Untitled

Christopher S. Thompson
accompanied by or included marksmanship competitions, foot races, and reconnaissance
events. In return for their patriotic commitment to military preparation,
cycling clubs could count on government subsidies.
Clubs also wished to participate in local fêtes de bienfaisance (charitable
festivals). 50 The efforts of La Pédale Lorraine, for example, were well received,
especially given the presumed time constraints of its working-class members: “We
were surprised to note such a successful organizing effort by young men whose
only free moments fall between their work schedules” was L’Est Républicain’s
favorable assessment of the club’s fête de bienfaisance, which included a parade,
a concert, foot races, bicycling acrobatics, a hot air balloon ride, a dance and liquid
refreshments, and which culminated in a fireworks’ display. 51 The role of the
Union Cycliste de Longwy-Bas in providing a wholesome activity for its members
and sports spectacles for the local population was appreciated by the municipal
government which granted the club a subsidy. 52 Such involvement by cycling
clubs was the rule: cyclists all over France clearly wished their clubs to be actively
integrated into their community’s social and festive life.
An important function of cycling clubs during this period was the organization
of excursions. On Sunday, May 25, 1902, the Véloce-Club de Tours organized a
memorable ride from Tours to the town of Ouchamps through the valleys of the
Loire, Bièvre, and Beuvron rivers, and numerous villages along the way. 53 The
pretext for the excursion was to honor père Galloux, an 89-year-old inhabitant of
Ouchamps, believed to be the oldest cyclist in France. In 1837 Galloux, at the time
an apprentice artisan and a Compagnon du Devoir, accomplished his journeyman’s
Tour de France traveling from town to town on a “wooden horse” he had built:
two wheels connected by a wooden seat plank, without pedals but with a steering
mechanism upon which was mounted a carved horse’s head.
Upon their arrival in Ouchamps, the club members were greeted by artillery
salvos as well as by the mayors of Ouchamps and Les Montils, the assistant of the
former, the entire Ouchamps municipal council, including one councilor who was
also a member of the Union Vélocipédique de France (the French cycling
federation), and the local schoolteacher. The town had been decorated in the club’s
honor with a triumphal arch, flags, garlands, Venetian lanterns and flowers, as if
for a national holiday. Once the cyclotourists had been presented with flowers to
welcome their “handsome and patriotic club,” a procession was formed with père
Galloux at its head, perched upon a primitive bicycle he had built in 1838. As the
band played, the procession made its way to the town hall where the municipal
government had organized a reception. There, both the mayor and the president
of the Véloce-Club de Tours made speeches and Galloux was awarded a medal
and a diploma by the club. The visit was crowned by a banquet for two hundred
guests held in the town marketplace (an opportunity for all those in the food and
drink business to turn a handsome profit).
140