Teams & Riders Coolest Names in the Peloton*

[Izzyeviel]

Theres a czech rider for ATT Investments, going by the name Monti, Alberto Carlo.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Christ! Ian Rush is taking part in 1.2 races!

Correction. Christian Rush is taking part in 1.2 races.

 

[theyoungest]

I had to chuckle during the Tour every time the name Jegat popped up on the screen. "Je gat" would translate as "your hole" in Dutch.

 

[Peter von]

Ben Swift, when he was still a sprinter.

Previously Marco Velo

 

[Izzyeviel]

Christ! Ian Rush is taking part in 1.2 races!

Correction. Christian Rush is taking part in 1.2 races.

Ian Rush said if I don't drink lots of milk, i'd only be good enough to ride for Eurocyclingtrips CCN.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Ian Rush said if I don't drink lots of milk, i'd only be good enough to ride for Eurocyclingtrips CCN.

Who are they?

 

[Izzyeviel]

Who are they?

Exactly!

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

And now that you have drawn my attention to that squad, Oingerang sounds like an Aldi/Lidl variant on a boomerang.

 

[GenericBoonenFan]

Trifonius Van Peteghem

Trifonius Van Peteghem (born 1998-08-19) is a road racing cyclist from Belgium, active between 2018 and 2024. His best results are 20th place in Memorial Philippe Van Coningsloo and 21st place in stage Tour of Routhe Salvation.

www.procyclingstats.com

This is a weird one. Prof Cuthbert Calculus is called Prof Zonnebloem/Tournesol in the Dutch/French versions and I had to google his first name for a project I'm working on. Now in Dutch/French it's Trifonius/Tryphon. And I wondered where that came from so I googled that name. Much to my surprise this PCS entry was the second thing to pop up, after the dutch wikipedia page of the prof from Tintin.

Also fun fact: Hergé apparently hated the name given to this character by the English translators. But I guess professor Sunflower doesn't sound that great in English.

 

[RedheadDane]

Why this guy obviously has ancestors, it appear he is indeed the... Primo Mori of the cycling family.

Primo Mori

Primo Mori (born 1944-04-07 in San Miniato) is a former professional road racing cyclist from Italy, active between 1969 and 1975. His best results are winning a stage in Tour de France and winning a stage in Volta a Catalunya.

www.procyclingstats.com

 

[RedheadDane]

Okay, this is rather dark. This guy's name means "short live" in Danish, and... let's hope not.

Bart Kortleve

Bart Kortleve (born 2004-10-23) is a road racing cyclist from Netherlands, currently riding for Metec - SOLARWATT p/b Mantel. His best results are 4th place in stage Ronde de l'Isard and 13th place in Dorpenomloop Rucphen.

www.procyclingstats.com

 

[Charlyghoul]

I had a look at some of his rivals in the Philippines junior road race. Some great names like Lord Heintji Ganoy.....Zeus Gniess Dinoso.....Arckem Prince Angel Asas.....King Alfred Gapit.....John Troy Mercurio.....Kurt Axel Ramos.....

Bo Hamburger
Fumiyuki Beppu
Hippolyte Arcoutourier
Pippo Pozzato

Are some favourites, but none are as good as Kurt Axel Ramos

 

[hrotha]

Okay, this is rather dark. This guy's name means "short live" in Danish, and... let's hope not.

Bart Kortleve

Bart Kortleve (born 2004-10-23) is a road racing cyclist from Netherlands, currently riding for Metec - SOLARWATT p/b Mantel. His best results are 4th place in stage Ronde de l'Isard and 13th place in Dorpenomloop Rucphen.

www.procyclingstats.com

That's also what it means in Dutch. I did some digging around to see whether it couldn't somehow be the equivalent of modern kort lijf ("short* body") instead, but nothing of the sort came up. I did find the coat of arms used by the Cortleeve family in Delft in the 18th century, though, so that's kinda cool

*Nowadays you use klein rather than kort to refer to people, but back in Middle Dutch both cort and cleine would have worked. It was even common to use both together and say that someone was cort ende cleine

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Clément Le Fur sounds like the name of a stereotypical French character from a British or American sitcom.

 

[Charlyghoul]

Lance Armstrong was about as American a name as it could get

 

[Samu Cuenca]

The new Israeli U23 champion is not afraid of playing Hardeball.

 

[hrotha]

Jarno Widar is a pretty interesting name

Jarno is a specifically Finnish form of Jeremy. I can't find any info on how he ended up with a specifically Finnish name but I'm going to assume it's due to Italian F1 driver Jarno Trulli, who in turn got it from Finnish F1 driver Jarno Saarinen. Maybe there's something out there confirming or refuting this but most articles on Widar are paywalled so we will never know

As for his last name, it could be the Dutch form of Víðarr, a Norse god, son of Óðinn. I mean, it's not actually that (it probably comes from the completely mundane personal name *Widuharduz, "wood-hard/strong/brave", equivalent to a hypothetical Modern Dutch Wedehard), but it could be

All in all, 10/10 I'd say

 

[GenericBoonenFan]

Jarno Widar is a pretty interesting name

Jarno is a specifically Finnish form of Jeremy. I can't find any info on how he ended up with a specifically Finnish name but I'm going to assume it's due to Italian F1 driver Jarno Trulli, who in turn got it from Finnish F1 driver Jarno Saarinen. Maybe there's something out there confirming or refuting this but most articles on Widar are paywalled so we will never know

As for his last name, it could be the Dutch form of Víðarr, a Norse god, son of Óðinn. I mean, it's not actually that (it probably comes from the completely mundane personal name *Widuharduz, "wood-hard/strong/brave", equivalent to a hypothetical Modern Dutch Wedehard), but it could be

All in all, 10/10 I'd say

Jarne/Yarne/Bjarne/Jarno are all pretty common names in Belgium. Whilst I never met a "Jarne or Bjarne" over 30 years old I've met some Jarno's who are in their fifties.

They do come from Finnish and/or Danish but nobody here bats an eye when you're called that.
FE: If I type in "Bjarne" on the PCS searchbar I get more Belgian hits than Scandinavians.

His surname on the other hand is mainly found in Wallonia and origins are tricky, with names like these more than likely it was a given name and everyone named Widar is a decendant from that one person, He would've been a prominent elder figure and/or political leader somewhere around the Liège region.

Belgian surnames are tricky, surnames tend to have more historical meaning than Dutch ones due to when they were officialy recorded and the role Napoleon played in it (The Dutch didn't really fancy his rule and often gave ridiculous names such as 'Bol', 'Boom', 'Sip', 'Pies', 'Hol', "Zak" etc. when he implemented surnames when the Netherlands were under his rule)
Each year my students need to write a dissertation on their surname and each year there is a dude called something along the lines of "Widar", "Gaeremynck" or "Tibergyn" where the answer is probably the one written above here.


Or, he has Slovenian/Croatian ancenstry, since Widar apparently is a surname there aswell meaning bricklayer/mason.

 

[GenericBoonenFan]

On another note: There used to be a cycling team called; "Ploeg Kerkstoel" sponsored by a dude named Kerkstoel (literally it means church pew) and that was a surname given to foundlings left in churches.

 

[RedheadDane]

More of a cool - potential - combo.

I'm just waiting for the day these two teams do a race against each other:

The Hurricane & Thunder Cycling Team 2025

The Hurricane & Thunder Cycling Team 2025 is a cycling team from China. Their main riders are Aurelien de Comarmond, Callum Ormiston and James Jobber.

www.procyclingstats.com

Project Echelon Racing 2025

Project Echelon Racing 2025 is a cycling team from United States. Their main riders are Scott McGill, Brendan Rhim and Stephen Bassett.

www.procyclingstats.com

 

[Bye Bye Bicycle]

More of a cool - potential - combo.

I'm just waiting for the day these two teams do a race against each other:

The Hurricane & Thunder Cycling Team 2025

The Hurricane & Thunder Cycling Team 2025 is a cycling team from China. Their main riders are Aurelien de Comarmond, Callum Ormiston and James Jobber.

www.procyclingstats.com

Project Echelon Racing 2025

Project Echelon Racing 2025 is a cycling team from United States. Their main riders are Scott McGill, Brendan Rhim and Stephen Bassett.

www.procyclingstats.com

How often do you want to repeat this joke?

 

[RedheadDane]

How often do you want to repeat this joke?

Until they actually do it!

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

On another note: There used to be a cycling team called; "Ploeg Kerkstoel" sponsored by a dude named Kerkstoel (literally it means church pew) and that was a surname given to foundlings left in churches.

I found several Italian surnames that all have the same meaning and have cyclists using them a few pages back: https://forum.cyclingnews.com/threads/coolest-names-in-the-peloton.32668/page-24#post-2697223

 

[rallybanana]

Lance Armstrong was about as American a name as it could get

...until this guy came along

Elvis Merica

Elvis Merica (born 1987-02-06) is a road racing cyclist from Guatemala, active between 2021 and 2022. His best results are 29th place in National Championships Guatemala ME - ITT.

www.procyclingstats.com

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Bert Bolle is my new favourite rider.