Puy de Dôme is back – TDF 2023 Stage 9 (Saint-Léonard -de Noblat -Puy de Dôme)

Tour de France 2023 presented a great gift for every road cycling history fans: after 35 years Puy de Dôme was reintroduced to the race. Although the 9th stage of Tour de France 2023 was only the 14th appearance of the ascent, it became one of the most iconic places in the history road cycling … Read more

Puy de Dôme is back on the 9th stage of Tour de France 2023. Tour de France 2023 Stage 9 9 July 2023 Saint-Léonard -de Noblat -Puy de Dôme   Click here to refresh the page Michael is the new conquerer of Puy de Dôme. 350 m Woods is heading to win the stage finishing … Read more

Between 1952 and 1988 Puy de Dôme was included into the program of Tour de France 13 times. Among the winners on the top are Fausto Coppi, Felice Gimondi, Federico Bahamontes  Lucien van Impe, Luis Ocaña or Joop Zoetemelk. In fact, the two latter are those riders, who were able to win a Puy de … Read more

The first Tour de France started at 3 pm on the 1st of July in 1903 from the Café au Reveil Matin (Paris).

The 20th Tour de France, held between 20th June and 18th July 1926, was the longest edition of the race ever: a total of 5745 km long course was divided into 17 stages.   Since the  creation of Tour de France in 1903, the race always started from Paris (more precisely from one of its … Read more

After the quarell between Henri Desgrange and Henri Pelissier last year, a new rule was made, that any rider that harmed the Tour’s image would be banned for the next years. Team Automoto had a really strong line-up: Ottavio Bottecchia (Tour de France winner 1924 and 1925) , Philippe Thys (Tour de France winner 1913,1914,1920)  … Read more

Ottavio Bottecchia became the first Italian cyclist to win Tour de France. Also, he was the first rider to take the yellow jersey on the first day and to keep it until Paris. (Leading the race from the very first day was not a novelty, it happened at the very first Tour de France already. … Read more

After 12 years (minus the time of First World War) of Belgian dominance, Tour de France celebrated a French winner again. Henri Pelissier and Henri Degrange  didn’t like each other very much. Pelissier, alongside with his brother Francis skipped Tour de France 1921 and 1922. Desgrange wrote an article about how  Pelissier would never win … Read more

Tour de France 1920 winner Philippe Thys became the first cyclist to win the race three times (his previous victories were dated back before First World War, in 1913 and 1914). The weather was so hot, that after 4 stages 65 of 113 cyclists had quit the race already.

The 13th Tour de France, held between 29 June and 27 July was the first edition after First World War. The yellow jersey was introduced during this edition of Tour de France. Most of the cyclists were racing in grey jersey, thus there must have been something, a colorful jersey for example, to distinguish the … Read more

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 Francewas 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 even the … Read more

They used to say history remembers only the winners. Fortunately this is not the case of Tour de France history. The last ones, the receivers of the famous lanterne rouge get enough attention too. Lanterne rouge is an actual red lamp used to be served to the last rider of the race as some of … Read more

There are only three riders who managed to win eight stages during a single Tour de France edition. One of them is Eddy Merckx, of course. He achieved it twice, in 1970 and 1974. The other two cyclists  are Charles Pelissier (1930) and Freddy Maertens (1976). Charles Pelissier (1930) Charles Pelissier, the youngest brother in … Read more

The iconic yellow jersey of Tour de France was introduced to the race in 1919. Eugène Christophe  was the first rider to wear it. Of course, on the top of the list there are those riders, who won 5 times the Tour de France. Also, there are cyclists, like Fabian Cancellara or René Vietto, who … Read more

It happened three times during the 110 years of Tour de France history, that there were no previous winners in the peloton. 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 riders, … Read more

Horquette d’Ancizan has a short history regarding its appearances at Tour de France. 2022  Thibaut Pinot (FRA) 2019 Simon Yates (GBR) 2016  Chris Froome (GBR) 2013  Daniel Martin (IRL) 2011 Laurent Mangel (FRA) Horquette d’Ancizan will part of the program Tour de France 2024.

Unfortunately, Col de Menté, a mountain pass in the central Pyrenees  is well-known because of the tragic stories happened there during the Tour de France. In 1971, a nasty crash on the descent of Col de Menté ended Luis Ocaña’s dreams of winning the Tour de France that year. (Nevertheless, Ocaña managed to win Tour … Read more

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. … Read more

The early history of Tour de France is full with strange stories. Not necessarily great stories, sometimes quite unpleasant ones, as it, for example, happened at the 9th edition (1911) of the famous French grand tour. Paul Duboc (1884-1941) rode Tour de France twice (1908 and 1909) before, and earned some success (a stage victory … Read more

Henri Pépin was neither an eccentric aristocrat, nor a rookie cyclist when he hired two other persons to join him to ride the Tour de France just for fun. Pépin (1864-1915) was an active cyclist in the 19th century already. He even published a book about him and (possibly) his son riding a tandem from … Read more

Louis Trousselier (1881-1939), the winner of the 3rd Tour de France (1905) was an entertaining person, for sure. He even shouldn’t have been there, when he won the race, because his official leave from the French army ended days before.  But he stayed a bit longer and won the general classification of the Tour de … Read more

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. … Read more

Although Henri Desgrange was always keen to preserve Tour de France as a competition for individuals1,  cyclists who were sponsored by the same bicycle manufacture naturally worked as a team. Alcyon for example, delivered four overall victories (François Faber, 1909; Octave Lapize,1910 ; Gustave Garrigou, 1911; Odyle Defraye, 1912) before 1914 and dominated most of … Read more

It’s a well known fact, that many of the big road cycling races were created for marketing reasons: sport newspapers were selling better by including reports about cycling events. But it’s a lesser known story, that even the format of the individual time trial at the Tour de France based on the rivalry between two … Read more

The first Tour de France without Henri Desgrange in charge since the creation of the event in 1903 didn’t go down well in the history of road cycling at all.   In 1937 Jacques Goddet was full in charge and with him came the first big change: it was the first time when gear change … Read more

Although nowadays Luigi Malabrocca is remembered by the unheroic fight for the maglia nera, the last place of the Giro d’Italia, he also managed to earn some real victories during his professional career between 1945 and 1958. Malabrocca, usually one of the domestiques for Fausto Coppi during road cycling races, was a two-time Italian cyclocross … Read more

The youngest Giro-stage winner ever, Olimpio Bizzi (1916-1976) was active as professional cyclist between 1936 and 1952. Practically, he was racing in the shadow of the greatest generation of Italian cyclists, including Learco Guerra, Gino Bartali, Fausto Coppi, or Giorenzo Magni Nevertheless, Bizzi had his own successes during his career. Besides some minor one-day race … Read more

Cyrille Van Hauwaert (1883-1974) was one of the most successful Belgian cyclist in the pre -WW1 era. His story  began like a folktale. The big and strong Flemish farm boy, who didn’t speak French arrived in the office of the La Française team’s directeur sportif, Pierre Pierrard two days before Paris-Roubaix in 1907. Van Hauwaert … Read more

A cyclist running while carrying his bike on his shoulder. Surely, you’ve seen this vintage cycling image several times. Now it’s time to learn a bit more about the protagonist of the picture. Victor Fontan (1892-1982) in the Faces from the peloton series of PelotonTales blog. A local rider World War I (as did World … Read more