Cyclopedia. Part 14

POLO Bicycle polo was a demonstration sport at the London OLYMPIC GAMES in 1908. The gold went to IRELAND, which was the nation where the sport was founded in 1891 by one Richard J. Mecredy.

Bicycle polo is exactly what it sounds like-a version of the horseback game on two wheels, with steeds that don't eat and can be bought by the common man. Field dimensions vary from 150 by 100 meters to 100 by 80 meters (for some reason the French prefer a smaller field). The ball is 12 to 15 inches around, the mallets three feet long. Six or seven players make up a team, with four or five on the field at once. (Similarly, the French like a different number of players.) Internationals last 30 minutes broken up into four seven-and-a-half minute chukkas. If a match runs to extra time, the goals may be widened. The rules are simple: a sliding scale of extra hits or goals for fouls, yellow and red cards. The UCI recognizes cycle polo and there is an annual world champions.h.i.+p. India, USA, and Canada are among the strongest nations.

POSTERS The rapid expansion in bicycle production at the end of the 19th century (see BICYCLE for background) produced intense compet.i.tion between bike makers who vied to produce the most attractive posters to sell their products. In Paris, where decorative poster art had begun in the mid-19th century with the lithographic printing work of Jules Cheret, there was a brief period when art and cycling came together. Artists such as HENRI DE TOULOUSE-LAUTREC and Pal-the nom de plume of Jean de Paleologue-glamorized cycling with the same talent that had been used to advertise the exoticism of Paris's demi-monde with its revues such as those at the Moulin Rouge.

Many of the images were risque for the time: a naked woman with the wings of Mercury publicized Gladiator cycles; a bare-breasted Amazon (by Pal) the appropriately named Liberator Cycles; cycling lessons at the Palais-Sport in Paris were advertised by a young lady in suspenders. The British firm Humber used a more staid gentleman in regulation Cyclists' Touring Club gear but also a coquettish ad with a young gentleman stealing a kiss from his riding partner.

Most distinctive of all, however, was Toulouse-Lautrec's depiction of an early race at London's Catford Velodrome to publicize the Simpson chain sold by Spoke's bike shop. La Chaine Simpson includes the early champion Constant Huret amid a variety of multiple pacing bikes and raffish onlookers. (See ART to read about other greats who have used cycling for inspiration.) To give some idea of what these posters are worth, an original of Pal's native American chief advertising Cleveland cycles can be bought for under $10,000 while an original of La Chaine Simpson has been valued at nudging $100,000.

Aficionados could also seek out posters used to advertise the Peace Race (see EASTERN EUROPE), in the distinctive heroic style of Socialist Realist art.

POULIDOR, Raymond (b. France, 1936) The most popular cyclist FRANCE has ever produced was still a fixture at the Tour more than 40 years after his heyday in the 1960s when he went head-to-head with JACQUES ANQUETIL in one of the greatest RIVALRIES cycling has seen. "Poupou" never won the Tour and never wore the yellow jersey, but he did win hearts for his shy smile, constant misfortune, and the courage he showed in attacking first Anquetil-his equal in the mountains and far superior in the time trials-and later EDDY MERCKX, who was simply better in every domain.

At the peak of his celebrity it was estimated that he would be first choice as a dinner guest for almost half the French population. It was said that while French men admired Anquetil for his success, their wives all wanted to mother his great rival. His nickname gave rise to the headline Poupoularite, while politicians refer to Poulidor syndrome: France's perceived tendency to accept being a worthy loser rather than a clinical winner. His memoirs summed up his career: La Gloire sans le Maillot Jaune (1977).

Born of farming stock in the Ma.s.sif Central, Poulidor seemed the country boy alongside the more sophisticated Anquetil and he raced in an agricultural way, more reliant on brute strength than tactics. He still won the VUELTA A ESPAnA and MilanSan Remo but is better remembered for his incredible record in the Tour: 14 starts and 12 finishes, with 11 top 10 overall placings and 8 finishes in second or third overall. The moment when he captivated France came in the 1964 race when he and Anquetil fought out an elbow-to-elbow battle on the Puy-de-Dome, with Poulidor gaining the upper hand on that occasion but narrowly missing out on the yellow jersey. His career was a model of LONGEVITY, with third-place Tour finishes in 1962 and in 1976 when he was 40 years old. Since retirement that year, Poulidor has returned to the race every year, and is the undisputed star of the publicity caravan promoting products as diverse as banks and coffee.

POWER The question of how many lightbulbs a cyclist can power has been kicked around for over a century and gained new resonance in the 1990s as it became possible to make an accurate measurement of the wattage produced by a bike rider using POWER CRANKS. Generating stations powered by bikes were used in England in the early 20th century, while BSA produced a cycle generator for the army to power lights and communication devices in the field during the Second World War.

In a sprint, a top cyclist can put out about 2,500 watts for about 5 seconds; over a more sustained effort, say 10 seconds, it would be about 1,800 watts; in a 4-minute track pursuit, about 500 watts; in a time trial, a cyclist with BRADLEY WIGGINS's physique, for example, could sustain about 430 watts for an hour; on an easy training ride where it's possible to talk to your neighbor, the average cyclist would be putting out around 200 watts.

An investigation by the BBC's Focus magazine in October 2009 concluded that if the average "reasonably fit" cyclist's sustained power output was between 100 and 150 watts of energy, a family home would need about 100 cyclists on permanent standby to keep all its electrical devices functioning. The Human Power Station came up with the following: A load of was.h.i.+ng to dry in a tumble dryer would require 32 to 49 cyclists pedaling for an hour (4,850 watts). Lighting a room with energy-saving lightbulbs could be dealt with by just one bike rider. An average LCD television (130 watts) would need one cyclist; a plasma TV (320 watts), three or four cyclists. And merely keeping devices on standby and a fridge going would need two cyclists pedaling constantly. And making your morning coffee (800 watts), that would call for 8 to 10 cyclists, depending on how many cups you need.

POWER FACTOID.

A sprint cyclist making a starting effort produces, briefly, more torque than a Formula One car. Team GB's team sprint Man One Jamie Staff can put out 600 newton meters in the first half of his first pedal revolution.

4.

POWER CRANKS There are several ways of measuring POWER output-sensors in the chain, sensors on the roller of a stationary home trainer-but the SRM (Schoberer Rad Messtechnik) German-made crankset is the best. It has eight strain gauges that measure the deflection in the chain ring as a cyclist pushes down on the pedals. The information is translated into a measure of the power output in watts, which can in turn be downloaded into a computer.

The cranks first appeared in the mid-1990s and had a large, crude handlebar computer; this has now been shrunk to the extent that pro cyclists carry the devices in races. The cranks are integral to most serious training programs as they offer the best objective measure of how hard a cyclist is able to work. Heart-rate monitors appeared at the end of the 1980s, and are accurate, but pulse rate is subject to factors such as heat and fatigue, which make training to a set rate difficult: on the other hand, you can either reach a set power output or you can't.

Information from the cranks is one of the keys to the success of the GREAT BRITAIN cycling team (see CHRIS HOY, BRADLEY WIGGINS). "We can understand the physics of what is going on, so we can tell where best to spend our time and energy," the team's then performance scientist Scott Gardner explained in 2008.

The team has over 100 of the cranks-costing about 2,000 each-and employs a technologist in the Manchester Velodrome whose princ.i.p.al task is to ensure they are always perfectly calibrated.

They use the data to tweak training programs and to devise strategies for track races-for example, the graphs showing the riders' power output for a team pursuit can be compared with their speed to see how the formation can be changed to be most efficient. SRM information can also be used to model performance on a treadmill: the precise power outputs on an SRM file for a mountain-bike race, say a rehearsal on the Beijing course, could be replicated in training.

PYRENeES The inclusion of France's southern mountain range in the TOUR DE FRANCE route in 1910 was a turning point for cycling. The race organizer HENRI DESGRANGE sent the riders over four climbs that have acquired legendary status: the Peyresourde, Aspin, Tourmalet, and Aubisque. It was on the latter that the key episode occurred: the eventual race winner Octave Lapize (see HEROIC ERA) went past a group of organizers and spat out the word "a.s.sa.s.sins." Desgrange was absent: uncertain whether the first mountain stage would be a success he decided to stay away. Nonetheless, he was instantly aware of the headlines that could be made by sending Tour cyclists where mere mortals dared not venture, so next year he sent the Tour into the ALPS.

The climbs of the Pyrenees have a different character compared to those in the other major Ma.s.sif. They tend to be shorter than in the Alps and do not climb so high. The only pa.s.s over 2,000 m in the Pyrenees that is regularly climbed in the Tour is the Tourmalet, a mere 2,115 m compared to over 2,600 m for the Galibier and Iseran in the Alps.

On the other hand, the Pyrenees offer steeper climbing, and roads that have been less well engineered: evenly graded hairpins and wide carriageways are relatively rare. "Walls" such as the Col de Marie-Blanque and the Col de Bagargui-around 13 percent-are typical, as are narrow, tightly hairpinned climbs such as the Col d'Agnes.

The slopes of the mountains around the climbs tend to be gentler and greener, less spoilt by ski resorts and industry.

As in the Alps, numerous CYCLOSPORTIVE events take in the great climbs. They include the Hubert Arbes, run by one of BERNARD HINAULT's old teammates, which takes in the Tourmalet and the Soulor/ Aubisque; from the Spanish side, the Quebrantahuesos sportif includes the Marie-Blanque.

Further reading: Tour Climbs, Chris Sidwells, Collins, 2008 (SEE RAID PYRENEAN FOR AN INFORMAL IF PAINFUL WAY TO TACKLE THE GREAT CLIMBS IN ONE GO).

Q.

QUOTES.

Tour de France "Riding up a mountain in the Tour if you are bad is like being sick."

-ROBERT MILLAR "Do they not have wings, those men who have today managed to climb to heights where eagles dare not go?"

-Tour founder HENRI DESGRANGE on climbers "Getting married is not like the Tour de France. You can't just climb off if it goes badly."

-SEAN KELLY "Ride like you just stole something."

-LANCE ARMSTRONG to his teammate Floyd Landis in the 2004 Tour "The Tour de France produces in me such persistent satisfaction that my saliva flows in imperceptible but stubborn streams."

-Salvador Dali (see ART) "The Tour is the nearest thing to life outside life itself. You're born and you set out. For some, things go wrong from the start ... sometimes the deserving win. Those with connections have every advantage ... sometimes justice puts the boot in and upsets things."

-Terry

Davenport in Ralph Hurne's The Yellow Jersey (see BOOKS-FICTION)

Personalities "The bike comes first.

"-Sean Kelly after his wife Linda said he cared about his car and his bike more than about her "Anything beats working for a living and I've been delaying the inevitable as long as possible."

-SEAN YATES on why he has never stopped cycling "The thing is not where you finished, but how much [money] did you make."

-TOM SIMPSON "People like watching me on television because they never know if I'll still be in the bunch when they come back from having a quick leak."

-The gloriously unpredictable Pedro Delgado of SPAIN "Some cyclists race to give people a thrill, some race to win. I belong to the second group."

-Five-times Tour winner and quiet man MIGUEL INDURAIN "If you put a cup of milk between his shoulders at the foot of a mountain he would cross the summit without spilling a drop."

-Rene Vietto on the super-stylish campionissimo ALFREDO BINDA "If I had to make the perfect cyclist I would give him ANQUETIL's legs, Armstrong's brain, the power and authority of HINAULT, Indurain's heart and one of my bikes."

-EDDY MERCKX Cycling and the bike "G.o.d created the bicycle as a tool for men to show effort and exaltation on the hard road of life."

-Motto of the cycling CHAPEL at Madonna del Ghisallo "There are many times when physically I would welcome a car hitting me and cutting it all short there and then, I hurt so much."

-Alf Engers (see TIME TRIALLING) "A perfect expression of the machine aesthetic."

-designer Stephen Bayley "You would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who nearly are half men and half bicycles."

-Flann O'Brien (The Third Policeman, see BOOKS-FICTION) "[The velocipede] replaces collective brutish unintelligent speed with collective speed, obeying man's will."

-Richard Lesclide, Le Velocipede Ill.u.s.tre, 1869 "To ride a bicycle properly is very like a love affair-chiefly it is a matter of faith. Believe you can do it, and the thing is done; doubt and for the life of you, you cannot."

-H. G. Wells (The Wheels of Chance, see BOOKS-FICTION) "'There is a lot of uphill about a bicycle tour,' said George, 'and the wind is against you.' 'So there is downhill, and the wind behind you,' said Harris."

-Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men on the b.u.mmel R.

RACE ACROSS AMERICA Iconic long-distance event run from the West Coast of the UNITED STATES to the East, founded in 1982 as the Great American Bike Race. That event was run from Santa Monica to the Empire State Building, had just four entrants, and was won by Lon Haldeman in 9 days, 20 hours, 2 minutes, at an average of 12.57 mph, a far cry from the first crossing of the US in 1887, when the journalist George Nellis took just under 80 days on a HIGH-WHEELER.

The RAAM is not run in stages, but instead the clock runs continuously as on a RECORD attempt such as the END TO END, making it a battle against sleep deprivation as well as a test of cycling stamina. Sometimes up to half the solo racers pull out due to exhaustion. As in record attempts, the cyclists have support teams traveling with them; at night they must be accompanied by a vehicle with flas.h.i.+ng lights for safety reasons.

The race is divided into solo and team categories, with teams of up to eight riders permitted, each man racing a separate leg while the others rest. The relay teams average over 500 miles per day and have gotten the record down to six or seven days although the solo category remains the most prestigious. In 1989 teams of REc.u.mBENT cycles entered. Entrants must be members of the Ultra Marathon Cycling a.s.sociation and must have ridden a set number of qualifying events.

Because the course varies from year to year-although it is always run west to east-RAAM records are measured in average speed, not time. The fastest average is by Pete Penseyres in 1986, 15.4 mph for 3,107 miles; the women's record was set by Seana Hogan (1995), 13.23 mph for 2,912 miles.

(SEE PARISBRESTPARIS AND RAID PYRENEAN FOR THE MOST LEGENDARY LONG-DISTANCE EVENTS IN EUROPE) RADIOS Since the late 1990s, team managers and riders in professional races have used small radios for communication; the rider carries a transmitter/ receiver in the back pocket of his jersey connected to an earpiece/ microphone while the manager has a microphone and receiver in the car. If the race is being televised live, the manager or mechanic will have a small-screen TV in the car so that he can observe the race in real time and issue instructions-time gaps on a break, when to chase a break or get across to an attack-as the action happens. The radios are also used to warn riders of obstacles such as traffic islands and dangerous corners, while a sprinter such as MARK CAVENDISH will be advised on conditions close to the finish; riders will use the system to tell the manager if they need service, for example after a crash or puncture.

The system originated in the US and was brought to Europe by GREG LEMOND in 1991. The Motorola team of SEAN YATES, PHIL ANDERSON, and LANCE ARMSTRONG was the first squad to use it from 1994 onwards. Previously, communication between riders and team staff was minimal. The managers would rely on Radio Tour-the internal radio system used by most major races-while the riders would watch for a blackboard carried by a motorcycle marshal, on which was written information such as a break's time gap and the numbers of the riders in a move. To give instructions to his riders, the manager would have to wait for one of them to call him to the back of the bunch-for example to collect bottles-or he would have to drive up to the bunch and find them.

There is some debate about the use of the radios, as opponents claim it gives the managers too much influence over tactics and the riders are mere p.a.w.ns. In particular, it is said that attacking racing is impossible, because teams can react so quickly to threatening moves. To encourage riders to use their initiative, the UCI banned radios in under-23 races. At the 2009 TOUR DE FRANCE, the organizers attempted to run two stages without radios being used, but were stymied when riders did not race, apparently in protest. The UCI decided at the end of 2009 that it would phase out the devices' use, but did not give a timescale and it seems that a battle with the teams might well be in prospect.

RAID PYRENEAN An informal challenge for the fit cyclist that takes in all the major pa.s.ses in the PYRENeES and has been going since 1952. The 713 km route from Hendaye on the Atlantic to Cerbere on the Mediterranean is pre-set, includes 11,000 m of climbing and has to be covered within a time limit of 100 hours. There is a window when it can be done, between June and September, when the highest pa.s.ses are free of snow.

Cyclists wis.h.i.+ng to tackle the Raid have to acquire pa.s.s books (brevets) from the organizing club, CC Bearnais, in the town of Pau. They supply accommodation info and numbered bike tags, as well as medals for those completing the course. The books are stamped at overnight stops, while there may be informal checkpoints along the way. The Raid can be tackled independently, although there are also package companies that will arrange the trip.

The Alpine equivalents, the Raids Alpine (see ALPS) are longer, tougher, and less popular. Other less well-known raids include CalaisBrindisi and ParisGibraltar while France has nine "diagonals" connecting the extremes of the country, starting or finis.h.i.+ng in Brest, Strasbourg, Perpignan, Dunkirk, Menton, and Hendaye.

RALEIGH One of the world's most celebrated bike makers, once the biggest in the world. Its world-famous "heron" frame badge once graced an industry leader, st.u.r.dy roadsters ridden worldwide, and a TOUR DE FRANCE winner.

The company began in 1886 on Raleigh Street in Nottingham, England, in a small workshop that made three safety bicycles a week; local lawyer Frank Bowden bought the operation and founded the Raleigh Cycle Company in 1888. One of Raleigh's earliest stars was the great American track cyclist A. A. ZIMMERMAN.

Apart from a brief spell as a public company it remained in the Bowden family until 1934, making cycles, Sturmey Archer hub gears-patented in 1902-motorcycles, and motorbike gear boxes. By the 1920s the company was making 3,000 cycles per week.

It flirted with making a three-wheel car but by 1938 was solely a bike company turning out half a million bikes a year. Production was over a million in 1951, at the zenith of the British cycle industry, but business went rapidly downhill in the 1950s as the car gained in popularity. A series of mergers, including Raleigh's own takeover by the Tube Investments Group, brought other famous British cycle and motorcycle names such as BSA, Triumph, Sunbeam, and Hercules under the Raleigh banner.

The 1960s saw attempts at collaboration with SIR ALEX MOULTON to produce small-wheel bikes, after Moulton's invention had revitalized the market. From 1965 Raleigh competed with its own small-wheeler, the RSW16, with a ma.s.sively expensive publicity campaign. The war with Moulton ended when Raleigh bought its compet.i.tor out. With two hugely successful models, the Chopper, an iconic kids' bike, and the Twenty, a small-wheel shopping bike, the 1970s saw the company boom again. Raleigh profited from a ma.s.sive increase in the market in the UNITED STATES and had other overseas operations including the Gazelle company in Holland and large sales of cla.s.sic old roadsters across the former British empire. By 1975 its site in Nottingham covered 75 acres.

In Europe, Raleigh sponsored the most successful professional team of the late 1970s and early 1980s, managed by the Dutchman Peter Post but barely ever including more than one British cyclist in its lineup. Post brought the company world t.i.tles in 1978 and 1979 and the Tour de France t.i.tle with Joop Zoetemelk in 1980, with 77 stage wins in the Tour between 1976 and 1983.

Raleigh had largely abandoned high-end racing bikes at the end of the 1950s, producing them in the 1960s through the Carlton brand then changing tack to its own lightweight department, which never truly flourished. Along with much of British manufacturing, Raleigh suffered in the 1980s when the British cycle market expanded but mainly on the back of imported machines and the sudden craze for BMX; Raleigh was. .h.i.t by imports-its image simply wasn't glamorous, and its products seemed backward-while the BMX boom was shortlived. Market share plummeted, component manufacture gradually ceased, jobs were slashed, and the company was sold in 1987 to Derby International, a specially created parent company. Initially, Raleigh flourished again, as the market grew after the arrival of the MOUNTAIN BIKE, thanks in part to a highly successful off-road team led by stars such as the glamorous Caroline Alexander and a high-end range of mountain-bikes under the M-Trax label. Derby expanded to buy a string of cycle makers, most notably US mountain-bike company Diamondback.

The Raleigh Team Song =.

One of the more forgettable Raleigh products was a record made by the TI-Raleigh squad in the late 1970s. "Wie zijn de vedettes" translates roughly as "Who are the stars?" and was described by Tim Clifford in Cycle Sport magazine as "as unholy a slab of pre-techno Europop as you could ever hope to encounter. Imagine a ditty that crosses oompah band with can-can and throws in a bit of banjo along the way and you will have the drift. Wisely the team's singing ch.o.r.es are restricted to the chorus-an unfortunate affair that has them singing 'O wie o wie o wie' rather a lot-and adding inexplicable 'ha-ha-ha-ha' laughing descants at random during the verses."

The final verse, roughly translated, runs like this: We want the glory

Ours is the victory

Up the Champs-Elysees

Our first prize awaits

We don't care

We just want the yellow

And Holland will sing along

Another piece of less-than-tasteful Eurotrash was produced by HOUR RECORD breaker FRANCESCO MOSER but fortunately this has sunk without trace.

In the early 1990s, Raleigh devised the first hybrid bike, the Pioneer, which used mountainbike technology adapted for solely on-road use, to get away from the exclusive image of racing bikes. The company also experimented with suspension at the inexpensive end of the market, something that is ubiquitous today, and produced an early electric bike, the Select, in 1997.