January 24: Egan Bernal’s grave falls
While on a training outing with his Ineos Grenadiers team at the start of the year, Egan Bernal suffered a serious accident, which traumatized all of Colombia, when he hit a bus parked on the pavement. “There was a 95% chance of remaining a paraplegic and I almost lost my life doing what I love most”will testify the winner of the Tour de France 2019 on Instagram.
March 21: cyclists in solidarity for Ukraine
In 2022, international news has been marked by the war in Ukraine, triggered by the Russian invasion in February. In the cycling community, it gave rise to a vast outpouring of solidarity, quite protean, ranging from fundraising to bicycle donations for the populations of occupied cities. Customary of the fact, the professional cyclist Lachlan Morton links Munich to the Ukrainian border on March 21, collecting 18,500 euros on the way.
July 13: Vingegaard reverses the Tour at Granon
On the morning of July 13, Tadej Pogacar, already a double stage winner and solid Yellow Jersey, seems well on his way to pocketing a third final victory in a row on the Tour de France. But that’s without counting the perilous route of the 11th stage, which rests on Albertville and the Col du Granon, which the Grande Boucle has not visited for 36 years.
Harassed throughout the day by the Jumbo-Visma, the Slovenian, livid, finally surrendered on the last ascent and abandoned his overcoat to Jonas Vingaard. Who will keep it until the Champs-Élysées. The culmination of a crazy month of July, also driven by the successful return of the Women’s Tour, largely dominated by Annemiek van Vleuten.
August 28: mountain biking craze in Les Gets
This year, the World Mountain Bike Championships had settled in Les Gets, in Haute-Savoie, for a week of distribution of rainbow jerseys. For the French contingent, the week was a success, with six titles, including two for Pauline Ferrand-Prévôt (in short-track then in cross-country) and an exceptional hat-trick in the downhill. All in a supercharged atmosphere, with more than 150,000 very noisy spectators, equipped with fog horns, smoke bombs and… chainsaws.
September 20: Bike plan, second act
For its fourth anniversary, the bike plan has moved up a gear. Exit its first iteration, Endowed with 350 million euros over seven years (from 2018 to 2025), welcome to a new device, with a budget of 250 million euros for the year 2023 alone. With such a sum, the government wishes to maintain aid for the acquisition of bicycles, continue to develop cycle paths and finance the “active mobility fund”, which allows the development of new infrastructures in the territory… An ambitious project, which shows that the bicycle is increasingly taken seriously by the institutions. Even if some associations still consider these means insufficient.
November 14: Michel Sardou’s tirade
Was France better before? Not quite, according to Michel Sardou, with one exception: “There were no scooters that really broke them, and especially no bikes, which I can’t stand, recently won the hit singer on France 2. They burn all the red lights… The next one, I’m done! » Controversial, the proposal illustrates the gaping divide between motorists and cyclists, more and more marked on social networks and TV sets in 2022.