Le Tour De France WeeklyLe Tour De France Weekly

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El diablo (the devil)Dieter “Didi” Senft (born February 7, 1952 in Reichenwalde, Germany) is known as the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia devil or El Diablo. Since 1993, he has been seen in the Tour and Giro’s many stages wearing his red devil costume and painting trident symbols on the road some miles before he appears. Senft attributes the inspiration for the costume to German cycling announcer Herbert Watterot who called the last lap of local criterium races, “the Red Devil’s Lap.”[citation needed] He is also an inventor who has created over 100 bicycles, including the largest in the world.

He is listed in the Guinness Book of Records for building the largest mobile guitar (taking the form of a bicycle).During multi-day stage races he often travels ahead of the race itself in a custom-decorated camper vehicle, picking various locations for the race to pass by. He is also a regular attendee at important single day races, such as the spring classics and world championships.

During the 2006 edition of Tour of Switzerland, Didi Senft painted his signature trident on the road the day before the competitors came by his door. But later that day Swiss police arrived and said it was illegal and that he must either pay a fine or go to jail. He was also forced to remove the painting from the road. He was again in the spotlight at Euro 2008 when he rode through Klagenfurt in his specially created “Football Bike” prior to the Germany vs Croatia Match. In 2012, Senft confirmed he would miss the Tour de France for the first time since 1993 after undergoing sur-gery. “I just got back from having my head x-rayed, the third time in three weeks, I feel like a Chernobyl reactor,” he told Cyclingnews.com. “Today the results were much better and I can start doing more things every day.”[4] Following his enforced absence from events, Senft was present at the 2012 World Championships.

In 2013, Senft appeared during stage 15 on the slopes of Mont Ventoux. He was dressed in yellow to celebrate the 100th edition of the tour, and appeared shortly after Chris Froome (the eventual stage winner) took position at the front of the race. He appeared for a second time during in 2013 on stage 18; he was located at the corner of the first (of twenty-one) hairpin bends up Alpe d’Huez. Senft made his first appearance at the 2014 Tour de France in the town of Armentières, towards the end of stage 4, the first stage of the race to take place in France.

Credits: www. .wikipedia.org

he Tour de France was created in 1903. The roots of the Tour de France trace to the Dreyfus Affair, a cause célèbre that divided France at the end of the 19th century over the innocence of Alfred Dreyfus, a soldier convicted—though later exonerated—of selling military secrets to the Germans. Opinions became heated and

there were demonstrations by both sides. One was what the historian Eugen Weber called “an absurd political shindig” at the Auteuil horse-race course in Paris in 1899. Among those involved was Comte Jules-Albert de Dion, the owner of the De Dion-Bouton car works, who believed Dreyfus was guilty. De Dion served 15 days in jail and was fined 100 francs for his role at Auteuil, which included strik-ing Émile Loubet, the president of France, on the head with a walking stick.

The incident at Auteuil, said Weber, was “...tai-lor-made for the sporting press.” The first and the largest daily sports newspaper in France was Le Vélo, which sold 80,000 copies a day. Its editor, Pierre Gif-fard, thought Dreyfus innocent. He reported the arrest in a way that displeased de Dion, who was so angry that he joined other anti-Dreyfusards such as Adolphe Clément and Édouard Michelin and opened a rival daily sports paper, L’Auto.

The new newspaper appointed Henri Desgrange as the editor. He was a prominent cyclist and owner with Victor Goddet of the velodrome at the Parc des Princes. De Dion knew him through his cycling reputation, through the books and cycling articles that he had written, and through press arti-cles he had written for the Clément tyre company.

L’Auto was not the success its backers wanted. Stagnating sales lower than the rival it was intended to surpass led to a crisis meeting on 20 November 1902 on the middle floor of L’Auto’s office at 10 Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, Paris. The last to speak was the most junior there, the chief cycling journalist, a 26-year-old named Géo Lefèvre. Desgrange had poached him

History of the Tour De France

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from Giffard’s paper. Lefèvre suggested a six-day race of the sort popular on the track but all around France. Long-distance

cycle races were a popular means to sell more newspapers, but nothing of the length that

Lefèvre suggested had been attempted. If it succeeded, it would help L’Au-

to match its rival and perhaps put it out of business. It

could, as Desgrange said, “nail Giffard’s

beak shut.” Des-grange and Lefèvre discussed it after lunch. Desgrange was

doubtful but the paper’s financial director, Victor Goddet, was enthusiastic. He handed Desgrange the keys to the

company safe and said: “Take whatever you need.” L’Auto announced the race on 19 January 1903.

The first Tour de France was staged in 1903. The plan was a five-stage race from 31 May to 5 July, starting in Paris and stopping in Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux and Nantes before returning to Paris. Toulouse was added later to break the long haul across southern France from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Stages would go through the night and finish next afternoon, with rest days before riders set off again. But this proved too daunting and the costs too great for most and only 15 competitors had entered. Desgrange had never been wholly convinced and he

came close to dropping the idea. Instead, he cut the length to 19 days, changed the dates to 1 to 19 July,

and offered a daily allowance to those who averaged at least 20 km/h on all the stages, equivalent to what a rid-

er would have expected to earn each day had he worked in a factory. He also cut the entry fee from 20 to 10 francs

and set the first prize at 12,000 francs and the prize for each day’s winner at 3,000 francs. The winner would thereby win

six times what most workers earned in a year. That attracted between 60 and 80 entrants – the higher number may have in-

cluded serious inquiries and some who dropped out – among them not just professionals but amateurs, some unemployed, some simply

adventurous. Desgrange seems not to have forgotten the Dreyfus Affair that launched

his race and raised the passions of his backers. He announced his new race on 1 July 1903 by citing the writer Émile Zola, whose open letter in which every para-

graph started” J’accuse ...” led to Dreyfus’s acquittal, establishing the florid style he used henceforth.

Credits: www. wikipedia.org

Tour De Frace: Mountain StagesTour De Frace:he Football World Cup Final will take place on July 13th. The next day, Bastille Day, will be the first big mountain stage of the 2014 Tour de France. Nice scheduling! It’s a clock-wise Tour this year. From England, to cobbles, into the

Vosges mountains, through the Alps, a toe into Spain, up and over the Pyrenées, and then off to Paris. Fun.

By my count, there are sixty-four categorised climbs in this Tour. Recently, fifty or so has been the norm. And while Stage 10 may the first big mountain stage, prior to this there are almost 30 categorised climbs. So while in this preview, I will

focus on the six mountain stages, take note that there are plenty of other very interesting stages this year (stages 2, 5, and 8, in particular look exciting).

While I was admittedly disappointed to see only two Alps stages (boo!), 2014 will introduce the Vosges moun-tains to many of us. There are three terrific stages (8-10) in this eastern France mountain range that runs along the German border. Full of medium to low altitude cols on quiet roads, it’s a great place for cyclo-tourists. Big mountains this year? Not really. And you’d be hard pressed to convince me that there is a “Queen” stage. The most difficult climb in this Tour would have been the 7th most difficult in the recent Giro. In other words, there are no monster climbs. None. And few climbs that are terribly steep. But, along with some shorter than usual mountain stages, perhaps this will lead to some exciting racing.

This will be a long article. I’ll add pictures for those that hate reading. But below I will: 1.Rank the toughest 25 climbs by difficulty. 2.Take a quick look at each of the six mountain stages. 3.Give a brief recommendation for cyclo-tour-ists attending any of these stages. Allons-y (let’s go)! Below are the statistics for all twenty-five Hors-Categorie, Category 1, and Cat-egory 2 climbs including a difficulty rating.

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Credits: www.podiumcafe.com

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