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The Great War and road cycling

Danish cyclist Jonas Vingegaard celebrating his first Tour de France victory in Paris in 2022

The slowest and the fastest Tour de France

You might wonder which Tour de France edition was the slowest and wich one the fastest. Here you have the answer. The slowest Tour de France was the 13th edition, held between 29th June and 27 July in 1919. The 5560 km long route of the race was  divided into 15 stages. (And it wasn’t even the longest ever edition.) Because the First World War ended only a few months earlier, most of the cyclists had not enough possibility to train. Routine and experience of how to ride a Tour de France mattered, no wonder, that mostly the older riders dominated the race. On the other handy the international elite peloton suffered devastating personal losses:… Read More »The slowest and the fastest Tour de France

Francoise Faber, Octave Lapize, Lucien Petit-Breton, Tour de France winners, who lost their life in the First World War

Tour de France winners died in the First World War

As in almost every part of European life, also in the world of cycling races World War I was a significant watershed. Not only the naivity of some athletes ((who thought previously, that fighting on the battlefield would be the same like competing at the Olympics  – read more about it in Graham Healy:The Shattered Peloton: The Devastating Impact of World War I on the Tour de France)) has disappeared immediately, when they found themselves in the trenches, but among the millions of young men lost their life during the conflict, there were also several cyclists, even some famous ones. There were three former Tour de France winners, who have lost their lives in the… Read More »Tour de France winners died in the First World War

Cyclists crossing a town during the Tour de France in 1914

28 June 1914 – Last Tour de France before World War I started

On the 28th of June 1914,  Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated. A month later the First World War broke out. When the peloton of the 12th Tour de France  rolled out from Paris in the early morning on the same day, the cyclists were, of course not aware of what would happen few hours later  in Sarajevo, and that it would change the life of many of them. The first stage, a 388 km long etap between Paris and Le Havre was won by Philippe Thys, the future winner of that edition. The race ended on the  26th of July, just only few days before the war started. World War I… Read More »28 June 1914 – Last Tour de France before World War I started

Cyclist riding on a dusty road at Tour de France 1919

The years of La Sportive consortium (1919- 1921)

Although Henri Desgrange was always keen to preserve Tour de France as a competition for individuals1,  cyclists who were sponsored by the same bicycle manufacture naturally worked as a team. Alcyon for example, delivered four overall victories (François Faber, 1909; Octave Lapize,1910 ; Gustave Garrigou, 1911; Odyle Defraye, 1912) before 1914 and dominated most of the editions of the race during the 1920s. World War I had a devastating impact on the French economy2, obviously on the life of the bicycle manufactures too. When Tour de France was held for the first time after the war in 1919, even the most notable companies were struggling to help their riders properly. But they wanted to keep… Read More »The years of La Sportive consortium (1919- 1921)