Josef Fischer (cyclist)

Josef Fischer (1903)

Fisherman on a bike

Paving stone in Roubaix in memory of Fischer's victory in the Paris-Roubaix race

Fischer before the race against a horse (1895)

Josef Fischer (born January 20, 1865 in Atzlern near Neukirchen bei Heiligen Blut , Upper Palatinate; † March 3, 1953 in Munich ) was the first important German road cyclist .

Athletic career

In his day, Fischer was considered the best road driver in the world. In 1893 Fischer won the distance cycling trip from Vienna to Berlin . He was also the first winner of the Paris – Roubaix race in 1896 and, until John Degenkolb's victory in 2015, remained the only German cyclist for 119 years to win this race. It took him 9 hours 17 minutes for the 280 kilometers. In 1900 he won the Bordeaux – Paris race . In 1903 he was the only German to take part in the first edition of the Tour de France and was 15th.

Fischer's career as a cyclist lasted from 1892 to 1904; from 1897 he also had success as a train driver . In August 1894 he managed to be faster with his bike than a Wild West rider who falsely posed as the son of Buffalo Bill ; In the seven-hour race in Munich, Fischer was able to cover 258.5 km on his bike, his opponent on various horses 209 km.

Professional

After retiring from active cycling, Fischer initially stayed in Paris and worked as a chauffeur for noble customers. During the First World War he had to leave France and returned to Germany.

Trivia

Walter Rütt conveyed the anecdote according to which Fischer declined an offered chair after his victory in the Vienna-Berlin distance trip with the words: "Thank you, I've sat long enough, I'm happy to be able to stand."

successes

1892

• Munich – Pilsting (205 km)
• Munich – Coburg (300 km)

1893

• Vienna – Berlin (580 km in 31:00: 22.2 hours)
• Moscow – St. Petersburg
• Freiburg – Colmar – Basel (300 km)

1894

• Milan – Munich (587 km in 29:30 hours)
• Trieste – Graz – Vienna (509 km)

1895

• Trieste – Graz – Vienna

1896

• Paris – Roubaix
• German championship of the stayers

1897

• Four days from Hamburg

1899

• Four days from Hamburg

1900

• Bordeaux – Paris

Web links

Commons : Josef Fischer  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Josef Fischer in the database of Radsportseiten.net
• Josef Fischer in the Tour de France database(French / English )
• Cycling4fans.de
• Results of the German Stayer Championships 1892-2005 on stayer.de (PDF file; 92 kB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Abendzeitung Germany: How Velocipedists made Munich the cycling capital. Retrieved April 3, 2019 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b} Passauer Neue Presse of April 8, 2017, sports section, "The cycling phenomenon from the Bavarian Forest"
3. ^ Sébastien Fleuriel: 100 Paris-Roubaix. Presses Univ. Septentrion, 2002, ISBN 978-2-859-39758-6 , p. 24 ( limited preview in Google book search).
4. ^ Association of German cyclists (ed.): Radsport . No. 8/1953 . German sports publisher Kurt Stoof, Cologne, p. 15 .