Cyclopedia. Part 11

CP is a condition occurring at birth that interferes with the development of the brain, affecting muscle tone and spinal reflexes. Brain injuries later in life can lead to the same symptoms, and these athletes compete with congenital CP cyclists. Locomotor athletes are divided into four categories depending on the level of limb disability; they can and often do compete on handcycles.

The GREAT BRITAIN cycling team has a dedicated paralympic section that dominated its events in Beijing in 2008, winning 17 gold medals and 3 silvers. Britain's leading cycling Paralympian is Darren Kenny from Dorset, a double gold medal winner in Athens and a triple gold medalist in Beijing in 2008. Kenny injured his neck in the RaS Tour of Ireland aged 19 and returned to racing 11 years later merely in order to get fit.

PARISBRESTPARIS Every few years strange sights are to be seen on back roads between Paris and Brittany: vast groups of cyclists with their bikes festooned with panniers riding through the night in great streams of cycle lights, bedraggled cyclists lining up outside school cafeterias and village salles de fetes to fill up on carbohydrate-rich food, and, oddest of all, men and women clad in lycra sleeping wherever they can by the roadside: in haystacks, hedges, doorways.

Such is ParisBrestParis, one of the great pioneering races when it was founded in 1891, now two different ma.s.s events run in four- and five-year cycles for several thousand cycle-tourists who don't mind a little sleep deprivation. In villages and towns along the 1,200 km route, the population turns out to watch the cyclists, who try to complete the event within the 90-hour limit. That means riding through the night, three times, with a few short naps along the way: sometimes in market halls, with labels at their feet to tell helpers when they want to be woken up. In parts of Brittany, local people still turn out to place candles in jam jars and tins to light the way into their villages at the dead of night.

PBP was founded in 1891 by the newspaper Le Pet.i.t Journal, as a test of bicycle reliability at a time when penny farthings were being supplanted by diamond frames. Charles Terront won the first race in 71 hours 22 minutes, with the aid of the 10 pacers placed along the route to help the riders. The race's distance, straight down Route Nationale 12 and back, was such that it was decided to organize it only once every 10 years. The great publicity line was that as the turn point was in the French departement of Finistere, it could be billed as a race "to the ends of the earth." The second edition, 1901, was won by MAURICE GARIN in just over 52 hours. Le Pet.i.t Journal was joined as sponsor by L'Auto; such was the paper's increase in sales that its editor HENRI DESGRANGE began looking for ideas for an annual event that would last even longer and be an even greater test of stamina: he and his colleague Geo Lefevre came up with the TOUR DE FRANCE.

The last pro PBP race was in 1951 and was won by Frenchman Maurice Diot in a record 38 hours 55 minutes, a time that still stands today. Randonneur and AUDAX events had begun in 1931, and while the pro race could not draw enough entrants, the touristes kept turning up. The randonneur and audax events were run by different organizations until 1991 when the events were combined.

In 2003 some of the first male finishers were excluded from the closing ceremony and penalized two hours after finishing with the fastest times in the event's history. They had contravened various rules but more importantly were felt to have behaved in a way that contravened the spirit of the event, including "pushing the controllers at a control, urinating in a built-up area, not respecting red lights and stop signs on numerous occasions, using the lights of a following car illegally and not letting a controller's car pa.s.s." In essence, those penalized had crossed the intangible line between a "tourist event," in which a time may be taken but the spirit of the event is amicable, and a race, in which anything goes in order to be quickest from A to B.

(SEE CAPE TOWN, CYCLOSPORTIVES, AND eTAPE DU TOUR FOR OTHER LONG-DISTANCE CHALLENGES).

PARIs...o...b..IX The "Queen of Cla.s.sics," La Pascale, or simply the "h.e.l.l of the North," this is the most coveted one-day CLa.s.sIC of them all. All the MONUMENTS of cycling are founded on tradition: the inclusion of over 30 miles of COBBLES means that Paris...o...b..ix is simply a throwback to the HEROIC ERA, when road surfaces played a key role in every cycle race. The event is not universally popular among professionals because of the risks involved: every year there are crashes on the cobblestones and a cyclist's entire season can be compromised. "Une cochonnerie," was the verdict of BERNARD HINAULT. "A man's race," said SEAN YATES, the best Briton in the event. "Cycling's last bit of madness," according to the TOUR DE FRANCE organizer Jacques G.o.ddet.

The event was immortalized in one of the finest cycling FILMS ever: JORGEN LETH's masterpiece A Sunday in h.e.l.l. Today, it is a key event on the roster of Tour de France organizers AMAURY SPORT ORGANISATION, and French television devotes vast resources to covering it, including specially adapted motorcross bikes to get in-race footage and fixed cameras on the main cobbled sections.

Paris...o...b..ix goes back to 1896 and was originally run to publicize a newly built velodrome in an industrial suburb of the city of Lille. It was run on Easter Sunday in the face of opposition from the Church; to placate them, a ma.s.s was held at 4 AM before the start. The event still finishes on the velodrome although there have been brief flirtations with other finishes within Roubaix. The riders collapse on to the gra.s.s in the middle of the track after the finish; they are doing exactly what the first winner, the German Josef Fischer, would have done. Uniquely for a modern race, the riders shower off the mud and blood in an archaic washroom, where the press can interview them. No other Cla.s.sic has stayed so close to its past.

Initially the cobbles were just part of the route as they were in other races, but by the 1960s the organizers were actively seeking out cobbled sections to liven up the event. The turning point came in 1968 with the discovery of a horribly deformed, undulating track through the Wallers-Arenberg forest-close to the coalmines that featured in emile Zola's Germinal-that has been the centerpoint of the race since then.

Now the cobbles are threatened by development and restricted to back roads through the fields, with bucolic names such as Prayers' Lane and Sugar Mill Lane. The Amis de Paris...o...b..ix exist to maintain them, investing a lot of labor and about 15,000 a year. There are about 30 sections, all subtly different depending on whether the cobbles are slate (slippery) or granite (bad for punctures), uphill, downhill, well maintained, or badly drained and full of water. The decisive point today is about 20 km from the finish, the long, dragging section that leads to a lonely cafe at Carrefour de l'Arbre: the Crossroads of the Tree.

Racing on the cobbles is a unique skill, based on pushing a big gear, for as long as your strength lasts, while trying to avoid the potholes and keeping an eye open for crashes. "You can't make any abrupt movements. If it's wet and you make a last-minute movement, you're down," said Yates. "It's like off-piste skiing through trees: you have to have wide vision, all the time." A single rider losing control can result in an instant pile-up; if a rider punctures, it can take several minutes to get a wheel change because team cars get left way behind as the race strings out through the cobbled lanes.

The Four- and Five-Star Sections =.

The cobbled sections are numbered, in descending order to the finish, and given star ratings for difficulty by the organizers according to how long they are and the condition of the cobbles. Four and five stars are the hardest.

No. 26 QuievySaint Python: 3.7 km long, including a 2-kilometer uphill drag, which makes it one of the toughest parts of the course. 4*

No. 19 WallersHaveluy: 2.5 km long; cobbles are good but often muddy. 4*

No. 18 Trouee d'Arenberg: 2.4 km long, used since 1968, dead straight with irregular, large cobbles, with many potholes. 5* (See COBBLES for more detail) No. 10 Mons en PeveleMerignies: 3 km long, including two right-angle bends that are often muddy. Particularly bad in the wet. 5*

No. 6 CysoingWannehain: 2.5 km in two sections either side of the village of Bourgh.e.l.les, with the second particularly rough. 4*

No. 5 Camphin-en-Pevele: 1.8 km; includes a muddy 90-degree bend, with the roughest cobbles towards the end. 4*

No. 4 Camphin-en-PeveleCarrefour de l'Arbre: the key section comes just before the finish, initially flat then rising slightly toward the cafe on the worst cobbles. 5*

And then there is the continual b.u.mping: "Like sitting on a pneumatic drill," was the verdict of the 1990 runner-up Steve Bauer. The mechanics try various tricks to reduce the pain: at one point in the 1990s, Rockshox MOUNTAIN-BIKE forks became popular, but the usual tweaks are thicker handlebar tape and fatter tires, run at a slightly lower pressure than usual. Winning Paris...o...b..ix is the mark of the true cycling great: FAUSTO COPPI and EDDY MERCKX both managed it, but Hinault is the last Tour winner to triumph in cycling's h.e.l.l. The record winner is ROGER DE VLAEMINCK, with four victories, while FRANCESCO MOSER is the only man to win three times in a row (197880). No American has won the race, but George Hincapie placed second in 2005 and was in the top 10 seven times.

Other races have tried to follow Paris...o...b..ix's unique format. One of the most successful is the Eroica, which is held on dirt roads-strade bianche-in Tuscany. The Tro Bro Leon is a Breton race that includes unsurfaced lanes in the far west of France, while in Britain the East Midlands Cycla.s.sic takes in a raft of mucky farm tracks.

The Paris...o...b..ix CYCLOSPORTIVE is held every other June so that amateur cyclists can get the full cobbled experience: the b.u.mps, the velodrome, and the showers. All finishers receive a cobblestone mounted on a base. A mountain-bike event was organized briefly in the 1990s and there are junior and under-23 races on shorter courses.

PATERSON, Banjo (b. Australia, 1864, d. 1941) Australian poet who produced the ballad "Mulga Bill's Bicycle" in 1896; probably the best-known cycling poem, it is contemporary with H. G. Wells's novel about early cycling The Wheels of Chance (see BOOKS). The poem has been in print since 1973 and is among Paterson's most popular works. It deals with Mulga Bill's purchase of a bike, his pride in his riding skill, and his downfall when-of course-he crashes. The poem is celebrated today in the Mulga Bill Bicycle Trail at Eaglehawk, the Victoria town where it is set. Mulga is a species of shrub that grows in the bush; the implication being that Mulga Bill is a yokel with ideas above his station.

The poem begins: Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze; He turned away the good old horse that served him many days; He dressed himself in cycling clothes, resplendent to be seen; He hurried off to town and bought a shining new machine; And as he wheeled it through the door, with air of lordly pride, The grinning shop a.s.sistant said "Excuse me, can you ride?"

The joke is that Bill cannot ride, and after ending up in "Dead Man's Creek," swears to stick to his horse in future.

(SEE POETRY FOR OTHER CYCLING POEMS).

PATTERSON, Frank See ART PAVe French word for COBBLES.

(SEE ALSO FLANDERS, PARIs...o...b..IX, CLa.s.sICS) PEDERSEN, Mikael (b. Denmark, 1855, d. 1929) Danish inventor who produced an iconic early "safety" type machine launched in 1897: the frame was built using cantilevered tubes set in 21 triangles, giving greater strength and enabling the frame diameter and gauge to be cut to the minimum. One early machine weighed only 13 lb at a time when over 30 was the norm. The Dursley-Pedersen was made by Lister and Company at Dursley in Gloucestershire and also featured a hammock-type saddle made of cord-the first models used 45 yards of woven silk-and "tied" between the top of the seat tube and the head tube. About 8,000 were made between 1900 and 1915; not surprisingly they are now collectors' items.

Pedersen built up a thriving business in Britain but lost the company due to poor business practices. He was reduced to selling matches and was buried in a pauper's grave. His body has since been repatriated to Gloucestershire.

PeLISSIER, Jean "Henri"

Born:Paris, France, January 22, 1889 Died: Dampierre, France, March 1, 1935 Major wins: Tour de France 1923, 10 stage wins; MilanSan Remo 1912; Paris...o...b..ix 1919, 1921; Giro di Lombardia 1911, 1913, 1920; BordeauxParis 1919; Paris-Brussels 1920; ParisTours 1922 Nickname: the Iron Wire (La Ficelle de Fer) One of the stars of the HEROIC ERA, Jean "Henri" Pelissier was capable of winning on any terrain. His disputes with HENRI DESGRANGE highlight the demands race organizers imposed at the time. In 1919 the TOUR DE FRANCE boss forbade him from getting help from other riders and Pelissier walked out, and he did so again in 1920 after he was docked two minutes for throwing away a punctured tire. In 1923, Pelissier won the Tour, prompting Desgrange to compare his victory to "a work by Racine, a perfect statue, a faultless painting or a piece of music you never forget." Late in his career, Pelissier and his brother Francis founded an early riders' trade union.

During the 1924 Tour, Pelissier put on two jerseys for a stage that started in Le Havre in the middle of the night: one issued by the Tour organizers, one of his own. He threw the latter away when the sun came up, which was against the rules; Desgranges got wind of it and the pair had a row in public. Pelissier abandoned the next day after a judge counted his jerseys at the start and in a fine example of early media management made sure that the leading journalist of the day, Albert Londres, knew about it. Londres found Henri, his brother Francis, and another rider in the Cafe de la Gare in Coutances in Normandy; the ensuing interview was originally ent.i.tled "Les Martyrs de la Route" but later was known as "Les Forcats de la Route"-"the Convicts of the Road," a term that became synonymous with the outrageous demands made on the cyclists of the time.

Pelissier told Londres that he and his brother used DRUGS, opening his pillbox and showing the journalist "cocaine for the eyes, chloroform for the gums ... and do you want to see the pills? We ride on dynamite. When the mud is washed off us, we are as white as sheets. We are drained by diarrhoea. We dance jigs in our bedroom instead of sleeping. Our calves are leather, and sometimes they break." Francis added: "And as for my toenails, I've lost six out of ten."

"One day," concluded his brother, "they will put lead in our jerseys because G.o.d didn't make us heavy enough."

Pelissier had a tragic end: his wife Leonie committed suicide in 1933, and two years later his girlfriend Camille shot him with five bullets from the same pistol during a violent argument.

PEUGEOT Celebrated French cycle company that had the longest unbroken sponsorship in cycling until its demise in 1987. Its motif, the Lion, goes back to the company's days as a steelmaker in the mid-19th century; it was founded in the 18th century to make watermills. Peugeot began sponsorship in 1896, won their first TOUR DE FRANCE in 1905 with Louis Trousselier, and went on to win La Grande Boucle 10 times.

Peugeot was a family affair that began manufacturing in 1882 with a high-wheeler known as the Grand Bi and was making 20,000 bikes a year by 1900; by 1892 it had expanded into car making, and this is now the main activity. In the First World War, the company made plane engines and sh.e.l.ls as well as cars, trucks, and bikes. The cycle company's peak came in 1955, when its factory at Beaulieu turned out 220,000 machines, employing some 3,500 workers. In the 1970s it produced the definitive Peugeot, the PX-10 racer, with componentry from French producers such as Mafac (brakes), Simplex (gears), and Stronglight (chainsets).

While car output continued to be strong, the bike-making side declined in the 1980s and 1990s, with the name eventually sold to licence-holder CycleEurope. The Peugeot car company still sells bikes, but none of them are racing machines.

Peugeot was the last cycling squad to survive as a purely factory team without a main extra-sportif sponsor-although it had backing from petrol companies such as Sh.e.l.l and BP-and thanks to its ma.s.sive sponsorship of club teams as well, its checkerboard design jerseys were ubiquitous in French amateur racing in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1960s its riders included a young EDDY MERCKX and TOM SIMPSON, while in the 1970s the team featured the 1975 and 1977 Tour winner Bernard Thevenet.

From its amateur "feeder" club ACBB in Paris, Peugeot took on members of the FOREIGN LEGION such as STEPHEN ROCHE, PHIL ANDERSON, and ROBERT MILLAR in the 1980s. Its last great Tour was 1983, when Pascal Simon looked a likely winner until he broke his shoulderblade in a crash while wearing the yellow jersey. In 1987, the factory team was discontinued due to rising costs, although it continued as Z-Peugeot, and the bikes were later ridden by the Festina team.

(SEE GIANT AND RALEIGH FOR OTHER ICONIC CYCLE MAKERS; TEAMS FOR OTHER NOTABLE CYCLING SQUADS).

POETRY The only anthology on the market is The Art of Bicycling (Breakaway Books, 2005, ed. Justin Daniel Belmont). This includes poems by major names such as Walt Whitman, Dylan Thomas (who rhymes penny farthing with Camarthen), Seamus Heaney, Pablo Neruda, and Yevgeni Yevtushenko. The only professional cyclist represented is the late MARCO PANTANI. Also included is the work of the British poet Jeff Cloves, who has kindly allowed me to reproduce two of his poems here. The first was written after the death of TOM SIMPSON, the second 20 years after the death of FAUSTO COPPI.

Un pet.i.t Tour de France Henry Miller

buys a French racer

sells it and regrets

for ever

A photo of a woman

she rides a bike

Paris is liberated

her smile is a flag

Sartre and Simone de B

seated on a tandem

they quarrel when

she demands to steer

Le Cafe de Copains

champions on the wall

the arthritic patron

up there too

Alfred Jarry poses

astride his dear machine

everyman his own bicycle