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Tour de France winner Jean Robic was born on the 10th of June in 1921 in Vouziers, France. His professional career started in the middle of the  2nd World War in 1943. In 1944 he finished Paris-Roubaix with a fractured skull. After this event, he started wearing a leather helmet which became later something like his trademark.  Journalists gave him several nicknames during his almost two-decade-long career, one of them was “Tête de cuir” ( a. k. a “leather-head”) Due to his shortness and skinny body type (160 cm /60 kg) he was underestimated in his early active years, especially before the Tour de France in 1947. He was selected only for a regional team,… Read More »Cycling Who’s Who: Jean Robic

The Tour de France in 1952 was all about Fausto Coppi. The Campionissimo dominated the race to such an extent, that the organizers had to double the prize money for the second place to make the competition less boring. But Coppi took the yellow jersey only after his triumph on Alpe d’Huez.  On the day, when the peloton climbed the famous ascent for the very first time, another Italian wore the famous dress. Andrea Carrea (1924-2013) was a professional cyclist between 1948 and 1958. He was Fausto Coppi’s domestique,  of whom he was famously in awe.  This situation led to one of the most curious moments in the history of the Tour de France. Carrea… Read More »The humble domestique gets in trouble

Welcome to Peloton&Tales! I’m Anita Pethő, 41 year old Hungarian born literary historian and critic, journalist, blogger. I started to write on road cycling in 2009 on my Hungarian blog TOURázzunk együtt. It was a sudden idea (after following the races for more than a decade on television), which evolved into something bigger very soon. In 2017 I published my first book “Változások kora” [Time of Changes]. This is a long-term project, I intend to update the content of the book every 4-5 years, because, well, there are always a lot of changes in the world of international professional road cycling. There is a huge possibility, that the next edition(s) of the book will be… Read More »Author of Peloton&Tales

TOUR DE FRANCE IN THE ALPS TOUR DE FRANCE IN THE PYRENEES TOUR DE FRANCE FUN FACTS   An unpleasant dsy in the saddle A nice day around Nice? I couldn’t have been more wrong in my race preview yesterday. It was a terrible opening stage. However, Alexander Kristoff (UAE Team Emirates), the winner of the stage made a great job. The 156 km long route around Nice, where the peloton crossed the finish line a total of three times, became a cyclist nightmare as soon as the rain started to fall. Three riders escaped right after the départ réel: Michael Schar (CCC Team), Cyril Gautier (B&B Hotels-Vital Concept) and Fabien Grellier (Total-Direct Energie). When… Read More »An unpleasant day in the saddle

There are plenty of famous cycling imagaes shared (mostly) on social media daily. We all know them very well. But do you know who are those cyclists on the picture? It’s a more trickier question, isn’t it. Many (but of course not all) of them weren’t successful or famous in their own days, only our strange time made them kind of cycling celebrities. Léon Valloton and Alfons Lauwers Robert Jacquinot Eating pasta at Giro d’Italia 1966 Of course , the cyclists on this picture aren’t  no name riders. All four men were Giro d’Itali winners a least once. Gianni Motta (1966), Vittorio Adorni (1965), Jacques Anquetil (1960, 1964) and Felice Gimondi (1967, 1969, 1976)  … Read More »Famous cycling images: who is who on the iconic pictures?

Antonin Magne, the two-time winner of the Tour de France was born on the 15th of February 1904 in Ytrac, France. He attended the Tour de France first in 1927. In 1931 André Leducq, the defending champion was the team leader of the French squad, but he was out of shape, so Magne became the first man of the team and won his first Tour de France. He repeated his success in 1934, when René Vietto, his 20 years old teammate sacrificed his chance to win the race for him. This edition was the first which included an individual time trial. The 90 km long stage was won also by Magne. He rode the Tour… Read More »Mini Cycling Who’s Who: Antonin Magne

Robert Jacquinot, the protagonist of one of the most iconic cycling images in the pre-WW2 period was born in 1893.Read More »Mini Cycling Who’s Who: Robert Jacquinot