Rolling Along the Rhine: A Mini Holiday Just Down My Local River

Overlooking the Rhine in Bingen

Many years ago I had the opportunity to visit Bonn on business and was able to take time out to rent a bicycle and ride south towards Remagen. I did not get as far as the famous bridge and my rental bicycle was pretty terrible (coaster brake!) but I always thought someday I would like to cycle along the famous Middle Rhine and enjoy looking at the castles, the wine villages and the boats on the river, which is designated under the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage listing. Since moving to Düsseldorf in August 2010 I have ridden short stretches alongside the river that flows through my city but still was unable to get a tour organized. This procrastination came to an end when earlier this year I received a note from my friend in Mainz, Prof. Heinz-Egon Rösch, who was planning his annual Spring Tour with a small group of friends. This year's plan was to ride downriver from Mainz to Bonn and it only took me a moment to check my calendar and call him to add my name to his list of cycling tourists.

I met Prof. Heinz-Egon Rösch last June in Gau-Algesheim at the bicycle museum there. A retired professor of sprorts science who taught at the universities in Mainz and Düsseldorf, he continues to write guidebooks for cyclists for a German publisher (producing excellent photos as well) and has remarkable energy for a man of 82. His Rhine tour was planned for 2 1/2 days and he had selected some interesting places to visit so I was very much looking forward to a relaxing days of riding in what promised to be excellent weather.

Leaving Düsseldorf on the InterCity train meant getting up early on Day 1 of the trip, May 19, but I boarded and left right on time. The tracks run alongside the Rhine and the IC does not stop very often so after passing Cologne and Koblenz I found myself in Mainz just after 9:00, with some time to kill before our 10:30 meeting on the Rhine promenade behind Mainz's modern City Hall. Leaving the impressive old train station I found the traffic a bit too heavy for comfort but was able soon enough to turn onto a quieter side street with a marked bike lane which brought me quickly into the central pedestrian zone of the city.

Passing the impressive cathedral I rode around for a bit looking for a café and in the end returned to the cathedral square and the café there. It was a bit tricky to find a place to lean the bicycle as there were no bicycle racks anywhere to be seen which might have been an aesthetic choice on the part of the Mainzers but was not very practical considering how many people use bicycles for transportation. In any event I found a suitable spot and settled down for a “Dijon Breakfast,” with a huge cafe-au-lait, two croissants and some excellent jam. The people at the next table were speaking French and it was a pleasure to drink my coffee and soak up the warm sunshine and the vista of the square.

Riding the short distance to the promenade I soon found my group of seven and discovered that I was the youngest person there, the next youngest being 75years of age. Even though I was mentally in “touring mode” and prepared to stop a lot for photos, I was a bit worried that the group would be painfully slow. Everyone else was riding the heavy trekking bicycles so beloved in Germany, with front suspension forks, deeply-sprung seats, full mudguards, lighting and sturdy racks with startling quantities of baggage. I had my Marinoni sport-touring bicycle (basically a triple-ring racing bike with a slightly extended wheelbase) with a handlebar bag and a single pannier—and the 23 mm tires were subject of some discussion. But I need not have worried as the group actually kept up a good pace for the entire trip. I simply stayed behind Prof. Rösch to make sure I would not lose touch with the group.

We left Mainz and headed south briefly along the shore before crossing the high Theodor-Heuss Bridge (named after the first President of the Bundesrepublik, as is the one in Düsseldorf), leaving the state of Rhineland-Pfalz and entering Hesse. Oddly the capitals of both states, Mainz and Wiesbaden, are just across the Rhine from each other although the section of Wiesbaden on the east side of the river, Mainz-Kastel, is actually 10 kms from the main city of Wiesbaden. The Romans build a bridge across the Rhine in roughly this location in A.D. 27, which must have taken considerable engineering skill as the current bridge, first constructed in 1885 but rebuilt in 1948-1950 after war damage, is over 475 m in length.

Crossing the bridge and turning onto the Rhine promenade we passed “die Reduit,” a fortress constructed in the 1830s to protect what was then a floating bridge across the river. We continued northwards along a fine bicycle path and at 6.4 kms into our trip we stopped to admire Schloss Bieberich, where I have been twice before for state receptions. The palace is a lovely piece of baroque architecture, constructed as a summer residence by various Dukes of Nassau from 1700-1750. Very close by is a plaque on the bike path indicating that in a nearby house Richard Wagner wrote “das Rheingold.” I was not aware of his connection to Wiesbaden but suspect it was not of long duration as he was always moving to avoid creditors.

Our bikepath continued, taking us past a small marina at Schierstein, which boasts a very pretty modern footbridge to an island in the Rhine and surprisingly quickly we reached our first longer stop, the enchanting wine village of Eltville at Km 15.3. It is the largest town in the Rheingau region and boasts, besides being home to some of Germany's most famous vineyards, an impressive 14^th Century castle, constructed as a residence for the Archbishop of Mainz. It boasts a filled-in moat with pretty gardens. We enjoyed a picnic lunch pause and a coffee in a nice café overlooking the river before continuing on our way in bright sunshine.

The bike path follows the Rhine and parallels the very busy highway. We rolled past Hattenheim, where I stayed for a night in October 2013 before visiting the state winery at Kloster Eberbach. Next stop was the historic crane near Oestrich, which was set up in 1745 and continued to be used for loading wine barrels until 1926. The winch was powered by people walking on two treadmills inside the structure and similar cranes once existed in other Rhine towns but only a handful still stand today.

We passed the next village, Geisenheim, and at Km 32 we came to Rüdesheim am Rhein, one of the most touristy towns in this region of very touristy towns. However, it was fairly quiet on this warm Monday afternoon and we took a break for some very welcome ice cream before boarding the ferry that took us across the river to Bingen.

Our route was a broad paved lane alongside the main road and we enjoyed fine views of castles high up on the hills on either side of the river and a great deal of shipping, both commercial barges and cruise ships. We stopped briefly to look at the pretty town of Bacharach, which is overlooked by the unfinished Wernerkapelle, a gothic “Rhineromanesque” church ruin with some nasty anti-Semitic connections. Werner von Oberwesel was supposedly murdered by Jews needing his blood for Passover (the infamous “blood libel”) and in 1287 a massive pogrom was launched that wiped out the Jewish communities not only on the Middle Rhine but also the Lower Rhine and Moselle and started a cult that was not shed until 1963.

Continuing onwards we came to the famous Pfalz, a castle actually located on an island in the centre of the Rhine near Kaub, one of the most picturesque locations on the river. Time for some photos! And with only 3 more kilometers of travel on our excellent bicycle path we came to our stop for the night, the excellent old Hotel Römerkrug in Oberwesel. I enjoyed a large room (with a canopied bed!) and we had a pleasant dinner sitting outside in the warm evening. White asparagus for me since I can never pass it up in season. The day ended with a stop in the “Historische Weinwirtschaft,” a wine bar and restaurant where we enjoyed some of the local product, served in cooling earthenware jugs. A most enjoyable day with 57 kms of riding and a rather surprising 317 m of climbing during what seemed to be a very flat route.

On Tuesday we enjoyed a relaxed breakfast before a brief walking tour of the town, which still has some of its old defensive walls intact. We rode over to look at the Liebfrauenkirche, a 14^th Century Gothic church but it was not open until later so we left lovely Oberwesel and returned to our reliable bike route again. After only 5 kms we dismounted as across the river was the famous Loreley rock, which rises 120 m above the Rhine in the narrowest part of the valley, known as the Rhine Gorge. Of course, the rock was also the home of the Rhine maidens/water spirits/mermaids who sang so irresistibly that sailors on the river were lured to their deaths by shipwreck against the rocks. This is the subject of Heinrich Heine's most famous poem, which was set to music by Friedrich Silcher in 1837. Our little group assembled and proceeded to sing the song, with the exception of the non-German who only can recite the first two lines.

the Liebfrauenkirche, Oberwesel

the famous Loreley Rock

We rode past Sankt Goar and Hinzenich and Bad Salzig through the spectacular valley, arriving at Km 21 at another famous wine village, Boppard. The name appears to stem from Celtic origins and the area may have been settled as long as 13,000 years ago and was the site of a Roman town, Vicus Baudobriga, after Caesar's conquest of Gaul. A few traces remain of the Roman fort but with the withdrawal of Roman forces to Italy in the 4^th Century the town faded for a while before become significant again under the Holy Roman Empire but then suffered through a series of wars and was occupied for twenty years by the French after the Revolution. We paid a brief visit to the Carmelite Church, part of a complex built between 1320 and 1730 before riding out of town and heading off for lunch.

A couple, Theo and Marga, had invited us for lunch and we enjoyed visiting them in their beautiful home in Brey, where we enjoyed much excellent food and a few glasses of superb wine. The view from their garden included the spectacular Marksburg, the only castle from the Middle Ages to have survived intact on the Middle Rhine. Construction began in the 13^th Century and it has been the home of a foundation to protect castles and palaces since 1906. Oddly, there is a replica of it in Okinawa.

We were running behind schedule and with full bellies we rode off into the afternoon heat, which was unseasonably strong. The first part of the ride went well as our path took us through shade as we passed Rhens and soon enough found ourselves on the outskirts of Koblenz, riding through some magnificent residential areas before coming to the famous Deutsches Eck, where the Rhine and Moselle meet. A very ugly monument dominates the point and I took cafe to avoid having it in a photo.

At this point the trip became more difficult as we were riding fully exposed to the glare of the sun. We crossed a busy bridge over the Moselle and soon were riding through unattractive industrial areas. The Rhine, it is easily forgotten, is a commercial river as well as a touristic one and we were seeing the less pleasant parts now. Prof. Rösch had calculated our ride to be around 60 kms, the same as the first day, but he was mistaken as it became apparent that it would be closer to 90 kms. We were all getting pretty hot and tired when we had the chance to stop for a bit of recuperation in a park on the river in Weissenturm, overlooking a pond with ducks and geese.

Feeling somewhat more refreshed, we steadfastly resumed our tour. Passing around Andernach at Km 68 the group fell apart somewhat and it was decided that those who could should press on. Prof. Rösch particularly seemed to be suffering from the heat and the route now took us a bit away from the river to the west, parallel to a railway line.

I managed a steady pace with Eberhardt, who was an experienced mountain biker, and we kept going at over 23 km/h for the remainder of the ride. Unexpectedly we passed another impressive pile, Burg Namedy, which is owned by the Catholic branch of the Hohenzollern family and is used for cultural events as well as private functions such as weddings and conferences. It was built as a water castle in the 14^th Century but expanded to become the current palace in the late 19^th.

We rode past Bad Breisig and near Sinzig before reaching our goal in Remagen-Kripp near the ferry. The hotel had actually changed names but it was the only one in sight so in we went. I had another large comfortable room and very much enjoyed the welcome shower after riding more than 88 kms in the heat, with over 500 m of climbing. We had originally planned to take the ferry to Linz across the river for some wine drinking again but everyone was exhausted so it was pizza and beer in the hotel and an early night for all.

Wednesday, our final day, saw us depart the hotel on foot and take the ferry to Linz to look around. I had not heard of this town (the much more famous Linz is in Austria) but it is quite wonderful, with many half-timbered buildings. I was fascinated by the clock in the town hall, installed in 1743 and still working nicely. As we came back to the ferry landing to return to Remagen-Kripp, everyone was thrilled to see a Canadian flag on the quay so of course I had to have a picture taken in front of it.

Now remounted on our bicycles, we continued northwards in excellent spirits. It was only 3 kms to the famous bridge at Remagen, of which only the two pairs of massive towers remain. To stop the Allied advance into Germany in World War 2, the Wehrmacht had destroyed all the bridges on the Rhine but this one still stood when troops, primarily American, arrived in March 1945 and for ten days were able to use it to cross the Rhine. Heavily damaged, it collapsed on March 17 but not before a powerful Allied force had been able to cross on it and pontoon bridges adjacent. The towers on the west side house an interesting museum devoted to the Battle of Remagen and the history of the bridge, which had been built to further the Von Schlieffen Plan for the invasion of France in World War 1 but was only completed in 1919.

Our last stop in Rhineland-Pfalz was at the Arp-Museum in Rolandseck, where we enjoyed some refreshments in the elegant café housed in the restored 1856 railway station that makes up half of this museum of modern art, the other half being further up a hill in a modern building designed by Richard Meier and opened in 2007. Alsation sculptor/painter Hans Arp (d. 1966) and his wife Sophie Taueber-Arp (d. 1943) were involved with the Dada movement but the only connection to Rolandseck appears to have been an art dealer, Johannes Wasmuth, who lived there and was the moving force behind having the railway station converted into an arts centre. In any event, the buildings are quite attractive and an asset for the region. Rolandseck is only 18 km south of Bonn.

And Bonn was our final destination, easily reached on the pleasant ride along the excellent bike path that brought us past the old diplomatic enclave in Bad Godesberg. We stopped briefly to look at the office building that had housed parliamentarians for the Bundesrepublik from 1969 until the relocation of the capital to Berlin in 1999. It is now used for offices for the United Nations. We also rode past the Villa Hammerschmidt, once the residence and office centre for the Chancellor of Germany.

A final ice cream in the square in front of the Bonn Rathaus and we all departed for the railway station. My northwards trip back to Düsseldorf was a quick hour while the others returned to Mainz. It had been a very enjoyable mini-holiday covering 176 kms and thanks to Prof. Rösch I finally managed my tour of the Middle Rhine.

Bent Arrow: de Brabantse Pijl Challenge 2014

Saturday, April 12: the day before the Paris-Roubaix professional race amateurs had an opportunity to ride the storied cobbles themselves during the Paris-Roubaix Challenge Sportive.  But for those not willing to publicly display their pavé riding ineptitude, on the same day to the east another sportive mirroring a pro course provided an opportunity to publicly display one’s climbing ineptitude.  So of course I had to I had to do the two hour drive from Düsseldorf to Belgium to experience the 2014 Brabanste Pijl Wielertoeristen.

While not nearly as old as Paris-Roubaix, which dates back to 1896, de Brabantse Pijl (the Brabant Arrow), also known by its French name of La Flèche Brabançonne, has had many famous winners since its inaugural edition in 1961.  In fact the first winner, Belgian Pino Cerami (who is still with us at 91) won the 1960 edition of Paris-Roubaix and eventually went on to become the oldest winner of a Tour de France stage at 41 in 1963.  There is even a GP Pino Cerami held every year  since 1964 in Belgium; it was won by Alessandro Petacchi this year (also on April 12).  But the rolls of the Brabant Arrow offer many famous victors:  Tour de France winners Jan Janssen and Eddy Merckx;  Mr. Roubaix Roger de Vlaeminck; sprint legend Freddy Maertens; double Flanders winner Edwig Van Hooydonck (who won the Arrow four times); triple Flanders and triple Roubaix victor Johan Museeuw; triple World Road Champion Oscar Freire (three Arrow wins too), along with some guys named Boogerd, Chavanel, Bartoli and Sagan.  In 2011 Philippe Gilbert became the only rider to win all the Hilly Classics (Amstel  Gold, the Fleche Wallone, Liege-Bastogne-Liege) plus the Arrow in one year.  Categorized as a UCI 1.0 race since 2011, it is pretty important.  But I wasn’t riding that race but instead an event five days prior.

Proximus Cycling Challenges manages a series of 12 Belgian events for amateurs spread over eight months.  These “Wielerstochten” include versions of  the Scheldeprijs, the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Gent-Wevelgem, among others.  Entry is a reasonable 10 Euros, with feed stations included, route signage and, well, not much else.   There is the promise that some retired pros will show up and apparently on Saturday these included Johan Museeuw, Nick Nuyens, Ludo Dierckxsens and current cyclo-cross racer Niels Albert but they weren’t there when I arrived at 7:15 to sign in at the start in the old university town of Leuven, 25 kms east of Brussels.  In fact, most of the organizers had not shown up either as the ride was scheduled to start at 7:30 and there were no signs anywhere.   But cleverly obeying the Follow-Someone-Else-With-Bikes-on-the-Car-Roof Rule I soon enough found my way to the impressive Ladeuzeplein , Leuven’s major square which is overlooked by the huge old university library.

A moment to check in and given a wristband for the feed stations (no numbers or pins to mess with) and I was on my way through the streets of the city, founded in the 9^th Century and featuring many beautiful 15^th Century buildings typical of Flanders.  In fact, the city is the capital of Flemish Brabant, a region that came about in 1995 when the province of Brabant (which has a long and headache-inducingly  complex history) split into three parts: the Flemish one, the Walloon (French-speaking one) and the Brussels autonomous region.  The Arrow goes into both Flemish and Francophone areas.

There were not many riders at this time of morning as the start was open until 10 am and the majority of cyclists were probably doing the shorter 72 km route rather than the 131 kms I was aiming at.  It was easy to get out of Leuven, which only has a population of 100,000, and follow the purple arrow signs showing the way west towards Bertem.  The loop heads south and then east of Leuven before working its way back and while it covers sections the pro race will take the fast guys will head more southwest in a straight line—hence the “Arrow” name.

The organizers thoughtfully provide a list of the hills and feed stations that you can stick on your toptube, giving you a distance countdown from 131 kms.  The first few of the 16 indicated hills are not really noticeable until you get to Langestraat at 113 kms, which is still an easy 6% average for 600 m.  The weather was not very good as riding in dense fog I had to stop to wipe the condensation off of my glasses and there was a steady dripping of water from my helmet.  But traffic was light although I was passed from time to time by big groups of fast Belgian club riders who were clearly not planning to stop to take photos.

At Km 99 there was an interesting change in the fairly flat landscape as we turned a corner near Huldenberg and were suddenly confronted with Smeysberg, a startling climb that maxed out at 17 percent but luckily only went on for 600 m.  Looking around, I discovered that Belgians are not afraid of using enormous pie-plate-sized cassettes to deal with the poisonous little climbs of the region.  Soon after this we had the Ijskelderlaan, a more reasonable 12 percent maximum grade and the first Hellingen that we would see that would actually be on the pro course, marked with black and yellow arrows.  A few more turns through a residential area brought us to Overijse and the first feed station.

For your 10 Euros you have a pretty good selection of eats, including bananas, oranges, chocolate-coated cookies and, everyone’s favourite, waffles.  There was energy drink as well as a station with hoses and faucets where everyone could easily refill their bottles.  A mechanic was on duty and keeping busy and overall one could not help but be impressed by the organization of the whole thing.

Waffles!

The sun had burned off the fog an hour before and we headed off for the next segment, which seemd to be doing a lot of looping around Overijse to include climbs (Schavei, Hagaard, Heerstraat) on the pro route.  In spite of the dizzying parcours (Wait: is that Huldenberg yet again?) by the time we descended Heerstraat we were turned east towards Walloon Brabant, crossing into the French-speaking region at Km 65 and leaving the pro route behind for the remainder of the day. 

The course was definitely flatter now as we headed through the open fields or past orchards of apple trees in full blossom around Beauvechain, passing near a military airport.  There was only one climb on the list worthy of mention, the Rue de Pecrot which hit nearly 14 percent.  It average 6 percent but went on for a long time.  It was quite warm now and I took off my armwarmers and was comfortable riding in shorts and short sleeves.  Many of the locals were fully outfitted with tights and jackets but they also looked like their body fat percentage was modest compared to mine!

There was a wonderful moment when I turned a corner and stopped to take a photograph of the cobbled climb that had suddenly appeared.  I moved over to the wide and smooth sidewalk/bikepath and as I took out my camera large groups of riders also appeared.  Everyone’s response  to the unexpected challenge of the cobbled was the same and as each group came by the lead riders swore audibly in Flemish, apparently from an inexhaustible source of curse words that seems to be their linguistic heritage. 

I was starting to get a bit tired now from the climbing (to say nothing of my laughably insufficient training) and was relieved when the second feed station appeared at Willebringen.  Some more waffles and the home stretch began.  I mentally braced myself for the hill at Neeverlpsestraat at Km 29 but it was pretty easy.  What was tougher was the final climb at Km 8 on Korbeekdamstraat, another 500 m with a maximum of 11 percent, and where I was not the only cyclist to suffer from leg cramps.  But soon enough the road dropped and we found ourselves on a fast run-in to Leuven and the Ladeuzeplein.

Crossing the finish line resulted in nothing more than a good feeling. No photographers.  No podium girls.  No podium.  Unlike the Paris-Roubaix Challenge there are no medals or, well, anything except marquees where plenty of club riders were already putting down plenty of beer.  Leuven, in addition to its ancient Catholic university, is also the home of Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest producer of beer.  Unlike German rides which often begin at sports grounds there were also no showers but it was a short drive for me to Kortrijk and my hotel.  The next day I would watch the Paris-Roubaix pro race with my own beer in hand from the comfort of a luxury tour bus but my experience at Brabantse Pijl, riding with 2400 others in the phantom wheeltracks of Eddy Merckx and the rest, just confirmed that Belgium remains one of cycling’s Promised Lands.

For more information about other amateur events organized by Proximus Cycling Challenges, go to the not entirely comprehensible sort-of trilingual website here.

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