Franz Reitz

Franz Reitz (born January 28, 1929 in Wiesbaden ; † June 10, 2011 there ) was a German racing cyclist .

Athletic career

Reitz began with the bike, with which he also exported the goods for his bakery, his first bike race in his home town of Frauenstein . They tried to convince him to join the local artificial cycling club, but he decided to go racing. Reitz drove from a C-class driver to the German national team in a very short time, he completely skipped the B-class. He started for the cycling club 07 Stephan Wiesbaden. He was particularly successful as an amateur in 1952, when he achieved second place behind Edi Ziegler with eight victories in the competition of the Federation of German Cyclists (BDR) in the annual classification of the BDR. He drove particularly impressively when he took part in the Tour of Austria three times , where he a. a. also won the stage to the Großglockner . After winning the Tour of Yugoslavia, he became a professional driver.

Franz Reitz was a professional cyclist from 1954 to 1962. He changed teams several times and started for German, Swiss and Italian teams. In 1955 he took second place in the overall ranking of the Tour of Germany , in 1957 he became German road racing champion . In 1954 he started at the road world championship in Solingen and finished last by crossing the finish line hand in hand with Günther Pankoke , the only German driver who was still in the race besides him. Reitz drove 20 six-day races . In 1958 and 1959 he started the Tour de France , which he finished both times. He ended his career as a cyclist on the "Night of Frankfurt" in November 1962 after having had many bad luck and sustained several injuries in the previous two years.

After the end of his sporting career, Reitz, who was a trained baker and car mechanic, made a name for himself primarily as an organizer and track manager. He was not only responsible for the Frankfurt- Wiesbaden-Frankfurt tour stage in 1980, but also for numerous Bundesliga races and other major cycling events in his hometown. He was also involved in the organization of the 2007 German Road Cycling Championships in Wiesbaden. Until recently, Franz Reitz cycled intensively every day. He had a lifelong friendship with his racing colleague Valentin Petry .

Web links

• Franz Reitz in the database of Radsportseiten.net
• Wiesbaden: Mourning the former professional cycling professional "Berggeist" Franz Reitz on wiesbadener-tagblatt.de ( Memento from 23 August 2011 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Interest group for cycling (ed.): The cycling . No. 4/1967 . Sportdienst Verlag Zademack and Noster, Cologne 1950, p. 6 .
2. ^ Association of German cyclists (ed.): Radsport . No. 8/1953 . German sports publisher Kurt Stoof, Cologne, p. 14 .
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Association of German Cyclists (ed.): Cycling . No. 49/1962 . German sports publisher Kurt Stoof, Cologne, p. 10-11 .