According to the latest rumours and speculation coming from Team Visma | Lease a Bike's pre-Tour de France altitude training camp, both Wout van Aert and Jonas Vingegaard will be present at the Grand Depart in Florence later this month.Although van Aert has been posting very positive signs with lon...

Now widely regarded as one of the fastest sprinters in the peloton, Tim Merlier spent much of his formative years as a professional competing in cyclocross. According to his former coach,Mario De Clercq though, much of this was time wasted."Tim is a local and got on well with my son. He sat with us...

CyclistTour de France history: Stephen Roche does the Giro/Tour double in 1987It was in October 1985 that the organisers of the Tour de France announced that the 1987 race start would take place in West Berlin. Still divided by its famous wall at the time, Berlin would be marking the 750th anniversary of its official founding that year and the western part of the city wanted the Grand Dpart as part of the celebrations. Felix Levitan, then co-director of the race, said he hoped the move would encourage teams from the Eastern Bloc to enter the Tour and promote understanding between peoples, although it turned out that no such teams made it to the 1987 start line.Among the teams that did make the start was the Carrera squad of Stephen Roche. Just weeks earlier the Irishman had won the Giro dItalia in controversial circumstances after getting himself into a break in the Dolomites and taking the pink jersey from his teammate and nominated leader Roberto Visentini. Related Posts Tour de France history: The first foreign Grand Dpart in 1954 Tour de France history: Jan Ullrich triumphs for Germany in 1997 Tour de France history: Coppi triumphs on debut for first Giro/Tour double Tour de France history: Coppi christens Alpe dHuez en route to second Giro/Tour double The Power of Three: Stephen Roche profile Riders made a point of posing by the Berlin Wall when the Grand Dpart visited West Germany. In this case its the Madiot brothers, Yvon and Marc.L'EquipeHis team managers were furious, as were the tifosi, who spat rice and wine at him in the days that followed. Journalists repeatedly asked when he was going to leave the race but Roche hung around and won by more than three minutes while Visentini, who fell away, abandoned before the final stage with a broken wrist.If you were to describe this scenario to me now and ask me how I would react, I would say that Id be on the first plane home, Roche said in 2016. But there I was, in that real-life experience, and Im saying do what you want, Im not going home.Now Roche was in West Berlin to try to add the Tour to his palmars. Huge crowds turned out to watch three days of racing while riders posed for photos by the Berlin Wall. While those in East Berlin were unable to cross the threshold, the impact still resonated on the other side of the Wall, especially when Polish rider Lech Piasecki wore yellow after that first road stage.Ill never forget watching the start of the race from my little television in my dorm room, with my little antenna pointed towards West Berlin, Jens Voigt writes in his autobiography Shut Up Legs. All those colourful jerseys with all sorts of different sponsors were just so beautiful, so rich, compared to my solid-grey East German national jersey! I remember thinking, wow, if a guy like Piasecki can come from a Communist country and ride the Tour de France, maybe I can too someday.That looks like Stephen Roche!Exactly three weeks after the Tours opening, the race convened in Bourg dOisans. Ahead was a 185km stage to the La Plagne ski station that would also take in the Galibier and Madeleine. Roche, who had entered the race wondering how his physical and mental efforts in the Giro would impact his performance, had been riding well. In the first week Carrera had won the team time-trial and Roche had later taken the 87km individual time-trial into Futuroscope. He had even worn yellow briefly as the race headed to the Alps, only for Pedro Delgado to take the jersey from him on the slopes of Alpe dHuez.Going into the stage to La Plagne, Roche was second on GC, 25 seconds behind Delgado. The Irishman had been riding better than the Spaniard against the clock and so, with a 38km time-trial still to come, he was well placed.In such circumstances it would have been understandable if Roche had opted to simply mark Delgado on the stage and wait for the time-trial to seize back yellow. Instead, Roche surprised everyone and made a move in the Maurienne valley with some 90km still to ride. At the foot of the Madeleine he was part of a group that had over a minute on Delgado. He maintained his lead over the top but as the race came back together on the flat roads leading to La Plagne, it seemed clear he had ridden too hard too early. Then, on the climb to La Plagne, Delgado rode away from a shattered Roche.As the climb to La Plagne progressed so Roche fell further behind. While Laurent Fignon rode to the stage win, Delgado built a lead over the Irishman that touched a minute. Television coverage of Roches effort to claw back time was sporadic and so, as Delgado approached the finish, no one knew exactly how far away Roche was, but most expected it to be at least a minute before they saw him arrive. Then, as Delgado crossed the line, a rider appeared around the corner.Just who is that rider coming up behind? asked television commentator Phil Liggett, because that looks like Roche! That looks like Stephen Roche!In one of cyclings great race-saving rides Roche had limited his loss to just four seconds. He promptly collapsed before being given oxygen as he lay on the road. Four days later he stood wearing yellow in Paris with an overall margin of 40 seconds.If race radio would have been there that day, and my sports director had told me when I was at 30 seconds, I would have backed off because I knew I could probably beat Delgado by one minute in the time-trial, Roche said in 2016. While I was killing myself on La Plagne I could have backed off, but because I didnt know where Delgado was I just buried myself.Reportedly 300,000 people lined the streets of Dublin to welcome him home.The reaction was unbelievable, Roche reflected in his book commemorating his 1987 season, My Road To Victory. An experience that can never be forgotten.Six weeks later Roche added the rainbow jersey to the pink and yellow he had already claimed in a year that also included his third victory at the Tour de Romandie. Only Eddy Merckx had won the Giro, Tour and Worlds in the same season before. No man has done it since. This article originally appeared in issue 139 of Cyclist magazine. Click here to subscribe Related Posts Tour de France history: The first foreign Grand Dpart in 1954 Tour de France history: Jan Ullrich triumphs for Germany in 1997 Tour de France history: Coppi triumphs on debut for first Giro/Tour double Tour de France history: Coppi christens Alpe dHuez en route to second Giro/Tour double The Power of Three: Stephen Roche profile The post Tour de France history: Stephen Roche does the Giro/Tour double in 1987 appeared first on Cyclist.

Wout Poels made his intentions known earlier this year, he was targeting a Giro d'Italia stage win to complete his Grand Tour set. Sadly for the Dutchman, he wasn't selected for the opening Grand Tour of the season but with the Tour de France looming, Poels is hopeful that this can be his time to sh...

Barcelona 2026 will be the Tours fourth foreign start in five years. Is it time to think about the environment before profit?

After his podium finish at the 2023 Tour de France, a similar result does not seem out of the question for Adam Yates in 2024, especially after his recent overall win at the Tour de Suisse. Emerging as one of the best climbers in the entire peloton, Tadej Pogacar's right hand man has improved vastly...

When it comes to bicycle helmets, youve got Australia, where theyre mandatory for everybody and donning one is patriotic act:Then youve got the Netherlands, where people just ride around pregnant while juggling a bunch of shit and would sooner think to put on a chicken suit than a helmet:So what accounts for this stark cultural difference? Is it simply a function of the different physics in the southern hemisphere, where summer is winter, toilets flush backwards, and the sun rises not in the east but in the crotch?Or is there something about anglophones in general that compels them to wear helmets regardless of where they live in relation to the equator? After all, London does have the highest rate of helmet use in all of Europe:Whatever the reason, the Netherlandss days as the worlds most helmetless (or least helmeted, depending on whether youre a glass-half-empty or glass-half-full type) society on Earth may be numbered:Why? Well, for the same reason everythings going to shit everywhere, which is e-bikes:So basically by putting motors on bikes weve made them more dangerous and more expensive, all while making the bike infrastructure suckier for people who ride regular bikes and causing no measurable reduction in motor vehicle traffic or ownership.But other than that theyre fantastic.Meanwhile, here in New York City things are getting so bad that even the cars are wearing helmets:So I spent this past weekend riding away from it on old-fashioned pedal bicycles:The re-Rolfed LeMond has a spring in its step once again:I dont know if thats due to the overall low weight of the wheels, whatever aero benefits may come from having fewer spokes, or simply the fact that these are nicer tires than what I had on the other wheels, but whatever the reason Im not even going to speculate until the chickens finish analyzing the data:Im pretty sure theyve got a wind tunnel in that research hutch.Speaking of performance gains, the Tour de France is getting faster, so how much of that is due to the equipment?Having thoroughly skimmed the article, it sounds to me like its mostly better nutrition, more sophisticated training techniques, and shorter overall distances. Sure, the aerodynamic improvements also help:But it wouldnt surprise me if those are offset by the helmets:Then again the aerodynamic benefits of Pantanis bald head were probably offset by his ears, so it all balances out the end.By the way, the bike Pantani is riding in that photo sold in 2020 for 66,000 European Party Coupons. Thats a little high for me, but this ones in the ballpark:Its tempting for the parts alone, because the bike is a rolling vintage component repository, right down to the headset bearing protector. And what component has more retro-Fred cred than a Mavic derailleur?Ebay sellers ask more for those than this seller is asking for the entire bike:Thats what you call an investment opportunity.