Daily Cycling Facts 02.02.2013

On this day in 1896, during an interview with the New York World newspaper, the civil rights leader and suffragist Susan B. Anthony said the words that have become the most famous of the quotations attributed to her and one of the most famous to mention bicycles...

"Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel... the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood."

Edith Atkins
Edith Atkins, born on this day in 1920 in Bilston, Great Britain, became famous for setting numerous long-distance cycling records during the 1950s. She had competed at international level in gymnastics during childhood, aided by her diminutive size (even in adulthood, she was less than than 1.52m tall) but, like many female cyclists of her day, she found her way into cycling by chance when her mother gave her a bike won while playing the card game whist. She discovered her racing potential when she was loaned a better bike by local cyclist Roland Atkins, whom she would later marry - though only after he admitted she was faster than him.

Edith Atkins is passed a bidon by husband Roland

Atkins seems to have joined the Coventry Meteors club some time in the middle of the 1930s, then became part of the Coventry Road Club in 1938. Racing was limited by the Second World War and she didn't begin competing until 1946. Very soon, she found herself with a rival - Eileen Sheridan, a professional with the Hercules company that would later supply bikes for Britain's first Tour de France team and, in the 1950s, sponsored team member Brian Robinson who would become the first Briton to both finish a Tour and win a stage. Atkins, meanwhile, could not find a sponsor and even went so far as to remortgage her home so she could continue racing. Sheridan was sponsored to set records, so Atkins reasoned that the best way to attract a sponsor of her own was to break those records.

On the 25th of September 1952, she broke her first by riding from Land's End in Cornwall to London, a distance of 462km, in 17'13'31" - an average speed of almost 27kph. The next year, she broke the record times for Holyhead to London (425.3km, 13h31'57" = 31.4kph). Soon afterwards, she set out to beat the London-York record and did so (314km, 9h56'20" = 31.6kph) and then kept going. After 21h37' she reached Edinburgh, thus setting a new London-Edinburgh time. Still she kept going and, after having been riding for 24 hours, had covered 679km: her third record of the day. Since the previous women's distance record over 24 hours was 640km, she ended up setting four. After spending a few days in Scotland, she decided to have a go at the Edinburgh-Glasgow-Edinburgh record and beat that too, covering the 141.6km in 4h38'56". Two days later she rode between John O'Groats and Land's End (1,402km) and beat the previous record (set by a professional cyclist) by 4h48'.

Atkins continued setting records for many more years and became as acclaimed as one of the finest cyclists Britain has produced of either gender. She continued cycling for the rest of her life, still riding a minimum of 160km each week when she was 76 years old - the same year she entered 40 races. Three years later, she was hit by a car and killed as she wheeled her bike over the A45 road near Ryton-on-Dunsmore in Warwickshire.

Sandy Casar
Sandy Casar, a French cyclist who has spent the entirety of his eleven years as a professional to the time of writing with the FDJ team, was born on this day in 1979 in Mantes-la-Jolie. He has won the Route du Sud, one stage at the Tour de Suisse and two at the Tour de France outright, in addition to becoming winner of Stage 16 in the 2009 Tour after coming second behind Mikel Astarloza who was subsequently disqualified after a test carried out before the beginning of the race revealed traces of EPO.

Though known primarily as a breakaway rider, in that same stage - which included an ascent of that year's highest mountain Col du Grand-Saint-Bernard - he beat Alberto Contador, both the Schleck brothers and a number of other respected climbers. He also finished the 2003 Giro d'Italia in 13th place overall, beating the great Marco Pantani. However, he is likely to be remembered for the Stage 16 victory, which without Astarloza's cheating he still would have finished in a respectable second place despite colliding with a dog. The dog was unhurt.

Leon Meredith

Leon Meredith was born on this day in 1882 in St. Pancras, London, and records of his cycling career can be difficult to pin down as official documents show his name as having been Lewis Leon Meredith, contemporary reports call him Leon Lewis Meredith, other sources insist he was Leonard Lewis Meredith and those who knew him called him Jack. In appearance, he was what we now term a nerd - years later, Cycling magazine described him:

There was something Clark Kent, the children's comic-book hero, in the make-up of Edwardian cyclist Meredith. Like Clark Kent he presented a mild, shy, bespectacled image off the bike, but once on the bike he became Superman, beating all and sundry in a devastating manner.

Meredith developed an interest in cycling when he was 13 years old and decided he'd ride from London to Brighton. Along the way, he met a group of riders from the Paddington Cycling Club who, concerned that a lad of his age would not be able to complete the 80km on the poor roads of the day and might get into difficulties without any means to summon assistance, invited him to ride with them. He agreed after they'd promised not to go too fast and leave him behind. A few miles up the road, they had to ask him to slow down so they could keep up.

Naturally, they asked him to join their club, based in a neighbouring London borough to his home. They encouraged him to race and he won the first one he entered. He won the first of his seven World Championships, the 100km motor-paced race, in 1904 at Crystal Palace and did so in style: after 80km, his pace motorbike broke down and he was forced to veer up the banking and into the wall, crashing hard and turning multiple somersaults as he fell. When he stopped, blood pouring, he leapt to his feet and called for the team to bring him a replacement bike and a new motorpacer, then continued and won the race - beating the world record of the time by more than seven minutes. He was 16.

Unusually for a rider so talented on the track, Meredith was also highly respected on the road and set a number of time trial records, including becoming the first rider to complete 100 miles in under five hours which rather suggests that Britain could have had a stage winner at the Tour de France decades before Brian Robinson managed it. he was also a canny businessman, acquiring the patent rights to a revolutionary tubular tyre with diagonal threads that allowed access to the inner tube without the need to cut the stitching. Building on that success, he became managing director of a bike parts company and began importing high-end bikes from Europe, pioneered the development of lightweight alloy components and building the the firm up into one of the largest bicycle companies in Europe. Sadly it would fail and vanish in the 1960s, many years after his death. The company made him so wealthy that, when he was selected for what would have been the third of his four Olympics in 1916 (he'd raced in 1908 and won gold, 1912 when he won silver and would do so again in 1920) it was decided that he would compete at his own expense (the Games that year would be cancelled due to war).

He died on the 27th of January 1930,  less than a week before his 48th birthday of a heart attack while skiing in Switzerland.


Gilbert Desmet was born on this day in 1931 in the Flemish city of Roeselare. He should not be confused with another Belgian cyclist with the same name, born in 1936. The older Desmet, professional for fifteen years, never won a Grand Tour and has thus been largely forgotten, but wore the maillot jaune for two days in the 1956 Tour de France and then for nine days in 1963, as well as coming 4th overall in 1962. He also won Paris-Tours in 1958 and La Flèche Wallonne in 1964, in addition to around 100 other victories.

On this day in 2011, Jack Bobridge set a new Australian Record for the 4000m Individual Pursuit, covering the distance in 4'10.534".

Other cyclists born on this day: Shane Archibold (New Zealand, 1989); Jiang Cuihua (China, 1975); Lorenzo Murdock (Jamaica, 1961); Mitsuhiro Suzuki (Japan, 1963); Paul Popp (Austria, 1963); Gösta Carlsson (Sweden, 1906, died 1992); Hong Yeong-Mi (South Korea, 1968); Marcello Neri (Italy, 1902, died 1993); Brian Chewter (Canada, 1954); Sanusi (Indonesia, 1933); Peter Pieters (Netherlands, 1962); Cédric Mathy (Belgium, 1970); Julio César León (Venezuela, 1925); Josiah Ng (Malaysia, 1980); Marcin Sapa (Poland, 1976).

Daily Cycling Facts 01.02.2013

Jurgen van den Broeck

Jurgen van den Broeck
(image credit: Kid For Today CC BY-SA 3.0)

Jurgen van den Broeck was born on this day 1983 in Herentals, Belgium (once the home of Rik van Looy). Van den Broeck first made his mark as a time trial rider, a discipline within which he still excels, becoming World Junior Champion in 2001. Within a year, he had also displayed a talent for the Classics, winning 1st place overall at the Tour of Limburg. In 2003, he took a silver medal at the National Time Trial Championships, then finished in the top ten at the Tour of Belgium in 2004 and Eneco Tour in 2005 before winning bronze at the National Time Trials in 2007.

Then, in 2008, he was a surprise 7th overall at the Giro d'Italia. He came 15th in the Tour de France in 2009 and won the Herentals Criterium. In 2010, he came 4th overall at the challenging Critérium du Dauphiné, a race that has frequently revealed riders destined for future Tour de France greatness - which was confirmed when he finished the Tour in 5th place overall the same year. He won Stage 1 and came 4th overall in the 2011 Dauphiné and was expected to perform well in the Tour, but was forced to abandon after a crash during a fast descent on Stage 9 which left him with a fractured shoulder and ribs and pneumothorax, but had recovered in time for the Vuelta a Espana where he was eighth overall. Good results - including fifth overall at the Critérium du Dauphiné - early in 2012 left van den Broeck looking to be on a good course for success at the Tour de France and he seemed a likely contender for victory in Stage 7 until more misfortune in the shape of a puncture on the final climb to the summit of Plateau de Beille saw him lose 1'54" to eventual stage winner Chris Froome of Team Sky. Nevertheless, his performance throughout the race was good enough to put him into fourth place behind Bradley Wiggins (Sky), Froome and Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Cannondale) in the overall General Classification.

Roberto Heras
Roberto Heras Hernández, born in Béjar, Spain on this day in 1974, is one of only two men to be officially listed as having won the Vuelta a Espana three times (the other being Tony Rominger) - in fact, he won it a record four times but tested positive for EPO in Stage 20, 2005, leading to his fourth victory being disqualified. He appealed the decision at the court of Castilla y León and was successful; however, the UCI, Spanish Cycling Federation and Court for Arbitration in Sport were uncertain that decision was valid, there being doubts over the court's competency to decide the case. Heras decided to contest with a civil action rather than through the CAS and, on the 21st of December 2012, the Spanish Supreme Court found in Heras' favour, allowing him to once again claim to be the most successful Vuelta rider of all time.

Heras turned professional with Kelme in 1995 and immediately began to show promise as a climber, developing his skills sufficiently that in 2000 he was offered a contract to ride with US Postal. He took it and soon became known as Lance Armstrong's right-hand man in the mountains, playing an important part in the helping the Texan towards his record-breaking seven Tour de France wins.

Gastone Nencini
Gastone Nencini (nicknamed "The Lion of Mugello" after his birthplace, Barberino del Mugello in Tuscany), died on this day in 1980, precisely one month before his 50th birthday. He was an example of that rarest of cycling breeds, an ace climber (he won the King of the Mountains at the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France in 1957) who could also descend at high speed - most climbers, due to their typically skeletal figures, lack the physical mass to keep a bike under control while riding fast down a hill. Nencini, like the greatest climber of them all Charly Gaul, was fearless, however: according to French National Champion and multiple Tour stage winner Raphaël Géminiani, "the only reason to follow Nencini downhill would be if you had a death wish." Roger Rivière, a fast descender and several times a Tour stage winner himself, ignored that advice in 1960 when he tried to follow the Italian down from the Col de Perjuret - shortly after beginning the descent, he hit a low wall, plunged over the side and broke his spine; spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Even more unusually for a rider who could climb like he did, Nencini was a chain smoker.

Nencini was the inspiration for one of the first anti-doping drives, set up by official Tour doctor Pierre Dumas after he saw the rider injecting himself with stored blood. He'd learned the technique from Swedish runners, who had apparently been using the technique for several years.

In 1957, the year he won his two King of the Mountains competitions, he also won the Giro outright, beating 2nd place Louison Bobet by 19" and 3rd place Ercole Baldini by almost six minutes. His Tour win came in 1960, when he also finished the Giro in 2nd place overall, beating Graziano Battistini by more than five minutes.


French rider Philippe Casado was born in this day in 1964 on Oujda, Morocco. Though never counted among the top riders of his day, he enjoyed considerable success during his career including one stage win and four podium finishes in the Tour of Britain in addition to numerous podium finishes in other races. He died on the 21st of January in 1995, when he was still only 30 years old. Twelve years after his death, Greg Lemond - for many years a very vocal opponent of doping and supporter of methods designed to stamp out the problem - recounted a tale of a rider with whom he had been close friends. He wouldn't give a name but said that his friend's drugs-related death was the reason he decided to retire. The description of the rider and his palmares left few people in any doubt whatsoever that he was referring to Casado.

Other cyclists born on this day: Chris Pritchard (Great Britain, 1983); Roberto Petito (Italy, 1971); James Stevenson (Great Britain, 1877); John Bylsma (Australia, 1946); Dashjamtsyn Tömörbaatar (Mongolia, 1957); Tibor Lendvai (Hungary, 1940); John Malois (Canada, 1971);  Chainarong Sophonpong (Thailand, 1944); Daniel Huwyler (Switzerland, 1963); Reinaldo Paseiro (Cuba, 1925); Robert Thalmann (Switzerland, 1949) Makio Madarame (Japan, 1972); Vernon Stauble (Trinidad and Tobago, 1950); Víctor Chirinos (Venezuela, 1941); Stig Mårtensson (Sweden, 1923, died 2010); Hsu Chin-Te (Taipei, 1966).

Daily Cycling Facts 31.01.2013

Henri Desgrange

Father of the Tour de France - some would say not its inventor, despite the impression he liked to give once it became apparent that the race was going to be successful beyond anybody's wildest dreams - Henri Desgrange was born on this day in 1865 in Paris, one of twins and into an affluent, upper-middle-class family. His brother George is described as having been "totally devoid of all ambition," but the same was not true of Henri who, it appears, may have been qualified to practice as a lawyer - this has not been proved but the first edition of his L'Auto newspaper states that he was "a former advocate of the Court of Appeal," and he was most certainly employed at a law office owned by a firm named Depeux-Dumesnil, based near the Place de Clichy in the North-West Quadrant. Legend has it that he was threatened with dismissal for wearing tight socks that showed his thighs as he cycled to work and, as a result, was given the choice of finding another means of transport or finding employment elsewhere. He saw this as an opportunity and walked out, dedicating the rest of his life to the sport he loved.

Desgrange set a number of cycling
records as a young man and became
National Tricycle Champion in 1893

Degrange was a cyclist of considerable note in his own right. He had been inspired to take it up when he went to watch the inaugural Bordeaux-Paris race in 1891 and bought his first bike soon afterwards, originally hoping to make a name as a track rider. However, he found that he wasn't able to accelerate as quickly as other riders, which gave him a serious disadvantage. Endurance events suited his physique far better and in 1893 he set the world's first ratified Hour Record by riding 35.325km at the Vélodrome Buffalo, the first of twelve records he would set during his career. Four years later, he became the director of the new Vélodrome Parc des Princes, a facility that had been so badly built that spectators had to be kept out of the stands when it first opened for fear of structural collapse. However, he proved a wise choice for the job and made good use of the central area surrounded by the 666m track; making it available for other events which brought in much-need extra income so that he was able to improve the building and develop it to a point where it became the city's premier sports stadium. Towards the end of 1903, he also took over the directorship of Paris' first indoor track, the Vélodrome d'Hiver, which would later be hired out by Desgrange's successor Jacques Goddet for fascist rallies and handed over to the Nazis as a temporary prison for Jews before they could be transported to concentration camps.

Desgrange is frequently remembered
as a humourless tyrant - but was that
description entirely deserved?

At the turn of the last century, France was divided over the Dreyfus Affair and Desgrange was an avowed anti-Dreyfusard. Dreyfus was an Army captain, the highest Jewish military figure in the country, who had been accused of selling state secrets to Germany - treason, no less, for which the maximum penalty was death. The charges against him were trumped up, partly due to the antisemitism of some of his opponents; but it should be realised that Desgrange was not necessarily an antisemite himself (Goddet's beliefs, as we have seen, were questionable) - indeed, it seems quite likely that he was not when one takes into account his passionate admiration for the writer Émile Zola, whose style he tried to emulate in his own writing and who, as one of the most vocal Dreyfusards, attacked antisemitism and was instrumental in the Captain's eventual complete exoneration of all charges. His opposition to Dreyfus is perhaps more likely to have stemmed from the fact that the Captain was from Alsace, which had passed into German hands in 1871 as a result of the Franco-Prussian war to the very great embarrassment of France, leading to a deep suspicion of all Germans and anybody who might favour them. It was Desgrane's opposition to Dreyfus that landed him his next job, however, when wealthy anti-Dreyfusard industrialists the Comte de Dion and Adolphe Clément were looking for somebody to edit the L'Auto newspaper that they were setting up in the hope of driving the existing paper Le Vélo and its Dreyfusard editor Pierre Giffard (who had told them he was no longer willing to carry their advertisements on account of their differences) into bankruptcy.

Desgrange at the 1913 Tour (second from right with
cigarette and long coat). Rural roads would not have
been much better when he set out to follow the race
for the final time in 1936

Still not entirely convinced that the event would be a success, Desgrange decided to stay away from the race so that he couldn't be blamed if it all went wrong (he would do the same a few years later when mountains were first introduced, fearing that the riders would die of exhaustion, be attacked by bandits or eaten by bears and not wanting to shoulder responsibility if any of these happened) and sent Geo Lefèvre instead (Lefèvre had been the man who thought up the race in the first place when Desgrange was ordered by L'Auto's owners to improve circulation figures). It was an immediate hit, with all of France turning out to watch the heroic riders battle 2,428km in six stages around the country. It had the desired effect on L'Auto's sales figures, too, which increased to more than 60,000 (some sources put the figure even higher, sometimes as much as double this). Twenty years later, it sold half a million copies a day. Desgrange's reputation was made, and he spent the rest of his life more than happy to let people believe that it was he who had thought up the whole thing in the first place. However, while Lefèvre is often called the true father of the Tour (or so the story goes - for an alternative take on the birth of the race, click here), it was Desgrange who raised it and developed it into the largest sports event on the planet - and in doing so, he invented the sport of bicycle stage racing.

Desgrange underwent surgery on his prostate in 1936, requiring two operations either side of the Tour, and convinced his reluctant surgeon to agree to him attending in a car padded out with cushions and with a doctor in attendance. At that time, many roads outside of the centre of Paris were primitive, at best cobbled and at worst, unsurfaced tracks full of potholes and gulleys (in rural areas, they would remain as such until the Tour became televised, at which point local mayors began to find the money to modernise them so that the world wouldn't think their communities backward) and even in the first stage it became apparent that he wouldn't be able to continue. He attempted to continue through Stage 2, with a fever and in great pain, but was forced to give up. He retired that day, handing over L'Auto's editorship to Jacques Goddet and his daily column to a journalist named Charles Faurous, then traveled to his chateau. He died four years later at his villa on the Mediterranean.


Harry Hill

Harry Hill, a record-breaking British cyclist and bronze-winning Olympian, died on this day in 2009. Hill's Olympic appearance came at the infamous 1936 Games, held in Nazi Germany, and he may have won silver or even gold were it not for the fact to get to Germany, he needed to first get from his home near Sheffield to London. He had no money, and nor did his mother who had raised him alone after his father was killed while fighting in Africa in the First World War. So, he rode the 200 miles (322km) on the bike with which he planned to enter.

Once back in Britain after the race, he faced the same problem - but this time it was worse. On the way there he'd had just enough money to buy food and had carefully saved enough to do the same on the way there, but whilst in Germany temptation had got the better of him and he'd spent it all on a souvenir jacket. There was no alternative: he'd have to ride the rest of the journey without eating. He couldn't, of course, and "only" managed 170 miles before he cracked and had to thumb a lift.

The following year, Hill set a new Hour Record for an outdoor track in Milan, covering 25 miles (40.23km). In 1976, when he was 60 years old, he cycled across North America. He claimed to have never smoked or consumed alcohol in his life. He rode his bike every day from the age of 13 until 2004, when he fractured his hip. He was Britain's oldest winner of an Olympic medal when he died aged  92 of pneumonia.


Annett Neumann, born in Lauchhammer, Germany on this day in 1970, won a silver medal for the Elite Sprint at the World Track Championships in 1991 and another in the same event at the 1992 Olympics, then two more for the Sprint and the 500m at the World Championships of 1996.

Wilfried Wesemael, winner of the General Classification at the 1979 Tour de Suisse, was born on this day in 1950 in Aalst, Belgium.

Lisa Mathison, born in Brisbane on this day in 1995, was Junior Cross Country Mountain Bike Champion in 2001 and 2002, then Elite Champion in 2003 and 2004 and Under-23 Champion in 2006.

Other cyclists born on this day: Ted King (USA, 1983); Georges Augoyat (France, 1882, died 1963); Anthony Williamsen (USA, 1880, died 1956);  Mario Gentili (Italy, 1913, died 1999); Luigi Borghetti (Italy, 1943); Camilla Larsson (Sweden, 1975); Mikhail Kountras (Greece, 1952); Rolf Järmann (Switzerland, 1966); Craig Adair (New Zealand, 1963); Jaap ten Kortenaar (Netherlands, 1964); Niels van der Steen (Netherlands, 1972); Marcelo Greuel (Brazi, 1963); Walter Pérez (Argentina, 1973).

Die UCI spricht

That is an order. We WILL be happy; otherwise there will be repercussions.

Daily Cycling Facts 30.01.2013

Magnus Bäckstedt
(image credit: JohnTheScone CC BY 2.0) 

Magnus Bäckstedt
Magnus Bäckstedt, nicknamed Magnus Maximus, was born on this day 1975 in Linköping, Sweden. At 1.93m tall and 94kg in weight, he is often listed among Tour de France superlatives as the biggest rider to have taken part in the event - for comparison, two riders known for being larger than the average cyclist: Piet Moeskops (13.11.1893-16.11.1964) was 1.87m but weighed 100kg, whereas Thor Hushovd is a petite 1.83m and 83kg.

Like many riders, Bäckstedt began cycling as part of fitness regime while specialising in a different sport; in his case, skiing, having been selected to join the national team when he was still only 14 years old. Having discovered his talent, he turned professional with Collstrop in 1996, changing to Palmans and then GAN with whom, in 1998, he came 7th  at Paris-Roubaix. Crédit Agricole manager Roger Legeay had watched him race and noticed his strength, predicting after the race that he would be a future winner; as indeed proved to be the case in 2004. In 2005, he moved to Liquigas-Boanchi and entered his first Tour de France, crossing the line in second place at the end of Stage 7. He entered again in 2008 with Garmin-Chipotle, but this time failed to finish a stage before the cut-off time and was eliminated from the competition.

A number of health problems including a melanoma, knee injury and a separated shoulder had plagued him throughout his career and are widely though to have prevented him from achieving his full potential. He retired in 2008, saying that he would concentrate on his coffee business which has grown into a successful company with several franchises in Sweden and the USA. A share of the profits are channeled into Swedish cycling.

Bäckstedt is the older brother of Cecilia, also a professional cyclist, as is wife Megan Hughes who was British National Road Race Champion in 1998, Welsh National Road Race Champion in 1999. They live in Wales with their two daughters. In 2010, Bäckstedt announced that he would be returning to cycling in order to lead the UK Youth Cycling Team.



Roger Hammond, born in Chalfont St. Giles in 1974, is celebrating his birthday today. The cyclo cross and road rider began his professional career after graduating from university in 2000 and, having been Junior National CX Champion as a schoolboy, became National CX Champion that year - a title he retained but for one year until 2007 . He started out with Collstrop-De Federale Verzekeringen, remaining with them until the end of the 2004 when he departed and went to Discovery, where he remained for a year before spending another year with T-Mobile just as the team transformed into Highroad. He then went to the Cervélo Test Team in 2009 and has remained with the Canadian manufacturer ever since, now riding with Garmin-Cervélo. Hammond has performed well in the Tour of Britain, winning two stages and managing podium finishes in several others, as well as once standing on the lowest step of the podium at the Vuelta a Espana (Stage 2, 2009). He also has an aptitude for the Classics, having come 2nd at the 2007 Ghent-Wevelghem, then 10th in 2008, 3rd at Paris-Roubaix in 2004 and then 4th in 2010.

Mark Bell

Mark Bell, 1960-2009

Mark Bell was born the 21st of June 1960 in Birkenhead, near Liverpool. His talent was plain to see from a very young age - when he was just ten years old he finished a 10 mile (16.1km) cyclo cross race in 33 minutes, wearing his football strip and school shoes. By 14, he was representing the North of England in the English Schools Cycling Association three-day event, competing against an international field.

Bell's amateur career was nothing short of spectacular, with some 200 victories. In 1979, he joined the Athletic Club de Boulogne-Billancourt and rode alongside Robert Millar, Scotland's greatest ever cyclist. He began to show talent on the road at about the same time and in 1981 became National Road Champion and won two stages in the Milk Race, as the Tour of Britain was then known. He became the first foreign winner in the history of the Étoile de Sud in 1983 and then a year later rode in the Olympics - that race, however, proved to be a disaster. He had been told that the course was flat, whereas in reality in included one very challenging hill and for all his talents, Bell was most definitely not a climber. He abandoned the race.

Having turned professional in 1985 to join the Falcon team, he came third in the National Road Race competition. He joined Team Raleigh the following season and won it; his superb sprinting ability showing itself when, as race official and future British Cycling president Brian Cookson remembers, "he simply rode away from some of the greatest names in the sport." He also came second in the Tom Simpson memorial that year, then joined Emmelle-MBK before retiring at the end of the 1988 season.

Life after retirement was not at all kind to Bell. He suffered from poor health and became an alcoholic, which made some of his medical issues worse. In 2008, he said that he "was on top of" his alcoholism, meaning that he had made an effort to bring it under control and, at the time, was managing to do so, like all alcoholics never knowing whether this the end of the war or just another battle. He also revealed that he was suffering from damage caused by deep vein thrombosis in his left leg and required a shoulder joint replacement due to osteomyelitis, an infection of the bone marrow. Sadly, his body gave out before he did and he died on this day in 2009 at the age of 48.

Bill Nickson, born on this day in 1953, was the overall winner at the 1976 Tour of Britain (then called the Milk Race) and represented Great Britain in the Road Race and 100km Team Time Trial at the 1976 Olympics. He also ran a bike shop named Bill Nickson Cycles in Leyland, Lancashire - it's still there and is now run by his son, Bill Jnr.

Other cyclists born on this day: Jason Donald (USA, 1980); Hervé Dagorné (France, 1967);  Domingo González (Mexico, 1970); Jerzy Koszutski (Poland, 1905, died 1960); Flavio Anastasia (Italy, 1969); Dave Lettieri (USA, 1964).

Daily Cycling Facts 29.01.2013

Henri van Lerberghe

Henri van Lerberghe (also spelled Leerberghe) was born on this day in 1891 in Lichtervelde, Belgium, and was one of those riders who earned his place in history with his character rather than his (not very impressive) results. He wasn't far into his professional career before he'd earned one of the best nicknames in the history of cycling - The Death Rider of Lictervelde; which came about due to his habit of telling opponents in the run-up to a race that he was going to "ride them to death," but, as he couldn't resist attacking early while they paced themselves, thus using up his energy, he didn't often carry out his threat and more often than not abandoned the race  before it was over. 

Every once in a while, though, he exercised self-restraint, and when he did he achieved results that show he might just have had the makings of a more conventionally great rider. In 1913, he entered the Tour de France as an individual, a class that set off from the start a quarter of an hour after the team riders, yet in Stage 5 he caught them, dropped the entire peloton and won the stage. 

Six years later, now a professional, he won the third edition of the tough Ronde van Vlaanderen; arriving to sign on complete with clothing, spare parts, tools and so on, in short everything he could conceivably need in a bike race with one exception: he didn't have a bike. After asking around, he managed to find someone willing to lend him one. Again, he mounted one of his customary early attacks with 120km still to go and spectators were not surprised to see him beginning to tire at an early point in the race, no doubt having a good old laugh at his expense because, on the start line, he'd told the other riders that he'd drop each and every one of them at their own front doors on the way. However, after a while he came across a Bianchi-Pirelli team official with a bag of food intended for Marcel Buysse, brother of Lucien who would win the Tour de France seven years later. He stopped and persuaded the man that since Buysse had abandoned (it's not entirely clear if he in fact had at that point), he might as well have the food instead. Having eaten it, he felt re-energised and continued his solo breakaway.

Some time after that, he had to stop at a level crossing. Rather than waiting, he simply shouldered his bike like a cyclo crosser, jumped up and pulled open a train door before running through the carriage and leaping out the other side where he remounted his bike and rode off. 

Memorial to van Lerberghe's 1919 Ronde
van Vlaanderen triumph, perhaps the most
amusing in cycling history

Towards the very end of the race, just before he entered the velodrome that hosted the finish line, van Lerberghe decided he was feeling thirsty. So - as if he hadn't already guaranteed his place as possibly the coolest rider in the history of cycling - our hero stopped at a pub and had a couple of leisurely pints of beer. He might have spent the rest of the afternoon in there too had word not reached his manager who came out to find him and ask him not to throw away the race. This, apparently, seemed a reasonable enough request so he finished his pint, left the pub and rode into the velodrome to win the race and complete his victory lap. Once done and with a completely straight face, he told the packed crowd to "Go home - I'm half a day in front of the field."

Van Lerberghe died on the 10th of April in 1966, aged 75 and still living in Lichtervelde. They really don't make 'em like that any more.

Ernest Chambers, a track cyclist and winner of a silver medal in the 2000m Tandem races at the 1928 and 1932 Olympics, died on this day in 1985. He was born on the 7th of April 1907 in Hackney, East London.

Mills and Paul as depicted in Card No. 45/50 "Track Tandem
 Position" in the John Player & Sons series
Cycling 1839-1939

Bill Paul, who died in this day in 2003, was another great English tandem rider and would almost certainly have known Chambers personally. An amateur with the Addiscombe CC, he and fellow club member Ernie Mills set a number of records in the 1930s including an official British 12-hour record in 1934 and an unofficial World record two years later, establishing a new tandem Hour Record  too when the covered 30 miles (48.28km). In 1937, Cycling magazine paid for them to travel to Italy where they made an appearance at the Velodromo Vigorelli in Milan, which still stands but has been converted into an American football stadium. Whilst there, they beat their previous Hour Record by covering 31.06 miles (49.991km) - a record that remained unbroken for 63 years. In 1938, they set a new 100 Mile record, completing the distance in 3h53'12". The record still stood at the time of writing, 73 years later. Paul's date and place of birth are unknown, but are likely to have been some time in 1910 in Croydon, South London.

Karsten Kroon was born in Dalen, Netherlands, on this day in 1976. Having won a Ronde van Drenthe, he signed up to the Rabobank youth team and continued winning races before progressing to the professional team in 1999 and rode with them in the Giro d'Italia of 2000 where he wore the King of Mountains jersey for 13 days. He would later lead the Mountains classification in all three Grand Tours, but has never won the competition overall. In 2006, saying that although he had no ambitions to be team leader riding for Rabo left him no opportunities to go for race wins, he moved to CSC and was still with them in 2009 when the team became SaxoBank. He then switched for two years to BMC before returning to SaxoBank for 2012.

Ron Coe was born in the English town of Barnsley on this day in 1933. He turned professional in 1957 with Wilson Cycles, the joined the Belgian team Splendor the year after that, when he also won the last British League of Racing Cyclists National Road Race Championships before the organisation merged with the National Cyclists' Federation (the BLRC having been formed to promote road racing, which the NCU had banned since the late 19th Century) to form the British Cycling Federation.

Gaston Rebry

Gaston Rebry, born on this day in 1905 in Rollegem-Kapelle in Belgium, became the third rider in history to win the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix in a single season. He also won Paris-Nice that year and would win Paris-Roubaix on another two occasions. He rode the Tour de France four times, in 1928, 1929, 1931 and 1932, wearing the yellow jersey for a stage in 1929, coming fourth overall in 1931 and winning a total of four stages (Stage in 1928, Stage 14 in 1929, Stage 23 in 1931 and Stage 19 in 1932). He died on the 3rd of July 1953, at which point his son - also named Gaston - was also a professional cyclist.


Other cyclists born on this day: Sergiy Matveyev (Ukraine, 1975); Peter van Doorn (Netherlands, 1946); Arnold Belgardt (USSR, 1937); Petr Benčik (Czech Republic, 1976); Phillip Richardson (Trinidad and Tobago, 1949); Ji Jianhua (China, 1982); Hans Fischer (Brazil, 1961); Rino Pucci (Italy, 1922, died 1986); Ali Hüryılmaz (Turkey, 1945); Francis Higgins (Great Britain, 1882, died 1948); Michael Blatchford (USA, 1986); Víctor González (Uruguay, 1957); Paul Bonno (France, 1954).

Daily Cycling Facts 28.01.2013

Abdel-Kader Zaaf
Abdel-Kader Zaaf (also spelled Abdelkader, Abdel-Kaader and various other ways) was born on this day in 1917 in Algiers, Algeria, which at the time was a French colony. Zaaf rode in the 1950 Tour de France with Marcel Molinès as a part of the French North Africa Team (this being the period of national teams, introduced by Henri Desgrange in an effort to prevent the team tactics that he hated so much among the trade teams). During Stage 13, when temperatures rose to 40C, riders were unwilling to exert themselves and the peloton settled into a slow rhythm, aiming to complete the stage with as little effort as possible. Zaaf and Molinès, however, were accustomed to the heat of Algeria and found the conditions far less hard-going than the Europeans, so they broke away from the pack early on in the race.

Abdel-Kader Zaaf found sleeping under a
tree by spectators

Continuing on their way at a high pace, the pair built a lead which reached as much as 20 minutes - sufficient to make Zaaf officially the race leader for a short while (though with the peloton being driven by the Eagle of Adiiswil Ferdy Kübler - spelled with a y because that's how the man himself spells it, rather than the usual "Ferdi" - it couldn't and didn't last). However, by the time they neared the end of the 217km stage, even they were beginning to feel the effects of the weather and stopped to accept drinks offered to them by spectators. Unfortunately for Zaaf, the drink he took was a bottle of wine and, as a Muslim, he'd never consumed alcohol before (Molinès either took a bottle of water or was more used to wine), so it rather went to his head. Before long, he found himself feeling somewhat the worse for wear and wobbling dangerously all over the road so he decided that perhaps he'd better stop for a while in the shade under a tree and see if he started feeling any better.

Some time later - nobody knows how much later - a group of spectators found him and woke him up. He grabbed his bike, leapt aboard and set off. Unfortunately, he was either so keen to make up for lost time or still drunk, so he failed to realise that he was going back the way they'd come. When organisers caught up with him, unaware that his confusion was down to alcohol, they assumed his brain had been scrambled by the heat and had him taken to hospital. The next day, he escaped and hurried to the start line where he begged to be allowed to retake the section of the previous stage that he'd missed and continue the race, but judges wouldn't allow it and upheld his disqualification.

The story sounds like one of misfortune, but in fact Zaaf did rather well out of it. As the first black rider in the Tour, he'd already achieved celebrity simply because he was a novelty. French cycling fans from days gone by seem to have been an admirably non-racist bunch (except, perhaps, towards Belgians, who had an annoying habit of winning the race; but look up "Major" Marshall Taylor, who was pleasantly surprised to find a warm welcome in France after the awful discrimination he faced in his native USA for another example) and the Algerian enjoyed enormous popularity. As a result, he was able to make a very comfortable living from the fees that organisers of criterium races were willing to pay him simply to appear at their events. Perhaps the ultimate accolade came when a wine, which became popular, was named after him; and allowed him to make even more money by appearing in the manufacturer's advertisements. He would ride  in five more Tours, remaining with North Africa in 1951 and 1952, then with Charly Gaul in 1953 and finally with Federico Bahamontes a year later.

When his cycling career came to an end, Zaaf disappeared and for nearly three decades nobody knew if he was in France or had returned to Algeria, or even whether he was alive or dead. Then, in 1982, he suddenly reappeared in Paris for an operation on his eye.

Gustave Garrigou
Gustave Garrigou, who died on this day in 1963, won one Tour de France out of the eight in which he competed and a total of eight stages. Impressive, but not the palmares of a great, you might think. However, out of a total of 117 stages during his career, he finished in the top five in 65 and the top ten in 96 - which makes him one of the best performers in the history of the race.

He was born on the 24th of September 1884 in Vabres and was remarkably thin. Yet he was also deceptively strong, and had an ability to recover after strenuous exercise that would have the dope test doctors queuing outside the door of the team bus in a modern Tour - in other words, he was a man who could have been born to ride bikes up mountains. His talent was evident right from the start when he won Paris-Dieppe and Paris-Amiens as an amateur. In his first professional season he won Paris-Brussels and the Giro di Lombardia as well as taking two stage wins (10 and 12) and 2nd place in the Overall Classification in the 1907 Tour with no stage wins. He was 4th overall in 1908 (one stage), then 2nd again in 1909 (one stage).

His win came when he was riding with Alcyon in 1911, but like most in those days it was not without controversy. Rural France in those days was a very different place when compared to today and some of its inhabitants were almost a law unto themselves - while nowadays death threats tend to be the work of mentally unstable people who pose no real threat to anybody, many early Tourists faced real violence and several riders were savagely beaten by angry fans, so Garrigou was a very worried man. The threats stemmed from an incident in which Paul Duboc, a rider with La Française who had been successfully catching up with him, was left with crippling abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhoea after he drank from a bidon that had been poisoned. His manager gave him an emetic and, after some time, he recovered and was able to continue, eventually finishing the race in 2nd place overall, and a man working for a third team was later shown to have been the culprit. In the meantime, Duboc's fans put two and two together and decided that since Garrigou was the man who would most benefit if Duboc abandoned, he must have been the poisoner. Hence the threats.

Duboc himself appears never to have suspected Garrigou and was horrified to learn that in Rouen, his hometown and the place where his fans would be most numerous, persons unknown had put up posters saying "Citizens of Rouen: I would have been leading this race had I not been poisoned. You know what you have to do when the race reaches your city." Each poster bore a forgery of his signature. By this point, Garrigou (at the suggestion of the organisers) had taken to wearing disguise, but the two men realised that if the angry Rouennais even suspected his true identity they were likely to become a lynch mob. Duboc offered to ride on ahead to the city and do what he could to placate them, but an equally concerned Henri Desgrange decided that extreme tactics were required. As a result, Garrigou rode through the city protected on all sides by three cars, each filled with the burliest men Desgrange could find.

The 1912 race passed without incident for Garrigou, but he was outclassed by Odile Defraye and Eugène Christophe and had to settle for 3rd place overall with no stage wins (in the same year, he finished in 2nd place at Paris-Roubaix). He did a little better the next year, winning Stage 8 and coming 2nd, then won Stage 14 and finished in 5th place at his final Tour in 1914.

Gustaaf Deloor

Gustaaf Deloor, who died on this day in 2002 at the age of 88, was a Belgian cyclist who enjoyed a successful professional career before the Second World War and won the Vuelta a Espana twice, including the first ever edition of the race in 1935 when he won three stages and wore the orange jersey that in those days marked out the race leader for twelve days (he is, as a result, the only foreigner to have won the inaugural edition of a Grand Tour). He then wore orange for all but two of the 22 days the race lasted the following year, winning three stages once again - and, completing the course in 150h07'54", set the longest winning time in Vuelta history, and won Stage 6 in the 1937 Tour de France.

The Grand Tour winner of today can look forward to fame and fortune, but - perhaps as a result of a general downturn in interest in the sport, perhaps as a result of the tarnished image with which it was left following the notorious doping scandals of the 1990s and early 21st Century - they receive nothing like the adulation that their ancestors got, and which sometimes proved too much for them to bear. Deloor, however, was one rider who benefited enormously from his fame. Having joined the Belgian Army when war broke out, he found himself among the 1,200 men taken prisoner after the Nazis attacked and over-ran Fort Eben-Emael on the 10th of May 1940 and was transported to Stalag II-B, which would earn infamy as the most brutal POW camp operated by the Nazis during the war. Deloor, however, was fortunate enough to be recognised by a  German officer who had been an ardent cycling fan before the conflict and arranged for him to be given a relatively easy job in the camp kitchens.

After the war, Deloor returned to what was left of Belgium. Finding his house a plundered wreck, he emigrated to New York, spending ten years there before moving on to Los Angeles where he remained for the next 21 years up until 1980, at which point he returned to Belgium where he spent the rest of his life.

Carlo Clerici
Surprisingly little is known about the Italian-born Swiss cyclist Carlo Clerici, who died on this day in 2007 when he was 72. This is all the more remarkable considering his impressive palmares - he won the GP de Suisse in 1952, a year after finishing the Tour de Suisse in 3rd place (which he did again in 1955. He also did well in National Championships, winning a bronze medal in 1954. He manged two podium places at the Tour de Romandie (3rd in 1954 and 2nd in 1956), but his greatest success was winning the overall General Classification at the 1954 Giro d'Italia when he beat riders such as Hugo Koblet (2nd), Fausto Coppi (4th) and Fiorenzo Magni (6th). He was the greatest rider you've (probably) never heard of.

Julian Dean
(image credit: Petit Brun CC BY-SA 2.0) 

Julian Dean
Julian Dean, born today in 1975 in Waihai, New Zealand, has competed in seven Tours de France and finished every one of them, though his best placing to date was 107th in 2007. His record in the other Grand Tours has been chequered - he abandoned his first Giro d'Italia during Stage 6, failed to show up at the start of Stage 19 in both 2008 and 2010, came 93rd in 2007 and 136th in 2010. He had ridden in three editions of the Vuelta a Espana, abandoning his first (2005) in Stage 15, coming 132nd in 2009 and failing to show at the start of Stage 13 in 2010.

However, Dean's performance in shorter races has been highly impressive - he won bronze at the 1993 World Track Championships in the Under-19 Team Pursuit, another in the same event at the 1994 Commonwealth Games and then went on to win stages and General Classifications at a variety of races in the Southern Hemisphere and the USA, culminating in a GC win at the 1999 Tour of Wellington. In that same year, he won two stages in the Tour of Britain, his first success in European racing, then won the Tour de Wallonie in 2003. A year later he was back in Britain, winning the Points Classification and coming 2nd overall, then he became National Road Race and Criterium Champion in 2007, retaining the road title the next year when he also finished 3rd overall at the Tour of Ireland and formed a part of the winning Time Trial team in the Giro d'Italia.

That apparently piqued his interest in the Grand Tours, because he showed a marked upturn in results from then onwards, finishing Stages 14 and 21 in 4th and 6th place respectively at the Tour de France and then 3rd in Stage 10 and 2nd in Stage 18 at the Giro and 2nd in Stages 4 and 18 and 3rd in Stage 20 at the Tour in 2010. He was once again part of a winning Tour Time Trial team in 2011, then finished Stage 3 the next day in 7th place. In 2012, Dean raced with the new Australian GreenEDGE team.

Born in Noventa Vicentina on this day in 1970, Italian cyclist Valeria Cappellotto won the silver medal at the National Road Race Championships of 1990 and 1991, then the bronze in 1992 and 1997. In 1992 she also competed at the Olympics and was 17th in the Road Race, then in 1998 she won the Giro della Toscana before finally becoming National Road Race Champion in 1999. She is the younger sister of 1997 World Road Race Champion Alessandra.

Other cyclists born on this day: Kimberley Smith (USA, 1968); Bjørn Selander (USA, 1988); Gbedikpe Emmanuel Amouzou (Togo, 1954); Dirk Meier (East Germany, 1964); Howard Wing (China, 1916, died 2008); Jesús Rios (Mexico, 1964); Salvador Rios (Mexico, 1963); Léon van Bon (Netherlands, 1972); Hans Bernhardt (Germany, 1906, died 1940); Erwin Jaisli (Switzerland, 1937); Jozef Žabka (Slovakia, 1975); Antonio Negrini (Italy, 1903, died 1994); Ruggero Berti (USA, 1909, died 1985).

Daily Cycling Facts 27.01.2013

Dante Coccolo

The name Dante Coccolo is all but forgotten today, but what he did and what happened as a result in the 1978 Tour de France is the stuff of legend.

The Tour, being the greatest race on the cycling calendar and having been in existence for more than a century, has given rise to numerous traditions and unspoken rules, some shared with other races and some unique to this one. Riders who ignore them do so at their peril, as Coccolo - who was born in Toulouse on this day in 1957 - discovered when he decided that he'd grab the opportunity to attack when the peloton took what cyclists like to term a nature break. This was not the first time he had done such a thing and the peloton was not best pleased.

Later on in the same stage, Coccolo needed to take a comfort break of his own. While he was thus engaged in the roadside bushes, two riders whose names have since been forgotten (probably immediately - and deliberately, so they wouldn't be penalised by judges) sneaked up and wheeled his bike away with them before throwing it in a ditch a couple of kilometres up the road. Coccolo was forced to wait five minutes for a Jobo-Spidel team car to collect him, but by this time his managers Yves Gobert and Guy Faubert had heard what had happened. They too were not pleased with how their rider had behaved. Deciding that he hadn't been punished enough, they made him sit on the car's bonnet as they drove him to his bike. He finished the race second to last overall and left the team soon afterwards, never riding in the Tour again. (For another fun tale of Tour misadventure, check back here tomorrow!)


Inga Thompson

Born on Reno, Nevada on this day in 1964, Inga Thompson didn't start racing professionally until she was 20 in 1984 - only months later she came third overall in the Women's Challenge and took part in the Road Race at the Olympic Games, where she came 21st. The following year she was second at the Women's Challenge, then in 1986 she was third overall at the Tour de France Féminin and second at the Tour of Norway. In 1988 she was second in the road race at the PanAmerican Games and in the 50km TT at the World Championships, then won the Women's Challenge later in the season; in 1989 she was third again at the Tour de France Féminin.

Thompson's first National title came in 1990 when she won the Elite National Time Trial Championship. She successfully defended the title in 1991 and added the Elite National Road Race Championship, also coming second in the World Road Race Championship and third at the Tour de l'Aude; in 1992 she was second in the Nationals, third at the Tour de l'Aude, second at the Women's Challenge and 26th in the Olympics, then in 1993 she became National Road Race Champion for the final time.


José Luis Rubiera
José Luis Rubiera, the now retired cyclist from Gijón in Spain, was born on this day in 1973. His first win as a professional was in no less a race than the 1997 Giro d'Italia when he was first over the line after Stage 19, coming a very respectable 10th overall two days later when the race drew to a close. He came 6th overall in the 1999 Vuelta a Espana, then 8th in the following year's Giro. He was 7th in the 2001 Vuelta, also winning the King of the Mountains classification at the Vuelta a Burgos, finishing the same race in 2nd place for 2002. His first taste of Tour de France success came the next year when his US Postal team won the Stage 4 Team Time Trial, a feat they would repeat the following two years. He managed 3rd in the 2006 Vuelta a Castilla y León, a stage win at the 2007 Tour of Qinghai Lake and another at the 2007 Vuelta a Murcia, then rounded off his career with 10th place at the 2009 Tour of California and 2010 Vuelta a Castilla y León.

Rubiera
(image credit: YellowMonkey/Binguyen
CC BY-SA 3.0)

Rubiera's palmares looks very much like that of a rider who could have gone further, perhaps building on his early Grand Tour success and winning one for himself; an aim towards which he would have been assisted by being that rare thing, a talented climber who could also perform well in a time trial. However, instead he spent his time as a domestique, albeit a super-domestique - he acted as lead man for none other than Lance Armstrong in five of his seven Tour de France victories, including leading him at the beginning of his legendary Alpe d'Huez ride in 2001 when the Texan recorded a time of 38'01", the fastest since Marco Pantani climbed the mountain 26" quicker in 1997 (a record which remains unbroken at the time of writing, 14 years later).

Rubiera is also unusual in professional racing on account of his education - he earned an degree in engineering in 2004 (unusual in men's professional racing at any rate, degrees and even doctorates are fairly common in the women's peloton), even though he raced three Grand Tours while studying. His skill on the bike, intelligence and likable personality ensured he was both respected and popular among other the riders who elected him as their deputy on the UCI ProTour Council.


1996 Canadian National Road Race Champion Sue Palmer-Komar was born on this day in 1967 in Hamilton. Ontario. Sue had come 2nd in the race in 1992 and 1995, also finishing 2nd in the National Time Trial Championship race, then came 3d in 1997 before taking up mountain biking with the Haro team for a while but enjoyed little success in the discipline. She returned to road cycling with the Jane's Cosmetic team in 2001 and soon began achieving good results again, taking a silver medal at the 2002 Commonwealth Games and then a bronze at the Nationals and 2nd place at the Waalse Pijl a year later. In 2004, she won both the Circuit National Féminin de Saint-Amand-Montrond and the National Time Trial Championship, retaining the title for a second year in 2005. In 2006 she won two stages and the General Classification at the Green Mountain Stagerace before moving on to Colavita in 2007. Since then, her results have not been as impressive and, after a year with them, she left for Advil-Chapstick.


Sprint specialist Robert Förster was born on this day in 1978 in Markkleeberg, Germany. He turned professional in 2001 and straight away did well in stage races, but he really made his mark in 2006 when he won Stage 21 at the Giro d'Italia and Stage 15 at the Vuelta a Espana while riding with the Gerolsteiner team. The next year, he won two stages at the Giro. He added two more stage wins in the 2008 Volta ao Algarve and another at the 2009 Tour of Turkey, then had a quieter 2010. In 2011, he won stages at the Tour of Qinghai Lake, Vuelta a Asturias, another at the Tour of Langkawi and two at the Nature Valley Grand Prix while racing with UnitedHealthcare. he remained with the team through 2012 and won the CSC Invitational in the USA.

Few people outside the Spanish racing scene now remember Enrique Martinez Heredia, who was born on this day in 1953 in the little town of Huesa, yet he was a name to be reckoned with during his short professional career lasting from the late 1970s to early 1980s. He first came to the world's attention by winning the 1974 Tour de l'Avenir, a race for amateurs that frequently serves to reveal future greats, then won the Volta a Catalunya and the Youth Classification at the Tour de France in 1976. . His future Tour de France results were never quite as good, the highlight of his career as a Tourist coming when he finished 29th in Stage 8 1977, but he became National Champion in 1978 and won seven more races and numerous stages before retiring at the end of the 1983 season.

Other cyclists born on this day: Hugh Porter (Great Britain, 1940); Juris Silovs (Latvia, 1973); José Chacón (Venezuela, 1977); Gorazd Štangelj (Slovenia, 1973).