CQ27_FINAL_SPREADS (1)

FROM PARIS TO THE
BLUE WAVES OF THE
MEDITERRANEAN,
FROM MARSEILLE TO
BORDEAUX, PASSING
ALONG There’s a good THE reason ROSEATE
why he
called the race “The greatest
scientific experiment that the
sport of cycling has ever given
us.”
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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abandoned for doping and
whose withdrawal from the race
drew the sniffy headline “Pas de
drogue SVP” from the gents at
l’Auto.
Thijs was the kind of rider
Desgrange deeply admired,
calling him “the complete rider
. . . with a clear head, huge
experience of stage racing,
superior class and a strength
that enables him to work hard
and overcome all difficulties.”
He stood in clear opposition
to the French chouchou Henri
Pelissier. When it came to
describing the home-grown
champion, Desgrange let him
have it with both racist and
misogynistic barrels.
“But it’s all too much of an effort
for him, he who calls himself a
thoroughbred! Elsewhere he has
a bellyful of morale but when
he comes to the Tour he’s like a
skinny cat. And then he behaves
like a pretty woman! At Morlaix
he didn’t want to, at Brest he
did. Compare this capriciousness
with the strength of will of
Christophe! We’ll all regret it but
Henri Pelissier will never figure
on the glorious list.”
Henri did of course, in
1923, taking his revenge on
Desgrange by crushing the
race and winning ten stages on
the way, but not before he and
his brothers gave an explosive
interview to Albert Londre’s Le
Petit Parisien and opened up the
whole dirty sausage factory of
the Tour for everyone to see.
The mythology of the forçats
de la route addressed the
literal toxicity of the race – the
pills and potions, the cocaine
eyedrops and chloroform for
the gums and horse linament for
the knees, the lost toenails and
the brutality. But for Pelissier
it’s deeper than that. He sees
the race is driven by ideas of
hypervirility that inevitably turn
toxic. He says they wouldn’t
treat a mule the way the riders
are treated, and if you looked
at the rule books for the postwar
Tours under Desgrange you
wouldn’t disagree.
Before the war, riders had been
allowed to race in groups of ten
with a trainer for support. But
by 1920 it was every man for
himself. Designed to limit the
influence of manufacturers on
his race, Desgrange imposed a
strict set of rules.
“A participant in the Tour de
France is placed in the situation
of a rider who sets off to train
alone without having prepared
anything on his route for
refreshments. This means: 1.
He cannot assist his comrades
or competitors in any way and
they cannot accept anything
from him. 2. On the road, the
rider must be responsible for
his own refreshments, without
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