- Tim rode the Tour de France with only 19m of training in his legs
- ‘One man’s monumental laziness is another’s bold and selfless scientific experiment’
- The first bicycle was patented in 1818 by a French baron who in response to a famine which depleted the horse population used his hobby horse to prance around on his tiptoes to collect taxes from the locals. It clocked up 12mph which was enough for it to be banned by the terrified citizens of Karlsruhe.
- With a penny-farthing travelling at 12mph the chance of death if it collided with a pedestrian was 100%. During the bike’s peak, over three thousand people died flying over the handle bars.
- When people started cycling not all industries were happy – the tobacco companies complained that a million fewer cigars and cigarettes were being smoked. In Holland (who now have a stereotyped of cycling) where gangs of ‘velocity kannibalen’ routinely attacked bike riders and rendered them unconscious. Some bike companies even designed handlebar grips for a high calibre revolver!
- Nearly every rider of the 1914 Giro started with his visions full of vino rosso. One rider attacked a customs official who had tried to take the wine!
- ‘a Frenchman on holiday is Eeyore with cancer’
- ‘Mankind’s most conspicuous physical asset is neither speed nor strength, but stamina. We’re built for marathons not sprints…. Most mammals need to offload the dangerous heat of intense exercise by stopping to pant; only we and horses can sweat it out on the move.’
- Captain Webb dived off the pier at Dover and swam to France and fashioned a career from unlikely feats of aquatic endurance. He floated in a water tank for 128 hours and attempted to swim across the rapids at the foot of Niagara Falls.
- ‘Calzolari’s mother rode beside him on a penny-farthing for lengthy sections of the 1914 Giro, beating hostile fans with an umbrella and feeding her grateful son spoonfuls of his favourite cinnamon porridge’
- Some sections of the 1914 Giro were 400km slabs!
Places to add to your Italy tour:
Radicofani, Tuscany
Città Della Pieve, Perugia
Montebove, Umbria
Ascoli Piceno, Marche