CONTENTSIntroduction 11 The Vélocipède as a good cause 32 A Sports Epic 153 The Mighty Marques 264 Hard Labour 395 Lessons in Obstinacy 516 Sweat of the Gods 677 Pens in a Trance, Lenses in Delirium 818 Nice but Boring 959 Character 10910 The Big Money 12411 Fuelled by Dynamite 137Index of names 161

3 – The Mighty Marques

The Mighty Marques

In 1903 it had cost Desgrange a lot of effort to interest the industry in hisenterprise. Initially the manufacturers were at least as pessimistic aboutthe prospects of the Tour as he was. They doubted strongly whether publicinterest would be great enough to justify the investments they were beingasked to make. They didn’t have to engage pacemakers, but the costs of looking after the riders in their service were naturally much higher thanfor a one-day race. So long did they hesitate that one of the favourites, theGerman Josef Fischer, a former winner of Paris–Roubaix, Bordeaux–Paris,and many other races, had to advertise for a sponsor in the editorial columnsof

L’Auto

Aspublicenthusiasmkeptmountingduringthecourseoftherst

Tour, the manufacturers’ attitudes changed radically. Desgrange’sregulations insisted that riders were to compete strictly as individuals, but the manufacturers very quickly found ways of getting around that.The organisers had been so afraid that too few riders would appear at thestart that they permitted dropouts to participate in the remaining stagesand do battle for the day’s prizes. The manufacturers immediately took advantage of this by engaging riders who had dropped out to serve asdisguised pacemakers for their top men, forcing Desgrange in turn tointroduce special regulations to prevent it.By 1904 the manufacturers had completely abandoned their scepticism, but Desgrange did not wish to change the formula that had secured so greata success the year before. His critics had predicted that riders who had to ridewithout pacemakers would not be willing or able to initiate any attackingmoves. They were proved wrong; the progress of the race was extremelylively, with escapes that sometimes went on for hundreds of kilometres.Moreover, several completely unknown riders managed to stay amongthe ranks of the leaders. Lucien Pothier, ‘the terrible butcher from Lens’,

evennishedsecond,whileJeanDargassies,theBelgianJulienLootens

competing as ‘Samson’, and several other complete outsiders becameinvolved in the struggle for the top places as well. Their achievementssparked great public enthusiasm and contributed in a major way to the

Sweat of the Gods

sales of

L’Auto

. As Géo Lefèvre wrote, surprises like this were practicallyout of the question if these riders, ‘alone and without being cared for, hadto do battle against the big stars supported by the mighty marques’.The ‘mighty marques’ themselves did not care for surprises, andin 1904 they did everything they could to prevent them. In spite of Desgrange’s rule that the race must have a strictly individual character,riders such as Dargassies and Pothier were retained by Alcyon and LaFrançaise to assist the stars of these companies, among them HyppoliteAucouturier and Maurice Garin. These were not the only measures taken

bythecommercialrms.Noonedoubtedthattheyplayedanactiverole

in the many irregularities marking the 1904 Tour, just as they had during

Bordeaux–Parisafewmonthsearlier,whentherstfournishersweredisqualiedbytheFrenchCyclingFederationinthesamewaythattheTour’srstfournisherswere.

Desgrange was undoubtedly fully informed about the way in which the big companies tried to get around the regulations, but he made virtuallyno effort to expose their machinations in his paper. Whatever criticisms hemade were aimed exclusively at individual riders. His silence about therole played by the manufacturers in the numerous irregularities was soconspicuous that he was openly accused of having made a deal with thepowerful La Française company.Charges like these were not wholly unfounded. An unmistakable

understandingbetweenDesgrangeandthebigrmsdidexist.Thereason

was that, without the cooperation of the most important manufacturers,the Tour simply could not have been organised.Until the end of the 1920s,

L’Auto

hadtonancetheorganisationof

the Tour entirely from its own means. The journal’s management was inno position to pay the costs of providing food and accommodation forthe participants as well. For some riders this was no problem. During theearly years, registration was in principle open to anybody, and enthusiasticamateur cyclists from the well-to-do classes were often unable to resistmatching themselves with the ‘giants of the road’. One of them was a veryrich aristocrat from southern France, Baron Henri Pépin de Gontaud, whotook part in the 1907 Tour. Because he did not think himself capable of completing the full distance under his own steam, he secured the services of two professional riders. These were supposed to ride ahead at set intervalsso as to order a sumptuous restaurant meal, which could be served themoment the baron himself arrived. One of these two

domestiques

was noneother than ‘the burly blacksmith from Grisolles’, Dargassies, whose careerhad gone off the rails after a fourth place in the 1904 Tour.Most of the participants were from decidedly humbler backgrounds, and