In November 1869 the first cycling magazine, Le Velocipede Ill.u.s.tre, and Olivier Brothers ran the ParisRouen race, won by Moore (see ROAD RACING) using the machines. By now race meetings were drawing up to 300 compet.i.tors, including women, and as many as 10,000 spectators. The vogue for the machines spread rapidly, to Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Britain, and the US. In France, however, velocipede use stuttered with the onset of the FrancoPrussian war in 1870, and the political turmoil that followed.
In Britain the Midlands, and Coventry in particular, rapidly became the center for velocipede production. Gradually, the design changed: the unpowered back wheel of the Michaux-type machines was shrunk, to save weight, frames became more nimble, and the front wheel grew, to a limit set by the inside leg of the rider. The boneshaker disappeared, and the HIGH-WHEELER was born.
BOOKS-FICTION A subjective selection in no particular order The Wheels of Chance, H.G. Wells Hard-to-find turn-of-the-century novel in which Wells"s hero, Hoopdriver, undertakes a 10-day cycle tour of Britain"s South Coast and falls in love with a fellow cyclist, one of many women given freedom by their newfound mobility. Beautiful portrait of cycling in the formative years of the pastime, with acute observation of the blurring of cla.s.s distinctions the bicycle brought with it.
Cat, Freya North Since its publication in 1999 this chick-lit tale of bedhopping on the Tour (as the author puts it, "big egos and bigger bulges in the lycra shorts") is probably the biggest selling cycling fiction work ever: 10 years later, almost every British thrift store and teenage female babysitter seem to have a copy. Tour journos who were on the 1998 race when La North was researching the work are known to scrutinize the book closely trying to figure who is who. Trivia lovers note: there is a William Fotheringham in the pages, but he"s sports editor of the Guardian. We emphasize that it is fiction.
Bad to the Bone, James Waddington Surreal novel published by happy coincidence in 1998, the year of the Festina scandal, in which top cyclists in the TOUR DE FRANCE are offered a Faustian pact by a sports doctor: a wonder drug which will make them unbeatable, but which has horrendous side effects. It"s fiction. Honest. Pro cyclists would never go so far-would they?
The Rider, Tim Krabbe Cult novella with a popular English translation from 2002. Goes inside one rider"s mind during a fictional race somewhere hilly in the South of France-the only issue being that if any cyclist actually thought that much he"d be too distracted to compete. Totally compulsive: you either love it or it leaves you cold.
The Yellow Jersey, Ralph Hurne Possibly the least politically correct cycling work ever, what with the big-breasted, topless lady (alongside the Condor bike) on the Pan paperback, and the constant references to potential s.e.xual partners as "it." Get past that and this 1973 novel is a hilarious, racy, suspenseful gem: you can"t help but get drawn in as Terry Davenport,jaded ex-pro and womanizer, gears up for one last Tour and suffers like h.e.l.l in the process. The bit where the top five riders in the race all test positive is amusingly prescient. Written with two endings, one for the British market, one for the US.
The Big Loop, Claire Huchet Bishop Published in 1955, offering a Parisian teenager"s view of a cycling career from aspirant without a bike to Tour winner. It has a certain charm as a portrait of French cycling in the glory days of Bobet and Robic, but is unlikely to cut much ice with the PlayStation generation.
BOOKS-NONFICTION The Great Bike Race, Geoff Nicholson Masterly history of the Tour de France crafted around the 1976 race, oozing humor and glorious detail without a hint of self.
Nicholson, G.o.d rest his soul, was a writer who topped the Galibier while the others were toiling up the Telegraphe. His sequel, Le Tour, did not quite hit these heights.
Wide-Eyed and Legless, Jeff Connor No journalist will ever get as close to a team as Connor got to ANC-Halfords in the 1987 Tour de France, and no squad will want them to, given the stuff he picked up thanks to his inimitable eye for detail. The gradual implosion of the first British trade team to ride the Tour is dissected in all its quarrelsome, anarchic glory. Connor"s attempt to ride a Tour stage is the hilarious high point.
Lance Armstrong"s War, Daniel Coyle The best way to learn about LANCE ARMSTRONG and 21st century pro cycling, through the eyes of a wry outsider given inside access to Planet Lance. Brilliantly observed, hilariously written, but above all dispa.s.sionate, neither for nor against the controversial Texan.
Read and judge Le Boss for yourself.
Major Taylor, Andrew Ritchie Ritchie set the standard for cycling biography with this account of the life of one of America"s first nonwhite sports stars. Impeccable research and a lively re-creation of cycling"s HEROIC ERA.
Kings of the Road, Robin Magowan and Graham Watson This 1985 opus is the best integrated words-and-pictures book about professional cycle racing. Some of the content is dated but GRAHAM WATSON"s photos and the pen-portraits of ROBERT MILLAR, SEAN KELLY, PHIL ANDERSON, and GREG LEMOND are timeless.
Kings of the Mountains, Matt Rendell Exhaustive and intense investigation into cycling in COLOMBIA. Like Ritchie"s Major Taylor, it extends way beyond things two-wheeled and offers a superb insight into a controversial, colorful nation.
Greg Lemond: The Incredible Comeback, Samuel Abt The best work from one of the great cycling writers of the last quarter-century. This 1990 account of LeMond"s return from near-death to win the best Tour de France ever is as good at it gets.
Sean Kelly: A Man for All Seasons, David Walsh The definitive account of the great man"s rise in the early 1980s; Walsh is superbly observant, can work out the deals his fellow Irishman is striking, and benefits from unlimited access. Those were the days.
BOOKS-MEMOIRS/AUTOBIOGRAPHY It"s Not About the Bike, Lance Armstrong Love or loathe Lance Armstrong, you can"t ignore one of the biggest-selling cycling books ever, because of the visceral emotions it brings. The detail is telling, most notably the scene where Armstrong has to m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e into a cup so that he can bank sperm before his testicular cancer operation. A key element in the Big-Tex myth.
Flying Scotsman, Graeme Obree For my money the rawest and best cycling autobiography. Graeme Obree tells his story uncut, without the intermediary of a ghost writer, and tells of s.e.xual abuse and attempted suicide with not a hint of self-pity. Alongside this the film of the same name is distinctly insipid.
Rough Ride, Paul Kimmage As with Armstrong, you swoon or swear at this up and (let"s face it, mainly) down account of Paul Kimmage"s career as a pro in the mid-1980s. Great inside stuff, but his drug "revelations" seem timid now, though at the time they were scandalous. No one describes suffering on a bike quite so well; brutally debunked the "glamour" of pro life, even if it is a bit Gone with a Whinge.
The Escape Artist, Matt Seaton Elegiac telling of Matt Seaton"s discovery of cycling against a background of serious "stuff of life," namely his wife"s death of cancer. Beautifully written, elegantly crafted, tugs at the heartstrings, and sums up why we all ride bikes.
A Dog in a Hat, Joe Parkin The life and times of a mediocre American pro in Belgium is one of the most compelling memoirs of its time, mainly because of Parkin"s sheer love of Flandrian cycling culture and the pure weirdness of pro racing. The high point comes early on, when Parkin reads the lyrics to "Jumping Jack Flash" handwritten on Bob Roll"s tires.
MEMOIRS A brief selection: For the Love of Jacques Sophie Anquetil 2004 Glory Without the Yellow Jersey Raymond Poulidor 1977 Boy Racer Mark Cavendish 2009 Cycling Is my Life Tom Simpson 1966, 2009 The Fastest Bicycle Racer in the World Major Taylor 1928 In Pursuit of Glory Bradley Wiggins 2008 Personal Best Beryl Burton reiss. 2008 Le Peloton des Souvenirs Bernard Hinault 1988 We Were Young and Carefree Laurent Fignon 2010 The Autobiography Chris Hoy 2009 The spate of drug scandals since 1998 has given rise to a small and highly profitable genre: confessional memoirs by a drug taker or provider. First came Secret High by the almost unknown Erwann Mentheour, followed by Ma.s.sacre a la Chain (translated as Breaking the Chain, Yellow Jersey, 2000) by the soigneur w.i.l.l.y Voet of Festina, which sold over 300,000 copies. Others to tell their stories in print included Jerome Chiotti, a mountain-bike world champion who returned his gold medal after confessing to drug use, the Cofidis professional Philippe Gaumont, the Festina manager Bruno Roussel and the team"s leader Richard Virenque. The latter"s book, My Truth, explained how he had not taken drugs, and was published before he changed his mind and confessed. Christophe Ba.s.sons, an anti-drugs campaigner and former Festina professional, wrote the ironically t.i.tled Positif.
BOOKS-TRAVEL French Revolutions, Tim Moore A cycling novice takes on a bonkers task: riding around France, loosely based on the 2000 Tour route. Moore has no inhibitions about his own failings and, unlike others who use the "I" word to destruction, he gets away with it because his sense of humor never flags. Probably the best constructed ending among all the fine tomes listed here.
Round Ireland in Low Gear, Eric Newby Pretty eccentric tale, as the travel-writing great sets off in the depths of winter with wife Wanda to contend with Irish weather, Irish signposts, and their shared lack of cycling experience.
Round the World on a Wheel, John Foster-Fraser Kipling or Baden Powell should have written this account of one of the first around-the-world trips. If you want to get an idea of the mindset that made the British Empire what it was-in the best and worst senses-it"s all there in this book, reissued in 1982. An excellent Boys" Own-style caper at the time, now a period piece.
Into the Remote Places, Ian Hibell One of the original and best "ridden there" books. Hibell cannot match Moore for humor, or Newby for observation, but no holds are barred, from bust-ups with his (male) companions, to his love affair with a (female) companion, not to mention the extreme experience of crossing the Darien Gap, slashing the jungle, bike on his back, with a septic leg oozing pus. You won"t complain about riding your bike to the store again.
Full Tilt: Dunkirk to Delhi by Bicycle, Dervla Murphy Setting off in the depths of Britain"s hardest winter of the 20th century, 1963, Murphy made it all the way to India with her bike, producing an epic account of cycling through Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Kashmir that offers much food for thought given the current political situation.
(SEE LITERATURE FOR HOW CYCLING FITS INTO THE LITERARY WORLD OF HENRY MILLER, FLANN O"BRIEN, AND ALFRED JARRY) BORYSEWICZ, Eddie (b. Poland, 1939) Groundbreaking US national coach who masterminded the medal-winning performances at the Los Angeles Olympics, furthered the careers of GREG LEMOND and LANCE ARMSTRONG, and initially managed the team that eventually became US Postal Service. Borysewicz was born in Poland, where he was a national junior champion before moving to coaching after a tuberculosis infection. He was on the Polish team staff at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal and joined the US Cycling Federation as head coach the following year, thanks to a chance meeting in a bike shop with the USCF"s compet.i.tion head Mike Fraysse.
Borysewicz spoke no English and initially relied on the 12-year-old son of Polish friends for translation. The riders nicknamed him Eddie B because they could not p.r.o.nounce his surname. He bought his own desk at the Olympic Training Center in Squaw Valley and booted out most of the established national team, telling many of the riders they were too fat. Compared to established practices in EASTERN EUROPE, however, this was standard procedure. His first season in command was marked by silver medals on track and road for Sue Novara and CONNIE CARPENTER, but another big breakthrough came with LeMond"s junior world road t.i.tle in 1979. Four years later, Borysewicz guided the US team to a clean sweep of all the medals at the Panamerican Games, and in 1984 to its first Olympic medals since 1912, with the squad taking five golds in L.A. That triumph was, however, marred by the subsequent revelation that some of the team had used blood doping, a practice that was not illegal at the time but was later banned. Borysewicz denied involvement.
He left the US team in 1987 and founded an amateur team backed by Montgomery Securities that included Lance Armstrong among its members. Subaru-Montgomery raced the European circuit in 1993 without great success, but the Montgomery head Thomas Weisl stuck with the squad and it acquired backing from the US Postal Service in 1996. After quitting professional cycling, Eddie B coached the Polish national team in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Borysewicz was inducted into the US Bicycling Hall of Fame in 1996.
BOYER, Jonathan (b. Moab, Utah, 1955) First American to finish the Tour de France and one of the first to forge a career in Continental Europe. Boyer was born in Utah, raised in Monterey, and moved to France in 1973 to join the ACBB cycling club in Paris, an outfit that had hosted Irish pioneer Shay Elliott in the 1950s and would subsequently become celebrated for producing many of the FOREIGN LEGION of British, Irish, and Australian pros. Boyer turned pro for the Lejeune-BP squad in 1977 but was subsequently hired by the Renault-Elf squad to a.s.sist Greg LeMond on his entry to European racing. He completed his first Tour in 1981, wearing a jersey with a stars and stripes design that suggested he was US national champion, but was actually a marketing ploy by the race organizers. In 1982 he was in contention for a medal at the world road race championships in Goodwood, England, but LeMond rode past en route to the silver medal. In 1983 he rode to his best Tour placing, 12th overall; his only major win in Europe was a stage of the Tour of Switzerland in 1984. Later, Boyer was a member of the 7-Eleven team managed by JIM OCHOWICZ in its early years racing the European circuit.
In November 2002 he was convicted of lewd behavior with a minor and served a year in jail and five years probation. Since his release, Boyer has completed the Race Across America-which he won in 1990-and has been active with mountain bike guru Tom Ritchey in promoting cycling in Rwanda.
BRAKES Early bicycles had crude braking devices consisting of rod-operated spoons or rollers that pushed onto their solid tires, sometimes with a lever pushed by the foot. Pneumatic tires, invented in the 1890s, were more fragile, so rim brakes were developed, still powered by levers and rods; at the same time, the development of early free wheels resulted in the invention of the coaster brake, which meant the cyclist could brake by backpedalling. On a fixed-wheel bike, the rider can use inertia to slow down-the pa.s.sive resistance of the legs as the pedals push them around-or for more rapid braking can try to slow down the pedals by pushing against the motion.
Rim brakes operated by various designs of calliper have been in use since 1879, when JAMES STARLEY patented the Grip with bra.s.s brake shoes; the stirrup brake, using levers and rods to pull the stirrup mounting for the shoes, came in early in the 20th century. Cantilever brakes-in which small callipers and brake shoes are attached to braze-on bosses on either side of the rim-have been used since the 1890s, and have always been popular on CYCLO-CROSS machines because of their great stopping power and the clearance they offer; they wereused on early mountain bikes.
Until the end of the 1970s, road racers chose between side-pull callipers, as made by CAMPAGNOLO from 1968, and center-pulls, in which the callipers crossed in a shallow X, of which the best were made by British company GB and French firm Mafac. In the end, side-pulls became universal, mainly because of their greater simplicity, although Campagnolo"s elegant, if heavy, Delta brake of the 1990s was in essence a center-pull with a parallelogram-shaped linkage.
The MOUNTAIN BIKE brought innovation in this area as well as others. First came powerful hydraulic brakes-the best made by French firm Magura-where the cables were replaced with fluid-filled control lines; these sat on the same bosses that would have taken cantilever brakes and produced such power that seat-stays could be seen bending under the strain. To counter this, they were sometimes backed up with metal bridging plates.
Drum brakes had been used on the very first mountain bikes, but their weight was a handicap; the best design has proved to be lightweight hydraulic disc brakes refined from motorbike models, offering one great advantage over rim brakes: they do not lose any efficiency in the wet, when it is estimated that water flowing over the rim can cause the loss of up to 60 percent of braking power.
BRIGHTON Finish point for one of the world"s largest ma.s.s bike rides, the London to Brighton, one of the first events of its kind. The ride was founded in 1975 as a demonstration of pedal power; 34 cyclists covered the 54-mile route. From 1980 it was run officially in aid of the British Heart Foundation. Now about 27,000 cyclists, of all ages and on all kinds of bikes, struggle up the final climb over the South Down"s Ditchling Beacon just before the final swoop to the finish on Madeira Drive. Since 1980 almost 40 million dollars has been raised for the BHF, while an estimated 650,000 cyclists have taken part.
It"s not clear who was the first cyclist to ride to the South Coast resort, but one of the first was John Mayal, who set out in February 1869 on an old ordinary to get there in a day. It took him approximately 20 hours. London to Brighton and back remains one of the British RECORDS officially listed by the Road Records a.s.sociation; the current record for a bike dates back to 1977 (Phil Griffiths, 4 hours 15 minutes 8 seconds).
Brighton was the venue for a British stage finish in the 1994 Tour de France, when the peloton rode over Ditchling, and the resort hosted a World Cup Cla.s.sic for several years (see HEIN VERBRUGGEN"S entry for the history of the World Cup).
BURROWS, Mike (b. England, 1943) Groundbreaking English bike designer who produced two definitive designs: the carbon-fiber monocoque engineered by the Lotus car company on which CHRIS BOARDMAN rode to an Olympic gold medal in 1992, and the early TCR compact bike for GIANT, with a sloping top tube, which set the tone for most top-end road bikes in the early 21st century. Burrows is also a stalwart of the REc.u.mBENT bike movement, producing one of the most popular designs, the Windcheetah (see END TO END for one of the most surprisingfeats achieved on the machine).
Burrows began experimenting with smoothed out steel and carbon-fiber frames for TIME TRIALLING in the 1980s but the Lotus was the definitive design: a cross-shaped frame based on a single colossal smoothed-out strut running from the head tube to the rear hub, with extensions for the bottom bracket and saddle, and mon.o.blade forks at front and rear. When Boardman won the gold medal, the bike received more attention than he did; it was estimated that Lotus gained about 100 million worth of free advertising. A road version was produced in 1994, and Boardman used it to win the prologue time trial of the TOUR DE FRANCE at record speed. On the downside, he went through a dozen of the frames; they were, he said, "neither robust nor reliable." In 1993, Burrows also produced a bike for Boardman"s big rival GRAEME OBREE, but the Scot preferred to stick to his own machine.
Burrows has also produced a folding bike, the Giant Halfway, which uses his trademark one-piece forks to make the bike flatter when it is folded, and a super-thin bike, the 2D, that is intended to be stored in a narrow hallway. He stopped working for Giant in 2001.
Burrows now builds his own rec.u.mbent bikes such as the Ratracer, and also makes a freight bike for courier companies: the 8Freight has an eight-foot wheelbase and thin profile so that it can be ridden down bike lanes. He has raced successfully on the Windcheetah, twice winning the European Human Powered Vehicle championships.
(TO READ ABOUT ANOTHER BIKE DESIGNER WHO BROKE THE MOLD, SEE SIR ALEX MOULTON; TO READ ABOUT ANOTHER REc.u.mBENT FAN, SEE RICHARD BALLANTINE).
BURTON, Beryl Born:Halton, England, May 12, 1937 Died: Yorkshire, England, May 8, 1996 Major wins: World road race champion 1960, 1967; world pursuit champion 195960, 196263, 1966; 72 British time trial t.i.tles; 25 British Best All-Rounder t.i.tles; 26 national pursuit and road t.i.tles; national record (men and women) 12 hours 1967, MBE 1964, OBE 1968 Further reading: Personal Best, autobiography reissued by Mercian Manuals 2009 A fixture in women"s racing for 30 years and a multiple world champion, the West Yorkshire racer was one of many cyclists done a disservice by the exclusion of women from the OLYMPIC GAMES until 1984. Born Beryl Charnock and introduced to cycling by her husband Charlie in 1955, Burton was a fearsome presence on the international stage, taking two world t.i.tles in the road race (1960, 1967) and 10 medals in the individual pursuit, including five golds. Her feats were recognized in France at least, where she was invited to ride the Grand Prix des Nations-a Cla.s.sic normally limited to the best male professionals-in 1968. Riding before the professional field, Burton was some 11 minutes 30 seconds slower than the great Italian Felice Gimondi over the 45-mile course.
She combined her racing with various jobs including laboring on a fruit farm run by her Morley CC clubmate Nim Carline. No cosseted professional, when taking her first world t.i.tle in Liege in 1959 she contributed expenses from her own pocket, and on returning home to Yorkshire she had to hitch a lift to her house from Leeds station. She dominated women"s racing in Britain for 30 years, but her finest exploit came in 1967 when she broke the British record for 12 hours, beating the men"s distance with 277.25 miles and overtaking the men"s champion Mike McNamara along the way.
"Mac" had started two minutes ahead of Burton; she overhauled him in the final hour, and she later recalled the moment in her autobiography Personal Best: ""I"ll have to pa.s.s him," I thought. "Poor Mac, it doesn"t seem fair."... "Mac raised his head slightly and looked at me. Goodness knows what was going on in his mind but I thought some gesture was required on my part. I was carrying a bag of liquorice allsorts in the pocket of my jersey and on impulse I groped into the bag and pulled one out. It was one of those swiss-roll shaped ones, white with a coating of black liquorice. "Liquorice allsort, Mac?" I shouted and held it towards him. He gave a wan smile. I put my head down and drew away."
That year, she was awarded an OBE and was elected British Sportswoman of the year. Burton"s daughter Denise also competed, and mother and daughter both rode the world road race championships in Gap in 1972.
C.
CAMPAGNOLO, Tullio (b. Italy, 1901, d. 1983) Founder of cycling"s most celebrated component makers and the man behind a host of innovations that are now universal in cycling, most notably the quick-release hub and a parallelogram rear derailleur that was not the first but was copied worldwide. During Campagnolo"s 50-year manufacturing career he patented 135 inventions and bikes were transformed: from lumpen machines that had barely moved on since the invention of the safety bike, they became jewel-like, finely crafted pieces of lightweight engineering. The company remains highly secretive: for example, no one outside its factory knows what goes into its legendary off-white grease.
"When we saw a good-looking girl at the roadside, we"d say she was Campag," recalled the 1950s champion Raphael Geminiani. "Why is the name the most mythical in cycling? It"s simple: Tullio changed the lives of cycling greats by producing cutting-edge components, and ordinary cyclists want to be like the greats."
All this dates back to one day, and one snow-hit race. Campagnolo was an amateur racing cyclist who was riding the Gran Premio della Vittoria over the Croce d"Aune pa.s.s in the Dolomites on November 4, 1924, when he had to change gears. This involved undoing the wingnuts on his back wheel and moving the chain to a different sprocket. The wingnuts had frozen up and his hands were too cold to turn them; he was unable to change gear and was deprived of the win.
Tullio"s father owned an ironmonger"s in Vicenza, northern Italy, where Campagnolo began experimenting. Over the next six years, he came up with the quick release mechanism, in which a hinged lever is turned inward against the wheel drop-out to hold the wheel spindle. The spindle is hollow, and when the lever is undone, springs on either side push the holding mechanism outward so the spindle remains centerd.
Next Tullio came up with various DERAILLEUR mechanisms, culminating in the radical Gran Sport (see time line on page 60). After the Second World War Campagnolo was carried along by the ma.s.sive industrial growth that transformed Italy from a nation devastated by war to a dynamic modern society based on specialist manufacturing. The company worked with sports car makers Alfa, Ferrari, and Maserati at various times; the company"s rapid expansion-from 1 employee in 1940 to 123 by 1950-and constant innovation was a key element in Italian cycling"s golden years, when the rivalry between FAUSTO COPPI and GINO BARTALI was at its height. Both men raced on Campagnolo products, and Tullio was in constant contact with them and their mechanics to use their experience in the field to drive the manufacturing process forward. "The key one was the saddle fixing," said Geminiani. "Tullio brought in a two-pin cradle which meant everything, how far back the saddle was, how it sloped, could be adjusted to the millimeter." The Gran Sport derailleur, and the 1956 racing pedal and seatpost, all became cla.s.sic designs copied by many other manufacturers.
By the start of the 1970s, Campagnolo had diversified into motor parts, mainly wheels and brakes. In cycling, thanks to the constant consultation with the best racers and their mechanics-whose comments were recorded in Tullio"s notebook-Campagnolo had become preeminent, constantly pushing forward with greats such as EDDY MERCKX using the components. "When I raced, 15 was the smallest sprocket," recalled Geminiani. "Tullio brought out the 13 for Anquetil, and the 12 for Merckx." In a similar vein, in 1996 Tullio"s son Valentino traveled to the TOUR DE FRANCE with the first nine-speed gear for eventual winner Bjarne Riis.
In the 1970s, however, serious compet.i.tion emerged in the form of j.a.panese companies SunTour and SHIMANO, leading to battles on the road between Merckx and Shimano-sponsored rivals. Tullio Campagnolo died in 1983 just as his company was celebrating its 50th anniversary; a groupset specially produced for the occasion was presented to the pope. By then, the company"s range was becoming unwieldy, and the advent of MOUNTAIN-BIKING in the US meant that road racing was no longer the cutting edge of componentry: progress was now driven by mountain-bike makers, and production of all but high-end equipment was moving to the Far East.
By the 1980s the most radical road developments no longer came from Campagnolo. Shimano raced ahead, first with indexed shifting, in which the derailleur clicked into predetermined positions so that shifting was no long a matter of guesswork; that in turn led to gear changers that were integrated into brake levers, the Shimano STI. Clipless pedals were produced by the French companies Look and Time, while Shimano and SunTour dominated the mountain-bike market. It took several years for the Italian company to catch up, and in the meantime it brought out abortive products such as various unwieldy mountain-bike groupsets, the bizarre Delta parallelogram brakes, and heavy clipless pedals.
Campagnolo Time Line =.
1930- Tullio Campagnolo patents quick release hub.
1933- Campagnolo srl founded, first derailleur patented.
1943- Campagnolo logo featuring winged wheel appears for first time.
1948- Gino Bartali wins Tour de France using a cambio corsa derailleur.
1949- Parallelogram Gran Sport derailleur appears at Milan trade show; the definitive design appears in 1951.
1953- Fausto Coppi wins world championship using Gran Sport derailleur. Range now includes four rear derailleurs and two front, bar-end and down-tube shifters, hubs, dropouts, and various tools.
1958- Record name appears on five-pin cotterless crankset and hubs; soon features on track and road component groups. The range expands through the 1960s.
1966- Self-centring wine bottle opener patented.
1974- Super Record road and track groups appear, with t.i.tanium beginning to feature.
1980- Tullio Campagnolo oversees his last project, the Campagnolo freewheel.
1982- Range now includes Super Record, Nuovo Record, and Gran Sport, plus BMX componentry and promotional items including corkscrew and nutcracker.
1984- Seven-speed freewheel introduced.
1987- Last year Super Record produced until 2008.
1989- Mountain-bike groupset appears.
1992- Ergopower handlebar shifters introduced.
1994- Campagnolo leaves mountain-bike business.
1997- Nine-speed shifting brought in.
2000- Ten-speed shifting appears.
2004- Compact drivetrain brought in, featuring small chainrings, for cyclosportive events.
2008- Top-end groupsets now feature 11 sprockets.
Campagnolo was revitalized in the early 1990s by the invention of the Ergopower handlebar/ brake lever gear changers that took Shimano head-on. The rise of CYCLOSPORTIVE events in that decade also put the focus back on the road; in 1994 Campagnolo abandoned mountain-biking. Since then it has not attempted to take on Shimano in a straight fight, but has carved out its own niche, pushing road racing technology forward with the extensive use of carbon fiber, a move to 11-speed gearing, and compact gearing, which enables very low gears to be used in sportive events.
Campagnolo initiated the move to factory-built wheels with its groundbreaking Shamal although it appears to have fallen behind Shimano on electric gear-shifting. Its core value, however, remains its relationship with professional cyclists; one company insider estimated that 50 had been consulted before new 11-speed Ergopower changers were produced in 2008.
CAMPIONISSIMO Italian term meaning champion of champions, coined in 1919 when Costante Girardengo won the GIRO D"ITALIA, taking 7 stages out of 10. The runner-up commented, "I"ll never be a campionissimo but the names of a few pretty girls are etched on my heart." The second campionissimo was ALFREDO BINDA-five times a Giro winner, with a record 12 stages in 1927-but most often the term is used to refer to FAUSTO COPPI, although Italians would also use it when talking about EDDY MERCKX.
CANADA While all of Canada is not wilderness perpetually blanketed under ice and snow, there are good reasons why ice hockey is the country"s dominant sport. Nevertheless, for much of cycling"s history, it was arguably more robust in many parts of Canada, particularly Quebec, than it was in the United States.
TRACK in particular dominated cycling"s early history in Canada. The biggest draw at SIX-DAY races was William Peden. Known as Torchy for his red hair, Peden won 38 six-days between 1929 and 1948, including 10 in 1932 alone.
Like many leading Canadian riders, Peden"s bikes came from the Canadian Cycle and Motor Co., or CCM as it was better known. Canada"s five largest bicycle makers merged operations to form CCM in 1899 when the initial bicycle boom waned. Although the company struggled initially, high import tariffs eventually enabled it to dominate the Canadian market. In 1950, for example, 130,413 bicycles were made in Canada, mostly by CCM, while just 29,354 bicycles were imported.
After World War II, time trialling and road racing developed in many parts of Canada largely thanks to a wave of immigrants from Britain and Italy. But cycling never regained the ma.s.s popularity it enjoyed during the height of the six-day era.
As is often the case with Canadian matters, the predominately French-speaking province of Quebec remained an exception. Racing there experienced much less of a decline between the end of the war and the second great bicycle boom of the 1970s. From the mid-1950s through the 1960s, Yvon Guillou organized the Tour du Saint Laurent, a stage race that attracted a variety of European amateur teams. It was briefly succeeded by a pro stage race, the Tour de la Nouvelle France, in the 1970s, which again featured European teams and prominent riders.
Since the 1980s, Serge a.r.s.enault has continued to bring pro racing to Quebec primarily with one-day races on a taxing circuit in downtown Montreal, a city that hosted the world championships in 1899 and 1974.
Perhaps surprisingly, however, the best known Canadian cyclists have not been from Quebec. Both STEVE BAUER, Canada"s most successful road rider, and Gord Singleton, the first Canadian world champion (KEIRIN, 1982), come from near Niagara Falls. Bauer was initially coached by Colin Hearth, who also guided Singleton on the track.
Jocelyn Lovell was as irascible as he was successful, winning four gold medals in track events at the COMMONWEALTH GAMES in the 1970s. During a training ride in 1983, however, he was. .h.i.t by a truck; the accident left him a quadriplegic.
Canadians have also been prominent in MOUNTAIN BIKING, most notably British Columbia"s Alison Sydor, a three-time world champion in cross country and the winner of 17 World Cup races.
Clara Hughes found cycling fame in an unusual, and very Canadian, way. After winning, among many other t.i.tles, bronze medals in the road race and time trial at the 1996 Olympics, she switched back to speed skating, her first sport. She subsequently won gold, silver, and bronze Olympic medals on ice, making her the first Canadian to win medals at both the summer and winter games.
CAPE TOWN Site of the biggest compet.i.tive bike ride in the world: the Argus Pick"n"Pay Tour, which has about 40,000 partic.i.p.ants. It usually takes place on the second Sat.u.r.day in March and covers a 109-kilometer course starting and finishing in Cape Town, South Africa. Celebrity partic.i.p.ants have included MIGUEL INDURAIN, GREG LEMOND, the Rugby World Cup-winning Springbok captain Francois Pienaar, and EDDY MERCKX. The course record was set by South African Robbie Hunter in 2008 with 2 hours 27 minutes.
The Cape Argus was the first event outside Europe to be part of the UCI"s Golden Bike series (see CYCLOSPORTIVES to read about the others). It is the centerpiece of a week of cycle events on the Cape including a mountain-bike challenge, a five-day professional stage race, and children"s events.
The event has its roots in late 1978 when cycle activists staged a ma.s.s ride as part of a campaign for cycle paths in Cape Town. By the mid-1980s the event had become the Argus Cycle Tour and the field was up to several thousand, pa.s.sing 20,000 by 1994. In 2002 the event was stopped due to extreme heat, while the toughest climb on the course, Chapman"s, has been ruled out on occasion due to landslides. The 2009 event was run off in winds up to 60 mph.
(SEE AFRICA TO READ ABOUT CYCLING IN OTHER PARTS OF THE CONTINENT).
CARPENTER, Connie (b. Madison, Wisconsin, 1957) Winner of the first Olympic Games road race gold medal for women in 1984, Carpenter was one of a group of US cycling team members who sparked the revival in the sport in the early 1980s and is arguably the greatest US women"s bike racer to date. The former speed skater is also one of a rare breed: an athlete who has competed at both Summer and Winter Olympic Games. Carpenter was one of a bunch of US athletes who excelled at both speed skating and cycling (see the UNITED STATES entry for more on these), finishing seventh in the 1,500 m at the 1972 Winter Games at the age of 14. Carpenter moved to cycling after an ankle injury cut short her skating career in 1976; the following year she raced to a silver medal in the world road race championships. She became a multiple US champion on road and track and in 1978 and 1979 competed prominently in varsity rowing for the University of California. In 1983 she became the world 3 km track pursuit champion, following that up in 1984 with the road world t.i.tle and the Olympic road t.i.tle in a two-up sprint with her fellow American Rebecca Twigg. Carpenter retired two days later. She had earlier married her fellow Olympian Davis Phinney, who was to win a stage of the Tour de France in 1987. Their son Taylor Phinney is a strong time triallist and track racer, was world pursuit champion in 2009 and 2010, and turned professional in 2011 for the BMC team run by JIM OCHOWICZ.
CARTOONISTS There is a rich vein of cycling cartoons, dating back to the pioneering era, when cycling was just another social phenomenon lampooned affectionately in the pages of magazines such as Punch. That tradition is maintained today by a string of cartoonists of whom the best known is probably Frenchman Jean-Jacques Sempe, whose beautifully detailed and frequently poignant work has appeared on the cover of the New Yorker magazine since 1978, and has also been regularly featured in Paris-Match and l"Equipe magazines. Bikes are prominent subjects in Sempe"s cartoons of French life, such as the couple on a bike that forms the cover for his collection Displays of Affection. While Sempe"s best-known creation is Le Pet.i.t Nicolas, among his work is the graphic novel Raoul Taburin Keeps a Secret (published in France in 1995 as Raoul Taburin: une bicyclette a propos de son pere), the story of the great Ralph Sprockett, an expert bike mechanic who knows all there is to know about bikes apart from how to ride one. Four volumes of his work are available in English, and there is also a range of stationery based on his collection A Simple Question of Balance. The US cycling scene has produced its own cartoonists, with Patrick O"Grady being one of the leaders. An avid cyclist himself who has been writing as well as drawing for VeloNews magazine since 1989, O"Grady regularly pokes subversive, merciless fun at his fellows. His work includes the collection The Season Starts When? (1999, Velopress). Bikes are also important subjects, if in more surreal style, in the work of US ill.u.s.trator Neal Skorpen, and, frequently with an environmental slant, in the drawings of the British ill.u.s.trator Brick.