Bicycle Racing

[petal]

History of road races
The first races

The acknowledged first races were held in the Parc de St-Cloud, now in western Paris on 31 May1868. They were held there because of the influence of the former royal family of France, which owned the park and which had been caught up in the enthusiasm for riding the newly devised bicycles with pedals. It explains too the accounts of spectators dressed in their finery.

The races were organised by the Compagnie Parisienne, which the previous year had taken over the bicycle company run by Pierre Michaux and his family. In 1866, Michaux produced a new machine with an iron frame which sloped down to contain the back wheel, made like the front, of wood.
Historians dispute in which order races were run, although it seems certain there was more than one. One of those races was won by a 19-year-old English immigrant called James Moore. He was a friend of the Michaux family and rode one of their new bicycles. It is now in the museum at Ely, Cambridgeshire, England. At the time, Cycling Record wrote that he set off "as fast as lightning," overtook the favourite, François Drouet and then another rider, Palocini, and won by 20 metres. The race ran 1,200 m from the fountains to the gates of the park and back.

Paris-Rouen
The success of the races in the Parc de St-Cloud inspired the Compagnie Parisienne and the magazine Le Vélocipède Illustré to run a race from the Arc de Triomphe in Paris to the cathedral in Rouen on 7 November1869. It was the world's first long-distance road race and also won by Moore, who took 10 hours and 25 minutes to cover 134 km. The runners-up were the Count André Castéra, who had come second to Moore at St-Cloud, and Jean Bobillier, riding a farm bike that weighed 35 kg. The only woman to finish within 24 hours was the self-styled Miss America, in reality an unknown English woman who, like several in the field, had preferred not to compete under her real name.

International development
The growth of organised cycle racing led to the development of national administrative bodies, in Britain in 1878, France 1881, the Netherlands 1883, Germany 1884 and Sweden 1900. Sometimes, as in Britain, cycling was originally administered as part of athletics, since cyclists often used the tracks used by runners. This could, says the historian James McGurn, lead to disputes within countries and internationally.
"The Bicycle Union [of Britain], having quarrelled with the Amateur Athletic Association over cycle race jurisdiction on AAA premises, took issue with the Union Vélocipèdique de France over the French body's willingness to allows its 'amateurs' to compete for prizes of up to 2,000 francs, the equivalent of about sixteen months' pay for a French manual worker."The first international body was the International Cycling Association (ICA), established by an English schoolteacher called Henry Sturmey. It opened in 1893 and held its first world championship in Chicago, USA, the same year. The British objected and new organisation, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), was set up on 15 April1900 during the Olympic Games in Paris. Britain was not initially a member. It joined in 1903. The UCI has run the sport ever since. It is based in Switzerland.