Ronde van Vlaanderen is coming this weekend, and then next big race, of course, will be Paris Roubaix. The “Holy Week” of road cycling is back after last year, when the schedule was a bit shaken up due to the French presitential election. Now Ronde van Vlaanderen (2 April) and Paris-Roubaix (9 April) will be held back to back again. It’s a huge success to win both races in the same season, you might take a look at the list of the riders, who managed it. (Surprisingly few people, considering it’s a century-long story.)
Ronde van Vlaanderen is the youngest of the five Monuments, and was held in 1913 for the first time.
The first winner of the race, Paul Deman had an extraordinary story during the endphase of World War I. He was almost executed twice and but luckily escaped from this fate both time. After the war, Deman won also Paris-Roubaix (1920).
By the way, this first edition was also the longest one in the history of the race. If you like this kind of fun facts, you might find some interesting under the blog category Ronde van Vlaanderen fun facts. Also, if you’re more into cycling funfacts in general, this is the right category for you. Quick little posts with fun facts are going to appear also on the social media accounts of PelotonTales (twitter | Facebook | Instagram ) a bit more often next.
Speaking of the first winner of the Ronde, there is a post on PelotonTales about the first winner of every Monuments.
You can also learn the story behind some iconic photos related to Ronde van Vlaanderen, like Jesper Skibby’s crash in 1987.
During the spring classic season, PelotonTales focuses more on the cyclists in the Faces from the peloton series, whose career is related to the Monuments. Learn more about Raymond Impanis, who attented Paris-Roubaix 17 times. Or about Jean Stablinski, who introduced Arenberg to the “Hell of the North”.
And as you can see, we are moving toward to the next big race, Paris-Roubaix, and to some post recommendation related to the “Queen” of all cycling races. Undoubtedly
Paris-Roubaix is one of the most epic cycling races
in terms of visual representation. No matter it’s a dusty or a muddy edition, the cyclists always look like warriors going through the hell. It seems quite rewarding to post about those iconic moment frequently. Like the heroic image of Andre Leducq crossing the finish line in 1928. Or the famous picture of Georges Speicher repairing his bike in front of a father and his two daughters in 1935.
Also, it must be an interesting story what was like to be second behind Fausto Coppi in 1950.
The period of end of March, beginning of April was always a busy time in the cycling schedule, thus the on this day in cycling history category will be busy too during the next few weeks.
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The good old Tour de France
Of course, there are always new posts about the most famous cycling race of the world. The 5 facts about every Tour de France edition continuies, latest additions are Tour de France 1912 and Tour de France 1913. You can also read some basic stuff about the early Tour de France winners like Maurice Garin or Henri Cornet, the youngest Tour de France winner ever.
There are some fascinating stories happened during the early years of Tour de France, like the one with a certain Henri Pépin, who hired two other cyclists to have some company during his “luxory Tour de France”. Stories being also important milestones in the history of Tour de France have their importance also on PelotonTales blog. Read a bit more about the time, when Tour de France went abroad for the first (and second) time.