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Three-time Giro d'Italia winner Giovanni Brunero posing with his crew.Lots of funny faces, like they would be the cast of a burlesque film.

Welcome to PelotonTales

Welcome to PelotonTales blog – a great place for great cycling stories. If you’re interested in fascinating and sometimes unbelievable, but rather shorter ( we’re living in the 21st century, after all) stories from the past of this sport, you’re in the right place. A welcome from the author My name is Anita Pethő (or, if you’re unable to see the unique Hungarian character at the end of my surname: Petho), I’m the creator of this website. I’m not from the world of sport, my original interest are culture, art, and creativity, but most of all storytelling. Novels, film, tv-series and theatre. Stories from and about the past. (But from a very 21st-centurian point of… Read More »Welcome to PelotonTales

A woman, possibly accidentally riding her bicycle surrounded by some professional riders at the Tour de France in the 1920s

Road cycling meets everyday life (with lots of vintage images)

One of the few things in road cycling my fascination would never cease about is how close the world of road cycling events, unlike many other sport, is to the public places of everyday life. In other words, while we go to a stadium to watch a football match or visit a sport hall to see several other sports, road cycling events come to visit us. You might say, there is little to wonder about it. After all, this sport called road cycling, and roads are the most common public places of everyday life. But even nowadays, in the era of meticulously planned and organized sport events, sometimes the interaction between sport and everyday life… Read More »Road cycling meets everyday life (with lots of vintage images)

Road cycling history is also about the crowd surrounding the cyclists like on this picture, where Toir de France winner Luxembourgian cyclist Francois Faber is in the middle of the crowd at Tour de France 1909

Road cycling history is not just a collection of results and other facts about road cycling races

Probably most of the readers of this post have seen short videos from the early years of the 1900s. For example, about a crowd gathering at an outdoor event, where both children and adults are curious about the new technology and looking right into the camera. Women in long dresses and big hats are getting off the train at a busy railway station. Young couples, a rather larger circle of friends, are sitting at a table in the garden of a big café. They’re behaving a bit burlesque-ish,  everyone is moving slightly quicker than it’s  natural. On the other hand, their grotesque gestures emphasize our illusiouric perception of “past is a foreign country”, and this… Read More »Road cycling history is not just a collection of results and other facts about road cycling races

Inserting history into road cycling history

It started with the realisation that I can’t mention a single historical event happened in Italy in the 17th century. Being vain about my historical knowledge all in my life, especially when it comes to the early modern period in European history, I was a little confused. There is no way, that nothing worth mentioning happened there and then. It’s Italy, after all. Even when I look at the program of Giro d’Italia every year, the names of the start and finish places remind me plenty of stories from the past. In contary to France, where it’s predominantly about Paris and the places near to the country’s border, Italy is much more decentralised  when it… Read More »Inserting history into road cycling history

Giovanni Canova stops for wine at Tour de France 1927

Let’s talk about nostalgia (Subscribe to my Patreon!)

It waw a quite long process figuring out what kind of topic would be related most of my many interests. I eagerly tried to find something which would be relatable to the readers of my historical fiction related online content, but lies also deep in the core how I approach the cultural phenomenon called road cycling history. S, let’s talk about nostalgia! Posts on my Patreon try to put road cycling history in a wider context. The journey intends to reach also the cultural fields of fiction and imagination, therefore it’s an ideal place to write about my preparations and the progress of writing my own fictions related to world of road cycling in the… Read More »Let’s talk about nostalgia (Subscribe to my Patreon!)

A moment in the mountains at Tour de France 2023, when Jonas Vingegaard in the yellow jersey is cheered by the crowd.

Focusing on Cycling season 2024 – A new special project on PelotonTales

The idea of the special project Cycling season 2024 is simple: following as much races in the new road cycling season as possible. It’s kind of a personal challenge (like the reading about Italy in the 17th century), but hopefully with the results interesting enough for the majority of the audience of this blog. I only realised recently how I ignored presend day road cycling during last year. ( I’m pretty sure I saw more cycling races even in 2020 or 2021.) Scrolling through road cycling related news more and more new names appeared in the headlines I knew nothing about. It seems I delved into the past of this sport so deep, I’ve just… Read More »Focusing on Cycling season 2024 – A new special project on PelotonTales

Climbing Col d’Allos at Tour de France 1914 -Vintage cycling image of the day

Tour de France 1914 started on the same day, 28th June, as the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg  were assassinated in Sarajevo. When the riders lined up in the middle of the nigh for the start of the first stage in Paris, they knew nothing about that this day would determinate the life of millions worldwide. They did not know either, that on 28th July, just two days after they finished the Tour de France, the Great War would break out and some of the cyclists would lose their life during the fights, including François Faber, who is among the three riders depicted on this image. The Alps were… Read More »Climbing Col d’Allos at Tour de France 1914 -Vintage cycling image of the day

Cyclist riding in form of spectators whenTour de France visited Metz during the early years of its history.

When Tour de France went abroad before 1914

Defining historical events of the 20th century often left  their marks on road cycling history. Just think about, for istance, the impact of World War 1 on the mythology of some famous races, like Paris-Roubaix. The born of the famous phase of “Hell of the North” is a quite well known story among cycling fans.       On the other hand, even when someone is quite familiar with the history of Tour de France’s early years, sometimes just bumps into something, which could raise so many questions. Like those few Tour de France editions, when the race visited Alsace -Lorraine, the territory occupied by the Germans in those days. TOUR DE FRANCE CROSSING THE… Read More »When Tour de France went abroad before 1914

Georges Speicher at Paris-Roubaix 1935

Although  Paris-Roubaix in 1936 was more important in the career of  Tour de France winner (1933) cyclist Georges Speicher, one of the most popular funny vintage cycling images from the good old days of road cycling was taken one year earlier.Georges Speicher (1907-1978) was a French rider, the first cyclist who won Tour de France and the UCI World Championship in the same year (1933).This image of him reparing his bike while three spectators, possibly a father and his two daughters standing next to him is a classic exemplare for those pictures evoking some kind of false nostalgia I wrote about in the blogpost Past was a better place (?). Please read that article too.Also,… Read More »Georges Speicher at Paris-Roubaix 1935