Road cycling is not a winter sport. But sometimes -especially in the high mountains – winter visits road cycling events in the form of snow.
Images of cyclists struggling through the snow are usually fit into the narrativa of road cycling races being heroic and epic. Fausto Coppi, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and all the other great legends are capture at least one time during their careers in heroic moment in snow.
Let see some of those epic moments.
Charly Gaul on Monte Bondone (Giro d’Italia 1956)
Race director Vincenzo Torriani was asked to cancel the stage due to the rough weather conditions were forecasted. But he declined it, he may have thought, this could make the unexciting race exciting again.
It was a cold and rainy day, the riders were unprepared for the extreme weather conditions. The race director was asked again to finish the race earlier, at least a bit earlier than the original plan.
Soon snow started to fall and the temperatures dropped. 60 riders abandoned the race, meanwhile stage winner Charly Gaul jumped from 11th to 1st in the general classification. He was in better condition than the most of the peloton (probably due to the large dose of amphetamines, which helped him to survive the extreme cold), but still he had to be lifted off his bike and his frozen jersey cut off him.
Fernando Manzaneque on Col d’Iseran (Tour de France 1963)
Fausto Coppi on Stelvio (Giro d’Italia 1952)
This was the year, when Stelvio was introduced to Giro d’Italia.
Bernard Hinault at Liège-Bsstogne-Liège 1980
The race was held on the 20th April 1980. It started already in a raging snow storm. After two hours of riding only 60 (from 174) riders were still in the race.
Bernard Hinault was leading a chasing trio (the other riders were Silvano Contini and Henk Lubberdink) to catch the duo Rudy Pevenage and Ludo Peetersat at the front. After they completed the mission, Hinault attacked and went solo with 80 km to go. He spent more than seven hours in the saddle, won his second Liège-Bastogne-Liège 10 minutes ahead of Hennie Kuiper.
At the end, only 21 riders finished the race.
MORE CYCLING IN EXTREME WEATHER ON PELOTONTALES
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