The Call of the Road: The History of Cycle Road Racing

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The weather was a factor that year. It was cold in the mountains of the north, which is to be expected in April, but it even rained on stage 10 in Andalucia, when the Austrian rider Max Bulla won a stage to Granada. Carnado kept fighting but he seemed to have terrible luck, crashing several times on the terrible Spanish roads, as well as having plenty of mechanical problems.

Even the final stage through the Sierra de Guardarrama to Madrid was hit by drizzle, making it really cold high up. Carnado attacked once more, but took Deloor and Bulla with him. Deloor won the stage, which finished on the velodrome in Madrid’s Casa de Campo, the city’s largest park. His brave efforts throughout, and especially on the final stage, saw Carnado finish second overall to Deloor, with Antoon Dignef third.

The second Vuelta a España saw big changes. The average length of the stages was reduced from 245 kilometres to 207, but the number of stages increased from fourteen to twenty-one, making it a three-week race. Growing unrest in Spain saw only eight foreign entries, four Italians and four Belgians, and the weather was bad again. Gustaaf Deloor took his second overall victory, with his brother Alfons in second place. And that was it for la Vuelta, because six weeks after the 1936 race a coup d’état brought about the start of the Spanish Civil War. The next Vuelta a España was held in 1941.

The country was now under the dictatorship of General Franco, which lasted until his death in 1975, and it affected all walks of life in Spain, including cycling and the Vuelta a España. It saw a lot more Spanish winners, but not just because Spanish cyclists were improving; foreign riders were less keen on racing in Spain because of the conditions there.

It struggled through the Forties, and by 1950 only forty-two riders entered, with five Belgians and three Italians the only foreigners. There were twenty-four stages, but the racing was so dull that the few sponsors supporting it pulled out. There wouldn’t be another Vuelta a España until 1955, when there was a landmark edition.

For a start the field was 100 riders for the first time in the race’s history. There were sixty-two Spanish, twelve French, twelve Italian, six Swiss, two German, and six British riders. That was a big breakthrough because proper road racing had only just become established in the UK – but more about the reasons why that was so in a later chapter.

By 1955 Spain had enough riders to field three complete teams, and their A-team was formidable. It was headed by two men, Jesus Lorono and Federico Bahamontes, Tour de France Kings of the Mountains in 1953 and 1954 respectively. They were both terrific climbers, and Bahamontes was one of the best of all time, but they were very different personalities, and that led to a stinging rivalry. Lorono was Basque; quiet, dignified and stoical. Bahamontes was from Toledo; hot-blooded, volatile and sometimes fragile.

The very fast and talented Miguel Poblet was also in the Spanish A-team. He was a rare thing in Spain in that he was a fast sprinter who excelled in single-day races, but he was still capable of winning the Vuelta, if the dice fell in his favour. There were two support riders, Francisco Massip and Bernardo Ruiz, as well as the very experienced Julian Berrendero, the Vuelta winner in 1941 and 1942.

Despite all that Spanish firepower, however, stage one was won by Gilbert Bauvin of France. Stage two broke with tradition and finished outside Spain for the first time. Bahamontes and Lorono launched a two-pronged attack on the Jaizkibel climb, famous now for the part it plays in Spain’s biggest single-day race, the San Sebastian Classic. Bauvin went with them and won his second consecutive stage on home turf in Bayonne, France, but his glory was short-lived.

Lorono took over the race lead the next day, but the French hit back on stage four, a relatively easy one from Zaragoza to Lerida. They attacked from the start and kept on attacking, while the Spanish had nothing but mechanical problems. Afterwards the recriminations started, with the Spaniards blaming each other for the lack of joined-up team thinking. Raphael Geminiani of France now led the race. The Spanish had more bad luck, while the lead passed within the French team from Geminiani to Jean Dotto, who ended up the first foreign winner of the Vuelta a España.