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Cycling Legends Media, Everton (2025)

27/07/2025

This is one of our favourite cycling images ever. It’s from the 1954 Tour of Flanders, but we don’t know who the rider is. His name on the original caption was illegible, so if you know please tell us.

What the image does for us is convey the passion Flemish people have for cycling. Passion such that, and we had a hard time believing this but are assured it’s true, half of all people living in the region stand by the road each year to watch the Tour of Flanders pass by.

That passion is alive in this picture. The grit and determination of the rider powering over the uphill cobbled road through the rain and cold. His eyes set ahead, maybe set on the top. The way he grips the handlebars so all the power of his legs goes into the pedals.

The young child in the centre foreground, gazing at a champion and maybe thinking he’d be a pro like him one day. The older men exhorting the lone breakaway to grit his teeth and drive. The police officer in the background watching the race and not the crowd. The people hanging out of the upstairs window.

Applause, crouching or standing on tip-toe to get a better view. The smiles, the joy, and you can almost hear the noise of it. With maybe the Pontiac watches publicity vehicle that preceded big Flemish bike races in those days, with its infernal “Tick-tack, Pontiac” soundtrack played through roof-mounted loudspeakers.

The photo has got it all, and we liked it so much we used it as a two-page spread in our latest illustrated book, Cycling Legends 04 Flandriens, cult heroes of the cobbles.

As well as being full of interviews with some of the greatest Flemish cyclists of all time, ranging from the era of this picture to much more recent times, we also investigate why this sport means so much to Flemish people and in Flanders. If you love Flemish cycling, you’ll love Flandriens. Find out more in the comments.

📸 Presse Sports
🖋 Chris Sidwells

26/07/2025

How we miss him. Barry Hoban, who passed away earlier this year after a long battle with cancer, was constantly supportive of Cycling Legends Media. He was even a valuable part of our podcast team at one time. Listeners loved his stories, and we’ll rerelease many of them in the coming months.

Barry made his name in the Tour de France, winning 8 stages, still the second largest number of any British cyclist behind Mark Cavendish. Barry is also the only British winner of the cobbled classic, Ghent-Wevelgem.

Most of Barry’s Tour stages were won with his killer sprint, either from breakaways or the bunch, but Barry was also the first British cyclist to win a mountain stage of the Tour de France. It was a big one too!

It was stage 19, Grenoble to Sallanches-Cordon. Hoban attacked early, looking like, as the sprinter the peloton thought he was, he was after the intermediate sprint points in Albertville.

He was, and he got them, but when he heard the time gap it gave him other ideas. He had the Col d’Aravis between him and some more sprint points, so he pressed on to see if he could get them.

He did, and his lead grew to 8 minutes. He began to think about the stage, and climbed the Col de la Colombiere at a hard pace but one he could manage. The race was now on behind, and Hoban lost a minute of his lead by the summit, but took two on the descent.

He had 9 minutes at the start of the long valley road to Sallanches. It would have been tempting to engage top gear and give it everything, but Hoban chose to spin one gear down. Despite leading alone for 150 kilometres, at the bottom of the final climb he still had some spring in his legs and won by four minutes at the top. What a day!

Oh, and if you are wondering about Barry’s head gear in the photo. It’s a big cabbage leaf under his cap. It was a method old pros in the 1920s and ‘30s used to keep the sun off their necks and to prevent over-heating.

You can read more stories of Barry's life and career in his autobiography, Vas-y-Barry.

📸 Cycling Legends Collection
🖋 Chris Sidwells

25/07/2025

🎶 New Cycling Legends Podcast out now!

After 8 stages and 947km of racing, last year’s Tour de France Femmes came down to just 4 seconds on the Alpe d’Huez. With an extra stage and more names in the frame for the GC battle, Gary Fairley previews this year’s race.

🎶 Cycling Legends Podcast - available on all good podcasting sites.

25/07/2025

Today the 2025 Tour de France finishes at the ski resort of La Plagne. It’s not a finish often used, but many great riders have won there. One of them, Laurent Fignon, won twice, but La Plagne is famous for another rider, and for a voice.

The rider is Stephen Roche, and the voice of Phil Liggett. Who of a certain age cannot remember; “Who is that in the background? That looks like Stephen Roche. It is Stephen Roche.” Phil Liggett’s voice in 1987 linking La Plagne, Roche, and the Tour de France forever.

It was the 21st stage, and when Pedro Delgado attacked at the foot of La Plagne, Roche’s chances of winning overall looked in danger. They were saved by the titanic effort Roche made on this climb, and that was half calculation, half sheer guts and a tiny bit of topography.

The thing that played for Roche but played against Delgado, is the regularity of the climb. After the steep first section, by sticking to a steady, sustainable effort Roche was able to close on Delgado.

Successive straights of roughly equal length, linked by regular hairpin bends play to the rhythm of a time triallist. That’s why Miguel Indurain was able to control stage winner Alex Zulle here in 1995 amid a titanic thunderstorm.

On and on the bends and hairpins go, leaving the tree-line at a place called La Plagne 1800, the finish in 2002, until the road becomes slightly less sinuous through ribbon development of the resort.

La Plagne is surrounded by a great circle of mountains, a huge adventure playground for skiers in winter and mountain bikers and walkers in summer. It’s a wide open sunny place of short-cropped grass and alpine flowers, sometimes cooled by a breeze blowing over the Chiaupe glacier.

Today’s stage will probably be another epic, and Liggett will be there calling it for the US TV channels NBC and Peacock 38 years after his unforgettable lines. Who will be getting Liggettised (that’s a word we made up meaning immortalised by Phil Liggett) this year?

📸 Presse Sport
🖋 Chris Sidwells

24/07/2025

We love this picture. It’s from the 1920 Tour de France stage 12, Gex to Strasbourg and the original caption reads; “Charles Raboison, winner of the Lanterne Rouge in the 1920 Tour de France.”

Lanterne Rouge is the title awarded to the last rider overall, and takes its name from the red lamps hung on the backs of the last truck or carriage of every train in France.

But it’s the word “winner” we like the photo for, because for a long time the title ‘Lanterne Rouge’ meant not just a cash prize from the Tour, but appearance money in the numerous post-Tour de France criteriums held all over Europe. They were a big part of a pro cyclist’s income until the 1990s.

It was the title that earned the cash. You could finish 108th and last and earn money from it, whereas the 107th finisher, who beat you, didn’t earn a penny. It meant that riders in the Tour often competed to be last by going slower than everyone else.

As you can imagine, that was fertile soil for something ludicrous to happen. And it did several times, with riders miscalculating the time limits and getting disqualified for being outside of them.

Time limits were introduced during the 1920 Tour, the edition today’s photo is from, so Raboison must have had a good head for maths. He finished over four and a half hours behind the winner of this stage, for example. However, his margins for error were much wider than they are today.

The winner of this 1920 stage took 14 hours for the 354 kilometres. Giving time for Raboison to stop along the way to provide this picture, and he’s a legend just for that.

📸 Agence Meurisse
🖋 Chris Sidwells

23/07/2025

🎶 New Cycling Legends Podcast out now!

Greg Lemond’s first Tour de France victories are writ large in the history of the race; his duel to the (almost) bitter end with team mate Bernard Hinault in 1986 and then snatching the Yellow Jersey from Laurent Fignon by a mere eight seconds 3 years later.

Twelve months on from that momentous, historic afternoon on the Champs Elysees, Lemond won his third Tour de France and in doing so joined an exclusive club alongside Philippe Thys, Louison Bobet, Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx and Bernard Hinault.

Gary Fairley looks back at an edition of cycling’s greatest race that passes almost unnoticed in the shadow of Lemond’s other 2 wins.

Available on all good podcasting sites.

23/07/2025

This steely eyed young man was a demon on a bike. He’s called Fred Hamerlinck and in the 1920s and ‘30s, when pro kermesse racing in Flanders was a very lucrative cycling world of its own, he was king. So prolific that in 1929 he won five kermesses in one week.

Hamerlinck was third in the Tour of Flanders that year too, and was so good, so highly regarded that the Belgian cycling authorities talked him into riding the Tour de France in 1931.

Hamerlinck won the first stage, and he won again a few days later in Bordeaux, but he didn’t enjoy it. He didn’t like racing in France, he didn’t like the heat of the south and he told the Belgian cycling bosses that he was losing money in the Tour, because he could make more back home in Belgium.

He abandoned on stage 12, Montpellier to Marseille, along with seven others, went home and never returned to the Tour. He carried on winning, though, racing in Flanders, and was only tempted out of the country if race promoters paid him.

He became so popular in his native region that if he raced on the Kuipke track in the Sportspaleis in Ghent, they had to lock the doors once the crowd reached capacity, with hundreds more wanting to get in.

Den Fredo, as he became known, eventually won so many kermesse races that he could buy a café near Ghent, a nice big house and drive around in expensive cars.
That’s how popular this kind of racing was, and over the years many good pros followed Hamerlinck’s lead, limiting most of their racing to Flanders. Men like Jonny De Nul, who won 23 kermesses races in 1982, but by then the attraction of the kermesse was beginning to wane. Fans were more interested in big international events.

In 1995, by which time most kermesses were open and the number of pro-only races had dropped drastically, Ludo Giesberts won a record 58 kermesses, adding to a career total of over 500. His kermesse record lasted until 1996, when Benny Van Itterbeek won 60 races, but by then the competition was nowhere near the standard if had been in Don Fredo’s day.

📸 Cycling Legends Collection
🖋 Chris Sidwells

22/07/2025

🎧 New Feed Zone Episode OUT NOW

Stunned by actually calling the second week’s play correctly, the team are both full of admiration for the Rumena Majica and just a little bit full of themselves. Collective back-slapping aside, Chris, David and Gary try to remember the last 5 stages while simultaneously keeping one eye on the Tour's upcoming final week. Whither Remco Evenepoel? Whither Jonas Vingegaard? And should pro cyclists have a 15 minute time-out between finishing a stage and speaking to the media? Lidl-Trek probably think so!

Photo: This year’s Tour began in the Hautes-de-France region, birthplace of Amédée Fournier, seen here taking a well-deserved rest during the 1939 edition. Fournier won the opening stage from Paris to Caen and again on stage 5 from Lorient to Nantes.

We reckon this photo is taken in Toulouse after a gruelling 311km stage 9 trek across the Pyrenees to Pau. The race would be won by Belgian rider, Sylvère Maes - the second of his pair of Tour wins. It would be 3 decades before another Belgian would with the Tour de France. Yes, you guessed, Édouard Louis Joseph Merckx.

Photo Credit: AFP

🎶 The Cycling Legends Podcast - Available on all good podcast sites

22/07/2025

Every Tour stage that finishes or passes over Mont Ventoux stands out, mostly for great reasons but sometimes terrible. The 1987 Tour stage stood out because of a spectacular performance by this young Frenchman, Jean-Francois Bernard who, for whatever reason, never reached such excellence again.

The stage was a 36.5-kilometre time trial from Carpentras to the top of the mountain via the Bédoin ascent. It was a day to be dreaded or relished because there would be no hiding place. It was also a day that favoured the bold, although it was possible to be too bold and give too much, as perhaps the winner did.

Bernard says now; “I’d already ridden the Ventoux several times, but wanted to win the stage so much that although it was a rest day in Avignon the day before, I still rode all the way to the top to see what conditions were like.

“It was raining and about five degrees, nothing like it would be on the stage, but I did it because I wanted to get all the corners in my head and become familiar with the top part, where the wind is a problem. I was going to give it everything.”

Bernard rode an amazing time trial, he heaved his body up the Ventoux, churning a bigger gear than most. His time was 1 hour 19 minutes for what was 15.5 kilometres of flat then 21 kilometres of one of the most difficult ascents in cycling. He took the stage by 1 minute 39 from Luis Herrera, and was nine seconds shy of two minutes quicker than Pedro Delgado.

The Frenchman really dug deep, riding like there was no tomorrow, but wiser heads knew there was. Eventual overall winner Stephen Roche finished fifth on the stage at 2 minutes 19 seconds, still a good ride and one that must have bolstered his confidence, but it was a controlled and very calculated effort. There was still a lot more of the Tour de France to come.

After the stage Roche said; “I think that the Ventoux has narrowed the list of possible winners down to four; “Jean-Francois Bernard, Pedro Delgado, Charly Mottet and myself, and I am feeling stronger.”

📸 Cycling Legends Collection
🖋 Chris Sidwells

21/07/2025

The man on the right is Louis Trousellier, winner of the first Tour de France to have real mountains in it. It was 1905, the third edition, and not the highest mountains yet, but the Ballon d’Alsace in the Vosges, as well as some of the western climbs of the Alps.

Alphonse Steines was the driving force behind the Tour seeking out high places. He worked as a journalist for Tour founder Henri Desgrange, and eventually got all he wanted in 1910 then 1911 when the Tour ventured into the Pyrenees, then the high Alps.

But back to 1905, the first mountain stage was stage 2 from Nancy to Besancon. Before it in his editorial for sponsoring newspaper L’Auto, Desgrange predicted that no rider would make it to the top of the Ballon without walking. René Pottier proved him wrong.

Not only did he ride every metre of the Ballon, he overtook Desgrange in his official car at the head of the race. Pottier suffered for it later and had to drop out, but everybody got over safely and mountain climbs became part of the Tour de France forever. And just to reinforce things, latter in the same Tour riders tackled the Col de Laffrey and Col de Bayard on a stage from Grenoble to Toulon.

It attracted huge interest because the first part, from Grenoble to Gap, the bit that included the two cols, was a stage coach route. Everyone wanted to know how bike racers compared with horses over the two climbs. It normally took a coach and six, plus four extra horses for the climbs, 12 hours to cover the 103 kilometres. Julien Maitron and Hyppolyte Aucouturier did it in four, then rode on for another 245 kilometres to Toulon, where Aucouturier won the stage.

That really caught the public’s imagination. The mountains had a mythology. But these skinny men in knitted shorts and tops, riding their funny little bicycles where Hannibal marched his elephants, where the Romans came to conquer an empire, were three times quicker than a coach and six horses.

By taming the mountains, cyclists became heroes. And Louis Trousselier proved to be the biggest of all when he won the Tour in 1905.

📸 L’Agence Meurisse
🖋 Chris Sidwells

20/07/2025

The second edition of the Tour de France was won by this man, Henri Cornet who was just 19 in July 1904 when he crossed the finish line in Paris. He actually finished fifth then, and was only announced as the winner during the following winter. The reason, and the reason why it was nearly the last Tour, was widespread cheating among competitors and violent involvement of spectators. Here’s a little flavour of what happened.

On stage one some of the riders found their progress impeded by punctures caused by tacks on the road, placed there by fans. Race favourite Hippolyte Aucouturier ended up two and half hours behind.

The 1903 winner Maurice Garin, and breakaway companion Lucien Pothier were well ahead on that stage when they were run off the road by rival fans in a car. Then the first evidence of cheating hit the race. Garin was getting food outside of the feed zones. Others got lifts in cars, even taking the train, and one rider was towed by a car using a chord that he held between his teeth. And that was just the first day.

On stage two the riders climbed the Col de la Republique. Local rider Antoine Faure was in tenth place, so the locals decided that everyone ahead of him should be slowed down. A group hid in the pine woods, waiting for the race. Garin was first through with an Italian, Giovanni Gerbi, but when the Faure supporters saw them they jumped out and set about the pair with sticks. Race officials weren’t too far behind and tried to help, but it took someone firing pistol shots to disperse the mob. Garin continued, but Gerbi suffered broken fingers and had to quit the race.

This went on day after day, and the race staggered to Paris, the organisers having to enlist the police to help. Passions were running so high that it was frightening, but the organisation had another problem. They had documented evidence of wholesale cheating by the riders that was enough disqualify the first four overall in Paris, plus many others, but they were too frightened to use it. They waited until winter to announce the disqualifications, and gave the race to Cornet.

📸 Cycling Legends Collection
🖋 Chris Sidwells

19/07/2025

Today’s photo has not a cyclist in sight, but is the story of how cycling’s biggest race got its name. The Tour de France name was originally a nod towards these fellows, pictured here in a modern version of the story for French TV.

A Tour de France existed long before the bike race, and was a big part of French rural life since medieval times. It was a rite of passage for apprentices that made them Compagnons du Devoirs, fellows of a trade. A tradition that began in Provence and Languedoc whereby a boy who wanted to learn a trade was sent by that trade’s guild on a journey between towns, roughly in a hexagon, so echoing the shape of France, around the outside of the Massif-Central.

In each town he learned a little more of the skills and lore of his chosen craft, and was looked after by a network of guild mothers. The boys gave up their real names, each one referred to by the region they came from. And they travelled in groups, often singing traditional folk songs they picked up along the way.

Every boy’s Tour lasted five years, by which time he was a man and had become a Compagnon. His regional name would have also taken on a virtue that had been noted by his guild as he passed from place to place.

One man’s experiences of the Tour are recorded by Agricole Perdiguier, a cabinet maker from Avignon whose guild name was Avignonnais-le-Vertu, in a book called ‘Les Memoires d’un Compagnon’, published in 1854.

If it sounds idyllic, it wasn’t. Life on the road was tough for these youngsters, and the ‘mothers’ they passed between were in it for the money. Also, there was a fierce rivalry between the guilds and boys were often involved in bloody battles when they met rival trades on the road.

Even well into the twentieth century rural France was a tough place with tough values, fierce local pride and a very narrow parochial view of things. Values and views that would badly affect the early days of the cycling Tour de France.

🖊

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