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
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
Lucien Van Impe was second in the general classification with 2 ‘ 41″ behind Raymond Delisle before the 14th stage of Tour de France 1976. The program of the day on the 10th of July 1976 was a 139 km long route in the Pyrenees between Saint-Gaudens and Saint-Larry-Soulan, including Col de Menté, Col du … 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
Eddy Merckx rode Vuelta a España only once during his extremely successful carreer, in 1973. He won the race, managed to achieve the first ever Vuelta-Giro double in the history of road cycling races, also became the third cyclist after Jacques Anquetil and Felice Gimondi, who has won all the three grand tours at least … Read more
Orcieres-Merlette (or Orcieres Merlette 1850), the ski resort in the Alpes was introduced to Tour de France during this edition. Not only the 11th stage finished here, but also the peloton spent the rest day and the 12stage started at the place.. The 134 km long stage from Grenoble was won by Luis Ocana. He … Read more