From The Guardian
"In 2009 Carlo Cudicini broke a rule in his contract about riding a motorcycle when he suffered a nasty crash a few years ago," says Duncan Palmer. "Is it common to have such bans regarding bicycles? Are there any players past or present who are cyclists? I can't imagine that many arrive at training on a Pinarello or Bianchi …"
As Fulham fan Mark Haines points out, Moritz Volz is a keen cyclist. Here's an extract from Simon Hattenstone's interview with the German full-back in 2006:
We meet at his local Starbucks. It's noisy, so he suggests we retire to the park. I ask him where he has left his folding bike. "In the car. I need to get them fixed. I am useless with my hands." It turns out there are two. "One for the missus," he winks. We reach the car - a little VW Golf.
Blimey, I say, call yourself a Premiership player - couldn't you do a bit better than a Golf? "It's the first love of my life. Six years old now. You can't expect me to dump the love of my life, can you?" How much do the bikes cost? He looks embarrassed. "I didn't pay for them. The more known you become and the less you need the money, the more you get things free."
He is wearing a wrist bandage – an injury picked up from his new team-mate Jimmy Bullard in training. "Which team d'you support?" he asks. Manchester City, I say. "We're playing United at the weekend. We'll try and beat them for you, but if we can't beat them who would you like me to injure?" He grins.
That injury takes on an interesting twist when you listen to Bullard confirming Volz's two-wheel tendency. "I was at Fulham with Zoltan Gera, who definitely has the weirdest banter of anyone I've ever come across," said Bullard in a 2010 interview. "He is a proper oddball and a very weird kid. Moritz Volz was another proper weirdo – he used to cycle to training and occasionally to matches which says it all really."
West London in the early 2000s seems to have been a hotbed of pedalling players. Arjen Robben said when he joined Chelsea that he believed he would cycle to training. "Why not? The new complex is very close to where I live with my girlfriend, and if the weather is nice I can go by bike again," he told the Daily Mail in 2004. "When I started playing first-team football, I didn't actually have a driving licence. I had to go by bike. I used to cycle 10 kilometres each way to school every day, and I used to cycle to training as well."
The Manchester City manager, Roberto Mancini, likes to arrive to training at Carrington on his £2,500 specially-designed road bike. "Ten years ago my hero was Marco Pantani and 30 years ago it was Francesco Moser – both Italian cyclists," said Mancini after receiving the gift.
Another Italian manager who has spent time in England had a slightly different relationship with a bike. Fabio Capello's youth team coach at Spal, Giovanbattista Fabbri, was one for innovative training methods. "I'd put him on a bicycle and have him pedal towards the goal," Fabbri told Gabriele Marcotti in his book on the England manager. "Then I'd send over a cross and he'd have to head it in, without falling off the bike. Then, we'd switch over. I'd be on the bike and he had to put in a cross accurate enough to reach me, wherever I decided to cycle."
The former England midfielder David Batty was a big fan of bikes of the motorised variety. In 1998 he enraged his Leeds manager at the time, David O'Leary, after taking to the track ahead of the British Superbike Grand Prix at Donington. He rode in the sidecar while former motorbike racer Randy Mamola sped round the circuit in his 500cc Yamaha.
"I don't think they [Leeds] would have wanted me to do it, I'm not allowed to do any riding on the road," he said. "I've always been into bikes but football means I don't get to ride like I'd want to."
"In 2009 Carlo Cudicini broke a rule in his contract about riding a motorcycle when he suffered a nasty crash a few years ago," says Duncan Palmer. "Is it common to have such bans regarding bicycles? Are there any players past or present who are cyclists? I can't imagine that many arrive at training on a Pinarello or Bianchi …"
The Knowledge
As Fulham fan Mark Haines points out, Moritz Volz is a keen cyclist. Here's an extract from Simon Hattenstone's interview with the German full-back in 2006:
We meet at his local Starbucks. It's noisy, so he suggests we retire to the park. I ask him where he has left his folding bike. "In the car. I need to get them fixed. I am useless with my hands." It turns out there are two. "One for the missus," he winks. We reach the car - a little VW Golf.
Blimey, I say, call yourself a Premiership player - couldn't you do a bit better than a Golf? "It's the first love of my life. Six years old now. You can't expect me to dump the love of my life, can you?" How much do the bikes cost? He looks embarrassed. "I didn't pay for them. The more known you become and the less you need the money, the more you get things free."
He is wearing a wrist bandage – an injury picked up from his new team-mate Jimmy Bullard in training. "Which team d'you support?" he asks. Manchester City, I say. "We're playing United at the weekend. We'll try and beat them for you, but if we can't beat them who would you like me to injure?" He grins.
That injury takes on an interesting twist when you listen to Bullard confirming Volz's two-wheel tendency. "I was at Fulham with Zoltan Gera, who definitely has the weirdest banter of anyone I've ever come across," said Bullard in a 2010 interview. "He is a proper oddball and a very weird kid. Moritz Volz was another proper weirdo – he used to cycle to training and occasionally to matches which says it all really."
West London in the early 2000s seems to have been a hotbed of pedalling players. Arjen Robben said when he joined Chelsea that he believed he would cycle to training. "Why not? The new complex is very close to where I live with my girlfriend, and if the weather is nice I can go by bike again," he told the Daily Mail in 2004. "When I started playing first-team football, I didn't actually have a driving licence. I had to go by bike. I used to cycle 10 kilometres each way to school every day, and I used to cycle to training as well."
The Manchester City manager, Roberto Mancini, likes to arrive to training at Carrington on his £2,500 specially-designed road bike. "Ten years ago my hero was Marco Pantani and 30 years ago it was Francesco Moser – both Italian cyclists," said Mancini after receiving the gift.
Another Italian manager who has spent time in England had a slightly different relationship with a bike. Fabio Capello's youth team coach at Spal, Giovanbattista Fabbri, was one for innovative training methods. "I'd put him on a bicycle and have him pedal towards the goal," Fabbri told Gabriele Marcotti in his book on the England manager. "Then I'd send over a cross and he'd have to head it in, without falling off the bike. Then, we'd switch over. I'd be on the bike and he had to put in a cross accurate enough to reach me, wherever I decided to cycle."
The former England midfielder David Batty was a big fan of bikes of the motorised variety. In 1998 he enraged his Leeds manager at the time, David O'Leary, after taking to the track ahead of the British Superbike Grand Prix at Donington. He rode in the sidecar while former motorbike racer Randy Mamola sped round the circuit in his 500cc Yamaha.
"I don't think they [Leeds] would have wanted me to do it, I'm not allowed to do any riding on the road," he said. "I've always been into bikes but football means I don't get to ride like I'd want to."
