Читать книгу Cycle Touring in France. Eight tours in Brittany, Picardy, Alsace, Auvergne/Languedoc, Provence, Dordogne/Lot, the Alps and the Pyrenees онлайн

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Two of the toughest climbs of the Tour de France were introduced in the early 1950s: Mont Ventoux in 1951 and l'Alpe d'Huez in 1952. Coppi won the first historic stage of l'Alpe d'Huez, and then went on to win the Tour that year. French riders, including Louison Bobet and Jacques Anquetil, dominated the next five Tours, and the great Spanish climber Federico Bahamontes won the 1959 event. Anquetil went on to win four consecutive Tours between 1961 and 1964, becoming the first of only five riders to notch up more than three victories to date. The Tour's second tragic fatality occurred in 1967 when Tom Simpson collapsed near the summit of Mont Ventoux; Francesco Capeda had died on the Galibier in 1935.

The Belgian Eddy Merckx became the second man to win five Tours (1969, 1970, 1971, 1972 and 1974), subsequently matched by Bernard Hinault (1978, 1979, 1981, 1982 and 1985). Laurent Fignon, winner of two Tours, and Greg Lemond, the first American to win a Tour in 1986, battled against each other for victory in Paris in 1989. It came down to the final time-trial in the capital, which Lemond famously won by the slimmest of margins in the history of the Tour de France: 8 seconds!