July 10th 1914 - South France - Formigueres ski resort is quiet now, the tourists have gone, the snow gone, it is hot. Through the trees the burbling of the motorcycle echoes, it is struggling up the winding road, its rider has a blackboard and a stop watch. He has moved from the valley floor to the ski station because the cyclists are already on the slopes below. Today is the seventh stage of the 1914 Tour De France, the competitors have ridden anti-clockwise around the periphery of France and are now between Luchon and Perpignan. Already well over thirteen hundred miles ridden. The mountain road to Formigueres is long and winding, a real test and comes one hundred and forty miles into todays stage. The supporters and following cars cannot take the mountain road, it is too steep, they will use the coast road and be in town four hours before the men have descended. Todays stage will take a minimum of twelve hours. The motorcyclist has made himself comfortable, there will be no traffic until the climbing men reach him. Laying back he looks through the tunnel formed by the pine tress as they reach skyward, each tree is dead straight, pointing directly at the blue sky. Occasionally a buzzard passes, its cry breaking the silence of the mountainside. He is nearly asleep when he hears the distinctive sound of the bicycle on the gravel of the road and the grunt of the man as he rounds the final corner onto the flat area of the ski station, there is not one supporter there waiting, it is too high and the cable car is not operating. First to pass the motorcyclist and his blackboard, who will mark the number of the cyclist and the time, is Frenchman, Jean Alavoine, he has stormed up the mountain in just over one hour. In another three he will be in Perpignan and will win the stage. Strapped around him are two spare tyres and inner tubes, on his back his backpack contains fruit and the water he must carry himself. On the way down the mountain he will stop at a babbling brook and refill his water bottle; he can receive no outside assistance for the whole of the two hundred and three miles of the stage. The gap to the next man is ten minutes, the motorcyclist knows Jean will be safely in town way before this second man if all is well and no mechanical issues befall him. Once the first ten cyclists have passed the motorcyclist transfers the times from his blackboard to his notepad and clambers aboard his machine, he does not start the engine immediately he pushes off as a child would on a scooter and lets the machine descend into town behind the men on their bicycles. There are another thirty men in the contest, only the first ten times are recorded, some of the men will take another four hours to pass this point. .
Posted on: Thu, 10 Jul 2014 15:10:02 +0000
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