Cyclopedia (2 page)

 

ALPS
When the Alps were added to the TOUR DE FRANCE route in 1911, the idea of riding a bike over summits such as the 2,646 m high Col du Galibier seemed outlandish: such tracks connecting one mountain village with another were barely passable on foot, even in summer. When the Tour went over that July, the Galibier was still covered in vast snowdrifts and the road was a dirt track deeply rutted with streams of melt water. The road has been improved, but cycling to an altitude of nearly 9,000 ft remains an immense challenge.

Then, the Alps fitted perfectly with Tour founder HENRI DESGRANGE's aim of producing cycling supermen to captivate the readers of his paper
L'Auto.
Desgrange wanted to set his cyclists seemingly impossible tasks to perform amid epic backdrops, to make the most dramatic copy possible for his paper. Now, however, the mountains are accessible to ordinary cyclists thanks to better roads and the organization of a huge range of mass-participation events (see CYCLOSPORTIVES). In these events, the attraction lies in facing the same challenges as the stars of cycling, at a different speed.

The highest paved pass in the Alps is the Cime de la Bonette, sometimes known as the Bonette-Restefonds. It actually consists of two roads, one of which crosses the Col de Restefonds at an altitude just below that of the Col d'Iseran; to create the highest pass in Europe, the local council added a loop up around the black shale scree slopes of the Bonette peak, which is where the Tour goes.

Opinions vary, naturally, as to the toughest climb in the Alps: the north face of the Galibier, as climbed by the Tour in 1911, is a contender, because of the length of the ascent from Valloire over the Col du Télégraphe before the steepest part actually begins. Another contender is the Joux-Plane between Cluses and Morzine in the northern Alps, which is unremittingly steep, but toughest of all is probably
Mont Ventoux. This peak lies a little south of the main Alpine massif. It is longer than the Joux-Plane but almost as steep, with extreme conditions—heat or cold—occurring frequently on the summit. (see TOM SIMPSON to read the story of his death here).

The great Alpine climbs are used by CYCLOSPORTIVE events, of which the best-known is the Marmotte, which has been run for over 30 years. The 174 km course begins in Bourg d'Oisansand goes over the Croix de Fer and Galibier before finishing up l'Alpe d'Huez. La Ventoux ascends the Ventoux at the end of a 170 km loop. On some of the great climbs, local tourist offices run informal timed events up the climbs, so that amateurs can measure their times against the professionals—at l'Alpe d'Huez, for example, this takes place every Monday through the summer.

There are two Raids Alpines run along the lines of the better-known RAID PYRENEAN. These are informal challenges run by the cycling club in Thonon-les-Bains. One route takes cyclists from Lake Geneva to the Mediterranean Coast at Antibes over 43 passes with a total of 18,187 m climbing during the 740 km journey; the other travels from Thonon to Trieste, taking in 44 cols for a total of 22,131 m climbing in the 1,180 km route.

The passes in the southeastern section of the Alps, over the Italian border from France, are a key element in the GIRO D'ITALIA, with their own cycling history: see DOLOMITES for more details.

Further reading:
Tour Climbs
, Chris Sidwells (Collins, 2008).

AMAURY SPORT ORGANISATION (ASO)
The world's leading cycle race organizer, responsible for the TOUR DE FRANCE, LIÈGE–BASTOGNE–LIÈGE and PARIS–ROUBAIX, and other races (see right) which make up the bulk of the French calendar. Based in Paris, the company also owns 49 percent of the Vuelta a España, and has partnerships with Tour of California. In early 2010 it took over the Dauphiné Libéré, giving it a near monopoly on French races.

ASO's lineage goes back to the newspaper
L'Auto
, which ran the first Tour de France. Under HENRI DESGRANGE and his successor Jacques Goddet, the paper organized the race until the outbreak of war in 1940. During the war, Goddet continued to publish, which meant that after liberation,
L'Auto
could no longer appear as all publications that had printed under the Germans were shut down. After the war, the paper and its editor were charged with collaboration, but cleared, and Goddet was given charge of
L'Equipe
, a new paper that was in essence
L'Auto
under a different name. He then ran the race jointly with Émilien Amaury's
Le Parisien Libéré
, with Félix Lévitan as codirector. Amaury bought
L'Equipe
in 1965 and created a multimedia promotional and publishing empire that included venues such as the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris.

Later the group's cycling promotions were split off into a separate company, the Société du Tour de France; early in the 21st century this was merged into ASO, covering all Amaury's sports promotions. Goddet remained in charge of the STF's races until his retirement in 1989, when the former journalist Jean-Marie Leblanc took over. ASO grew rapidly during the 1990s, from less than 50 employees in 1992 to well over 200 in 2008, running 16 sports events including the Paris–Dakar rally, athletics, golf, and equestrianism.

After the 1998 doping scandal involving the Festina team, ASO became aware of the dangers that drugs posed to its races. The problem was that as race organizers, its options were limited: Leblanc tried refusing entry to those the race considered to be suspect, but he had limited support from the UCI, and in any case it was impossible to tell who was suspect and who wasn't. Leblanc retired in 2005; since then the Tour has been run by former television journalist Christian Prudhomme. (See section on the UCI for how ASO fell out with cycling's governing body between 2005 and 2008.)

The Tour is ASO's main source of income, estimated to bring in 70 percent of its profits.

ANDERSON
, Phil (b. England, 1958)

Australian cycling's second great pioneer, after Sir HUBERT OPPERMAN. A whole new antipodean audience became aware of cycling thanks to Anderson's achievements in the 1980s, most notably his two stints in the Tour de France's yellow jersey in 1981 and 1982. Neither a truly great time triallist, sprinter, or climber, Anderson epitomized the battling Aussie, winning races through grit and racecraft.

An early member of the FOREIGN LEGION, he was a young pro with PEUGEOT when he hung on to BERNARD HINAULT at the Pla d'Adet climb in the 1981 Tour to become Australia's first wearer of the
maillot jaune
. Anderson went on to win two Tour stages (Nancy 1982, Quimper 1991) and finished in the Tour's top 10 five times, once while fighting the pain from a broken sternum. He also won two one-day CLASSICS (Amstel Gold 1985, Créteil–Chaville 1986); he was a member of two iconic teams, Peugeot and Panasonic, and together with GREG LEMOND helped to drag European cycling into the modern world.

Anderson was one of the first riders to arrive at a contractual meeting with a lawyer in tow (“I couldn't read French but that was the language of the contract so I turned up with a solicitor from Paris. He said it wasn't worth the paper it was written on,” he said in Rupert Guinness's
Aussie Aussie Aussie Oui, Oui, Oui
). In addition, his relationship with 7-Eleven SOIGNEUR Shelley Verses in the late 1980s broke the long standing taboo over SEX in cycling. He was also a legendary hardman who late in his career suffered from a loose shoulder-joint that would dislocate when he crashed; Anderson would simply put it back in by the roadside and get back on his bike.