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Born in Misterbianco, Sicily (Italy) on 28th April 1922, Giuseppe Pino Cerami grew up in Belgium. His family left Italy when he was 5. They wanted to go to the USA, but settled down in Belgium, near to Charleroi. Cerami was officially naturalised as a Belgian in 1956. His career started in 1947 and ended in 1964. His best year was 1960 when he won Paris-Roubaix and La Flèche Wallonne and gained the 3rd place at the World Championship. He was the first winner of De Brabantse Pijl (1961) and the oldest Tour de France stage winner ever (at the age of 41 in 1963). The GP Pino Cerami (since 1964) is named after him.… Read More »Mini Cycling Who’s Who: Pino Cerami
Poblet was born in Montcada i Reixac, in the northern suburbs of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain on 18 March 1928. He was encouraged by his father (a bicycle shop owner) to take up racing seriously and turned professional in 1944 at the age of 16. The late forties, early fifties were a difficult time to race for Spanish cyclist* (f. e. the Vuelta a Espana wasn’t held between 1951 and 1954 and the circumstances were not always professional). The turning point in Poblet’s career was 1955 when he was a member of the Spaniard team at the Tour de France. Miguel Poblet was the first Spanish rider to wear the yellow jersey in the Tour de… Read More »Cycling Who’s Who: Miguel Poblet
The race was held on 17 April 2011, included 260,4 km started in Maastricht ended on the top of Cauberg (Valkenburg). The defending champion and one of the biggest pre-race favourite was Philippe Gilbert (Omega Pharma-Lotto).Read More »Rewatching the Classics: Amstel Gold Race 2011
And Fiorenzo Magni had to give up the race from the leading position.Read More »Gino Bartali Left the Tour de France (1950)
Roger Walkowiak was born on the 2nd of March in 1927. He started his career as a professional cyclist in 1951 and retired in 1960. His biggest victory was to win the Tour de France 1956, almost his only one success of his entire career. (He also won 2 Vuelta a Espana stages in 1956 and 1957). He earned the yellow jersey as a member of a successful 31-man break with a gap on 18 minutes on the 7th stage. A few days later he lost it but still remained in an advanced position. The 18th stage delivered a battle between the two climber giants Charly Gaul and Federico Bahamontes. They both rode for the… Read More »Mini Cycling Who’s Who: Roger Walkowiak
Luis Herrera was born on 4 May 1961 in Fusagasugá, Colombia. He was the first Colombian to win a Tour de France stage. The victory on the top of Alpe d’Huez in 1984 was Herrera’s first notable triumph, he achieved it as an amateur rider. Although amateurs were time to time part of the peloton of the Tour de France, especially in the early years, this was the first time, that this type of rider managed to win a stage. Luis Herrera turned professional in 1985. As his first victory already has indicated, he was an excellent climber and became the second rider (after Federico Bahamontes) to win the King of the Mountains competitions of… Read More »Cycling Who’s Who: Luis Herrera
“C’EST UN DOMESTIQUE” He is just a servant. This was Henri Desgrange’s opinion about Maurice Brocco, who offered his services to help other riders at the Tour de France in 1911.Read More »Where the cycling term “domestique” came from?
There is a café-restaurant in the Parisian suburb Mortgeon, that witnessed cycling history 117 years ago. On the afternoon of 1 July 1903, people gathered on the street in front of the café Au Reveil Matin‘s building: the first Tour de France was ready to start. Originally 78 riders signed up to the race, and 60 of them appeared at the startline. Some of them used pseudonyms, like the Belgian Julien Lootens, who signed up as Samson. (Wealthy upper-middle-class or noble family usually didn’t love the idea, that some of the family members would “disgrace”, their family names by appearing in the sports news, so they rode under a different name.) The first stage of… Read More »Iconic Places: Where the First Tour de France Started
The oldest Tour de France winner ever, Firmin Lambot was born in Florennes (Belgium) in 1886. Like many of his contemporaries, Lambot used his bicycle to ride to work since his age of 17. When he won his first bike race, he bought a racing bicycle from the prize.He turned professional in 1908 and attended the Tour de France several times already before World War I broke out. He also won a few stages of the race. The first Tour de France after the war was held in 1919, Eugene Christophe was the dominant rider, but he had bad luck (the fork of his bicycle has broken on the 13th stage, he lost more than… Read More »Mini Cycling Who’s Who: Firmin Lambot