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 War II too) interrupted the career of many cyclists.  Victor Fontan, born in 1892, just turned pro in 1913, when a year later the war broke out.

Fontan fought in the war and was shot in the leg twice.

After the war he started racing again, but preferred to attend  local races near the Pyrenees (he was born is Pau), which made him rather unattractive for possible sponsors.

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No wonder, that he entered the Tour de France as an individual rider in 1924. It was the first time he rode the famous race, but didn't finished. He was regarded too old for the competition besides the obvious handicap of riding as individual rider

Fontan had much better result in 1928, a seventh place in the general classification, and won the 387 km long 9th stage in the mountains of the Pyrenees (including Aubisque and Tourmalet). He was racing with a team, sponsored by a small local bicycle company, Elvish.  He had to have a team, because the first few stage of the race was organized as team time trials.

This was the era, when Alcyon dominated the Tour de France. Defending champion Nicolas Frantz led the general classification since the first stage, and was able to keep his position until the end of the race, despite some unlucky moments.

On the 9th stage, Fontan, who was almost two hours behind the yellow jersey man in the GC, was allowed to escape, and finished the stage 7 minutes ahead of Nicolas Frantz, who arrived second.

Knocking on strangers' doors

In 1929, Fontan rode as individual rider again. In the 7th stage he gained the yellow jersey. But not alone. This stage was that extraordinary unique situation, when three riders (Victor Fontan, André Leducq and Nicolas Frantz) had the exact same time in the general classification, therefore all of them were awarded with the yellow jersey. The wonder of the three yellow jersey men in the peloton lasted only one day. On the next day Gaston Rebry came and took the sole overall lead.

Nevertheless, the 10th stage found Fontain in the yellow again. But he broke the fork of his bicycle only after a few km. He had to find a replacement bike. In a village, he went from door to door asking the locals for a bike. He finally got one, so he continued his ride, while carrying his original bike on his back

It was still early morning when he gave up the race, sat at the fountain in a village and sobbed.

He participated the Tour de France one more time in 1930, the first year, when national (and some local) teams competed the race. But he did not finish it.