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From The Archives: Moreau ’07

cosmo — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 22:47:52 +0000

I realize that 2007 was indeed a very open Tour, but I think Cyclingnews may have been enjoying a joke at our expense when they wrote up this preview:

In fairness, Moreau had indeed been putting down some of his best post-Festina riding in 2007, winning the Dauphine and even hanging with the leaders as they made some uncharacteristically soft attacks in the early TdF climbs.

But Moreau has a long history of needing excuses. When the GC race got tight, the Frenchmen found himself caught out by a field-splitting move from a Vino’-led Astana squad, and it was all downhill from there.

Moreau can probably glean some redemption form the fact that two convicted dopers contributed greatly to his implosion, but finally finishing in 37th, over 90 minutes down, it’s hard to cast the Frenchman as a hard-luck story of “what if…”

The Day the Hard Men Cried

cosmo — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:36:20 +0000

This might be old news, but it’s the best video footage I’ve seen of the legendary Gavia stage at the ’88 Giro. There isn’t all that much snow porn in this clip (certainly not compared to the famous poster), but the surprising video quality, actual racing coverage, and pure human carnage (semi-conscious Bob Roll at 6:45) are fantastic.

(via All Hail The Black Market; see also: inferior Gavia footage.)

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You’d Be Concerned, Too

cosmo — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:07:09 +0000

As Jens Voight’s crash reminded us this summer, there’s no end to the danger lurking in the high mountains of the Tour. But the woman in this image—taken from the excellent, free-to-use collection of the Nationaal Archief—has special reason to be concerned.

Wim Van Est was the first Dutchman to don the yellow jersey in 1951, winning the 12th stage to Dax from a break that finished well clear of the field. He was still in yellow the next day when he flatted (or misjudged a bend) and went flying off the Col d’Abisque and down 200 feet into a nearby ravine.

Miraculously, Van Est survived the tumble intact. However, the rock face he soared off of was so steep—and the state of his understandable mental collapse so total—that he had to be hoisted back to the roadway with a daisy chain of tubular tires.

I suspect that this remarkable tumble was the genesis of Vrau Van Est’s radio-and-portrait setup.

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