le grimpeur

Urban climbing – a photo essay0
Guy WR posted in Local Climbs on February 18th, 2009

Riding through the countryside, on quiet roads in the forests and mountains, provides a singular experience. Nature is like a comforting blanket, soothing, giving relief to the senses. It is like a departure from the real world that most of us inhabit, a fantasy world devoid of traffic and noise and smog and the detritus of the city. Just tyres quietly hissing on the road; and ideal often elusive that it must be savoured is small bites and then tucked away in one’s memory. (more…)

René Vietto – Part 3: the return of the king2
Guy WR posted in Classic Stages, Climbers on February 12th, 2009

The 1939 Tour de France concluded just before Germany’s invasion of Poland in September 1939. The threat of Fascism an outright aggression from Germany and Italy had been building during the 1930s and France – mindful of the horrors of a European war just two decades previously – took a defensive position both politically and militarily.

Unfortunately for France, this position proved a disaster. Nazi Germany under Hitler became bolder and when the attack on France finally came in May 1940, France’s famous Maginot Line of defence proved to be illusory. Germany moved its mobile forces through the supposedly impenetrable Ardennes and French armies, on paper quite strong, were hopelessly out of position. With British and French forces fleeing for safer shores from Dunkirk, it was all over for France by June. (more…)