Marcel Kittel, the sprinter of the team Giant-Shimano, in a video prepared in collaboration with the ASO (Amaury Sports Organisation – the Organizer of the Tour de France) gave the cycling fans some safety advice.
Kittel says: “Thanks for coming to the Tour to support us. Please respect the riders, protect yourself and especially your children.”
The advertisement of Greg LeMond’s 1989 Tour de France winner Bottecchia (in Italian). A beautiful and extraordinary bike. LeMond was racing for the AD Renting-W-Cup-Bottecchia team.
During the 1980s and at the beginning of the ’90s, the size of the front wheels of the time-trial bikes was 650c, unlike today’s bicycles.
In the 1967 Tour de France, Tom Simpson, one of the greatest cyclists from Great Britain, has died while climbing Mont Ventoux, the “Giant of Provence”.
The first Tour de France was held in 1903, and the overall winner was Maurice Garin (3 March 1871, Arvier, Aosta Valley, Italy – 19 February 1957, Lens or Haute-Savoie, France). His bicycle, a La Française was the first bike to win the Tour de France.
I finished reading “Maglia Rosa – Triumph and Tragedy at the Giro d’Italia” by Herbie Sykes. Now it’s Tour de France time, and I started to reading “Slaying the Badger” by Richard Moore.
A very enjoyable story about the legendary Swiss cyclist Ferdi Kübler.
As I wrote before, these days I am reading William Fotheringham’s “Put Me Back On My Bike – In search of Tom Simpson”. Like all books of Fotheringham, it is a great book.
Pédaleur de charme, meaning “Pedaler of Charm“, was Hugo Koblet‘s nickname (He won Tour de France in 1951 and Giro d’Italia in 1950). He also won the Mountain Classification of Giro d’Italia in 1950.
Orson Welles, the famous American director was the official starter of the Tour de France in 1950. The best-known film directed by him is Citizen Kane.
The film was nominated for Academy Awards in nine categories; it won an Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) by Herman Mankiewicz and Welles. Citizen Kane was voted the greatest film of all time in five consecutive Sight & Sound’s polls of critics until it was displaced by Vertigo in the 2012 poll.
1971 Tour de France was a scene of an epic Luis Ocaña vs Eddy Merckx battle. Eventually, the tour was a great tragedy for Luis Ocaña, who won the Tour de France in 1973 and the Vuelta a España in 1970.
Eddy Merckx won Tour de France in 1969 and 1970, and it looked like he was well on the way to his hat trick. Pre-race predictions were certain that if he would not become ill or crash, Merckx would be the winner, and was speculating whether he would be able to lead the race from start to end. But Luis Ocaña of Spain had something to say about this matter.
Two bicycles used by Marco Pantani in the Tour de France sold for 13,000 and 8,000 Euro at an auction in Italy. 1998 bike sold for 13,000 Euro (Pantani won Tour de France in 1998).
The auction was in Ravenna on November 17th and according to reports in the Italian press, one hundred Pantani fans attended an auction.