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Excellent illustrated biography of German cycling legend Fredy Budzinski.
Even as a child, Fredy Budzinski was fascinated by the bicycle as a means of transport. At the age of 17 he became an amateur racer and in 1901 a professional cyclist. At this point it was already clear that his true love was writing. For several years he worked as a freelancer for the newspaper Rad-Welt, in 1904 he was employed and in 1912 he became editor-in-chief of the newspaper, which was one of the first purely sports magazines in Germany (daily circulation: 100,000 copies). From 1902 to 1906 he was also an official of the German Racing cyclists' Association, which represented the interests of athletes to the Association of German Cycling Organizers (VDR).
In 1909, the first six-day race on European soil took place in Berlin. Budzinski was - even if not from the beginning - enthusiastic about this marathon cycling event and accompanied it journalistically into old age. He also introduced the points system for two-person teams, which is still common today, and which is why it is also called the "Berlin system".
During his lifetime, Budzinski was called the "Nestor of German cycling". He was a cyclist, author, functionary, inventor, lobbyist, organizer and collector. His numerous articles, books and statistics still form the basis of what is known about cycling from its beginnings up to the 1920s. He left behind an extensive collection on the subject of cycling with thousands of photos, documents, programmes, newspaper clippings and many other memorabilia, which was acquired in 1971 by the Central Library of Sport Science at the German Sport University in Cologne. It mainly contains photos and documents on the history of cycling and the bicycle from around 1890 to the 1960s. The focus is on track cycling from the 1890s to the 1920s.
21 x 15 cms, softback, 122 pages.
2007
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