The one and a half century long history of road cycling races witnessed plenty of changes in material circumstances and lifestyle. Being a sport event organized at the places of the everday life, road cycling has also a unique connection to the world outside the competitions.
The smoking cyclists
Smoking is unhealthy and uncool, right? It’s a good trend to ban it at public places. However, what is history, what happened in the past, couldn’t and shouldn’t be changed. We shouldn’t deny, that photos from the 1920s are existing of cyclists having fun while smoking.
( To learn more about the protagonist of the picture just click the link above.)
Beer drinking cyclists
Also, alkohol isn’t cool either.
But we should never forget, that for thousand and thousand years, people trusted more alkoholic beverages, than pure water due to the fear, they might catch something serious disase from the latter.
(Tour de France 1921)
On the other hand, riders during the early period of cycling races, especially, when they were independent and/or amateur participants, they usually had to organize for themselves, where and how and what kind of food and drink they get during a stage.
Having a meal alone in a café
Taking a look a this cyclist eating alone in a café might make you feel sad for him. Like he would be lost, far behind the peloton, and now he must eat to have enough energy to catch up with them.
Don’t be sad.
As I mentioned above, it was the normal way to get food during a race.
Also, this picture was taken on the 5th stage of Tour de France 1922. Robert Jacquinot just lost his leading position on the previous stage after wearing the yellow jersey for three days.
Untarmacked roads
The 20th stage of 1926, which included the mighty four of Tourmalet, Aspin, Aubisque and Peyresourde, is considered the hardest Tour de France stage ever. It wasn’t just long (326 km) and hard, but the bad weather worsened the situation even more.
Lucien Buysse was the winner of the stage, also the general classification of the race that year.
Riding on a wet, cold and windy day in the Pyrenees is hard enough even nowadays, when it’s much more easier to neutralise the race and gather the cyclists in their ultramodern team buses together, if it’s necessary.
But in 1926, on untarmacked roads…
(Read more on the hardest Tour de France stage ever >>)
Entertaining differently
Although road cycling had its professional riders since the beginning, the whole system of road cycling races wasn’t organized that way how nowadays.
There were riders in the peloton, mostly the independents, who sometimes had different priorities, than getting the best result as possible.
For example, Jules Deloffre just loved to present acrobatic performances in front of the audience after a long cycling race.
Learn more about the acrobat cyclist>>
MORE TOUR DE FRANCE IN THE 1920S ON PELOTONTALES
Who were the smoking cyclists at Tour de France 1927
The smoking cyclists of Tour de France 1927 is one of the most famous vintage cycling images from the heydays of road cycling races. It’s popular because it conveys a certain aspect of the many differences between our time and the life hundred years ago. The dissonance between our 21st-centurian knowledge that smoking is very … Read more
Faces from the peloton: Victor Fontan (1892-1982)
A cyclist running while carrying his bike on his shoulder. Surely, you’ve seen this vintage cycling image several times. Now it’s time to learn a bit more about the protagonist of the picture. Victor Fontan (1892-1982) in the Faces from the peloton series of PelotonTales blog. A local rider World War I (as did World … Read more
The toughest Tour de France stage ever
The 10th stage of Tour de France 1926 is often dubbed as the toughest stage ever in the history of the race. The 326 km long route between Bayonne and Luchon on the 6th July 1926 went down in history also as one of the most chaotic ones thanks to the extreme weather conditions in … Read more
The grumpy cyclist with the broken bicycle – Giusto Cerutti at Tour de France 1928
Giusto Cerutti (1903-1993) had at least one bad day at the Tour de France in 1928.We don’t know much about the grumpy cyclist with the broken bicycle. But one thing is sure, he is the unlucky (anti)hero of one of the most searched vintage cycling images on the internet.According to ProCyclingStats, Cerutti abandoned the race … Read more
Cyclists meet a local inhabitant during Tour de France 1925
During the first few decades in the history of Tour de France, mountain routes were kind of “terrae incognitae”, uncharted territories. We all know the story when Alphonse Steniès persuaded Henri Desgrange to include Tourmalet in the program of Tour de France 1910. He was struggling even to find a car driver, a local guide … Read more
5 facts about Tour de France 1925
After the quarell between Henri Desgrange and Henri Pelissier last year, a new rule was made, that any rider that harmed the Tour’s image would be banned for the next years. Team Automoto had a really strong line-up: Ottavio Bottecchia (Tour de France winner 1924 and 1925) , Philippe Thys (Tour de France winner 1913,1914,1920) … Read more
5 facts about Tour de France 1924
Ottavio Bottecchia became the first Italian cyclist to win Tour de France. Also, he was the first rider to take the yellow jersey on the first day and to keep it until Paris. (Leading the race from the very first day was not a novelty, it happened at the very first Tour de France already. … Read more