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Eddy Merckx turns 81 today 🎂

He grew up in Meensel-Kiezegem, a small Flemish village, and became the most dominant athlete cycling has ever produced. Arguably the most dominant in any sport.

They called him "The Cannibal," and it was about hunger, not cruelty.

He didn't race to win enough. He raced to win everything, stages and sprints and mountains alike. Rivals would roll up to the start line already beaten, hoping only to finish somewhere near him.

And the record backs up every word of it.

Across 18 seasons, Merckx won 525 races. Read that again. Not stages, races. It's a number so big it stopped sounding like sport a long time ago.

The headline wins alone are hard to believe:

- 11 Grand Tours, made up of five Tours de France, five Giros and one Vuelta. Nobody else has come close.
- All five Monuments, with a record 19 Monument wins in total.
- Three World Championships.
- The Hour Record, that lonely, brutal test of one man against the clock.

In the Tour de France by itself, he took five overall titles and 34 stage wins, and he wore the yellow jersey for 111 stages. More than any rider in history.

Then there's Milan-San Remo. The longest one-day race on the calendar, and he won it seven times. That record has stood for over half a century.

What gets me isn't the volume. It's the range.

Cobbles, climbs, sprints, three-week tours, the track. Every kind of cycling that existed, he beat. Modern stars get measured against him all the time, and most of them, Pogacar included, politely wave the comparison away.

There's only one Cannibal.

He did all of it without power meters, carbon frames or a radio in his ear. Just legs, lungs and a flat refusal to ever sit up.

So raise a bottle today to the greatest who ever turned a pedal.

Happy 81st, Eddy. The sport you devoured still owes you.

Three guys with money problems and one guy having the time of his life. 🚲 Guess which one's on the bike.

We've all ridden the kind of "bike lane" that's really just a strip of paint between moving cars and parked doors. It disappears at the junction, exactly where you need it most. 🚲

Then you see something like this. Lanes that are physically protected. Signals that count bikes as real traffic.

A turning lane and a warning sign so drivers actually look before they cut across.

It's not fancy. It's just somebody deciding riders are worth planning for.

📰 Four penny farthing world records tumbled in central London this weekend - including the smallest and largest rideable versions ever built.

The record-breaking ride served as a curtain-raiser to the City of London Nocturne. At one end of the scale, siblings Flo and Finn Woodward, aged six and seven, claimed the women's and men's titles for the smallest penny farthing, its front wheel measuring just 11.41 inches across.

At the other extreme, Neil Laughton of The Penny Farthing Club rode a custom 100-inch machine nicknamed "Big Bertha," which lifted him roughly nine feet off the ground near Bank Station.

"I was born in London, worked in London and honestly, after riding the world's largest penny farthing bicycle that's ever been built, I'm just pleased I didn't die in London today," Laughton said. "It was a fabulous day."

Sweden's Henrik Hedström also set a record for the fastest 100m while juggling: 19.87 seconds. Both record-setting bikes were hand-built in Australia by Dan Bolwell, aka "Penny Farthing Dan."

A six-year-old on the world's tiniest penny farthing - would you have the nerve to try it?

What if more miles aren't making you faster? 👇

Do you believe in second-wind miracles on a climb?

A New York cyclist who "would never break the law, even a tiny one" was killed by a machine that's illegal to ride - but perfectly legal to buy.

Dmytro Stechenko, a 35-year-old software engineer, died on May 28 in a head-on crash on the Queensboro Bridge bike path. The rider who hit him, Francis Delvalle, 39, was on a Teverun Blade GT II - a stand-up scooter that goes 0 to 53 mph in under four seconds. Both men died. Both were wearing helmets.

Here's the loophole: it's illegal to operate that scooter on any NYC street or bike path, but it's completely legal to buy one online and have it shipped to your door for around $1,700.

Stechenko's best friend, Alex Pawlowski, told Streetsblog the city shouldn't wait for the next death to act. State Sen. Kristen Gonzalez is now drafting legislation to crack down at the point of sale.

A 4,900-watt scooter against a carbon road bike. Should it even be possible to buy one?

Never drop a struggling rider. 🤝

The goal was never to be the fastest. It was to still be riding when everyone who chased speed has long since stopped. How many years are you hoping to get?