http://le-grimpeur.net/blog A cycling blog for everything climbing Sat, 20 Sep 2008 18:21:39 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Last month, le grimpeur presented the Tour de France quiz from the 1978 paperback edition of The Great Bike Race by Geoffrey Nicholson. The prizes from Magnum Publishers were three Raleigh bikes of various models, the top prize "based on the model used by the TI-Raleigh Team" for the Tour ... http://le-grimpeur.net/blog/archives/51 That the Tour de France was even held in 1919 seems like a small miracle, attributable to the incorrigible belligerence of Henri Desgrange to return the race to the roads of France. La der des ders, World War I, had concluded less than 12 months prior to the start of the ... http://le-grimpeur.net/blog/archives/50 Yahoo has resolved the technical troubles I was having with Le Grimpeur and the site is now, as you - dear reader - can see, back online. Thanks for your patience and I will have new posts shortly, including the answers to last month's quiz. In the interim, don't forget to ... http://le-grimpeur.net/blog/archives/49 The Club des Cinglés du Mont-Ventoux is not just a club for grimpeurs, but anyone who is crazy enough to want to climb Mont Ventoux three times in one day. The Club has been previewed already here, but my full report is now on Pez Cycling News. http://le-grimpeur.net/blog/archives/48 In 1977, Geoffrey Nicholson's book The Great Bike Race was published, a report on the 1976 Tour de France and one of the early works in a developing tradition of British writing on cycling that continues today. Nicholson is perhaps the doyen of this tradition, having opened up the reporting ... http://le-grimpeur.net/blog/archives/47 "Simplement montrer ce que je sais faire dans la montagne...," said French climber Rémy Di Grégorio when asked in his interview in the official Tour de France programme what his goals were for the race. Injury blunted his ambitions for showing us what he could do in last year's edition but ... http://le-grimpeur.net/blog/archives/46 Like many sports, cycling has its founding myths: the great heroic struggles of the riders, their giant shoulders broad enough for the current peloton to stand on. Henri Desgrange's express intention when starting the Tour de France was a race more difficult than all the others, longer and more arduous. ... http://le-grimpeur.net/blog/archives/45 The year 1968 was a turbulent one for France, as it was for other countries around the world. Sport was caught up in the political events, with the Olympics that year in Mexico City featuring protests from some athletes that would later become iconic. In May in France, student riots spread ... http://le-grimpeur.net/blog/archives/44 Club des Cinglés du Mont-Ventoux. Three ascents of Mont Ventoux, one each via Bedoin, Malaucene, and Sault. Average gradients of 7.5%, 7.5%, and 4.7% respectively. Twice past the Tom Simpson memorial, 4,443 metres of climbing over 68 kilometres (compared to 2,612 metres over 39 kilometres on this year's Etape du ... http://le-grimpeur.net/blog/archives/42 "...le Ventoux, lui, a la plénitude du mont, c'est un dieu du Mal, auquel il faut sacrifier." -- Roland Barthes It is an iconic image in cycling's lore. Jacques Goddet is ascending the rocky slope of Mont Ventoux, clutching a wreath for the memorial to Tom Simpson. In the background, surely ... http://le-grimpeur.net/blog/archives/41