Life’s a cruel joke, and sometimes the punchline comes at you on two wheels. Pieter Moeskops knew that better than anyone. A boy from Loosduinen, riding a delivery bike, dreaming of something bigger. The world didn’t care much for those dreams—World War I came, and it wiped the slate clean. But after the dust settled,…
A Philosophical Intro, Because Why Not? It’s a strange thing, life. You wake up one day and realize you’re on a journey, not quite sure how you got here. Every pedal stroke, every inch covered, feels like you’re moving forward. But are you? Or are you just spinning in place, like a fly trapped in…
Life is a race. A sick, endless cycle. We’re all riding on our bikes—some more gracefully than others—trying to get to the finish line, where we hope to find meaning. But the truth is, no one really knows what they’re racing toward. The end is inevitable, just like the suffering along the way. “I am…
They tell you life’s a race. They tell you it’s about winning. But Costante Girardengo? He knew better. From the moment he turned that first pedal, he understood it wasn’t about crossing the line first. It was about what you leave in the dust when you go. A legacy of blood, sweat, and grit, built…
We’re all running from something. Or to something. Or maybe we’re just running, because it’s what we’ve always done. Maurice De Waele wasn’t some polished athlete, some perfect machine built for glory. No, he was more like the rest of us—battered, bruised, barely hanging on, but still moving forward. He knew, better than most, that…
Jan Raas was a hell of a cyclist, but not in the way you’d think. He wasn’t born with the legs of a mountain goat or the lungs of a marathoner. No, this was a guy who had to claw his way through the grind of the bike world, hammering out a living on those…
Nicolas Frantz wasn’t the loudest man on the road, nor the flashiest. He was a beast on two wheels, from Luxembourg, a place where people tend to mind their own business, but never forget the legends that come from it. Born in 1899, he made his mark on the cycling world with a steely, relentless…
Guy Lapébie, a man who pedaled his life like he was running from the devil himself. He had lungs of steel, legs like relentless pistons, and a world that kept shifting under his wheels. Born in 1916, just as WW1 drums were fading, he came screaming into a grimy little village, destined to become a…
Briek Schotte. The name rolls off your tongue like the sound of tires grinding over the cobbles of Flanders. Born in Kanegem, a hardscrabble town in West Flanders, on September 7, 1919, he was just another poor farm kid, another forgotten soul from the Belgian countryside, destined to be crushed by the weight of the…
Jacques Marinelli wasn’t anyone’s idea of a hero. He wasn’t built for it. Not tall, not strong, not anything. Just a scrawny guy with legs like string beans and feet so small he barely made a dent in the ground. Size 38 shoes, dead serious… The French writer Max Favalelli summed him up: “He’s a…