Wiggins has certainly enjoyed his red carpet ride around France, courtesy of Froome and the rest of Sky’s serfs (photo courtesy of ITV)

“I’ve always been someone who wishes to move on to new challenges. Now that I’ve conquered my first Tour de France it’s time to attempt a feat that has only been accomplished three times in the history of the Tour. I want to wear yellow from the prologue all the way to the Champs-Elysées next year,” declared Wiggins.

As an avid student of cycling history, Wiggins stumbled upon the legend of Ottavio Bottecchia – the first person to wear the yellow jersey from start to finish as winner of the 1924 Tour – via a conversation with famed Scottish cycling journalist, Richard Moore. Moore was turned on to the story of Bottecchia by Herbie Sykes over an espresso in 2006 during a very animated Giro d’Italia.

“I know that I’ve promised Chris (Froome) that he could have a shot at the Tour in 2013 and that I’d support him, but I think my goals are more important than his. After all, I’m higher on the seniority scale in GB Cycling and I don’t feel I’ve reached my peak yet,” continued Wiggins. “I think I have a chance at equalling a feat only done three times in Tour history, and one that hasn’t been accomplished since 1935.”

Team Sky boss David Brailsford confirmed his support for Wiggins in his plan for 2013.

“Considering that Brad and Fabian were the only two to wear the yellow jersey in the entire 2012 Tour, and the fact that we pretty much intimidated every single team in this race, it is distinctly possible that Brad could wear yellow from start to finish in 2013. No one can match our team strength on any stage on any day,” mused Brailsford.

Eurosport cycling pundit David Harmon concurred with Brailsford.

“Until the rest of the peloton grows a backbone, or Contador stays out of doping troubles, cycling is Wiggins’ domain to plunder as he wishes. He rides on the front for the sprints, and otherwise sits third wheel the entire race. He is a throwback to the great Kings and Queens of England. He truly is the king of cycling, no offense to Mark Cavendish or Sir Chris Hoy,” declared Harmon.

Former Tour de France champion Greg LeMond weighed in with his thoughts.

“Wiggins could lead the race, but only if Team Sky buys Alberto Contador’s and Andy Schleck’s contracts to sit them out of the Tour de France for the rest of their careers, or have them ride the front in support of Wiggins like they forced Froome to do this year. It’s what Hinault did, and also wanted to do to me back in the 80s,” stated LeMond.

When asked about Wiggins’ statement, Chris Froome refused to comment directly.

“We’ll start with the Vuelta and the Olympics, and see what happens from there. Anything is possible for 2013,” said a muted Froome.

Stage 19 is Saturday, which should be the 53.5 km time trial coronation of Wiggins into his role as King of the Tour de France.

The road from Nice to Briançon

The Tour entered the Alps with a 275-kilometre trundle from Nice to Briançon, taking in the Col d’Allos (2,250m), the Col de Vars (2,110m), and the Col d’Izoard (2,361m). With a comfortable lead Ottavio Bottecchia (Automoto) could afford to take things easy. Giovanni Brunero (Legnano) and Nicolas Frantz (Alcyon) got away on their own, the man from Luxembourg leading over all three climbs, but the Italian pipping him to the post in Briançon, taking the stage and the three minutes in bonifications. Romain Bellenger (Peugeot) rolled home third, 8’32” down, with Bottecchia alone another 1’23” behind him. There was no change in the podium positions, but Frantz was now down to ‘just’ 41’52” off the lead, Brunero another 3’45” behind. A lot of time today, but back then the sort of time that could still be made up were Bottecchia to have a nightmare day.

Two days later the racing resumed and the peloton tackled the Col du Galibier 2,556/2,645m), the Télégraphe (1,566m), and the Aravis (1,498m). Bartolomeo Aymo (Legnano) lead them over the Galibier and the Télégraphe, with Brunero leading over the Aravis, but the peloton arrived as one into Gex, 307 kilometres after leaving Briançon. Frantz took the stage and the three minutes time bonus, cutting his deficit on Bottecchia to 38’52”, Brunero now 6’45” behind him.

A picture portrait of The Galibier in the 1924 Tour de France

Londres’ report from the Alps reads like many of the race reports of that time:

Crossing these cols, they seemed no longer to be pushing on the pedals but tearing up huge trees by the roots, heaving with all their might at something invisible hidden deep in the earth, something that refused to budge; grunting ‘Ghanh … Ghanh …’ like bakers kneading their dough in the middle of the night. I didn’t speak to them; I knew them all but they wouldn’t have replied. When their eyes caught mine, it reminded me of a dog I had, staring imploringly at me, just before he died, because he was so profoundly sad at having to leave this earth. Then they lowered their eyes over the handlebars once more, and rode on, their gaze fixed to the road as if to find out whether the drops of liquid they were sprinkling over its surface were sweat or tears. This spectacle is part of what they call pleasure. That’s what the regional papers have decided it is. The people of the Dauphiné and Savoie départments will be setting out for the Galibier tonight at 12.45am. At the summit they’ll be able to get a cold supper and a glass of champagne for 45 francs all-in.”

On the descent of the Lizard, Londres witnessed a crash:

One of them brakes, zig-zags across the road … he’s going to go over the edge, he hurtles into the rock face, which planes a slice off his leg, but the rock brings him to a halt. I go over to him. His chain is broken.

–         I had a small lead today. What a disaster. […] How am I going to mend that? I’d need an anvil.

He finds one big stone, one small: the big one for an anvil, the smaller for the hammer.

–         If I can fix it, I’ll get drunk at the finish.

The repair doesn’t work.

–         Something like this and you have to abandon.

“He’s a routier, [Giuseppe] Ercolani, a native of Froges [near Grenoble]. His wife’s about to have a baby.

–         If it’s a boy, I’m going to call him Benjamin.
–         Why?
–         Because I’m the Benjamin of the Tour [the youngest rider]. I’m twenty-one.

He succeeds in repairing the chain. ‘I’m happy,’ he says.

Other routiers go past downhill. It reminds him of his unhappiness.

–         I started well today. I could have moved up a bit in the classification … anyway, now I’m back on course.

His chain fixed, as he puts his wheel back on he asks me:

–         ‘You’re not a doctor as well, are you? You’d be able to tell me why the baby hasn’t arrived yet. I ordered everything, all the medicine, from the pharmacist before I left. It’ll go bad.

He leaps into the saddle.

–         Ah, they won’t let me ride the Tour de France again. I’m too young; it’s cleaning me out. I’ll come back when I’m 25.

But he rides off, quick as a zebra who’s spotted a creepy lion. If Ercolani doesn’t get a telegram in Gex, I’ll forge one for him: the anxiety about the baby has gone on too long.”

No sooner has Ercolani set off than Londres comes across another rider in distress, Henri Collé, whose exchange with Baugé, the Marshal, Londres had reported a few days earlier. Collé has collided with a wagon and is out of the race. Coming from Geneva he had been looking forward to the reception that would have awaited him in Gex, fourteen kilometres over the border from his home town. Collé is upset:

What stinking luck. I was keeping something in reserve for the day after tomorrow. […] What rotten luck, mister, what rotten luck. […] This job’s a death ride. I only hope they still make a collection for me in Geneva.”

That was one of the attractions in riding the Tour: passing through or near to your home town and raising money there. For a few stars of the sport, international fame was a possibility. National fame could be achieved by quite a few riders, but for most the best they could hope to be was to become a local hero. That alone was often enough to keep them riding. Certainly it was better than working the family farm, or being a labourer.

Londres put Collé and his bike into his Renault and drove him to the finish:

What’s to become of a man that can’t ride any further? I give him a lift in my car. In accepting, Collé has, apparently, committed a grievous infraction. When a rider can no longer ride he must walk. Otherwise, he gets hit with a 500 franc fine. In his place I’d have killed myself on the spot. That way there’d be no infringement of the rules.”

Driving to Briançon Londres witnessed another incident which adds more to his picture of how inhuman bike racing back then could be:

Ahead of us is the lanterne rouge, the name they give the man who is last overall. It’s [Augusto] Rho, alias d’Annunzio. Difficult to say whether Rho is skinnier than he’s stubborn. He is replacing a tyre and appears to be deep in thought.

–         What are you thinking about?
–         I’m thinking about signor Bazin …

Bazin is the timekeeper. At twenty-one hours, forty-one minutes and 3.35 seconds, Monsieur Bazin presses a small object under his table, a timepiece which cost 2,500 francs. Then he calls out: ‘Gentlemen, the control is closed.’ He might see d’Annunzio three metres away, crawling in on his stomach and, with an exaggerated shrug of desperate commiseration, signal that he is not going to bend the rules. Monsieur Bazin knows the vital significance of a tenth of a fifth of a second. Monsieur Bazin is a sort of cuckoo who inhabits a clock.”

The Bazins of the Tour still exist and riders still have to race against him. Few cycling biographies today are complete without the rider telling a tale of the day they had to race against the cut-off, suffering alone well off the back of the race. In the 1924 Giro d’Italia, the story of the cut-off was illustrated by Alphonsina Strada’s misfortunes on the road into Peruggia and her expulsion from the race. In the 1955 Tour there’s the story of Shay Elliott nursing Brian Robinson to the finish, only for both to be outside the cut-off, the Irishman sent home, the Briton allowed ride on having started the day inside the top ten riders. Pretty much every Tour produces at least one such story.

The Alps behind them, the Tour entered its final week and the race swept from Gex to Strasbourg, taking in the Col del la Faucille (1,323m) en route, which the peloton crossed as one. Into Strasbourg Frantz led home a group of four which contained Bottecchia. The three minutes in bonifications allowed Frantz to close to within 35’52” of the Italian. Brunero, who had won the Giro in 1921 and 1922, lost 4’50” on the day, finishing outside the top ten, but still held on to third place, now 50’27” off Bottecchia and 14’35” off Frantz.

Strasbourg to Metz, a 300-kilometre haul, saw Armor’s Arsène Alancourt take the stage, 2’38” ahead of Peugeot’s Georges Cuvelier. Frantz led home a small group, 3’09” down on the day but 3’26” up on Bottecchia, who could afford to dawdle: even at the end of the stage Frantz was still 32’26” in arrears. Brunero rolled home another twenty seconds down on Bottecchia but held on to his podium position.

The penultimate day’s racing saw the riders hauling their tired bodies the 433 kilometres from Metz to Dunkerque, setting out just as the clock struck midnight. In 1919 these roads scuppered any hopes Eugène Christophe had of overall victory. Le Viuex Gaulois broke his forks, the second of three Tours in which fork failure would snuff out any hope of victory for him, and a near half-hour advantage at the start of the day turned into a deficit of forty minutes. The peloton this time dawdled along at a sedate twenty-one kilometres an hour, taking more than twenty hours to complete the stage.

Romain Bellenger, who’d won the second stage, was first from a group of five. The main bunch arrived 4’02” down, Hector Tiberghien (Peugeot) taking the sprint for eighth, Bottecchia close behind Frantz’s wheel. He’d covered the wheel he needed to and survived the stage without a major mishap. The loser of the day was Legnano’s Brunero, who abandoned, saddle sores finally driving him off his bike, allowing Bottecchia’s Automoto team-mate Lucien Buysse to take the bottom step of the podium, almost an hour and a half behind Bottecchia. Brunero’s gamble to favour the Tour over the Giro had failed to pay off.

Londres’ description of the stage reads as follows:

Let’s start at the beginning. It was pouring rain and there was a howling wind; you wouldn’t put a guinea pig out on the balcony in such weather. The riders shuffled up, one by one, dragging their bikes, and they were given the off right into the teeth of the wind. Think what that would do to you: from midnight till four in the morning. The men pedalled through the night, chilled to the bone, in pouring rain. A sight to see. As soon as the sky began to lighten, the blackness slipped onto the men. I can tell you, these men who’d been white when they set off at midnight were black by four am. It’s true.”

From eating dust over the early stages of the race, the peloton was now sucking on the spray of the mud thrown up by their wheels and the passing cars. The race was passing over the pavé of the north of France, riders seeking the comfort of the pavement to ease their passage. The towns they passed through – Sedan, Lille, Armentières – were well known to most everyone in France in those days, they had been indelibly inked in their minds. Signposts marked the distance to Ypres:

In short, it took us back some years to our youth. Yet this was no war we were engaged in; it was a race. Judging from appearances there was no very great difference in the faces of those taking part.”

 

Londres’ reports from the 1924 Tour de France close with the journalist pressing home the central theme of his reportage, the suffering endured by these men in the name of sport and the hope of an income:

Sixty-one are going to make it. You can come and see them – these are no faint hearts. For a month they have fought with the road. The battles have taken place in the middle of the night, the early hours of the morning, though midday, groping their way through fog so thick it makes you retch, into headwinds which laid them flat, under the sun which, as in Crau, spit-roasted them on the handlebars. They have taken the Pyrénées and the Alps by the throat. They’d climbed into the saddle at ten o’clock one evening and not climbed off till the following evening at six – between Les Sables d’Olonne and Bayonne, for instance. They used roads not intended for bicycles. People barred their way. They’ve had level-crossing gates shut in their face. Cows, sheep, dogs have run into them. Yet, this was not the great torture. The great torture started from the moment they left and will last till they ride into Paris.

And there were the cars. For thirty days, these cars have driven alongside the riders and planed a layer off the road surface. They’ve planed it uphill, they’ve planed it downhill and thrown up a copious waste of dust without a word of complaint. Eyes burning, mouth parched, the riders have suffered the dust without a word of complaint. They’ve ridden over flint. They’ve devoured the coarse pavé of the north. When it was too cold at night, they’ve wrapped up their stomachs with old newspapers; by day, they’ve tipped pitchers of water over themselves, fully clad, and gone on watering the road until the sun had dried their jerseys out.

When they split open a leg or an arm in a fall, they climbed back on the machine. At the next village, they searched out the pharmacist. It might be a Sunday, as at Péznas, where the pharmacist told the injured man: ‘I’m closed for business.’ And, instead of shaking him by the neck till his teeth rattled, the rider replied: ‘Okay, sir’ and carried on riding.”

This, for me, is what is so special about the reports Albert Londres filed from the 1924 Tour de France: they concentrate on the human story, the inhumanity of cycle sport as it existed in those days.

The stage itself was a formality for Bottecchia: in those days it was still possible to lose the race on the last day, the riders had yet to get around to declaring the final day’s racing neutralised. But Bottecchia’s lead was more than sufficient for anything but the most dire of emergencies. In winning he became the first Italian to take the victory and the first rider to wear the maillot jaune from the first stage to the last (before 1919, when the maillot jaune was introduced, several riders led from the first day to the last: Bottecchia was the first to do it while wearing the yellow jumper).

Bottecchia put a ribbon on his overall victory by winning the bunch gallop on the track of the Parc des Prince, his fourth stage win in the Tour, adding another three minutes in bonifications to his lead over Frantz and Buysse. Of the sixty-one riders Londres thought were home and dry, spare a thought for Giovanni Canova, one of the touristes routiers. With Paris all but in sight, he failed to finish the stage.

And so ended the 1924 Tour, a race dogged by a doping controversy, a race that was won on the first day in the mountains. Some things don’t change down through the years.

Next: We skip forward in time to consider what became of Bottecchia, Pélissier and Londres.

* * * * *

Sources (throughout this part of the series): for most of the day-by-day racing, Bill and Carol McGann’s The Story of the Tour de France, Volume 1 (McGann Publishing). Some of the Londres translations are taken from Graham Fife’s Inside the Peloton (Mainstream Publishing). Les Woodland’s The Unknown Tour de France is one of the many that repeats the Jules Banino incident.

A scene from the 1924 Tour de France

As the Tour completed its first week of racing, the peloton completed the 412 kilometre stage four haul from Brest to Les Sables d’Olonne, sixteen and a half hours of saddle time. The peloton again finished together, Ottavio Bottecchia (Automoto) finished two places behind Théophile Beeckman (Griffon) but still retained the yellow jersey, the two still tied on time. Nicolas Frantz (Alcyon) finished outside the top ten and the third place was now a tie between Hector Tiberghien (Peugeot), Marcel Huot (Griffon), Giovanni Brunero (Legnano), and Léon Scieur, all still 2’36” behind Bottecchia and Beeckman.

Londres’ report from that day’s racing mainly concentrates on the quality of the roads the riders raced over, the journalist drawing particular attention to the amount of dust kicked up by the passage of the race. His report of the race into Les Sables d’Olonne could easily have been called Eat The Dust:

There are certain freaks who swallow bricks, others who eat live frogs. I’ve seen fakirs tucking into molten lead. These are normal people. The real nutters are certain lunatics who left Paris on 22 June to tuck into dust. I know them well: I’m a member of the club. We’ve scoffed 381 kilometres between Paris and Le Havre, 354 kilometres between Le Havre and Cherbourg, 405 kilometres from Cherbourg to Brest. It didn’t satisfy us. When you’ve got a taste for it, you can’t get enough. Even the waiter at the hotel in Brest, registering what an appetite we had, was sympathetic. An hour after midnight, he knocked on our bedroom door. ‘It’s 1 am,’ he called. ‘Time to eat your dust.'”

Londres’ reporting generally displays a sense of the ridiculous, humour used gently to press home his points. Here he is comparing the quality of the dust in the different départements the race crossed:

We crossed Finistère and on through the départements of the Morbihan, the Lower Loire and the Vendée. The dust of the Morbihan is poor stuff compared to Finistère’s and the Lower Loire dust is a bit more tangy. As to the Vendée dust, it’s a real delicacy. I only have to think about it and my mouth waters. I just hope that the dust in Landes – next Monday – is as good.”

At Landernau, which the peloton whizzed through in the dead of night, Londres noted the silence of their passage:

It’s the only town since the start where there’s no noise to be heard. It’s 2.30 in the morning, Landerneau is asleep. It’s cold. Châteaulin is asleep. The wheels of 100 bicycles crunch over the ground.”

 

By Quimper, though, the crowds were once again out to greet the passage of the men of the Tour. Londres used a comment from a local to draw attention to the poor pay earned by the racers, a theme he would soon be returning to:

One Breton, thrilled by the sight of them, said: ‘It’s sad. We lay out 250,000 francs on a horse for a 2 ½ minute race and men who work a lot harder than any horse get chicken feed.'”

 

While much of Londres’ reporting can correctly be classed as colour, painting the broad picture around the race more so than the picture of the race itself, he does occasionally comment on some of the racing action:

Ottavio Bottecchia

 

We pass a wild beast at the side of the road, ferociously devouring rubber. It’s the maillot jaune, Bottecchia. He’s punctured. To get the tyre off more quickly he’s tearing at it with his bare teeth. [Peugeot’s Romain] Bellenger remounts after puncturing. He calls out as he goes past: ‘They’re blowing it apart at the front.’ It’s [Peugeot’s Philippe] Thys shaking things up. He escapes with two accomplices. Frantz and [Jean] Archelais riding elbow to elbow. A touch of drama. Frantz has been instructed to keep the tempo high. I don’t really know why Archelais is here. He’s a shadow man [a touriste routier], a rider without a stable, riding for himself since the start, no manager, no thighs, no calves, no nothing. At the finish of each stage he’s in such distress he weeps like a child, but he’s always in at the finish with the ‘aces.’ You feel like giving him a push on the bike, whereas Frantz is brutally strong. If Frantz dared to say ‘I’m tired’ the telegraph wires by the road would convulse with laughter. Result? We wouldn’t be able to telegraph our reports through from Brest to Nantes.”

The next day’s racing, the fifth stage and the second Monday of the Tour, saw the peloton riding a mammoth 482 kilometres from Les Sables d’Olonne to Bayonne, more than nineteen hours in the saddle. Omer Huyse (Lapize) slipped away from the peloton, taking the stage with an advantage of 1’11” over the group behind, which was led home by Bottecchia. Beeckman, who had started the day second overall, slipped down the rankings. Hector Tiberghien (Peugeot) and Giovanni Brunero were now in second, tied on time. For the Legnano rider, Brunero, this was a bonus, he having been one of the riders to miss the Giro earlier in the year, either in the dispute over appearance fees or to save himself for the Tour, choose for yourself whichever you think the more likely. A good ride in France would more than make up for shunning his home Tour.

The 1924 Tour entered the Pyrénées on Wednesday July 2nd. A 326 kilometre haul from Bayonne to Luchon, taking in the Col d’Aubisque (1,709m), the Col du Tourmalet (2,115m), the Col d’Aspin (1,489m), and the Col de Peyresourde (1,569m). It was here that Bottecchia put his rivals to the sword and won the Tour de France. The Italian ace led the race over all four climbs and arrived into Luchon 18’58” ahead of his Automoto team-mate Lucien Buysse bagging another three minutes in bonifications to cushion his lead. Buysse leaped up to second overall in the race, 30’21” down on his team-mate. Third in GC, 42’185″ behind Bottecchia, was Nicolas Frantz, who finished the stage in fourth, two minutes behind his Alcyon team-mate Louis Mottiat and 35’34” behind Bottecchia.

Bottecchia leading the peloton, Tour de France 1924

The next day’s racing, Friday, saw the Tour tackle another four Pyrénean climbs: the Col des Ares (797m), the Portet d’Aspet (1,069m), the Col de Port (1,249m), and the Puymorens (1,915m). Buysse led the race over the Ares, Beeckman over the Portet d’Aspet, Bottecchia and Arsène Alancourt (Armor) crossed the Port together, while Thys led over the last of the Pyrénean summits, the Puymorens. Racing into Perpignan, 323 kilometres after leaving Luchon behind them, Bottecchia, Thys, and Alancourt were 3’48” clear of a group of five, Bottecchia taking his third stage on the Tour and another three minutes in bonifications. Frantz, who finished first in that chasing group of five, moved up to second overall, with the third place now held by Marcel Huot, 55’54” behind Bottecchia. Bottecchia’s team-mate, Buysse, who’d started the day second and led the race over the first climb, finished more than half an hour down on the day. Exiting the Pyrénées, only 20 of the 46 first class riders were left in the Tour.

With now two weeks of racing under their wheels the peloton started into week three of the race, Sunday’s stage eight serving up a testing 427 kilometres from Perpignan to Toulon. Alcyon’s Louis Mottiat led the race home on his own, 2’25” ahead of Giovanni Brunero and 4’21” ahead of Bottecchia. The Italian Automoto rider now had a 50’56” lead over Frantz, with Brunero taking third place on GC, 58’32 behind his compatriot.

At Toulon, the Pyrénées behind the peloton, Londres’ report concentrated on the role of Alphonse Baugé, the directeur sportif of La Sportive:

“The Marshal is Alphonse Baugé. He is commander in chief of racing cyclists … those of the Tour de France, those of the Six Days, those of the classics, road-riders and track cyclists. Alphonse Baugé leads French cycling. He is the only man who, nowadays, I think is capable of accomplishing a miracle. He could mount a boy on a bicycle that had neither saddle nor handlebars! Alphonse Baugé will one day be canonized!

“His uniform is dark blue and cut in the form pyjamas, a red woollen braid borders the jacket. Baugé is particularly recognizable by his toothy smile, like the actor Mistinguett. He follows the race in a closed car, and it s not just the car that is closed, but also his mouth.

“At the départ the secretary general secretary of the event sows shut his lips with brass wire. The other day, out of pity, I wanted to push a straw into the corner of his mouth and send him some air; he refused to let me do this: he’s a stickler for the regulations.

“At the arrivée, the secretary general takes from his pocket a pair of shears and cuts the brass wires. Then Baugé breathes three times, finds that his heart is still beating, pauses for thought and then seeks out the hotel of the riders.”

Good knock-about stuff from Londres there, a fun caricature of one of the true characters of French cycling. Londres here is, in some ways, using Baugé as a stand-in for Henri Desgrange, or the way cycling is run in general. Like Desgrange Baugé epitomised the authoritarian nature of the Tour and cycling in general. A former rider himself – he was French amateur national champion in 1896, the year of Teddy Hale’s win in the Madison Square Garden Six – Baugé covered the 1903 Tour as a journalist for L’Auto-Vélo‘s great rival, Le Vélo. When François Faber won the Tour in 1912 and 1914 for Peugeot it was with Baugé as his directeur sportif.

Londres then reports an exchange of words he’d witnessed in Brest, at the end of the third stage. Baugé is talking to one of the riders, Joseph Curtel, who wanted to abandon the race, having only earned 650 francs in 1,200 kilometres of racing:

–         So it does not bother you, whether you sing at the Operá or at the Batignolles? [a music hall in Montmartre]?
–         In [a race at] Marseilles, I got 5,000 francs for 300 kilometres.
–         So, no, you’re not a great artist you only see yourself as a provincial baritone who plays comic scenes?
–         Hey! I prefer a hundred francs at the Batignolles to pennies at the Opéra!
–         So you have no pride? You have not even that? You do not think about the pride your elderly parents have in your?
–         Hey! My parents are not that old …
–         You do not want to know, your mind is closed. Here, I’ll take an example, you know Kubelik, the great violinist? Good! Do you think Kubelik would stop playing the violin if he got only 650 francs? No! Kubelik is an artist. Well! You too are an artist, an artist of the pedal. For the first time, you have the honour of riding the Tour de France, the beacon of cycling, and because of some story about 650 francs, you would let that go?
–         If I’m dying for 650 francs, how am I going to earn a living?
–         Well then, you’re just a labourer, a bungler of plaster, a bootblack, a dish washer. You do not understand the beauty of the handlebar. Do what you want … You disgust me …

A later exchange, from the fifth stage, the race readying itself for its assault on the Pyrénées, is next reported. Another rider was preparing to abandon when Baugé chimed in with his patented pep talk:

–         You’re going to abandon, you who have a system for the Pyrénées?
–         But I have no system for the Pyrénées, Mr. Baugé!
–         Yes you do have a system for the Pyrénées. You will abandon, you who everyone is expecting on the cols.
–         No, Mr Baugé, nobody is waiting for me on the cols.
–         Everyone is waiting for you, I tell you, you know that as well as I do, you whose ancient Pyrenean grandmother will offer you flowers at the summit of the Tourmalet!
–         I don’t give a fuck for flowers, Mr. Baugé! I tell you I have no tendons.
–         It’s not about the tendons.
–         With what will I push then?
–         Go to your masseur, he’ll make tendons for you. Listen, my boy, have you heart?
–         Yes, but I have no tendons.
–         Do not think about that, think about your success, your name in the big newspapers of Paris, the band who will welcome you at the station when you return home if you finish the Tour.
–         But, good Lord, Mr Baugé, I tell you …
–         Yes, you tell me that you have no tendons … that is understood … Well then! Become an undertaker and not a racing cyclist, you hear me, farewell!

And then in Luchon, after the first stage in the Pyrénées, Londres had witnessed yet another exchange of words between Baugé and a group of riders. The riders this time are questioning whether cycling is any kind of trade, when Baugé chips in:

 –        Do you believe it’s a trade?
–         It’s not a trade, it’s a mission.
–         [Henri Collé] Our mission is to be with our wives, and not to work like slaves rowing a galley.
–         Your wife is your bicycle.

Hector Tiberghien, the playboy of the peloton, interrupted Baugé to say that bikes and women had nothing in common but Baugé was in full flow, banging on:

 –         If it’s a trade, what a great trade! In what other trade would the whole of France spend a month crying out ‘Alavoine! Thys! Sellier! Mottiat! Bellenger! Jacquinot!’ and so on?
–         [Alavoine] When you’re puking your guts up that’s not going to make you stronger.
–         Here, take Bottecchia; do you suppose that, if Rockefeller had offered him fifty big ones at the top of the Tourmalet, Bottecchia would have quit? No. Because Bottecchia has an ideal.
–         Yes, to buy land in his native Italy to build a house, since he is a mason, and plant his spaghetti …
–         But no …
–         [Bottecchia] Yes, yes, it is so.

In Perpignan at the end of the following stage Baugé had commiserated with Robert Jacquinot (JB Louvet) and Félix Sellier (Alcyon), who had quit the race, complaining it was too tough:

 –         I understand that, my children, but know that there are no great riders without great suffering.

In Toulon the riders were complaining about crashes, particularly riders being taken down by cars following the race, when Baugé chipped in:

 –         My friends, I too have fallen, I too have been knocked down by cars. I am a child of the game, I know what it is. There are wooden cross in our business as in others. Do you know what I would do? I would read Duhmael’s Lives of the Martyrs. After that, you’ll have the courage for tomorrow’s stage. It is I who tells you this.
–         It is found in Toulon?
–         It is found everywhere
–         Well, we will buy it then …

* * * * *

From Toulon the peloton had 280 kilometres to cover before getting to the Côte d’Azur and finish of stage nine, in Nice. One of the stories of that stage concerns one of the shadow men, a touriste routier by the name of Jules Banino, a fifty-one-year-old policeman from Nice who, it is said, rode the Tour during his vacations. Roger Dries, in Le Tour de France de Chez Nous, offers this picture of Banino:

You saw him in all the sports events ever organised. There was a swimming meeting? He’d be the first to turn up, perched on his bike, and he’d dive into the sea and take part. A pole-climbing contest? Banino would be there. He once even took on the same wager as the Count of Monte Cristo, tying himself in a sack and being thrown into the Mediterranean, at Tabau-Capeu. He nearly drowned. He had to be pulled out in a hurry and was hardly breathing when they got to him.”

On the ride into Toulon, Banino – it’s reported – had been caught by the cut off and forced to leave the race. He decided to make the most of the rest day before setting off home for Nice. Banino just happened to set out for home an hour or two ahead of the peloton.

At some point after the stage got underway word reached the peloton that, somehow, a rider was ahead of them. The pace was ratcheted up and soon enough the headlights of the cars leading the way were illuminating the figure of a cyclist ahead. The peloton couldn’t work out what was going on, everyone was either present or accounted for: who was this rider up the road ahead of them? They chased hard to close in on Banino. When they finally closed in on him they demanded to know who he was and how’d he’d slipped ahead of them.

Banino gave them his story: that he was a touriste routier who was out of the race and just happened to be riding home along the same roads as the Tour. The stars were less than pleased with Banino’s story and the energy he’d caused them to waste. Bottecchia – it’s claimed – landed a thump on him. And then a few more. Other riders joined in the melee, including Peugeot’s Jean Alavoine. Alas for Banino, some fans of Alavoine were nearby and – without understanding what was really going on – decided their man must have been attacked and was simply defending himself. Acting first and thinking later, they leapt to his defence, joining in on the assault on Banino, beating him with sticks. (The fanaticism of some fans hasn’t changed down through years, though today they’re slow to reach for sticks and stones in defence of their idols. Tossing names at those who pick on their heroes is the best they can manage. Thank God.)

That’s the accepted version of the story of what happened on the road from Toulon to Nice, as it appears in various Tour texts. How true is it? For a copper, Banino seems to have been slow to press charges against those who assaulted in him. Certainly in the standard stories of Bottecchia’s life there’s no mention of the incident. And there’s one very big problem with this story: while Jules Banino did start the 1924 Tour de France, he was a DNF on the first stage. But this is what happens in cycling: stories get added to the legend, get repeated, become fact. And when the legend becomes true – such and such is the most tested rider in the peloton, such and such is the most successful directeur of all time – it is the legend that gets printed. Only sometimes do we bother to stop and check the legend against the facts.

A solo Bottecchia, Tour de France 1924

Whatever really happened on the roads between Toulon and Nice in July 1924, Thys and Bartolomeo Aymo (Legnano) slipped away from the peloton to finish first and second, Thys taking the stage and the bonifications. Six minutes behind them Alavoine led home Bottecchia, Brunero and Frantz, leaving the GC unchanged.

The Tour took another rest day as the riders gathered their breath before their assault on the Alps. In the previous year’s Tour Bottecchia had seemed to climb effortlessly until he came to the Col d’Izoard and its Casse Déserte. Would that again be the site of his downfall or was the Italian set to make history and become the first Italian to win the Tour de France?

Next: Into the Alps and on to Paris.