Feature Articles
The Tragic Downfall of Frank Vandenbroucke
By Graham Healy The Belgian rider Frank Vandenbroucke was just a teenager when he won his first professional race - a stage of the Tour of the Mediterranean where he beat the likes of Davide Cassani and Evgeni Berzin. Vandenbroucke who was racing for the Lotto team would later claim that Cassani and Berzin had "been prepared by doctor Michele...
“Between Eddy Merckx and myself we won all the major one day races, I won Paris-Tours and he won everything else!”
During his incredible career, Eddy Merckx won all of the big one-day races bar one - Paris-Tours. Amongst his wins were seven victories in Milan-San Remo, both the Tour of Flanders and Tour of Lombardy twice, three wins in Paris-Roubaix and Liège–Bastogne–Liège five times. However, he never managed to win the "Sprinters' Classic" with his best performance being sixth in...
Remembering the Six-Day Race of Dublin
By Graham Healy When the road season comes to a close, it means it's the time of the year for other branches of the sport to become the focus of attention. In addition to cyclo-cross, six-day racing is another popular type of racing over the winter, and it's continental European cities such as Ghent and Munich which have the biggest...
“This climb is simply beastly, impossible to get up” – The Muro di Sormano
The fourth out of six climbs that the riders will tackle in today's Tour of Lombardy is the Muro di Surmano, which they will face after 195 kilometres. It's an incredibly difficult climb that was left out of the Lombardy route for nearly 50 years. The reason why it was omitted from the race was that the riders felt...
The 1986 Tour of Lombardy – The classic that Sean Kelly should have won
During his career, Sean Kelly won 9 monuments - Paris-Roubaix, Milan-San Remo and Liege-Bastogne-Liege twice each and the Tour of Lombardy three times. However, he could very well have added others to that total, having come close to victory in the Tour of Flanders a number of times. It was the 1986 Tour of Lombardy though that was probably...
A look back at the inaugural Nissan Classic
On the 25th of September 1985, the first stage of the inaugural Nissan Classic started outside Trinity College Dublin. The race would be a success from the off and would run for eight editions, giving the Irish public the opportunity to see many of the biggest names in the sport compete on their home roads. The men behind the race...
Freddy Maertens and the spiked drink at the ’74 Worlds
By Graham Healy In the 1970s, the Belgian teams at the World Championships were overflowing with talent. Not only did the team have Eddy Merckx for many of those years, they also had the likes of Walter Godefroot, Roger de Vlaeminck and Freddy Maertens. It could be extremely difficult to get such a talented team to work together, with so many...
“I didn’t think he was the kind of guy who should be World Champion” – Greg LeMond and the ’82 Worlds
By Graham Healy Down through the years, the World Championship Road Race has often ended in controversy. One such occasion was the 1982 race in Goodwood, England. Amongst those considered favourites to win were Bernard Hinault, Giuseppe Saronni and Sean Kelly. Nobody really fancied the chances of the previous year’s winner, Freddy Maertens. The Belgian had not been able to regain...
Midweek Motivation
Watch Julie Moss hit the wall just before the finish line while leading the 1982 Ironman in Hawaii. Julie competed in the event as part of her research for her exercise physiology thesis. She has claimed that she did not initially take the race seriously and did not have any special training beforehand. "I tell people that their first Ironman...
A Look Back at the First World Cycling Champs held in the US in 1893
This year's UCI World Cycling Championships in Richmond aren't the first time that the championships have taken place in the US, as back in 1986, the Worlds were held in Colorado Springs. However, that wasn't the first time that the World Cycling Championships were in the country either. Before the UCI was founded, another world championships were held. The International...
A day in the Tour of Britain cavalcade with An Post-Chain Reaction
We were recently offered the opportunity to hook up with the An Post Chain Reaction team for Stage 1 of the Tour of Britain to experience what it was like in the cavalcade of a big race, and we jumped at the chance. The stage started in Beaumaris in North Wales and included three categorised climbs and three intermediate...
Remembering Laurent Fignon’s 1984 Tour de France win
Today marks the fifth anniversary of the death of Laurent Fignon. The two-time Tour de France winner died after a year-long battle with cancer. He was only 50. Fignon is often remembered for his epic battle with Greg LeMond in the 1989 Tour de France, where he lost the race by just eight seconds. It's somewhat unfortunate that this race...
The Great American Bike Tour (VIDEO)
In 1975, the American department store JC Penney hired 12 college students to ride their bikes 4,000 miles from New York City to San Francisco. They were promoting their new disc brake equipped bikes OEM'd from Huffy Manufacturing. This 14-minute documentary chronicles their journey. The cyclists didn't exactly look well prepared for their journey, as they rode across the continent...
Jacques Anquetil and the first Vuelta-Tour double
If Chris Froome manages to win the Vuelta a España, he will become just the third rider to have won the Tour de France and Vuelta in the same season. It hasn’t happened since 1978 when Bernard Hinault won both races and prior to that, it was Jacques Anquetil who achieved the feat back in 1963, becoming the first...
A Look Back at Philip Deignan’s 2009 Vuelta Stage Win (VIDEO)
The 19th stage of this year's Vuelta a Espana takes the riders from Medina del Campo to the walled city of Ávila, and the last time that the race visited the city, the stage was won by Philip Deignan. Not only did the rider from Donegal win the 165.0 km stage Talavera de la Reina that day, but it also...
The New Tour de France: A must watch for all fans of cycling
It's hard to believe this documentary was shot 50 years ago because the video quality is amazing, the soundtrack timeless and the creative use of camera angles are still being used today. This short documentary follows the 11th The Tour du St-Laurent long-distance bicycle race held in Quebec (New France) in the summer of 1965. There, riders from 13...