Archives
During my investigations into riders with animal nick names I stumbled across Tom James' VeloArchive [ great site with loads of info on professional road riders and races, past and present ]. Of particular interest at the moment for obvious reasons is the Nicknames page.
Oh, and
- Johan Museeuw - the 'Lion of Flanders'
- Fausto Coppi - 'The Heron'
- Federico Bahamontès - 'The Eagle of Toledo'
I just found out who did the great paint jobs on Simoni's and Sacchi's bikes that we saw at this year's Giro d'Italia [ Simoni's "Spider bike" - Detail of spider bike head tube ].
Her name is Lara Cassanelli and the company is called Artech Design, check out the web site for more pics of her work [ Artech Design ].
So if Simoni's got a spider and Sacchi a leopard, what animals would the other members of the peloton past and present have if they could indulge themselves with these kind of paintjobs? Some names already taken include:
- Mario Cipollini - 'The Lion King'
- Paulo Bettini - 'The Cricket' (now there's a name to strike fear into the hearts of your opponents!)
- Laurent Jalabert - 'The Panda'
- and not forgetting the great Bernard Hinault - 'The Badger'