TdF Tour De Frack

Cycling's Other Shoe About to Drop

The news in cycling isn't from VeloNews or CyclingNews as much as from the Wall Street Journal: U.S. Casts Wider Net in Probe of Cycling. (email reg. req'd). It's an interesting read. Key hook:

The U.S. criminal investigation, which is being led by the Food and Drug Administration, isn't aimed at prosecuting rank-and-file riders who used performance-enhancing drugs during their careers, according to people familiar with the investigation. Rather, it is designed to potentially bring charges against any team leaders and team directors who may have facilitated or encouraged doping by their riders.

FDA special agent Jeff Novitzky, the lead investigator, didn't return calls seeking comment.

Who is Jeff Novitzky, you ask? Jeff Novitzky is an agent for the Food and Drug Administration. Before April 2008 he was a special agent for the Internal Revenue Service who investigated the use of steroids in professional sports for over five years. His investigations have concerned Marion Jones, Barry Bonds, Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) and Kirk Radomski.

Assisting Novitzky is assistant U.S. Attorney Doug Miller, who works in the Major Frauds Section of the federal prosecutor's office in Los Angeles. Miller also had a role in the BALCO investigation.

The lead investigator is an IRS agent seconded to the FDA, and his lieutenant is a federal prosecutor. That's serious. That might lead to an endgame similar to Al Capone being sent to prison on tax evasion charges. Interesting questions include:

• Did teams pay for doping programs with slushfunds that illegally avoided federal taxes?
• Did the US Postal Team misuse federal funds?

In the end, perhaps the development of the Tour de France's visibility in the United States will result in its undoing.

TdF Stage Two: Precaution in the Peloton

Today's Tour de France Stage 2 (which, of course, is the third event - one prologue and now two stages) illuminated what I think is a key understanding of the Tour De France.

Sylvain Chavanel went off the front early in Stage 2 and stayed there, fighting the wind alone, unaffected by the accidents that affected the rest of the pack. According to VeloNews,

It all started when Lampre rider Francesco Gavazzi crashed out of the breakaway on the Stockeu. A TV motorcycle then crashed while avoiding hitting Gavazzi, and the bike spilled oil on the road. The oil had time to run down the hill by the time the peloton came through a few minutes later, setting off a dangerous domino effect that saw over 60 riders sliding across the road.

After that, the peleton (the pack of riders) made a decision to ride conservatively for the rest of the day. Fabian Cancellara, wearing the yellow jersey and the mantle of the boss of the peloton, called for the slowdown to (1) permit those left behind to catch up if they could, and (2) to avoid more accidents and carnage among the riders on a wet, slippery day.

This had the effect of keeping some of the key riders, notably the Schleck brothers, in the same time bracket as the other presumed race leaders (Fränk and Andy Schleck, Alberto Contador, Fabian Cancellara, Lance Armstrong, etc.). It prevented opportunistic attacks.

Why did the riders observe the call for a slower pace? It's in their own interest. A rider that chooses to ignore the yellow jersey's call for a conservative, non-competitive ride would bear the wrath of the pack for the remainder of the Tour de France, and possibly longer than this event. Thor Hushovd and the Cervélo team were one of the few to resist the decision of the yellow jersey to neutralize the finish; it will be interesting to see if the pack penalizes them for bucking the trend.

While there are teams, each with their own champions and motivations, it's key to remember that the peleton also has a will of its own and the discipline to enforce its intent.

Let's review the results from the American perspective, which is of course: How is Lance, who also went down? Short answer: he survived the day and is in a perfect position. This is the overall standing at the end of Stage 2:
1. Sylvain Chavanel (Quick-Step) in 10:01:25. (We often see an early French winner)
2. Fabian Cancellara (Saxo) at 2:57. (in other words, 2m 57s behind Chavanel)
3. Tony Martin (HTC) at 3:07.
4. David Millar (Garmin) at 3:17.
5.

Lance Armstrong (RadioShack) at 3:19. (or, 22 seconds behind Cancellara)

6. Geraint Thomas (Sky) at 3:20.
7. Alberto Contador (Astana) at 3:24.
8. Tyler Farrer (Garmin) at 3:25.
9.

Levi Leipheimer (RadioShack) at 3:25 (or, 6 seconds behind teammate Lance)

10. Edvald Boasson Hagen (Sky) at 3:29

Chavanel is not a threat to win the overall Tour; he worked very hard today, got his sponsor's logos a lot of television time, accomplished the obligatory French win, and won a Stage. The top contenders are Cancellara, Tony Martin, David Millar, and Lance Armstrong, 22 seconds behind Cancellara. Armstrong's lieutenant, Levi Leipheimer, is only six seconds behind his boss.

This is exactly where Lance wants to be. The top three riders in the General Classification (GC) have to attend a press conference and mandatory drug testing. The fourth rider (and below) go straight to their meal, massage, rest, dinner and bed. Generally, Lance's strategy is to stay in fourth or fifth place throughout the first half of the tour, never moving too far away from the lead in terms of time. He'll maximize his rest and conserve his energy while others spend time on podiums and at press conferences. He may even use his team to manipulate who wins on certain days, in order to build alliances and earn goodwill to be used on his own behalf in the later stages.

The next stage includes the pavé, the infamous cobblestones (presumably included for Tom Boonen, who ended up not riding the TdF due to an injury) famous for a jarring ride, punctured tires, and fallen cyclists. If riders continue to fall off their bikes, Cervello may introduce this new carbon fiber frame to maintain their competitive advantage:

Floyd, Lance, WSJ: the Bike Race Ruckus

The Hardy Boys, of course, have already dealt with shady mysteries and blackguards in bicycle racing:

"Lots of kids are planning to enter the Bike Jamboree. Bully Zack Jackson and his buddy Brett call the Hardys wimps. But is someone playing dirty to win the grand prize--a supercool twenty-speed mountain bike?

Frank and Joe are determined to be good sports, but it's no go. First Brett finds gum on his brake pad. Then somebody messes with Joe's bike seat. Who's behind the nasty tricks? Frank and Joe gear up to find out--before the big bike race ends in a big disaster!"

The annual setpiece unveils it's 2010 edition today, as the Tour De France begins with backstories of sprinters vs. climbers, biochemical strategies vs. testing, purists vs. scoundrels, teams vs organizers, and the opening day's drama: in this corner, the discounted, dismounted, and multi-storied Floyd Landis and the Wall Street Journal; in the other corner, Lance Armstrong the All American Boy and the Tour de France.

The raison d'être for the Tour De France is to sell newspapers during the month of the lowest newspaper circulation. That's why the winner's jersey is yellow - the newspaper sponsoring the TdF was printed on yellow paper, so the winner's jersey in yellow served to remind people of L'Auto, the newspaper originally paying for the spectacle.

Stupid tour trivia that serves as a distraction from the core truth: the french-speaking peleton refers to the yellow jersey as the maillot jaune. British riders refer to the person wearing the yellow jersey as Mellow Johnny. Lance, Levi, and Chris Horner participate in the Tour of the Gila in a three-man team called "The Mellow Johnnies". On the tour, Lance Armstrong registers at hotels under the name "Johnny Mellow".

Today's Wall Street Journal contains two stories that either offer to expose the truth, or play the French game and attempt to convey bicycling drama into readership, depending on your place in the sanguine-cynical spectrum.

In Blood Brothers Floyd Landis gives an exclusive tour through what he and others say is a culture of systematic doping in the sport.

In "The Case of the Missing Bikes", Floyd Landis charges that the Trek-sponsored team sold off the team's bicycles to generate cash for their doping program. Too bad that Frank Hardy is out of town, this could be an interesting investigation.

In Armstrong Addresses Latest Landis Allegations (nice headline, btw) Armstrong explains that Landis' charges are like "a carton of sour milk: once you take the first sip, you don't have to drink the rest to know it has all gone bad". (excellent rhetoric) The Wall Street Journal will get a lot of hits on their website.

Lance has moved his efforts beyond Old Media; he's moving the Brand of Lance into Web 2.0. This week he announced on Twitter that 2010 will be his last tour. Sure, he's said that before and then reversed. Floyd has said things before and reversed, too.

The barrage of controversy and selling newspapers (and eyeballs) begins anew. It will provide some excellent, superhuman, and unnatural bicycling; it will show what men and money can do on bicycles; it will fuel bicycle innovation (notably, electric shifting) and bring people into bike shops across the country; and it will, for a few days, distract from our war dead and the oil spill.

It will certainly prevent any discussion of Pittsburgh's newest trend in sharing the road: paint-balling cyclists in Highland Park.

It would be interesting if Frank Hardy appears in the off-season to audit the role of gray-market Treks that Lance rode once. It may provide a non-obvious dénouement in the way that tax evasion once did for Al Capone.

France's Jeannie Longo offers Lance some hope

From France, we have news that Jeannie Longo, 51-year old veteran cyclist, has won the national title in the individual time trial at the French national cycling championship.

From VeloNews:

Jeannie Longo won her 57th national title at the French national championships on Thursday, decisively winning the women’s time trial event for a third successive year.

The 51-year-old Longo covered the 24.7-km course in Chantonnay a full 1:19 faster than two-time national champion Edwige Pitel, 43. Former national road champion Christel Ferrier-Bruneau, 30, finished third at 1:45.

The win represents Longo’s 57th French national title since she won her first in 1979... Longo’s presence in the women’s cycling peloton, whose average age is usually half her own, has on occasion prompted the odd grumble. However the Frenchwoman known for her no-nonsense attitude has always defended her right to compete, no matter what her age.

That belief was vindicated Thursday, when, asked why her rivals could not match up, she suggested they “hadn’t done enough specific training. I’m sorry to say it, but they need to go back to the drawing board on a few things.”

“You can’t discount my 30 years of experience,” added Longo, who actually won her first national championship jersey 31 years ago.

I like the notion of the peleton grumbling at the lady's age.

As Americans, of course, we view all cycling events through the lens of: What does this mean for Lance? Perhaps this is the year for age and treachery triumphing over youth and skill.

Pictured Alberto Contador (current heir apparent) and Lance Armstrong (who was something, once); Contador wears the yellow jersey.

Racism at Tour de France Charged by French Cyclists

Events. Sometimes events hurt you, sometimes they help you. For instance, last week I had a post in the can, ready to publish the next day about the guy whose guitar was broken by United Airlines. Just before I posted it, United decided to make it right. I posted that one anyway, but my takeaway lesson was that time, tide, events, and the blogosphere wait for no man. Publish it or eat it.


     Lots of White Guys in Paris. Sometimes they wear black leggings and sleeves to fool you.

Yesterday the cycle went the other way - early Wednesday morning I put out a post about racism and the Tour de France. Later Wednesday, after the stage, some anonymous French riders are accusing British rider Mark Cavendish of being a racist and of making racist comments. "Cavendish is racist, he's anti-French", one courageous anonymous cyclist threatened, "He should be careful. We're not going to put up with his attitude much longer."

Anyway, that's what I believe he said, it's hard to listen to a guy whose teeth never completely close all the way when he's speaking. Comments like that are usually seen as the promise of rough treatment in the scrum peleton; maybe somebody drops a mussette bag into your spokes in the feed zone. It could happen. An ugly threat coupled to an ugly accusation of racism.

What is truly remarkable, though, is the nature of the charge of racism.
Q. Who is the offended racial group? A. The French.
Q. Is "French" a race? A. They seem to think so.

Q. What did Cavendish do? A. He won the stage on July 14th.
Q. What's wrong with that? A. July 14th is Bastille Day.
Q. And? A. Sometimes they let the French win on Bastille Day.

So what was said? No specifics. It seems like one of the host riders, as they say in the press meaning one of the French fellows, said to Cavendish - "hey, why don't you back off a bit, and, heh heh, be a sportsman, and let one of us have Bastille Day?"

And I'm guessing Cavendish said something like, "Sod off, you pissant! Do you think I'm going to gift you a stage because it's the Frog's 4th of July? Not bloody likely!" Or words to that effect.

And as Cavendish rode away, leaving them in the dust, he probably said something British like, "And wasn't Bastille Day rather a sort of a prison break? Makes for an odd holiday, eh? Well, God bless the Queen!, got to push off now. Cheerio!

Cavendish's failure to let the French win is then attacked anonymously in the press as "racist". This is what they think is racism. They think they embrace diversity by letting the Italians ride.

A few points:

• We're selling newspapers with controversy, that's what the Tour is about.
  
• This shows how the peloton really doesn't see racism clearly.
  
• BTW, Lance announced the winner to a reporter before the day's riding had begun, which probably put the French in a snit.
  

What probably really happened was: some of the teams had come to an arrangement that Cavendish would get delivered to the front with some help from ostensibly competing teams, and all things being equal he'd probably win. That frosted the French riders who wanted a present on their birthday.

The broker of the deal was probably Lance, who's known as "The Boss" in the peleton because of just this sort of - well, leadership. Sometime later in the tour, Cav's team will owe the broker some accommodation. That's the way the peleton works.

The Tour de France: Racist. Anti-Semitic. Yellow journalism. Sexist.

(Sorry, Sexist is tomorrow's topic.)


                 All Colors, No Brothers

Major Taylor, Tour De France Racism, and Black Cyclists

Curiously, yesterday's New York Times (July 14, 2009) carried story by Maureen Dowd titled, "White Man's Last Stand", regarding the Senators from Utah and Kansas facing the prospect of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. I must correct Ms. Dowd: the white man's last stand is the Tour De France.

In American history, when I think about racism and sports, I think about Jim Thorpe in 1912, Jesse Owens in 1936, Joe Louis in 1936, Jackie Robinson, Cassius Clay (sic) in 1960.

A great thing about clean sports is that you can either do it or you can't, and when these men got an honest chance to perform they showed their capability. Curiously, the remaining organized sport that is still a white boy's game at the highest levels is: cycling.(edit 7/19)


Even golf, GOLF for goodness' sakes, has Tiger Woods. Cycling has - wait for it, wait for it - Floyd Landis, an Amish guy. (NTTAWWT) Even bobsledding has a Jamaican team. (site)


How can it be that there aren't any professional black-skinned cyclists? (Use of the term black seems more appropriate than African-American in the international context of cycling.) Let's go to the history books.

Before we saw Jim Thorpe in 1912, the world saw black American cyclist Marshall "Major" Taylor in 1906. From the book, Le Tour: A History of the Tour De France, we have this story of the first Tour organizer (Desgrange) and a great black cyclist (Taylor):

The first man to run the Tour de France was Henri Desgrange. He had been an ardent cyclist on both bikes and tricycles, who had ridden races and had broken the one-hour record with 35 kilometres at Neuilly in 1893.

He was not... a very lovable man. Before he ran the Tour de France, he was running the Parc des Princes and one vignette in that event may be illustrative. A track cycling event was organized pitting the French champion Edmond Jacquelin against American Major Taylor, the first notable black cyclist (not that there have been many since).

Major Taylor, American cyclist, in Paris France, 1908
Major Taylor duly won, and Desgrange was so angered by this affront to the white race that he insulted the winner in turn by paying his large prize in 10-centime coins, so that Taylor had to take the money away in a wheelbarrow.

This next statement about Desgrange, written by a fellow Frenchman, speaks volumes about the Gallic spirit: Desgrange was bigoted, he was gifted, imperious and irascible, he was at times an obnoxious or even intolerable personage; all the same, he was one of the great Frenchmen of the twentieth century..

It seems no surprise that Major Taylor did not enroll in Henri Degrange's Tour de France.

---

Major Taylor

Marshall Walter "Major" Taylor (1878–1932) was an American cyclist who won the world one-mile track cycling championship in 1899 — after setting numerous world records and overcoming strong racial discrimination. Read Ken Kifer's tribure to Major Taylor.

---

Contemporary Black TdF Hopefulls

On July 17, 2008, these two cyclists were enroute from Eldoret, Kenya to Alpe d'Huez to ride the Tour De France course and document their performance against the times recorded for professional cyclists. As you probably know, Eldoret in Kenya is home to fully half of the world's champion marathon runners.

Zakayo won a local race on the same course in 42 minutes 10 seconds. In the Tour De France, Lance Armstrong's record time was 37 minutes 36 seconds. Zakayo's time of 42:10 would have placed him in the top twenty of the professional riders.

Zakayo Nderi and Samwel Mwangi are financed by Nicholas Leong, a (white, portly) Singaporean who is a member of the Major Taylor Association. Click the image below to see the African Cyclist Project's website. I love their African Cyclist Blog; the subtitle is, "because you can't bullshit your way up a mountain". I love that.

The Color Peloton Barrier

Within the TdF, and all the major cycling events, there is a Guild mentality among the riders of the peloton. It's somewhere between a trade union, a cartel and a secret society. Simply put: if the peloton doesn't want you to win, or doesn't want you to finish, they will strive to make sure that you don't.

The Tour is three weeks long. It is impossible to go all out for 200 km a day, every day, through the long flat sprints, up & down the Alps with their obscene inclines, and everywhere in between. Most days and for most of the race, the field travels in a pack in order to save energy for the harder sections. This main section is known as the peloton. Racers will break out of the peloton and try to gain time, but you generally want to save your energy for the sections you're good at (some racers excel at mountain climbing, others are good in the flat, etc.) The peloton can carry a sick or troubled rider, and the peloton can crush an unpopular rider.

An Example of the Pack Mentality

A recent public example was in the 2004 tour, when Lance Armstrong spoke to (and allegedly threatened) a group accompanying Simeoni in a breakaway. There's bad blood between Armstrong and Simeoni. Both are essentially convinced the other is threatening the sport.

Anyway, it's late in the Tour now, and Lance has the overall championship in hand. Simeoni is an also-ran, but he thought he saw a chance to grab a stage win and sprinted ahead to a group of a half-dozen B-listers. Armstrong decided to stick with Simeoni and join the breakaway and prevent him from getting an easy cheap stage win.

The half-dozen guys actually in the breakaway group know that with Lance in the front all the other teams will contest the finish, and when Simeoni & Armstrong catch up to them, they all ask Armstrong to let them go, save the energy, you've got the race won, be a good sport, etc. Armstrong, who generally is gracious about these things (and in these long races, sportsmanship between teams and competitors is crucial), agrees, but he won't retreat to the peloton without Simeoni. The conversations are televised.

The breakaway riders say to Simeoni, hey get away from us, if you stay with us we're ruined. Simeoni reluctantly agrees to retreat with Armstrong back to the peloton. The power of the peloton for self-regulation is not to be misunderestimated.

I think that's why we don't have black cyclists competing at the Tour De France level. In order to have a place on a team, a rider must convince a Sponsor that they can make a positive contribution. The peloton doesn't seem to want any black riders. The races that feed the TdF don't seem to have a lot of black riders. The sponsors don't seem to want any black riders.

The Tour de France: Racist. Anti-Semitic Roots. Yellow journalism.

---

Tour de France, The Dreyfus Affair, and Anti-Semitism

What's the raison d'être for the Tour de France? Recently: Lance Armstrong

The recent reason for the TdF is Lance Armstrong, American athlete and strategist. He emerged from cancer and chemotherapy as the most efficient cyclist in the world. (Sounds like a cartoon hero.) His role as a team strategist (and the TdF is a team sport) is as significant as his skill on the bike. He brings an American strategy and pragmatic perspective (a single, burning focus on the goal, to the exclusion of all distractions) to a sport previously led by a competition among corporate entities and the peloton mafia. Now the tour is all about Lance (aka The One-Nut Wonder), and if Lance doesn't win this year it'll likely be his teammate.


Lance has brought Web 2.0 to the stodgy TdF, twittering incessantly to his fan base throughout the last year. He is one of the faces that the Euro-zone thinks of when they think, "American". To an extent, the TdF has become a Lance Armstrong buddy movie, with daily takes on YouTube:

Lance Armstrong, Robin Williams

---

What is the reason for the Tour de France?
Long term: Selling Yellow Newspapers

The first daily sports newspaper in France at the end of the 19th century was Le Vélo (the bike), which was printed on green paper. It sold 80,000 copies a day. France was split over the Dreyfus affair. Le Vélo stood for Dreyfus's innocence while some of its biggest advertisers, notably Albert de Dion, owner of the De Dion-Bouton car works, believed him guilty. Angry scenes followed between the advertisers and the editor, Pierre Giffard, and the advertisers started and funded a rival paper, L'Auto (the car).


The Tour de France was invented to promote the struggling new rival, L'Auto. The TdF was to outdo the Paris-Brest et retour organised by Giffard's green Le Vélo. The idea for a round-France race came from L'Auto's chief cycling journalist, Géo Lefèvre, who discusses it with editor Henri Desgrange (a well known cyclist) in November 1902. Henri Desgrange was an established cyclist himself, having broken the one-hour record with 35 kilometres at Neuilly in 1893.

L'Auto announced the race in 1903; the plan was a five-week race from 31 May to 5 July. The original scheme proved too daunting and only 15 riders entered. Desgrange cut the length to 19 days, scheduled the race in July, and offered a daily allowance. He attracted 60 entrants, both professionals and amateurs.

The demanding nature of the race (the stages averaged 400 km and could run through the night), captured the public's imagination. L'Auto's circulation rose from 25,000 to 65,000; by 1908 it was a quarter of a million, and during the 1923 Tour 500,000. The record claimed by Desgrange was 854,000 during the 1933 Tour.

The first yellow jersey was worn by the Frenchman Eugène Christophe in the stage from Grenoble to Geneva on July 18, 1919. The colour was chosen to reflect the yellow newsprint of the organising newspaper, L'Auto. This was a brilliant stroke of marketing: even when other newspapers covered L'Auto's bicycle race, they referred to the yellow jersey (the Maillot jaune) which the readership associated with L'Auto's yellow newspaper.

Race director Desgrange wrote: "This morning I gave the valiant Christophe a superb yellow jersey. You already know that our director decided that the man leading the race [de tête du classement général] should wear a jersey in the colours of L'Auto. The battle to wear this jersey is going to be passionate."

• A bon mot: The French call the yellow jersey the Maillot jaune, the British riders call it the Mellow Johnny, and when Lance Armstrong checks into hotels during the TdF he uses the name Jonathan Mellow. (link).
  
• The use of the TdF to sell newspapers continues.
• Doping scandals generally break in August-September, extending the TdF's effect on daily circulation. In fact, if you look at recent scandals where drug test results where leaked to the press, you'll see that the ASO (which owns the TdF) leaked the results to - wait for it, wait for it - the newspaper that owns the ASO, ensuring newspaper sales.
• The irony of the TdF participating in yellow journalism is not lost upon us.

---

What's the sub-reason for the Tour de France?
At the Root: The Dreyfus Affair and Anti-Semitism

L'Auto owes its life to a 19th century French scandal involving soldier Alfred Dreyfus, called the Dreyfus affair. With overtones of anti-semitism and post-war paranoia, Dreyfus was accused of selling secrets to France's old enemy, the Germans.

As different sides of society insisted he was guilty or innocent - he was eventually cleared but only after dishonor, discharge, and a rigged trial had banished him to an island prison camp - the split came close to civil war and still have their echoes in modern French society. Many felt that anti-Semitism led to identifying the Jewish Dreyfus as a scapegoat to protect the institution of the French Army.

Two years later, in 1896, evidence came to light identifying a French Army major named Esterhazy as the real culprit. High-ranking military officials suppressed this new evidence and Esterhazy was unanimously acquitted on the second day of his court martial. Instead of being exonerated, Alfred Dreyfus was further accused on the based on false documents fabricated by French counter-intelligence officers covering their colleague Esterhazy.

Word of the military court's framing of Alfred Dreyfus and of an attendant cover-up began to spread, largely due to a vehement public protestation in a Paris newspaper by writer Emile Zola. The case had to be re-opened and Alfred Dreyfus was brought back from Guiana in 1899 to be tried again. The intense political and judicial scandal that ensued divided French society between those who supported Dreyfus (the Dreyfusards) and those who condemned him (the anti-Dreyfusards).

France's largest sports paper, Le Vélo, mixed sports coverage with political comment. Its editor, Pierre Giffard, believed Dreyfus innocent and said so, leading to acrid disagreement with his main advertisers. Among them were the automobile-maker the Comte de Dion and the industrialist Clément.

Frustrated at Giffard's politics at Le Vélo, they planned a rival paper. The editor was a prominent racing cyclist, Henri Desgrange, who had published a book of cycling tactics and training and was working as a publicity writer for Clément. The new paper became simply L'Auto, and was printed on yellow paper because Giffard used green.

Circulation was sluggish, however, and only a crisis meeting called "to nail Giffard's beak shut", as Desgrange phrased it, came to its rescue. A 23-year-old cycling and rugby writer called Géo Lefèvre suggested a race round France, bigger than any other paper could rival and akin to six-day races on the track. The Tour De France was the salvation of Le Vélo, a newspaper born to support the charges against Captain Dreyfus.

Eventually, all the accusations against Alfred Dreyfus were demonstrated to be baseless. He was aquitted, retired as a Major, and returned to active duty in World War One, where he served his country honorably and left as a Lieutenant-Colonel.

2009 Tour De France Series

• The Tour de France, the Dreyfus Affair, and anti-Semitism
  
  
• Major Taylor, the Tour de France, and Racism
  
  
• Racism in Tour de France Charged by French Riders
  
  
• No Women in the Tour de France : Sexism
  
  
• Pro Women Cyclists: Heirs of Alfonsina Strada
  
  
• Designing an Integrated Tour de France
  
  
• Tour de France Closeout: Drugs and Diversity