Daily Cycling Facts 15.09.12

On this day in 1912, the seventh Liège-Bastogne-Liège was held - one of two editions (the other being the ninth) to be held in September, rather than in Spring or Summer as had been the case previously and ever since. The parcours was 257km in length and winner Omer Verschoore (right) took 8h35' to complete it, beating Jacques Coomans in a sprint to the finish line. Little is known about Verschoore, other than that he was born on the 2nd of December 1888 in Moorslede, Belgium and died on the 6th of June 1931 in Paris.

Fausto Coppi
Ask cycling fans who the best rider in the history of cycling was and you can expect a range of different answers. Many, regardless of their nationality, will say Eddy Merckx; most French fans will say Bernard Hinault. Lots of people will say Briek Schotte, even though he won far fewer races than Merckx or Hinault. Some Americans would say Greg Lemond, most will say Armstrong - some of them meaning Kristin rather than Lance. Lots of Brits will say Simpson while those who are in the know will say Burton. I would say Charly Gaul, but only because Marianne Vos hasn't finished her career yet. If you ask the tifosi, Italy's notoriously and wonderfully biased, obsessive cycling fans, they'll all say Coppi.

Coppi

Angelo Fausto Coppi was born in Castellania on this day in 1919, the fourth of five children. Like many of the giants in cycling history he was sickly in his youth and showed absolutely no interest in school. His health improved when he found a rusty, brakeless bike in the cellar at the family home, learned to ride it and fell in love; his school attendance did not - aged 13, he was caught playing truant and a teacher made him write "I ought to be at school, not riding my bicycle!" repeatedly on the blackboard as punishment. Not long afterwards he left school and went to work as a butcher. Gaul, incidentally took a similar route, working as a butcher and slaughterman; another similarity was that both men excelled at climbing and time trials. However, Coppi held a third ace: he was also a devastatingly fast sprinter, an unusual combination that didn't go unnoticed by his one childhood ally - a merchant seaman uncle with a lifelong love of cycling, who gave Fausto the money to buy his first racing bike.

Wisely, Coppi used the 600 lire to get a frame custom-built for him, planning to use his wages from his delivery boy job to buy components ("Oh how my legs used to ache at night through climbing all those stairs during the day! But I'm glad I did, because it surely made my legs so strong," he later said). Unfortunately, the frame builder ripped him off - after taking Fausto's money and telling him his frame would be ready in a week, he took much longer than agreed while working on frames for established riders, then gave him an off-the-peg frame instead. Fausto didn't yet have the confidence to demand he got what he'd paid for.

But Coppi was so good that it didn't matter if his frame didn't fit him - he won races anyway. His first race was one in 1934 for boys who were not members of cycling clubs; he didn't come first but he did win 20 lire and a sandwich. In 1938 he got his racing licence and won the next race he entered - this time, the prize was an alarm clock. At that time, Coppi still worked in the butcher's shop, which was where he met Giuseppe Cavanna, an ex-boxer who had lost his sight after one too many punches damaged his brain and then became a masseur, learning the finer details of cycling and of the reputation Coppi was already building from his clients. When they met, he encouraged the rider to become an Independent so that he'd be able to compete with professionals as well as with amateurs and suggested he enter the Tour of Tuscany in 1939. Coppi did so, following Cavanna's advice to "follow Bartali!" until a buckled wheel put him out of the race. However, less than a month later he won a race at Varzi with a lead of seven minutes on the second-placed rider - as one of the constituent races of the season-long National Amateur Championship, he had gone up against riders with far more experience and resoundingly beaten them all. He won six more races that year and signed to Legnano - Bartali's team.

In 1940, aged only 20, Coppi won the Elite National Road Race Championship and the Giro d'Italia - almost three-quarters of a century later, he remains the youngest ever winner of the Giro. The Giro didn't take place from 1941 to 1945 due to the Second World War, but he won the National Pursuit Championship in 1941, then the National Pursuit and Road Race Championship and set a new Hour Record in 1941, before Italian racing came to an end until after the war. During those years, he fought in the 38th Infantry alongside a man named Arduino Chiapucci - father of Claudio, who won the King of the Mountains twice at the Giro and the Tour de France in the 1990s - before they were captured by the British on the 13th of April 1943 and became prisoners of war. Like all POWs, he was required to work while incarcerated; British amateur cyclist Len Levesley was no doubt very surprised the day he realised that the man cutting his hair was a Giro d'Italia winner. Neither man spoke the other's language, but Levesley gave him a bar of chocolate.

Coppi with Bartali

Cycling started up again in 1946 and Coppi won Milan-San Remo. He was determined to win another Giro too and took three stage victories, but he couldn't hold off Bartali who fought hard for his third and final overall victory (Bartali beat him in the King of the Mountains too; while Coppi had been sent off to fight, Bartali, who was five years older, had spent much of the war smuggling Jewish refugees over the Alps into Switzerland using a special trailer with a secret compartment - he was, therefore, as good at climbing as he'd ever been), then later in the year he won the Giro di Lombardia. In 1947 he was all but unbeatable, winning the National Road Race Championship, the National and World Pursuit Championship, another Giro di Lombardia and three stages plus the General Classification at the Giro d'Italia (Bartali beat him again in the King of the Mountains). In the 1948 Giro he won the General Classification and the King of the Mountains, as well as the National Pursuit and Road Race Championships, Milan-San Remo and the Giro di Lombardia; but his greatest moment came the following year when he won the Giro and the Tour de France, something no other rider had ever done. He also won the King of the Mountains at both races, the National Road Race Championship, the World Pursuit Championship and another Giro di Lombardia.

In 1950, Coppi won Paris-Roubaix, the hardest of the ultra-hard Northern Classics (some say the hardest race of all) that fans and riders alike traditionally said Italian riders could not win. He also won the Waalse Pijl, one of the difficult Flemish Classics. In 1951 he won stages at the Giro and the Tour but missed part of the season due to a broken collarbone suffered at Milan-Turin; he was also hit hard by the tragic death of his beloved younger brother Serse, also a professional cyclist, following a crash in a race at the Giro del Piemonte. In 1952 he missed some opportunities again due to a broken shoulderblade, but repeated his 1949 achievement of winning the Giro and the Tour; though this time he was second in the Giro's King of the Mountains.

Coppi leading Richard Filippi at the Trofeo Baracchi, 1953

Coppi won his final Giro - the fifth, a record that has not yet been matched - in 1953; he also won his only World Road Race Championship that year. In the two years that followed, he scored excellent results: he won the King of the Mountains at the 1954 Giro but was fourth in the General Classification, then in 1955 he was second overall and won the National Road Race Championship. It was obvious, though, that the years in which he dominated European cycling had ended - in the subsequent four years, he won only six times; more than the majority of cyclists could even dream of winning, but very poor indeed for the Champion of Champions.

Coppi declined as fast as he had once ridden. He had always been unusually forthright about his drug use, a subject most riders preferred not to discuss despite the fact that many of the drugs that would now result in suspension were not then banned - he was once asked if cyclists used la bomba, amphetamines. "Yes," replied, "- and those who say they don't are not worth talking to." The interviewer asked if he had used la bomba himself: "Yes, when it was necessary." When was it necessary? "Almost all the time!" (Bartali, who believed that everybody should live life as honestly as possible, was very much opposed to any sort of cheating, including doping. He took to mounting secretive raids on Coppi's hotel rooms and took away the empty phials and pill boxes he found there so that his own doctor could tell him what they were. In time, he became such an expert on the drug's effects that he was able to accurately judge how Coppi planned to ride the following day). If la bomba hastened his decline, it wouldn't have come as a surprise: he was well aware of what the drug could do, once telling René de Latour: "What is the good of having world champions if those boys are worn out before turning professional? Maybe the officials are proud to come back with a rainbow jersey. But if this done at the expense of the boys' futures, then I say it's wrong. Do you think it normal that our best amateurs become nothing but gregari [domestiques]?" He went on to name four riders who had shown great promise as amateurs but failed to live up to expectations as professionals, in his opinion because of drugs, and practically invited them to sue to him for defamation. That way, he said, "the facts will be brought to light and this may mean a change in our methods."

Coppi and Occhini

By the end of his career, his reputation was in tatters - nowadays, when Italians have become used to Silvio Berlusconi, most of them are virtually unshockable when it comes to the behaviour of public figures; but in the 1940s and 1950s Italy was a deeply devout Catholic nation and the population was horrified to discover that their great hero had been having a secret affair. The Woman In White was Giulia Occhini, the strikingly beautiful wife of army captain Enrico Locatelli. Locatelli was a cycling fan; his wife - who was not - accompanied him to see Coppi race in 1948. Afterwards their car was caught next to Coppi's in a traffic jam, which was where the affair began. That same evening, she sought the rider out at his hotel to ask for an autographed photo. They were not exposed until 1954, when a press photographer snapped her waiting for him at the end of a race, and the scandal broke. Coppi left his wife, Bruna Ciampolini, and moved in with Occhini; but their landlord threw them out. Ciampolini refused to agree to a divorce (which was still illegal in some parts of Italy at the time), the Pope became involved and asked Coppi to return to her, then influenced the president of the National Federation to send a letter claiming that his conduct caused St. Peter "very great pain." When Coppi raced, spectators spat at him as he passed.

Coppi memorial on the Pordoi Pass on the Dolomites

In 1959, the year that Coppi rode the Vuelta a Espana and, according to Pierre Chany, was the first rider to be dropped on every stage (he was, Chany said, "a magnificent and grotesque washout"), he was invited with Henry Anglade, Jacques Anquetil (who beat Coppi's Hour Record in 1956), Raphaël Géminiani, Roger Hassenforder and Louison Bobet to compete in a race in Burkina Faso, then to a hunting expedition with the nation's president Maurice Yaméogo afterwards. Géminiani shared a room with Coppi and later remembered that they had been troubled by mosquitoes; both of them contracted plasmodium falciparum, a form of malaria that causes the vast majority of all deaths attributed to the disease each year. Géminiani recovered, Coppi did not - he died on the 2nd of January in 1960, when he was 40 years old.

In 2002, a rumour emerged suggesting that Coppi's death had in fact been caused by a cocaine overdose. Details were sketchy, but newspaper Corriere dello Sport claimed to have got the story from a mysterious figure known as Giovanni, who had in turn got it from someone named Angelo Bonazzi. Meanwhile, another story attributed to a monk named Brother Adrien said that Coppi hadn't been killed by malaria or cocaine, but by a poisonous potion apparently widely used in Burkina Faso. Coppi's doctor rubbished both claims, but a legal investigation was launched and, for a while, it looked as though his body would be exhumed for analysis; after a year the investigation was shut down and the case dismissed after no evidence to support either claim, or an exhumation, could be found.

Monika Valvik-Valen
Born Grethe Monika Eikild Valen (she later married Olympic discus thrower Svein Inge Valvik) in Porsgrunn on this day in 1970, became National Junior Road Race Champion on Norway in 1987 and won all five stages at the Swedish Tygrikeskupen, the Elite National Championships for road racing and time trial, Stage 2 at the Tour de France Féminin and fifth place in the Olympics road race in 1992.

In 1993, she won three stages at the Tygrikeskupen, enough to win the General Classification again, then successfully defended both her National titles; in 1994 she retained the National Road Race title but lost the time trial - no real upset, as she replaced it with a gold medal at the World Road Race Championship. In 1997, having signed up to Serotta and riding for the first time as a professional, she became National Champion in road racing, time trial and criterium. She was Road Race Champion again the following year, then Criterium Champion again in 2000 and Stage 7 at the Women's Challenge in 2002. Valvik-Valen's older sister Anita Valen-de Vries (married to Gerrit de Vries, who rode seven Tours de France) was also a professional cyclist and was herself National Champion in road race, time trial and criterium in 2003.

Lorenzo Bernucci

Born in Sarzana, Italy on this day in 1979, Lorenzo Bernucci turned professional with Landbouwkrediet-Colnago in 2002 and stayed with them for three years, gaining some good results - including third place finishes in the Under-23 World Championships and Paris-Roubaix and, in 2002, the Giro d'Italia. He went to Fasso Bortolo in 2005 and won Stage 6 at the Tour de France, then signed to T-Mobile in 2006.

In September 2007, Bernucci tested positive for anorexiant drug Sibutramine, used to control weight. The drug, which has since been banned throughout the European Union and in several nations around the world after it was connected to heart failure, renal failure and strokes, had been on the UCI's list of banned drugs the previous year; Bernucci claimed that he had been taking it for four years and was not aware that it was now banned - since he had failed to inform T-Mobile's doctors of this, he was deemed to have acted negligently by the team and fired.

Bernucci returned to cycling with the San Marino-based Cinelli OPD in June the following year, then went to LPR Brakes for 2009 and Lampre-Farnese Vini for 2010, picking up good - if not superb - results along the way. However, it appears that anti-doping agencies and the Carabinieri were not convinced his earlier run-in with the law had taught him a lesson and kept him under suspicion: in 2010 his wife, Valentina Borgioli, was stopped at Pisa airport after suspicions that she might be carrying doping products to the Belgian Classics, then in April the couple's home was raided. Police found a perfluorocarbon product used to increase the number of red cells in the blood (similar to EPO) and human albumin, the latter having a number of properties of interest to cheating athletes including being the ideal sunstance with which dilute the blood in order to get around haematocrit counts. The Italian Olympic Committee sought a six-year ban; the Tribunale Nazionale Antidoping granted them five years - as Bernucci was 31 at the time, his career is likely to be finished. Several members of his family were shown to be involved with the supply of doping products and were also banned from involvement in sport: his father, mother and wife for four years each and his brother initially for four, later reduced to three.

Pierino Baffi

Pierino Baffi, born in Vailate on this day in 1930, was a very good cyclist but not a great Grand Tour-winning one. He could win stages, however - Stages 6 and 9 at the Vuelta a Espana in 1955, Stage 10 at the Giro d'Italia in 1956, Stages 8 and 19 at the Tour de France in 1957, Stage 6 at the Giro in 1960 and Stage 2 at the Giro in 1963. Nevertheless, he earned a far bigger place in cycling history: in 1958, he won Stage 12 at the Giro, Stages 10, 16 and 24 at the Tour and Stages 3 and 14 at the Vuelta, thus becoming the second rider ever to win stages at all three Grand Tours in a single year. The first had been Miguel Poblet, two years earlier; the feat has since been repeated only by Alessandro Petacchi in 2003. Baffi's son Adriano also became a cyclist and won the Points comptition at the 1993 Giro, then became a directeur sportif for LeopardTrek after retiring from racing.

Sebastian Lang, born in Sonneberg, East Germany on this day in 1979, became National Time Trial Champion of Germany in 2006. In 2008, he led the King of the Mountains between Stages 12 and 14 at the Tour de France.

René Haselbacher, born in Vienna on this day in 1977, was National Road Race Champion of Austria in 2002.

Giancarlo Bellini, born in Crosa, Italy on this day in 1945, won the Baby Giro in 1970 and turned professional with Molteni the following year. In 1972 he finished Stage 5 at the Giro d'Italia in second place, but he would not win a Grand Tour stage until 1978 when he won Stage 12 at the Giro. However, in 1976 he won the King of the Mountains at the Tour de France.

Other cyclists born on this day: Brent Emery (USA, 1954); Yeung Alexandra (Hong Kong, 1972); Anthony Peden (New Zealand, 1970); Viktor Romanov (USSR, 1937); Tapani Vuorenhela (Finland, 1947); Roby Hentges (Luxembourg, 1940); Daniel Goens (Belgium, 1948); Pak Jong-Hyeon (South Korea, 1938); Tanja Žakelj (Slovenia, 1988); Gustavo Artacho (Argentina, 1967); Porfirio Remigio (Mexico, 1939); John Stenner (USA, 1964, died 1994); Mees Gerritsen (Netherlands, 1939); Kaspars Ozers (Latvia, 1968).

Daily Cycling Facts 14.09.12

Nina Davies in 2008

Nina Davies
Born in the Vale of Glamorgan on this day in 1974, Nina Davies became Welsh National Road Race Champion in 2001, then came ninth at the British Championships in 2002 and seventh in 2003.

Like many female cyclists, Davies excels in several disciplines - in 2007, she was Welsh National Cyclo Cross Champion and won six rounds of the Welsh CX Series; the following year she became British Masters National Cross Country Mountain Bike Champion, then won a silver medal at the World Masters Championships.

Sé O'Hanlon
Sé O'Hanlon (commonly - and incorrectly - spelled Shay O'Hanlon) was born in Dublin on this day in 1941 and became one of Ireland's best amateur riders during the 1960s and 1970s. O'Hanlon holds the record for total victories and consecutive victories in the eight-stage Rás Tailteann, having won it for the first time in 1962 and again in 1965, 1966 and 1967 and was, for many years, the dominant rider in the race with a total of 24 stage wins and 36 stages in the leader's jersey. He also won the Tour of Ulster a record four times, in 1961, 1962, 1965 and 1966.

O'Hanlon might well have gone further, but he was a member of the National Cycling Association, one of three rival national federations and one of two that were not affiliated with the UCI - he was, therefore, ineligible to compete in most of the big foreign races, the World Championships and the Olympics. When he retired from competition he became president of the NCA and built bridges with the other federations, eventually enabling them to merge into one UCI-affiliated organisation.

George Mount
In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, the USA was as besotted with the bicycle as the French and Belgians were. Top riders of the day such as Frank Waller were household names and track racing was, in some areas, more popular than football or baseball: in 1910, Ty Cobb - one of the most successful and legendary baseball stars of all time - went on strike in order to force his Detroit Tigers team to pay him $9,000 per year; eight years earlier track star "Major" Marshall Taylor was able to command an annual salary of $35,000, despite the fact that in some of the more backward parts of the country he was refused entry to velodromes on account of being black.

But the States, more than any other nation, fell head over heels in love with the motorcar. With enormous natural resources, it was able to produce large luxury cars that retailed at prices within reach of the common man; it also had its own oil reserves and could produce fuel more cheaply than the European nations and had the space for wide, open roads. The bicycle was forgotten by all but children, who would exchange it for a car the moment they became old enough to do (as young as 15 in some states), and a few isolated adult eccentrics.

Born in Princeton, New Jersey on this day in 1955, George Mount was no more interested in bikes or cycling than most other Americans. However, in his teenage years he refused his father's demand that he enlisted in the Army, then fighting in Vietnam, and was thrown out of the family home as a result. A series of odd jobs followed as he tried to pay his way, including one as a groom  at a race track, where he would meet one of those eccentrics - race promoter and cycling fan Pete Rich. Rich had an ability to spot potential good form (possibly in horses as well as in humans, hence his presence at a race track) and talked Mount into giving the sport a try, also offering him cheap lodgings in a room above a bike shop he owned and work as a mechanic. Thus Mount found his way into the world of cycling completely by chance.

Rich became Mount's coach, training him at a neglected velodrome in San Francisco, and by 1973 he was good enough to begin competing as a junior. A year later, he won two races; then in 1975 he started to win a lot of races. In 1997, he recalled: "I won a whole lot of races in a row - for a couple of months in 1975, nobody beat me in a bike race, whether it was a criterium, a road race, a time trial. I mean, I won a whole lot of races." In 1976, he was sixth in the Road Race at the Olympic Games - the first American rider to finish in the top 60 since 1912.

Mount's Olympic success vastly increased cycling' popularity among the American public overnight, but the supportive infrastructure he would need in order to develop into a genuine world class rider simply didn't exist in the USA. Fortunately, at around the same time, he met the greatest cyclist in the world, Eddy Merckx (in the US with Patrick Sercu to race in Pennsylvania), and was able to ask his advice. Merckx told him to get to Italy as soon as possible, saying that France was the place to go to win races but Italy was the place to learn about the sport. Mike Neel, another young rider trained by Rich, had already made the move and was able to provide an introduction to a club called Benotto; teliing them, "Hey, I know this kid in the States who could come over and kick all your guys' butts." The team's manager told him to get the kid over to prove it - Mount arrived in 1977 and immediately began beating the Italians on their home turf.

Mount with the 1981 Sammontana team

The USA had a national team prior to 1978, but it was seen by the European teams and fans as a bit of a joke at worst or as a bunch of plucky underdogs at best. That year, Mount rode for them in numerous high-profile European events and, all of a sudden, more often than not, there was a stars and stripes jersey somewhere near the front of the peloton. He was fourth overall at the Tour of Britain and second at the Under-23 GP Liberazione as well as winning the US Red Zinger and Coors Classics, then in 1979 he won a stage at the Circuit Cycliste Sarthe and was fourth overall at the Tour du Vaucluse. In 1981, he was third in the Youth category at the Giro Italia - European fans began to take American cyclists more seriously; more importantly, so did American fans.

Mount retired at the age of just 28, having won around 200 races - he felt that he could have continued racing for at least another five years but that if he did, he'd end up as a burned-out ex-pro earning peanuts in a bike shop, preferring instead to get some qualifications while he was still young and guarantee himself a better future. His legacy is greater even than his palmares - be blazed the trail later followed by Greg Lemond, who would become the first non-European to win the Tour de France, Levi Leipheimer, George Hincapie, Andrew Hampsten, Kristin Armstrong and all the other great North American cyclists to go to Europe and revolutionise professional cycling from the 1980s to the present, and it is thanks to him that by the end of the 20th Century cycling in the USA was as popular as it had been at the end of the 19th. His nickname was Smilin' George, and he has a lot to smile about.

Francesco Casagrande

Francesco Casagrande

Born in Florence on this day in 1970, Francesco Casagrande turned professional with San Marino-based Mercatone Uno-Zucchini-Mendeghini in 1992, a year after finding international fame by winning the Baby Giro, and remained with the team through its gradual transformation into Saeco until 1997. In his second professional year he came third in the Youth category at the Giro d'Italia; then in 1994 he won seven races including the Giro di Toscana and was second at the National Championships. In 1995, he won five races and finished in third place on one stage at the Tour de Romandie and two at the Giro d'Italia, finishing the latter in tenth place overall, and in 1996 he won Tirreno-Adriatico and the Tour of the Basque Country, also reaching the Giro d'Italia podium after three stages. In 1997, he came second again at the National Championship, then rode in the Tour de France for the first time; he finished eight stages in the top ten, was sixth in the General Classification and third in the King of the Mountains.

Casagrande switched to Cofidis for the 1998 season, getting the year off to an excellent start with third place overall at the Tour de Romandie, a stage win at the Tour Méditerranéen, second place at the Classique des Alpes and numerous other good results. He went to the Tour de France again but seemed not to have his previous form, finishing only two stages in the top 50 before a crash in Stage 10 put him out of the race. Then, in August, it was revealed that he had failed a doping control at Romandie. He denied using drugs and requested that his B-sample be analysed; when it too turned out positive Cofidis sacked him.

He made his return with Vini Caldirola-Sidermec in June 1999 and won the Tour de Suisse, his best result so far, then added victory at the Clásica San Sebastián. The following year, still with the same team, he won the Waalse Pijl and Stage 9 at the Giro and did well on a sufficient number of other stages to take the leader's jersey, which he wore all the way to the penultimate stage before losing it to Stefano Garzelli and settled instead for the King of the Mountains; later winning the bronze medal at the Wirld Championships. That placed him in a position to negotiate a better contract with another team, so he started 2001 with Fasso Bortolo and won the Giro del Trentino before returning to the Tour de France where he was unable to break into the top 100 before abandoning. In 2002 he won another Giro del Trentino, then went back to the Giro d'Italia and looked to be on course for a good result until Stage 16, when he was accused of deliberately pushing Colombia-Selle-Italia's John Freddy Garcia into the railings running alongside the road, causing him to crash and suffer injuries that required 20 stitches in his face. Casagrande denied doing so, saying he would not even think of doing something "that stupid." However, race officials and team managers insisted that was what they had seen happen, and he was ejected from the race for "aggressive riding."

Casagrande would never win another stage race after 2002, though he won some stages and a couple of one-day races in 2003. In 2004 and 2005 he stood on numerous podiums but failed to win anything, then announced his retirement on the 1st of May.


Volodymyr Rybin, born in Kreminna, Ukraine on this day in 1980, was World Points Race Champion in 2005.

Born in Paris on this day in 1924, Dominique Forlini won Stages 6 and 15 at the 1954 Tour de France. With Georges Senfftleben (with whom he also teamed up to win several six-day races in the 1950s), he was European Madison Champion in 1955.

Veelers at the Eneco Tour, 2009

Tom Veelers, born in Oostmarsum, Netherlands on this day in 1984, won the Under-23 Paris-Roubaix and Stages 5, 6, 8 and the General Classification at the Olympia's Tour in 2006. In 2011, he was second overall at the Tour de Wallonie-Picarde.

On this day in 2006, the USA Cycling Federation revealed that it had been supplied with information by the UCI linking Tyler Hamilton to Operacion Puerto. The UCI requested that action be taken; the Federation referred the case to USADA for investigation.

Other cyclists born on this day: Gary Foord (Great Britain, 1970); Chetan Singh Hari (India, 1936); William Fenn (USA, 1904, died 1980); Joe Becker (USA, 1931); Peter Weibel (West Germany, 1950); Kim Refshammer (Denmark, 1955, died 2002); Johannes Knab (West Germany, 1946); Connor Fields (USA, 1992); Robert Maveau (Belgium, 1944, died 1978); Yelena Dylko (Belarus, 1988); Luis Brethauer (Germany, 1992).

Daily Cycling Facts 13.09.12

Robert Millar

Born in Glasgow on this day in 1958, Robert Millar began cycling during childhood and rose to the very top; becoming Britain's all-time most successful Grand Tour rider until Chris Froome (who was born in Kenya but has a British passport) came second at the 2011 Vuelta a Espana and Bradley Wiggins won the 2012 Tour de France. He is also one of the most intriguing and, when he chooses to be so, entertaining characters in the history of cycling.

Short, lightly-built and highly intelligent, Millar reacted against what biographer Richard Moore calls Glasgow's "big man" tradition, a culture in which individuals skilled at fighting are held up as examples of what a man should strive to be. Nevertheless, with few other employment opportunities available to young people locally, Millar went to work in a factory when he left school; however, his intelligence was spotted immediately and he was awarded an engineering apprenticeship and placed on the firm's management training program. Yet Miller dreamed of wider horizons (and was undoubtedly bright enough to realise that much of Britain's manufacturing industry would have vanished long before he reached retirement age): a keen cyclist since childhood, he knew that his body shape and power output gave him a natural advantage when climbing. Single-minded almost to a fault, he trained harder than many professionals, riding for mile after mile into headwinds that would keep the majority of riders indoors, and in 1979 he escaped - he had received an invite to join the legendary amateur team Athletic Club Boulogne-Billancourt, which had already earned a reputation for finding riders from nations other than France and Belgium, developing them into world-class athletes and turning them loose on the cycling world. Millar's determination, focus and - soon after he joined the club - results rapidly convinced team manager Claude Escalon that he had found a future great; but Millar's peculiar habits - thought by those who understood him to have stemmed from shyness and an intense need for privacy and by those who didn't as stemming from an unpleasant personality (in fact, both are true; Millar was shy and did need privacy, but he could also be extremely rude and dislikable - he was once so rude to a female airport official that Allan Peiper, a Peugeot team mate, told him he would "knuckle him" if he ever heard him speak that way to anyone again) - won him very, very few friends.

Millar was with the ACBB for only a year, his third place in the 1980 Amateur World Championship winning him a contract with Peugeot-Esso-Michelin for 1980. He had won the British National Championship in 1980 too, but when he returned to take part the following year seemed to care little whether he won or not, taking fifth place - this, along with the ease with which he settled into French life and found a French wife, was an early indication that he was cutting himself off entirely from his background. His results in French races that year and the next were superb, with second place in the Tour du Vaucluse and the Tour de l'Avenir and podium places in several others; he was, therefore, selected for Peugeot's Tour de France squad in 1983 - and he won Stage 10, ending with the difficult Bagnères-de-Luchon climb, before finishing in 14th place overall despite losing 17' in a crash during the third stage. Perhaps more importantly, he was third in the King of the Mountains.

In 1984, Millar was second on Stage 2b, ending at the summit of Mont Ventoux stage, at Paris-Nice, putting him briefly into the overall lead (he finished in sixth at the end of the race). In the Tour de Romandie he was fifth overall and won Stage 2 and the overall King of the Mountains, but all of these were as nothing compared to his Tour de France performance: he won Stage 11, in which the race made its first ever visit to the Guset-Neige ski resort in the Pyrenees (it has been back only twice - in 1988 and again in 1995), then became the first (and to date, only) British rider to win the King of the Mountains. He was also fourth overall, beating Tom Simpson's 1962 sixth place for what was then the best ever result by a British rider.

Millar was hotly tipped to win the Vuelta a Espana in 1985 by fans, pundits and other riders alike. Sean Kelly won Stage 10 while Millar took over the General Classification lead, retaining it into the final stage which he began with a 10" advantage over second place Francisco Rodriguez and 1'05" over third place Pello Ruiz Cabestany. Then he punctured at the start of the Cotos climb. As is the case in the Tour de France, the final stage in the Vuelta is usually considered to be ceremonial and the riders do not compete for the overall victory; however, with two riders that close, Millar could easily have lost even if they refused to take advantage of his situation. With a near-superhuman effort, he caught them up on the stage's third climb at Los Leones where Rodrigue, Cabestan and others in their group congratulated him on his historic victory. For some reason, none of them told him that Pedro Delgado - also an excellent climber and, as a local boy, familiar with the descents where other climbers might lose time - had attacked while Millar's puncture was being sorted out and was enjoying the support of another rider named José Recio. By the time Millar found out, Deglado had more than seven minutes on him.

Millar was stuck on his own with no team mates nearby. That he was able to finish only 36" behind the Spaniard is remarkable and proof of is extraordinary talent, but the race had been won by another rider using distinctly unsportsmanlike tactics - "It's rotten, the whole peloton was against us. It seems a Spaniard had to win at all costs," said Peugeot manager Roland Berland (whom Millar would later criticise for failing to arrange support). Fans from Britain and many other nations, including some from Spain, termed it "The Stolen Vuelta" and still know it as such to this day; Millar swore that he would never again race in Spain. Later in the year he went back to the Tour de France and came 11th overall and third in the King of the Mountains; soon afterwards he went back on his vow to never return to Spain after seeing an opportunity to get some sort of revenge - he won the Vuelta a Catalunya, taking over the race leadership and not allowing Recio, who had held it earlier in the race, to get anywhere near it.

Having raced in Catalunya, Millar had no reason not to compete in the Vuelta a Espana in 1986 and did so after switching teams to Panasonic. Earlier in the season, he had been second overall at the Tour de Suisse; he won Stage 6 at the Vuelta but was second once again - this time, at least, victor Alvaro Pino did so without recourse to skulduggery. He began the Tour that year on fine form and became a very real threat to Greg Lemond, who despite the apparent attempts at sabotage by Bernard Hinault, would become the first American and non-European to win the race that very year. Many good climbers have also been good time trial riders; Millar, despite cutting his teeth on the British racing scene where time trials have always been more popular than elsewhere (largely as a result of a ban on mass-start road racing that lasted from the late-19th Century until after the Second World War), was not one of them - yet he finished the Stage 9 TT in ninth place, placing him in a good position from which to launch his assault on the Pyrenees. As was expected, he gradually moved up the General Classification list all the while the race gradually moved up the mountains, finishing Stage 13 with its finish line located at 1,800m in Superbagnères in second place behind Lemond and moving into fourth place overall. Lemond was a fast climber, but ultimately he was an all-rounder - with one more stage in the Pyrenees, four in the Alps and one in the Massif Central, it looked very much as though the Scottish climbing specialist might build an advantage the American would not be able to overcome. But then, as the race began drawing to a close, Millar fell ill. He was 112th in the Stage 20 time trial, taking more than ten minutes to get around the 58km parcours than winner Hinault; the following day he gave up on the Puy de Dôme.

1987, the year of the Marmalade Massacre

Millar didn't enter the Giro d'Italia until 1987, the edition that has gone down in history as the year of the Marmalade Massacre. One of the most controversial episodes in Grand Tour history, the Massacre began when a vicious row broke out between Stephen Roche and his Carrera team leader Roberto Visentini. Roche beat Visentini in the Stage 1b time trial, then became race leader when Carrera won the Stage 3 time trial; he then defending the leader's journey until Stage 13 when it passed back to Visentini. However, realising that he stood a better chance of winning overall than Visentinidid, Roche ignored the team manager's order not to attack on Stage 15 and took back the lead. He was joined at the time by a group of Carrera riders, but the next day - after receiving threats from and being spat on by the furious tifosi - all the Italian riders in the team abandoned him, riding for Visentini instead; only Millar (who was still with Panasonic, but evidently felt some sort of Celtic solidarity) and the Belgian Eddy Schepers stayed with him. Visentini was so angry at what he saw as their treachery that he tried to push Schepers off his bike (an incident curiously not seen by any race officials, so he escaped punishment despite later admitting to and even bragging about the incident). They rode either side of Roche throughout the stage, protecting him while other non-Italian riders, angered by Visentini's arrogance and violence, prevented him from attacking. On the final climb, the Marmalada, Roche won; Panasonic's Erik Breukink was second and Millar was third. Millar later won Stage 21 and came second overall, winning the King of the Mountains; Roche won overall, then won the Tour de France and the World Championship and became the second man in history to win the greatest triumph in cycling, the entirely unofficial Triple Crown for which there is no trophy, title nor prize money.

Millar's last Tour, 1993

Millar and Roche moved to the Fagor team in 1988 and the Scotsman took third place at the Critérium International and at Liège-Bastogne-Liège - the best Classics result of his career. He came sixth overall at the Vuelta, won by another Irishman Sean Kelly, then began another Tour de France. During 14, he and Philippe Bouvatier lost time after either misinterpreting directions signaled to them by a gendarme or, as many fans still believe, being deliberately misdirected so that the French favourites could make up time; later in the race Millar uncharacteristically cracked badly on a climb - that he then abandoned during Stage 17 indicates that he was again unwell. A year later he was fourth in the King of the Mountains and tenth overall at the Tour but won the Tour of Britain; in 1990 he was second at the Tours of Britain (which he might have won had be not have crashed in the final stage), Romandie and Switzerland and won the Critérium du Dauphiné but once again did not finish the Tour de France, leaving in anger due to his belief that his Z-Tomasso team mates were giving all their support to Greg Lemond (who supplied the team's bikes, as well as being lead rider) and ignoring him. He was second again in Romandie in 1991, but finished the Tour de France in 72nd place; in 1992 and 1993 he was 18th and 24th respectively, proof that 1991 was a sign that his best years were gone rather than just a bad season, and they would be his final Tours. Having made a return to British racing to win the National Championship in 1995, he retired when his Le Groupement team fell apart shortly before the Tour, its main sponsor having withdrawn from cycling after being accused of being a pyramid scheme.

While Millar was and still is a man who needs privacy and a quiet life away from reporters and photographers, he was enormously popular in Britain and came closer to becoming a household name than any rider since Tom Simpson - this was partly due to his successes (some of which have not yet been equaled - he remains the only British rider to have won the King of the Mountains in the Tour or the Giro as well as the only British rider to have finished top three in all three Grand Tours) but also because he was something of a loner, which appealed greatly to British cycling fans who, in many cases, grew up surrounded by football fans and without opportunity to discuss their beloved sport with friends (as was certainly the case for this writer). Yet when he was at the height of his fame in 1985, he starred in a TV advert for Kellogg's Start breakfast cereal; in retirement he would make an effort to repay fan's support, writing admirably impartial and often amusing product reviews for magazines and managing the Scottish team at the Tour of Britain, then known as the PruTour after main sponsor Prudential. In time it all became too much, so he disappeared. Rumours abounded as to where he might be or what might have happened to him with theories covering every possibility including imprisonment for an unknown crime, involuntary incarceration due to mental illness and a mystery death. Journalists sought him out, in one case concocting a story based on nothing at all other than a photograph in which the wind had blown the front of his t-shirt out from his chest that claimed he had undergone gender correction surgery. Fortunately, for all his shyness and dislike of publicity, Millar was a robust character who cared little for what others thought of him - he made it perfectly clear that he was completely unconcerned about that story and anything else anybody wrote about him.

Over the last couple of years, Millar has come out of hiding. Though public appearances remain exceedingly rare, he has forged new links with the world of cycling, including race analysis for Cycling News' 2011 Tour de France coverage in which he proved that at his understanding of the sport is as sharp as ever. Further access to his thoughts in the future would be very welcome; if he chooses otherwise, we as fans should respect his decision.


Sonia Huguet, born in Saint-Avold on this day in 1975, became French National Champion in Points racing in 1996 and Road Racing in 2003. In 2004, she won La Flèche Wallonne Féminine.

Shinichi Fukushima, born in Nagano Prefecture on this day in 1971, became National Road Race Champion in 2003. In addition to winning numerous Far Eastern races, he is one of the few Japanese riders to have made an impact in Europe, beginning with second place at the Prix d'Armorique in 2001. . In 2002 he was third at the Circuit de Saône-et-Loire, in 2006 he won Stage 1 at the Vuelta Ciclista a León and in 2010 he became National Champion for a second time. Fukushima signed to the Belgian Marlux-Ville de Charleroi team but remained with them for only six months, riding for Japanese teams until 2010 when he joined the South Korean Geumsan Ginseng Asia; then in 2011 he went to the Malaysian Terengganu and remains with them at the end of the 2012 season.

Sven-Åke Nilsson, born in Malmö, Sweden on this day in 1951, win the Tour de l'Avenir in 1976 and went on to achieve excellent results in a series of prestigious races, though he never quite managed to break through into the elite list of riders who have won those races. In 1978 he was 11th overall at the Tour de France; in 1979 he won Stage 4 and was second overall at Paris-Nice, then third at the Critérium International and the Amstel Gold Race. In 1980 he was second at La Flèche Wallonne and seventh overall at the Tour de France (and fourth in the King of the Mountains); then at the 1981 Tour he was eight overall and fifth in the King of the Mountains and at the 1982 Vuelta a Espana he won Stage 10 and was third overall.

Rie Katayama, born on this day in 1979

Brian Fowler, born in Christchurch on this day in 1962, became National Road Race Champion of New Zealand in 1988 and successfully defended his title one year later.

Other cyclists born on this day: Dieter Grabe (East Germany, 1945); Rie Katayama (Japan, 1979); Crystal Lane (Great Britain, 1985); Yury Yuda (Kazakhstan, 1983); Stanley Chambers (Great Britain , 1910); Kriengsak Varavudhi (Thailand, 1948); Oscar García (Argentina, 1941); Thierry Laurent (France, 1966); Koldo Fernández (Euskadi, 1981); Hernán Patiño (Colombia, 1966); Ivan Tsvetkov (Bulgaria, 1951).

Help Kristin get her bikes back

If you should happen to be offered a very nice Felt bike at a price that seems too good to be true, you might want to get in contact with Exergy Twenty12 - there's a reasonable chance that they belong to Kristin Armstrong. The bikes were stolen whilst in transit somewhere between Germany and the USA and could therefore turn up in Europe or North America. More details here.

The bikes are as follows:

Felt DA Time Trial Bike / Pic2 / Pic3
Frameset: Felt DA1 51cm, Custom Kristin Armstrong/USA Paint Scheme
Group: SRAM RED 2012
Cranks: SRAM BB30 w/SRM Powermeter
Chainrings: SRAM TT 54/42
Aerobars: Zipp VukaBull Basebar with Carbon Race Vuka Shift Extensions TT Shifters: SRAM 900 TT
Shift Cables: Gore Ride-On Ultra Light
Brake Cables: Gore Ride-on
Front Wheel: Zipp 808 Firecrest Tubular
Rear Wheel: Zipp Super-9 Disc Tubular
Tyres: Vittoria Crono 22mm
Saddle: fi’zi:k Ares TT Specific
Pedals/Cleats: Speedplay Nanogram Zero (not with stolen bike – only thing that made it back to Boise)
K-EDGE Pro Chain Catcher
Kristin Armstrong name on top tube

Felt F1 Road Bike
Frameset: Felt F1 54cm, Custom Kristin Armstrong Paint Scheme
Group: SRAM RED 2012
Cranks: SRAM RED w/SRM Powermeter
Bottom Bracket: SRAM Red GXP Ceramic Bearings
Chainrings: SRAM Red 50/34
Cassette: SRAM RED 2012 11-26T
Stem: Zipp Service Course SL 110mm
Bars: Zipp Service Course CSL 42cm
Shift Cables: Gore Ride-On
Wheels: Zipp 404 Firecrest Tubular
Tyres: Vittoria Corsa CX
Saddle: fi’zi:k Antares
Pedals/Cleats: Speedplay Nanogram Zero
K-EDGE Pro Chain Catcher
K-EDGE Number Holder
Arundel Carbon Bottle Cage

Chances are a few bits and pieces will be removed or swapped for other bits in an attempt to disguise them, but with such a collection of top-notch parts the thief won't want to change too much for fear of reducing the value. The team is offering "a substantial reward" for productive leads; you'll also earn the gratitude of one of the greatest cyclists the world has ever seen.

teamtwenty12@gmail.com

Daily Cycling Facts 12.09.12

Dan Albone

Albone aboard an Ivel racing bike

Born in Biggleswade, Great Britain on this day in 1860, Dan Albone spent his childhood living with his parents at the Ongley Arms Inn where, when he was nine years old, he was given a boneshaker bicycle - which was the very cutting edge of bike technology at that time and must have been a considerable financial outlay for whoever it was that bought it for him (presumably his parents), suggesting that he must already have earned a reputation for be gifted with mechanical objects. Four years later, having come up with a series of improvements, he designed and built a bike fitted with suspension and began winning races on it.

You can't buy an Ivel for £16 now

Albone took an apprenticeship at a local engineering firm when he left school; then when he was 20 started a company of his own, Ivel Cycle Works, based at the same premises as his parents' inn, where he created the Ivel Light Roadster, a racer and a tricycle, all of which were in high demand among the cyclists of the day. He built bikes for himself as well as for other riders and they were put to good use - having been one of the founding members of the legendary North Road Cycling Club in 1885, he began racing more seriously and won two events that year, then around 180 over the course of his career. That same year, John Kemp Starley revealed the famous Rover Safety Bicycle, the ancestor of all modern bikes, to the public; Albone was there to see it unveiled. He then produced his own improved version, considered by some to be a far superior machine to the Rover - among its fans was George Pilkington Mills, winner of the first Bordeaux-Paris race and the pre-eminent British cyclist of his generation, who used on to set a new 24-Hour World Record at 474km in 1886. He also developed the first safety tandem and a bike child seat and introduced the first frame with pump mounts; however, when a recession in the early 1890s badly hit cycling manufacture, the company went into voluntary liquidation.

Albone's genius was too great to be limited to one form of transport alone. Before Ivel closed, he used his knowledge of bike wheels to invent a new type of wheel for pony-pulled traps (a light, two-wheeled wagon). Previously, they had been fitted with heavy wooden wheels similar to those used on farm carts, Albone developed a type similar to bike wheels with metal spokes and rims, ball-bearing hubs and pneumatic tyres. He then redesigned the trap too, making it far lighter, faster and more comfortable, and they sold in large numbers. Towards the end of the century he began producing a car fitted with a 3hp Benz engine, then a motorbike.

Albone towards the end of his life

Ivel bikes are exceedingly rare today, the majority of them - in common with most bikes from the period - having either been melted down for the war effort or simply rusting away. Albone is better known, therefore, for his tractors - or agricultural motors as they then known, the term tractor not becoming common until years later. Such machines had existed for more than a half a century by 1900, but they were enormously heavy steam-powered traction engines that would sink into soft ground if used to pull a plough (instead, they used a belt to pull a plough back and forth across a field while parked up at the side); also enormously expensive, many farmers continued to use heavy horses as their ancestors had done since medieval times. Internal combustion engines were also used on farms but, due to their unreliability and low power, only to power stationary equipment; so Albone designed  a much lighter vehicle and powered it with an engine made by Payne & Co. of Coventry. He filed the patent in 1902, then set up a new company named Ivel Agricultural Motors and displayed his machine at the Royal Agricultural Show the following year - it won a silver medal that year, then again in 1904.

Albone married Elizabeth Moulden in 1887. Two years later they had their first child, a boy named Stanley, then eleven years after Stanley's birth their daughter Alwyne Patricia was born. Albone died on the 30th of October 1906, from a stroke while at work, and is buried in Biggleswade Cemetery. The Ivel Agricultural Motor was revolutionary at the time of its release, and more than a century later still looks similar to a modern tractor overall (despite having three wheels), but following Albone's death it suffered from a lack of development and the company slipped into decline. It vanished forever after being bought by receivers in 1920.

Charles Laeser
Charles Laeser, who was born in Geneva on this day in 1879, won the National Track Stayers Championhip and turned professional in 1903. 1903 was also the year of the inaugural Tour de France; Laeser took part riding for La Française, one of the few foreigners among the 60 cyclists gathered gathered at the Café au Reveil Matin in Montgeron near Paris on the 1st of July to begin the race.

He did not finish Stage 3; however, in the early Tours a rider who abandoned was allowed to rejoin the race and continue competing for stage wins, though not for the overall General Classification, so four days later he started Stage 4 - that year's shortest stage at a mere 268km. Hippolyte Aucouturier looked the likely winner when he was spotted near the finish line and far ahead of the rest, but he was then also spotted drafting behind a car and the judges disqualified him. Laeser, meanwhile, was miles down the road and still trying to catch a group of six riders leading the race, as he had been for most of the stage. He could not, and they finished a full fifty minutes ahead of them' However, the riders did not set off all at the same time - Laeser had started an hour ahead of anyone in the lead group: thus he became the first foreigner to ever win a stage at the Tour de France.

Oscar Camenzind, born in Schwyz on this day in 1971, won the Swiss Road Race Championship and was second at the Tour de Suisse in 1997, then won the World Road Race Championship and the Giro di Lombardia as well as fourth place at the Giro d'Italia in 1998. In 2000, he won the Tour de Suisse outright and a year after that he won Liège-Bastogne-Liège. In 2004 he was third at the National Championships, but later that year he tested positive for EPO. He made a full confession before being taken to court in an effort to force him to reveal who had supplied the drug to him; he refused, saying that he was afraid of reprisals.

Bryce Lindores was born in Australia on this day in 1986 and lost his sight a week before his eighteenth birthday in an accident caused when a rope between his truck and a car he was towing snapped. Two years later, he began tandem cycling; after only six months he won the bronze medal at the IPC World Championships, then two years after that another bronze at the 2008 Olympic Games. Lindores was selected to represent his country at the 2012 Games, but could not compete after his sighted pilot Mark Jamieson was refused an entry visa to the United Kingdom on account of a criminal record for sexual offences.

Dag Otto Lauritzen, born in Grimstad on this day in 1956, won the Norwegian Road Race Championship in 1984, Stage 14 at the Tour de France in 1987 (his only Tour success in seven attempts) and was third at the Ronde van Vlaanderen in 1989.

Kevin Seeldreayers, boen in Boom, Belgium on this day in 1986, won the Youth category at Paris-Nice in 2009. A professional since 2007, he remained with Quickstep until 2011 when he moved to Astana.

Other cyclists born on this day: Zeng Bo (China, 1965); Mauro Trentini (Italy, 1970); Arvis Piziks (Latvia, 1969); Rafał Majka (Poland, 1989); Maciej Paterski (Poland, 1986); Hylton Mitchell (Trinidad and Tobago, 1926); Albert Wyckmans (Belgium, 1897, died 1995); Adolfo Alperi (Spain, 1970); Olle Wänlund (Sweden, 1923, died 2009); Omar Ochoa (Guatemala, 1971); Ignacio Astigarraga (Euskadi, 1936).

Daily Cycling Facts 11.09.12

Kathy Watt

Kathy Watt

Born Kathryn Ann Watt in Australia on this day in 1964, Kathy Watt is the daughter of marathon runner Geoff Watt, who died of exposure when she was five years old. Kathy initially followed her father into running and won a National Championship racing as a Junior, only taking up cycling to maintain fitness whilst recovering from tendon problems. She very rapidly discovered that she was much better at cycling than at running; in 1990 she won gold in the Road Race at the Commonwealth Games and came third overall at the Giro Donne.

In 1992, Watt became Elite National Road Race Champion for the first time - she would hold the title again in 1993, 1994 and 1998), and she also won the gold medal for the Road Race at the Olympics that year. In 1994, she won another Commonwealth Games Road Race gold and came second overall at the Giro Donne, in 1995 she was third at the World Individual Time Trial Championships and seventh overall at the Tour de France Féminin and in 1996 she won the National Time Trial title. In 1996, she became involved in a legal row with the National Cycling Federation which had chosen her to compete in the Pursuit event at that year's Olympics, then rescinded and gave the place to Lucy Tyler-Sharman, whom she had beaten at the National Track Championships in February after the US-born Australian track specialist suffered an asthma attack. Watt's Olympic place was not without conditions - the Federation had stipulated that, should another rider record a world-class time in the run-up to the Games then that rider would replace Watt. Tyler-Sharman subsequently did so, recording a time five seconds faster than Watt's National Championships personal best and only 0.2" behind the World Record; nevertheless, after an unusually fast hearing the Court for Arbitration in Sport found in Watt's favour and she was reinstated. She finished the event in eighth place.

Watt won the Oceania Championships Time Trial in 1997, then entered a period in which she seemed condemned to stay on the lower steps of the podium with a series of second and third places up until her retirement in 2000, inspired partly by another selection row in which she was unsuccessful. However, three years later she returned with the intention of competing in the 2004 Olympics; but then retired again when she didn't qualify - and then made another comeback in 2005, when she won the Chrono Champenois-Trophée Européen, this time intending to qualify for the 2006 Commonwealth Games, where she was second in the Time Trial. She won the National Time Trial Championship for a second time that year too, then in 2007 she won the Road Race at the Oceania Games and Stages 1, 2, 3, 4 and the General Classification at the Tour of Perth, before adding numerous podium finishes and a few further victories to her palmares over the following two years until her eventual retirement in 2009, when she was 45 years old.

Graeme Obree
Born in Nuneaton on this day in 1965 but raised in Scotland, Graeme Obree was one of the few British cyclists to approach household name status in Britain before Cavendish, Wiggins and Team Sky became superstars. This was largely due to Britain's love of eccentric inventors and to the record he set on a bike that newspapers misleadingly claimed to have been made out of old washing machines.

Obree's first official race was a 10-mile individual time trial, in which he competed wearing a pair of school shorts, an anorak and Doctor Marten boots. He assumed that the start and finish line were in the same place and, having passed the start line on his way back in, had got off his bike and was getting changed into fresh clothes when a race official pointed out his error; he got back on and finished with a time of 30' - not a bad result for a first attempt. He has suffered from bipolar disorder for most of his life and made the first of his three suicide attempts while still a teenager; during the 1990s he took an overdose of aspirin, using dirty water from a puddle to swallow the pills. However, even when in a problematic situation he is sometimes able to think big: when his bike shop failed and he was being pursued for outstanding college fees (and had started sniffing welding gas), he decided upon an unusual way of getting himself out of difficulty - he would set a new Hour Record. He says that, from the day the idea first came to him, he always told himself not that he would attempt the record, but that he would break it.

Obree in the "preying mantis" position
aboard Old Faithful

He did not use a conventional bike, instead designing and building one of his own with an unusual frame and handlebar set-up that allowed him to adopt a position, which became known as "preying mantis," more like that of a downhill skier than a cyclist. opening up his lungs. The bottom bracket was narrower than standard, keeping his knees tucked in for greater aerodynamic efficiency, the fork was one-sided and the chainstays were elevated; the handlebars were narrow and connected to a 0mm reach stem of the old-fashioned quill type. There was also a healthy dose of Obree eccentricity - the tyres were "one banana" wide and the wheels span on with taken from a washing machine, its designer reasoning that since the device they came from had been designed to rotate at 1,200rpm they would be better quality than typical bike bearings. For some reason, this proved highly appealing to journalists, who then ignored the rest of the bike and began the "made of old washing machine parts" myth; he later said that he wished he'd never mentioned it because people took less interest in the numerous other innovative features of the bike and his achievements aboard it.

He named it Old Faithful, and it was far from the prettiest bike ever made - in fact, were it not for the three-spoke carbon fibre wheels and the 53x13 (110"), it looked rather like a Raleigh folding shopper bike from the 1970s. On the 16th of July in 1993, he took it to Hamar Olympic Hall velodrome in Norway and made his attempt at beating the record set by Francesco Moser's nine-year-old 51.151km record - and failed to beat it by a kilometre. But Obree, despite his illness, does not give up easily once he's set out to do something. He had booked the velodrome for 24 hours and so, rather than going home, he decided he would make another attempt the following morning. Lacking the budget to employ a support team with highly trained masseur, he came up with a typically Obreean method to prevent his muscles seizing up over night - he drank several pints of water before going to bed, thus ensuring that he would wake up within a couple of hours needing to visit the lavatory. When he did, he stretched and then drank more water to make sure he'd wake up again. Then, on the 17th, he went back onto the track and recorded 51.596, taking the record.

It lasted for only six days - on the 23rd, Chris Boardman rode 52.270km on the track at Bordeaux, using a bike with a carbon fibre frame and tri-bars. Meanwhile, Francesco Moser was working towards a new Veteran's Hour Record with a new bike that allowed him to copy Obree's "preying mantis" position; on the 15th of January 1994 he did it at altitude (thus in thinner air, creating less resistance) in Mexico City.

Obree and Boardman had become rivals. Obree beat the Englishman in the Pursuit at the World Track Championships in 1993 and won the title; but it wasn't enough: their rivalry came from the Hour Record, and that's where it would be settled. Most riders, backed up by a big-name bike manufacturer, would set out on their mission to regain the Record on a brand new, top-secret machine following many millions of dollars' worth of research - Obree simply made a few minor adjustments to Old Faithful (including bolting a pair of shoes onto the pedals so that his foot wouldn't slip off, as had happened at the World Championships). Then he got himself into the right mental state and, on the 19th of April, went to the same Bordeaux track used by Boardman to set his own record. Obree rode 52.713km, beating Boardman by 443m.

Less than five months later, Obree's record was broken by Miguel Indurain. The UCI now became concerned that innovative new bike designs were making it too easy for old records to be broken, thus the "preying mantis" position was banned in 1994, Obree being informed of the ban hours before he was due to use Old Faithful on the Pursuit at the World Championships. This, he felt (and, according to many, with some justification) was unfair; he refused to adopt a conventional position and was disqualified from the race. He responded by redesigning Old Faithful's handlebars to allow a new position known as "superman," with his arms out in front over the front wheel (Boardman used the position when he set his 1996 record at 56.375km); this two was banned after he won the Pursuit at the Worlds in 1995.

Obree's brother, Gordon, died in a car accident late in 1994, sparking off a new cycle of depression that coincided with his debut as a professional rider. He signed to Le Groupemont for the 1995 season but team manager Patrick Valcke was unable to understand his illness, firing him for what he saw as "lack of professionalism" - however, this may in fact have been fortunate from Obree's point of view because, shortly before the Tour de France that year, the team collapsed with its sponsor backed out cycling amid accusations that it was a disguised pyramid scheme. Obree says there was another reason he was sacked: having been selected to ride the Tour, he discovered that to have any chance at all of keeping up with the competition, he was going to have to dope - which he point-blank refused to do under any circumstances. "I feel I was robbed by a lot of these bastards taking drugs," he says, then adds: "I also hate the way that people think anyone who has ever achieved anything on a bike must have been taking drugs."

A prone bike. Obree's design is longer and lower and will be
fitted with a light-weight, aerodynamic shell

His illness became progressively worse over the coming years and, in 2001, he was discovered unconscious after attempting to hang himself in a barn near to stables where a horse belonging to his family was kept. It was at this point that his bipolar disorder was revealed to the world, his wife Anne - a nurse - attempting to explain the condition. In 2011, having split up from Anne, Obree revealed during a newspaper interview that he is homosexual and said that confusion prior to realising it had been a major cause of his depression and suicide attempts. He had come out to his family in 2005; almost two years after coming out in public he remains one of the very few sportsmen to have been brave enough to do so - and has doubtless been a source of inspiration and encouragement to many others. He seems happier now, and his intelligence makes his engaging and entertaining in interviews. In 2011, he revealed that, aged 47, he was setting out to beat the World Human-Powered Vehicle (HPV) Land-Speed record, using a prone bike (upon which the rider lies in a flat-out position) that he first thought up while lying in the bath and is building himself. Parts of it are made from old saucepans.

Lucien Buysse

Lucien Buysse

Born in Wontergem, Belgium on this day in 1892, Lucien Buysse entered the last Tour de France before the First World War in 1914 with Alcyon-Soly but didn't finish the race. He survived the War, then returned to cycling with Legnano-Pirelli in 1919 and rode another Tour; once again, he did not finish. He didn't enter for the following three years but finished the 1920 Paris-Roubaix in third place, then in 1923 he went back to the Tour with older brother Marcel's M. Buysse-Colonial team, won Stage 8 and finished in eighth place overall. In 1924 and 1925 he rode with Automoto purely to support Ottavio Bottecchia, for which reason he frequently described as having been the first domestique in Tour history. He came third in 1924, then second in 1925.

In 1926, the Tour was reduced to 17 stages, there having been 18 in 1925 - however, it was most definitely not easier. For a start, riders would face the Alps twice, on the way out and the way back in and again, and Henri Desgrange (who believed that the ideal Tour would be one in which only one rider finished) hadn't cut a stage for their benefit - he did it to increase the average stage length. What's more, the parcours followed the nations borders more closely than ever before or since; making this the longest Tour in history at 5,745km (for comparison, the 2012 edition is 3,497km). Bottecchia, having won the previous two editions, was most fans' favourite, but many others fancied Alcyon's Adelin Benoit who had surprised everyone with a stage win and five days in the maillot jaune in 1925. A classic battle was expected, but as tends to be the way in the Tour it turned out far better than anyone had hoped. Right from the first stage unexpected things happened, beginning with a perfect solo break by Buysse, accompanied by another brother named Jules (there was a Michel, too), which lasted until the end of the stage where he won by thirteen minutes. Stage 2 ended with a bunch sprint won by little-known Belgian rider Aimé Dossche, who had picked up his first professional contract with Automoto at the the start of the year but seems to have switched to Christophe (which, like Automoto, was co-sponsored by Hutchinson at that time) before the Tour; so the GC remained virtually unchanged. Then in Stage 3 Gustaaf van Slembrouck managed to grab a lead that kept him in the maillot jaune for six days.

During Stage 3, Buysse received news that his infant daughter had died (some historians say she died before the Tour) but, after thinking things over, decided to honour his family's request that he continue and try to win a stage that could be dedicated to the memory. Stage 4 was perhaps too soon and went to Félix Sellier instead; Stage 5 to Adelin Benoit. Another little-known Belgian named Joseph van Daam won Stage 6 after judges declared that Sellier had broken race regulations (van Daam would win two more later on, so he was much more famous when the race ended), then Nicolas Frantz won Stage 7; since Frantz had finished fourth in 1925 and showed enormous promise, instantly made him a favourite too. Van Daam won Stage 8, this time on his own merit, then Frantz took Stage 9. The race had truly begun now, with a new challenger making things difficult for Bottecchia and Benoit.


Tour director HenriDesgrange, ever since he'd been convinced that it was possible to send the race over the high mountains without the riders dying, rebelling or being eaten by bears (something that, perhaps unfortunately in the eyes of some fans, has yet to happen in the Tour) and that in fact the public enjoyed the race more when it was an heroic spectacle, was always on the look-out for ways to make the parcours more difficult. Stage 10 went far beyond anything from previous years - and, say the ever-dwindling number of people who were there to see it, since. In terms of distance, it wasn't the longest stage that year - ten stages were longer, the longest 433km - but its 326km took the riders over some of the toughest roads in France, and they set out at midnight to be in with a chance of finishing by the following afternoon. Matters were not improved by a storm on the Col d'Aspin, but the Buysse brothers were made of stern stuff: while the rest of the peloton survived, they attacked hard and Lucien won after riding for seventeen hours. He had taken the maillot jaune, but better still he could dedicate the hardest stage in the history of the Tour to the memory of his daughter.

Buysse on Tourmalet

When he won Stage 11 two days later, he gained a lead of more than an hour over his nearest rival. From now on, he was able to stay tucked safely away in the peloton, conserving his energy and simply making sure that he finished (which didn't prevent him winning the meilleur grimpeur, a prize for the best climber from the days before the King of the Mountains competition). Frantz won two more stages once the race returned to the flatlands, but he didn't have a hope of getting anywhere near the leader now and had to be content with second place. As they crossed the finish line in Paris behind stage winner Dossche, the gap between them was 1h22'25" (Buysse's overall time was 238h44'25" - around two-and-three-quarter times as long as Cadel Evan's 2011 winning time); a far greater memorial to his daughter than a stage win.

Buysse retired in 1933, by which time he was 41 years old - still a young man by today's standards,  but well into middle-age by those of the time. He lived for almost half a century more, dying at the age of 87 on the 3rd of January in 1980.

Lieuwe Westra, riding at the time of writing for Vacansoleil-DCM, was born in Mûnein, Netherlands on this day in 1982. Having been a regular inclusion in the top ten placings since turning professional in 2006, 2012 has been the best year of Westra's career to date with one stage win, third place in the Points competition and second place overall at Paris-Nice, second place at the Dreidaagse van De Panne, second place at the Tour of Belgium, victory at the National Independent Time Trial Championship and first place overall at the Post Danmark Rundt.

Roberto Chiappa, born in Terni, Italy on this day in 1973, was Under-19 World Sprint Champion in 1991, Amateur World Tandem Champion in 1993. World Military Sprint Champion in 1994, Italian Keirin Champion from 2004 to 2008 and National Sprint Champion from 2004 to 2010.

Matthew Gilmore, born in Gent, Belgium on this day in 1972, has held one World Track Championship title, five European Track Championships titles and one from the National Championships - the Australian National Championships, having raced with an Australian licence during the first years of his career on account of his father, 1967 Australian National Road Race Champion Graeme Gilmore. Graeme married Tom Simpson's sister; Matthew is, therefore, Tom's nephew.

Dainis Ozols, born in Smiltene, Latvia on this day in 1966, won the Irish Rás Tailteann in 1989, the Regio Tour and a bronze medal for in the Road Race at the Olympics in 1992, the Circuit Franco-Belge in 1993 and was National Independent Time Trial Champion in 1997, 1998 and 1999. Every now and then, a rider comes along who, for no apparent reason, completely confuses race announcers, reporters and on-screen graphics technicians.Ozols was one of them; his name was, more frequently than not, given as Ozolos and occasionally with other surplus letters, while his nationality was often incorrectly listed as Lithuanian or Polish.

Other cyclists born on this day: Willi Fuggerer (Germany, 1941); Christophe Le Mével (France, 1980); Karen Matamoros (Costa Rica, 1982); Suleman Ambaye (Ethiopia, 1935); Vitool Charernratana (Thailand, 1942); Marc Willers (New Zealand, 1985); René Andring (Luxembourg, 1939); Miguel Mora (Spain, 1936, died 2012); Mariano Piccoli (Italy, 1970); Patricio Almonacid (Chile, 1979); Claude Magni (France, 1950); Denis Pelizzari (France, 1960); Roman Čermák (Czechoslovakia, 1959); John Thorsen (Australia, 1957).