fausto
Showing posts with label Cycling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cycling. Show all posts
riding with the stars
The Chairman of The Board, Brigitte, Bogey and Big Tam ride around on bikes
all images from new book
Hollywood Rides a Bike: Cycling with the Stars by Steven Rea
brothers
serge and fausto coppi after the 1946 milan san remo.fausto won by over 14 minutes, the biggest margin in post war history
Le pédaleur de charme
Koblet.L'hero de Brive-Agen, 1951, the most famous exploit in TdF history
"Koblet bent his back to the wheel. At the finish he crossed the line victorious, stopped his watch, took out a comb to comb his hair and waited the arrival of the peloton. Two minutes and thirty five seconds later Marcel Michel led a bunch of fifty riders into the finish. For nearly four hours one rider had fought against a bunch and won. One by one the tributes came in:
- "We have been chasing flat out for more than 100 kilometres. But the more we pushed ahead the greater became his lead... Koblet must have a motor under his chest" (Lucien Lazaridès)
- "If there were two Koblets in the sport I would retire from cycling tomorrow" (Raphaël Geminiani)
- "In the ten years that I have raced, I've never witnessed such an exploit" (Fiorenzo Magni)
- "The only way to beat him is to hope that he blows up tomorrow, but he is young, he will recuperate quickly." (Fausto Coppi)"
mon hero, RiP
It's almost exacty a year since the death of my boyhood hero, Laurent Fignon
Here he is climbing in yellow, cool as fuck, heading towards heaven. God bless, mon hero
spidel, frexa and gitane
Marc Madiot's 1985 Gitane Delta TT Bike, complete with oddly modified steerer tube, pointy cow-horn bars, flattened ovaloid tubing, classic yellow Rolls saddle and matching Benotto bar ribbon. Looks like Super Record transmission although many commercial Gitane bikes of the period had Spidel components.
Spidel never really existed as a Gruppo - it was a 1980 collaboration between French component manufacturers in response to competition from SunTour, Shimano and Campag who had started to provide OEM groupsets direct to frame builders and manufacturers. Previously it was more usual to supply bikes with a mixture of components, Weinmann for brakes, Huret for gears, Rigida for rims etc.
Under the Spidel badge, Mafac (brakes), Maillard (hubs and pedals), Simplex (transmission) and Stronglight (chainsets) produced their own components, changing nothing but the name. Hilariously, it was never possible to purchase as a Gruppo - the individual bits had to be purchased from the different makers! Perhaps this why the venture failed although it's as likely to have ended as none of the manufacturers involved ever thought to unify the look of the various bits beyond sticking on the Spidel badge. Hence the Gruppo never looked like a match, unlike the early Shimano, Suntour and Campag sets which were starting to be fitted in the mid eighties. A Spidel equipped Gitane can be seen here
A similar fate befell Frexa at about the same time. Frexa was a collaboration between Rigida (rims) and Huret (transmission) with (I think) Maillard and Poutrait-Morin. Poutrait-Mourin became Zefal some time in the 80s. They marketed various still familiar brands such as Christophe toe clips and straps and of course Zefal pumps. Again, due to logistical problems (and the sudden desire of every cyclist to possess a bicycle with a matched groupset) the marque never caught on.
Many of these Companies have now disappeared altogether, leaving Shimano and Campag in near unassailable control of the field.
skinny
Bernard Hinault and the inestimable Laurent Fignon climb during the skinny era of cycling. Skinny tubes, skinny tubulars, ultra skinny bars and that unforgiving, hard, shiny Bennotto bar ribbon that everyone had back in the 1980s. Note the Campag strap buttons on Hinault's toestraps and Fignon's prototype Assos lycra shorts.
skid lid
Yakkay Bicycle Helmets are styled to resemble normal headgear. Say goodbye to futuristic helmet blues with this Tokyo rain hat, styled after the iconic Brooks Bros. original which is still available here
snow
Yes, it has been cold here and yes, I am facing another nightmare journey home BUT...
This is Frances Pellisier during the 1921 Paris Tours riding through the snow on his rims. He had punctured both tyres and his hands were so frozen that he could not remove them so he tore the tyres off with his teeth and continued through the snow on his rims. He won from perenial nearly man Cristophe.
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