Cobwebs
Official Magazine of the Whitewebbs Cycling Club. April 2008.
Page 3 of 3
Another Social Event coming up
A BBQ evening at the clubroom, 8pmThursday the 19th June 2008. We provide the heat, you bring something to eat and drink with a friend or your mum or your wife for a nice evening.
The Tour de France, (continued from the February Magazine.1919 to 1929)
Due to World War I there were no tours from 1915 – 1918. Henri Desgrange was too old for military service so he spent years planning for his next Tour, in 1919 he managed to muster sixty-seven riders, it was a feat that he got the tour on the road, the race the longest so far with 15 stages again started in Paris with 50,000 francs up for grabs. The 1919 Tour was most difficult because of the shortage of food, petrol and vehicles, the state of the roads and the shortage of accommodation for the riders and officials.
The roads in the north east of France were in such a terrible state of disrepair, which led to so many punctures and crashes that only eleven riders finished the tour. Because of the large amount of prize money cheating was inevitable and the riders sponsors also encouraged it, so Henri Desgrange devised a form of time penalties to anyone found to be cheating. 1919 was also the year the yellow jersey (Maillot Jaune) came into being and Eugene Christophe was the first rider to wear it, but not until the race had reached Grenoble. A fellow journalist had suggested they needed to recognise who the race leader was each day so Desgrange hurriedly ordered enough yellow jerseys in the same colour as the pages of his newspaper, L’Auto, to complete the tour. Poor Christophe looking to be the winner lost the tour once again when his forks snapped off on the terrible roads near Dunkirk.
Philippe Thys of Belgium had won the last tour in 1914 and Desgrange wanted a Frenchman to win in1919, it was not to be as Belgium riders won the next four tours. Firmin Lambert in1919 and 1922, Philippe Thys in1920 and Leon Scieur in 1921.
Desgrange had two new ideas for the tour in 1923 to encourage the riders. A two-minute bonus for every stage winner and the riders were permitted help to replace damaged parts of their machines during a stage. France had already lost two tours due to snapped forks. Two French riders known as "The Thoroughbreds" dominated the 1923 tour, Henri and Francias Pelissier were popular with the crowds and Henri won the tour by 30 minutes, a very happy crowd welcomed the first French winner since the war into Paris. The barriers were pushed down and the winner besieged by the delighted fans. The tour still had its early starts, any time between 12 midnight and 3 or 4 am, this enabled the riders to finish so that the result ould be printed in the L'Auto newspaper each evening.
1924 was the slowest tour ever recorded at 14.85 mph. The Italian Ottavio Bottecchia led from start to finish and won by 35 minutes, it was Italy's first win, and he won again in1925 by 54 minutes. The 1925 tour had 3 more stages and 5 fewer rest days; the prize list was now up to almost 99,000 ff. The French were well beaten again with their best rider down in 11th place. 1926 was the longest tour of all at 3565miles and was won by the Belgian Lucien Buysse by almost one and a half hours.
The tour came of age in1927 (21 years) with further new ideas, Some stages were split with team time trials over the flatter courses, there were now 24 stages, but no French winner, this went to Nicholas Frantz of Luxembourg with a huge winning margin of 1h. 48mins. Frantz won again in 1928 by 50mins. In 1929 the split stages were dropped and the Belgian Maurice Dewaele won by 32mins, he was fortunate as the leader in yellow was the Frenchman Victor Fontan, nicknamed the Metronome because of his dour personality, he lost the race when his front forks snapped. So in the eleven recovery years from WW I there was only one French winner, six winners from Belgium, two from Luxembourg and two from Italy. Henri was not too happy.
(Next 1930 to 1939 in a further issue of Cobwebs.)
Many thanks to all those that have sent me their used stamps, all the foreign stamps went to "HEAL" the cancer charity, the 5000 British stamps will be sent off shortly.
Please forward all results, reports and articles for the next MAG Ed.
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