The Cycliste Moderne, September 2, 2005

I was going to write about the Vuelta and how Roberto Heras had a monster day and Denis Menchov showed some unexpected strength. I also have to admit that I have been rather detached from all of the Hurricane Katrina coverage. While it is sad, it is not anything that has really caused me too much concern.

However, tonight as I write this, I am pretty drained emotionally. I learned tonight that Wim Amels, one of the great Dutch cycling journalists and publicists died yesterday at the age of 53. He has written for virtually all the major Dutch cycling publications and has provided significant coverage of the Tour de France for the Dutch fans. He ran the Dutch language website tourdefrance.nl. He has also been instrumental in documenting the lives of the great Dutch riders of the last fifty years. Here is a brief biography and bibliography of his works. Wim was an excellent photographer in his own right. Here are his photos of Richard Groenendaal and Erik Zabel.

I met Wim last year when I traveled to the Wielerrevuebeurs in Valkenswaard, Netherlands. When he was not writing books or publishing magazines or promoting races, Wim organized cycling and soccer memorabilia shows. Due to his contacts and involvement with other cycling journalists Wim had an incredible archive of cycling photos. Most of the cycling action photos that we have on our Cyclista website are photos we acquired from Wim.

He was always responsive to my questions even clear around the world. We had just exchanged e-mails about how excited I was to be bringing my wife to Valkenswaard to his event in November and how I looked forward to seeing him again. This is a really sad day for the Amels family, for the cycling community and Cyclista.com.