Charly Gaul - Riding Style

Riding Style

Gaul was 1m 73 tall and weighed 64 kg. His lightness was a gift in the mountains, where he won the climbers' competition in the Tour de France of 1955 and 1956. Unusual for a light man, he was also an accomplished time-trialist, in one Tour de France beating the world leader, Jacques Anquetil. Gaul pedalled fast on climbs, rarely changing his pace, infrequently getting out of the saddle. His contemporary, Raphaël Géminiani, said Gaul was "a murderous climber, always the same sustained rhythm, a little machine with a lower gear than the rest, turning his legs at a speed that would break your heart, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock." The journalist Pierre About wrote that Gaul had "irresistible sprightliness ", that he had "the air of an angel for which nothing is difficult."

The writer Jan Heine said: "Nobody else ever climbed that fast. Gaul dominated the climbs of the late 1950s, spinning up the hills as amazing cadences, his legs a blur while his cherubic face hardly showed the strain of his exceptional performances." Pierre Chany called him "without doubt, one of the three or four best climbers of all time."

Philippe Brunel of the French newspaper, L'Équipe, said: "In the furnace of the 1950s, Gaul seemed to ride not against Bahamontes, Anquetil Adriessens, but against oppressive phantoms, to escape his modest origins, riding the ridges to new horizons, far from the life without surprises which would have been his had he stayed in Luxembourg." Gaul was weakest on flat stages and in the heat. In the 1957 Tour de France he went home after two days, stricken by the temperature in what Pierre Chany called a "crematorium Tour". He was at his best in cold and rain, winning the following year's race after a lone ride through the Alps in a day-long downpour described by the French newspaper, L'Équipe as "diluvian". It was the first time the Tour had been won by a pure climber.

The writer Roger St Pierre said of Gaul in the bad weather of the 1956 Giro d'Italia, in which a stage through the Dolomites ended with the 12 km climb of Monte Bondone:

"Charly averaged just four miles an hour over the final uphill kilometres of that murderous stage and collapsed at the finish, being taken off to the welcome warmth of his hotel, wrapped in a blanket. But he had assured his overall victory by beating his closest challenger on that nightmarish day by many minutes. The rest of the field was spread-eagled over several hours, some even having stopped for warm baths en route!"

Gaul moved from 11th to first place. Jacques Goddet wrote in L'Équipe: "This day surpassed anything seen before in terms of pain, suffering and difficulty."

Gaul was a variable rider who could delight and disappoint, almost at random. He was talented in stage races but unremarkable in one-day events.