A theme across cycling history

Cycling culture and everyday life

Cycling beyond the results: collectors, spectators, amateur riders and everyday use.

Story · 1934–1939

Hand slings, cabins and 144 hours in Forum

Forum’s small cabins, the division of labour between partners and six days on the track reveal how Copenhagen’s six-day race worked in the 1930s.

Open →Story · c. 1900

The centimetres between Gresse and Nasq

A surviving postcard naming stayer Gresse and pacer Nasq opens the story of motor-paced racing, where two people and two machines had to work as one.

Open →Story · 1983

Kund Rindbøl’s time trial on the old main road

A reader remembers 30 kilometres against the clock, a 54 × 14 gear and his mother at the roadside between Holbæk and Roskilde.

Open →Story · 1953–2019

Why the whole Forum cheered for Pair Number 7

From Kay Werner Nielsen and Evan Klamer to Michael Mørkøv and Alex Rasmussen: one race number became the Danish crowd’s own pair.

Open →Story · 2017

A Man of Steel

Albert is 82 and still rides every day. A photographic reader story about a yellow steel Gazelle, daily kilometres and an iron will.

Open →Story · 1990–2007

Principia and the Danish aluminium dream

Three triathletes in Aalborg began welding the aluminium frames they could not afford to buy. Within a few years, Principia was racing far beyond the basement workshop.

Open →Story · 1973–1977

When the Brooklyn team turned GIOS blue

A sponsor's request joined the Brooklyn jersey, the GIOS Super Record and Roger De Vlaeminck's team — and the colour outlived the contract.

Open →Story · 1959–2026

When the bicycle left its first owner

A gold Favorit F11, its 1960 receipt and a meeting with the man who had kept the bicycle for more than six decades.

Open →Story · 1959–1966

When the coal had been delivered, training began

Yvonne Reynders delivered coal on a three-wheeled cargo bicycle before winning seven world titles on road and track.

Open →Story · 1926

When the Tour had to pay the taxi fare

Three riders stepped out of a car in Luchon and disappeared, according to a story passed down from the 1926 Tour. The driver instead took his bill to the race officials.

Open →Story · 1946–1970’erne

Bianchi on the down tube, Drali at the file bench

Peppino Drali built made-to-measure Bianchi frames in Milan. The large factory supplied the name and materials; the small workshop supplied the fit and handwork.

Open →Story · 1980’erne

When pasta took over the breakfast table

Steak did not vanish in a morning, but during the 1980s carbohydrate became something teams could measure, mix into bottles and put on the plate.

Open →Story · 1948

The track bicycle said to weigh 3.48 kilograms

Ugo Bianchi built bicycles for Legnano’s finest riders. A later account credits him with a 3.48-kilogram track machine—a number that invites both curiosity and a raised eyebrow.

Open →Story · 1980–1983

When even the pedal thread had to be aerodynamic

Shimano built a wind tunnel and gave Dura-Ace AX smooth forms. The idea reached all the way to the pedal and showed how far a complete system could be pushed.

Open →Story · 1948–1959

When television found the Tour

First came a live finish. In 1958 moving pictures arrived from the mountains, and a year later the helicopter joined the travelling television production.

Open →Story · 1968–1979

Keetie won almost everything that existed

Keetie van Oosten-Hage became world champion on road and track and set an hour record. She did it in a sport without the Olympics, a Tour or proper daily support.

Open →Story · 1894–1895

Annie Londonderry turned a bicycle journey into a performance

Annie Cohen Kopchovsky travelled around the world by bicycle, ship and train, making names, clothes, advertising and storytelling part of the feat.

Open →Story · 1985–1986

When 7-Eleven came to Europe

The American team learned Europe’s unwritten rules at the Giro and became the first US-based team in the Tour de France a year later.

Open →Story · 2015

When the gear cable disappeared

SRAM RED eTap made road shifting wireless and gave riders, mechanics and frame designers a new way to think about control.

Open →Story · 1984–1985

When the toe strap gave way to a click

LOOK transferred the ski binding’s lock to the racing bicycle. Bernard Hinault’s fifth Tour victory made the clipless pedal visible to the whole peloton.

Open →Story · 1970’erne

Steak at five and coffee with cognac

Before gels and precise carbohydrate plans, the soigneur packed sandwiches, fruit and tarts, filled the bottles and tried to keep riders eating through a long working day.

Open →Story · 1954

When the Tour left France

The Grand Départ in Amsterdam was the first Tour de France start outside France and showed a race becoming a European spectacle.

Open →Story · 1946–1951

The hide-and-seek contest for the Giro's black jersey

Luigi Malabrocca tried to finish last in the 1949 Giro. The problem was that bricklayer Sante Carollo was already almost two hours further behind.

Open →Story · 1974–1983

When Herning acquired its own wooden track

A wooden track from London, a new six-day race in Herning and Ole Ritter as the rider the crowd came to see.

Open →Story · 1960’erne–1970’erne

Drillium – when the drill became a weight-saving tool

Chainrings, brake levers and derailleurs went under the drill. Drillium became weight saving, workshop craft and decoration.

Open →Story · 1912

Three men held at the start on the Buffalo track

A press photograph from Paris shows Thorvald Ellegaard, André Perchicot and Gabriel Poulain in the still moment before a sprint match.

Open →Story · 2018

When the alarm clock cost twenty minutes on the Paris–Roubaix route

Jonas B. Hansen woke up 45 minutes late in Roubaix. By the time he reached the start, the others had left and the rest of his day became one long chase.

Open →Story · 1930s–today

When the Tour de France moved into the children’s room

Small cast cyclists turned pavements, sandpits and carpets into stage races — and later became collectibles with their own moulds, poses and peculiarities.

Open →Story · 2003

The white wilderness and the chicken farmer’s thirst

The bottle was empty on Mont Ventoux. Then a Danish Tour rider from 1958 helped decide whether the reader should accept water.

Open →Story · 2013

When the rainwear came up in the sunshine

A rucksack full of dry clothes, long trousers and a jacket travelled about 30 kilometres up the Großglockner — in 28-degree heat.

Open →Story · 1890s–1930s

Insomnia, butter and cold beer

Chops, cigarettes and imitation: when one rider’s meal could become the entire peloton’s nutrition theory.

Open →Story · 1890–1903

When cycle racing was the Wild West

The heroes, machines, six-day races and physical limits before modern cycle racing.

Open →Story · 1935–1937

When gears arrived — and beer fooled the peloton

The Tour’s resistance to gears and Julien Moineau’s unusual breakaway towards Bordeaux.

Open →Story · 1997

When old bicycles found new roads

L’Eroica began with 92 riders on Tuscany’s white gravel roads.

Open →Bicycle · 1994

Vitus 992

A French bonded-aluminium racer with a Danish frame number, Shimano 105 and Henning Jørgensen’s name on the tubes.

Open →Bicycle · 1959

Favorit F11

A gold Czechoslovak Favorit racer with a documented Serbian ownership history, restored by reader Stefan Đurić.

Open →Bicycle · 1978, oplyst

Olympia

An orange Italian steel racer with Campagnolo Nuovo Gran Sport, Universal brakes and an Ofmega chainset, preserved in the owner’s photographs.

Open →Bicycle · c. 1980

Bernardi

A turquoise Italian steel racer with Campagnolo Nuovo Gran Sport, high-flange hubs and Universal brakes, preserved with an uncertain connection to Guido De Bernardi.

Open →Bicycle · 1986