The Heroic Age
The Tour de France
Course 1 · Chapter 3 · The Heroic Age to 1939
Between the first Tour and the Second World War the race changed from a flat test of endurance into a drama of mountains, mechanical disasters and national rivalry. This is the "heroic age" of the legend: riders on heavy single-gear bicycles crossing the Pyrenees and Alps on unpaved roads. This chapter follows the great climbs, the first yellow jersey, a famous exposé of the riders' working conditions, and the rules that created the modern Tour. Names, dates and figures are from general knowledge and flagged "check".
Into the Mountains
The decision
Desgrange added the first real climb, the Ballon d'Alsace in the Vosges, in 1905 (check). In 1910 he took the race into the Pyrenees, over the Tourmalet and the Aubisque, and in 1911 into the Alps, over the Galibier (check). The roads were rough tracks, and the passes were often snowbound. Some officials thought it too dangerous.
"Assassins!"
In 1910 the winner, Octave Lapize, is said to have shouted at officials on the Aubisque, "You are murderers!" (Vous êtes des assassins!) (check). The phrase has become part of the legend: the mountains are the place where the Tour shows its cruelty.
Why it mattered
The mountains turned the race from a contest of stamina into one of drama, since a leader could lose minutes in a single climb. They also took the Tour into regions that had never seen professional sport. The mountain stages remain the heart of the race (Chapter 7).
Christophe's Forge
The Yellow Jersey
- 1919. After the First World War the Tour resumed. In 1919 the leader began to wear a yellow jersey, so that spectators could recognise him; Christophe was the first to wear it (check). The colour matched the paper of L'Auto (Chapter 2).
- Belgian winners. From 1912 to 1922 Belgian riders such as Philippe Thys, Firmin Lambot and Léon Scieur won most Tours (check), a sign of how international the race had become.
- Heroes and nicknames. The press called the riders "giants of the road" (géants de la route) and wrote about their sufferings in epic terms.
The Convicts of the Road
| Event (check each) | Note |
|---|---|
| 1924 walkout | The Pélissier brothers, Henri and Francis, left the race after a dispute with officials about a rule on clothing (check). Henri Pélissier had won the Tour in 1923. |
| The interview | The journalist Albert Londres met them at a station café and reported their account in his newspaper under the title "The Convicts of the Road" (Les Forçats de la route). They described their daily ordeal, the painkillers and stimulants they took, and the conditions of the race (check). It remains a classic of sports journalism and a document of early drug use. |
| Bottecchia | The Italian Ottavio Bottecchia won the Tour in 1924 and 1925. He died in 1927 after being found injured by a roadside, in circumstances that have never been settled (check). |
Rules, Teams and the Caravan
| Change (check each) | Note |
|---|---|
| Long stages | The 1926 Tour was about 5,700 km, the longest of all, with stages of 400 km or more (check). |
| National teams | In 1930 Desgrange replaced the trade teams, funded by cycle makers, with national teams, which made the race a contest of France against Italy, Belgium and Spain and gave the crowds teams to support (check). |
| The publicity caravan | From 1930 the organisers also let firms promote their products in a procession of vehicles ahead of the race, as a way to pay for it (check). It has been a feature ever since (Chapter 8). |
| Supplied bicycles | For a time the organisers supplied identical bicycles to the riders (check). |
| Mountains prize | A prize for the best climber was first awarded in 1933 (check); the polka-dot jersey followed later (Chapter 1). |
| Gears | Desgrange long opposed the derailleur gear; it was allowed in 1937, which made climbing easier (check). |
| Radio and newsreel | Live radio reports began about 1929 and newsreels brought pictures to the cinema, building a national audience (check). |
The Interwar Winners
France won often in the early 1930s, with André Leducq and Antonin Magne (check), and then Belgium and Italy took the lead, with Gino Bartali's win in 1938, an Italian victory that Mussolini's regime was glad to publicise (check). The paid holidays given to French workers by the Popular Front government in 1936 are often linked to a rise in cycling and in roadside crowds (check). The last pre-war Tour was held in July 1939, and the race did not return until 1947 (Chapter 4). Henri Desgrange had handed over to his colleague Jacques Goddet in 1936, and died in 1940 (check).
Exercises
Why did the introduction of the mountains change the nature of the Tour? Give three effects on the race and on its audience.
Read the story of Christophe's forge as a historian: what is the evidence, what do the retellings add, and what does the story show about the Tour's rules of the time?
Explain the introduction of national teams and the publicity caravan in 1930, and what each did for the race's finances and its audience.
Quick Reference
- Mountains: Vosges 1905, Pyrenees 1910, Alps 1911; Lapize's "assassins"
- Legend: Christophe's forge, 1913
- 1919: first yellow jersey
- 1924: the Pélissier brothers and Les Forçats de la route
- 1930: national teams and the publicity caravan
- 1937: derailleur gears allowed; 1939 the last pre-war Tour