Cycling quite obviously lends itself to photography. Men and women doing heroic stuff on bikes, framed by epic backdrops of various Alps, velodromes, Pyrenees, Dolomites  muurs and bloody sunflowers. Roadsides teeming with devils, mankinis, Dirk Hofman and those guys with American football gear while riders battle it out shoulder to shoulder or count down the lonely final kilometres in a desperate bid to keep the peloton at bay. There’s probably not much that hasn’t been photographed in a century or so.

So I was mildly surprised to find that author and friend of the Pod, Richard Moore was working on a pictorial history of the Tour de France ahead of its 100th outing this July. After all, he’s not a photographer.  I was, nonetheless, quietly delighted to see a pile of the results of that work – Tour de France 100 – emerge from his suitcase at the recent Scottish Bike Show.  I even bought my own copy…

So what of Tour de France 100? Moore was granted access to the Getty Archive and – as he told us recently – wanted to tell a story of a Tour less ridden. In this age of “new media” where any fan with a smartphone can take a decent shot and run it through Instagram and transmit it to the world in seconds, there is a refreshing poignancy in some of the images in this book. There’s Maurice Garin riding into Longchamps to win the inaugural Tour, a grainy full-page shot of Octave “Assassins!” Lapize pushing his rig (and, let’s be honest, that’s what we were talking about then) up the Tourmalet in 1910. The “quality” of the images is not necessarily in their composition or lighting, but in what they show.

As you’d expect, the photos are predominantly black and white, not in a moody, über-cool Rapha sense but simply because that’s what was available at the time. But that often serves to illustrate the things that make a Grand Tour – well – grand. One picture shows Firmin Lambot riding up the Galibier in 1920 and the starkness of black and white serves to illustrate the desolation of the Col at that time. With no baying crowds, no names painted on tarmac roads and just a rough track on a scorched mountainside you begin to get a sense of what an undertaking those early Tours were.

Throughout the book, Moore narrates tales and anecdotes from across the 100 editions: we read about Henri Pelissier falling foul of the race organisers’ clothing rule and remonstrating with Henri Desgranges in 1923. We associate Mont Ventoux with Tom Simpson’s tragic death in 1967 (indeed there’s a jarring image of Mister Tom receiving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation) but Moore writes of Jean Malléjac’s near identical incident during the 1955 visit to the Giant of Provence, collapsing in the heat, doped on amphetamine. He also writes of Louison Bobet’s nerves ahead of the same stage. “I don’t feel well, not well at all…” He attacked on the Ventoux and won the stage.

Indeed incidents in the Tour have a habit of returning to haunt the race. We see Roger Rivière being tended to after a crash on the Col de Perjuret in the 1960 race. Riviere hit a low wall while descending off the Col and would spend the rest of his short life (he died of throat cancer, aged only 40) in a wheelchair. The similarities with Fabio Casartelli’s fatal crash off the Col de Portet d’Aspet in 1994 will not be lost on any cycling fan.

As a student of the modern era, one thing that also struck me was seeing the riders’ eyes and in that, seeing the pain. Remember, Oakleys didn’t appear until the late 1980s. Anecdotes of Jacques Anquetil destroying all that lay before (and ultimately minutes behind) him are one thing, but the black and white images show haunted eyes and sunken cheeks tell a story of suffering too. That said, Fausto Coppi looks the epitome of cool in his shades!

What of that modern era? The usual suspects are all there, albeit in perhaps unseen guise. Bernard Hinault smiling (yes, really), Pedro Delgado skulking from doping control in 1988 and – yes – Lance Amstrong gets a look in too. As Moore points out, he can’t simply be erased from the pages of the Tour’s history, but suggests that perhaps the years 1999-2005 should be known as “the asterisk era”.  Interestingly, there’s only one image of Floyd Landis throughout – not on his banzai solo break into Morzine on Stage 17 of the 2006 race, but rather the day before on that disastrous climb to La Toussuire.  Who knew then at that moment of the significance of what was unfolding?

One final thought on an excellent book that deserves your attention: headlines become fact over the years (Simpson’s “put me back on my bike”, for example) and what actually happened on the road gets lost in hyperbole and the need to tell a good yarn. So, to stage 15 of the 2010 edition on the road to Bagnères-de-Luchon. Or “Chaingate”. We all know that Andy Schleck’s chain shipped on the climb and Alberto Contador stuck 42 seconds into him. Bet you don’t remember that it was actually Alexandre Vinokourov who was on Schleck’s wheel when it all went wrong tho’. That’s what Tour de France 100 does. And there’s not one sunflower in it either.

Tour de France 100 is published in hardcover by Bloomsbury. You can have a peek here.

In this episode we look at the opening week of the Giro & ponder who are the real men and who are the big girl’s blouses (not wanting to disrespect women, of course!)

We are growing slightly weary of the Wiggo & Froomey Tour leadership spat & we welcome the return of the Cross Country MTB World Cup.

In this episode we demonstrate some unabashed man-love for Fabian Cancellara & his successes on the cobbles.  

We sound a note of caution about writing off Sky’s attempts at the Classics & Gary demonstrates some motherly concern for Andy Schleck.  Graham’s ranting ensures that the pod will never be sponsored by Giro, makers of the Air Attack helmet & finally, we discuss the controversy surrounding Nairo Quintana & the “came from nowhere” comments.

In this episode, we are jam-packed with racing news. The single-day Classics & semi-Classics mingle happily with the multi-day stage races & we struggle to stay on-topic for 2 seconds!

From Dan Martin’s win in Catalunya to Peter Sagan’s wheelie in Ghent-Wevelgem, it’s all here (well, bits of it, and not necessarily in the right order).

We also have our old pal Rowan Mackie of the Scottish Bike Show to tell us about the show’s exciting move to the shiny new Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome.

Enthusiasm levels are definitely rising in Sausage Roll Studios as Classics season starts in earnest. We discuss what was left of “Openings Weekend” after a Europe-wide snowfall put paid to Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, leaving us with Het Nieuwsblad alone. We look at the modern classic that is Strade Bianche and we look ahead to Paris-Nice & Tirreno-Adriatico.

Gary gives us the lowdown on the Track World Championships & we look at the new offroad kid on the block, Enduro.

Picture by http://www.kramon.be/

In this episode of VCDL Extra, Graham chats to cyclocross photographer Balint Hamvas. He gives us his insight into the recently ended season and the World Championships in Louisville, as well as some background on his own work following the ‘cross circus.

There is some tech-talk about disk brakes & electronic shifting, some jingoistic reveling in the success of the British women and some discussion of the evergreen Sven Nys, still strong at 36!!

You can pre-order Balint’s 2012/2013 book at his website, Cyclephotos where you can also look at some of his terrific work.

Having almost forgotten we record a regular cycling podcast, we return unabashed with a show broadly devoid of any talk of pharmaceutical malfeasance.  Things also get bumpy for the UCI as we examine the departure of Rocky Roads (who?) from the title sponsorship of the Mountain Bike World Cup, while Gary’s takes the absolute hump with Paul Kimmage.  Somewhere in there we also manage to chat about – wait for it – yes, some actual bike racing!  We kid you not…

In this episode, we completely ignore any talk about Lance Armstrong and his interview with Oprah Winfrey (pictured)…….well, after the first fifty minutes or so.

We also discuss the untimely death of rising star Burry Stander in a training accident in his native South Africa.

We attempt (and clearly fail) to muster up some enthusiasm for the Tour down Under and have a cosy fireside chat as we bring you the latest installment of the VCDL Book Club.

Gary mentioned the excellent Spokey Dokey Blog and Graham forgot to mention the latest episode of the marvelous Dig In series (probably because he’s still narked at missing the race with a cold!)

In this episode, we temporarily crawl out of our off-season funk and Night-Nurse induced drug haze to bring you all manner of nonsense currently swirling around in our brains.

In the purest example of self-generating content, we talk about what happened when we talked to someone!  Not just any someone, however, only just flippin’ Graeme Obree, who we had the pleasure of interviewing during a Q & A session at Ronde in Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago.

We made mention of the excellent Eddlestone via Shiplaw blog by Andy Shaw, who took some great pictures of Graeme on the night.

We discuss the strange “forgotten man” tag that surrounds Carlos Sastre, and come to the conclusion that it is neither accurate or deserved.

Finally, we chat through the recent Change Cycling Now conference and the resultant Charter of the Willing which they published.  Is it the catalyst for change or the catalyst which will result in the true catalyst for change emerging?

In this episode we bring you a season roundup & nominate our rider, race & team of the year.  We also bring you some further discussion on Sky’s zero-tolerance policy.

We have an interview with Mike Jardine of Rare management, organisers of the Fort William World Cup.  Mike is just back from China where he was helping out with the mountain biking test event in Guiyang.  He gave us some great insight into what the organisers and the UCI are hoping to achieve by promoting a World Cup event in China in 2014.

Finally, we round up with news of an exciting new film which is in the pipeline about the world of pro cycling.  Called The Domestique.  Director director Marc Schoelermann has been recruited to take the helm of the project, building on his track record of making big-budget TV ads as well as the 2008 crime thriller, Pathology.

He’s no stranger to directing cycling action either as he was the man behind Skoda’s Tortour ad.

We also blow our own drum and bang our own trumpet about the Graeme Obree event take place shortly at Ronde, in Edinburgh, with Velo Club Don Logan asking the questions.