Gios: Turin. Frame maker founded in 1948, best known for supplying bikes in bright blue for the Brooklyn team led by ROGER DE VLAEMINCK in the early 1970s. Head badge features the Italian tricolor. Iconic machine is the original 1973 Brooklyn team bike in Columbus SL with chromed forks.
The years after the Second World War were key for Italian cycling with the rivalry between Bartali and FAUSTO COPPI giving the sport a central place in the nation"s cultural fabric that is only matched in France, or in smaller heartlands such as FLANDERS or the Basque Country. While in France the focus is an event, the Tour, in Italy the two stars are the reference point for Italian cycling. No surprise then that Coppi was elected the most popular Italian sportsman of the 20th century. In France, most of the best writing and filmmaking has been about the Tour itself whereas in Italy it is Coppi"s story that has given rise to novels, films, operas, plays, and eternal controversy.
The Italian cycle industry developed in the duo"s wake and remains strong in the north of the country; fierce national pride meant that in the 1980s, when imports were making a huge impact on the industry across Europe, Italian manufacturers such as CAMPAGNOLO were able to adapt to the new world. The tradition is expressed in a company like Masi, still run by Alberto, son of the founder Faliero, who used to build frames for Fausto Coppi and who still keeps the original jigs used to build bikes for the campionissimo in his shop next to the Vigorelli velodrome in Milan.
Coppi and Bartali"s lasting importance means that Italian cycling is often backward-looking, and that explains its gradual move toward the margins. All the stars since the 1950s have been compared to the big two. Vittorio Adorni, Felice Gimondi, Giuseppe Saronni, and FRANCESCO MOSER never lived up to them, and only MARCO PANTANI achieved anything like their notoriety. Italian cycling was at the center of affairs in another way, however, as the place where blood doping with EPO gained strength fastest in the early 1990s, resulting in a sudden flowering of stars before the rest of the sport caught up. But a succession of campioni were busted in Pantani"s wake-Ivan Ba.s.so, Danilo di Luca, Davide Rebellin, Riccardo Ricco-and currently Italy is looking for new heroes.
J.
JOURNALISTS Cycling is unique among sports in that its biggest and oldest events were founded and run by journalists. This led to an unusually close relationship between the written press and bike racing, which lasted over a century and has only changed in recent years. The first place-to-place cycle race, ParisRouen in 1868, was founded by Richard Lesclide, editor of the the first cycling magazine, Le Velocipede Ill.u.s.tre. PARISBRESTPARIS, the TOUR DE FRANCE, and GIRO D"ITALIA began during daily newspaper circulation wars by the sports newspapers Le Velo, l"Auto, and Gazzetta dello Sport respectively. The Het Volk Cla.s.sic in Belgium was run by the paper of that name.
Early writers were often propagandists for the nascent cycling movement. Lesclide was one, as were others such as S. S. McClure of The Wheelman in America. In France, the writer Paul de Vivies, who wrote under the name VELOCIO, founded the "diagonals"-touring routes from one corner of France to another-and campaigned for the use of the derailleur (see Velocio"s entry for his seven commandments of cycling). The director of Le Pet.i.t Journal, Albert Lejeune, was behind ParisNice, which has perhaps the most evocative name in cycling: La Course au Soleil, "the race to the sun."
While Robin Magowan was one of the first American journalists to cover the Tour de France, in 1978 (his book on that year"s race, Tour de France, the 75th Anniversary Race, is now out of print), Samuel Abt was the first US journalist to cover the Tour regularly, producing dispatches for the Herald Tribune for over a quarter of a century. His books include In High Gear: The World of Professional Bicycle Racing; Greg LeMond: The Incredible Comeback; and Off to the Races: 25 Years of Cycling Journalism. Abt was the first American to be awarded the Tour de France medal for long service on the race. Abt said that the main challenge he faced was that he could not produce technical writing, since a newspaper audience does not have specialist knowledge of cycling, and instead he had to write about the people, the surroundings, and the strategy of the race, if it could be "explained coherently." Rupert Guinness performed a similar role in bringing the sport to the Australian public by following PHIL ANDERSON, while the British pioneer was J. B. Wadley for the Daily Telegraph in the 1950s and 1960s. The doyen of the press pack in cycling these days is the British writer John Wilc.o.c.kson, who edits the American magazine Velo News (which he founded together with Magowan"s son Felix). Wilc.o.c.kson, a former correspondent for the London Times, has covered 40 Tours since the 1960s. Jacques Augendre of l"Equipe was the first writer to cover 50 Tours.
As the French writer Jacques Marchand notes, the relationship between the press and the sport has changed in recent years. In the days of l"Auto, journalists treaded carefully around the issue of doping since the small number who covered cycling were an integrated part of the sport: their papers ran races, they stayed with the cyclists, and they traveled with the teams. Although few of them were former professional cyclists-Louison Bobet"s brother Jean was an exception-but many had been keen amateurs. The sport was small in scale, and the cyclists were accessible and open. As late as 1989, it was possible to turn up at a hotel the night before the world championship and interview the Tour de France winner off-the-cuff.
The rise of television in the 1990s and the arrival of big money in sports ended that close rapport, which has been made infinitely more complicated by a decade of doping scandals, as the Times writer Jeremy Whittle portrayed in his 2008 account of his career, Bad Blood. Cycling journalists are now divided into specialists, who cover the sport all season and have close relations with the teams, and the outsiders who turn up for the Tour de France. The riders are shielded by their agents and PR men, at races they hide in vast buses, and they are mistrustful of the press because of its coverage of drug scandals.
Most writers today are divided on the doping issue: some pretend it doesn"t exist, but most admire the sport and hate doping and have an honest desire to give cyclists the benefit of the doubt unless charges are proven. There are relatively few writers who actively campaign against doping: the exceptions are l"Equipe"s specialist Damien Ressiot, who in August 2005 broke the news that EPO had been detected in urine samples given by LANCE ARMSTRONG during the 1999 Tour, and the London Sunday Times sportswriter David Walsh, who has produced a series of books detailing doping allegations against Lance Armstrong, culminating in From Lance to Landis: Inside the American Doping Controversy at the Tour de France (Ballantine Books, 2007).
K.
KEIRIN Probably the richest form of cycle racing on the planet, this j.a.panese discipline takes its name from the words for wheel and bet. This is a paced track event in which a group of nine sprinters are led up to finish speed before the pacer pulls off-usual ly with two or two and a half laps to go-so the sprinters can launch themselves for the line. It is the heart of a ma.s.sive, intricate betting industry that is hugely popular in j.a.pan. The sport was launched there in 1948 and is run by the Nihon Jitensha Shinkokai (National Keirin a.s.sociation).
Keirin has been part of the world track championships since 1980, and an Olympic discipline since 2000, but with two subtle differences. In the international arena the field is six riders per heat, and the pacing is done by a small motorbike with pedals to supplement the engine, known as a DERNY. In j.a.pan the pacer who takes the sprinters up to launch speed is another cyclist.
In j.a.pan, the riders wear motorbike helmets and body padding, with racing gear in full color depending on their rank. They bow as they enter the arena; the races typically are 2 kilometers, with a bell ringing constantly from 1.5 laps to go. The races are overseen by four judges, each one sitting in a tower on one of the four corners. The most successful keirin winner ever is Koichi Nakano, who also won the professional world sprint championship from 1977 to 1986.
"The top j.a.panese riders drive Ferraris and Lamborghinis and they"re shocked at how penniless we are," Scotland"s Olympic medalist Craig MacLean told author Richard Moore in Heroes, Villains and Velodromes. The top-ranked Keirin Grand Prix is worth over $1 million. A select group of foreigners-less than 10-race the circuit each year, but before competing they have to attend keirin school on a campus which has no less than four velodromes. There, the foreigners are fast-tracked but the j.a.panese entrants have to train and study for up to 15 hours a day. Among the entry criteria, new recruits must have no Yakuza (i.e., organized crime) connections.
As with sumo wrestling, keirin rules are arcane, devised to ensure that races cannot be fixed-the early years of keirin were marred by scandals-and cannot be affected by outside factors, so that racing conditions are perceived as fair by the betting punters. The bikes and equipment have to be made to strict guidelines by a certified builder, and have not changed for 20 years: frames are steel, and wheels have to be 36-spoked.
Keirin Figures*
* 5,000 professional riders * 1,200 events * 50 velodromes * 20 million spectators * $6 billion in betting revenue WITH THANKS TO RICHARD MOORE"S HEROES, VILLAINS AND VELODROMES All components must be approved by the NJS. Riders are responsible for their own bike maintenance, which has to be done in silence.
The hierarchy among the several thousand pros is determined by points awarded for wins and placings, with a cut taken each month: the top 50 from each category go up, the bottom 50 are "relegated." The lowest-ranked riders are eventually replaced by recruits from keirin school.
Tactics-where the rider will sit in the string behind the pacer and when he will launch his move-have to be declared in advance and strictly adhered to on pain of fines or bans. During a three-day keirin meet, the riders have to cut off all contact with the outside world. Mobile phones, computers, and other means of communication are banned. Riders cannot make gestures that could be interpreted by illicit gamblers, such as lifting the arms to celebrate a race win.
Keirin Tactics =.
Senko: lead-out man, attacks 800400 m from finish Makuri: 2nd or 3rd in line, cannot attack until 300 m from the line Oikomi: third or fourth, must wait until last 150 m Keirin Offenses =.
Shikaku: major, offender must leave velodrome for the rest of the meeting Juchu: serious, fine and percentage loss of prize money Sochu: trivial Keirin Ranking and Colors =.
SS: red shorts, black stripe, white stars-the highest ranking S1 and S2: black shorts, red stripe A1, A2, A3: black shorts, green stripe, white stars-the lowest Keirin Betting Terms =.
ni-sha-tan: Exacta-first two finishers in order ni-sha-f.u.ku: Quinella-first two in any order san-ren-tan: Trifecta-first three in exact order san-ren-f.u.ku: Trio-first three in any order uaido: Wide-two of first three in any order Foreigners to race the circuit include CHRIS HOY, who went on to be Olympic champion in 2008. But outsiders rarely win. The best j.a.panese, on the other hand, rarely turn up at the major championships. It"s more lucrative to stay at home.
(SEE TRACK RACING FOR OTHER INTERNATIONAL DISCIPLINES).
KELLY, Sean Born: Carrick-on-Suir, Ireland, May 24, 1956 Major wins: Tour of Spain 1988; points jersey Tour de France 19823, 1985, 1989, four stage wins; MilanSan Remo 1986, 1992; Giro di Lombardia 1983, 1985, 1991; LiegeBastogneLiege 1984, 1989; Paris...o...b..ix 1984, 1986; GhentWevelgem 1988; CreteilChaville 1984; Tour of Switzerland 1990 Nicknames: King Kelly, the New Cannibal Further reading: Sean Kelly: A Man for All Seasons, David Walsh, Grafton, 1986 "I haven"t ridden with anyone who has that aura of strength," wrote a fellow cyclist of the star who was IRELAND"s leading sportsman in the 1980s. "Iron man isn"t enough. He"s made of stainless steel." Kelly was the leader of the FOREIGN LEGION: a group of English-speaking professional cyclists who opened up the European sport during the 1980s. Other notables included STEPHEN ROCHE, ROBERT MILLAR, PHIL ANDERSON, and GREG LEMOND.
Kelly"s 18-year career was one of the longest in cycling: he spanned the years from EDDY MERCKX to LANCE ARMSTRONG via BERNARD HINAULT and MIGUEL INDURAIN and topped the world rankings from 1984 to 1989. With 193 professional wins in events varying from MilanSan Remo to the Tour of Spain and GP des Nations time trial, Kelly was the last of the traditional cycling champions, capable of performing in every event of every kind from February to October, able to win time trials, bunch sprints, and stage races. His successors are specialists, to the detriment of the sport. Kelly is the last man to win both the cobbled PARIs...o...b..IX Cla.s.sic and its hilly counterpart LIeGEBASTOGNELIeGE in the same year (1984). Today, no one aims to win both.
Kelly was born and raised on a small farm near Carrick-on-Suir, in County Waterford. As an amateur he was banned for racing in South Africa and went to France to turn professional (see POLITICS). From 1977 to 1981 he was primarily a sprinter with a reputation as a daredevil, but in 1982 his mentor Jean de Gribaldy persuaded him that he could do more. The breakthrough came in that year"s ParisNice, which he was to win for seven years in a row; in July he won a mountain stage in the TOUR DE FRANCE and the first of four green points jerseys. In his prime, from 1984 to 1989, Kelly could win any short stage race-in other words, apart from the three major Tours-and any Cla.s.sic, thanks to his sheer power and cunning. In a major Tour he would usually have one bad day in the mountains. No Irish sportsman had dominated any arena as Kelly did, and with Stephen Roche as number two on the bill, the crowds flocked to see their heroes in a newly created Tour of Ireland in the late 1980s.
If there was one major disappointment for Kelly, it was that he never won the world road-race championship. In 1982 he took the silver medal in Goodwood, England, and in 1989 he shed bitter tears at Chambery, France, after being outsprinted by Greg LeMond. He also lost the 1987 VUELTA A ESPAnA due to a saddle boil, which was lanced three days before the finish. He told no one, but a journalist had heard rumors of screams coming from his room in the dead of night and made sure a photographer was on hand to capture the moment when he climbed off his bike.
Kelly"s absolute dedication to his sport remains legendary. In 1991 he said a little wistfully that he might break out once or twice in the winter and have a fry-up or an ice cream. He famously said that he abstained from s.e.x before major races. When he came back from any event, no matter how late or how dark it was, he would clean his bike; the family with whom he lived in Belgium could not work out what he was doing when he went to bed at 9 PM every night, without fail. They a.s.sumed he was writing letters or reading, but when they did peep through the door, they found him fast asleep.
Kelly"s status in his home country was such that the then Irish president Mary Robinson turned up to his retirement party in 1994-as well as a host of stars including Hinault, ROGER DE VLAEMINCK, and double Tour winner LAURENT FIGNON. He still lives near Carrick, where a small "square"-in fact just a small widening in the main street-and a sports center have been named after him. He has a farm and works as a commentator for television, amusingly for a cyclist famed in his early years for being so unwilling to talk that he was said to have nodded during a radio interview.
KNOWLEDGE, the Body of tradition and received opinion "compiled" by ROBERT MILLAR in idle moments and written up by Millar in Cycle Sport magazine as a Tour de France survival guide. Alongside common sense items that would have a place in any coaching manual, it included the following gems: * Learn to swear in different languages. Other riders will appreciate your efforts to communicate. They"ll also know who you are talking to.
* If you need a push in the mountains, looking really sick or completely knackered is a surefire way of getting crowd sympathy. However, should a commissaire spot you getting a push, shout loudly and at least your fine that night won"t be for a solicited push.
* Focus on Sundays. There are four of them. The first is fairly easy to get to, the second less so, the third means you have survived the mountains, and getting to the fourth means deliverance.
* Take something nice to eat on your survival days. It"ll probably be the only good moment that day.
KRAFTWERK German electronic music pioneers who were cycling mad and created the definitive tune "Tour de France" in 1983, sampling various cycling sounds-breathing, a chain running, gears changing. In 2003 the group released an entire alb.u.m themed around cycling, Tour de France Soundtracks.
Through the 1980s the group became increasingly pa.s.sionate about cycling, causing one of the cla.s.sic line-up, Wolfgang Flur, to leave because, he said later, "there was too much cycling inside Kraftwerk and too little music. I didn"t want to become a top-level sportsman as a side-effect."
L.
LEMOND, Greg Born: Lakewood, California, June 26, 1961 Major wins: World road championship 1983, 1989; Tour de France 1986, 1989, 1990, five stage wins Interests outside cycling: wine, cross-country skiing Further reading: Greg LeMond, The Incredible Comeback, by Samuel Abt (Stanley Paul, 1991) The first American winner of the TOUR DE FRANCE, the author of one of the sport"s most dramatic comebacks, the victor of perhaps the most epic Tour ever, and one of the men who did most to change professional cycling in the late 20th century, LeMond was not the first American to finish the Tour; that honor goes to Jonathan Boyer (see UNITED STATES). But he was the first American to win the professional world championship, in 1983, and the first US Tour winner when he finally triumphed in a race-long battle with his own teammate BERNARD HINAULT.
Like many American cyclists, LeMond"s background was middle cla.s.s; his father, Bob, was a real estate agent. Initially LeMond was a downhill skier, but he switched to cycling at 14, and by 18 he had won the world junior road race. A year later, he was a professional with the Renault-Elf team, led then by Hinault and managed by Cyrille Guimard (see TEAMS for more on Renault and other great squads); in 1982 he took the silver medal at the world road championship and won the Tour de l"Avenir-a "mini-Tour de France" for young riders-while in 1983 he rode to a solo win in the world championship at Altenrhein, Austria.
LeMond"s Tour debut came in 1984, when he finished third behind his team leader LAURENT FIGNON and Hinault, who had moved to the La Vie Claire squad. In 1985 he joined Hinault, on a three-year deal that was cycling"s first million-dollar contract, with the understanding that he would help Hinault win that year"s Tour and the Frenchman would a.s.sist him in 1986. In 1985 LeMond looked the strongest in the final week, at one point being told to soft-pedal when he was in a key breakaway, and had the chance of taking the yellow jersey.
The 1986 race turned into a psychological battle with Hinault, who attacked continually, insisting as he did so that he was softening up LeMond"s rivals and helping his protege become a stronger, harder cyclist. At one point, Hinault had a four-and-a-half-minute overall lead, but the Frenchman cracked in the Alps before escaping with LeMond on the climb to l"Alpe d"Huez, where they crossed the line with their arms around each other"s shoulders. But Hinault still would not say the Tour was over, and there were even accusations that someone-a French fan?-had tampered with the American"s bike. To this day LeMond believes Hinault was trying to win the race for a record sixth time; "the Badger," on the other hand, still maintains he could have won the race if he had wanted, but he was helping LeMond.
The American was only 25 and seemingly set for a long reign over the Tour, but the following spring he was shot in a hunting accident in California, losing a large amount of blood, suffering a partially collapsed lung, and ending up with pellets in his intestine, liver, and diaphragm; 30 of them are still there. He was 20 minutes from death; by sheer chance a highway patrol helicopter was nearby and he was airlifted quickly to a trauma hospital.
His comeback was painful; 1988 was fallow, and he suffered in the early part of the 1989 season before returning to his best in the 1989 Tour, a three-way battle with Pedro Delgado and LeMond"s former team leader Fignon. The lead oscillated between LeMond and the Frenchman while Delgado strove to recover three minutes he had lost on the opening day when he turned up late for the prologue time trial. Finally, LeMond won the race when he used new aerodynamic handlebars to overturn a 50 second deficit on Fignon in the final day"s time trial to the Champs-Elysees; his 8-second advantage was the closest in Tour history.
Four weeks later, on a rainy day in the French Alps, he outsprinted Russian Dimitri Konychev and SEAN KELLY for the world championship, sealing his incredible comeback. The upshot of that was cycling"s biggest-ever contract: a $5.5 million plus bonuses deal with French team Z, backed by a clothing company. That contract dragged cycling into the modern world, where at last realistic payments were given to its top performers.
In 1990 LeMond took a third Tour, matching Louison Bobet; at the time only EDDY MERCKX, Hinault, and JACQUES ANQUETIL had done better. But in 1991 and 1992 LeMond struggled, something that he now interprets as being down to the arrival of a new drug in the peloton, EPO, and he quit in 1994, disenchanted with his final years in the sport.
LeMond was one of the most innovative cyclists of the 20th century, on a par with FAUSTO COPPI in the way he pushed the sport forward. As well as being the first professional cyclist to use "triathlon" handlebars in time trials (see AERODYNAMICS), LeMond helped to popularize hard-sh.e.l.l cycle helmets, regarded with some suspicion when he began using them in 1990 but now universal. He also pioneered communication with the team car via mini-radios, rode t.i.tanium frames, and experimented with handlebar design in collaboration with the Scott company. He was also the first cyclist to ride the PAR I s...o...b..IX Cla.s.sic using MOUNTAIN BIKE front suspension forks. Not surprisingly, he ended up with his own cycle company.
LeMond was the first star cyclist to break with the European belief that cyclists should be subservient to promoters, race organizers, and team managers, in essence an att.i.tude that went back to the postwar years when the stars had come from blue-collar stock and reckoned they were lucky to be racing at all. He brought his family with him to races, breaking a huge taboo, raised eyebrows by getting an agent (his father) to negotiate his contracts, and insisted on doing things his way, whether that meant eating McDonald"s occasionally or bringing his own portable air conditioner to hotels on the Tour de France.
He had a close-knit inner circle around him: a grumpy Belgian mechanic, Julien de Vries, who had worked with Merckx and would go on to wield a wrench for LANCE ARMSTRONG, and the distinctive figure of Mexican SOIGNEUR Otto Jacome, who had the biceps of a boxer and wore a floppy Stetson. And LeMond brought a certain eccentricity with him; in the 1991 Tour he decided to take a special carbon-fiber bike up to his hotel bedroom but neglected to tell the Z team mechanics. De Vries was in tears, convinced the machine had been stolen, and a second mechanic was dispatched to Paris-from eastern France-to get a replacement. This was before the era of mobile phones: when the mistake was discovered, the police had to be sent to chase down the mechanic as he sped down the autoroute.
LeMond"s life after retirement was as turbulent as before. He came close to divorcing his wife Kathy, he revealed that he had been abused as a child, and he made a dramatic intervention in the 2006 Tour winner Floyd Landis"s doping hearing. He also became a critic of seven-time Tour winner Lance Armstrong. He attacked the Texan over his work with the controversial trainer MICHELE FERRARI, alleged that Armstrong had said LeMond could not have won the Tour without using EPO-which Armstrong denies-and raised questions about Armstrong"s personal antidoping program when the seven-time Tour winner made his comeback in 2009.
LETH, Jorgen (b. Denmark, 1937) Danish poet and film director best known in cycling for three doc.u.mentaries: Stars and Watercarriers (1974), The Impossible Hour (1974), and Sunday in h.e.l.l (1977). His work has lent a whole new dimension to cycling and sports doc.u.mentary: deeply impressionistic, epic in tone but very human, with the interplay of music and action footage playing a key role. Leth has also written 10 volumes of poetry and 8 nonfiction works, including his controversial autobiography The Imperfect Man. He has been chairman of the Danish film inst.i.tute and commentated on some 20 Tours de France for television. He has lived in Haiti since 1991 and was honorary Danish consul on the island between 1999 and 2005.
Stars and Watercarriers tells the tale of the 1973 GIRO D"ITALIA, focusing on the conflict between EDDY MERCKX and the little climber Jose-Manuel Fuente. It is split into 10 "chapters" including "the trial of truth," centered on a time trial involving the Danish star Ole Ritter. The pursuiter/time triallist is also the key figure in The Impossible Hour, about his three attempts to break the HOUR RECORD in Mexico City in 1974. Sunday in h.e.l.l centers on the 1976 PARIs...o...b..IX and is Leth"s defining cycling work. He shot the event from all angles and included a now legendary sequence with the cyclists bouncing in slow-motion over the cobbles. Cycling also features in Leth"s 1973 film Eddy Merckx in the Vicinity of a Cup of Coffee, a surreal mix of the director reading his poetry while subt.i.tles deliver comment; the second half of the film includes footage from the 1970 TOUR DE FRANCE.
Leth was also involved in an abortive attempt to make a feature film about the Tour de France starring Dustin Hoffman; footage was shot on the 1986 Tour, but the film never saw the light of day.
(SEE FILMS FOR MORE CYCLING ON CELLULOID).
LIeGEBASTOGNELIeGE The oldest CLa.s.sIC on the cycling calendar, nicknamed la doyenne because it dates back to 1892. The route was chosen mainly because Bastogne, 50-odd miles south of Liege through the Ardennes hills, was the farthest anyone could get to and return by train in a day, which meant that an official could be sent to manage the checkpoint there. There were several years when the race was not run, and it gained true prestige only when it began to be run the day after a neighboring race, Fleche Wallonne (see Cla.s.sics), with an overall cla.s.sification known as the Ardennes Weekend. The DOUBLE in the two races is a rare and coveted feat.
The race"s distinctive feature is the succession of small but tough climbs through the Ardennes hills, where American and German forces fought the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. The hills start well before halfway at the town of Houffalize, where the US Army completed its encirclement of the Germans; the final phase begins with the toughest climb on the course, La Redoute-where a plaque celebrates the race and its riders-which is followed by four or five more ascents before the finish, most recently held above Liege in the suburb of Ans.
The doyenne is now a tactical battle, but the past has witnessed epic lone victories for EDDY MERCKX, in 1969, when he broke away with one of his domestiques 60 miles from the finish, and JACQUES ANQUETIL, who took his best one-day win there in 1966. The weather is often a factor as the race crosses the high hills, notably in BERNARD HINAULT"s 1980 win, on a day of snow and ice that Pierre Chany described as "phantasmagoric." Only 40 of the 150-rider field were still in the race after the first 40 miles and Hinault rode the final 40 miles alone to win by nine minutes. Two joints in the fingers of his right hand remain numb to this day. The best specialist in Liege is the Italian Moreno Argentin, winner four times between 1985 and 1991.
LIGGETT, Phil (b. England, 1943) The hardworking and constantly traveling television commentator and former Daily Telegraph correspondent is the biggest media star in English-speaking cycling worldwide. He has a near monopoly on mainstream TV in the UK, Australia, South Africa, and the US, together with his business partner Paul Sherwen, a former professional and one of the cycling FOREIGN LEGION. By 2009 he had covered 38 Tours de France and 13 OLYMPIC GAMES.
Liggett started out as a racing cyclist in the 1960s, competing in Belgium before realizing that he wasn"t going to make it. In the 1970s he went to the TOUR DE FRANCE as driver for the journalist David Saunders and took over Saunders"s TV and newspaper work when the latter was killed in a car accident in 1978. Between 1972 and 1993 he was technical director of the around-Britain MILK RACE.
Liggett"s career expanded in the late 1980s with the start of Channel Four"s daily Tour de France coverage and its coverage of the Tour of Britain and UK city center races (see GREAT BRITAIN). His ubiquity stems from his relationship with the television production company that put together the packages for Channel Four using a mix of live images shot by Tour de France television company SFP for the organizers ASO; their material is used by almost all the English-speaking nations. Liggett has his own CYCLOSPORTIVE through the Pennines; a collection of "Liggettisms" was published in 2005.
LITERATURE A quick freewheel through some "serious" writers for whom cycling is more than a brief reference.
Henry Miller, writer of various s.e.xually explicit 1960s novels such as Tropic of Cancer, called a volume of his memoirs My Bike and Other Friends and devoted the final chapter to an account of his love affair with a German-made track bike bought after a SIX-DAY at Madison Square Garden. His veneration of the bike is linked to an unrequited pa.s.sion for a young woman he met at high school; the bike is both subst.i.tute for the woman (he would take it to bed if he could) and a means of escape.
Another cycling fan was Ernest Hemingway, who wrote about the six-days and described the Tour of the Basque Country (see SPAIN) in The Sun Also Rises.
Cult Irish writer Flann O"Brien, also known as a hilarious columnist in the Irish Times and for producing the magical realist novel At Swim-Two-Birds, wrote captivatingly about bikes in The Third Policeman. This is a surreal murder thriller that features a pair of bike-obsessed policemen. It includes digressions on wooden rims, cycling with your mouth open, saddles, and the celebrated "atomic theory." According to this, impacts between two objects result in a transfer of atoms from one to the other. As a result, say the policemen, people who spend a lot of time on their bikes become "part-man, part-bike" while the cycles develop personalities, try to get warm, and try to eat food: "The behaviour of a bicycle that has a high content of humanity is very cunning and very remarkable. You never see them moving ... but you meet them in the least accountable places unexpectedly." Similarly, you can tell "a man with a lot of bicycle in his veins" by his walk.
In Paris at the end of the 19th century, the surrealist writer Alfred Jarry-known for the play Ubu Roi-had a state-of-the-art Clement machine customized with wooden rims and caused a sensation when he turned up at the funeral of the poet Stephane Mallarme wearing cycling gear. He produced a calendar that includes a month called Pedale. Jarry wrote a short story ent.i.tled "The Crucifixion Considered as an Uphill Bicycle Race," satirizing both the Parisian obsession with all things two-wheeled and the epic imagery used to describe cycle races by writers like HENRI DESGRANGE. It includes the memorable lines "Barabbas, slated to race, was scratched" and "There are fourteen turns in the testing Golgotha course." Jarry"s sarcasm has not prevented journalists using the term "a Calvary" as a metaphor for extreme suffering in a bike race time and again over the last 110 years.
Jarry also came up with a prescient picture of bike racing in his 1902 novel The Supermale, which has a chapter dealing with a Perpetual Motion Race. In this, five cyclists are strapped to a bike that is propelled across Europe and Asia in a race against an express train. The riders are paced by jet cars and flying machines at speeds of up to 300 km per hour and fed on Perpetual Motion Food, a blend of alcohol and strychnine. One of the cyclists dies in the saddle but continues because he has signed a contract with a ma.s.sive financial penalty if he pulls out. The references to the extreme scenes in six-day racing would have been clear at the time; the satirical take on professional sports-in which the human element has been overtaken by outside interests and the partic.i.p.ants are risking their lives to fulfil their contracts-has resonances throughout the history of professional cycling and is probably the inspiration for the race to nowhere in the critically acclaimed animated movie Les Triplettes de Belleville (see FILMS).
(FOR A SELECTION OF WRITING SPECIFICALLY ABOUT CYCLING, SEE BOOKS-SUBDIVIDED INTO FICTION, NONFICTION, MEMOIRS/AUTOBIOGRAPHY, AND TRAVEL) LONGEVITY Cycling is not just a young man"s sport, although the accepted view is that a male cyclist matures at between 27 and 29, after which his power declines with every pa.s.sing year. Some examples of unusually long cycling careers: * Reggie MacNamara of Australia was a SIX-DAY racer who competed from 1912 to 1939, retiring at 50.
* GINO BARTALI won the TOUR DE FRANCE in 1938 and 1948, by which time he was 34. He won his first Italian championships in 1935, his last in 1952, and retired in 1954 after 20 seasons as a pro.
* BERYL BURTON won 72 British national t.i.tles in a run that lasted from 1957 to 1986, by which time she was 49. When she died at the age of 59 she was still competing.
* JEANNIE LONGO was still riding the world road race championship in 2009, 23 years after her first t.i.tle. She has every intention of racing in the London Olympics, by which time she will be almost 54.
* RAYMOND POULIDOR"s pro career lasted 18 seasons, his first podium place in the Tour coming in 1962, his last in 1976 when he was 40.
* LANCE ARMSTRONG turned professional in 1992 and made a comeback in 2009 to finish third in the Tour aged 37.
* Joop Zoetemelk won an Olympic gold medal (as an amateur) in 1968 and the pro world road t.i.tle in 1985 when he was 38. In between he finished the Tour de France 16 times, winning in 1980.
* Malcolm Elliott is currently the oldest pro on the elite men"s circuit. He won a COMMONWEALTH GAMES gold medal as long ago as 1982, turned pro in 1983, and rode the Tour de France in 1987. In 2009 at the age of 48 he was still good enough to post top-10 stage placings in the Tours of Ireland and Great Britain.
LONGO, Jeannie Born: Annecy, France, October 31, 1958 Major wins: Gold, Olympic road race 1996; world road champion 1985, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1995; world time trial champion, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2001; world pursuit champion 1986, 19889; world points race champion, 1989; women"s Tour de France 1987, 1988, 1989; 15 French national road t.i.tles (between 1979 and 2009); world hour records 1986, 1997, 2000 Nicknames: Ma Dalton, La Cannibale Soft-spoken, almost shy, "the grandmother of womens" cycling" does not have the abrasive att.i.tude that might be expected of one of the most compet.i.tive cyclists to grace the sport. She certainly does not seem like a woman who is famed for falling out with teammates, officials, and suppliers, and who was described as being "the best [athlete] with the worst of personalities" (Le Nouvel Observateur).
In Beijing, aged 50, Longo became one of a handful of athletes to compete in seven successive OLYMPIC GAMES, and in London she can expect to move another step toward the absolute record of nine games held by the Austrian sailor Hubert Raudaschl. Initially Longo seemed cursed by the Olympics: she crashed in the road race in 1984, broke a hip a month before the Seoul Games, and made a tactical error in 1992, believing she had won, but being unaware that Kathy Watt of Australia had already crossed the line. Since then her record speaks for itself: four medals including gold in a rain-hit women"s road race in Atlanta in 1996.
A superb climber and a fine time triallist but lacking a sprint, she also won 13 world t.i.tles between 1985 and 2001 on road and track, took the women"s Tour de France three times (1987-9) and claimed the women"s HOUR RECORD. In 2008, she took her 55th French national t.i.tle since 1979, a record for longevity to compare with British great BERYL BURTON. Longo began her sporting life as a skier-she was three-time French university champion and her husband, Patrice Ciprelli, was also a French champion-and initially combined the two sports like her great rival Maria Canins. What motivates her to keep on her bike, she says, is that "cycling is her favorite means of getting around and finding new places."
She also has a degree in mathematics and is celebrated for her green lifestyle. She says she cannot stand the chemical disinfectants and cleaners used across the Western world and lives high on a mountain above Gren.o.ble in the Alps with her flock of goats, and-although she travels to the US to prepare for major events-she rarely goes to another country without taking her own organic carrots, water filter, and deionizer.
(SEE WOMEN FOR A HISTORY OF WOMEN"S CYCLE RACING AND OTHER TOP WOMEN TO GRACE CYCLING) M.
MACMILLAN, Kirkpatrick (b. Scotland, 1812, d. 1878) Claimed to be the inventor of the rear-wheel-driven pedal cycle. Macmillan was a Dumfriesshire blacksmith who decided to make himself a hobby horse (see BICYCLE for the importance of this early bike). The breakthrough from earlier machines came when he realized that it would be improved if it could be propelled without one of his feet being on the ground.
His design had suspended pedals at the front with long connecting rods linking them to cranks on the rear wheel. It was heavy, but he managed a speed of about 14 mph, and in 1842 he rode it from southwest Scotland to Glasgow, a distance of 68 miles, in two days. During the trip he had an accident involving a child and was taken to court and fined five shillings the following day.
Macmillan"s machine does not survive, and he never patented the design. A copy made by a cooper from Lanarkshire, Gavin Dalzell, appeared in 1847 and is in the Museum of Transport in Glasgow. Further copies were made some 20 years later by a wheelwright in Kilmarnock, Thomas McCall, inspired by the Macmillan velocipede.
MANGEAS, Daniel (b. France, 1949) The voice of cycling in France. As the speaker of the TOUR DE FRANCE and up to 200 other races a year, the former baker introduces the riders as they sign on at the start and keeps the crowds entertained at the finish. His knowledge of even the most obscure members of the professional peloton is encyclopedic. Mangeas first worked on the Tour in 1974, and the 2010 Tour is set to be his 37th. In 2002 the race organizers gave him the ultimate accolade: his own stage start in his home village of Saint-Martin-de-Landelles on the Norman-Breton border, where he organizes the annual after-Tour criterium.
MEMORIALS Cycle races have crisscrossed Europe for over 130 years so not surprisingly the roads of the continent are dotted with memorials to great cyclists and also race organizers and journal ists, while there are also plaques to recall major events, particularly on the great mountain pa.s.ses. These in turn serve as objectives for cycle-tourists, who lay flowers and souvenirs just as medieval pilgrims would have done at the shrine of a saint.
Among the most celebrated are the bleak bas-relief at the spot where TOM SIMPSON died on Mont Ventoux and the modernistic sculpture just downhill from the bend on the Col du Portet d"Aspet where the 1992 Olympic champion Fabio Casartelli had a fatal crash in the 1995 Tour de France. In other places, plaques denote notable episodes from the past: one is to be found outside the building in Sainte-Marie de Campan, France, where the Tour cyclist Eugene Christophe had to repair his forks in the 1913 race (See HEROIC ERA for more stories about "The Old Gaul").
Also in the Pyrenees, on one bend of the Col de Mente, a plaque marks the spot where an epic duel between EDDY MERCKX and the Spaniard Luis Ocana in the 1971 Tour ended when Ocana crashed in a rainstorm. Another plaque, on the Col d"Aubisque, recalls the day in 1951 when the Dutchman Wim Van Est fell 200 meters into a ravine and was rescued with a rope improvised from tires tied together. The first man to cross a mountain in the Tour in the lead, Rene Pottier, is remembered by a small memorial at the summit of the first pa.s.s covered by the race, the Ballon d"Alsace.
The graves of the greats are also frequently visited by cycling fans who leave mementoes such as racing hats and bottles. So many are left at the Simpson memorial that every now and then it has to be cleaned up.
It"s not just famous racers and legendary racing episodes that are remembered, however. In Britain, a memorial at Meriden, Warwickshire, celebrates cyclists who fell in both World Wars: an annual religious service is held there. Close to the top of l"Alpe d"Huez is a small plaque that denotes the spot where the climber LUIS HERRERA put two pieces of lava from his home country in thanks to the people of France after they sent humanitarian relief to the victims of the volcanic eruption at Armero in 1985. A plaque at the Reveil-Matin restaurant in Montgeron, near Paris, celebrates the start point of the first TOUR DE FRANCE in 1903.
On a main road outside Malaga in southern Spain, a plaque and flowers denote the spot where the Spanish professional Ricardo Oxtoa and his brother Xavier were mown down by a car in 2002. Other cyclists who have been killed in traffic accidents are now recalled worldwide by GHOST BIKES.
FAUSTO COPPI and MARCO PANTANI have between them inspired more memorials than any other cyclists-those are listed in their individual entries-but other notable names are remembered as well.
Cycling Memorials =.
Cyclist/organizer Location Joaquim Agostino Bend 14, l"Alpe d"Huez, France Jacques Anquetil Piste Munic.i.p.ale, Paris Alfredo Binda Cittiglio, Italy Louison Bobet Col d"Izoard, France Tullio Campagnolo Croce d"Aune pa.s.s, Italy Fabio Casartelli Col du Portet d"Aspet, France Henri Desgrange Col du Galibier, France Shay Elliott Glenmalure, Ireland Maurice Garin Armier, Italy Jacques G.o.ddet Col du Tourmalet, France Reg Harris Manchester Velodrome, England Hugo Koblet Pa.s.so di Monte Ceneri, Switzerland Octave Lapize Col du Tourmalet, France Eddy Merckx Stockeu, Belgium Luis Ocana Col de Mente, France Stan Ockers Cote des Forges, Belgium Sir Hubert Opperman Rochester, Australia Ricardo Oxtoa Malaga, Spain Roger Riviere Col du Perjuret, Central France Tom Simpson Mont Ventoux, France Tom Simpson Harworth, England Jean Stablinski Troisvilles, Northern France James Starley Coventry, England Marshall "Major" Taylor Worcester, Ma.s.sachussetts Paul de Vivies Col de la Republique, France MERCKX, Eddy Born: Meensel, Belgium, June 17, 1945 Major wins: World pro road champion 1967, 1971, 1974; Tour de France 196972, 1974, 34 stage wins; Giro d"Italia 1968, 1970, 19724, 34 stage wins; Vuelta a Espana 1973, six stage wins; MilanSan Remo 19667, 1969, 19712, 19756; Tour of Flanders 1969, 1975; Paris...o...b..ix 1968, 1970, 1973; LiegeBastogneLiege 1969, 19713, 1975; Giro di Lombardia 19712; Het Volk 19713; GhentWevelgem 1967, 1969, 1972; Fleche Wallonne 1967, 1970, 1972; Amstel Gold Race, 1973, 1975; ParisBrussels, 1973; GP Nations 1973; world hour record 1972 Nicknames: Big Ted, the Cannibal Every sport has its nonpareil and Eddy Merckx is to cycling what Pele is to soccer or Muhammad Ali to boxing. While Merckx"s records in individual events may be beaten-LANCE ARMSTRONG has outstripped his five Tour wins-his record of domination over half a dozen years between 1969 and 1975 can never be equaled. Indeed, across any sport it"s hard to find a parallel for Merckx"s unique strike rate: 54 wins in 120 starts in 1971; 250 wins in 650 starts from 1969-73. No cyclist as "winning" is likely to be seen again. Merckx had looks as well: a mop of dark hair, finely sculpted cheekbones, sideburns worthy of the "70s, and an expression of total self-absorption.
The scale and volume of Merckx"s dominance was unprecedented. For example, in just nine weeks in 1973 he won four major CLa.s.sICS-Ghent-Wevelgem, Amstel Gold Race, PARIs...o...b..IX, and LIeGEBASTOGNELIeGE-followed that with overall victory in the three-week VUELTA A ESPAnA, with six stage wins en route, and, after a brief break, added the GIRO D"ITALIA, taking another half-dozen stages. In winning, Merckx would leave the opposition minutes behind. "He always does more than is necessary to win. He is not content with mere glory," wrote the Tour organizer Jacques G.o.ddet. He was christened "the Cannibal" by the daughter of a French rival, Christian Raymond, because of his voracious appet.i.te for victory, after a stage in France where the bunch trailed in half an hour behind him (see NICKNAMES for other interesting cycling monickers).
But Merckx is not a domineering personality in the style of Lance Armstrong or BERNARD HINAULT. "I"m not a cannibal, I"m the sensitive kind," he said. He explained that his need to crush the opposition so absolutely stemmed from a lack of confidence. "When you are alone in a one-day race, you"re certain to win. In a stage race, it"s never certain, you can always have a bad day. The bigger your lead, the more you have [in hand] if that happens."
Two devastating events early in his career made Merckx obsessively insecure in spite of his obvious physical strength: a positive drugs test in the 1968 Giro, which he was adamant came from a spiked bottle, and a horrific crash in a motorpaced race in 1969 in which the driver was killed. The accident left Merckx with constant back pain that in turn made him worry about his position on the bike, which he would check before every race and sometimes change while riding, carrying a wrench along just in case. He would wake up in the night before major races and go to his garage to check his bikes were adjusted just right. His bas.e.m.e.nt held 200 tubular tires that he would season for two years to reduce the risk of punctures. At one Giro, he travelled with 18 bikes and personally drilled out the componentry on each to save a few grams.
While Hinault played up his "grumpy badger" image and JACQUES ANQUETIL played mindgames with the opposition and press, Merckx was famed for hiding his feelings. "Merckx, a super winner, walks away without a trace of fatigue, with nothing to say, just a hint of boredom," wrote a French journalist in 1970. "He has robotised himself ... transformed himself into a machine with the utmost meticulousness. He is half-man, half-bike." "Most of the time, there was nothing anyone could do against him," said the British pro Derek Harrison. "His legs were like pistons. The way he sat on the bike was just beautiful."
Many of Merckx"s achievements have entered cycling legend. In 1972 he broke the HOUR RECORD in Mexico City in a ride that now seems poorly scheduled: he started off far too quickly, "died" for 50 minutes, and had to be lifted off his bike at the finish. During his first TOUR DE FRANCE win, in 1969, he was already in the yellow jersey and well ahead when he found himself in front on the final Pyrenean stage. He led for 85 miles and finished eight and a half minutes ahead of the next rider, on a stage when he really only needed to race defensively. In 1968, at a Giro stage finish at the Tre Cime di Lavaredo mountaintop he fought his way through a snowstorm to mop up a break that had started the climb nine minutes ahead.