Cyclopedia (43 page)

There were straight soigneurs, but Voet's book changed the way all were seen. He described the little deals, the drug-carrying, the elaborate ruses handed down through generations to get around urine tests, the devotion to duty that was not reciprocated by their charges. When Voet was arrested, his main charge, Richard Virenque, was more worried about how he would get his drugs.

The rise of the sports doctor and the entry of women into the profession in the late 1980s was what sounded the death knell for the old-fashioned soigneurs, rather than the name change. Women soigneurs such as LANCE ARMSTRONG's Irish leg rubber Emma O'Reilly didn't do the mystique thing, although they might wrap the day's race food in
Penthouse
pages to cheer up their charges, as O'Reilly's consoeur Shelley Verses once did; sports drinks took over from magic remedies.

SPAIN
A relative latecomer to international cycling, partly down to poverty, partly also due to the political turmoil of the 1920s and 1930s. The national Tour in the cycling heartland of the Basque Country didn't begin until 1924, and the VUELTA A ESPAÑA itself didn't get properly established until the 1950s. Early stars included the “Torrelavega Flea,” Vicente Trueba, who weighed a mere 112 pounds and had a disabled left hand, while Julian Berrendero was King of the Mountains in the 1935 TOUR DE FRANCE, and double Vuelta winner in spite of having spent several stints in concentration camps during the Civil War.

It was not until the emergence in the postwar years of Miguel Poblet—the first Spaniard to win Milan–San Remo—Bernardo Ruiz (third in the 1952 Tour) and above all of FEDERICO BAHAMONTES that Spanish cycling truly emerged. The “Eagle of Toledo” was a child of the civil war who recalled riding his bike and racing purely in order to get food in the hungry 1940s.

Bahamontes was the first Spanish Tour de France winner and was followed by two equally mercurial climbers, the “Watchmaker of Avila” Julio Jimenez, and EDDY MERCKX's great rivals Jose-Manuel Fuente and Luis Ocaña. The latter came close to defeating the “Cannibal” in the 1972 Tour but crashed out of the race on a rain-hit descent in the Pyrenées. He returned the next year to take the Tour in Merckx's absence.

Pedro Delgado was the next star; his victories in the 1985 Vuelta and 1988 Tour de France led to an expansion in teams and races—in 1988 the Federation had to put a cap on the number of teams to calm things down—while the period 1991–96 saw an economic boom in cycling. That was partly due to an unprecedented period of dominance in the Tour for MIGUEL INDURAIN but the ONCE team led by the Swiss Alex Zülle and France's Laurent Jalabert were also a force to be reckoned with, as were Clas, for whom the Swiss Tony Rominger took the Vuelta in 1992, 1993, and 1994.

Spain began to cool down after the Vuelta's move to a September date in 1995 and Indurain's retirement at the start of 1997. Now, the sport in Spain is an object lesson in the ravages DOPING can cause. There have been numerous high-profile positives, and a massive blood-doping scandal, revealed in the Operación Puerto inquiry, made matters worse. Sponsors have fled, and there is now only one Spanish-backed team in the ProTour, the Basque squad Euskaltel.

The Basque Country remains
the heartland. Its fans have put up much of the money by subscription to finance the Euskaltel team—which is Basque backed and only hires Basque cyclists. The Atlantic coast is the home of the San Sebastian CLASSIC and the weeklong Vuelta a Pais Vasco, which dwarfs the Vuelta in terms of popular support. Boasting Orbea and BH bike makers and Exte-Ondo clothing, it is also a center of the bike industry.

Your check's in the mail: a litany of bizarre backers of cycling.

STAGE RACES
As well as the Big

Three of GIRO D'ITALIA, TOUR DE FRANCE, and VUELTA A ESPAÑA, there are a host of other smaller multi-day events run on similar lines. The longest-standing ones include :

STARLEY, James
(b. England, 1830, d. 1881) and
John Kemp
(b. England, 1854, d. 1901)

Respectively the “father of the cycle industry” and his nephew, the bike maker behind the Rover safety machine.

James Starley started out working on sewing machines and was one of 19th-century cycling's most inventive minds, responsible for tangential spoking, as used in most spoked wheels today, and various radical TRICYCLES. The Ariel HIGH-WHEELER he produced with William Hillman in 1870 is viewed as a defining moment. The machine was relatively light and had wheels with spokes that could be adjusted; it was Britain's first metal bike produced in any quantity. His most important invention, however, was the differential gear, used on his tricycles, which enabled cyclists to sit side by side and pedal without the imbalance in force
turning the machine in a circle: it became standard on the motorcar. James Starley's tricycles—most notably the Coventry rotary and Royal Salvo—established a form for the three-wheeler of today and foreshadowed the modern bicycle, with chain drive and front wheel connected directly to the handlebars.

John Kemp Starley worked with his uncle making Ariel cycles before founding his own company making tricycles that were branded Rover from 1883. Their “safety” bicycle appeared in 1885; the third variant had a diamond frame, rear-wheel chain drive, and two wheels virtually the same size, establishing the template for the modern bike. After Starley's death, the Rover company began making motorbikes and cars, and it would eventually become a key name in British car manufacture.

STELVIO
The greatest mountain pass in the Eastern Alps and probably the most legendary climb tackled by the GIRO D'ITALIA. The Giro only visits every few years though, giving the Stelvio similar cachet to Mont Ventoux in France (see ALPS). The race went up the Stelvio for the first time in 1953 when FAUSTO COPPI used the pass to make an audacious attack on the race leader Hugo Koblet and won the last Giro of his career. As he climbed through the snowdrifts on the second-highest pass in the Alps, he was cheered on by his mistress, the White Lady Giulia Occhini; after the stage they had an assignation in his hotel. One of the greatest moves of BERNARD HINAULT's career came on the mountain in 1980, when he won his first Giro there.

Over 15 miles long and rising to 2,758 m, the Stelvio has a unique history. It was built in 1825 to connect the Austro-Hungarian empire with its
Italian province of Lombardy, and was fiercely fought over during the First World War. Its hairpins are the “greatest driving road in the world” according to the gear-head television show
Top Gear
.

CYCLOSPORTIVES that take in the Stelvio include StelvioBike in August and the Dreiländergiro; there is also a one-off mass ride up the pass, the Cima Coppi,