the 101st edition of the race. The people who organise it and make it happen have become extremely good at making sure it goes ahead with the absolute minimum of disruption, attained by a system of rolling road blocks (in which police clear a section of road that moves with the peloton and support vehicles. As cycling fans are aware, watching a race involves several hours of waiting around followed by a few seconds of excitement - since the peloton is generally moving at around 30-35kph, it's gone as soon as it arrives. With the exception of the location of the Tour Village, road blocks will last very little time. The Village, the travelling infrastructure of the Tour, requires some time to be packed up onto trucks; however, since organisers need to get it to London in time for the end of the stage and then load it onto ferries before heading back to France, it too will cause very little disruption.
Well they won't have to worry about potholes in the roads, as most will be riding on the pavement.
Why would they ride on the pavement? Secondly, how would they when all those thousands of fans are crowding onto the pavement to see the race go by?
Let's see them go over the cobbles outside King's. (Note: there is a short and not very rough section of cobbles outside King's College.)
Call those cobbles? Google "Paris-Roubaix" and see the sort of road surfaces the riders face in that race - there's a very good reason it's sometimes called A Sunday In Hell. Many of the riders on the Tour will have ridden Paris-Roubaix or the same cobbled roads during one of the years when the Tour used them. If they can cope with the notorious cobbles of the Trouée d'Arenberg, where careers are broken as regularly as bones, they're really not going to be flustered by the cobbles at King's.
So, a great benefit to Cambridge, eh! As I don't own a shop or an hotel,can I assume all this additional income will be distributed by reducing my Council Tax in 2014?
Good publicity for Cambridge doesn't pay my bill at the supermarket every week. It's only good for the people who own Cambridge, not us poor "plebs".
tell me how this pile of garbage is going make me better off.Are they going to pay my council tax for using our roads? Are they going to pay my fuel bill for my 4x4 sitting in traffic. Are they going to pay medical bills when they get ploughed over by frustrated drivers
Now. I'm no economist. However, even I can understand that when a city or region gets a massive injection of cash, it benefits all of its inhabitants. The two authors of these three comments are quite right that their council tax bills won't be reduced, but when Mr. and Mrs. Hotel Owner find they've got a few extra thousand quid in their bank account, they'll start spending more - in local shops, restaurants and so on. That way, the money that the cycling fans bring with them and spend here eventually makes its way down to all of us, even us poor plebs. Secondly, riders' medical bills are paid for by their insurance - cycling is a very, very dangerous sport, so much so that professional riders are estimated to have a 1 in 4 chance of spending time in hospital with a serious injury each year. If injured, they're whisked off to see private specialists rather than to a bed in the nearest hospital. Also, they're not going to be ploughed over by frustrated drivers - we're talking about a major international event, as big as the Olympics, with phalanxes of police officers, police cars and the Tour's own security making sure the race and cars are kept separate.
OMG thats all we need a load of illegal immigrants riding through our streets causing havoc. Cant we just sink all ships coming from france and go on strike at airports on the days they arrive .hahha give them dose of own medicine. Havent we got enough problems without importing more. who pays for there medical if get injured? us mugs again
Perhaps it might be wise to learn what the term "illegal immigrant" means before using it? As for medical bills, see above.
Great! Another bunch of drug users in the city, just what we need!!
A load of mad cyclists piling through the city out of their heads on drugs. . .well that will be novel. See it every day!
This should give the drug dealers of Cambridge a welcome boost in these dificult times. Good old Lance
The one thing that people who don't follow professional cycling all know about the sport is that all the riders are on drugs. Erm, the problem is that all the evidence suggests that in actual fact, very few of the riders are on drugs. Granted, not very long ago doping was an epidemic in cycling; two scandals within a decade of one another - the Festina Affair and Operacion Puerto - exposed the dark side of the sport and came very, very close to finishing off the Tour and professional cycling forever. So, cycling responded. The UCI, cycling's international governing body, introduced new rules designed to prevent cheating and catch dopers; now, professional cyclists face far more stringent and regular testing than any other athletes. According to Jonathan Vaughters, manager of the professional Garmin-Sharp team, the 400 riders that make up the 20 ProTour teams (teams that receive an automatic invitation to compete in the Tour) are subjected to 35,000 tests each year - that's around 88 tests per rider, or one test every four days. Perhaps that's why in 2012 only four riders (Ivailo Gabrovski, Frank Schleck, Steve Hounouard, Denis Galimzyanov) tested positive - the tests, and the harsh punishments for those who fail them, have left cycling as one of the cleanest sports around.
Secondly, street drug dealers tend to sell stuff like cannabis, heroin, crack, cocaine, amphetamines and so on. All of those have been used as doping agents in the past, but for years dopers have tended to favour substances such as erythropoietin and red cell-rich blood (either their own or someone else's) - in other words, not things commonly sold ten quid per bag on street corners.
cyclopunkcam: What I know about doping in cycling, I know from Tim Moore's book French Revolutions. From talking to various experts, he draws the conclusion that there are two kinds of winner in the Tour de France: those who take detectable drugs and those who take undetectable ones. Certainly, the majority of winners since 1980 have been caught, which is hardly encouraging!
That's a bloody good book and a superb introduction to the Tour and its history. It's very funny, too. However, two things must be remembered: Tim Moore is a travel writer, not a cycling historian, as he'd probably be the first to admit. Also, French Revolutions was published in 2001, more than a decade ago and before Operacion Puerto. A very great deal has changed - new laws have been put into place and new testing techniques have been developed. have the majority of winner since 1980 been caught out?
Let's see: Joop Zoetemelk won in 1980 and failed enough tests in his career to assume he may have had a little help that year, even though the tests he underwent revealed nothing. Bernard Hinault won in 1981, 1982 and again in 1986 (and in 1978 and 1979, too) - he never tested positive and is a very vocal opponent of doping. Laurent Fignon won in 1983 and 1984 and also never tested positive, though he later admitted to using amphetamines and steroids. If there was ever a rider who didn't dope, it's Greg LeMond, winner in 1986, 1989 and 1990 - LeMond's is probably the loudest of those voices to speak up against doping and he has repeatedly cast aspersions against riders he believes to be dopers: something he wouldn't do if he had anything to hide. In 1987 Stephen Roche became the only Irishman to have won the Tour. No physical proof that Roche doped has ever been found, though an Italian court found convincing evidence to suggest he did. Pedro Delgado won in 1988, despite having tested positive for a drug called Probencid, which is used to treat gout but also disguises the presence of steroids - however, at that time, Probnecid was not on the list of banned substances; though he is therefore officially not a cheat, as he was not suffering from gout there seems no reason not to consider him guilty of doping. Miguel Indurain won five times in a row from 1991 to 1995 - Indurain tested positive for bronchodilator Salbutamol, but had ingested the drug via his asthma medication and cannot be considered a doper. In 1996, Bjarne Riis won; in 2007 he admitted he had doped. In 1997 Jan Ullrich won - there is no doubt that he too was a doper. Marco Pantani, Il Pirata, won in 1998 - Pantani died of a cocaine overdose a few years later, but with the exception of one occasion with the now discredited 50% haematocrit test (which took a count of red blood cells in an attempt to reveal not proof but evidence of a possibility that a rider had used blood doping or EPO), he was never caught using drugs during a race. A certain Texan won seven Tours in a row from 1999 to 2006; following his confession there us no doubt that he doped and he has been stripped of his victories as a result. In 2007, Oscar Pereiro won; like Indurain, Pereiro tested positive for Salbutamol - and provided proof that, as an asthmatic, he had been prescribed the drug by a doctor and was not a doper. Carlos Saste, winner in 2008, never tested positive nor came under suspicion in all of his fourteen years as a professional rider. Alberto Contador won in 2007, 2009 and 2010, but later tested positive for a bronchodilator called Clenbuterol. The amount found in his body was too small to have had any effect and, although he was declared guilty due to being unable to prove that he'd ingested the drug in contaminated beef, the Court for Arbitration in Sport believed that he had probably ingested it in a contaminated food supplement rather than deliberately. He cannot, therefore, be considered a doper; however, he was stripped of his 2010 victory which was then awarded to Andy Schleck, who has never failed a test. Cadel Evans, another vocal opponent of doping, won in 2011 and has never failed a test, nor has 2012 winner Bradley Wiggins.
So, of the 17 riders to have won the Tour de France since 1980, seven were caught out as dopers. Three - Indurain, Pantani and Contador - are questionable; seven appear above beyond suspicion - it is not true that the majority of Tour winners since 1980 are guilty of doping. It's also notable that, if we consider Contador not guilty of intentional doping (as the CAS did, following a very lengthy investigation), then no doper has won the Tour since Armstrong's final victory in 2006. Things are, apparently, getting better.
Will they have to have lights on their bikes?
Unlikely. The Tour takes place in daylight hours, on closed roads.
Tour de France.....???? The clue is in the name..... Sod off back to France...
What is the Tour of FRANCE doing on British roads? Have they run out of roads or something. Surely we should be having the Tour of BRITAIN.
I wouldn't want to label the author of the first comment as a racist because I don't know him or her and, well, it's not a very nice thing to call someone. All the same, if he wants Britain to get rid of all foreign inventions, he'd better stop posting comments on the Internet - it was invented in the USA. He'd better stop using his computer too, because bits and pieces of it will have been made in countries other than this one across the world. If it's only French things he dislikes, he'd better never take or look at a photograph ever again, stop going to the cinema, uninstall DivX from his computer, avoid using anything made of latex, never use a taxi - or a normal car, since the French invented the internal combustion engine, take the pneumatic tyres off his steam-powered external combustion engine car, remove any laminated glass and ball bearings from the car too, never wear jeans or anything else made of denim, rely on his brain for maths rather use a calculator (he can use a pencil to work out the sums, but only until it goes blunt - they invented the pencil sharpener), take his chances with rabies and tuberculosis since he can't have the vaccinations, not take any antibiotics, refuse any blood and bone marrow transfusions he might need in the future - oh, and ask his dentist to only use medieval methods, since the French developed modern dentistry.
So what is the Tour doing in British roads? Well, it's recognising the fact that Bradley Wiggins became the first ever British winner last year. It's also acknowledging British cycling fans - and since we pay just as much "road tax" as drivers do (the cost of building and maintaining roads being met by council tax, rather than Vehicle Excise Duty) and, like every other tax payer in the country, stump up more cash to cover the extra £9 billion needed to build and maintain roads that isn't raised from taxes on fuel and new car sales, why shouldn't we be allowed to have an opportunity to see our sport's greatest race take place over here?
In fact, it's not at all unusual for the Tour to visit foreign lands - the first time it did so was in 1906, when it dipped into German-controlled Alsace-Lorraine. Foreign visits have become a tradition; the 2013 race will be the first held entirely in France for ten years and 2014 will be the third time the Tour has been to Britain. And, as all cycling fans are aware, there's already a Tour of Britain. It's been around in one form or another since 1945, when it was called the Victory Marathon.
Yorkshire councils are spending 6.5 MILLION of council tax payers money to host this event. No wonder the tax continues to rise while councillors waste taxpayers money on fripperies like this. Anyone any idea whether Cambridgeshire taxpayers are going to foot some of this bill?
If ever there was proof that it's a good idea to finish reading a news report before getting into an irate rage, this is it. Had the author have taken the time to read a little more, he'd have been aware that although Yorkshire Council are paying £6.5 million to host their two stages, they stand to make £100 million. That's a profit of £93.5 million - you don't need an economics degree to know that makes sound financial sense. Cambridge is hosting the start of one stage and the race will spend only a short time on Cambridgeshire roads before moving into Essex and then into London, meaning that the costs of policing etc. will be much lower - while the profits remain high.
Saturday 19 January 2013
Daily Cycling Facts 19.01.2013
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| On this day in 1903, L'Auto announced its intention to run a bike race later in the year. Six months later, the greatest sporting event the world has ever seen began at the Cafe au Reveil Matin, Paris. |
On this day in 1903, the French newspaper L'Auto announced to the public that it was planning to organise what it called "the greatest cycling trial in the entire world" later that same year. The race would extend pass through Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Nantes before returning to Paris and would begin on the 31st of May.
The entry fee for the event was 20 francs - a reasonably large sum of money at the time, which many riders were unable to afford and with one week to go only 15 had entered. L'Auto's editor Henri Desgrange was forced to postpone the start to the 1st of July (and later to the 19th) in the hope of attracting a few more, but in the end had to introduce a 5 francs per day expenses payment for the leading 50 riders and increase the prize fund to the fabulous sum of 20,000 francs.
That proved considerably more tempting: five francs a day wouldn't allow the recipients to live like kings, but it was more than many of them earned from their jobs, so sixty men began the race. Desgrange remained unconvinced that the race, which had been thought up by him and some of his employees when L'Auto's owners started pressing him for ways to improve the newspaper's circulation, would be a success and stayed away so that he couldn't be blamed if it descended into chaos. However, it proved successful beyond their wildest dreams: 20,000 fans were there to see Maurice Garin as he crossed the finish line after 19 days and 2,428km, and Desgrange was more than happy to be associated with it in future (except a few years later when the race first passed through the Pyrenees - he stayed away again because he was worried the mountains would prove unridable and the riders would be attacked by bandits or eaten by bears). According to many histories it was Géo Lefèvre who came up with the idea for holding the race, but it was Desgrange who gave it the name by which we still know it: the Tour de France.
Carla Swart, who was born on the 26th of November in 1987, was killed on this day in 2011 while on a training ride in South Africa. Swart was South African by birth but had been raised in the USA - an investigation into her death discovered that she had looked over her left shoulder before turning as she would have done in the USA, rather than over her right shoulder as cyclists accustomed to traffic in nations where vehicles drive on the left would do, and as a result failed to see a truck. Lees-McRae College in North Carolina, where she studied, runs a scholarship named in her honour.
Francesco Moser's Hour Record
On this day in 1984, Francesco Moser set a new Hour Record at 50.808km. Four days later, he broke it with 51.151km. Both of these are classified as "Best Human Effort" records due to the radical nature of Moser's bike which was fitted with disc wheels and various other goodies, resulting in the UCI's decision to issue a decree that the official record had to be set on a bike similar to that used by Eddy Merckx when he set the 1972 record that Moser was trying to break (the Human Effort category was then introduced so as not to stifle innovation, and predictably has become far more interesting than the main UCI record).
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| Francesco Moser (image credit: Roadworks) |
On the 15th of January in 1994 Moser - then aged 43 - set a new Veteran Hour Record at 51.840km, again in Mexico City and aboard a bike inspired by the one featuring washing machine parts used by Graeme Obree to set two more Human Effort Hour Records in 1993 and 1994. Note that this distance is greater than the one he set ten years earlier when he was 33.
Firmin Lambot
Firmin Lambot, Belgian winner of two Tours de France (1919 and 1922) died on this day in 1964. Born in the 14th of March 1886 in Florennes, Lambot became a saddler and rode 50km each day to work when he was 17, which gave him the fitness he required to win his first race - for which he was awarded the princely sun of five francs. He invested it wisely, putting it towards the purchase of his first proper racing bike, then began entering more races; by 1908 he had turned professional and won the Tours of Belgium and Flanders, then entered the Tour for the first time in 1911 and came 11th overall. He was 18th the next year, 4th in 1913 and 8th in 1914, the final Tour before the First World War.
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| Firmin Lambot, the man who won two Tours through luck. |
At the Tour, Lambot looked set for second place after trailing behind Eugène Christophe for most of the race. However, the 1919 race featured one of Christophe's several, famous, broken forks, which allowed the Belgian to take the lead. Spectators did not take kindly to the Tour being won as a result of another rider's misfortune (especially when the lucky rider was a Belgian and the unlucky one a Frenchman) and so organisers decided to award him the same prize money as Lambot. Then, after the race, a collection was started to gather money that would be given to Christophe in consolation. In the end, the fund reached 13,310 francs - many times more than Lambot made from winning the race, though he may have taken some comfort from being subsequently offered a new contract with Peugeot with a salary of 300 francs a month.
He finished 3rd in 1920 behind Philippe Thys and Hector Heusghem (both Belgians, as were the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th riders which must have really irked the French fans), the 9th in 1921 before winning for a second time in 1922. This victory, like the first, was controversial and for the same reason: this time, Hector Heusghem had broken his bike and, as the rules of the day stated, was given a one hour penalty for swapping it for a new machine which allowed Lambot to take over the race leadership. Without the penalty, Heusghem would have beaten him by as much as sixteen minutes and 2nd place Jean Alvoine by three. Nevertheless, Lambot had become the first man to win a Tour without winning any of its stages and, at 36, the oldest man to ever win a Tour.
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| Hans Daams |
Álvaro Mejía Castrillón was born on this day 1967 in Santa Rosa de Cabal, Columbia. Before retiring after the 1997 season, he enjoyed a respectable career in which he won numerous races in South America, Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, the Route du Sud, a stage at the Critérium du Dauphiné, the Young Rider Classification at the 1991 Tour de France and came 4th overall in the 1993 Tour.
Other cyclists born on this day: Silvio Martinello (Italy, 1963); Stanislav Moskvin (USSR, 1939); José Antonio Escuredo (Spain, 1970); Hakim Mazou (Congo, 1970); Heinz Hasselberg (Germany, 1914, died 1989); Wang Shusen (China, 1967); Orfeo Pizzoferrato (Italy, 1951); Matti Herronen (Finland, 1933).
Friday 18 January 2013
Daily Cycling Facts 18.01.2013
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| Captain Gérard's Folding Bicycle |
On this day in 1896, an English patent was issued for "Captain Gérard's Folding Bicycle," a machine that had been patented in France two years previously. According to the English patent details, the machine was jointly invented by Captain Gérard and Charles Morel - this was in fact not the case. Gérard, then a French Army lieutenant, had come up with the idea that a folding bike might prove a useful method of transport for troops and had patented a design for one in 1893, but it seems he knew little about bikes and those to whom he showed his design advised him that it wouldn't work. He set about looking for someone who could assist in improving the design and eventually came across Morel who, rather than trying to modify Gérard's bike, suggested that they go into business selling his own design; evidently believing that the public would want to buy a machine tough enough for the military. The bikes were first sold in France in the summer of 1895 and proved enormously popular with the company opening a shop in Paris that autumn - in time, the army link would become less tenuous when 25 of them were put to military use. Gérard would later be promoted to captain and put in charge of a cycling regiment, and the bike was subsequently also sold to the Russian and Romanian armies. In time, the two men argued and shut down their company, selling manufacturing rights to Peugeot, Michelin and the French Army.
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| The Bull from Grimstad, Thor Hushovd (image credit: Paul Hermans CC BY-SA 3.0 |
2010 National and World Champion Thor Hushovd, the first Norwegian leader of the Tour de France, was born in Grimstad on this day in 1978. Highlights of his career have been winning the Under-23 Paris-Roubaix (1998), the Tour de Normadie (2001), the Tour of Sweden (2001), two earlier spells as National Champion (2004 and 2005) as well as stages at the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia, Critérium du Dauphiné and Vuelta a Espana, two Points Classification wins at the Tour and two podium finishes at Paris-Roubaix.
At 1.83m tall and 83kg, Hushovd - frequently know as "Big" Thor Hushovd as well as his other nickname The God of Thunder and among the most popular riders with fans of all nationalities - is one of the physically largest and strongest riders in the peloton and as a result is outclassed by the lighter riders in the mountains. However, he has become adept at using his strength and weight to full effect when descending, as was seen in Stage 13 of the 2011 Tour when he hit speeds as high as 112kph (68mph); days later he worked with Edvald Boasson Hagen and Ryder Hesjedal whilst descending the Col de Manse - a mountain deemed too dangerous for inclusion in the Tour by General Classification favourite Andy Schleck (who eventually lost out to Cadel Evans). Having reached the flat run-in to the finish, Hushovd beat Boasson Hagen in a final sprint and won the stage.
Tall and strong he may be, but in 2010 Hushovd was injured by a little girl; snapping his collar bone in a crash after colliding with her. He was trying to go to her aid when he realised he was injured - fortunately, she was not. He suffered more misfortune in 2012 when a mystery illness forced him out of the Giro d'Italia a month after he'd recorded some decent stage finishes at Paris-Nice and placed 14th at Paris-Roubaix: doctors discovered that a virus had caused muscle inflammation which also kept him away from the Tour and the Olympics.
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| Jasińska led by Sylwia Kapusta, World Championships 2009 |
Happy birthday to retired Peter van Petegem, who began his professional career with PDM in 1992 and retired after a year with Quick Step-Innergetic in 2007. In addition to winning bronze at the 2003 World Championships, Petegem was chiefly known as a Classics specialist and is one of only ten riders to have won the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix in a single season.
Christophe Kern, winner of the 2002 Under-23 Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the 2011 French Time Trial Championship and stages at the Tour de l'Avenir and Critérium du Dauphiné was born on this day in 1981 in Wissembourg, Bas-Rhin, Alsace. In 2012, his second year with Europcar, he was 83rd overall in the Tour de France; his best stage result was 16th on Stage 17
Luzia Zberg was born on this day in 1970 in Altborg, Uri, Switzerland. Now retired, she was National Road Race Champion from 1991-1994, National Individual Time Trial Champion in 1994 and 1995 and represented her country in the 1992 Olympics.
Belgian sprinter, one-time winner of Paris-Tours and podium finisher in a few Vuelta a Espana Wim Arras was born on this day in 1964. Arras' career appeared to be approaching a peak as he entered his late 20s, but was then cut short when he was injured in a motorcycle accident in 1990.
Walter Riccomi was born on this day in Montecarlo, Italy, in 1951. Riccomi finished the Giro d'Italia in 7th place overall once and 9th place overall twice as well as a 5th place overall at the Tour de France, yet never won a single stage. He seems to have been far more suited to one-day races, as his wins at Aix-en-Provence, the GP Città di Camaiore and generally better results in the earlier stages of multi-day events would seem to suggest.
Gerrit Voorting was born on this day in 1923 in Velsen, Noord-Holland, Netherlands. In addition to winning silver at the 1948 Olympics in London, Voorting won Stage 4 in the 1953 Tour de France, led the race for a day in 1956, then won Stage 2 and led for three days in 1958. He is the brother of Adrie, who represented the Netherlands in the 1952 Olympics.
Ken Farnum, born on this day in 1931, was the first Barbadian to ever compete in the Olympics (1952, Helsinki). Cyclists from Barbados had dominated the Carribean grass track racing for scene for many years by that point, but the country had no Olympic committee. As a result, he rode for Jamaica in the Sprint and 1km Time Trial, but won medals in neither.
Other cyclists born on this day: Richard Roett (Barbados, 1943); Eva Loweová-Orvošová (Slovakia, 1971); Vladimir Miholjević (Croatia, 1974); Teodor Černý (Czechoslovakia, 1957); Oksana Saprykina (Ukraine, 1979); Luvsangiin Erkhemjamts (Mongolia, 1943); Günther Ziegler (Germany, 1933); Ute Enzenauer (Germany, 1965); Valery Yardy (USSR, 1948, died 1994).
Thursday 17 January 2013
Tour de France 2014 will come to Cambridge!
Anglia TV and the Cambridge News put the word out that they'd appreciate help from any local cyclists willing to appear in film footage and photos for their reports and, despite the freezing temperatures (hence no lycra shorts on show) around thirty showed up, bringing a selection of racing, town and Dutch-style cargo bikes - including one laden with a selection of croissants, cakes and Perrier.
We then spent an hour being interviewed (well, not me - definitely a face for radio) and standing around chatting about cycling, bikes and Cambridge. Great fun, and a chance meeting with a couple of cyclists I'd previously only known online. Might not be such a bad idea to do something similar again, a sort of let's-not-get-in-anyone's-way, posh Cambridge version of Critical Mass (with cakes). Anyone else be up for that?
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| Monsieur Kipling's French Fancies were on offer, along with croissants |
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| Local couriers and advocates of all things cycling OutSpoken brought along their biggest cargo bike |
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| The jury's still out in the helmets debate, but when your head is made of fake fur and fluffy stuffing it's best to add a hard layer |
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| Stage 3 map |
Daily Cycling Facts 17.01.2012
On this day in 2011, GreenEDGE (later Orica-GreenEDGE, following recruitment of a new sponsor) launched with the express aim of entering the first Australian Tour de France team in the 108-year history of the race The team's owners and managers planned to recruit 75% of its riders from Australia and - welcome news in these times - would also have a women's team, which enjoyed a far more successful first season than the men with numerous victories.
Luca Paolini
Italian rider Luca Paolini was born in Milan on this day in 1977. His first big victory came in 1998 when he won the Under-23 Giro Del Canavese - Trofeo Sportivi Valperghesi; following several good results in 1999 he went on to win stages at the Vuelta a la Argentina, Tour de Normandie and the Tour de l'Avenir.
More good results came in the subsequent years, then in 2003 he was third at Milan-San Remo and the Brabantse Pijl before finishing top ten on six stages (best: fourth, Stages 16 and 20) at his first Tour de France. In 2004 he won the Brabantse Pijl and was third at the World Road Race Championships; in 2005 he won three stages at the Tour of Britain and in 2006 was top ten on seven stages (best: fifth, Stages 1 and 20) at the Tour. In September that year, Paolini's home was raided by police as part of Operazione Athena but no evidence that the rider was using doping products was found and he did not undergo any prosecution nor was he sacked by his then team, Liquigas.
In 2007 he was third at the Ronde van Vlaanderen; like many sprinters, Paolini became highly successful in the Classics and semi-classics, taking fourth place at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, sixth at the Dwars door Vlaanderen and tenth at Milan-San Remo and Gent-Wevelgem in 2010, fifth at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in 2011 and 12th at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Milan-San Remo, seventh in the Ronde van Vlaanderen and eleventh at Paris-Roubaix along with two top ten stage finishes at the Tour and ninth in the Road Race at the Olympics in 2012. Also in common with many sprinters, Paolini does not perform well in mountainous races and as a result has not been a contender for General Classification glory at the Grand Tours despite his numerous stage wins; his best overall result was 69th place at his first Tour de France.
Miguel Martinez, a French cross-country mountain biker and winner of a gold medal for the event at the 2000 Olympics, was born in this day in 1976.
Christophe Riblon, winner of the Stage 14 Ax-3 Domaines (mountain finish) in the 2010 Tour de France, was born today in 1981. Riblon has one of the busiest calendars in the professional peloton, competing in a huge number of races each season; despite having been a professional rider for seven years at the time of writing, he is a veteran of nine Grand Tours - during that time, he has one a single stage: the tough Stage 14 ending at Ax-3 Domaines in the 2010 Tour de France. His best overall result was 28th in the same race.
David Stevenson was born in Clough, Ireland, on this day in 1882 and represented Scotland at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm and where he was part of the squad that finished the Team Time Trial event in fourth place. After the Games, he seems to have vanished from history - the rest of his life, including the date of his death, is unknown. Rudolf Kramer, born on the same day in Vienna, was part of the Austrian team that finished in 7th place in the same event that year. Like Stevenson, his later history and date of birth are unknown.
Other cyclists born on this day: Michael Vaarten (Belgium, 1957); Robert Schneider (USA, 1944); Max Leiva (Guatemala, 1966); Lutz Heßlich (East Germany, 1959); Robert Burns (Australia, 1968); Grégory Rast (Switzerland, 1980); Michael Weiss (Austria, 1981); Mohamed Touati (Tunisia, 1939); Don Myrah (USA, 1966); David Brinton (USA, 1967); Allegro Grandi (Italy, 1907, died 1973); Claude Carlin (France, 1961).
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| Luca Paolini (image credit: Fanny Schertzer CC BY-SA 3.0) |
Italian rider Luca Paolini was born in Milan on this day in 1977. His first big victory came in 1998 when he won the Under-23 Giro Del Canavese - Trofeo Sportivi Valperghesi; following several good results in 1999 he went on to win stages at the Vuelta a la Argentina, Tour de Normandie and the Tour de l'Avenir.
More good results came in the subsequent years, then in 2003 he was third at Milan-San Remo and the Brabantse Pijl before finishing top ten on six stages (best: fourth, Stages 16 and 20) at his first Tour de France. In 2004 he won the Brabantse Pijl and was third at the World Road Race Championships; in 2005 he won three stages at the Tour of Britain and in 2006 was top ten on seven stages (best: fifth, Stages 1 and 20) at the Tour. In September that year, Paolini's home was raided by police as part of Operazione Athena but no evidence that the rider was using doping products was found and he did not undergo any prosecution nor was he sacked by his then team, Liquigas.
In 2007 he was third at the Ronde van Vlaanderen; like many sprinters, Paolini became highly successful in the Classics and semi-classics, taking fourth place at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, sixth at the Dwars door Vlaanderen and tenth at Milan-San Remo and Gent-Wevelgem in 2010, fifth at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in 2011 and 12th at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Milan-San Remo, seventh in the Ronde van Vlaanderen and eleventh at Paris-Roubaix along with two top ten stage finishes at the Tour and ninth in the Road Race at the Olympics in 2012. Also in common with many sprinters, Paolini does not perform well in mountainous races and as a result has not been a contender for General Classification glory at the Grand Tours despite his numerous stage wins; his best overall result was 69th place at his first Tour de France.
Miguel Martinez, a French cross-country mountain biker and winner of a gold medal for the event at the 2000 Olympics, was born in this day in 1976.
Christophe Riblon, winner of the Stage 14 Ax-3 Domaines (mountain finish) in the 2010 Tour de France, was born today in 1981. Riblon has one of the busiest calendars in the professional peloton, competing in a huge number of races each season; despite having been a professional rider for seven years at the time of writing, he is a veteran of nine Grand Tours - during that time, he has one a single stage: the tough Stage 14 ending at Ax-3 Domaines in the 2010 Tour de France. His best overall result was 28th in the same race.
David Stevenson was born in Clough, Ireland, on this day in 1882 and represented Scotland at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm and where he was part of the squad that finished the Team Time Trial event in fourth place. After the Games, he seems to have vanished from history - the rest of his life, including the date of his death, is unknown. Rudolf Kramer, born on the same day in Vienna, was part of the Austrian team that finished in 7th place in the same event that year. Like Stevenson, his later history and date of birth are unknown.
Other cyclists born on this day: Michael Vaarten (Belgium, 1957); Robert Schneider (USA, 1944); Max Leiva (Guatemala, 1966); Lutz Heßlich (East Germany, 1959); Robert Burns (Australia, 1968); Grégory Rast (Switzerland, 1980); Michael Weiss (Austria, 1981); Mohamed Touati (Tunisia, 1939); Don Myrah (USA, 1966); David Brinton (USA, 1967); Allegro Grandi (Italy, 1907, died 1973); Claude Carlin (France, 1961).
Wednesday 16 January 2013
Daily Cycling Facts 16.01.2013
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| Roger Lapébie, 1911-1996 |
In Tour de France director Henri Desgrange's view, gears comprised the "perfect union of man and machine against the forces of nature" ideal towards which he had always striven to steer the event. Yet even he realised that his riders would need some means of altering ratios if they were going to ride up the mountains and still maintain a reasonable pace on the flat roads, so bikes were permitted to be fitted with a cog on either side of the back wheel, one large and one small, so that the gear could be changed by flipping the wheel over and repositioning it in the drop outs to maintain chain tension. Other systems were in existence - hub gears had been around for some time, there was even one in which pedaling forwards gave a high gear and pedaling backwards a low gear and another which allowed the rider - but had been judged either too heavy or too complex for use in such a demanding event.
Derailleur gears had been in existence in one form or another for some forty years by the time that Desgrange stepped down after a prostate operation left him in agony. They had their champions, too - who had apparently convinced Victor Goddet that such devices were the way forward, because one of the first things he did when he took over the Tour's directorship was change the rules to permit them and it was Roger Lapébie, born in Pessac on this day in 1911, who became the first rider to try them out. Other riders were more reluctant, considering them all very well for recreational cyclists and women but completely unnecessary for iron-hard athletes such as themselves.
Lapébie was perhaps not the most honest, honourable rider in the history of sport - judges warned him time and time again about his habit of being given a handy push through tough sections by fans. He claimed that he asked them to resist, but years later admitted that he'd secretly ask them to keep doing it (and to be fair to him, there were riders who would resort to far dirtier tricks, such as the person unknown - believed by Lapébie and others to have been a Belgian rider - who had booby-trapped his bike by sawing partway through the handlebars so they snapped, forcing him to swap to another pair without a bottlecage so that he got penalised every time he accepted a bottle held out to him from the roadside.
However, he won by more than seven minutes and, even though he might not have done had Sylvère Maes not have left the race and taken his team with him in protest, the derailleur was largely credited for the victory. Next year, every bike on the start line was fitted with one.
Philippe Thys
Thys also won the inaugural Belgian Cyclo Cross Championship in 1910, then the Circuit Français Peugeot and stage races from Paris to Turin and Paris to Toulouse in 1911 before turning professional in order to enter the Tour - he came 6th overall after his first attempt, then won it in 1913, 1914 and 1920. His 1913 victory came after one of the most remarkable events in Tour history: after his fork broke, he was forced to find a bike shop and have it repaired (this being in the days before mechanical assistance and technical back-up) and for which judges penalised him ten minutes.
However, race leader Eugène Christophe's fork also broke later on, thus beginning the famous incident which saw him finding a forge and repairing the fork himself so as to avoid penalty - but judges later discovered that whilst carrying out the repair, he had allowed a young lad named Corni to pump the bellows for him, which they deemed as being the recipient of outside help and penalised him ten minutes too (it was later reduced to three). This allowed Thys to claw his way back and win the stage. He would later lose his lead, but then Christophe's fork broke for a second time and the Belgian secured his lead, despite being knocked unconscious in a crash on the way to Dunkirk. Gustave Garrigou was 8'37" behind him, whereas 3rd place Marcel Buysse crossed the line with a 3h30'55" disadvantage after his handlebars snapped.
Koldo Gil, a Spanish rider who won a stage at the 2005 Giro'd'Italia, was born on this day in 1978. He won two stages in the 2006 Tour de Suisse and led the General Classification until Jan Ullrich won the final stage time trial, finishing the race in second place as a result. After a disappinting season in 2008 he was unable to secure a contract for 2009 and announced his retirement.
1976 Amateur Road Race and 1983 Professional Road Race Champion of Switzerland Serge Demierre was born today in 1956 in Burlata, Spain. 1983 was his best year - in addition to his National title, he won one stage and the Combativity award at the Tour de France. He retired in 1991 and now runs a bike shop near Geneva airport in Vernier.
Other cyclists born on this day: Steven De Neef (Belgium, 1971); Carlos Jaramillo (Columbia, 1961); Raúl Marcelo Vázquez (Cuba, 1948); Mauricio Bolaños (El Salvador, 1939); Rudi van Houts (Netherlands, 1984); Gerald Koel (Netherlands, 1941); Roger Ludwig (Luxembourg, 1933); Radosław Romanik (Poland, 1967).
Tuesday 15 January 2013
Daily Cycling Facts 15.01.2013
Lucien PothierLucien Pothier, born on this day in 1883 in Cuy, was a French professional cyclist who came second in 1903 Tour de France, the first ever held, behind Maurice Garin. Garin beat him into second place again 1904 in a Tour that saw so much cheating that organiser Henri Desgrange threatened that it would be the last and seems to have genuinely considered never holding it again until a combination of persuasion from others and the enormous income it generated convinced him otherwise. The four top finishers were all disqualified - Garin was banned by the French cycling federation for two years as a result, Pothier for life.
However, he managed to find a way around the ruling and he raced again in 1907. By that time, a new generation of cyclists who trained especially for the Tour had already taken over and he was unable to get anywhere near riders of that calibre, greats such as Louison Petit-Breton, Gustave Garrigou and François Faber, and he abandoned the race. He rode again in 1910, 1911 and then a decade later in 1921 when he was 38 years old, coming 28th, 22nd and 32nd.
Pothier died on the 29th of April 1957, aged 74.
Christiane Soeder
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| Christiane Soeder |
Born in Remscheid, West Germany on this day in 1975, Christiane Soeder is a retired Austrian cyclist who won the National Road Race and Individual Time Trial Championships six times each. The first time for both was in 2004; the year before, prior to her relocation to Austria, she hadtaken second place in the German Road Race and ITT Championships, before that she had been a successful duathlete with three consecutive National Championship victories. In 2005 she won the prologue at the Tour de l'Aude and Stage 2 at the Tour de France Feminin in addition to her second Austrian National ITT title, then in 2006 she won both titles again in addition to Stage 1 at the Geelong Tour and the prologue at the Thüringen-Rundfahrt; these victories would be followed in 2007 with gold medals at the National ITT and Criterium Championships and victory in the prologue at the Tour de l'Aude and Stage 5 at the Thüringen-Rundfahrt.
In 2008, Soeder successfully defended her National Criterium title before winning the overall General Classification at the Tour de France Feminin and finishing the Road Race and ITT at the Olympic Games in fourth and seventh place respectively as well as winning silver in the World ITT Championship behind Amber Neben. In 2009 she won the GP Suisse and came second overall at the Tour de France Feminin before winning back the National Road Race and ITT titles; at the end of the 2009 she announced her retirment, but she returned to competition in 2010 to become National Hill Climb Champion, then claimed the National ITT Championship for the sixth time in 2012.
Soeder is a qualified physician; she is also, alongside her sister Stefanie Mollnhauer, co-author of a respected book on women's cycling, Frauenradsport: Der perfekte Ratgeber für Einsteigerinnen und Fortgeschrittene.
Moser's 1994 Hour Record
On the 15th of January in 1994 Francesco Moser - then aged 43 - set a new Veteran Hour Record at 51.840km, again in Mexico City and aboard a bike inspired by the one featuring washing machine parts used by Graeme Obree to set two more Human Effort Hour Records in 1993 and 1994. This distance is greater than the one he set ten years earlier when, aged 33, he set a new "Human Effort" Hour Record at 51.151km.
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| Maurizio Fondriest (image credit: Eric Houdas CC BY-SA 3.0) |
Franco Pellizotti, a stage winner at the Giro d'Italia, Tour of Poland, Paris-Nice and Tour de France (where he also won the King of the Mountains and overall Combativity awards in 2009), was born on this day in 1978. He also won the Memorial Marco Pantani in 2007. Following an anti-doping test that returned "irregular blood values" in 2009, he was suspended from racing while the UCI conducted an investigation - the investigation failed to produce satisfactory evidence against him and sanctions were brought to an early end in 2010, but his previous team Liquigas declined to resign him. He then attempted to take the UCI to the Court for Arbitration in Sport to seek a loss of earnings settlement but, after he asked the Court for a fast resolution, it decided against him, annulled all his results since the 17th of May 2009 (including the Tour de France results listed above) and banned him from racing until the 12th of May 2012. When his ban expired, Pellizotti returned to cycling with the ProContinental Androni Giocatolli team and, a month and a half later, won the National Road Race Champion, came fourth overall at the Vuelta Ciclista a Burgos and was twelfth at the Giro di Lombardia.
Alberto Fernández Blanco, Spanish professional and father of Alberto Fernández Sainz (also a professional cyclist), was born on this day in 1955. His main claim to fame was finishing the 1984 Vuelta a Espana in 2nd place just six seconds behind Éric Caritoux - the shortest winning margin ever recorded in a Grand Tour. This was his second Vuelta podium place, having come 3rd the previous year. He also came 3rd in the 1983 Giro d'Italia, his first, and 10th in the 1982 Tour de France. He and his wife were killed in a car accident on the 14th of December 1984, shortly before his 30th birthday.
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| The ghost bike marking the spot where Jason MacIntyre was hit by a van (image credit: Vclaw CC BY-SA 2.0) |
Angela Brodtka, the German rider with Noris Cycling, was born on this day in 1981. Having won two stages in the Eko Tour whilst still a junior, she went on to win stages in the Holland Ladies' Tour, Tour de l'Aude Cycliste Féminin, Giro d'Italia Femminile and Thüringen-Rundfahrt der Frauen.
Other cyclists born on this day: Yvan Waddell (Canada, 1964); Tarit Kumar Sett (India, 1931); Michael Wilson (Australia, 1960); Alister Martin (Ireland, 1965); Xavier Pérez (Andorra, 1968); Jay "Crash" Nash McCrea (USA, 1887, died 1959); Evan Klamer (Denmark, 1923, died 1978); Peter Vonhof (Germany, 1949); Tony Palmer (USA, 1966); Pavel Kavetsky (Belarus, 1975); Boris Vasilyev (USSR, 1937, died 2000); Chen Chih-Hao (Taipei, 1973); Jules Maenen (Netherlands, 1932); Paul Curran (Great Britain, 1961); John Cleworth (Great Britain, 1948).
Monday 14 January 2013
Daily Cycling Facts 14.01.2013
Gert-Jan Theunisse
Gert-Jan Theunisse, winner of the King of the Mountains classification at the 1989 Tour de France and came 4th overall, was born on this day in 1963 in Oss, Netherlands.
He had come to widespread attention in the Tour one year previously when he presented a very real challenge to Pedro Delgado (the two riders had been team mates until Delgado left PDM for Reynolds-Banesto the previous year), holding fourth place overall until he tested positive for testosterone, received a ten-minute penalty and dropped to 11th (Delgado, coincidentally, tested positive for probenicid, a diuretic widely used to mask traces of steroids in urine - however, it had not yet been banned by the UCI and as a result he was not punished). Two years later, having won the Alpe d'Huez stage in the process of winning his polka dot jersey, he again tested positive in the Flèche Wallonne and Bicicleta Vasca. Sanctions in those pre-Festina Affair and Operacion Puerto days were considerably less strict than they are today and he was not banned, but was forced to retire after being diagnosed with a heart condition in 1995.
Theunisse continued to race in a few small-scale mountain bike events and, having trained Bart Brentjens to a level where he occupied the very top rung of the sport, became manager of the Specialized Mountain Bike Team in 1996. Then, further disaster: in 1997 while on a training ride, he was hit by a car and sustained a spinal injury that left him a paraplegic. From this point begins one of the most inspiring stories in cycling, sufficient even to forgive him his early doping offences. Through a combination of good fortune and sheer willpower, he learned to walk again in just six months and returned to his duties with the team. In January 1999, he won another mountain bike race. Five months later, he suffered a heart attack, possibly as a result of the doping; but recovered to a state where he could continue as team coach until Specialized ended its mountain bike sponsorship programme in 2001, at which point he moved to Majorca and began riding his bike 150km every day; a regime that served as training for the 2002 Over-30s European MTB Championships and which he won. He remained in competitive mountain biking despite constant, severe pain and involuntary spastic attacks caused by the 1997 injury, right up until 2005 when his condition had degenerated to a state where it became impossible to continue. Theunisse now plans to compete in paralympic cycling events.
Fabiana Luperini
Born in Cascine di Buti on this day in 1974, the Italian Fabiana Luperini won the Giro Donne a record five times - as the women's version of the Giro d'Italia, the Giro Donne is (the last surviving) women's Grand Tour, her achievement, therefore, is comparable to the five Giro d'Italia victories clocked up by Alfredo Binda, Fausto Coppi and Eddy Merckx and, if women's cycling were given the exposure it deserves, her accomplishments would be as widely-known as theirs. The first four victories came consecutively from 1995 to 1998; the fifth, remarkably, was a whole decade later in 2008 (the only male cyclist to have won two Grand Tours ten years apart was the great Gino Bartali at the Tour de France in 1938 and 1948).
Luperini's father was a keen cyclist and passed his passion for the sport onto his daughter, so that by the age of seven years she was already competing with a local club named G.S. Vettori. She also experienced her first serious crash at that age and required 37 stitches to close a wound to her knee, but the bug had bitten and a year later she'd moved to another team, G.S. Donati Porte-La Perla, with whom she won some 200 races including ten racing in boys' classifications. Between 1987 and 1990 she won another 50, enough to qualify for the 1991 Junior World Championships where she came third.
Winning the Giro Donne in 1995 was impressive enough; however, at that time there was also a women's version of the Tour de France, known as the Tour de France Féminin or Grande Boucle - Luperini won that two, thus achieving two Grand Tour victories in a single year, something that only twelve male riders have ever managed. What's more, she won the Giro del Trentino Alto Adige that year as well. Then, after winning her second Giro Donne in 1996, she won the Grande Boucle and the Giro del Trentino again, then the Giro Donne and Grande Boucle for a third time in 1997 - only Eddy Merckx managed to win two Grand Tours in a single year three times. Until 2010, there was another women's race that many fans considered to be the third women's Grand Tour: it was the Tour de l'Aude Cycliste Féminin and, by winning it in 1998 (along with her fourth Giro Donne), Luperini can claim to have beaten even Merckx.
Luperini's triumphs were not limited to the big stage races, where her incredible climbing skills earned her the nickname Pantanina (after the legendary Marco Pantani). In addition to the Giro Donne and Tour de l'Aude in 1998, she also won the tough Ardennes Classic La Flèche Wallonne. She won it again in 2001 and 2002, equaling the three-victory record set in the men's version of the race by Marcel Kint, Merckx, Moreno Argentin and Davide Rebellin; also winning another Giro del Trentino in 2002 and another National Road Race Championship two years later. In 2006 she won the Emakumeen Bira, and in addition to her fifth and final Giro Donne victory in 2008 she won another National Road Race Championship and Giro del Trentino and the GP Ouest France. Still racing at the end of the 2012 season, she was sixth overall at the 2011 Giro Donne and fourth overall in 2012.
Eddy Merckx is widely considered to be the greatest cyclist to have ever lived. Luperini equaled two and beat one of his records.
James Moore
James Moore, the claimed winner of the world's first bike race, was born on this day in Bury St. Edmunds in 1849.
That first race took place - so far as we know - in St-Cloud, Paris, where Moore's family (his father may have been French, but there is no proof of this) had taken up residence when he was five and where he befriended the Michaux family, one of whom (either father Pierre or son Ernest) was the first person to think of fitting pedals and cranks to a velocipede and thus invented the first real bicycle. However, once again there is little evidence that he did in fact win the race - in no doubt, meanwhile, is his victory at the first Paris-Rouen one year later.
Moore died on the 17th of July in 1935, aged 86. Disappointingly, and perhaps inevitably considering the mystery that shrouds Moore's life, it is not known where he was buried - most researchers believe his grave is located somewhere near the Brent Reservoir in North London, fittingly the location of Britain's first cycle race which took place one day after Moore's race in St-Cloud. The bike he rode at St-Cloud is on display at Ely Museum in Cambridgeshire.
Peter Post
Though he had been a cyclist of considerable note in his own right - becoming Dutch National Road Race Champion in 1963, winning Paris-Roubaix in 1964 (the first Dutchman to do so and setting a record average speed that has yet to be beaten) and earning the nickname "The Emperor of the Six Days" due to his track prowess - it was as a team manager that Peter Post really made his mark, introducing cycling to the so-called "total football" techniques that he had observed in use at his local Ajax team during his time as manager of the Ti-Raleigh team in the mid 1970s to 1983 when he trained several riders who joined the ranks of the all-time greats, including Hennie Kuiper, Joop Zoetemelk and Jan Raas.
In 1980, when Zoetemelk and Kuiper came 1st and 2nd overall in the Tour, Post's team won 11 stages - a feat that has not been repeated since. He was a shrewd businessman, experiencing little trouble in bringing the enormous Panasonic electronics manufacturer in as a new sponsor after Raleigh pulled out in 1983 and drove the team on to still more success. He retired in 1995, but returned as an adviser to the Rabobank team in 2005 when their rider Michael Rasmussen won the King of the Mountains and is now ranked as the second most successful directeur sportif after the legendary Guillaume Driessens whose Molteni team won 663 races. Post was 77 when he died on this day in Amsterdam in 2011.
Raimondas Rumšas was born on this day in Lithuania in 1972. Now retired, his best professional result was third place overall in the 2002 Tour de France, but he is better known for what happened afterwards when police discovered EPO, growth hormones, anabolic steroids, testosterone and corticoids in a car belonging to his wife, Edita. The couple claimed that the drugs were intended for Edita's mother but, as they should have been declared on entry into France, Edita spent some months in prison. Then, shortly after finishing the 2003 Giro d'Italia in 6th place overall, Raimondas tested positive for EPO and was banned from racing for one year, returning to the sport for a short while once the ban expired. While it was never proved one way or the other who had been the intended recipient of the drugs discovered in 2002, they were both handed four month suspended sentences while their Polish doctor, Krzysztof Ficek, got a twelve month suspended sentence in 2006; finally bringing another murky cycling career to an end.
Grimpeur Maxime Monfort, who rode with the Luxembourg-based Leopard Trek team in 2011 and remained with team leaders Andy and Frank Schleck when the team merged with Radioshack for 2012, was born on this day in 1983. Monfort's best results to date have been first overall, first Youth category and a stage win at the 2003 Tour de Luxembourg, 11th overall in the 2007 Vuelta a Espana, the National Time Trial Champion title in 2009, first overall in the 2010 Bayern-Rundfahrt, sixth overall in the 2011 Vuelta a Espana, and seventh overall at Paris-Nice as well as 16th overall in the Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana in 2012.
Happy birthday Gerben Karstens, 1966 Dutch Road Race Champion and winner of one stage in the Giro d'Italia, six stages in the Tour de France, fourteen stages in the Vuelta a Espana, Paris-Tours and an Olympic gold medal. He was born in 1942.
Other cyclists born on this day: Deirdre Murphy (Ireland, 1959); Raymonf van der Biezen (Netherlands, 1987); José Antonio Martiarena (Spain, 1968); Antonio Maspes (Italy, 1932, died 2000); Hiroshi Toyooka (Japan, 1969); An U-Hyeok (South Korea, 1964); Sergey Lagutin (Uzbekistan, 1981); Erich Welt (Austria, 1928); Bill Holmes (Great Britain, 1936); Micheal Watson (Hong Kong, 1938); Benoît Joachim (Luxembourg, 1976); István Lang (Hungary, 1933); Herman van Loo (Netherlands, 1945); Ron Keeble (Great Britain, 1946);
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| Doping nearly killed the Tour de France, but sometimes a doper can regain the respect of fans and Theunisse is one of the few. However, he can never, ever be forgiven for that haircut. |
He had come to widespread attention in the Tour one year previously when he presented a very real challenge to Pedro Delgado (the two riders had been team mates until Delgado left PDM for Reynolds-Banesto the previous year), holding fourth place overall until he tested positive for testosterone, received a ten-minute penalty and dropped to 11th (Delgado, coincidentally, tested positive for probenicid, a diuretic widely used to mask traces of steroids in urine - however, it had not yet been banned by the UCI and as a result he was not punished). Two years later, having won the Alpe d'Huez stage in the process of winning his polka dot jersey, he again tested positive in the Flèche Wallonne and Bicicleta Vasca. Sanctions in those pre-Festina Affair and Operacion Puerto days were considerably less strict than they are today and he was not banned, but was forced to retire after being diagnosed with a heart condition in 1995.
Theunisse continued to race in a few small-scale mountain bike events and, having trained Bart Brentjens to a level where he occupied the very top rung of the sport, became manager of the Specialized Mountain Bike Team in 1996. Then, further disaster: in 1997 while on a training ride, he was hit by a car and sustained a spinal injury that left him a paraplegic. From this point begins one of the most inspiring stories in cycling, sufficient even to forgive him his early doping offences. Through a combination of good fortune and sheer willpower, he learned to walk again in just six months and returned to his duties with the team. In January 1999, he won another mountain bike race. Five months later, he suffered a heart attack, possibly as a result of the doping; but recovered to a state where he could continue as team coach until Specialized ended its mountain bike sponsorship programme in 2001, at which point he moved to Majorca and began riding his bike 150km every day; a regime that served as training for the 2002 Over-30s European MTB Championships and which he won. He remained in competitive mountain biking despite constant, severe pain and involuntary spastic attacks caused by the 1997 injury, right up until 2005 when his condition had degenerated to a state where it became impossible to continue. Theunisse now plans to compete in paralympic cycling events.
Fabiana Luperini
Born in Cascine di Buti on this day in 1974, the Italian Fabiana Luperini won the Giro Donne a record five times - as the women's version of the Giro d'Italia, the Giro Donne is (the last surviving) women's Grand Tour, her achievement, therefore, is comparable to the five Giro d'Italia victories clocked up by Alfredo Binda, Fausto Coppi and Eddy Merckx and, if women's cycling were given the exposure it deserves, her accomplishments would be as widely-known as theirs. The first four victories came consecutively from 1995 to 1998; the fifth, remarkably, was a whole decade later in 2008 (the only male cyclist to have won two Grand Tours ten years apart was the great Gino Bartali at the Tour de France in 1938 and 1948).
Winning the Giro Donne in 1995 was impressive enough; however, at that time there was also a women's version of the Tour de France, known as the Tour de France Féminin or Grande Boucle - Luperini won that two, thus achieving two Grand Tour victories in a single year, something that only twelve male riders have ever managed. What's more, she won the Giro del Trentino Alto Adige that year as well. Then, after winning her second Giro Donne in 1996, she won the Grande Boucle and the Giro del Trentino again, then the Giro Donne and Grande Boucle for a third time in 1997 - only Eddy Merckx managed to win two Grand Tours in a single year three times. Until 2010, there was another women's race that many fans considered to be the third women's Grand Tour: it was the Tour de l'Aude Cycliste Féminin and, by winning it in 1998 (along with her fourth Giro Donne), Luperini can claim to have beaten even Merckx.
Luperini's triumphs were not limited to the big stage races, where her incredible climbing skills earned her the nickname Pantanina (after the legendary Marco Pantani). In addition to the Giro Donne and Tour de l'Aude in 1998, she also won the tough Ardennes Classic La Flèche Wallonne. She won it again in 2001 and 2002, equaling the three-victory record set in the men's version of the race by Marcel Kint, Merckx, Moreno Argentin and Davide Rebellin; also winning another Giro del Trentino in 2002 and another National Road Race Championship two years later. In 2006 she won the Emakumeen Bira, and in addition to her fifth and final Giro Donne victory in 2008 she won another National Road Race Championship and Giro del Trentino and the GP Ouest France. Still racing at the end of the 2012 season, she was sixth overall at the 2011 Giro Donne and fourth overall in 2012.
Eddy Merckx is widely considered to be the greatest cyclist to have ever lived. Luperini equaled two and beat one of his records.
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| James Moore (right - on the left, 1869 Paris- Rouen runner-up Jean-Eugene-Andre Castera) |
James Moore, the claimed winner of the world's first bike race, was born on this day in Bury St. Edmunds in 1849.
That first race took place - so far as we know - in St-Cloud, Paris, where Moore's family (his father may have been French, but there is no proof of this) had taken up residence when he was five and where he befriended the Michaux family, one of whom (either father Pierre or son Ernest) was the first person to think of fitting pedals and cranks to a velocipede and thus invented the first real bicycle. However, once again there is little evidence that he did in fact win the race - in no doubt, meanwhile, is his victory at the first Paris-Rouen one year later.
Moore died on the 17th of July in 1935, aged 86. Disappointingly, and perhaps inevitably considering the mystery that shrouds Moore's life, it is not known where he was buried - most researchers believe his grave is located somewhere near the Brent Reservoir in North London, fittingly the location of Britain's first cycle race which took place one day after Moore's race in St-Cloud. The bike he rode at St-Cloud is on display at Ely Museum in Cambridgeshire.
Peter Post
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| Peter Post, 12.11.1933 - 14.01.2011 |
In 1980, when Zoetemelk and Kuiper came 1st and 2nd overall in the Tour, Post's team won 11 stages - a feat that has not been repeated since. He was a shrewd businessman, experiencing little trouble in bringing the enormous Panasonic electronics manufacturer in as a new sponsor after Raleigh pulled out in 1983 and drove the team on to still more success. He retired in 1995, but returned as an adviser to the Rabobank team in 2005 when their rider Michael Rasmussen won the King of the Mountains and is now ranked as the second most successful directeur sportif after the legendary Guillaume Driessens whose Molteni team won 663 races. Post was 77 when he died on this day in Amsterdam in 2011.
Raimondas Rumšas was born on this day in Lithuania in 1972. Now retired, his best professional result was third place overall in the 2002 Tour de France, but he is better known for what happened afterwards when police discovered EPO, growth hormones, anabolic steroids, testosterone and corticoids in a car belonging to his wife, Edita. The couple claimed that the drugs were intended for Edita's mother but, as they should have been declared on entry into France, Edita spent some months in prison. Then, shortly after finishing the 2003 Giro d'Italia in 6th place overall, Raimondas tested positive for EPO and was banned from racing for one year, returning to the sport for a short while once the ban expired. While it was never proved one way or the other who had been the intended recipient of the drugs discovered in 2002, they were both handed four month suspended sentences while their Polish doctor, Krzysztof Ficek, got a twelve month suspended sentence in 2006; finally bringing another murky cycling career to an end.
Grimpeur Maxime Monfort, who rode with the Luxembourg-based Leopard Trek team in 2011 and remained with team leaders Andy and Frank Schleck when the team merged with Radioshack for 2012, was born on this day in 1983. Monfort's best results to date have been first overall, first Youth category and a stage win at the 2003 Tour de Luxembourg, 11th overall in the 2007 Vuelta a Espana, the National Time Trial Champion title in 2009, first overall in the 2010 Bayern-Rundfahrt, sixth overall in the 2011 Vuelta a Espana, and seventh overall at Paris-Nice as well as 16th overall in the Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana in 2012.
Happy birthday Gerben Karstens, 1966 Dutch Road Race Champion and winner of one stage in the Giro d'Italia, six stages in the Tour de France, fourteen stages in the Vuelta a Espana, Paris-Tours and an Olympic gold medal. He was born in 1942.
Other cyclists born on this day: Deirdre Murphy (Ireland, 1959); Raymonf van der Biezen (Netherlands, 1987); José Antonio Martiarena (Spain, 1968); Antonio Maspes (Italy, 1932, died 2000); Hiroshi Toyooka (Japan, 1969); An U-Hyeok (South Korea, 1964); Sergey Lagutin (Uzbekistan, 1981); Erich Welt (Austria, 1928); Bill Holmes (Great Britain, 1936); Micheal Watson (Hong Kong, 1938); Benoît Joachim (Luxembourg, 1976); István Lang (Hungary, 1933); Herman van Loo (Netherlands, 1945); Ron Keeble (Great Britain, 1946);
Sunday 13 January 2013
Daily Cycling Facts 13.01.2013
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| Marco Pantani, 1970-2004 (image credit: Aldo Bolzan CC BY-SA 3.0) |
On this day in 1970 in Cesena, Italy, Fernando and Tonina Pantani became the parents of a son they named Marco. Eleven years later, Marco joined the Fausto Coppi CC and was immediately singled out as a rider with promise. By the time he reached adulthood, he was still of small stature; standing 172cm tall and weighing 57kg - the classic and optimum dimensions of a grimpeur, as was confirmed when he came 3rd in his first amateur Giro d'Italia (the Girobio), 2nd a year later and then won the following year.
That same year, 1992, he became a professional and began to reveal himself as not just a talented climber but one of the finest the world had yet seen. Pantani didn't finish his first Giro but came second in the overall General Classification when he entered again in 1994, managing a third place overall finish at his first Tour de France later in the year. He then stayed away from the Giro for two years, did not finish again in 1997 and won in 1998. He came 13th in the 1995 Tour, didn't enter the next year, came third again in 1997 and won in 1998 - two Grand Tours in the same year, a feat that very few have achieved.
Sadly, that great year was the beginning of the end for Pantani - the next year, a haematocrit reading (the rather pointless stop-gap effort to prevent EPO use before an effective test was developed) returned a result of 52%, in excess of the legal 50% limit, and he was disqualified despite the fact that he was never once proved to have doped in any race (however, it was later revealed that after a crash in 1995 his haematocrit reading had been 60.1% - an extremely suspicious figure if correct). It appears that it was at this point that be began his slow downward spiral, failing to finish the Giro in 1999, 2001 and 2002 and coming 28th in 2000 and 14th in 2003. He entered the Tour for the last time in 2000 and didn't finish. Whether or not Pantani used drugs while racing may never be known, but his drug use outside the sport is in no doubt: on Valentine's Day in 2004, his body was found in a Rimini hotel room. An autopsy revealed that he had died of a combination of heart failure and a cerebral oedema brought on by a cocaine overdose. 20,000 people attended his funeral. He was 34 years old.
Alfred Le Bars
Alfred Célestin Le Bars was born on the 14th of March 1888 and died on this day in 1984, aged 95 years. Le Bars is one of the small numbers who guaranteed his Tour de France immortality without achieving great results (which, while respectable, were nothing to write home about - he came 26th in 1907, then missed a year before improving to 19th in 1909). He did it simply by how he got there - soon after he began in 1907, other riders discovered that the bike on which he was racing had also carried him to the race, all the way from his home in Morlaix, Finistère, 500km away and almost as far west as you can go in France without ending up in the Atlantic Ocean.
"There was no way of getting to the start in Paris other than by bike, so I rode it in eighteen and a half hours," he told them.
Happy birthday to Liquigas rider Daniel Oss, born today in 1987. Oss became Junior Italian Pursuit Champion in 2004 and has gone on to achieve good results in several races including a win at the Giro del Veneto and a stage at the USA Pro Cycling Challenge in 2010, the same year that he completed the Tour de France in 124th place. In 2011 he finished in the top ten on four stages at the Tour (best: fourth, Stage 15) before coming 100th, then in 2012 he was 105th overall.
Katusha's Alexandre Pliuschin was also born in 1987 and, like Oss, came to widespread attention in 2004 when he won bronze at the World U19 Scratch Championship. He won the Moldovan Road Race Championship in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012.
Professional Continental rider Giovanni Visconti was born today in 1983. He became Italian Under-23 Road Race Champion in 2003, then took the Elite title in 2007, 2010 and 2011. Along the way, he has won the Grand Prix de Fourmies, the Coppa Sabatini (twuce), the Trofeo Melinda, the UCI Europe Tour (twice), the Tour of Turkey and the Gran Premio dell'Insubria-Lugano along with various other races and numerous stages.
John Keen
Other cyclists born on this day: José Lovito (Argentina, 1970); Murugayan Kumaresan (Malaysia, 1967); Wilfried Wesemael (Belgium, 1950); Giacomo Bazzan (Italy, 1950); Willem Ooms (Netherlands, 1897, died 1972); Jesús Sarabia (Mexico, 1946); Radcliffe Lawrence (Jamaica, 1949); Roberto Buitrago (Columbia, 1938); Flavio Martini (Italy, 1945).
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