The team, which had its origins in the track racing success of Raleigh riders, made its debut in 1973 with all British riders. The parent company, Tube Investments (hence the ‘TI’), was a large steel products manufacturer, which most notably in the cycling world made Reynolds tubing (”Reynolds 531,” ran an advertisement at the time, “gives you lightness where you need it most.”). The company also owned a number of bicycle brands, including Raleigh.

TI-Raleigh really got underway as a continental team with the appointment of Peter Post as manager in 1974, although the team shifted from a largely British amateur squad to a Dutch professional team. The team, which wore its distinctive jerseys through until 1983, enjoyed numerous victories, perhaps most notably the win by Gerrie Knetemann in the World Championship in 1978 (he also won the final stage of the Tour that year).

The year 1976 was in fact the team’s Tour debut and Gerben Karstens took last-minute glory for the team when he beat Freddie Maertens - who had already won an incredible eight stages - on the Champs Elysées.

Quiz answers:

1. 1974 was the year that the Tour crossed the channel to Britain for a stage in Plymouth.

2. Jacques Anquetil had already before Merckx won the Tour five times, in 1957 then 1961-1964. Anquetil was also the first rider to win all three Grand Tours.

3. Peter Post was the manager of the TI-Raleigh team.

4. The first English rider to win a Tour stage was Brian Robinson (1957, stage 7, Saint-Brieuc to Brest, as a member of the Luxembourg-Mixed team as it was still national teams at that time); he would win another stage in 1959. Tom Simpson was the first to wear the yellow jersey in 1962, for one stage, and finished the Tour in 6th - his best finish; despite his fantastic career, he would never win a Tour stage before his death during the race in 1967 and 1962 was his highest place finish.

5. The yellow jersey was introduced in 1919 - with all the details here.

6. The Eagle of Toledo, and possibly the greatest climber in the Tour’s history, was Federico Bahamontes. He won the Tour in 1959, as well as the KOM prize so he actually won that competition six times - the other years being 1954, 58, 62, 63, and 64.

7. The 1975 Tour started in Charleroi, Belgium.

8. Riders and their nicknames included: a) Bernard Thévenet (Nanard); b) Raymond Poulidor (Poupou); and c) Eugene Christophe (Cri-Cri).

9. Paris-Roubaix, the Hell of the North, since 1968 now starts in Compiègne and finishes in the velodrome at Roubaix.

10. The only Dutch rider to have won the Tour at the time was Jan Janssen in 1968. Since the publication of Nicholson’s book, only one other has repeated this achievement: Joop Zoetemelk in 1980.

11. The 1978 Tour was the 65th edition of the race.

12. The Lanterne Rouge is the last placed rider.

Thanks to the readers who posted their answers! The Raleigh bikes are an object of envy today, so one can only hope that the original winner is still enjoying their classic ride.

La der des ders, World War I, had concluded less than 12 months prior to the start of the 1919 Tour and the race got underway on June 29, the day after the armistice was finally signed with Germany. The main protagonists at the Tour, France and Belgium, had suffered grievously on the Western Front. Belgium and northern France were the battlefields and Belgium suffered close to 500,000 military casualties and well as its economy devastated.

The numbers for France in World War I were worse: 1.4 million dead and around 3 million wounded (one-third permanently disabled), according to sources. Two-thirds of soldiers were from rural occupations and lists of the dead can still be seen on monuments in even the smallest villages all over France. In northern France, estimates put the devastation of farmland at 2.5 million hectares, with 62,000 kilometres of roads and 5,000 kilometres of railway lines needing rebuilding.

Remarkably, cycle racing had not stopped entirely during the war and Paris-Tours was run in 1917 and 1918. Paris-Roubaix returned in 1919 over roads so terrible and in weather so desperate that a journalist from L’Auto christened the race with its famous name.

Desgrange wanted to return the Tour to its central place in French sport and society, as well as to uplift a ravaged nation. “This is the France of tomorrow,” L’Auto editorialized, “Spirited, energized, determined and healthy, which will begin the most beautiful of crusades, sowing along the route, with potent, graceful gestures, the good news of sports.”

Post-War privations affected the Tour of 1919 acutely, from food to bikes to tyres and even the riders’ jerseys. The powerful bike companies of the pre-War era were forced to combine into one consortium, La Sportive, to supply riders. But Desgrange made no concessions, adding another 150 kilometres to the 1914 Tour’s length for a total of 5,560 kilometres over 15 stages. Only 67 starters signed up and the first stage - 388 kilometres from Paris to Le Havre - subjected the riders to the appalling roads of the region and eliminated some 26 on its first day. Only 11 riders would make it to the finish at the Parc des Princes velodrome, with one later disqualified for having hitched a ride in a car to go and repair his pedal.

But there was one significant innovation. With the riders in drab grey jerseys, due to the lack of dye, team director Alphonse Baugé suggested to Desgrange, according to Matt Rendell, that the leading rider should wear a yellow jersey - matching the pages of L’Auto as well as representing a “rebirth” of the Tour, L’Auto said, with a jersey the colour of the sun.

There was apparently a delay in the dying of the requisite five jerseys and it was finally presented to the race leader at the end of stage 10 in Grenoble. The first wearer was therefore Eugenè Christophe, La vieux Gaulois, or Cri-Cri, as his fans preferred.

Christophe was a certified hard man, even by the standards of the time, and was staunchly against doping of any kind, despite the various medications that were rife in the peloton in that era. He had won Milan-San Remo in a blizzard in 1910 but was most famous for the incident in 1913 when he was forced to repair his broken forks at a forge in the Pyrenean village of Sainte-Marie-de-Campan, suffering a series of indignities under Desgrange’s draconian rules. (Cruelly, the commemorative plaque of the event in the village would misspell his name.)

As the first wearer of the maillot jaune, Christophe apparently pulled it on with pride but later complained that spectators laughed at him and called him a canary. Still, his goal was to win the Tour and he looked to be in a dominating position, up by 28 minutes on his chasers.

But he was only to wear the yellow jersey as far as Dunkerque on the penultimate stage of the Tour. The rough roads from Metz broke Christophe’s forks again and he lost nearly 2 hours making repairs (Desgrange had still not relaxed his rules about spares). The maillot jaune was lost and the resolute Belgian Firmin Lambot was the winner in Paris, in front of a rapturous crowd at the velodrome. “Bravo, Lambot,” L’Auto exclaimed, and noted that, “Applause resounded all around the immense arena of the Parc.”

The crowd, though, was reportedly delirious for Christophe, who was “feted like a god” and was so overwhelmed that he had tears “wash over his eyes”. L’Auto readers would later compensate the misfortune of his broken forks with a generous monetary collection, but Christophe would never win the Tour and finally, at an Armstrong-esque age of 37, again have his chances wrecked by another broken fork in 1922. In that Tour he wore the maillot jaune for the last time, for three days.

Since 1919, the yellow jersey has become the most coveted prize in cycling - even more exclusive in that it is worn only in the Tour, unlike, for example, the World Championship jersey. For the grand champions, it is the prize for overall victory. For the domestique it is an elusive prize, one that might be grabbed temporarily, for a few days, until it passes to the shoulders of the team leader. Only on rare occasions has the dauphin grabbed the prize from the prince.

The jersey confers prestige. Even the most junior team member will not have to fetch his own food or water if wearing the jersey; he has the respect of the peloton. There will also be interviews, talk of renewed or new contracts with higher salaries, and offers for lucrative criteriums. And in retirement, there will be a jersey to hang on the wall of the rider’s café or bike shop, and perhaps return invitations to the Tour to present prizes or chaperone sponsors. The wearer of the yellow jersey will never be forgotten.

Examples abound of riders who have grabbed the spotlight from the stars and profited. One such example is Raymond Delisle, a French rider who raced between 1964 and 1977. Delisle achieved a certain measure of public adoration - French, at least - when he won the Bastille Day stage in the 1969 Tour, whilst working for his Peugeot team leader Roger Pingeon, also whilst wearing the jersey of the French national champion - apparently the only rider to do so.

“J’ai roulé à bloc tout le temps,” he reportedly said, of his win on the July 14 stage from Castelnaudary to Luchon, leading over the mountains of the Portet d’Aspet, Mente, and Portillon. Delisle later told the story of how he approached several young boys before the start in Castelnaudary to ask them about the road conditions out of the town and the weather. One of the boys apparently later became the mayor of the town.

Unfortunately, for Delisle, his team, and Pingeon, the 1969 Tour was completely dominated by one Eddy Merckx, who beat Delisle into second place by nearly 18 minutes and won all three titles - the overall, the sprinters prize, and the king of the mountains. Understandably, that was all anyone was talking about that year.

In 1976, however, there was more talk about Delisle. On the stage from Port-Bacares to the ski station at Pyrenees 2000, Delisle took advantage of the hesitation to attack from the favourites - Van Impe, Zoetemelk, Poulidor, and his own team leader Bernard Thévenet. It was a tough stage over 200 kilometres, but the three climbs were only one cat.3 and a cat.2 to the finish. And Delisle had to shake off several riders, including Roger Legeay.

Van Impe was in the yellow jersey during the stage and seemed unconcerned to let Delisle go, despite the urgings of Zoetemelk to make chase. Close to the finish, Geoffrey Nicholson wrote: “At last Delisle in sight at the bend, agonizing his way uphill, head nodding over the handlebars. People press closer but have the good sense not to push him. Cheering travels forward like a rainstorm across a crowded beach.”

For the greater designs of the race, Delisle’s win and taking of the yellow jersey was a distraction. “Well played,” Jacques Goddet wrote in his editorial. The main story was the rise of Van Impe from mountain man to Tour contender, and the collapse of the previous year’s giant slayer, Thévenet. But Delisle wore the jersey for two days, defending it the next day in the mountains. He would also go on to finish fourth in Paris, only just behind Raymond Poulidor. For Delisle, it was his best Tour.

While it would be foolish to draw the linkage too strongly, Delisle’s ride in 1976 and the prestige of the yellow jersey no doubt helped him to be more comfortable with his family in retirement. Now aged 65, he runs a hotel with his wife - a Chateau no less - in Hébécrevon, in Normandy, in the same department as his birth town of Ancteville. Un fier chevalier normand, indeed.

Thanks for your patience and I will have new posts shortly, including the answers to last month’s quiz. In the interim, don’t forget to check out some of these older posts:

Charly Gaul part 1 and part 2

Climb like a badger

The original grimpeurs

The good old days

Richard Virenque part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4

The Club has been previewed already here, but my full report is now on Pez Cycling News.

Many have followed in his footsteps, and pen strokes, to uphold the tradition and discerning readers still look to the UK for serious cycling writing. A few honourable mentions aside, such as Owen Mulholland and Samuel Abt, American writers on the European cycling have yet to establish a body of literature comparable to what Nicholson helped get underway.

As a bonus in the 1978 paperback edition of The Great Bike Race the publishers, Magnum Books, offered to readers a knowledge competition. The prizes were three Raleigh bikes of various models, the top prize “based on the model used by the TI-Raleigh Team”, which for the Tour in 1976 had included Hennie Kuiper and Gerrie Knetemann. It was a bad Tour for the ’stars’, but Gerben Karstens edged out Freddie Maertens - who had already won an incredible eight stages - on the Champs Elysées for final glory. Raleigh also won the Team Time Trial. The next edition, in 1977 would be a much better year with two riders in the top five on the GC including Kuiper in second place.

For those readers interested in testing their knowledge of the Tour, at least up to 1978, the full-page excerpt is reproduced below. It’s a tough dozen questions but feel free to submit your answers as comments below - there’s no prize, however, as we’ve all missed the deadline by nearly 30 years.

(To download a pdf version of this image, right click here to ’save as..’)

Injury blunted his ambitions for showing us what he could do in last year’s edition but an absence of Grand Tour stage wins and results has not kept the young, up-and-coming rider from capturing the limelight. In recent times we’ve had a feature article in Cycle Sport and now the two page spread in the official programme. His profile has rivaled that of more accomplished riders such as Sylvain Chavanel, David Moncoutie, or Christophe Moreau.

It is hard, however, not to warm to Di Grégorio. Labeled the ‘new Virenque’ he seems a far cry from the ambitious young Richard. Confident, yes. Capable in the mountains, yes. But in his interviews he retains a modesty, seemingly content to progress at a slow rate, building his skills and his experience. He certainly will not be challenging for the overall in the Tour this year of even next, if at all.

Di Grégorio seems content to take the races as they come. The 22-year old from Marseille won the climbing competition in the Dauphiné Libéré last year, but seemed content to let the title slip away this year. He told local media that he was happy with his form in the mountains, but still lacked the ‘kick’ to stay with the faster climbers and was hoping to build his form for the Tour.

He confesses to not being a student of the great climbers of history, like Bahamontes and Van Impe, but is apparently a fan of Pantani. Like Pantani, Di Grégorio prefers to train on instinct, rather than using a power meter or even a heart-rate monitor. Pantani had his dope, but Di Grégorio has only his head and his legs, which would surely warm the heart of a traditionalist like Bahamontes and one cannot help but think that the Spanish legend himself would approve of Di Grégorio’s approach.

Di Grégorio weighs in somewhere around 65 kgs, depending on sources, for his 180 cm frame. A climber’s build, no doubt, but not as lanky as the Schleck brothers or as diminutive as, say, John Gadret or Riccardo Ricco. But climb he surely can, and favours the long breakaway, the victory in the mountains that everyone will remember.

He confesses to a love of Alpe d’Heuz, but that stage will be a hotly contested one at this Tour, with a number of capable climbers already announcing their intentions to do well there and, at the late stage of the race, the GC contenders will be riding hard.

He has already checked out the main climbs of the Pyrenees but is wary about pre-riding climbs, saying that in a race situation there are always surprises.

Perhaps stage 6, with a climb to the finish at Super-Besse in the Massif Central region will be his opportunity for a breakaway, or even stage 7 the next day to Aurillac with five rated climbs. The peloton may be reluctant to chase a breakaway with the Pyrenees looming.

But perhaps Di Grégorio will wait for a more iconic victory. The choice is entirely his. We are simply waiting, Rémy. Show us what you can do in the mountains.

Desgrange enforced his conception of what the Tour and bike racing should be with a will and rod of iron. While his rules were constantly evolving, they were always punitive. Restrictions on equipment, support and food and water, rules against drafting, against mass sprints, even bad language. In 1913, with riders banned from receiving any mechanical help, Eugene Christophe - in one of the most storied events of the Tour - was forced to repair his own forks at a local blacksmiths, even incurring an additional time penalty. We remember Christophe’s dedication rather than Desgrange’s ridiculous regulations.

Riders chaffed against the restrictions but were always caught between the whims of race organizers who controlled the rules of the events and, importantly, the prizes. In 1924, Henri Pélissier invoked Desgrange’s ire with his intention to wear two jerseys, issued by the Tour, on a stage with a cold, early morning start and discard one when it warmed up. Participants had to return the jerseys at the end of the Tour and were also banned from wearing two at a time. “Nous acceptons le tourment, nous ne voulons de vexations,” he said, saying that they would accept the torment of riding in the Tour, but would not take the harassment from the organizers. Les Forçats de la Route, indeed.

Desgrange had his own notions of the ‘epic’ quality of cycling, but the myths created around the Tour and the riders also helped publicity and to boost sales of L’Auto. After all, the Tour has always been a commercial endeavour and, like all professional sports, needs daring tales of suffering and sacrifice to drive its popularity.

One such myth is the story of French rider René Vietto in the 1934 Tour. The traditional story was recently described by Bicycling magazine as follows:

1934 - René Vietto’s Great Sacrifice: Bicycle racing is nothing without sacrifice, and in 1934 René Vietto set the standard in an incomparable “beau geste.” Starting the race as a support rider for the legendary Antonin Magne, Vietto proved to be the revelation of the race. Easily the Tour’s best climber that year, Vietto won four stages and rivaled Magne. And it didn’t help that Vietto’s leader continued to be slowed by mechanical mishaps. And when Magne crashed on the descent of the Portet d’Aspet climb, his chances to win a second Tour (after his first victory in 1931) appeared over. But once again the 20-year old Vietto came to the rescue. Doubling back, Vietto, who once again was in the breakaway, climbed back up to Magne to give him his front wheel. He then sat on the stone fence, waiting for the support vehicle to finally arrive-and cried, knowing his own Tour chances were over.

Except the real story was somewhat different.

Desgrange had relaxed rules against drafting and mass sprints in the 1920s. For 1934, he allowed riders to support each other with equipment, such as wheel changes. It was therefore expected, that as a domestique, Vietto (on his first Tour and aged only twenty) would give support to his team leader - a prior Tour winner no less - if required.

It is inaccurate to say that Vietto rivaled Magne, although Vietto did indeed win four stages and the mountains classification. But Vietto was a talented young grimpeur on his first Tour, not a hardened veteran of several editions. At the time of the first incident on stage 15 with three stage wins already the official Tour history reminds us, however, that Vietto was 29 minutes behind Magne in the general classification.

On this stage, the first in the Pyrenees, Magne crashed and broke his front wheel. Vietto offered his wheel but, according to writer Benjo Maso, it would not fit Magne’s bike (for reasons not noted). Magne actually took the wheel of teammate Georges Speicher, who was able to make Vietto’s wheel eventually fit his own bike - a series of events not noted in the conventional history. Speicher was also senior to Vietto in the team hierarchy, having won the Tour the year before.

With his own bike, without the front wheel, on the side of the road, the famous photo of Vietto sitting on the stone wall was taken. One of the spectators at that point was journalist Jacques Goddet, later director of the Tour, who noted the moment and resolved to make an iconic story out of it for L’Auto.

That Magne owed his continuation to his team was not in doubt but Vietto did not have to wait much more than 4 minutes for the support truck and finished stage 15 just 4′33″ behind the winner Roger Lapébie (another teammate, who was eventually third in Paris).

The next day, on stage 16, descending from the Portet d’Aspect, Magne had a mechanical involving his chain and rear wheel. Vietto was up ahead and, after a motorbike notified him, did actually ride back up to Magne and gave him his bike (not his front wheel - that was the day before). He had to again wait for the support truck to get a replacement but this time no photo was taken.

Magne was saved again, and he also had Lapébie up the road for the final climb. “On the descent [from the Col des Ares] he continued to lead me out, and I don’t know to whom I owe the most today, Vietto or Lapébie,” Magne was reported saying.

Vietto, though, was indignant, and clearly not relishing his role as a domestique working for the yellow jersey and the overall team win. “I’m going to lose ten minutes,” he said. “I’m not going to play the slave forever.”

On stage 16 Vietto apparently lost another 4 minutes. He was 8′37″ behind the stage winner Adriano Vignoli in 18th place and only 4′02″ behind Magne, who was clearly no slouch in the mountains either. Indeed, Magne won stage 17, which included the climbs of the Col de Peyresourde and the Col d’Aspin. He finished over 6 minutes ahead of the second placed rider, further securing his lead, and Vietto was 7′46″ behind in 4th.

Despite the numbers, Goddet had a story on his hands. His article in L’Auto was copied my many other newspapers and the story soon evolved that without making his sacrifice Vietto would have won the Tour. The public were swayed and Magne was not permitted his victory lap and the velodrome in Paris without Vietto. Banners from fans read, ‘Long live Vietto, the moral winner of the Tour’. “A legend is born and no one will dare attack it,” journalist Georges Briquet wrote, according to Maso. By the account of cycling writer Richard Yates, who has little time for the legend, the French team were ’stupified’ by the story of Vietto’s supposed sacrifice.

Desgrange was not above creating myths himself, but he was apparently furious at Goddett’s efforts and wanted to attack the legend. Desgrange had not seen fit to mention Vietto’s ’sacrifice’ in his own race reports and was quick to distance himself from Vietto’s exploits. In L’Auto he reminded readers of the time gaps, and than Vietto had only lost a cumulative 8 minutes whilst waiting for mechanical support. Despite Goddet’s story, and the opinions of the crowd at the finish, Vietto was never in contention for the yellow jersey in Paris. His losing margin behind Magne was 59′02″, even though he was fifth overall. In fact, Magne had taken the yellow jersey on stage 2 and held it all the way to Paris, 27′31″ up on Giuseppe Martano from Italy - a completely dominating performance.

Following his win on stage 18, which included the climbs of the Tourmalet and the Aubisque, Vietto moved up to 3rd overall, 43′05″ behind Magne. The final stages revealed his weaknesses as a rouleur and time triallist. In the first ITT of the Tour de France, over 90 kilometres, Vietto placed a credible 7th but was still 9 minutes down on Magne’s time. Vietto therefore continued to lose time all the way to Paris.

Desgrange was perhaps being a bit precious, for although the Goddett’s story created a narrative of sacrifice that Desgrange had not intended, it undoubtedly added a new dimension to that year’s Tour that would have sparked public interest and excitement.

For Vietto, it was an enormous boost to his public profile and to his wallet as he was able to trade on his name and reputation in lucrative post-Tour appearances. In fairness, his sacrifices for his team leader were something new, but the race rules and expectations had changed and it was his job to help Magne defend his yellow jersey. Despite his protestations to Goddet, he was actually a ’slave’ on the mighty French team. Unfortunately, too, he would later lose much of his money, but that story - as well as his actual exploits on the bike - is best covered later.

That the Tour is built on tradition is no surprise. That its myths continue to be perpetuated is simply another fascinating way that the race looks back on its past for both continuity and sustenance. And, of course, to sell newspapers.

In May in France, student riots spread to the workers and it seemed like the Republic itself could be under the threat of revolution. But it was not to be. The students, it seems, were more willing to challenge the status quo of President De Gaulle’s political philosophy, particularly his ideas of ‘participation’ in society, rather than to bring down his government.

Historian Rod Kenward writes in La Vie En Bleu that in the view of many student leaders, “We had stormed the word, but not the Bastille.”

Still, the chaos caused by the riots and the strikes threatened the running of that year’s Tour, which was already under scrutiny and review following the death of Tom Simpson in 1967. The French government, with De Gaulle’s party returned to power following elections in June, wanted the Tour to go ahead, however, as part of a return to normalcy.

The BBC this week reviewed the anniversary of the student riots, and the self-reflection that has gone into their meaning. Writes Henri Astier: “The anniversary has in fact seen a strange replay of 1968 - complete with metaphorical barricades, a two-month talkfest, culminating in everyone switching off and heading for the sun.”

He might have added “…to watch the Tour de France”.

As this year’s Tour gets underway, as a fresh start, it is a good opportunity to look back on the 1968 event, some forty years ago. Click here to see my full article at Pez Cycling News.

Full report coming soon. A selection of pictures on the Mont Ventoux page (see link right).

It is an iconic image in cycling’s lore. Jacques Goddet is ascending the rocky slope of Mont Ventoux, clutching a wreath for the memorial to Tom Simpson. In the background, surely not by coincidence in the timing, is Eddy Merckx, on his way to the stage finish at the summit and overall victory in the 1970 Tour de France, and he has turned to watch Goddet.

But what happened next was extraordinary. Battling the climb, and struggling with exertion, Merckx removed his cycling cap as he rode past, as a sign of respect to his fallen former teammate. Merckx was with Simpson on the Peugeot team in 1967 for a rocky introduction to pro riding as Simpson schooled Merckx in pro etiquette and tactics at that year’s Paris-Nice. But Merckx admired Simpson and was apparently the only European professional at Simpson’s funeral.

Merckx went on to win the stage on Mont Ventoux, but collapsed at the finish and required oxygen. It seemed that the mountain wanted to extract its terrible toll, taxing Merckx on the very day he had sought to pay tribute to Simpson’s death.

The years 1970 and 1967 were not the first time that Mont Ventoux had sought to claim victims, and perhaps only chance and quickly-applied medical attention saved at least one rider in 1955. In another brutally hot year, on the stage from Marseille to Avignon that went over the mountain, Jean Malléjac collapsed 10 kilometres from the summit. Quick action from the Tour’s doctor, Pierre Dumas, saved his live, but his teeth had to be prised apart to administer oxygen. As he was being loaded into the ambulance he was agitated and demanded his bike, and had to be restrained. He denied using drugs, but few apparently believed him. He never raced again and for Dumas, again at the side of a dying Tom Simpson twelve years later, it was a warning of the deadly combination of doping and heatstroke.

Another rider claimed that day was Ferdi Kubler, the erratic Swiss-German who referred to himself in the third person in his broken French. According to the stories, Raphael Géminiani warned him of the difficulty of the climb. “Ferdi is not like other riders,” Kubler said. He was soon weaving all over the climb, suffering a huge défaillance, delirious over the summit, and after a café stop close to the finish ended up riding the wrong way and had to be directed to the line by supporters. The next day he packed up and went home. “Ferdi has killed himself on the Ventoux.”

Reports said that at least six other riders on that day suffered collapses on the climb, and many riders were supposedly throwing away their drugs after the stage. For Jacques Goddet, though, there was no mention of doping - the heroic nature of the Tour had to be upheld.

“On this accursed ground,” he wrote in L’Equipe, “the battle raged, while all along the fiery mountain men fell by the wayside, beaten down by sunstroke, empty, drunk with the effort and the struggle, heaps of brave men who were once so solid and resolute.”

It was just like Barthes would write, quoted above, as if indeed Mont Ventoux was a god of Evil, but it was not just the mountain demanding a sacrifice - it was the Tour as well. In 1967, it would get its sacrifice.

Simpson’s death was the full-stop that ended The Golden Age of Cycling. France’s and Europe’s recovery from World War II was indeed a remarkable time for cycling, with its burgeoning popularity reclaiming previous glories and the national teams system in place until 1962 adding a nationalistic character to countries re-forging their identities. The stars of the 1950s became iconic characters, legends of the sport for their riding exploits as well as their antics and appearances off the bike.

By 1967, cycling was changing. That year saw the reintroduction of national teams, as Tour organizers looked to reclaim some of the public’s interest in the national competition, still undecided whether to entirely embrace the commercial imperative that had seen trade teams brought back in 1962. It was also a transition between the dominance of Jacques Anquetil and the emergence of a new hero, Merckx, as well as the advent of television coverage of the Tour that shattered much of the myth-making in print that had fuelled the previous era.

But Simpson’s death only served to highlight the dark side of The Golden Age. Simply, drug use throughout the entire period was pervasive. At the time, it was ingrained in the sport - almost accepted. Fausto Coppi and Anquetil talked about it openly, perhaps too honestly for some who wanted to see the riders in more mythic terms. Anquetil’s preferred amphetamine was Tonedron, nicknamed ‘Tonton’, the ‘Rolls Royce’ of stimulants, according to William Fotheringham. Its sister drug, Pervitin, was called ‘Tintin’. (It was Tonedron that was found in Simpson’s jersey pockets and his use of it was well known in the peloton.) The so-called ‘Anquetil cocktail’ was Tonton, a painkiller, and a sleeping pill at night, the improved version of the cocaine cream, opiates and ‘dynamite’ of Henri Pélissier in the 1920s.

There had already been other close calls with riders’ lives in this era, such as Roger Rivière in 1960 when he crashed and broke his back while dosed up on the painkiller Palfium - used to deaden muscle pain in the legs - and, as we have seen, on Mont Ventoux in 1955. Perhaps a death like Simpson’s was sadly, tragically inevitable. At least, though, attitudes were changing, with L’Equipe proclaiming that, “…all the legal, moral, spiritual and scientific communities need to join forces to restore the moral order.” And Goddet opened his editorial in starkly somber terms: “Un cycliste est mort.”

The Tour in 1968 was supposed to be a fresh start, with drug testing and a new cleaner image, ‘le Tour de la santé’. But cycling since then has never been able to reconcile its conflicts - extraordinary performances on the bike are demanded, and richly rewarded, creating a temptation to ingest the forbidden. And cycling itself has at various times turned a blind eye to these practices to varying degrees. This tension continues to percolate in the sport today, just as it has from its inception.

As Barthes presciently said, “The Tour is at once a myth of expression and a myth of projection, realistic and utopian at the same time.” We embrace the utopian, the myth of the higher purpose of pain and suffering on the mountain, Mont Ventoux demanding its sacrifice. Yet Simpson reminds us of the realistic, the burning desire of riders to succeed, and their temptations, with Mont Ventoux simply the backdrop. But if it is not the mountain demanding the sacrifice, who then is it: the Tour, the sponsors, the fans?

Next month, your author will be riding the triple ascent of Mont Ventoux (see preview here) and plans to doff his cap at the Simpson memorial.