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Tour de France 1963

Fernando Manzaneque on the Col d'Iseran at the Tour de France 1963

Fernando Manzaneque on the Col d’Iseran (Tour de France 1963)

Snow at the Tour de France? Yes, it happens sometimes, especially, when the race visits such high places like Col d’Iseran in the Alps. In the 16th stage of Tour de France 1963, the peloton visited the Alps. It was a 202 km long stage between Grenoble and Val d’Isere, including Col de la Croix de Fer and Col d’Iseran. The Spaniard Fernando Manzaneque won the stage ahead of Enzo Fontona and Guy Epaud. The stages in the Alps in that year delivered and epic battle between Federico Bahamontes and Jacques Anquetil. The French rider has already won Vuelta a Espana a few weeks earlier and was about to win his 4th Tour de France.… Read More »Fernando Manzaneque on the Col d’Iseran (Tour de France 1963)

Italian cycling legend Fausto Coppi riding between two big snow walls on Stelvio in 1952

Cycling in snow

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… Read More »Cycling in snow