Bullying Merckx

How did a man with a "Mad Heart" beat the cannibal? Well it was an Italian job of course. What am i going on about? Well the 1970's Race of the Fall of the Autumn Leaves or Giro di Lombardia. This is the race that more or less closes out the season. Our swan song before six day racing and sort days forcing us to dream about next years racing again.

Surprisingly Merckx only wore his national jersey one year during his dominance of cycling and it was 1970. Buy the tifosi yearned for a local to take their home race and another legend Felice Gimondi was outsprinted by Franco Bitossi. This is a character that I really do plan on reading up on, as he had a bit of a heart flutter and this saw him standing and waiting on the side of the road during races to get his heart rate down from 220! There is no other sport that has the amount of history and stories like cycling. No footballer or athlete simply stops in the middle of an event and still goes on to win the day.

Merckx had created the break away on one of the cobbled climbs but during the racing Gimondi and Bitossi went away and they stayed away due to the rest of the group not willing to help Merckx to pull them back. He worked all the way in true Merckian style but it was not to be his day as Motta also got away to take third spot on the podium. Bitossi was obviously spurned on by the Italian crowd and the fact that he was wearing the National Champions jersey, his heart problems staying away on the day and he beat Gimondi to the line. The last Britain to end in the top ten for the next two decades saw Billy Bilsland take 10th place and a pay rise for the next year.
Merckx would get the last laugh though and pull of a rare double of winning the Giro di Lombardia while attired in the Rainbow jersey. Chapeau

References:

• Pez Cycling
• VeloArchive
  

Bilsland the Builder

The annual London to Brighton saw Billy Connolly riding a Billy Bilsland in a respectful five hour jaunt across southern England. Never having heard about Billy Bilsland sent me on a bit of a search and came up with a few articles but few pictures of the bikes he made. Here are the few I did find

 

 

 

 

 

References:

• Cycling Weekly, June 19 1986
• ias23philly's photostream
  

Bilsland goes Postal

Yesterday's post on the introduced Scotsman Billy Bilsland. At the end of 1972 a better offer came along from the new Raleigh Team that wanted to promote the brand via a pro team. These were tough years with Peter Post known for his pursuit for the best results. Bilsland did not see him as the British hating view that most others did but rather as someone who simply disliked bad results.

An example was shown at the end of one poor race where the riders arrived to find that the Raleigh Team support was no where to be found. Post had been disappointed with the days outing and this meant the riders had a 20 mile ride back to the team hotel, this time with no support car!

Racing pre-Lemond days meant that riders who were not at the top of the pecking order had to work hard for their bread and butter. The Raleigh Team worked on a fairer system with the riders receiving their money directly after the race, even though the team would only get the money weeks later, and the takings were all split fairly. Bilsland was also gifted with being smart off the bike when at the end of one race he convinced race organizers using his Parisian identity papers, even though he was staying in Belgium, that he should get his traveling costs covered. A bad day racing had still turned in a good day at the bank.

References:

• The Drum-Up
• Pez-Cycling
• Glasgow Wheelers
  
• Die Wieler
  

The Scientific Scotsman

Born in the winter of 1945 William Bilsland came from a cycling family, his father being part of the Glasgow Wheelser 4000m pursuit team. Billy would come back full circle to his cycling roots and is now the president of that samw club. His racing career was in the 70's and was part of the Peugeot and Raleigh Team between 1970-1975.

He had some good results and was a work horse in the peloton, ending his career with a descent palmares:
1968 First stage in 13th Milk Race, Morecambe (GBR)
1969 2nd in 4th stage Tour Nivernais Morvan (FRA) 1969 First to sixth Tour stage Nivernais Morvan (FRA)
1969 2nd in General Classification Tour Nivernais Morvan (FRA)
1969 First part in a 10th stage Tour de l'Avenir, Clermont-Ferrand (FRA)
1971 Second in Gistel (BEL)
1971 Second in the GP d'Isbergues (FRA)
1971 First in Oud-Turnhout (BEL)
1971 Third in Assebroek (b) (BEL)
1971 Second in Zomergem (b) (BEL)
1971 Third in Circuit des Fronti?res, Templeuve (BEL)
1973 First stage in fifth GP Wills (GBR) 1973 3rd in National Championship, On the Road Race, Great Britain (GBR)
1974 2nd in National Championship, On the Road Race, Great Britain (GBR)
1974 Second in a second stage part Etoile des Espoirs, St Martin de Landelles (FRA)

The relaxed Scotsman along with coach Jimmy Dorward were the some of the forefathers of scientific approach to training. In a time were quantity was the order of the day when in came to training and a race calendar with more than a 100 races a year, the fact that Bilsland was opting for quality over quantity with the use of interval training was years ahead of his time. The evidence of this success can be seen in his results just in his penultimate year as an amateur, two classics and 17 wins. Impressive by any standards and closed the deal for signing with Peugeot in his break through year.

His raced three years at Peugeot and saw a top ten finish in the Tour of the Falling leaves in 1970. He was also no stranger to the tales that come from the peloton back in the day. When managers were hard men and demanded everything from the riders the Scotsman was found between the team leader,Godefroot, and the team manager, Gaston Plaud. Godefroot found out that the Spanish were holding out on him during a stage race and decided to play sick to get out of the race. As he dropped off the bunch Plaud told Bilsland to get his back into the bunch even if it meant dragging him to the line. Godefroot had no intention of finishing after this slight on him and told Bilsland to abandon with him. Not being at the top of the food chain Bilsland could not simply pack up and go home. This left him with a long hard chase to get back to the bunch. No sooner had he arrived that Plaud asked his what he was doing on the back of the bunch when the racing was going on in the front!!!

References:

• The Drum-Up
• Pez-Cycling
• Glasgow Wheelers
  
• Die Wieler