From the saddle to the archives
Noah van Putten’s fascination with cycling began at the age of five, riding his regular bike around the block and going on small adventures with his father. However, having grown up in Sweden, cycling wasn’t a sport he initially saw as something to practice. While most kids played football or ice hockey, Noah’s connection to the sport was limited to the summers, watching the Tour de France on television with his grandmother.
That all changed in the summer of 2011. While attending summer school in the Netherlands to practice his Dutch, Noah’s classes happened to be held in a Rabobank building during the team’s final year of cycling sponsorship. The Tour de France was broadcast on big screens throughout the building. Just as his lesson finished, Noah walked out to see Thomas Voeckler overshooting a corner and ending up in a parking lot. At that moment, he was sold.
A Decade in the Saddle
From that point on, cycling became the biggest passion in his life. Noah got his first racing bike and joined the local club, JVR de Batauwers. Under the encouraging guidance of his coaches, Marco, Gianni, Cees, Marcel, and later Johan, he transitioned from rookie to competitive racer.
For over a decade, Noah spent nearly every weekend racing. It quickly became a family affair; his parents drove across the country to support him regardless of the results, and soon, both his father, Lennard, and his youngest sister, Marissa, fell in love with the sport as well. Although Noah eventually stepped back from the competitive Junior ranks to focus on his academics, his love for cycling remained as alive as ever, leaving him with lifelong friendships within the peloton.
Uncovering the Iceberg
Noah’s passion for the sport was never just about racing, it was equally about its rich, incredible history. This curiosity was initially sparked by his mother, who gifted him Tour de France magazines filled with historical excerpts and classic photographs for his birthday.
Three years ago, during a brainstorming session with cycling friends about the greatest moments in the sport’s history, Noah realized how many of these legendary stories were completely unknown to the general public. Inspired by a concept he had seen on YouTube, he decided to map these obscure and fascinating tales onto a chronological ‘iceberg’ chart. What began as a fun evening project soon grew into something far bigger than he ever imagined.
Over the next three years, Noah wrote more than 250 stories on Twitter, building a dedicated community of followers. The Cycling Iceberg book is the culmination of this project.
To ensure each story accurately reflected the public perception at the time the race took place, Noah spent years deep-diving into newspaper archives from Dutch, Belgian, French, Spanish, and Italian publications. By combining these primary sources with established cycling literature and reflective interviews, he reconstructed the most epic and scandalous moments in cycling history. The result is a 430-page chronological journey beneath the modern surface of the sport.