Daily Cycling Facts 01.06.2013

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

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

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

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

Michael Rasmussen

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

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

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

Alf Engers

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

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

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

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

Sylvester Howard Roper

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

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


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

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

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

Daily Cycling Facts 31.05.2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

Robert Gesink

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

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

Gesink at the Tour of
California, 2008

Having now confirmed himself as a rider with serious potential, he went to the Tour de France in 2009 but left with a broken wrist after crashing in Stage 5. Later the same year he would come sixth in the Vuelta and many certain that had be have enjoyed better fortune he'd have finished the Tour in the top ten - and he proved himself capable of doing so in 2010, when he was sixth. In 2011 he won Stage 4 and then the following day beat Fabian Cancellara to win the individual time trial Stage 5 at the Tour of Oman, before also winning the General Classification and Youth classification; later in the season he would finish in second place overall at Tirreno-Adriatico, where he won the Youth classification, and then third at the Tour of the Basque County. The season ended disastrously, however - a crash during a training ride left him with a badly broken leg that had to be pinned together with screws and plates. The time he was subsequently forced to spend off the bike led to a slow start to 2012, but he regained fitness in time for the Tour of California where he won Stage 1 and the General Classification; later in the year he would come fourth at the Tour de Suisse and sixth at the Vuelta a Espana.


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

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

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

Schultheis and Sprinkmeier

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

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

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

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

Daily Cycling Facts 30.05.2013

Igor Abakoumov

Igor Abakoumov

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

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

Gabriella Pregnolato

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

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

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

A Wright Cycle Co. racing machine

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

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

Daily Cycling Facts 29.05.2013

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

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

Louis Mottiat, 06.07.1889 - 05.06.1972

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

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

Hubert Opperman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

Daily Cycling Facts 28.05.2013

The second edition of Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the oldest of the five Monument races, took place on this day in 1893 - the only time it has fallen on this date and, since it's now held between mid to late April, it never will again. Run for a second and final year as an amateur event, it was won for the second of three consecutive years by Léon Houa; it took him 10h42" to complete the 250km parcours - almost seven minutes faster than the previous year. 30' behind him was Michel Borisowski, who is sometimes incorrectly said to have been Russian but was in fact Belgian. There are only two known photographs of Houa - one can be seen on the right; the other will appear tomorrow, the anniversary of the first edition of the race.

Michael Boogerd
Michael Boogerd, who was born in The Hague on this day in 1972 and was later - somewhat unsurprisingly - nicknamed The Boogeyman, became a professional cyclist with the WordPerfect team in 1994 and remained with them for his entire career as the squad found new sponsors and changed its name, first to Novell and then to Rabobank.

Boogerd's speciality was the Ardennes Classics, the hilly courses suiting his wiry physique very well, yet he was frequently outclassed by riders such as Michele Bartoli, Johan Museeuw and Erik Dekker, which saw him earn a reputation as an "eternal second." Shortly after his retirement in 2007 he dismissed the claim, and with some justification: after all, he had won an Amstel Gold Race in 1999 and two editions of the Brabantse Pijl (2001, 2003). Not all Classics specialists can carry their talent over into the stage races, but Boogerd enjoyed some success here too - including a stage win at his very first Tour de France (Stage 6, 1996), fifth overall at the Tour two years later, another stage victory at the 2002 Tour (Stage 16) and numerous other good results. His greatest achievement, meanwhile, were his three National Championships: he won the title in 1997, 1998 and 2006.

An enormously popular rider among the Dutch public, not least of all on account of his dazzling white smile and boy band looks, Boogerd was 50% of the inspiration for the book Michael & Erik - which covers the his and Erik Dekker's careers.

Diana Žiliūtė

Diana Žiliūtė
Diana Žiliūtė, born in Rietavas on this day in 1976, is a Lithuanian cyclist who first appeared on the international scene in 1994 when she won the Junior World Road Race Championship. Three years later she won the European Under-23 Time Trial Championship and then in 1998 the Elite World Road Race Cup and Championship.

Thus began the career of Lithuania's most successful cyclist of all time - she would go on to build up one of the most impressive palmares of any cyclist during the late 1990s and first decade of the 21st Century with a series of victories at the Giro Donne (Stage 3, 2000; Stage 13, 2001; Prologue and Stage 6, 2004), the Tour de France Féminin (GC, 1999; Prologue, Stages 1, 5, 6 and 7, 2006; Stages 1, 2b and 3, 2008; Prologue, 2009), the Women's Challenge (Stage 3, 1998; Stages 3 and 6, 2000), the Holland Ladies' Tour (Stages 1, 2 and 7, 2003) and the Vuelta Ciclista a Navarra (GC and Stages 1, 2, 3 and 4, 2000). In addition, she won a second World Cup in 2000, the Trofeo Alfredo Binda in 2003, the GP Liberazione and the Giro di San Marino in 2006, the Tour de Prince Edward Island in 2007 and the Giro della Toscana in 2009.



Tom Southam, born in Penzance on this day in 1981, was the rider who, along with Charlie Wegelius, caused controversy at the 2005 World Championships when they chose to ride in support of the leader of the Liquigas-Bianchi trade team rather than Team GB leader Roger Hammond. Like Wegelius he paid a high price for doing so, becoming persona non grata in the eyes of many fans for some years after the incident.

Rohan Dennis, an Australian cyclist born on this day in 1990, has won several gold medals at the National Track Championships and the World Track Cup. In 2010 he began to make his mark on the road, too, winning the Under-23 National Time Trial title after coming first overall at the Geelong Tour. In 2012, he won the U-23 National TT and road race, then came fifth overall at the Tour Down Under - and look to be on the verge of beginning a great career.

Cees van Espen, a Dutch rider born in Arnhem on this day in 1938, was one of that vast majority of cyclists who middle along, winning a provincial race here and there but never quite finding what it takes to make it into the upper echelons. Among his modest victories were Culemborg in 1961, the Ronde van Twente in 1962, Ossendrecht two years later - and Stage 5a at the 1965 Tour de France.

Other cyclists born on this day: Mickaël Bourgain (France, 1980); Luke Madill (Australia, 1980); Wim van Huffel (Belgium, 1979); Vagn Bangsborg (Denmark, 1936); Arve Haugen (Norway, 1943); Bjørnar Vestøl (Norwayy, 1974); Scott Richardson (South Africa, 1971); Chris Koberstein (Canada, 1968).

Daily Cycling Facts 27.05.2013

Michele Bartoli

Michele Bartoli
Michele Bartoli, born in Pisa on this day in 1970, turned professional with Mercatone Uno-Medeghini-Zucchini in 1992 and developed into one one of the greatest Classics specialists of the late 1990s and first five years of the 21st Century.

His first Classics win was the Brabantse Pijl of 1994, the year he also won Stage 14 at the Giro d'Italia. In 1997 and 1998 he won the World Cup, earning him an invite to join Mapei for 1999 - his time there being marked by a clash with Paolo Bettini who had won Liège-Bastogne-Liège as team aleader after Bartoli was injured at the Tour of Germany. By 2001, the year that Bartoli departed for Fassa Bortolo, the feud has escalated to such a point that the two men refused to work together during the World Championships and allowed Oscar Freire to take the title.

Bartoli won Liège-Bastogne-Liège twice (1997, 1998), the Giro di Lombardia twice (2002, 2003), the Brabantse Pijl twice (1994, 1999), La Flèche Wallonne (1999), the Omloop Het Nieuwesblad (2001), the Amstel Gold Race (2002) and numerous other one-day races, stages and stage races. He may have won many more had he not have become disillusioned with cycling following injury in 2004: "I just wasn't motivated to continue...I can't be a top level rider any more and that was a major influence on my decision, rather than my recent physical problems," he told Cycling News.

In 2007, Bartoli was connected to Operacion Puerto by La Gazzetta dello Sport who claimed that the code name "Sansone" - the name found on an IV bag of blood in the laboratory of Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes - referred to him, saying that it was the name of his dog.

Freddie Grubb
Freddie Grubb, who was born on Kingston in Surrey on this day in 1887, was called "the most talked-of cyclist in Great Britain" in 1910 after he set a new 100 mile time trial record, covering the distance in under five hours - on road, riding a fixed-wheel bike without normal brakes. One year later he entered a 12-hour competition on a 210 mile course near Liverpool, that distance being judged impossible by the event's organisers. They had to extend it by 10.5 miles because Grubb ran out of road.

Review of an F.H. Grubb bike, 1920

Grubb could be seen as one of the forefathers of the Straight Edge movement that has many followers among BMX and mountain bike riders - he never smoked, refused to consume alcohol and was strictly vegetarian at a time when few had even heard of such a concept and the general wisdom was that cyclists should consume vast amounts of meat before a race (Maurice Garin famously got through 45 cutlets of meat during a 24-hour race 17 years earlier).

In 1912, he competed in the Olympics and won two silver medals, then turned professional in 1914. Cycling wrote, "He is 25 years of age, and scales 12st stripped, and when he gets accustomed to the Continental methods there is no reason he should not shine as a star of the very first order in the professional ranks." However, his professional racing career (which - who knows? - might have led to the first British success in the Tour de France) didn't last long - not, as was the case with so many riders of the day, due to war; but because he found European ways not at all to his liking - he said that the Continental riders would "stick an inflator [pump] in your spokes as quick as look at you" - and hankered to return home. He must really have hated it, because the National Cycling Union had banned road racing in Britain and the rules of the time stated that once a rider had competed as a professional, he or she could not downgrade to amateur status nor compete against amateurs. Thus, a return to Britain effectively spelled the end of his competitive career, yet he did it anyway.

Perhaps that made him bitter. After the First World War (during which he abandoned a bike shop he'd set up in 1914 and had to give up his vegetarianism or starve while serving in the Royal Navy), he went into business with a man named Ching Allin and, supported by funds from a member of his cycling club, the two men set themselves up as Allin & Grubb, a bike manufacturer based at 132 Whitehorse Road in Croydon, South London (the building, much altered, is still there and is now occupied by a firm of safe engineers. According to historian Mick Butler, Grubb was an intensely dislikable man who, among other things, demanded to be given sole credit for the quick release system they'd invented since he was the firm's chief designer and despite the fact that the system appears to have actually been invented by Charley Davey, the man who had provided the funds to start the business (incidentally, the quick release was the first example of its kind, predating better-known systems by several years). Customers found Grubb hard to deal with, so before long Allin was handling sales and relations while his partner concentrated on design.

Advert for Grubb bikes (£12!) from
Cycling, 22.05.1925

Nevertheless, the pair fell out: by 1920 Allin & Grubb had changed its name to A. H. Allin and was selling bikes under the Davey brand. Grubb, meanwhile, set up a new business based at 250 London Road in West Croydon (an advert in Cycling, 04.03.1920, lists F.H. Grubb at the address as having "no connection to any other company," suggesting that the split had been far less than amicable and that the two men were keen to distance themselves from one another - the very imposing building is still there, but is now an ice cream shop), moving to Twickenham in 1926, and by 1924 had a shop in Brixton. That company produced what is believed to be the first British recumbent bike and lasted until 1934 when it went into liquidation - not only had it lasted fourteen years, it must also have been financially successful because when Grubb set up a new company under the name FHG, he re-employed 20 of his old staff at a new premises located at 147a Haydon's Road in Wimbledon, South-West London (that building is long gone, replaced by ugly low-rose flats). His family kept the business going after his death, then sold it in 1952 to Holdsworth, one of the most famous British bike manufacturers of the times. Holdsworth continued to produce Freddie Grubb-branded bikes right up until 1978 (Holdsworth, incidentally, are still in operation and can be found at 132 Lower Richmond Road in Putney), 29 years after his death on the 6th of March 1949.


Heather Albert, born in Sandy, Utah on this day in 1968, was a cross-country runner in high school before taking up duathlon whilst at Brigham Young University, where she earned a PhD in microbiology. She was inspired to take up cycling by her brother and entered her first race in 1994 - two years later, she won silver in the National Road Race Championships. Albert was involved in a serious crash at Houston's Alkek Velodrome in 2004, breaking her collar bone and dislocating her thumb; several other riders at the meeting claimed that the crash had been caused intentionally by Rebecca Quinn. She made a full recovery and, in 2007, won silver in the Points race at the National Track Championships.


Other cyclists born on this day: Ingmar De Poortere (Belgium, 1984); Lode Wouters (Belgium, 1929); Maryan Hary (France, 1980); Rogelio Arango (Colombia, 1959); Yang Hsiu-Chen (Taipei, 1968); Joseph De Bakker (Belgium, 1934); Karl Köther (Germany, 1905, died 1986); Jan Blomme (Belgium, 1959); David Rhoads (USA, 1932); Michael Glöckner (Germany, 1969); Gregorio Caloggero (Peru, 1917, died 1995); Nataliya Kyshchuk (Ukraine, 1968).

Daily Cycling Facts 26.05.2013

The Giro d'Italia began on this day in 1991 with a 193km starting and ending at Olbia on Sardinia. The 21 stages (two split) covered 3,715km. Franco Chioccioli achieved the most complete domination of the race for many years when he led through 20 stages, winning Stages 15, 17, 20 and the General Classification after many years of trying - he'd been 25th in 1982, won the Youth Category in 1983 (when he was also 15th overall), finished in 24th place in 1984, then came 9th and won Stage 14 in 1985, 6th and won Stage 8 in 1986, 14th in 1987, 5th and won Stage 6 in 1988, 5th in 1989 and 6th again in 1990 (in 1992, he was 3rd overall and won Stage 20, then also won Stage 15 at the Tour de France). Chioccioli, incidentally, was nicknamed Coppino on account of his resemblance to Fausto Coppi.

Coppino and Coppi

Zita Urbonaitė
Zita Urbonaitė, born on the 3rd of September 1973 in Šiauliai, won the Lithuanian National Championships in 1999 and 2002; successes that made her a household name in her native country and encouraged many other Lithuanian women to take up the sport. She retired to start a family in 2006, but died on this day in 2008 after being hit by a train in Montebelluna, Italy. She had been suffering deep post-natal depression since giving borth to a daughter three months earlier.

Mikel Nieve

Mikel Nieve
Mikel Nieve, a rider since 2009 with Euskaltel-Euskadi, was born in Leitza, Navarre on this day in 1984. At the 2011 Giro d'Italia, Nieve mounted a solo breakaway with 50km to go on Stage 15 and eventually succeeded in dropping stage leader Stefano Garzelli 5.7km from the finish line, then won by 1'41" - sufficient to propel himself from outside the top ten into fifth place in the General Classification. The stage, that year's Queen, was later termed "the hardest of my life" by no less a rider than Alberto Contador.

Andy Bishop
Andy Bishop, born in Tucson, Arizona on this day in 1965, turned professional with the Dutch PDM-Concorde team in 1988 after coming second at the United Texas Tour and winning the Tour of the Gila the previous year. He would complete three Tours de France, coming 135th in 1988, 116th in 1990 and 126th in 1991, then failed to finish in 1992.

Jean Graczyk
Born Neuvy-sur-Baragneon on this day in 1933, Jean Graczyk had been a successful amateur track rider - winning a silver medal at the 1956 Olympics - before he turned professional in road racing, a move inspired by his National Amateur Road Race Champion title the same year.

Jean Graczyk

In his first professional season he won two races, then in his second he won the 105km Stage 13b at the Vuelta a Espana and the overall Points competition at the Tour de France. In 1959, he won Paris-Nice and Stage 5 at the Tour and in 1960 Stages 4, 12, 17, 21 and another Points competition at the Tour and the overall General Classification at the Critérium International. After that, he concentrated (successfully) on criteriums and smaller races for a couple of years before returning to the Vuelta in 1962 and winning Stages 6, 13, 14 and 16, then went back to the criteriums and smaller stage races for several more successful years prior to his first retirement in 1970 before re-emerging with the West German Rokado team for five months in 1972.

Graczyk's nickname was Popoff, which René de Latour said was on account of his habit of "popping off" the front of the peloton to mount solo breaks and win races. Sadly, American-born de Latour's French was not quite good enough for him to know the rather less cheery real reason - it's a racist slang term for anyone of Polish heritage.


Livio Trapè
Livio Trapè, born on this day four days after Graczyk, was a highly successful Italian track rider whom many people believed would, like Graczyk, go on to even greater triumphs in road racing during the 1960s. However, despite numerous riders who have excelled in both disciplines, great skill in one cannot always be carried over to the other - as would prove to be the case here. Trapè rode in three editions of the Giro d'Italia (1961, 1962, 1964) but failed to finish each, came 73rd at Milan-San Remo in 1961 and 64th in 1962 and 45th overall at the Vuelta a Espana in 1966. His one moment of road race glory came at the Giro di Lombardia in 1962, when he finished in second place behind Jo de Roo.

Nico van Gageldonk, born today in 1913

Other cyclists born on this day: Roland Bezamat (France, 1928); Nico van Gageldonk (Netherlands, 1913, died 1995); Li Wenhao (China, 1989); Satomi Wadami (Japan, 1987); Jacqui Nelson (New Zealand, 1965); Knud Jacobsen (Denmark, 1914, died 1987); Herbert Francis (USA, 1940); Latauro Chávez (Argentina, 1966); August Rieke (Germany, 1935); Harry Jackson (Great Britain, 1941); Arnaldo Benfenati (Italy, 1924, died 1986); Aleksey Markov (USSR, 1979); Donald Sheldon (USA, 1930); Pelle Kil (Netherlands, 1971); William Freund (USA, 1941); Rok Drašler (Yugoslavia, 1979); Ramón Hoyos (Colombia, 1932); Petr Kocek (Czechoslovakia, 1952).