Lyli Herse

Lysiane "Lyli" Herse (born January 6, 1928 in Caen ; † January 4, 2018 in Osny ) was a French cyclist . She was French road racing champion nine times between 1956 and 1967 . Herse was the dominant cyclist of her generation.

biography

Lyli Herse was the daughter of the bicycle designer René Herse . Her parents were avid cyclists and often did bike rides on a tandem , even when Lyli Herse's mother, Marcelle, was pregnant with her. The father built his first bicycle himself when he - initially only on weekends - worked for the bicycle designer Narcisse Manevitch ; later he built a family triplet for excursions .

Lyli Herses strong point was mountain driving. She won the Grimpée du Puy de Dôme in 1949 and again in 1951, with a record time that is still in place today (as of 2017). The 13-time world champion Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli is said to have tried several times unsuccessfully to improve this record.

In 1955 Lyli Herse took part in the first Tour de France Féminin organized by the journalist Jean Leulliot and won the first stage. This made her the first to wear the leadership jersey on this first-ever women's tour; in the final statement she came fourth. The following year she won the first of nine French road racing championships (1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1965 and 1967). She competed seven times at the UCI Road World Championships , her best placing was fifth in 1965 .

In 1961 Lyli Herse invited her friend, the Luxembourg racing driver Elsy Jacobs , to take part in the Poly de Chanteloup . She later said that she discovered by chance that Jacobs was doping himself . As a result, the two women became estranged: “She was a good friend, but it was never like before. [...] it wasn't a natural sport for me. "

In 1967, after winning her ninth road championship, Lyli Herse retired from competitive cycling at the age of 39 because her father had had health problems the year before. In 1968 she founded her own women's cycling team, which included prominent riders such as Geneviève Gambillon . Lyli Herse trained the athletes personally, despite resistance from the French cycling association FFC .

Lyli Herse took over her father's business after it had been run by her mother for a few years. In 1979 the company moved to Asnières-sur-Seine , and Lyli Herse married the company's long-time frame builder, Jean Desbois. In 1986 the shop was closed for reasons of age and health.

In 2007 Lyli Herse sold the René Herse brand , remaining material and equipment to the American Michael Kone from Boulder , Colorado . She continued to work as a consultant to Kones Boulder Bicycle and received photos of each bike built to assess the quality. She was a member of the Honorary Committee of the Paris – Brest – Paris Brevet .

She died on January 4, 2018, just two days before her 90th birthday and on her father's 110th birthday.

literature

• Jan Heine: René Herse. The bikes, the builder, the riders . Bicycle quarterly Press, Seattle 2012.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mort de Lyli Herse (90 years). In: lequipe.fr. January 5, 2018, accessed January 5, 2018 (French). 
2. ↑ tandem.noir.pagesperso-orange.fr
3. ↑ Heine, René Herse , pp. 13, 15.
4. ↑ Heine, René Herse , p. 15f.
5. ↑ Heine, René Herse , p. 331.
6. ↑ LILY HERSE, LA REVELATION ( Memento from July 29, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
7. ↑ Heine, René Herse , p. 338.
8. ↑ Heine, René Herse , p. 336f.
9. ↑ Heine, René Herse , pp. 351f.
10. ↑ Heine, René Herse , p. 397.
11. ^ The René Herse Story. (No longer available online.) Renehersebicycles.com, archived from the original on September 22, 2015 ; accessed on March 13, 2016 . 
12. ↑ Comité d'honneur. Paris – Brest – Paris, accessed March 23, 2016 . 

Web links

• Lyli Herse in the Radsportseiten.net database