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Cycling Legends Media, Everton (2026)

17/09/2026

Simpson Retro 2026

A weekend of smiles and beautiful bikes celebrating the life and legacy of Tom Simpson.

Thank you to everyone who attended for making it such a joyous weekend, and to our many volunteers, without you it simply couldn’t run.

Simpson Retro will be returning in September 2027 - exact dates are tbc so watch this space!

17/09/2026

Nicole Cooke throws her arms into the air after winning the final stage of the 2006 Thüringen Rundfahrt, securing overall victory in one of Europe’s leading women’s stage races. The picture captures the essence of Cooke; powerful, fearless and utterly committed. She was not simply part of the rise of British cycling; she was a force of nature who forged her own path to the top.

Born in Swansea and raised in the Vale of Glamorgan, Cooke possessed an exceptional intelligence as well as extraordinary athletic ability. She achieved the best A-level results of any girl in Britain in her year, but cycling was the arena in which her talent burned brightest. She began racing at 11 and, aged just 16, became the youngest rider ever to win a senior British road race title.

Four junior world titles followed across road racing, time trialling and mountain biking. Then, in her first professional season, Cooke won major races in Italy, France and the Netherlands, before becoming the first Welsh cyclist to win Commonwealth Games road-race gold.

Nothing came easily, though. Cooke entered a professional world in which women were routinely underpaid, poorly supported and expected to tolerate things they should never have faced. When her first team suggested that she take certain “medicines” during the women’s Tour de France, she refused. The team stopped paying her and even took away her bicycle. Cooke would not compromise.

By the time this photograph was taken, she was the world’s number one female road racer. In 2006 she also won La Grande Boucle Féminine, in its time the closest equivalent of the women’s Tour de France, becoming the first British cyclist to win it. She won it again in 2007.

Her defining season came in 2008. Cooke won Britain’s first Olympic road-race gold medal in Beijing, delivering Team GB’s first gold of those Games, then became the first cyclist in history, male or female, to win the Olympic and world road race titles in the same year.

British cycling transformed during Nicole Cooke’s career, but Cooke was never created by a system. She challenged systems, resisted them when necessary and succeeded on her own terms. That independence made her difficult for some people. It also made her one of Britain’s greatest-ever cyclists.

📸 Cycling Legends Collection

13/09/2026

Who was cycling’s first great single-day race rider? A Belgian perhaps; chiselled from Flemish granite, built to withstand rain, wind, mud and cobbles? It wasn’t, it wasn’t a big strong Dutchman either, or a stylish Italian or feisty Frenchman. It was a man from the land of the cuckoo clock. A Swiss rider called Heiri Suter, although as you can see from today’s photo, he could have been born a cobblestone’s throw from Oude Kwaremont.

Suter was the first of a breed that emerged in the 1920s, a rider who made the great one-day races his career. He never rode a grand tour, preferring to concentrate on races where everything was decided between dawn and dusk. Races in which strength, stamina, tactical judgement and a formidable sprint mattered more than carefully managing three weeks of effort.

Suter’s defining year came was 1923. The Tour of Flanders was still a young race, but it was growing rapidly in stature and attracting increasing numbers of foreign riders. Until then, though, every edition had been won by a Belgian. Suter changed that, covered the Ronde’s 243 kilometres in 9 hours and 16 minutes to defeat Belgians Charles Deruyter and Albert Dejonghe in a three-up sprint.

Two weeks later, not one, as sometimes reported, Suter started Paris-Roubaix determined to prove victory in Flanders had been no accident. When the Pélissier brothers split the race on the road to Arras, Suter initially missed their move. He chased, eventually leading a sizeable group to the front, before comfortably beating them in the sprint.

That was Suter’s moment, the first cyclist to win the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix in the same year; the original cobbled classics double, but it was no isolated flash of brilliance.

Suter won 58 pro races, including five Swiss road titles, two editions of Paris-Tours, Bordeaux-Paris and the prestigious Grand Prix Wolber twice, all of them regarded as classics. He also won Switzerland’s great single-day race, Züri-Metzgete, a record six times.

After his road days Suter extended his pro career through motor-paced track racing, finally retiring in 1946 at the age of 47. The hard-faced Swiss rider who was cycling’s first true classics man.

Photo: Cycling Legends Collection

11/09/2026

Eddy Merckx has just launched one of the most defining attacks of his career, but the man looking out of the Faema team car is not impressed.

This is the 1969 Tour of Flanders. Merckx has dropped all his rivals on the Muur van Geraardsbergen, but the finish at Meerbeke is 70 kilometres away. Rain is falling heavily; the temperature is below ten degrees and much of the remaining route is into a headwind. Guillaume Driessens, Merckx’s team manager, believes his rider has made a mistake.

“What are you trying to do, commit suicide?” Driessens shouts.

“Go and screw yourself,” Merckx fires back.

Driessens’ concern was understandable. Merckx had won the 1968 Giro d’Italia and several classics by April 1969, but The Cannibal, the performances that would establish him as the greatest cyclist of all time, lay ahead. Attacking alone from so far out, into a headwind and in atrocious weather, appeared less like tactics than madness.

Merckx saw it differently. He was doing most of the work at the front of the leading group anyway, so reasoned that he might as well do it alone. Having made that decision, he committed completely.

Far from fading, Merckx gained ground all the way to the end. After 259 rain-soaked kilometres, he crossed the finish line five minutes ahead of Felice Gimondi. Marino Basso took third, eight minutes behind. Merckx’s average speed was an extraordinary 40.894 kilometres per hour, then the fourth-fastest Tour of Flanders ever and achieved in some of the worst conditions the race had known.

But there was a twist, celebrating afterwards Driessens declared to the assembled press; “We’ve won. We saw our chance and we took it,” seemingly claiming responsibility for the very tactics he had condemned on the road.

When Merckx read his manager’s comments in the newspapers next day, he was furious, and the photograph captures the truth before the story was rewritten. Driessens did question the attack, Merckx refusing to listen, and one of cycling’s greatest legends was created right there, into that icy head wind.

Eddy talks about this race, and other great victories, in our book, Cycling Legends 04 Flandriens, cult heroes of the cobbles - https://cyclinglegends.co.uk/products/cycling-legends-04-flandriens-by-chris-sidwells

Photo: Cycling Legends Collection

10/09/2026

Is Federico Bahamontes, wearing yellow jersey of the 1959 Tour de France which he won, the greatest pure climber of all time? There are other candidates; Fausto Coppi, Charly Gaul, Lucien Van Impe, Marco Pantani. But few have ever seemed so completely made for the mountains as the angular Spaniard.

Bahamontes turned professional in 1953 after winning the prestigious Tour of Asturias. A year later he made his Tour de France debut, winning the first of his eventual six King of the Mountains titles. He added the mountains classification of the 1956 Giro d’Italia and the 1957 Vuelta a España, becoming the first rider to win the competition in all three Grand Tours.

It was then that an L’Équipe editorial christened him the Eagle of Toledo.
He was light, but extraordinarily strong, and believed that strength came from four years spent pushing a 122-kilogram fruit and vegetable cart up Toledo’s hills. “On the hills I pushed on the balls of my feet, just like I would on the pedals,” he recalled.

His zenith came in 1959, when he became the first Spaniard to win the Tour. The defining performance was in the time trial that climbed the Puy-de-Dôme, an extinct volcano outside Clermont-Ferrand; 12.5 kilometres of climbing, averaging around eight per cent, with ramps reaching 13, done against the clock.

Bahamontes covered the distance in 36 minutes 15 seconds. Charly Gaul, the Angel of the Mountains and himself one of history’s finest mountain men, lost 1 minute 26 seconds. Henri Anglade conceded three minutes; Jacques Anquetil nearly four. The final four riders finished more than 13 minutes behind Bahamontes and were eliminated.

Just take that in for a moment, four riders eliminated for being outside the time limit on a 12.5-kilometre stage (7.8 miles!). It‘s difficult to find another occasion when one rider inflicted so much damage over such a short distance in the Tour.

Bahamontes could be unpredictable away from the mountains, and he was not the most complete champion. But that is precisely the point. If the question is who the greatest pure climber was, who possessed the rarest ability to turn gravity into an ally, then the Eagle of Toledo has a claim as strong as anyone.

Read more from Chris Sidwells on our website, now with over 27 cycling books published - https://cyclinglegends.co.uk/collections/all-books

Photo: Cycling Legends Collection

09/09/2026

Tickets for Simpson Retro go off sale tomorrow at 5pm - Friday and Saturday are sold out, but there are still some tickets left for the ride on Sunday!

There are two distances to choose from on the day - 63km and 83km - both fully sign posted with a Feed Zone, event photography, medal and entry to the Best in Show competition.

You’ll be joined on the ride by cycling legends Theo de Rooij, Maurice Burton, Mark Walsham, Denise Burton-Cole and more.

Read our event brochure or book your tickets using the links below.

Event Brochure - https://online.fliphtml5.com/cyclinglegends/TSCF-Brochure-2026/

Book your tickets - https://cyclinglegends.co.uk/pages/simpson-retro

07/09/2026

This evening the Tom Simpson Cycling Festival is hosting a bike maintenance and coaching session. Open to all - kids and adults and completely free as part of our community events.

Bring your bike along for some TLC, a quick fix or a bit of advice from the Cycling Legends mechanics.

We will also have 2 British Cycling Level 2 Coaches - who can teach you anything you want to know - cornering, road safety or improving your technique.

It is at Civic Square next to Harworth and Bircotes Town Hall from 6 - 7.30pm tonight (Monday 7th September) - just drop in!

Many thanks go to Dave Marsh for supporting us with this community event.

07/09/2026

Jean-François Bernard was the first in what became a long, melancholy line of French riders burdened with being “the next Bernard Hinault.” France did not merely hope that Bernard might win the Tour; it needed him to inherit it. He had the talent, the elegance and even the right name. What he appeared to lack was Hinault’s capacity to carry the expectations of an entire cycling nation without being crushed by them.

For me, Bernard’s career is encapsulated by two days in the 1987 Tour de France. The first produced one of the most dazzling rides of the decade. In the time trial from Carpentras to Mont Ventoux, Bernard seemed to be the rider France wanted him to be. Powerful, perfectly poised and super-stylish, he drove himself across the pale, exposed upper slopes of the mountain to win the stage by 1 minute 39 seconds and take the yellow jersey. At the summit, it appeared the succession had taken place.

Then, the following day, everything unravelled. Isolated by his rivals and delayed by a puncture at a critical moment, Bernard lost more than four minutes and surrendered yellow. He finished third in Paris, but something seemed to have gone from him. It was as though he’d poured everything he had into that magnificent ascent of Ventoux, and the mountain had taken it all.

Bernard still enjoyed important victories and remained a beautiful rider to watch, but he never again looked like the man who had conquered Ventoux. There was always an air of French angst about him; a sense that every pedal stroke carried not only his own ambition, but the hopes, comparisons and disappointments of others.

Later, working as a super-domestique for Miguel Indurain, he often appeared happier. Relieved of the demand to become Bernard Hinault, he could simply be Jean-François Bernard; an immensely gifted cyclist, using his strength and intelligence in the service of a leader whose destiny was already secure. The weight had been lifted.

Perhaps that was the tragedy of Bernard’s career; he looked most free once France stopped expecting him to save it.

Photo: Cycling Legends Collection

04/09/2026

Luis Ocaña, mercurial genius of Spanish cycling, in the brilliant orange of BIC. Rider and jersey complemented one another perfectly; both vivid, dramatic and impossible to overlook. Together they created some of the most memorable images of the 1970s.

BIC was among the first “extra-sportif” sponsors, companies from outside cycling, to fund the entire cost of a professional team. Bike brands still supplied the machinery, first Jacques Anquetil’s marque and later Motobécane, but BIC alone occupied the jersey.

It was a striking break with tradition. Until the 1960s, bike manufacturers had largely underwritten the sport; then wealthier outside businesses arrived, bringing the budgets needed to build bigger, better-supported teams. Professional cycling was entering the commercial era we are in today.

BIC was founded in 1945 by Marcel B**h, who inherited the title Baron B**h from his father. Its first products were fountain pens, but in 1950 B**h acquired the patent for the ballpoint pen from Hungarian inventor László Bíró, hence the name many people still use for a ballpoint, and transferred production to Paris.

BIC entered cycling by taking over sponsorship of Anquetil’s Ford France team. It won important races in the late 1960s, although the great Frenchman was nearing the end of his career. Everything changed when BIC signed a young Spaniard named Luis Ocaña for 1970.

Experienced manager Maurice De Muer recognised Ocaña’s extraordinary talent and used BIC’s substantial budget to construct a team around him. Within a year Roger Rosiers had won Paris-Roubaix, while Ocaña was doing what had begun to seem impossible; challenging Eddy Merckx in the greatest stage races.

In the 1971 Tour de France, Ocaña humbled Merckx in the Alps and took yellow by minutes, only for a rain-soaked crash in the Pyrenees to end his race. Two years later, with Merckx absent, he delivered the victory his talent demanded; six stages and the 1973 Tour title by more than 15 minutes.

Ocaña was never quite the same force again. BIC, having gained immense publicity from that triumph, left professional cycling after 1974, but returned in 2012 as a Tour de France sponsor. An unforgettable marriage of colour and character.

📸 Cycling Legends Collection

02/09/2026

This is Freddy Maertens, a lovely man and an absolute win machine. At his height Freddy won more than 50 races a year. He took 8 stages in a single Tour de France (1976), and an incredible 13 and the overall in the 1977 Vuelta a España. He also once raced against a horse.

He was following an old cycling tradition by doing that. Punters loved watching the man v horse races at meetings, and promoters paid cyclists well. In his candid autobiography Fall from Grace, Freddy says; “I was paid 120,000 Belgian francs by the organisers to ride and 50,000 by the bookmakers to lose.” Which he did…

The horse was called Fakir de Vivier, a trotting horse, meaning it pulled a jockey mounted on a lightweight buggy around the track; the Amiens Hippodrome in 1977. Maertens shouldn’t have done it, really. The fact that he did shows just how ruthless racing used to be.

Top pros earned well, but they had to keep racing to do so. Having won the 1977 Vuelta, Maertens started the 1977 Giro d’Italia just days later. He won 7 of the first 10 stages, crashing on the way to his 11th.

A broken wrist, as well as other injuries, were the result, and the horse race was shortly after. Unwilling to miss the big pay-day Freddy wore a heavy cast on arm. The bone never quite healing is of the many reasons why he was never the same rider again.

It was William Frederick ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody who started bike v horse racing way back when bicycles were new in the 1880s. He challenged pro cyclists of the day to race, and eventually one did. Romulus Buni raced ‘Buffalo Bill’ in a 3-hour endurance duel around Milan, completing 99 kilometres in the allotted time. However, by switching to a fresh horse every time the one he was riding got tired, ‘Buffalo Bill’ covered 4 kilometres more and won. Cheating devil!

Anyway, the tradition continued and man v horse racers were often included on post-Tour de France criterium circuit, with the likes of Thomas Voeckler taking on the challenge in the 2000s.

The aren’t many recorded 2-wheel victories though. The notable exception being John Gadret, and that was because the trotting horse was disqualified for breaking into a gallop.

Read more about Freddy in Cycling Legends 04: Flandriens - https://cyclinglegends.co.uk/products/cycling-legends-04-flandriens-by-chris-sidwells

📸 John Pierce Photosport International

Cycling Legends Media

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