Cyclopedia (49 page)

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Born:
Grobbendonk, Belgium, December 20, 1933

 

Major wins:
World road race champion 1960–1; Milan–San Remo 1958; Tour of Flanders 1959, 1962; Paris–Roubaix 1961–2, 1965; Liège–Bastogne–Liège 1961; Giro di Lombardia 1959; Ghent–Wevelgem 1956–7, 1962; Paris-Brussels 1956, 1958; Paris–Tours, 1959, 1967; Flèche Wallonne, 1968; points winner Tour de France 1963; 7 Tour stage wins; 12 Giro stage wins; 18 Vuelta stage wins

 

Nicknames:
the Emperor of Herentals, Rik II, the Wheelbreaker

 

One of the great figures of postwar cycling, with between 400 and 500 wins and a record in the one-day CLASSICS surpassed only by EDDY MERCKX, and one of many stars to emerge from FLANDERS.

Unlike Merckx, Van Looy was never a good enough time triallist or climber to win a major Tour but he managed to take every Classic at least once, apart from the Amstel Gold Race, which was founded as his career came to an end. He was a dominant force between 1956 and 1968; he ran his team, the “Red Guard” with an iron hand (see TEAMS for other iconic squads). He selected devoted riders with specific skills—sprinting, working on windy days, stamina, climbing—and decided what gears they used, when they would go to bed, and how much they were paid. One
domestique
had to carry a wrench in case “the Emperor” wanted to adjust his saddle or handlebars in a race.

VÉLIB
Groundbreaking scheme set up in Paris where a vast fleet of rather heavy bikes are rented to anyone for a nominal fee. Lyon was the pioneer, while schemes had been established in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Oslo, but Paris was the first to be established on a truly massive scale in a national capital city with no history of bike use. Other cities have followed suit including London.

Paris has some 20,000 bikes distributed between 1,500 automated rental stations, approximately one station every 300 m. The bikes are gray, made in Hungary by the Lapierre company, which also supplies high-end bikes to the La Fran
ç
aise des Jeux pro team. They weigh 22.5 kg (a top racing bike is around 8 kg), have three-speed gears, lighting by LEDs that are always on and are powered by dynamo, a basket, and a locking system.

Use is by subscription, allowing an unlimited number of trips up to 30 minutes; longer rental periods cost from one euro,
on a sliding scale that increases with the length of rental to 151 euros for 20 hours. The idea is to encourage people to use the bikes for short, frequent trips rather than hanging on to them.

The system has proved massively popular but has not been without its pitfalls. Three people were killed in traffic accidents in the first year, and estimates vary as to the number of bikes that were stolen and recovered in various states of distress or taken to EASTERN EUROPE and AFRICA to be sold on. It seems to be several thousand at least. The company that runs the scheme, JC Decaux, complained initially that it was simply too tough and expensive to make any profit.

Getting the subscription is not totally straightforward: “Like all good things French, getting out a one-day Vélib ticket at a roadside machine involves a Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare of special codes, endless button pressing and loud swearing,” was the verdict of one British writer, Angelique Chrysafis, in the
Guardian
. Computer crashes are not uncommon, while the bikes have to be shipped around the city to compensate for the uneven flow of journeys.

However, in a city that previously barely had a bike on its streets, cycling is now ubiquitous. Vélib has also introduced a whole new social element to the capital as people help each other use the bikes—another chance for the French to initiate romances—while convention demands that if a bike has mechanical trouble, its saddle be pointed in the air to alert other users and maintenance teams.

VÉLOCIO
Pen name of the

JOURNALIST Paul de Viviès, the man who invented the term “
cyclotourisme
” and edited the magazine
Le Cyclisme
in which he described his tours in glowing detail. Is credited with inventing the derailleur, although this is not strictly accurate (see GEARS); he was, however, a tireless campaigner on behalf of multiple gearing and at the center of a group in Saint-Etienne that developed the gears. He is best known for:

 

 

VELOCIPEDE
Term loosely used to describe early bicycles prior to the arrival of the penny farthing in the 1870s; see BICYCLE, BONESHAKER, and DRAISIENNE for more details.

 

The name of Paris's most celebrated indoor track has come to stand for French complicity in the deportation of Jews to Nazi death camps during the Second World War. The track is known mainly now for the Rafle du Vél d'Hiv (the Vél d'Hiv roundup) in which thousands of Jews were detained in the track before deportation. A memorial now stands near the site of the track at Quai de Grenelle, close to the Eiffel Tower.

The Vél d'Hiv was built by HENRI DESGRANGE after an earlier track owned by his paper
L 'Auto
was demolished during construction of the Eiffel Tower. It hosted various sports but was best known for cycling, with Ernest Hemingway among those who watched racing there. It could hold 14,000 people and its super-steep bankings were known as “the cliffs.” It was the scene of a memorable near-riot in 1947 when the crowd protested ajudging decision by throwing anything they could lay hands on: food, cushions, crutches, and even a chamberpot.

By then the track had a gruesome past. During World War II it was used for rallies by France's largest fascist party and was first used as a prison in summer 1941. The Rafle du Vél d'Hiv occurred the following year, when police and gendarmes rounded up 13,000 Jews and imprisoned an estimated 7,500 in the track for five days, in appalling conditions due to the heat—the glass in the massive roof had been painted blue to deter bombing and the windows were kept closed. There were only five lavatories and one water tap, and a little food and water brought in by Quakers and the Red Cross. There were many suicides, and any escapees were shot. From there prisoners were taken to camps outside Paris and thence to Nazi death camps.

There is still debate about the complicity of the man in charge of the track, Jacques Goddet, who went on to run the Tour for 40 years after the war. It is known that he handed over the keys to the Germans although
his supporters claim that he had no choice.

The track was demolished in 1959 after a fire, and the site is now occupied by flats. The memorial stands on a curved base, representing the track, and depicts deportees including children, a pregnant woman, and a sick man. It was inaugurated in 1994; a year later the French president Jacques Chirac opened the debate about France's past by acknowledging that French gendarmerie had collaborated with the occupying forces. It is the site of an annual holocaust memorial ceremony.