How randonneurs helped shape the Tour de France

“The men waved their hats, the ladies their umbrellas. One felt they would have liked to touch the steel muscles of the most courageous champions since antiquity. Who will carry off the first prize, entering the pantheon where only supermen may go?” ~L’Auto July 1, 1903.

Octave Lapize pushes his bike on the Tourmalet, 1910

Today, after a rest day, the Tour de France returns from the town of Pau to retrace much of Tuesday’s stage in reverse, over the (1035m) Col de Marie-Blanque, the 25 kilometre-long climb of the (1474m) Soulor, and finally the infamous climb of the (2115m) Col du Tourmalet, where Stage 17 will end.

The 2010 tour marks the hundredth anniversary of the inclusion of these high passes of the Pyrénées and true to form this has been a week of thrills and controversy.

We have witnessed feats of human endurance–valiant uphill attacks and daring descents–among the austere alpine peaks.

On Monday, the Internet lit up as Alberto Contador took advantage of a dropped chain by Andy Schleck to sprint away up the Port de Balès and take the leader’s yellow jersey from the young man from Luxembourg, who had been setting the pace to that point.

Schleck supporters were not amused.

A century ago, spectators expressed their partisanship with handfuls of tacks on the road and flying fists at hilltops. Today instant commentary is served cold, or perhaps hot, over the Internet.

“I’m afraid to look at Twitter,” veteran commentator Phil Ligget quipped. “I bet it’s smoking now.”

And so it was. If armchair critics could have reached Contador, there would have been nails and worse between him and the finish at Bagnères-de-Luchon. The Spaniard responded to the tempest that evening with his own World Wide Web response: a contrite YouTube video message.

The struggle continued on Tuesday with less ill-humour. Stage 16 sent the peloton 199.5km over the the same fabled climbs featured in 1910, including the Tourmalet and the Aubisque–two “beyond category” (HC) climbs–to an exciting finish in Pau.

Seven-time winner Lance Armstrong was part of an early 9-man break that stayed well in front of the main pack, but for the lone challenge of Carlos Barrero who maintained a time-trial pace until hunted down just 1 kilometre from the finish.

In the end Armstrong didn’t have the kick at the line, crossing in sixth place. “Lance Armstrong is over in about four days,” he said in a post-race interview. The 38-year old  cancer-survivor was clearly shattered but proved a fighter to the end of an illustrious career. Frenchman Pierrick Fedrigo took the stage, the sixth win for the host country this year. There were no changes in overall standings, leaving Contador in first place, Schleck second and Samuel Sanchez third.

“The Tour de France has just finished and its second edition will, I fear, be the last. It will have died of its own success, of the blind passions which have been unleashed, of the abuse and of the suspicions that have come from ignorant and ill-intentioned people.” ~L’Auto, 1904

The first Tour de France, in 1903, was born of rivalry between competing newspapers–Le Petit Journal, edited by Pierre Giffard and L’Auto directed by ex-racer Henry Desgrange.

Gifford’s paper was thriving from its association with the original epic road race Paris-Brest-Paris, first run in 1891. The 1200 kilometre event was a test of endurance unequalled in the nascent sport of cycle racing. The winner, Charles Terront, finished in 72 hours, 22 minutes.

PBP is now a quadrennial test for amateur randonneurs, a “brevet” with an outside time-limit of 90 hours. It still adheres to some original racing parameters — no support between controls and near-continuous riding — but, under randonneuring rules, it’s not a race as such. Nevertheless, today’s fastest riders will finish in around 45 hours.

In the early days, “real” racing bikes had but a single gear, according to convention defended vehemently by Desgrange.

Vélocio

Enter Paul de Vivie, AKA Vélocio, champion of the multi-gear derailleur system and mentor to the “School of St. Etienne” cyclotourists. In 1903, at the age of fifty, Vélocio rode 600 miles, from Saint-Etienne to Menton and back, in four days on a bicycle weighing sixty-six pounds including baggage.

Vélocio challenged that Tour routes avoided the big mountains, pointing to cyclotourists who commonly scaled the high passes of the Alps and Pyrénées on their multi-geared bicycles.

“It is a timid Tour that avoids the true difficulties. Why does it not go over the Galibier, the Izoard, the Tourmalet? Then one could see how good a single-speed bike is. L’Auto keeps simpletons in the belief that a single gear is sufficient to go anywhere one desires.” ~Vélocio, Le Cycliste, 1910

In 1902, technical trials organized by the Touring Club de France, pitted racers against randonneurs. While the racers excelled on the flats, they were forced to push their single-speed bikes over the mountain passes, where the tourists on their multi-geared bicycles left them behind. One Mademoiselle Hesse climbed the Tourmalet without putting her boots in the dust.

Desgrange apparently took this result as further proof that multi-geared bikes were made for “young girls … sluggish people and for drug addicts.”

The debate raged between Vélocio and Desgrange in the pages of L’Auto and Vélocio’s Le Cycliste, with Desgrange clinging to the “Gears, we don’t need no sissy gears!” conceit.

Over the winter of 1909, Desgrange finally began plotting a new route that followed the rutted goat trails over the Pyrénean passes.

Desgrange challenged de Vivie to enter his silly variable-speed bikes, albeit with machines weighing no less than 14 kilos (30.8lbs). Vélocio accepted.

The randonneur from St. Etienne estimated from tour statistics they could beat racers over steep terrain. But Desgrange failed to inform him that support (the prototype of today’s team cars) would be provided to the racers and they would be allowed to change rear wheels and cogs at will, essentially turning their bikes into slow-shifting multi-geared machines.

The dastardly plan was revealed by an astute Le Cycliste reader. Vélocio withdrew, sparing himself the ridicule surely to follow in L’Auto.

Most accounts credit Tour assistant Alphonse Steines for convincing Desgrange to route a stage over the high country after a reconaisance in the spring of 1910. But it’s safe to say Vélocio’s challenge played no small part in the decision that would change the character of the tour forever.

With the route known, only 110 racers turned out on July 3 for the 15 stage, 4,737km race, 40 less than 1909.

The early stages were not uneventful. The Tour suffered its first fatality, though not on the road. Adolphe Hélière died of a jellyfish sting while bathing in Nice on a rest day.

On a stifling July 21, the dreaded 10th stage “Circle of Death” (Luchon–Bayonne) lay before them: 326 km (203 mi) over the Peyresourde and Aspin passes before snaking over the terrible Tourmalet and the Aubisque.

Ace climber Octave Lapize was first over the Toumalet, but only Gustave Garrigou, second to summit, stayed on his bike the whole way. He won a 100 franc prime for his trouble, but he’d spent his last reserves. Local rider François Lafourcade topped the Aubisque first. Tour favourite and 1909 winner François Faber was formidable on the flats but fell back on the heights.

Lapize, alternately pushing and riding, looked defeated as he crested the pass.

The myth that has arisen around Lapize’s struggles on the Aubisque has the exhausted rider shouting: “Assassins!” at his tormentors, including Desgrange, who was not there on the day.

It was in fact deputy Victor Breyer, stopped in his car, who became the target of Lapize’s wrath. “You’re all criminals,” Lapize shouted, threatening to abandon at the bottom of the mountain in Eaux-Bonnes.

Ultimately, Lapize took the stage and, benefitting from Faber’s bad luck — a crash and several flat tires — won the 8th Tour de France by just 4 points.

The circulation of L’Auto doubled to 300,000.

A century later, we anticipate what will undoubtedly be a great battle on the Tourmalet. The Tour will likely be decided here. At the summit, the Henri-Desgrange memorial trophy will be awarded and the history of the 97th Tour de France may be written in stone.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/13386163[/vimeo]

Rapha honours the first ever Tour stage that tackled the Tourmalet with a tribute ride, The 1910 Challenge

Paris-Brest-Paris | Tour de France | Gearing for Long-Distance

Tagged as: charles terront, cyclotourists, gears, paris-brest-paris, tour de france, velocio