In his final year as a pro, Fabian Cancellara got a special-edition Trek Madone for his last Tour de France. The bike is specially painted for him, and it celebrates Spartacus’ entire career.
Category: Races
I finished reading Michael Hutchinson’s “The Hour”, which gained him the award for “Best New Writer” at the 2007 “British Sports Book Awards”. The book mainly covers the first of his two (unsuccessful) hour record attempts.
Another great achievement for team MTN-Qhubeka in this year’s Tour de France: Steve Cummings wins stage 14. This is the first-ever victory for an African team in the history of the Tour, and the best thing is, it was on Nelson Mandela International Day (or Mandela Day), an annual international day in honor of Nelson Mandela, celebrated each year on 18 July, Mandela’s birthday.
A lot of people are wondering what is the black stick below the riders’ saddles at the Tour de France. Well, it’s a real-time data transmitter. It is provided by Dimension Data, a South African company specializing in information technology services, and officially called the “Fox”.
Rohan Dennis (BMC) beats Greg LeMond’s Tour de France time trial speed record which was set in 1989, at the final time trial in Paris (LeMond won that edition with only eight seconds over the Frenchman Laurent Fignon, the narrowest winning margin in history). Dennis’s time over the 13.8 km course was 14 minutes 56 seconds, clocking an average speed of 55.446 km/h. Dennis also broke the prologue record of Chris Boardman which was set in the 1994 edition, Boardman’s previous record was 55.2 km/h (34.3 mph) set during the 7.2 km prologue of the 1994 Tour in Lille.
In the opening time trial of 2015 Tour de France, this years’ Tour Down Under winner Rohan Dennis was the only rider to go under the 15-minute mark on the course and established time trial legends and multiple former world champions Tony Martin (Etixx-QuickStep) and Fabian Cancellara (Trek Factory Racing) failed to beat his time. Martin finished in second with 15:01, while Cancellara finished in third with 15:02.
Paris-Roubaix 2015 Route and Cobbled sectors: the 113th edition of Paris-Roubaix will be running from Compiègne – Clairoix to Roubaix and will cover a total distance of 253.5 kilometers. There are 27 cobbled sectors (a total of 52,7 km).
This year’s route is not completely flat, especially the first part contains many roller-coaster climbs and downhills. The first cobbled sector, Troisvilles is at 98.5km.
Today’s historic photo of the day: during the penultimate (14th) stage of the 1921 Tour de France, Léon Scieur, the Belgian rider of La Sportive team carries his own wheel to the finish line. Scieur won the 1921 Tour de France when he was 33-year-old, along with stages 3 and 10.
The 15th edition of the Tour de France took place June 26 to July 24, 1921, with 138 starters. The total distance was 5484 km. The Belgians dominated the entire race, partly due to the absence of the French Pélissier brothers: the French cyclists Henri and Francis Pélissier had left the 1920 Tour de France after Henri received a penalty from the Tour organization for throwing away a tire, and they were still fighting. Therefore, the Pélissier brothers did not join the 1921 Tour de France.
Today’s historic photo of the day: Italian cyclist Bartolomeo Aimo (sometimes written Bartolomeo Aymo) leading a greatly reduced peloton over the Allos at stage 13 of the Tour de France 1925.
Stage 13 was a 275 km (171 mi) long trip from Nice to Briançon. It was a cold, rainy day in the Alps. The Italian sports fans who had flocked to the Tour to see their hero, Ottavio Bottecchia, had the pleasure of seeing their compatriot Bartolomeo Aimo be the first over both the Vars and the Izoard as he rode to win the stage.
Bottecchia was 10 minutes back but still leading the General Classification. Nicolas Frantz, who was in second place in the general classification at the beginning of the day lost over 13 minutes.
Today’s historic photo of the day: KAS rider Alfred Achermann crashes heavily and retires from the race on the Paris-Roubaix cobbles, in the Arenberg Forest. 86th edition of the “Queen of the classics”, Sunday, April 10, 1988.
1988 Paris-Roubaix surprisingly won by Belgian Dirk Demol (later, he was the Directeur sportif of the UCI Pro team RadioShack). With 27 km to go, a group of unknown riders broke away. The peloton did nothing to chase them down. It was on a section of cobblestones outside Roubaix that Swiss rider Thomas Wegmuller (KAS) and Dirk Demol (AD Renting) broke away from the lead group to search for the victory.
Today’s historic photo of the day: Serse Coppi kisses his elder brother Fausto Coppi after winning the Paris-Roubaix 1949 edition.
For the first and only time in history, there were two winners in Paris-Roubaix, and Serse was one of them. The other was team Stella-Dunlop’s French rider André Mahé.
1949 Paris-Roubaix, the 47th edition of the race was held on April 18. There was great chaos at the end of the race. The two winners finished separately, they were separated by four other riders and they both even reached the line by two different routes!