My Challenge Ride at Lake Placid, September 15, 2023

Lake Placid, located in the New York State's Adirondack Mountains region, is one of only three places that have hosted the Winter Olympics twice, the others being Innsbruck and St. Moritz. Lake Placid held its events in 1932 and 1980 and remains a destination for winter sports enthusiasts, as well as for outdoor activities of all kinds throughout the year. It offers road cyclists some outstanding opportunities for riding and one of these is the Ironman Loop.

My route along the Lake Placid Ironman loop and Whiteface Mountain

The first Ironman triathlon in Lake Placid took place in 1999 and for many years was the only Ironman venue in the United States besides the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. The cycling course, which has varied slightly from year to year, is two circuits of a 90 km (56.5 mile) course. Each of these loops has an elevation gain of 640 m (2019 ft), with most of the gain coming in the second half.

Lake Placid, which is two hours' drive south of Montreal, is keen to market itself as a cycling region and many of the roads are marked to show bicycle traffic. Shoulders are paved and wideand generally in very good condition. All along the route, even when there is no Ironman on, there are “portable restrooms” marked with very visible signs. The scenery is beautiful although this route apparently ranks as one of the toughest Ironman courses. That said, the Men's Ironman World Championships, recently held in Nice, was much harder, featuring a bike course with double the elevation gain!

Main Street, Lake Placid

The Pines Inn, my hotel

On a beautiful early Fall day I rolled out of my hotel (possibly one of the very few budget alternatives in town and probably THE place to stay in Lake Placid circa 1912) and eased downhill and onto Main Street, which runs along the shore of Mirror Lake—for some reason the village of Lake Placid is not actually on nearby Lake Placid!--and takes you past an amazing number of restaurants, outdoor equipment stores, and realtors' offices. It takes you past the hockey arena where the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” match took place and the big high school, which has the Olympic speed skating oval in front of it. A little further and you are out of town and following Route 73 southeast in the direction of Keene

Olympic ice hockey venue

There are reminders of Lake Placid's Olympic past as you will see on your right the two towers that mark the tops of the 100 m and 128 m ski jumps, the only jumps in North America that are homologated for summer as well as winter competitions. Built for the 1980 Games, they were modernized in 2021. The next bit of Olympic history is when the Ironman course takes a little detour to the Mt. Van Hoevenberg Olympic Sports Complex, which is the home of the bobsled track. The track was built in 1930 and used in the 1932 and 1980 Games. The most recent version of the track was constructed in 2000 and the site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

 

Although Route 73 had a fair amount of traffic on a Friday morning, the shoulders of the road make riding safe enough and for a good portion of the Ironman loop here the road goes downhill, making some sections very speedy indeed. Exhilarating, in fact.

Reaching the hamlet of Keene, you leave Route 73, turning left onto Hwy 9N, and enjoy a beautiful ride on a quiet road heading north alongside the Ausable River until reaching the hamlets of Upper Jay and Jay proper. Jay has a nice village green but is notable as having the only covered bridge in the Adirondacks. Originally built in 1857, it eventually fell into disrepair and was removed, while the current bridge, using original hand-hewn beams, was opened as a footbridge in 2007.

Another left turn takes you from Jay onto Route 86, which goes northwest and gradually climbs before the Ironman course takes another out-and-back detour along Haselton Road. Unlike most of the loop, this 22 km total section is shaded by tall trees and features lots of gentle climbs and descents as you reach the turnaround at the hamlet of Black Brook and come back. A really lovely section of road. Next stop: Wilmington.

Wilmington near the base of Whiteface Mountain and I took a break at the Visitors Bureau, which was all decorated for Fall. Speaking with the lady working there, I learned that she was the chief organizer of the bicycle race held every June that starts at the Visitor Bureau parking lot and goes to the top of Whiteface Mountain. She told me that the hardest part of the ride is the section up to the toll house, with the remaining 8 kms (5 miles) to the top being steadier. I had planned to ride up to the toll house to consider whether I should go on or just come back down and continue with the Ironman loop but, feeling encouraged, I set off on the big climb.

Passing North Pole, New York (“Home of Santa's Workshop”), a little theme park that opened in 1949, I found this section of the Whiteface Veterans' Memorial Highway to be fairly arduous. The climb has been described as the American equivalent of the Alpe d'Huez, which I have actually ridden, and both certainly start off hard. Reaching the Alpine-inspired toll house (fee for a cyclist is US$15), I needed a short break to recover before the next section.

Whiteface Mountain's east side was used as the Alpine skiing venue for the 1980 Olympics and features the highest vertical drop of any ski area in the Eastern United States. Opened in 1929 by then-Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Memorial Highway rises at an average of 8% to a parking lot at 4,610 feet above sea level, and access to the actual summit, another 280 feet, is either up a set of steps or an elevator. Those 8 kms uphill seemed to last forever. Unlike the Alpe d'Huez, the Memorial Highway does not really have any switchbacks until the last 2 kms so it is a steady grind, with no relief along the way. Stopping to take photos was tricky as getting going again at that gradient was not very easy. Views from the summit are impressive and it was a fine day but already quite cold.

View of Lake Placid

I had the foresight to bring a small backpack with extra clothing—arm and leg covers, glove liners—which turned out to be a good idea as returning downhill at speed (even for this terrible descender) felt freezing. The road surface is excellent but at the steepness speed builds up very fast and it was not so comfortable until I passed the toll house. Oddly, I found doing this final section into Wilmington much better as the curves were wider and easier for control.

Back in Wilmington, it is time to head southwest along Route 86 and the 21 kms back to Lake Placid. This section of the Ironman loop features steady climbing, including three little climbs known as the Three Bears, which would be very tiring if you were doing both loops of an Ironman race. Traffic was heavier here again and while the shoulder is paved it is rather narrow in some spots. There are little parking spots were people stop to go fishing in the Ausable River.

Soon enough one is back in Lake Placid and unlike the Ironmen/women, I did not have to run a marathon after getting off the bike, thankfully. In all, I had covered 120 kms and climbing just under 2100 m. A beautiful day out that can be recommended for any cyclist—well, maybe with more modern gearing that my 34-26!

Mirror Lake, on the shores of which is found the town of Lake Placid, oddly

As to the Ironman Lake Placid race taking place on July 21, 2024, this will be the 25^th Anniversary Edition, with various special events. General registration sold out in August already for the 3,200 participants so you just have to do it on your own.  The Ironman website provides a map and turn-by-turn instructions for the course here. The Veterans Memorial Highway information is here.  And if you really want to race up Whiteface Mountain, you can check out the event information here. 

I had planned to enjoy some craft beers at the nearby Lake Placid Brewing Company but my legs were so exhausted that the best I could do was stagger over to the nearby McDonalds, where I recall eating pretty much the entire menu.  The next morning was not much better as I walked to a local diner and had the biggest meal, the Adirondack Breakfast, on the menu, which disappeared as soon as the waiter set it down.  Apparently my ride the day before had used up something like 5,00 Kcal!

Feeling somewhat more myself and having packed the car, I drove over to a state historical park.  This was the one-time home, and then only briefly, of famed abolitionist John Brown, who helped ignite the Civil War by leading a slave uprising to seize the arsenal at Harper's Ferry in Virginia in 1857.  Executed for treason, he is buried with some of his followers at this farm in North Elba.  It is a beautiful site and a peaceful setting considering its association with a pivotal and still-controversial figure in United States history.  More information on the John Brown Farm may be found here.

Le Ride: A Cycling Movie!

Many sports—baseball, football, hockey, soccer--offer fans fantasy camps to let the average person get a feel for what the Real Thing is like. Every cyclist's fantasy, perhaps, is to ride in the Tour de France but sometimes it might be better for that wish to be unfulfilled. The recent film, “Le Ride,” shows what happens when two enthusiasts decided to honour the first English-speaking team in the Tour and duplicate that 1928 event today.

New Zealander Phil Keoghan is highly visible as the host of CBS' “The Amazing Race” reality show and has many exploits to his name, including some spectacular underwater dives and even a bungee-jumping world record. In 2009 he rode across the United States, averaging 100 miles daily, for a charity event that raised $500,000 for multiple sclerosis research. He made a documentary, “the Ride,” about that 3,500 mile trip.

Mr. Keoghan learned about the Australasian team (three Australians, one New Zealander) at the 1928 Tour de France and was surprised that the Kiwi rider, Harry Watson, had come from his hometown of Canterbury. After considerable research he decided to honour that team by retracing their route in 2013, starting on June 17 and ending on July 15, the same dates as the 1928 Tour. This meant riding 5,376 kms (3,340 miles) over 22 stages, or 244 kms (151 miles) daily. There were four rest days. And he was to do this with his riding partner Ben Cornell using period bicycles.

The resulting film is a highly entertaining mixture of accounts from the 1928 race and Phil and Ben's Really Hard Ride. The Australasian team arrived in France expecting to be joined by six Europeans to make up a ten man team but this did not happen, nor did their French support crew ever materialize. Led by famous Australian rider Hubert Opperman, they nonetheless were ready when the peloton rolled out of Paris, although the local press gave them no chance of winning and predicted they would be out after the first stage.

Hubert Opperman receiving flowers during Stage 6

The Tour de France was quite different from the race we know today as the Tour's founder Henri Desgrange was constantly fiddling with its format. In 1927 it had consisted of nothing but team time trials across France and the 1928 race retained those in 15 of the stages. There was no rule about how many men would be on a team except a maximum of 10, which would be an obvious disadvantage to the four Australasians as several teams had a full complement, although the ultimate winning team, Alcyon, did not. Even stranger, fresh riders were allowed into the race as domestiques part way through, although not allowed to officially win a stage or the race overall! 162 riders entered the race, the highest number to date, but 111 of those were “touriste-routier” cyclists who rode along as independents and had to be self-supporting. Phil Keoghan, in his narration, does not mention the difference between the pro riders and these amateurs, not a single one of whom completed the race.

When the Tour riders went out, they had modern equipment for the day, although “modern” still meant very heavy bicycles by our standards. While the first Tour winner in 1903 had a bicycle that weighed 18 kg (39 lbs), by 1928 a more typical weight was 11.5 kg (25.3 lbs), still hefty compared to today's 6.8 kg (15 lbs) limit but actually about the same as bikes used in the early 1960s. The difference was clearly in having variable gearing and effective brakes, the lack of which obviously added to the trials of the Keoghan party who, it must be remembered, were riding 85 year old antiques.

The difficulty of these early Tours cannot be overstated. Along with their primitive bicycles, rides had to contend with massively long stages, very poor roads—many unpaved—and nutritional issues. Tires constantly flatted and Desgrange's rules were designed to weed out almost everyone. During Stage 19, race leader Nicolas Frantz's bicycle broke and he ended up riding the last 100 kms on an undersized woman's bicycle. Incidentally, as the previous year's winner, Frantz started in the yellow jersey on the first day and kept it until the end, the only time this has occurred in the race's history.

At least the modern adventurers had LED lights and helmets, as well as GPS and cellphones to help. One of the other issues, of course, is that in 1928 the racers simply took the main roads from town to town but in 2013 many of those roads were now limited-access highways and closed to bicycles so often getting lost, even with the support team, added to the woes. And the mountain stages, where navigation was not so much of a problem, were terrible—we watch Keoghan descend the Galibier at what appears to be 7 km/h and the squeal of the quasi-useless brakes are a constant part of the film's soundtrack.

The mountain stages are incredible and the fabulous scenery is balanced with Phil and Ben's epic suffering. Leaving in the dark and arriving in the dark almost every day, they took 23 hours to complete one of the 1928 stages. Those four rest days must have seemed very short. And while Phil Keoghan mentions that the oldest Australasian team member was 38 and had to drop out, he does not mention that he himself was 46.

41 riders finished the 1928 race and the three remaining Australasians of the Ravat-Wonder-Dunlop team confounded the critics by placing well enough, with Opperman best at 18^th. Amazingly, the sole rider who entered the race as the Thoman-Dunlop team, placed fourth. Belgium's Jan Mertens also won the Tour of Flanders that year.

While a lot of this historical background is underplayed, it is commendable that Phil Keoghan's enthusiasm for that 1928 team has led to this film to honour their efforts. All four riders lived into their 90s, a seemingly impossible actuarial result, and they were harbingers of the non-Europeans who would come to the Tour so many years later. But one must give a tip of the hat to Phil Keoghan and Ben Cornell as touriste-routiers who did not quit in spite of the many obstructions they faced and the remarkable physical demands they were able to meet although I was not convinced it was really necessary to do the ride in this way. Still, an enjoyable evening for cycling fans; the cinema in Ottawa was packed to overflowing when I saw it.

“Le Ride” screenings took place across Canada last week. They are arranged via Demand Film,which organizes screenings of independent films in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Italy and Germany upon request. For more information, go to: https://ca.demand.film/le-ride/

Book Review: Fat Tire Flyer

In all honesty, I will admit to no inclination towards mountain bikes. I am all about skinny tires, classic road races, white ankle socks and total Euro-style. So when the folks at VeloPress, who put out some of my favourite road cycling biography/history/training/ books pressed one of their latest publications into my hands I was not sure what to do with it. And that's because “Fat Tire Flyer” by Charlie Kelly is about the birth and early years of the mountain bike. Bikes with fat tires. Bikes ridden by long-haired freaks in California in the 1970s. Bikes that--shudder--even got really dirty. And this account is one of the most entertaining books I have had this year.

There are very few inventions where one can say there was a clear and definite beginning. Germans will tell you Philipp Reis invented the telephone, not Alexander Graham Bell; the French will say that Clement Ader's airplane was the first in powered flight, not the Wright Brothers'. The birth of the mountain bike (unfortunately described as “one of the most significant inventions in the 20^th Century” on the book's inside cover) brooks no such foggy origin. We have all heard about the Repack Race on Mount Tamalpais in Northern California and the names associated with the “klunker bikes” still resonate in the bicycle industry nearly four decades later. These names include Tom Ritchey, Gary Fisher, Joe Breeze and the author of “Fat Tire Flyer,” Charlie Kelly.

Charlie Kelly is a man who has worn many hats in his life and the book opens with an account of how he got into cycling. In his very amusing and wry style he recounts the junk bikes he rode as a child, moving up eventually to one of the great bike boom-era road bikes, a Peugeot U0-8, described as the kind of bike people who don't own bikes would recommend. Now into riding more seriously but still clearly knowing not much he upgraded to another Peugeot, a PX-10 (a very collectible bike in today's market) before meeting up for the first time with like-minded spirits in the form of Gary Fisher and the drummer of the New Riders of the Purple Sage band. Kelly had become a roadie for a band himself and the group he associated with, musicians and cyclists, were long-haired free spirits.

Deciding that he wanted to race, he realized that it was necessary to belong to a club and since they thought of themselves as not suitable for the only bike club in the vicinity they ended up forming their own, rather anarchic group, the Velo-Club Tamalpais. To manage VTC, Kelly went to the public library and after mastering “The Clubwoman's Handbook” was able to establish some rules of order and determine enough of a statement of purpose that VTC was accredited and on its way.

The group's racing history did not sound particularly distinguished and Charlie Kelly's own palmares never reached more than a second place after he blew a lead. But the story really gets interesting when he and his friends determined that riding skinny-tired 10-speeds for errands and transportation was not very practical so they picked up old heavy singlespeed bikes to ride to club meetings and for other purposes. One day they visited a friend on Mount Tamalpais in Marin County and using their heavy old bikes rode around on the local trails, discovering, to their apparent surprise, that going downhill was much easier than uphill. Soon a course was determined, the Pine Mountain Loop, and more people joined in.

A particular section of dirt fire road behind Cascade Canyon became the site of the now-legendary Repack. The bikes used were never meant to handle the kind of abuse the VTCers aimed at them and the coaster brakes would smoke as the grease burned out, necessitating frequent repacking and hence the name. Charlie Kelly took on the task of organizing the Repack races and arranging for time- and record-keeping. As time passed the group made more and more modifications to their old bicycles but 40 year old bikes and parts gradually disappeared and as they become more and more modified the direction was clear. The Marin Klunker Bike, made of bits and pieces found in thrift shops and basements, metamorphosed into the first purpose-built off-road mountain bike with new parts, one of a small series constructed by Joe Breeze in 1977. The rest is history.

Ritchey Mountain Bike No. 1

Charlie Kelly was not only the organizer of the Repack races but he went into a partnership with Gary Fisher to build and sell the new style bikes, with frames constructed by Tom Ritchey, and actually used the name MountainBike for the product. The growth of the racing scene, the MountainBike story, the establishment in 1983 of NORBA (National Off-Road Bicycle Association) and Charlie Kelly's mountain bike publication, “the Fat Tire Flyer,” is covered in the book, with many period photographs and groovy counter-culture graphics.

There is much in the book that is counter-culture and one has the sense of a group of Californians who refused to grow up, semi-employed in their 30s and hanging around with bands like the Grateful Dead, having a great time crashing their bikes down Repack, while wearing what looked like construction worker gear. It was a world far distant from European-style road racing and in fact the Union Cycliste International (UCI) did not even deign to recognize the sport until 1990. In the meantime mountain biking has become a global sport, its manufacture a global industry. The bikes, with their fat tires, flat handlebars and friendly appearance, have brought many people into cycling who might never have considered it.

Charlie Kelly wrote for Bicycling magazine for a while—well, until he got fired—and other cycling publications and the book includes some excellent samples of his writing. There is even a chapter about his trip to the 1985 Giro d'Italia, far from the fire roads of Marin County, where he saw some of the greats of European road racing, including Francesco Moser, perform before the world. And in a life characterized perhaps by the unexpected after “the Fat Tire Flyer” ceased publication he turned his hand to a completely different line of work, that of piano mover, for three decades.

Considering the makeshift nature of the original “klunker” project, VeloPress has produced a very fine volume, with good photo reproduction, worthy of any cycling library shelf. It is the first book to provide a detailed insider's account of the birth of the mountain bike, a machine that had numerous fathers but was the product of a very particular time and place. “Fat Tire Flyer” may not be about road bikes and Euro-style but it is not just about a new technology coming to life. It is about unforgettable characters, good friends, good times and having fun on your bike. That is something all cyclists should be able to relate to and enjoy.

“Fat Tire Flyer” by Charlie Kelly, with a foreword by Joe Breeze

258 pp., ill., hardcover

VeloPress 2014, suggested retail US$29.95

ISBN 978-1-937715-16-8

For more information go to www.velopress.com

The Col Collective

Michael Cotty and crew have a new project underway: the Col Collective.  Highlighting many of Europe's greatest passes it will feature both a website and a YouTube channel.  The website is not really up and running yet but several videos can be seen already, including this one of the Galibier in France.  This is a monster of a climb, particularly if you get up to it after first riding the Col de Telegraphe as we did a few years ago.

The videos (introducing the Col Collective; the Galibier; the Stelvio) are beautifully photographed and there is nice accompanying music.  Designed to inspire and prepare you for the climbs, the videos have already convinced me to try to get back over the winter into the climbing form I once had.

Book Review: Tour de France 100

100: that's a big number. Frenchman Robert Marchand was 100 years old when he set a new age group category record by cycling 100 kms in 4:17, soon after setting the One Hour Record for the same 100+ age group (of which he currently seems to be the only member) to crown his birthday activities. Well done, Robert! And to mark another 100^th in France, VeloPress has produced an elegant photobook to celebrate the first 99 editions of cycling's greatest event, the Tour de France from 1903 to 2012.

Author Richard Moore, in “Tour de France 100,” begins at the beginning, seeking out the Cafe Zimmer where early in the last century on a November evening in Montmartre the Tour de France was first proposed by staff of the struggling L'Auto newspaper. From that small group discussion emerged a race that has, befitting its origins as a commercial vehicle, received exhaustive press coverage from the start, that has adjusted itself over the decades to meet the varying demands of print, radio, film, television and the Internet. The race has outlived the Cafe Zimmer (although it still exists as the Indiana Cafe) and grown into a global enterprise. Its strengths include the glorious stage of the entire nation of France (with a few foreign excursions), a cast of great athletes with larger-than-life eccentricities or tragic tales and titanic clashes to overcome geography, weather and rivals. The rules have been constantly adjusted as the organizers sought out ways to heighten the tension, broaden the challenge or, apparently, kill the riders.

Reaching backwards to that first decade, the book opens with a grainy black-and-white photo not of a triumphant racer cresting a ridge or hammering to a sprint finish or even passing any spectators. It is 1910 and Octave Lapize is there shoving his bicycle up the Tourmalet in the year that Tour included the Pyrenees in its itinerary. A Tour legend was born: Lapize (who was faster on foot than his nearest competitor riding up the pass) famously called Tour organizers “Assassins!” (or “Murderers!” in this account) as he crossed the Aubisque. From the first flattish race in 1903 the rate of difficulty had progressed until this day, July 21, when the organizers saw fit to have a stage beginning at 2 a.m. and running 326 km over seven major climbs. Lapize was the victor in a sprint finish (!) and was the overall winner in Paris at the end. A Tour legend was born: Lapize (who was faster on foot than his nearest competitor riding up the Tourmalet) famously called Tour organizers “Assassins!” (or “Murderers!” in this account) as he crossed the Aubisque. Tour founder Henri Desgrange seemed to confirm this with his comment at the finish line:

We brought far too many people to Paris, and there was not enough wastage...Out of 110 starters, 41 riders finished the race. I repeat this is far too many.

Lapize was to win a single Tour and was one of three champions to die in World War One.

The Tour has had its constant themes but there have been so many rule changes, seemingly at Desgrange's whim from time to time, it gets confusing to follow how the race was judged in the past. “Tour de France 100” is helpful in dividing the race into eras and offering explanations of exactly what was happening. The early days were never much about fair play or sporting nobility. The first winner, Maurice Garin, was stripped of his second title for cheating and the first double winner became Lucien Petit-Breton (1907 and 1908). An atmospheric photo shows Petit-Breton (who also died in the Great War) looking filthy and haggard on his heavy team Peugeot bicycle, held up by an immaculately-dressed white-clad gentleman (an official, perhaps or his trainer?). And moustaches all around.

The race continues after a break for World War One as the riders regroup in the shattered countryside. Another legend is born with the Unluckiest Man in the Tour (well, aside from those who actually got killed) as Eugene Christoph breaks a fork in the 1913 edition, drags his bike to a village blacksmith and hammers it back together at the forge, receiving a time penalty because a boy operated the bellows to keep the flames up for him. Christoph was the first to wear the Yellow Jersey in 1919, broke his fork again that year, probably costing him overall victory, and, yes, again in 1922 descending the Col du Galibier. He found yet another blacksmith's shop and did his repairs, noting in later years: “That accident didn't upset me as much as the others. By then I was a bit of an expert.”

The photos are wonderful, showing the bikes built more for strength than anything, their riders more like muddy desperadoes than Olympic sporting heroes. In 1924 there was a protest when Desgrange enforced another one of his flippant rules, this one requiring cyclists to finish with the same clothing as they began, meaning you could not shed any layers after a descent. The Péllisier brothers had enough and withdrew and a third rider joined them in a bar where a journalist wrote down their thoughts, eventually turning them into a book “The Convicts of the Road,” emphasizing the suffering cyclists had to endure. Henri Péllisier described the race as “a Calvary,” and his brother Francis produced a box of pills, saying “We run on dynamite.” Anger, suffering, controversy, doping: more fuel for the Tour publicity machine!

Henri Péllisier, who was prone to violence himself, ended up being fatally shot with five bullets in 1935. The rider who went on to win the year the brothers dropped out was Ottavio Bottechia, the first Italian winner who took the victory in 1925 as well as 1924 but died in mysterious circumstances on a training ride two years later.

The rules changes are not always clear as Desgrange and his men tried to find ways to make the race more exciting. Freewheels were not allowed for a number of years and variable gearing was not permitted before 1937, when cycle tourists had already been using it for at least a decade. Trade teams were dropped in favour of national teams (and sub-national ones) and Desgrange was appalled by the idea of support riders, belittling Maurice Brocco who helped François Faber to victory in 1911 as merely a servant, or domestique. The noble domestique, giving up his own chances for his team leader, became part of the Tour legend. It made Desgrange so angry that one year he basically turned the Tour into a series of time trial stages. The book offers a fine photo of Lucien Buysse leading Bottechia through Saint-Cloud in 1925 on the final stage that year. This faithful helper won the Tour himself the following year.

By the 1930s the reach of mass media broadened interest in the tour and that decade saw management passing from Desgrange, who retired in 1936 due to ill health and was replaced by Jacques Goddet, who was to run the race for the next half-century, immediately dropping the rule against multiple gears and opening up the opportunity for some technical advances in equipment. Roads were actually paved on some of the mountain passes, replacing the previous goat tracks, but the beginning of Goddet's reign did not make the challenges less, as a fine image from the 1937 race shows, picturing the peloton lined up at speed on the cobbles stones of Vannes in the cycling heartland of Brittany.

My own favourite era of the Tour begins after the Second World War, with black-and-white photos, superb in their details, highlighting the adventures of famous riders including Koblet, Bartali, Copp and Bobet, leading us eventually to the Five Time Winners. Anquetil and Merckx still belong to this period, seemingly so far in the past.

The era of colour photography begins and it is a bit jarring to see Anquetil, Merckx and Hinault together in 1987 in bright yellow jerseys, two retired riders and the still-aggressive “Badger” in the modern world. One likes to think that those jersey are still wool as clothing moved then into half-developed polyesters and some of the most tasteless designs ever.

The great joy in a comprehensive visual history of the Tour de France lies in the unfamiliar photos and here the old images bring the most pleasure as once we pass the time of blurry colour to today's super-sharp photos there is a sense no longer of wandering in a foreign land. This is not to say the photos are not excellent. High-speed cameras have frozen Ullrich attacking or Armstrong crashing better than anything in the old days but these seem familar and workaday to us.

The book concludes with the 2012 win of Bradley Wiggins, continuing the trend of victories by non-French riders and preparing the stage for Chris Froome's domination in 2013 at the 100^th running of the race. And the race will probably remain the only sporting event with 100 races completed and only 93 winners but we don't need to rehash this.

The magic of “Tour de France 100,” which does feature excellent written commentary by Richard Moore, seems to be more in the distant haze of yesterday. Yes, there was plenty not to be nostalgic about and the reader can pick and choose his or her own view of the Tour de France and what it means. But the race's history is well-served by this finely-produced book with far too many excellent photos to describe. It should find a respected place among the many tomes dedicated to the ne plus ultra of bike races.

The Tour de France will surely go on to many more editions. And back in France on January 31 this year, Robert Marchand proved that 100 is only the start of things. Clearly having upped his training program in the last two years, Monsieur Marchand smashed his own One Hour Record in the 100+ age group.

Tour de France 100: A Photographic History of the World's Greatest Race

by Richard Moore

223 pp., ill., hardcover, VeloPress 2013

ISBN 978-1-937715-06-9

Suggested retail price: US$34.95

Available at www.velopress.com

Rouler avec Philippe! My day with the former World Road Cycling Champion (well, sort of)

The last time I saw Philippe Gilbert was as I stood on the slopes of the famous La Redoute climb at Liege-Bastogne-Liege in 2011 and he zoomed by on his way to humiliating the Schlecks as he dashed towards the finish line.  I was standing in the middle of the Philippe Gilbert Fan Club and grown men were weeping for joy.  2011 was Fast Phil's Anno Mirabilis as he swept all before him.  He won the Strade Bianche race in Tuscany (where several months later I rode l'Eroica on some of the same roads at a more, uh, leisurely pace), then went on to take Brabantsje Pijl, Amstel Gold, La Fleche Wallone and L-B-L.  Nobody has ever won all four of these Ardennes rides in one year.  More victories: the Belgian National Road and Time Trial titles; the Clasica San Sebastian;  the Tour of Belgium and the GP Wallonie and the Grand Prix Cycliste de Quebec.  Plus he held the yellow, green and polka dot jerseys at various points of the 2011 Tour de France as well as winning the UCI World Tour that year.

He subsequently switched teams to BMC and has not seen the same results since, unsurprisingly since a year like 2011 will probably only happen to a cyclist once in a lifetime.  His unimpressive 2012 season, highlighted by two stage wins at the Vuelta only, was redeemed by his convincing attack on the Cauberg in Valkenburg, Netherlands to win the World Road Cycling Championship. 

Not much has happened for Philippe in 2013 but the Philippe Gilbert Fan Club has of course not lost faith in its namesake, still one of Belgium's beloved cycling idols.  So to close out the season the club organized a free "Rouler avec Philippe" event to which everyone was invited to share the road with the Great Man.

Square Philippe Gilbert, Aywaille, Belgium

On Saturday I jumped into my rented Volkswagen Golf Plus (not sold everywhere it resembles a cross between a minivan and a guppy) and headed to la Belgique on an hour and a half drive.  The start was just south of Liege in the village of Aywaille and, more precisely, at the Square (not Place, oddly) Philippe Gilbert.  The Square is actually under construction and things were a bit chaotic, to say the least, as I joined the estimated 700 participants jammed up under the start banner.

Philippe Gilbert was indeed there and he began proceedings by setting off on a ride with a group of children.  I was impressed by the way he talked with the kids and everyone seemed happy and relaxed.  He was wearing his BMC kit with the rainbow stripes that World Champions get to use for the duration of their careers.  He set out with with his children's group at 1 o'clock on a ride of 6 kms and the plan was that he would then join up at the head of our peloton at the end of that.  It was, alas, the last I was to see of Philippe on my "Rouler avec Philippe" day.

The police escort car rolled out of Square Philippe Gilbert at 1:15 and we were off!  It was certainly a very large group but everyone was pretty careful as we negotiated the first little climbs.  It was a lot calmer than the Italian granfondo ride I did in May last year but still there was a crash only 4 kms into the ride, with someone lying on the ground and waiting for medical help.  The ride was well-organized and emergency crews were present, along with police escorts on scooters and motorcycles, and included an ambulance at the rear of the convoy.

The route followed the Lesse River for 23 kms or so gently uphill.  People stood in their front yards and driveways and cheered us on.  I was surrounded by a lot of very fit-looking cyclists, a large percentage of whom were riding BMC bicycles and more than a few were wearing the tricolour Belgian National Champion's jersey, just like Phil had!  The road was in excellent condition and I could admire the autumn leaves when I was not focused on the cyclists everywhere around me.  We were supposed to keep a 25 km/h minimum in the rolling closure plan and this did not seem to be a problem at all with smooth roads and both lanes open to us.

Around Km 24 we turned and suddenly were confronted with a steepish hill that went on for a while.  Several of the Belgians suffered on this but I could do a good part of it using the big chainring (admittedly on my compact crankset) and really enjoyed the climb.  At the top the road flattened out and then turned right for a wonderful high-speed descent, again on perfect asphalt, before rejoining the road along the Lesse where we retraced our route back to Aywaille.  I was seeing some pretty high speeds here as the peloton had broken up a bit and it was very enjoyable.  I saw the effects of a second crash on a flat stretch soon after where several riders were apparently injured but it had to be through someone's carelessness as conditions were perfect for riding.  We had a few drops of rain but nothing to worry about.

After 1 hour and 51 minutes of riding and 52 kms I found myself back at Square Philippe Gilbert.  I looked around briefly at the crowds and then heard that it would be 45 minutes before Philippe would come out for the promised autograph session.  Rather than stand around in damp cycling clothes I decided to head for home, missing my Photo with Philippe session but having enjoyed a great afternoon in the Ardennes and riding a very pretty route.

After packing my guppy car, I realized I had not eaten all day and since I was near a frites stand I enjoyed the only vegetarian food (next to beer and chocolate) available to me in Belgium before heading back to Germany.  All part of the Belgian cycling experience!