CQ27_FINAL_SPREADS (1)

FROM PARIS TO THE
BLUE WAVES OF THE
MEDITERRANEAN,
FROM MARSEILLE TO
BORDEAUX, PASSING
ALONG The next great THE star of women’s ROSEATE
cycling was La Flèche Humaine,
the Girl Arrow, Helene Dutrieu.
The slight, dark-haired teenager
was a sensation on a bike.
AND DREAMING ROADS
SLEEPING UNDER THE
SUN, ACROSS THE
CALM OF THE FIELDS
OF THE VENDÉE, FOL-
LOWING THE LOIRE,
WHICH FLOWS ON STILL
AND SILENT, OUR MEN
ARE GOING TO RACE
MADLY, UNFLAGGINGLY.
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While the French went to war,
the English had seized the
initiative and turned the French
velocipede into the modern-day
bicycle.
At the Royal Aquarium in
London, the teen terrors of
the track were tearing up the
racing in their risqué sleeveless
vests and knickerbockers, while
the Buffalo was a mecca for
world cycling – resembling,
according to La Vie au Grand
Air, a modern-day Babel where
the crack riders of many nations
– including women – met to
compete.
The next great star of women’s
cycling was La Flèche Humaine,
the Girl Arrow, Helene Dutrieu.
The slight, dark-haired teenager
was a sensation on a bike,
beating all-comers and setting
six Hour records in quick
succession, coached by her
brother Eugène, who told her
she had the right stuff to go
further than Saint-Sauveur. In
her post-cycling career, she
made a speciality of the loopthe-loop,
first on a motorbike,
then in an automobile, earning
the nickname ‘La Moto Ailée’
the Winged Moto. Dutrieu was
one of the first women to gain
her pilot’s licence and she took
to the skies to set yet more
records, flying fearlessly to
triumph in the Coupe Femina
and rivalling France’s great
multisportive Marie Marvingt.
There’s a potent crossover
between the gestation of the
aeroplane and the bicycle boom.
The Wright brothers were both
bicycle mechanics who used
the basics of the pedal action
to create the rudimentary
steering apparatus for the
Wright Flyer. Women awheel
quickly transferred their skills
to the freedom of the skies –
Marvingt would even see action
over the Western Front after
her drag deception as a soldier
was uncovered in the trenches
in WWI.
Yet the female poilu did not
win favour with M. Desgrange
– or so it’s alleged. The story
of Marvingt asking to be
allowed to ride the 1908 Tour
is certainly apocryphal, as are
tales of her riding each stage
15 minutes behind the peloton.
But she almost certainly rode
every kilometre of the 4,488km
parcours at some point during
the year on her trusty tourer
Zephyrine - after she’d finished
swimming the Bay of Naples in
an apocalyptic thunderstorm
and crossing Lake Garda by
moonlight, serenaded by the
local police captain and his band
of course.
Breakneck Marie, Danger’s
Sweetheart. You can’t help
feeling that Desgrange would
have secretly admired a woman
who ranked in the top five
worldwide as a mountaineer,
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