Happy 39th birthday to domestique nonpareil George Hincapie (@ghincapie), who is about to embark on what promises to be his final Tour de France. Win a stage for us old guys, will ya?
Former professional cyclist — road, mountain AND BMX — John Tomac turns 43 today, and I still want that ridiculous Tioga disc wheel he rode in the ’80s. What’s wrong with me?
One more birthday for today. Upon winning his first cycling race, Fausto Coppi allegedly received 20 lire and a salami sandwich. The winning would continue, and the prizes would get better. Coppi won the Tour de France twice, in 1949 and 1952, and the Giro d’Italia five times, along with countless other races of varying distances including the Milan-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix and the Road Racing World Championship of 1953. He also set the World Hour Record in 1942, which would stand until 1956 when it was broken by Jacques Anquetiel. He died in 1960 after contracting malaria. He was 40 years old.
Gino Bartali was a bike racer back in the day when men were men, and those men had to reach backwards to shift gears manually. Forget electronic shifting and all that nonsense — downtube shifters were just a dream back in the ’30s when Bartali won the Giro d’Italia twice (‘36 and ‘37) and the Tour de France once (‘38). Those wins alone would have guaranteed him a spot in cycling lore, but he went on to win the Tour again in 1948, establishing the largest gap between Tour victories. It’s hard to say how he’d do in the Tour today, but that’s just because he’d be 97 years old. Buon compleanno Gino. (Happy birthday.)
