“Vélo d’Or” is an award given annually to the cyclist considered to have performed the best over the year. Here is a gallery of Vélo d’Or winners from 2000 to 2009.
Category: Tour de France
“Vélo d’Or” is an award given annually to the cyclist considered to have performed the best over the year. Here is a gallery of Vélo d’Or winners from 1992, the year the award was created, to 1999.
A funny video: one of the fans of Thomas De Gendt writes “unblock me De Gendt” on the road during Stage 16 (probably) of this year’s Tour de France. Apparently, the Belgian cyclist had blocked him on Twitter for an unknown reason. His friend Lonyo Pastor (@Lonyo77), who took the video, wrote on Twitter that “Hi @DeGendtThomas one of my friends wants to tell you something. He doesn’t know what he did wrong @excusasypupas“. And De Gendt really unblocked hem! He answered: “Even I don’t know why he got blocked. He is unblocked now.”
July 9, 1925: in this historic photo, the legendary Italian cyclist Ottavio Bottecchia approaches to the finish line at Tour de France 1925 stage 13, a 275 km going from Nice to Briançon. The monster stage had featured three major ascents, all above two thousand meters: Col d’Allos (2,250 m), Col de Vars (2,108 m), and Col d’Izoard (2,360 m).
Fellow Italian Bartolomeo Aymo (sometimes written Bartolomeo Aimo), the Alcyon teammate of Bottecchia’s rival Nicolas Frantz won the stage in 13 hours 5 minutes, and 3 seconds. Bottecchia finished in second at 9 min 57 sec, 3 min 40 sec ahead of Frantz, who finished in third and reinforced his yellow jersey. Bottecchia, who had also won the previous year’s edition and became the first Italian to win the Tour de France, started the 1925 Tour by winning the first stage, then he won 6th and 7th stages, and made his Tour victory complete by also winning the last stage.
Today’s historic photo of the day: a mountain pass during the 1925 Tour de France. Frenchman Roger Lacolle (Météore) is leading the group (in the left, walking). The rider going the opposite way is a native, not a competitor.
Today’s historic photo of the day: on Wednesday, July 5, Frenchman Jean Alavoine (Peugeot-Wolber) crosses over the Col d’Aspin during the Tour de France 1922, stage 6. It was a monster 326-kilometer stage from Bayonne to Luchon, which contains three major climbs: Col d’Aubisque, Col d’Aspin, and Col de Peyresourde. Alavoine won the stage in 14 hours 28 minutes and 44 seconds. The second finisher, Victor Lanaers (Automoto) came 16 minutes 43 seconds behind. The overall winner, Firmin Lambot (Peugeot) came third, at 31:05.
“Le Ride” is a cycling documentary, which follows two cyclists, Phil Keoghan (also the director of the film) and his friend Ben Cornell as they attempt to recreate the original route of the 1928 Tour de France. Averaging 240 km a day for 26 days, Phil and Ben traverse both the unforgiving mountains of the Pyrenees and the Alps, on original vintage steel racing bikes with no gears and marginal brakes.
Bianchi released Marco Pantani edition “Specialissima”, a special bike to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Marco Pantani’s Giro-Tour double. The bike has the iconic celeste-yellow fade paint job, the same color schema of Marco Pantani’s 1998 Bianchi. In 1998, after winning the Giro d’Italia, Pantani rode the yellow and celeste Bianchi Mega Pro XL (serial number H 314-74) in the famous July 27 Grenoble-Le Duex Alpes stage of the 1998 Tour de France. He attacked Jan Ullrich on the Galibier climb and won the stage, taking the race lead. He went on to win the Tour in Paris ahead of 2nd finisher Ullrich and 3rd Bobby Julich.
This was a feat only achieved by seven riders in history: Fausto Coppi (1949, 1952), Jacques Anquetil (1964), Eddy Merckx (1970, 1972, 1974), Bernard Hinault (1982, 1985), Stephen Roche (1987), Miguel Indurain (1992, 1993) and Marco Pantani (1998).
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Tour de France 2017 Route
Tour de France 2017, the 104th edition of the French Grand Tour‘s route has been revealed by the ASO, the organizer of the race.
With the conclusion of Vuelta a España 2016, Lotto-Soudal’s Australian rider Adam Hansen has extended the record of completing the most number of consecutive grand tours which already belong to him.