Iconic Cycling Images: Bernard Thévenet after a crash (Tour de France 1972)

The race in 1972 was Bernard Thévenet’s second Tour de France. In his devutant year, in 1971 he finished fifth in the general classification and also won stage. It was a bit of a surprise performance, but in the subsequent year he was considered as one of the favourites. The 7th stage of Tour de France… Read More »Iconic Cycling Images: Bernard Thévenet after a crash (Tour de France 1972)

1972 was the second year when Bernard Thevenet rode Tour de France.  His debut in previous year was a little bit of a surprise performance, when he finished fourth in the general classification. Unfortunatelyi a crash in the 7th stage  prevented him to repeat or even surpass his result from previous year. He lost more… Read More »13 July 1972 Bernard Thévenet’s victory on Mont Ventoux

Felice Gimondi’s cycling career is remembered for his remarkable ability to compete at the highest level during the same era as the legendary Eddy Merckx, widely regarded as one of the greatest cyclists of all time. Despite Merckx’s dominance, Gimondi achieved numerous significant victories, including all three Grand Tours—Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, and Vuelta… Read More »What is in your bag? (Felice Gimondi and Eddy Merckx 1967)

Fausto Coppi was the first rider to win the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France in the same year (1949) In 2024, 26 years after Marco Pantani’s double victory, Tadej Pogacar managed to win both Giro d’Italia and Tour de France in the same year. The list of the riders Fausto Coppi (ITA) 1949… Read More »Giro d’ Italia -Tour de France doubles

Thank you for being a devoted reader of PelotonTales. You are the reason why it’s worth spending so many hours to create new content and trying to improve this website. If you would show appreciation to my work, please consider supporting the blog with a small donation. Thank you! One of the oddest images from… Read More »19 July 1977 Lucien Van Impe ‘s crash on Alpe d’Huez

Thank you for being a devoted reader of PelotonTales. You are the reason why it’s worth spending so many hours to create new content and trying to improve this website. If you would show appreciation to my work, please consider supporting the blog with a small donation. Thank you! Raymond Delisle was one of those… Read More »Faces from the peloton: Raymond Delisle (1943-2013)

You would never guess in what kind of stage the  first Dutch Tour de France stage winner, Theo (Theofiel) Middelkamp (1914-2005) gained his victory. In a mountain stage in the Alps, including Télégraphe, Galibier and Lautaret. Considering that even in the early 1950s, when Wim van Est, the first Dutch cyclist to wear the yellow… Read More »Faces from the Peloton: Theo Middelkamp (1914-2005)

French cyclist Jean Alavoine holds a unique record in the history of Tour de France: there are 14 years between his first (1909) and his last (1923) stage victory.¹ Indeed, he was one of… Read More »Faces from the peloton: Jean Alavoine (1888-1943)

Undoubtedly, there were plenty of cyclists with unique stories in the peloton in the first few decades of road cycling races. These atlethes were not necessarily successful riders or didn’t become the bigest stars of their days, but yet, their stories are worth to be told. Actually, if we are looking deeper into the well… Read More »Faces from the peloton: Jules Deloffre, “the acrobat cyclist”

The winner of the longest ever individual time trial (139 km ) in the history of Tour de France, Raymond Impanis had a successful career. Although a bit in the shadow of the biggest names of the era. That certain individual time trial at Tour de France 1947 was one of his two TDF stage… Read More »Faces from the peloton: Raymond Impanis (1925-2010)

Fausto Coppi was the first rider to win the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France in the same year (1949) In 2024, 26 years after Marco Pantani’s double victory, Tadej Pogacar managed to win both Giro d’Italia and Tour de France in the same year. The list of the riders Fausto Coppi (ITA) 1949… Read More »Giro d’ Italia -Tour de France doubles

You might wonder which Tour de France edition was the slowest and wich one the fastest. Here you have the answer. The slowest Tour de France was the 13th edition, held between 29th June and 27 July in 1919. The 5560 km long route of the race was  divided into 15 stages. (And it wasn’t… Read More »The slowest and the fastest Tour de France

During its 120-year long history, it happened only three times, when the peloton of Tour de France did not includ any previous winner. Obviously, in 1903 there couldn’t be any, because it was the very first edition. In 1927, it seems to have been a generational change in the peloton of Tour de France. Several… Read More »Tour de France editions without previous winners in the peloton

Alfredo Binda, the second Campionissimo, the big star of the 1920s hold several records. Two of them are the most victories and also the most consecutive victories in a single race. What’s really astonishing is that he achieved these successes during two different editions of Giro d’Italia. In 1927 Binda managed to win 12 stages… Read More »Most stage victories and consecutive stage victories in a single Giro d’Italia

The pink jersey (maglia rosa) was introduced to the Giro d’Italia during the race in 1931.Learco Guerra (The Human Locomotive”) was the first rider to wear it.The top 11 riders  with  most days in pink jersey :Eddy Merckx 78 (1968,1969,1970,1972,1973,1974)Alfredo Binda 65 (1925,1927,1928,1929,1931,1933)Francesco Moser 50 (1976,1977,1979,1980,1981,1982,1984,1985)Giuseppe Saronni 48 (1979,1981,1983,1985,1986)Gino Bartali 42 (1936,1937,1939,1946,1947)Jacques Anquetil 42 (1959,1960,1961,1964,1967)Fausto… Read More »Most days in pink jersey