Tale from the Tour

Watching the stage yesterday was a reminder of the tale of Eugène Christophe, who in 1913 was well placed to win Le Tour. He rode the first part, from Paris to Cherbourg and then down the coast to the Pyrenees cautiously. He was in second place when the race stopped in Bayonne on the night before the first day in the mountains. The field set off at 3am with Christophe 4m 5s behind Odile Defraye, of Belgium. The route that day included the cols; Oschquis, Aubisque, Soulor, Gourette, Tourmalet, Aspin and Peyresourde.

Christophe’s Peugeot team attacked the rival Alcyon riders from the start. The tactic worked and by Barèges, at the foot of the Tourmalet, Defraye had dropped out leaving Christophe in first place well ahead of the rest of the Tour. He stopped at the top of the Tourmalet and reversed his back wheel to pick a higher gear for the descent.

Then in Christophe’s own words:

I plunged full speed towards the valley. According to Henri Desgrange's calculation, I was then heading the general classification with a lead of 18 minutes. So, I was going full speed. All of a sudden, about ten kilometres from Ste-Marie-de-Campan down in the valley, I feel that something is wrong with my handlebars. I cannot steer my bike any more. I pull on my brakes and I stop. I see my forks are broken. Well, I tell you now that my forks were broken but I wouldn't say it at the time because it was bad publicity for my sponsor.

And there I was left alone on the road. When I say the road, I should say the path. All the riders I had dropped during the climb soon caught me up. I was weeping with anger. I remember I heard my friend Petit-Breton shouting as he saw me, 'Ah, Cri-Cri, poor old lad.' I was getting angry. As I walked down, I was looking for a short cut. I thought maybe one of those pack trails would lead me straight to Ste-Marie-de-Campan. But I was weeping so badly that I couldn't see anything. With my bike on my shoulder, I walked for more than ten kilometres. On arriving in the village at Ste-Marie-de-Campan, I met a young girl who led me to the blacksmith on the other side of the village. His name was Monsieur Lecomte.

It took two hours to reach the forge. Lecomte offered to weld the broken forks back together but a race official and managers of rival teams would not allow it. In those days a rider was responsible for his own repairs. So Christophe set about the repair as Lecomte told him what to do. It took three hours to complete the work and then the race judge penalised him 10 minutes - reduced later to three - because Christophe had allowed a small boy, Corni, to pump the bellows for him.

Christophe eventually finished seventh in Paris. The building on the site of the forge has a plaque commemorating the episode.

Today of course, riders are mollycoddled. No longer do they have to start a stage at 3am, just so they can climb seven high mountains. Certainly nobody would dream of them doing their own repairs. Taking part in the Tour in the early days was only for real men!