PelotonTales is blog about road cycling. History and present. Great stories.
When the most craziest TDF edition since years visits the place of the most crazies TDF stage of the recent decade. Mont Ventoux is coming, not one, but twice today.Read More »Tour de France visits Mont Ventoux (TDF2021 Stage 11)
Charly Gaul won the 21 km moutain time trial up to the top of Mont Ventoux at the Tour de France 1958 Although nowadays Mont Ventoux is usually known by its legendary mountain top finishes, on its first three appearances (1951, 1952, 1955) at the Tour de France the peloton crossed the summit only during mid-race. The first time a stage to finish at the top happened in 1958. It was a 21 km long individual mountain time trial. Charly Gaul, the “Angel of the Mountains” was the fastest rider, who jumped from 6th to 3rd position in the GC. He claimed the yellow jersey a few days later and won the Tour de France… Read More »Charly Gaul on the Mont Ventoux (Tour de France 1958)
1 Tadej Pogacar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates 38:25:17 2 Ben O’Connor (Aus) AG2R Citroën Team 0:02:01 3 Rigoberto Uran (Col) EF Education-Nippo 0:05:18 4 Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Jumbo-Visma 0:05:32 5 Richard Carapaz (Ecu) Ineos Grenadiers 0:05:33 6 Enric Mas Nicolau (Spa) Movistar Team 0:05:47 7 Wilco Kelderman (Ned) Bora-Hansgrohe 0:05:58 8 Alexey Lutsenko (Kaz) Astana-Premier Tech 0:06:12 9 Guillaume Martin (Fra) Cofidis 0:07:02 10 David Gaudu (Fra) Groupama-FDJ 0:07:22 11 Pello Bilbao Lopez De Armentia (Spa) Bahrain Victorious 0:08:38 12 Mattia Cattaneo (Ita) Deceuninck-QuickStep 0:11:38 13 Aurélien Paret Peintre (Fra) AG2R Citroën Team 0:11:54 14 Dylan Teuns (Bel) Bahrain Victorious 0:20:54 15 Esteban Chaves Rubio (Col) Team BikeExchange 0:22:22 16 Franck Bonnamour (Fra) B&B Hotels… Read More »Tour de France 2021 General Classification after Stage 10
1 Tadej Pogacar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates 34:11:10 2 Ben O’Connor (Aus) AG2R Citroën Team 0:02:01 3 Rigoberto Uran (Col) EF Education-Nippo 0:05:18 4 Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Jumbo-Visma 0:05:32 5 Richard Carapaz (Ecu) Ineos Grenadiers 0:05:33 6 Enric Mas Nicolau (Spa) Movistar Team 0:05:47 7 Wilco Kelderman (Ned) Bora-Hansgrohe 0:05:58 8 Alexey Lutsenko (Kaz) Astana-Premier Tech 0:06:12 9 Guillaume Martin (Fra) Cofidis 0:07:02 10 David Gaudu (Fra) Groupama-FDJ 0:07:22 11 Pello Bilbao Lopez De Armentia (Spa) Bahrain Victorious 0:08:38 12 Mattia Cattaneo (Ita) Deceuninck-QuickStep 0:11:38 13 Aurélien Paret Peintre (Fra) AG2R Citroën Team 0:11:54 14 Dylan Teuns (Bel) Bahrain Victorious 0:20:54 15 Esteban Chaves Rubio (Col) Team BikeExchange 0:22:22 16 Nairo Quintana (Col) Team Arkea-Samsic… Read More »Tour de France 2021 – General Classification after Stage 9
PLEASE, SUPPORT PELOTONTALES! If you like PelotonTales blog and want to help me a little to continue the work on this website, please consider a small donation. Thank you for your support! The 19th stage of Tour de France 1928 was a memorable day. Race leader Nicolas Frantz broke his bicycle’s frame with 100 km to go. He had to ride the left of the stage on an undersized female bike. Fortunately, Frantz, who was the winner of the previous edition, had already an advantage of 1 hour 15 minutes and 7 seconds ahead of the second placed Andre Leducq and almost one an a half hour ahead of Maurice de Waele. Luckily, both of… Read More »André Leducq and Nicolas Frantz at Tour de France 1928
Henri Pelissier, Bartolomeo Aymo and Ottavio Bottecchia on the Aubisque, Tour de France 1925, Stage 8 (Bayonne-Luchon 326 km, 1st July, 1925) Top 10 riders of the stage: Adelin Benoît: 15hr 18min 56sec Omer Huyse 8min 34sec Ottavio Bottecchia 11min 15sec Nicolas Frantz 21min 19sec Albert Dejonghe 22min 4sec Romain Bellenger 35min 50sec Théophile Beeckman 37min 4sec Bartolomeo Aymo 39min 46sec Félix Sellier 42min 42sec Lucien Buysse 43min 41sec
Although smaller climbs were parts of the program since the beginning, and both the Pyrenees (1910) and the Alps (1911) were intruduced to the race during the pre-WW1 period, there were no hilltop finishes at the Tour de France till 1952. Alpe d’Huez ( in the Western Alps) was a ski station in the first half of the 20th century. But a local artist, Jean Barbaglia had the idea, that it would be a great place for a cycling race too. He persuaded one of the hotel owners to lobby the Tour de France organizers: it migh be worth to try something new out. Up to Alpe d’Huez there was only one road, therefore a… Read More »The first hilltop finish of Tour de France
The 20th edition of the Tour de France (held between 20th June and 18th July 1926) is best known for its 10th stage, which is labelled as the toughest one of the race ever. Read More »Tour de France 1926
As I mentioned before in several posts (like here ), I think, that this Giro d’Italia was the race, which made Egan Bernal (INEOS Grenadiers) a great champion. This was his second Grand Tour victory within two years, but as I mentioned before, I wasn’t really convinced by his performance at the Tour de France in 2019. Now, of course, everything has changed. Bernal rode a great race, and showed his greatness not only in the results, but in his day-by-day performance. Let’s see, which were the most important moments of these three weeks. First stage win (Stage 9) The 158 km long stage between Castel di Sangro and Campe Felice ended with a mountain… Read More »Giro d’Italia 2021 – Where the race was won – 6 moments of Egan Bernal