a piece from Rich Tenorio via our US office that’s well worth your time:

When cycling first took the US by storm in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Black Americans joined in the new pastime. One Black cyclist, Marshall “Major” Taylor, became a world champion in 1899. Yet American cycling installed a color line in professional racing. Opportunities became so limited that Black competitors had to take them wherever they could find them – including on the vaudeville stage and in Europe. Their story is documented in a new book, Black Cyclists: The Race for Inclusion, by Robert J Turpin, a professor of history at Lees-McRae College in North Carolina.

the star of stage one – as well as Britain’s Fred Wright, Kevin Geniets and Harold Tejada. The gap is minimal to the peloton, mind.Tour de France. And it’s going to get spicy.

Michael Butler will be our man in the saddle with you shortly, but in the meantime, we’ll cover the early miles as the riders roll out of Pinerolo for a 140km trek to Valloire. To start you off, here’s William Fotheringham’s rundown from his pre-race stage-by-stage guide:

Gone are the days when the Tour’s opening week was a stultifying succession of sprint stages: this is pure climbing. The first 50km are uphill, but the sting comes at the end; it’s unprecedented for the Tour to go over a pass as high as the Galibier this early on. If the defending champion, Jonas Vingegaard, is short of form we will find out here; the downhill finale will suit Tom Pidcock, arguably the fastest descender in the bunch.

Source: theguardian.com