Cyclopedia (9 page)

CAPE TOWN
Site of the biggest competitive bike ride in the world: the Argus Pick'n'Pay Tour, which has about 40,000 participants. It usually takes place on the second Saturday in March and covers a 109-kilometer course starting and finishing in Cape Town, South Africa. Celebrity participants have included MIGUEL INDURAIN, GREG LEMOND, the Rugby World Cup-winning Springbok captain François
Pienaar, and EDDY MERCKX. The course record was set by South African Robbie Hunter in 2008 with 2 hours 27 minutes.

The Cape Argus was the first event outside Europe to be part of the UCI's Golden Bike series (see CYCLOSPORTIVES to read about the others). It is the centerpiece of a week of cycle events on the Cape including a mountain-bike challenge, a five-day professional stage race, and children's events.

The event has its roots in late 1978 when cycle activists staged a mass ride as part of a campaign for cycle paths in Cape Town. By the mid-1980s the event had become the Argus Cycle Tour and the field was up to several thousand, passing 20,000 by 1994. In 2002 the event was stopped due to extreme heat, while the toughest climb on the course, Chapman's, has been ruled out on occasion due to landslides. The 2009 event was run off in winds up to 60 mph.

 

(SEE
AFRICA
TO READ ABOUT CYCLING IN OTHER PARTS OF THE CONTINENT)

CARPENTER, Connie
(b. Madison, Wisconsin, 1957)

Winner of the first Olympic Games road race gold medal for women in 1984, Carpenter was one of a group of US cycling team members who sparked the revival in the sport in the early 1980s and is arguably the greatest US women's bike racer to date. The former speed skater is also one of a rare breed: an athlete who
has competed at both Summer and Winter Olympic Games. Carpenter was one of a bunch of US athletes who excelled at both speed skating and cycling (see the UNITED STATES entry for more on these), finishing seventh in the 1,500 m at the 1972 Winter Games at the age of 14. Carpenter moved to cycling after an ankle injury cut short her skating career in 1976; the following year she raced to a silver medal in the world road race championships. She became a multiple US champion on road and track and in 1978 and 1979 competed prominently in varsity rowing for the University of California. In 1983 she became the world 3 km track pursuit champion, following that up in 1984 with the road world title and the Olympic road title in a two-up sprint with her fellow American Rebecca Twigg. Carpenter retired two days later. She had earlier married her fellow Olympian Davis Phinney, who was to win a stage of the Tour de France in 1987. Their son Taylor Phinney is a strong time triallist and track racer, was world pursuit champion in 2009 and 2010, and turned professional in 2011 for the BMC team run by JIM OCHOWICZ.

 

 

CARTOONISTS
There is a rich vein of cycling cartoons, dating back to the pioneering era, when cycling was just another social phenomenon lampooned affectionately in the pages of magazines such as
Punch
. That tradition is maintained today by a string of cartoonists of whom the best known is probably Frenchman Jean-Jacques Sempé, whose beautifully detailed and frequently poignant work has appeared on the cover of the
New Yorker
magazine since 1978, and has also been regularly featured in
Paris-Match
and
l'Equipe
magazines. Bikes are prominent subjects in Sempé's cartoons of French life, such as the couple on a bike that forms the cover for his collection
Displays of Affection
. While Sempé's best-known creation is
Le Petit Nicolas
, among
his work is the graphic novel
Raoul Taburin Keeps a Secret
(published in France in 1995 as
Raoul Taburin: une bicyclette à propos de son père
), the story of the great Ralph Sprockett, an expert bike mechanic who knows all there is to know about bikes apart from how to ride one. Four volumes of his work are available in English, and there is also a range of stationery based on his collection
A Simple Question of Balance
. The US cycling scene has produced its own cartoonists, with Patrick O'Grady being one of the leaders. An avid cyclist himself who has been writing as well as drawing for
VeloNews
magazine since 1989, O'Grady regularly pokes subversive, merciless fun at his fellows. His work includes the collection
The Season Starts When?
(1999, Velopress). Bikes are also important subjects, if in more surreal style, in the work of US illustrator Neal Skorpen, and, frequently with an environmental slant, in the drawings of the British illustrator Brick.

Further back, the best-known European cycle racing cartoonist was the Swiss-domiciled French artist Pellos, who enjoys a similar place in French cycling culture to the writer Antoine Blondin. Both were key parts of the sport's heyday in the 1950s and 1960s. His caricatures of the greats appeared in French magazines such as
Match, Miroir Sprint
, and
Miroir du Cyclisme
from 1931 to 1982. Pellos was the pen name of Rene Pellarin (b. 1900, d. 1988), who competed in the 1924 Olympic Games in the javelin, 800 m, and shot put before taking up drawing full-time.

Pellarin also drew rugby and boxing, and was one of the most successful French 20th-century cartoon artists, producing definitive strips including
Les pieds nickelés
(which roughly translates to
Silver Feet
), about three youths who are constantly involved in various crazy schemes, which ran for 30 years. For cycling, he could produce evocative line illustration, but most often his work evokes the characteristics journalists and
fans saw in the stars and the sport's backdrops: Tom Simpson is depicted as a beatnik, Jacques Anquetil sitting on a bottle of champagne, Mont Ventoux as a monstrous torturer compared to the benign smiling Alps.

British cycling has produced two longstanding cartoon strips that epitomize two radically different eras and cultures.
Honk
, drawn by the club rider Johnny Helms for
Cycling
magazine from the 1940s to the 1980s, was a whimsical character of the kind that could only appear in England. Honk has adventures with wayward dogs and punctures and curious things happen to him in cafés and on tandem bikes with smiling clubgirls. Helms continued to produce cartoons for
Cycling
until his death in November 2009 at the age of 85, by which time he had been working for the magazine for 63 years, and his drawings looked somewhat outdated.

On the other hand, the other notable British cartoon,
Mint Sauce
, which stars a mountain-biking sheep, is quite relevant to its time.
Mint
was created in 1988 by the Brighton cartoonist Jo Burt, initially for
Bicycle Action
magazine, and has appeared in
Mountain Biking UK
for over 20 years. Burt cites
Krazy Kat
and
Calvin & Hobbes
among his influences; there is a strong mystical Celtic flavor to the strips, which incorporate rock lyrics for added effect.
Mint
also stars Coleman, a mountain-biking cow, Mint's girlfriend Oonagh Herdwick, and a black sheep with horns named Chipko. There's a dreamy babe named Summer—this being a British cartoon, she is a fickle creature—and a Grim Reaper figure who is always out to get Mint, but never quite manages to.

 

 

CATHOLICISM
Is cycling the religion's official sport, or is Catholicism cycling's semiofficial religion?

Born:
Isle of Man, May 21, 1985

 

Major wins:
World Madison champion 2005, 2008; Milan–San Remo 2009; 10 stage wins in Tour de France to 2009; five stage wins in Giro d'Italia

 

Interests outside cycling:
design, ballroom dancing, FIAT 500s

 

Further reading:
Boy Racer
, Mark Cavendish, Velo Press, 2010

 

Highly talented and volatile sprinter from the Isle of Man who spearheaded the cycling renaissance in GREAT BRITAIN in 2008—9 and was set to dominate the finish straight for years to come. By 2009 Cavendish had set a new British record for TOUR DE FRANCE stage wins—10 in just two Tours—and had become, together with Tom Simpson, the only Briton to
win a cycling MONUMENT in the modern era; he was also the first British cyclist to take victory on the Champs-Elysées in the Tour de France. He notched up over 50 pro wins in 2007, 2008, and 2009, a prolific record that bore comparison with the likes of EDDY MERCKX and Freddy Maertens.

Cavendish came out of the British Olympic program's academy for under-23 riders, where he was initially considered underpowered. He worked in a bank on the Isle of Man to finance his racing trips to the “mainland” and credited the academy's founder Rod Ellingworth with turning him from a “fat banker into a world champion.” By 2005 he had become Madison world champion (see TRACK RACING for more details of this event) and in 2007 he turned professional for T-Mobile and started the Tour de France, crashing heavily twice before pulling out in the Alps.

His breakthrough year was 2008, with two stage wins at the GIRO D'ITALIA and four at the Tour, although he was bitterly disappointed not to win a medal in the OLYMPIC GAMES. In 2009 he surprised many continental followers with a last-gasp victory in the sprint that decided MILAN–SAN REMO; it was, however, the fruit of detailed planning together with Ellingworth. At that year's Tour, he was more dominant than any sprinter since Maertens in 1976 and 1981, winning stages by huge margins. He also wrote a MEMOIR,
Boy Racer,
which detailed his adventures at the academy and pulled no punches when it came to former coaches and adversaries.

There are various reasons for Cavendish's success. One is his background in track racing, which means he can spin the pedals faster than the opposition. Another is his small size, which enables him to get lower on the bike; he has worked with his coaches to get so far forward over the front wheel that his handlebars and front forks have to be reinforced. This gives him a 4 percent AERODYNAMIC advantage over his rivals. His Columbia team has put in a huge amount of work to give him a perfect “lead-out” train—something Cav acknowledges after every win—while Cavendish
himself prepares every race in detail with Ellingworth.

Outside cycling, Cavendish has a collection of iconic Italian design items that includes vintage Fiat 500s and Lambrettas. He lives in an apartment near the British base in Quarrata, Tuscany.

CHAPELS
Not surprisingly for a sport that has close links to CATHOLICISM, there are several cyclists' chapels across Europe. The best known is at Madonna del Ghisallo above Lake Como in Italy, which stands next to a spacious, modern museum of cycling and has a fine statue of FAUSTO COPPI outside its front door. Inside the chapel are bikes and jerseys donated by many of the greats of the sport, and a panel on the wall bearing photographs of cyclists, professional and amateur, who have died on the roads of Europe, going back to the 1930s; GINO BARTALI's brother Giulio is among them. The bikes on display include Bartali's 1948 Tour-winning Legnano and a futuristic machine used by FRANCESCO MOSER for an hour record. The cyclists who have donated jerseys include BERNARD HINAULT, Mario Cipollini, MIGUEL INDURAIN, and MARCO PANTANI.

The Madonna del Ghisallo was known as a patroness of travelers; in the 1940s the local priest, Don Ermelindo Vigano, suggested that his church should be the site of a cyclists' shrine, as the climb up from the lakeside was the decisive point in the Tour of Lombardy. Leading cyclists including Coppi signed a petition, and the Madonna was designated the patroness of cyclists in 1949 by Pope Pius XII, who also blessed the GIRO D'ITALIA and received Coppi and Bartali at the Vatican. The “race of the falling leaves” still passes the Ghisallo, where the bell rings as the racers toil up the hill.

In southwest France, a similar chapel at Labastide-d'Armagnac dating back to the 12th century has been known as Notre Dame des Cyclistes since Pope
John XXIII made the church a National Sanctuary for Cycling and Cyclists in 1959. Like the Ghisallo, Notre Dame includes a cycling museum including jerseys donated by Hinault, EDDY MERCKX, JACQUES ANQUETIL, RAYMOND POULIDOR, and TOM SIMPSON. There is also a stained-glass window donated by the 1964 world champion Henri Anglade. The Tour de France began a stage in the village in 1989.

In Spain, the patroness of cycling is the Virgin of Dorleta; one sanctuary of Our Lady of Dorleta is in the Basque Country village of Leintz-Gatzaga (Salinas de Léniz in Spanish). There are shrines to the Dorleta virgin across Spain, including one in Andalucia on the Suspiro del Moro pass south of Granada, where the inscription reads:

CHARITIES
While the Livestrong charity founded by LANCE ARMSTRONG is the best-known fundraising body linked to the sport, there are several others. The
Amy Gillett Foundation
was launched after the Australian rower-turned-cyclist was knocked down by a car and killed in Germany in 2005 while out training with the national team. It has as its main goal to “reduce the incidence of injury and death caused by the interaction between cyclists and motorists.” Patrons include Tour de France stars Phil Anderson and Cadel Evans and the Formula One driver Mark Webber, and it funds two scholarships, one to support talented young cyclists and the other to research cycle safety.

The
Fabio Casartelli Foundation
was formed after the death of the 1992 Olympic champion from head injuries in the 1995 Tour de France and has goals that include supporting ex-cyclists and emerging talent. It runs a Gran Fondo every year.

MARCO PANTANI, the Tour winner who died of drug addiction in 2004, has also inspired a
fondazione
, which variously supports the disabled, has funded a school for partially sighted cyclists, runs youth training camps, and donates money to a team in the war-hit city of Vinkovci in Croatia. It also runs a Gran Fondo and supports another two, all named after Pantani.

In Yorkshire, meanwhile, the
Dave Rayner Fund
was begun in 1993 after the death of this talented young cyclist; it raises money to help talented young cyclists who wish to race abroad and supported 25 of them in 2009. Among its activities is a fundraising dinner attended by various celebrities and the organization of the Étape du Dales Sportive.

The
Braveheart Fund
plays a similar role in Scotland; as with the Rayner Fund, its dinner is one of the highlights of the British winter cycling calendar, with CHRIS HOY and MARK CAVENDISH among the 2008 diners—Hoy, indeed, went to the dinner rather than the British Cycling function, in the year of his Olympic triumph. Braveheart invested over £35,000 in Scottish cycling in 2009, with cash going to 13 cyclists aged 15 to 23, and to another 3 with a chance of riding at the Commonwealth Games in 2010.

Livestrong
, however, is the daddy of all cycling-based charities. Founded in 1998 after LANCE ARMSTRONG's recovery from cancer, it invested $21 million dollars in research in its first 10 years of existence and relies heavily on Armstrong's leverage with politicians and business people. Armstrong has worked on cancer panels at national level and is renowned worldwide as a cancer campaigner. The charity turned the yellow Livestrong wristband into a must-have item for celebrities and politicians; they sell at one dollar each and were developed by Nike and their ad agency. They have sparked controversy over pirating and
profiteering through eBay, have spawned hundreds of multicolored imitators, and were even spoofed by comedian Stephen Colbert.

 

(SEE
POLITICS
FOR A LIST OF LEADERS WHO HAVE JUMPED ON THE BANDWAGON)

CLASSICS
The term used for the sport's major one-day races including the five MONUMENTS: Milan–San Remo, Tour of Flanders, Paris–Roubaix, Liège–Bastogne–Liège and the Tour of Lombardy (see their separate entries; see COBBLES for Classics that include this nasty road surface).

Major one-day races come and go but other Classics include:

Most of the great Classics have CYCLOSPORTIVES run along all or part of their route: PARIS–ROUBAIX, the Tour of FLANDERS, the Tour of Lombardy, and MILAN–SAN REMO are among the most popular.