Mythologies: Alphonse Steinès, the Tour de France and the Invention of the Pyrénées

If a lie lasts ceaselessly it’s virtually true
~ Séan Millar, ‘Pleased Can Be’

The story of how the Tour de France got here to sort out the Col du Tourmalet within the Pyrénées for the primary time in 1910 is among the most oft-told tales of Tour historical past. However how a lot of it’s true, how a lot of it actually occurred the way in which we declare it occurred?

Half I – What the Historians Inform Us

In keeping with some, Alphonse Steinès set out for the Col du Tourmalet in January of 1910.⁽¹⁾ Others say it was a number of weeks earlier than the beginning of that yr’s Tour, Might⁽²⁾ or possibly June.⁽³⁾ Nearly all agree that Steinès’s goal was to persuade Henri Desgrange that the grand boucle ought to go to the Pyrénées, one thing the Father of the Tour was reluctant to allow. Nobody had ever raced over these mountains,⁽⁴⁾ nobody knew if man was able to even driving over these mountains.⁽⁵⁾ Steinès had lastly worn Desgrange down along with his badgering and, if he might present that the Tourmalet was satisfactory, it might be included within the itinerary of that yr’s race.⁽⁶⁾

Some say that, first, Steinès was instructed to jot down about the potential of taking the race into the Pyrénées and Desgrange would then decide based mostly on the general public response to what he wrote.⁽⁷⁾ That response exceeded expectations, with locals claiming the roads have been blocked by snow nearly all the time and when not closed have been little greater than goat tracks.⁽⁸⁾

Steinès travelled right down to Pau,⁽⁹⁾ nearly on the foot of the Tourmalet.⁽¹⁰⁾ Both he drove himself the 700 kilometres south from Paris,⁽¹¹⁾ or he took the practice and employed a automotive regionally.⁽¹²⁾ Or he travelled the Pyrénées on his bicycle.⁽¹³⁾ Foreshadowing the hazard but to return he was instructed {that a} Mercedes had just lately overturned trying to cross the Tourmalet.⁽¹⁴⁾

Steinès sought out the superintendent of roads within the area, Blanchet,⁽¹⁵⁾ who laughed on the suggestion of taking the Tour over the mountains, the roads then being too poor for 250 males on bicycles and their entourage.⁽¹⁶⁾ Steinès promised that L’Auto would pay to organize the roads.⁽¹⁷⁾ Blanchet requested for five,000 francs.⁽¹⁸⁾ Steinès referred to as Paris and Desgrange supplied 3,000.⁽¹⁹⁾ Or 2,000.⁽²⁰⁾ Or 1,500.⁽²¹⁾ Or 500.⁽²²⁾ Blanchet promised the roads can be effective by July.⁽²³⁾

Some say that final bit really occurred months earlier than Steinès tried to cross the Tourmalet, as a part of an earlier reconnaissance journey.⁽²⁴⁾ Others say it occurred after he’d made it down off the Tourmalet.⁽²⁵⁾

Steinès headed into the hills.⁽²⁶⁾ He crossed the Col d’Aspin, with some problem.⁽²⁷⁾ He began his ascent of the Tourmalet from Sainte-Marie-de-Campan,⁽²⁸⁾ on the northern facet of the mountain. Villagers instructed him it was inconceivable to cross the Tourmalet,⁽²⁹⁾ that it was barely satisfactory even in July.⁽³⁰⁾ Ignoring these warnings he employed an area driver, Dupont,⁽³¹⁾ and was pushed towards the summit however was stopped by snow blocking the highway two kilometres from the highest.⁽³²⁾ Or it might have been three.⁽³³⁾ Or possibly 4.⁽³⁴⁾ Or 5.⁽³⁵⁾ And even six.⁽³⁶⁾ Steinès pressed on alone and on foot.⁽³⁷⁾ The snow was 4 ft deep.⁽³⁸⁾ Many agree it was at this stage early night, six o’clock.⁽³⁹⁾ Or possibly it was later.⁽⁴⁰⁾

An area shepherd agreed to information him to the highest of the mountain.⁽⁴¹⁾ It took Steinès two and a half hours to stroll the remaining kilometres to the summit.⁽⁴²⁾ There then adopted a sequence of misadventures:⁽⁴³⁾ stumbles and tumbles in rivers and snowbanks,⁽⁴⁴⁾ leaving him chilly and moist and fearing for his life: he nearly killed himself,⁽⁴⁵⁾ setting off an avalanche and falling over a precipice and discovering himself buried in a snowdrift.⁽⁴⁶⁾ He finally made it off the mountain underneath his personal steam.⁽⁴⁷⁾ Or he was rescued by a search occasion despatched out to seek out him.⁽⁴⁸⁾ It was by then three within the morning.⁽⁴⁹⁾

The next day – the day after he began his ascent or the day after that, nobody is obvious – a telegram was dispatched to L’Auto’s Montmartre workplaces.⁽⁵⁰⁾ The wording varies from account to account however the fundamental gist all agree was that Steinès claimed the Tourmalet was completely satisfactory.⁽⁵¹⁾ Some say it was a phonecall, not a telegram.⁽⁵²⁾ Upon receipt of the message Desgrange had the subsequent version of L’Auto embrace an article informing readers and riders that the route of the 1910 Tour would come with the Pyrenean cols of the Peyresourde, Aspin, Tourmalet, and Aubisque.⁽⁵³⁾ Nearly instantly greater than two dozen riders pulled out of the race.⁽⁵⁴⁾

Steinès stored quiet about what actually occurred.⁽⁵⁵⁾

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That, roughly, is what the historical past books inform us at this time: a narrative about Steinès convincing Desgrange in 1910 to incorporate the Pyrénées in that yr’s race, with a number of embellishment surrounding Steinès’s go to to the Tourmalet. However what did biking followers know in 1910? What did readers of L’Auto know in regards to the Tour’s growth into the Pyrénées forward of the riders crossing the Col de Port and the Col de Portet d’Aspet on July 19 and the Col de Peyresourde, the Col d’Aspin, and the Col du Tourmalet together with the conjoined triplets of the Col du Soulor, the Col de Tortes, and the Col d’Aubisque on July 21?

To attempt to get a deal with on that we now have to start not with Steinès and the Tourmalet in June or Might or January of 1910, however with Henri Desgrange himself, in July of 1909, midway by means of that yr’s Tour de France.

Half II – Speak of Issues to Come

July 20, 1909 – P-364 days

The primary inkling L’Auto’s readers had that the Tour may quickly enter the Pyrénées got here throughout the seventh version of the race. The Tour had exited the Alps and was midway between the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts, working north of the Pyrénées by the use of Toulouse. A malaise appeared to fall over Henri Desgrange. “The Tour de France got here out of the mountains after the Estérel,” he wrote, “and our riders drag themselves miserably on nationwide roads, scorched by the solar.”

Forward lay the lengthy slog up the Atlantic seaboard earlier than the dash for house and even the grasp mythologiser appeared to seek out it inconceivable to whip up enthusiasm for what was to return. The Tour had reached a turning level in that yr’s race however Desgrange additionally thought the race had reached a turning level in its historical past. And he instructed his readers so: “subsequent yr we now have to go to Tunisia and Algeria, and to sort out the Pyrénées head-on as we sort out the Alps.”

Whereas Desgrange attributed his morose temper to the tedium of the racing since exiting the mountains – as soon as once more one rider was dominating the race, François Faber this time – we must always in all probability additionally word right here that the Tour had acquired a brand new rival. Throughout the border in Italy the Giro d’Italia had efficiently accomplished its first version lower than two months earlier. Desgrange couldn’t relaxation on his laurels. The Giro would power the Tour to up its recreation.

1903: Col de la République (1,161m)
1904: Col de la République (1,161m)
1905: Ballon d’Alsace (1,178m); Col Bayard (1,246m)
1906: Ballon d’Alsace (1,178m); Col Bayard (1,246m)
1907: Ballon d’Alsace (1,178m); Col de Porte (1,326m); Col Bayard (1,246m)
1908: Ballon d’Alsace (1,178m); Col de Porte (1,326m); Col Bayard (1,246m)
1909: Ballon d’Alsace (1,178m); Col de Porte (1,326m); Col Bayard (1,246m)

Fairly what constitutes a climb within the early Excursions is a matter of debate, with Desgrange & co rewriting the race’s historical past to go well with their wants. The Ballon d’Alsace within the Vosges is, famously, the race’s first mountain, regardless of the presence of the Col de la République within the first two editions of the Tour. Formally the Tour solely went into the Alps in 1911, after tackling the Pyrénees in 1910, although it had been crossing the Col Bayard within the Dauphiné Alps since 1905.

September 30 – P-292 days^:

The primary L’Auto’s readers knew for certain that the Tour would enter the Pyrénées got here two months later, on the finish of September when – throughout a 3rd of the entrance web page and nearly half of web page three – Desgrange supplied them a have a look at plans for 1910’s Tour de France, the eighth version of the race.

“The Tour de France will enter the Pyrénées, which it has solely been touching the sting of. The eighth stage will abandon its outdated path to Narbonne, and finish in Perpignan.

“Then, in a single leap, and in two levels succeeding one another someday aside, the Tour de France will go from Perpignan to Bayonne. The primary stage will go from Perpignan to Bagnères-de-Luchon (289 kms), and the second from Bagnères to Bayonne (325 kms). These two levels will happen on July 20 and 21.”

NB: Bagnères-de-Luchon is Luchon. Bagnères is often used because the shortened model of Bagnères-de-Bigorre however above refers to Luchon. Bagnères are thermal baths.

The Pyrénées paled compared with the Alps when it got here to tourism, for all kinds or causes starting from transport infrastructure to snobbery. However over the course of the second half of the nineteenth century they been taking part in meet up with their Alpine cousins. Outdoors of those that lived there, those that knew the Pyrénées knew them as locations of retreat, non secular and medicinal, Lourdes and the spa cities – Luchon, Bagnères, Argelès, Eaux-Bonnes and many others – drawing in these searching for to cleanse physique or soul. The route thermale – impressed by Napoleon III, the one dethroned after the 1870/71 warfare with Prussia – linked the assorted spa cities. The Touring Membership de France – which promoted the rights and desires of cyclists, liaising with hoteliers and native communities to develop biking infrastructure – was engaged on a route Pyrénées, a community of roads stretching from one finish of the mountains to the opposite and taking travellers over all of the excessive cols.

Later in L’Auto’s article readers obtained extra element on the brand new Pyrenean levels: the Perpignan to Bagnères-de-Luchon stage would go through Quillan, Foix, the Col de Port, Saint-Girons, and the Col des Arts [a misprint of Col des Ares]; the Bagnères-de-Luchon to Bayonne stage would go through Arreau, Barèges, Argelès, Eaux-Bonnes, Oloron, Mauléon, and Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. Other than naming the Col de Port and (misnaming) the Col des Ares, not one of the different passes the riders must cross have been named. Utilizing the small print given and realizing the general distances of the 2 levels (289 kms and 325 kms, which remained unchanged when the Tour lastly reached the Pyrénées) readers with entry to a great atlas – or native information – would have been in a position to work out for themselves the foremost peaks the race can be climbing when the riders tackled these two levels ten months later.

L’Auto / BnF

January 4, 1910 – P-196 days

L’Auto’s readers have been as soon as once more handled to a preview of the approaching Tour within the early days of 1910, at which level they have been knowledgeable of a minor modification to the itinerary: as an alternative of tackling the 2 Pyrenean levels back-to-back the riders have been to be granted a rest-day between the 2.

January 26 – P-174 days

The route of the 1910 Tour was once more revisited, this time with readers and riders being supplied with an inventory of the controls riders must sign up at throughout the race, together with these for the brand new Pyrenean levels.

The First Étape du Tour – What Would possibly Have Been

February 4 – P-165 days

Legend has it that Henri Desgrange was morally against the derailleur. Numerous apocryphal quotes on the topic have been attributed to him and whether or not he ever really mentioned any of them or not is a matter for one more day. What we do know is that Desgrange did have fastened views on variable gears. And in February 1910 he proposed providing those that disagreed with him a problem.

“I’ve usually been accused of being the opponent of the multi-geared machine,” he wrote in L’Auto, “whereas I’ve at all times tried, quite the opposite, to make it clear that one couldn’t logically be in comparison with the opposite. The multi-geared machine is an instrument of touring, the machine of the boys of the Tour de France is a racing machine.”

That elementary distinction however, Desgrange proposed letting the mutli-geared cyclo-tourists pit themselves towards the boys of the Tour on their single-geared machines, on the identical terrain, on the identical day. Particularly, the second and more durable of the 2 Pyrenean levels, from Bagnères-de-Luchon to Bayonne. If a adequate variety of cyclo-tourists expressed an curiosity, then the race – or sportive, we must always in all probability name it, it being a proto-Étape du Tour – can be on.

In a brief article within the Touring Membership de France’s month-to-month journal in Might Desgrange’s supply was rejected, the TCF noting that the Tour’s guidelines permitted the usage of multi-geared machines, albeit with a primitive type of gearing: “those that we thought have been our adversaries have change into our supporters and our participation within the Luchon-Bayonne stage is ineffective, the professionals themselves being answerable for offering the proof we wished in favour of gearing.”

Half III – Throughout the Pyrénées with Ravaud and Abran

Might 17 – P-63 days

Again then, highway racing was nonetheless within the shadow of monitor, and would keep there for a lot of extra years to return. Folks went to the races after they have been on, or examine them, however there wasn’t many highway races demanding their consideration. For French riders, the important thing highway races of the early a part of 1910 – and their winners – have been the next:

March 27 – Paris-Roubaix (267 kms) – Octave Lapize (Alycon)
April 3 – Milan-Sanremo (289 kms) – Eugène Christophe (Alcyon)
April 17 – Paris-Menin (306 kms) – Cyrille Van Hauwaert (Alcyon)
Might 1 – Paris-Bruxelles (400 kms) – Maurice Brocco (Legnano)*
Might 8 – Nationwide championships, France (100 kms) – Émile Georget (La Française)
Might 14 – Bordeaux-Paris (590 kms) – Émile Georget (La Française)
Might 18 to June 5 – Giro d’Italia (2,890 kms) – Carlo Galetti (Atala)
June 5 to 19 – Tour of Belgium (1,742 kms) – Jules Masselis (Alcyon)

* Lapize was initially declared the winner of Paris-Bruxelles however following a criticism lodged by the Legnano workforce Brocco, who initially completed seventh, was promoted to first.

With so few alternatives out there to them to race on the highway, the celebs of the day additionally raced on the monitor, and with Desgrange’s newly refurbished Vélodrome d’Hiver having opened in February that they had much more alternatives to try this than in earlier years.

Three of these early season races – Paris-Roubaix, Paris-Bruxelles, and Bordeaux-Paris – have been organised by L’Auto. As soon as the final was out of the way in which all eyes within the Rue du Faubourg workplaces of the paper turned to the Tour, with riders invited to enroll in participation within the race.

L’Auto / BnF

Even earlier than the massive highway races of the spring had peaked with Bordeaux-Paris and L’Auto had referred to as upon riders to submit their entries, the work of organising the Tour was already effectively underway, with Georges Abran – the person whose pistol shot had began the riders of the primary Tour on their method – driving the route of the race. Abran’s job was to establish upfront any issues the race may encounter and to liaise with locals: glad-handing mayors, assembly L’Auto’s native stringers, and finding out who would man the controls the riders must sign up at (as a way to show they have been following the total route of the race and never taking shortcuts).

Abran filed studies from the highway as he was chauffeured round France, the primary coming from Roubaix on April 15. Foul climate was the order of the day from the outset and would comply with him as he made his method across the route of the race, a activity that might take him two months to finish. As he headed west from Paris he travelled on roads soaked by floods. On the Ballon d’Alsace – the primary actual climb of the race – he encountered snow on the summit, as he did atop the Col de Porte. Earlier than arriving in Good he needed to detour, a landslide having taken away a bit of highway. It was a nasty climate yr, the Seine breaking its banks in Paris in January and the snow-blighted Milan-Sanremo in April taking place in historical past as one in every of biking’s hardest days within the saddle.

L’Auto / BnF

On the day L’Auto opened registration for the Tour Abran was en path to Perpignan, on the Mediterranean facet of the Pyrénées, the place he was to be joined by his colleague Charles Ravaud. The 2 have been as a result of cross the Pyrénées collectively and would supply their readers with extra element of what the riders would face come July 19 and 21.

Might 20 – P-60 days

Ravaud and Abran could be seen because the Mason and Dixon of Tour de France route surveying (with the legendary Alphonse Steinès such a bigger than life determine that he fulfils the roles of Lewis and Clark in a single man). With simply two months to go earlier than the Tour’s riders would sort out the route, on Might 19 the intrepid duo got down to cowl the primary half of the primary Pyrenean stage, driving from Perpignan to Saint-Girons. The next day’s paper carried a report of their journey:

“we set off this morning for Saint-Girons, the place we arrived with out incident, after having crossed Saint-Paul-de-Fenouillet, Quillan, Col de Portet (1,400 metres altitude), Col de Babourade, Col d’El-Teil [probably Col del Teil], Lavelanet, Roquefort, Foix, Tarascon-sur-Ariège, Col de Port (1,249 metres), Massat and Saint-Girons.”

NB: The reference above to the Col de Portet is an error. Most probably Ravaud and Abran meant to confer with the Col du Portel, which comes shortly after Quillan, however solely climbs to about 600m. There are a number of Cols de Portet additional to the west of Quillan, none of which climb to 1,400m. That altitude determine probably comes from the Col de Portel, which comes after Foix and rises to 1,432m.

As was common with these columns the report then become an advertorial for the Impéria vehicle and its Dunlop tyres:

“Regardless of the rain, regardless of the snow, the automotive and the tyres behaved splendidly and we, Abran and I, have been in a position to admire one of the vital lovely panoramas on the planet. What roads! What descents!”

Ravaud and Abran accomplished the route of the primary stage the next day (Might 20), reporting to L’Auto’s readers that “Nothing can depict the gorgeous difficulties of the stage.” True to their phrases, nothing was mentioned of the route past that, not even a point out of the Col de Portet d’Aspet or the Col des Ares. Readers must wait a number of days to find out about them.

When L’Auto did return to the lacking mountains Ravaud and Abran’s report learn like a vacationer’s postcard:

“The glaciers of the Pyrénées appeared to us scintillating underneath a single ray of solar, having made its gap within the threatening clouds; the sight of the valley of Saurat – marvellously inexperienced, profound, very good – tore from us cries of admiration; our valiant riders will maybe not have time to take pleasure in such a spectacle on the day when they are going to compete within the ninth stage of the Tour; however allow them to be reassured, Abran and I’ve, upfront, loved it for them.”

It wasn’t all simply sight-seeing: L’Auto’s intrepid explorers warned riders to be cautious of the wild animals that made the Pyrénées so fearsome. Not the stuff of legend, the hungry bears over from the Spanish facet of the mountains or the eagles sufficiently big to pluck a person off his bicycle. No, this was the extra prosaic hazard of the cows and the horses and the sheep that roamed the roads of the Pyrénées as in the event that they owned them.

La Vie au Grand Air / BnF

On the third day of their passage throughout the Pyrénées Ravaud and Abran reached Bagnères-de-Bigorre, the place they have been laying up having didn’t cross the Col d’Aspin within the first a part of the route of the second Pyrenean stage:

“Abran and I are in Bagnères-de-Bigorre, though this charming city doesn’t seem on the itinerary of the tenth stage of the Tour de France, which fits from Bagnères-de-Luchon to Bayonne. The fault lies neither in our fantastic Impéria, nor within the delicate Dunlop with which it’s shod, however within the snow which nonetheless obstructs, presently of the yr, the highest of the Col d’Aspin.

“After leaving Bagnères-de-Luchon, we cleared the Col de Peyresonde (1,333 meters) with out incident, crossed Bordeyres [Bordères-Louron] and Arreau and started to climb the Col d’Aspin (1,492 meters).

“There was solely us and tall and cramped partitions of snow, and we couldn’t cross the summit the place eight meters of snow was piling up. The highway was gone! To our nice remorse, we had to return down and attain Bagnères-de-Bigorre by La Barthe-de-Neste, thus making a detour of 47 kilometres.

“Tomorrow we’ll return to the route of the stage in Sainte-Marie and attempt to cross the Col du Tourmalet (2,122 meters).”

NB: The altitudes given in these studies fluctuate in accuracy. The Col de Peyresourde is definitely 1,569m. The Col d’Aspin is near its fashionable peak (1,489m), as is the Col du Tourmalet (2,115m)

Placing their readers’ minds at relaxation, Ravaud and Abran reported that snow at excessive altitude in Might and June was not sudden however that by July it might be melted, leaving clear passage for the Tour.

On the fifth day of their odyssey Ravaud and Abran reached Bayonne on the western finish of the mountain vary, having needed to make greater than 200 kilometres of detours – and after including an additional day to their journey – of their try and hint the route of the Tour’s two new levels:

“The torrential rain couldn’t overcome our resistance. The roads not existed within the mountains. That they had disappeared underneath avalanches of snow and swollen rivers, it was inconceivable to comply with the whole route. The Col du Tourmalet, which pierces the sky at greater than 2,100 meters in altitude, didn’t need to be violated any greater than did the Aspin.”

The Col du Soulor, Col de Tortes and Col d’Aubisque – a three-for-the-price-of-one Pyrenean ordeal – have been additionally left unviolated, nonetheless being impassable, with varied detours wanted to take Ravaud and Abran on to Bayonne.

The Pyrénées crossed – albeit with important gaps – Ravaud returned to Paris, leaving Abran to finish his reconnaissance of the rest of the Tour’s route alone save for the presence of his driver, Oscar Sauvenière, of their borrowed Impéria with its Dunlop tyres.

BnF

Might 26 – P-54 days

Upon Ravaud’s return to Paris, L’Auto once more sought to reassure riders and readers that the snow that had blocked his and Abran’s passage within the Pyrénées wouldn’t be a problem come July:

“Presently of yr, it’s regular for snow to stay on the excessive peaks. There have additionally been studies of torrential rain and floods. Nonetheless, if our comrade Ravaud and our inspector common Abran couldn’t cross the Cols d’Aspin, Tourmalet and Aubisque, it doesn’t comply with that in July we is not going to cross them. No, these Pyrenean levels will definitely be robust, however they won’t be inconceivable. Quite the opposite, good climate will convey good roads and the Tour de France – brushing the Iberian Peninsula, after having touched Belgium, Luxembourg, Lorraine, Switzerland, Italy and the Atlantic Ocean – would be the actual Tour de France, probably the most colossal occasion on the planet.”

NB: Lorraine was at this stage nonetheless a scar on the French psyche, occupied by the Germans because the Franco-Prussian warfare of 1870/71

Half IV – It Can’t Be Performed, It Has Been Performed

Having first introduced the 1910 Tour’s route in September 1909 – together with its extension into the Pyrénées – and having revisited a few of these particulars in January 1910, and having in February invited cyclo-tourists to just accept the problem of driving a proto-Étape du Tour, L’Auto then ignored the Tour for the subsequent two months or so, permitting the early-season races and different non-cycling occasions to take satisfaction of place within the paper. From mid-April by means of to mid-June Abran’s postcards from the highway appeared. From mid-Might by means of to mid-June previews of the person levels have been printed. Alongside these L’Auto additionally ran frequent studies of who had signed on to take part within the race, together with occasional dialogue of the race’s guidelines. Little by little the stress – anticipation – was ratcheted up.

By and enormous the protection in L’Auto was all constructive and even when it was adverse – even when Ravaud and Abran had been unable to drive the total route of the brand new levels – readers and riders have been assured that each one can be effectively come July. Outdoors of L’Auto not one of the main periodicals gave the Tour a second thought. In June the primary actual criticism of the route appeared, within the pages of L’Auto.

June 7 – P-42 days

Joseph Tucker Burton-Alexander was a type of dilettante British sportsmen whose wealth exceeded his skills. The cash got here from household lands in Pavenham, close to Bedford, which he mortgaged as a way to fund his passions for trains, vehicles and powerboats. As a racing driver, L’Auto in 1905 – forward of the Gordon Bennett race, by which he DNF’ed – famous that he was gifted however reckless. A declare backed as much as some extent by his motor racing palmarès, scant as it’s. Along with engine-powered pursuits Burton – he tended to drop the hyphenated half of his surname – had additionally achieved some mountaineering in Switzerland, throughout his time in Cambridge on the flip of the century (1899 and 1900).

Burton enters our story when, in June of 1910, he wrote to L’Auto from his Revel residence, the Chatâteau de Gandels, providing himself as one thing of an knowledgeable on the mountains:

“I’m at present right here, in an outstanding home with a park of 5 hectares and I dwell right here days of unbelievable calm and serenity. That’s fantastic. On the horizon, I’ve daily the view of the grandiose Pyrénées, however due to the dangerous climate I couldn’t go close to Abran and Ravaud who handed a number of tens of kilometres from my residence.

“I’m shocked to have seen you select the Perpignan-Bayonne route in your Excursions de France.

“I do know the entire nation. You’re daring in L’Auto.”

Burton went on to clarify all that was improper within the route from one facet of the Pyrénées to the opposite.

“The descent from the Col du Portet d’Aspet is harmful and slippery even in summer season.

“After Luchon your audacity goes past the bounds. There are a minimum of 4 passes. It’s a bit a lot.

“Peyresourde is just not simple, the descent is dangerous in summer season as a result of the bottom is friable and sandy, particularly within the decrease bends.

“Aspin is hard and when it’s sunny you’re uncomfortable there. The descent requires warning.

“Regardless of this, the king of all passes is the Tourmalet, which your colleagues have been unable to do due to the snow. Properly! I’m prepared to supply 100 francs to the rider who will climb the Tourmalet with out dismounting. The climb is horrible. The descent is extraordinarily harmful.”

Desgrange, at all times wanting to take each franc supplied in primes for his riders, accepted the problem supplied by Burton. And effectively he may, realizing as he did the historical past of biking over the King of All Passes. Readers of L’Auto unfamiliar with that historical past have been reminded of it a number of days later, when L’Auto revealed a response to Burton’s missive.

“I learn Mr Burton’s imprudent wager the opposite day.

“Definitely sure, his 100 francs shall be gained, and by a number of, I hope! Let him keep in mind that in 1902, on the TCF’s occasion, there have been three of us who climbed fully by bicycle, and twice in a row, the well-known Col du Tourmalet.”

The letter was signed A Benoît and he was referring to the Touring Membership de France’s Touring Bicycle Contest, held in August 1902. That occasion despatched the riders over a circuit that went from Tarbes to the Col du Tourmalet – by the use of Lourdes and Barèges – then as much as Bagnères-de-Bigorre, again to Lourdes by the use of Loucrup after which again over the Tourmalet once more and as much as Bagnères earlier than heading house to Tarbes, for a complete of 215 kilometres.

TCF / BnF

The TCF’s occasion is extra necessary than historical past books – which barely point out it – recommend. Among the many riders to participate have been a number of professionals who had already gained a number of the larger highway races of the time and who would go on to characteristic in early Excursions: riders like Hippolyte Aucouturier, Jean Fischer, Rodolfo Muller, and Édouard Wattellier. There was additionally Hippolyte Figaro who rode underneath the mononym Vendredi and was the primary Black rider to begin and end Paris-Roubaix. And there was Marthe Hesse, who in addition to driving up the Tourmalet in 1902 as a part of the TCF occasion additionally rode up Mont Venuoux the next yr.

L’Auto / BnF

The TCF occasion wasn’t actually a race, as such, it was a take a look at of the bikes the riders rode. They have been checked earlier than the experience and once more after, the target being to highway take a look at the bikes and decide which machine was greatest, not which rider. For all that Desgrange prefer to bang on about la tête and les jambes – the top and the legs – the boys within the TCF thought it was le vélo that mattered most. Writing in regards to the occasion in 1902 Desgrange famous that the TCF “treats bicycles as anatomical elements.”

La Vie au Grand Air / BnF

The TCF’s experience up the Tourmalet in 1902 was not the primary time cyclists had tackled the mountain. Whereas the TCF typically inspired riders to jot down up their journeys for public sharing – they’d have liked Strava – not each bicycle owner has the ego to assume their exploits are in any method price sharing, besides with mates over a drink, and so there’ll doubtlessly have been rides that went unrecorded. However one group of riders with ego aplenty got here from the the London Bicycle Membership and in 1879 they took on the Tourmalet and the Aubisque, together with a number of different Pyrenean cols, and spilled loads of ink writing about it of their membership’s gazette.

Theirs was simply one in every of three accounts of journeys to the Pyrénées that appeared within the LBC’s gazette in 1879, probably the most adventurous of the three, the opposite two sticking to decrease passes. The writer of the account, Norman Morris, didn’t supply a lot element on the bikes used, save to say that his group had a spare machine, a 52-inch Stassen. Of the opposite two journeys, one detailed the bicycles used: 56-inch and 54-inch machines from the Coventry Machinist Firm. Massive wheels. Over-geared for climbing.

A lot of Morris’s account includes he and his clubmates strolling their bikes up and down mountains, with their passages of the Tourmalet and the Aubisque extra akin to hikes than bike rides. Nonetheless, the truth that even within the period of the high-wheeler cyclists have been drawn to the best peaks of the Pyrénées is price noting.

One other necessary level is available in a remark made by Morris in regards to the nature of the highway over the Aubisque:

“I’ve currently heard the highway over the Col d’Aubisque referred to as a ‘mule monitor;’ this isn’t right, for it’s a common carriage highway, as is proved by the truth that some American mates of ours drove over it the day earlier than we have been there; and furthermore I affirm that no actual Pyrenean mule monitor can be utilized by a bicycle.”

Half V – The Roadbook

From Might 17 by means of June 16 L’Auto handled readers and riders to previews of the approaching Tour de France’s fifteen levels.

The Tour at this stage was nonetheless largely ridden by riders working independently of the foremost producers, fending for themselves. Of the 110 riders who would finally take the beginning within the 1910 Tour solely 30 have been driving for the foremost marques – Alcyon, Legnano, Le Globe – whereas the remaining have been (within the official parlance) isolés (or, informally, the déshérités, the disinherited, or the disadvantaged). An isolé might symbolize a producer however they couldn’t be supplied with the identical help these driving in groups obtained, reminiscent of mechanics and soigneurs. This allowed a small producer like, say, Armor, to have riders driving in its identify and producing publicity however with out the expense of getting to take care of them.

L’Auto / BnF

The pages of L’Auto have been a key method of giving riders data on the race, particularly the isolés. It was like publishing piecemeal what would in time change into the Tour’s roadbook. The person whose job it was to jot down most of it was Charles Ravaud, which is partly why he joined Georges Abran when he was arranging marshals and many others for the Tour’s two new Pyrenean levels. For Ravaud that was a analysis journey.

For probably the most half Ravaud’s previews have been considerably utilitarian accounts of the route of every stage: lists of cities and distances, with particulars of the place the controls have been to be situated. The next, as an example, is the roadbook’s entry for the second of the 2 Pyrenean levels.

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Tenth Stage

BAGNÈRES-DE-LUCHON – BAYONNE (326 kms)

July 21, 1910 – Depart at 03:30 hrs

Be aware. – Riders are suggested, particularly between Bagnères and Argelès, to watch out of the cows and different massive animals that roam freely on the roads.

BAGNÈRES-DE-LUCHON, 0 kms – Rider sign-in. Signing-in will happen be on the Hôtel de la Paix and the departure shall be from the Place Carayon-Latour, underneath the path of Mr Paul Dupont, our correspondent, assisted by Mr Puch.

Saint-Aventin (6 kms), take the trail on the suitable resulting in Bourg-d’Oeil. Gernu (9 kms), Col de Peyresourde (12), Estavielle (18), Avayau (21), Bordères (24); on the entrance to Bordères don’t cross the Louron Bridge.

ARREAU, 30 kms – Flying management on the Café de Londres, underneath the path of Mr Peyroutin, L’Auto’s correspondent, assisted by Mr Ratio. On the exit of the village, comply with the 2 bends within the highway.

Col d’Aspin (41), Espiadet (46), Payole (48), Sainte-Marie-de-Campan (54); on the church, flip left to start the ascent of the Tourmalet; L’Auto’s correspondent, Mr Dantis. Cabadeur (57), Gripp (58), Col du Tourmalet (69).

BAGNERES-LES-BAINS, 82 kms – Flying management, Hôtel Richelieu et d’Angleterre, underneath the path of Mr Lanne-Camy, L’Auto’s correspondent. The descent could be very arduous earlier than the management.

Betpouey (86), Luz-Saint-Sauveur (90), L’Auto’s correspondent, Mr Poucy; flip proper, then left instantly after the Hôtel de Londres. Pont-de-Hiladaire (95), Pont-de-Villelongue (101), Soulom (102), Pierrefite-Nestelas (103), Adast (105).

ARGELES-GAZOST , 109 kms – Mounted management on the Café de Cercle, Place de la Mairie, underneath the path of Mr Paul Genthien, L’Auto’s correspondent, assisted by Mr Cachon; on the entrance to the village take the left flip.

Arras (112), Aucun (118), Marsous (119), Arrens (121), Col de Soulon [should be Soulor] (129), Col de Tortes (134), Col d’Aubisque (139), Gourette (143).

EAUX-BONNES, 149 kms – Flying management on the Hôtel de Londres, underneath the path of Mr Deletté, L’Auto’s correspondent.

Laruns (155), Bielle (164), Louvie-Juzon (167), L’Auto’s correspondent, Mr Chesserand; don’t cross the bridge and depart by the suitable on the highway to Lurbe. Arudy (172), Buzy (177), Herrière (185).

OLORON-SAINTE-MARIE, 191 kms – Mounted management on the Hôtel de la Poste, Place Gambetta, underneath the path of Mr Moura, L’Auto’s correspondent, assisted by Mr Chambot (comply with the tracks of the small departmental tramway so far as Mauléon).

Sainte-Marie (192), Féas (202), Ance (203), Aramots (207), Lanne (210), Montory (216), Tardets (221), Troisvilles (223), Saint-Etienne (226), Gotein (230).

MAULEON, 234 kms – Flying management on the Café du Commerce, Place Croix-Blanche, underneath the path of Mr Jaurgain, L’Auto’s correspondent, assisted by the SA Mauléonais.

SAINT-JEAN-PIED-DE-PORT, 272 kms – Mounted management on the Café Teillagory, on the nook of the bridge, underneath the path of Mr Tellagory, L’Auto’s correspondent. On the exit, flip proper within the path of Bayonne, leaving on the suitable the highway to Saint-Étienne-de-Begorry.

Ascarrat (274), Eyharce (284), Ossès (288), L’Auto’s correspondent Mr Mendiboure. Bidarray (292), Loubrosson (299), Cambo (307), L’Auto’s correspondent M. Louis Dessarps. Ustarritz (313).

BAYONNE, 326 kms – Mounted management. The end shall be on the highway to Cambo, 2 kms from the city. The group shall be held again by 400 metres of rope barrier. Armed with a ticket, riders will signal the shape on the Brasserie Schmidt, Place de la Liberté. All of the operations of the management shall be underneath the path of Mr Saint-Vanne, L’Auto’s correspondent, assisted by the VC Bayonne-Biarritz and by Mr Elysseiry. Within the night there shall be a reception within the headquarters of the VCBB and a competition within the Place d’Armes.

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Such utilitarian descriptions have been effective the place levels had already appeared in earlier Excursions. For the brand new Pyrenean levels, nevertheless, extra data wanted to be conveyed to each readers and riders. This was notably true for the climbs. On this regard Ravaud supplied extra particulars in a sequence of articles that appeared between Might 24 and June 3. These have been then supplemented on June 9 and 10 by an area cyclo-tourist, Émile Moutin, who supplied an in depth report of the route of the second and harder Pyrenean stage, Bagnères-de-Luchon to Bayonne. Taking all these studies collectively, we will summarise what readers and riders would have discovered in regards to the main climbs that have been about to make their début within the Tour.

Col de Port (1,249m)

Earlier than 1910, the Col de Porte (1,326m) within the Chartreuse mountains of the Isère was the reference level for the Tour’s grimpeurs. Previewing the race’s new levels on Might 24, Ravaud wrote that “the Col de Porte is nothing in comparison with the Pyrenean passes.” The primary of these passes – the primary main one, above 1,000 metres – was the Col de Port, one of many two cols particularly named by L’Auto when the route of the 1910 Tour was introduced in September 1909.

Little or no was mentioned of the climb – which begins in Tarascon-sur-Ariège – save that it wasn’t very troublesome initially “however after the primary kilometre, it steepens terribly to change into very arduous within the village of Saurat, situated a few third of method up the climb” after which, in keeping with Ravaud, “the highway is misplaced in imposing lacets alongside the mountain.” The descent to Massat (12 kms) was described as being quick and harmful.

Col de Portet d’Aspet (1,074m 1,069m)

Beginning in Audressien, the climb to the Col de Portet d’Aspet was reported to pitch as much as 10-11% within the village of Ogribet and 13-14% within the village of Portet d’Aspet. Some automobiles, Ravaud reported, would in all probability have to take the turns close to the highest of the climb in reverse.

L’Auto / BnF

Col de Peyresourde (1,545m 1,569m)

Starting in Bagnères-de-Luchon – the start line of the second of the brand new Pyrenean levels – the Col de Peyresourde served up some troublesome hairpins quickly after leaving the city. A sequence of lacets coated the ultimate three kilometres of the climb which, general, Ravaud described as being much less robust that the Col de Portet d’Aspet.

Émile Moutin supplied extra element, saying the climb was 10-12% at first, pitching as much as 15% however then settling right down to 4-5% as you climbed up by means of Saint-Aventin and Garin, till you got here to the ultimate hairpins which kicked as much as 7-10%. All instructed, Moutin gave the Peyresourde a median gradient of 6.5% for 14 kilometres of climbing. Among the lacets on the descent, Moutin warned, wanted to be approached with warning.

Col d’Aspin (1,497m 1,489m)

The Col d’Aspin was the primary of the Pyrenean passes Ravaud and Abran had been unable to cross, due to snow. From the data he had gathered from locals, Ravaud instructed L’Auto’s readers that it was a dozen kilometres lengthy with a median gradient of seven%, with the descent just like the climb.

Moutin was in a position to supply extra element, placing the typical gradient at 6.6%, with the 12 km climb gaining 800m in altitude. “The primary kilometre is light,” Moutin wrote, “however as quickly as you cross a small bridge you method the primary lacet of about two kilometres at 10% with the bend on a rock. Be careful for skidding! The ascent could be very curious, the highway curls up on itself, you go the identical level half a dozen instances, however rising increasingly.” The seven kilometre descent right down to Payolle was described as simple at first however when you entered the wooded space it grew to become extra harmful.

Col du Tourmalet (2,122m 2,115m)

Although unable to climb it himself due to the snow, Ravaud described the Tourmalet as probably the most improbable climb. “Ranging from 910 metres,” Ravaud wrote, “the riders will climb as much as 2,122 metres above sea degree, in the course of glaciers, dominated by the imposing Pic du Midi de Bigorre and its observatory”.

Moutin once more had extra to supply than merely repeating the native vacationer workplace’s guidebook. The primary eight kilometres of the climb, he reported, climbed at a median of 4-5% and took you as much as the Gripp waterfall. You then confronted a 3 kilometre lengthy hairpin taking you above the waterfall, with the gradient right here kicking as much as 7-8%. After that the primary glaciers appeared and the summit was lastly reached by the use of a sequence of bends the place, in keeping with Moutin, the gradient reached 18-20%.

ASO

Col du Soulor (1,550m 1,474m) / Col de Tortes (1,650m) / Col d’Aubisque (1,710m 1,709m)

Of all of the climbs that premiered within the 1910 Tour, the ‘one’ of the Soulor–Tortes–Aubisque has undergone probably the most change, with the Tortes closed to automobiles and now a mountain climbing path. In 1910 the gap between the Soulor and the Aubisque was 11 kms, at this time, with out the Tortes, it’s solely eight.

Just like the Aspin and the Tourmalet, Ravaud and Abran had been unable to cross these three passes and consequently Ravaud had little to say about them, aside from that between them they coated 46 kilometres of highway and took the riders from 464 metres altitude in Argelès-Gazost to above 1,700 metres on the prime of the Aubisque.

Moutin’s report instructed L’Auto’s readers that the primary 11 kilometres of the climb, from Argelès to Arrens, climbed at a delicate 3-4%. “To succeed in the Col de Soulor, at 1,550 meters, the highway climbs for eight kilometres by innumerable lacets and bends at acute angles, which the uncommon automobiles solely method by reversing. The common slope is 9%, that’s to say that a number of the bends attain 15% and 20%.”

After the Soulor, Moutin wrote, you handed by means of a brief tunnel minimize by means of the rock of the mountain earlier than reaching the Tortes and after that the Aubisque itself. In these final 11 kilometres the highway floor was simply rocky scree, with grass rising in it. Whereas the grass rising within the highway attested to the shortage of site visitors, there was nonetheless a canteen atop the mountain, serving these vacationers that did go.

Past the roadbook…

One thing not defined in L’Auto was that the world across the Aubisque supported forestry and mining enterprises. Additionally not mentioned was that, as with all of the cols on the route thermale, throughout the vacationer season (July to September) shuttle companies taking vacationers from one spa city to the subsequent crossed the excessive peaks a number of instances every week. Wild and distant they could have been however unexplored they weren’t.

Between them, Ravaud and Moutin gave some concept of what would face the riders when the Tour reached the Pyrénées within the third week of July, even when they left quite a bit to the creativeness. Those that have been critical about their Tour probabilities wanted extra concrete data.

Half VI – The Tourmalet Levelling Syndicate

June 16 – P-33 days

Again within the eighteenth century, again when Louis XIV sat on the French throne, the Solar King’s grandson ascended to the throne in Spain, prompting Louis to assert that the Pyrénées had ceased to exist. Least ways in which’s what Voltaire claimed and it’s not like we’ve ever obtained something to do with him improper. L’Auto reminded its readers of Louis whereas reporting information that members of the Alcyon-Dunlop workforce – together with their directeur sportif Alphonse Baugé, his driver Gauderman, and a few isolés – have been heading to the Pyrénées as a way to see for themselves what would face them when the Tour reached the excessive mountains 4 weeks later.

Earlier than hitting the hills, the Alcyon riders deliberate driving the third of the Tour’s new levels, Nîmes to Perpignan (216 km), which at this time we’d take into account a transition stage main into the mountains. A few days later L’Auto carried a report of their experience and famous they have been having a simple time of it, “rolling on velvet” because the paper put it. Life within the Pyrénées can be just a little bit tougher, L’Auto predicted, and the riders would quickly have to “pull on their handlebars”.

June 17 – P-32 days

Alphonse Baugé, his Alcyon riders and their two company crossed the Col de Port within the morning of their second day on the highway. L’Auto’s man on the bottom in Lavalnet met them for lunch and reported that they wouldn’t be crossing the Col de Portet d’Aspet till the next day, having determined to interrupt the Perpignan to Bagnères-de-Luchon stage into two elements.

June 19 – P-30 days

Two days later Baugé wrote from Bagnères-de-Luchon, a letter instantly addressed to L’Auto’s Charles Ravaud:

“My expensive Ravaud,

“Are you aware that outdated track: Montagnes Pyrénées, you’re my loves!… Properly, I guarantee you that it isn’t our riders who will sing it.

“Ah! my good friend, the place the hell does Mr Desgrange take us? In fact, it’s horrifying, and I’m satisfied that by no means has knowledgeable bicycle owner obtained himself into form on comparable roads.

“What hills, and particularly what descents! It’s ‘Looping the Loop’; it’s a gorgeous ‘Circle of Loss of life’, it’s an avalanche of damaged brakes, of tires torn off or punctured by flints, in two phrases: it’s horrifying!

“And, it appears, Luchon to Bayonne is even worse!”

Luchon to Bayonne was the massive one, the one with the Col de Peyresourde, the Col d’Aspin, the Col du Tourmalet, and the Col d’Aubisque all to be climbed. The 4 mountains we at this time assume make up the Circle of Loss of life. However right here you will have Baugé, after solely getting over the Col de Port and the Col de Portet d’Aspet, already invoking the picture of the Circle of Loss of life. What that has to do with what we at this time consider because the Circle of Loss of life is one thing for one more day, after we will go seeking the supply of the Circle of Loss of life.

La Vie au Grand Air / BnF

Baugé’s report back to Ravaud went on:

“Properly, my expensive Ravaud, I swear to you that an American looking forward to sensational spectacle won’t ever have seen something just like that of the passage of the Pyrénées by the Tour de France, and this passage will definitely stay legendary within the annals of biking sport.

“And to assume {that a} King has been discovered to inform us that there have been no extra Pyrénées: what have been they like in these days?”

Baugé went on to specific concern for the isolés and appeared ahead to tackling the Tourmalet (“Faber would love us to cease on the prime of the Tourmalet for 3 or 4 days in order that he can go up and down it three or 4 instances a day”) and closed his letter promising an replace in a few days.

June 20 – P-29 days

Lanne-Camy from Barèges – L’Auto’s just lately appointed stringer within the space – had excellent news for L’Auto, its readers, and the riders of the Tour de France:

“BAREGES, June 20 – The highway is extraordinarily dangerous within the Tourmalet, however you possibly can go. We’re impatiently awaiting the riders of the Alcyon-Dunlop workforce. – Lanne-Camy.”

June 21 – P-28 days

Writing from Argelès-Gazost Alphonse Baugé reported that Lanne-Camy was in error in claiming that the Tourmalet was open. Very a lot in error.

“My expensive Ravaud,

“We’re leaving in an hour for Oloron-Sainte-Marie, and earlier than that, I wish to write you a number of strains about our stage yesterday. I would want ten pages and in addition the time to jot down, to inform you about this ordeal of the 13 males (six Alcyon, 5 Legnano and the 2 isolés who will symbolize the Armor model, Ernest Paul and [Charles] Cruchon) who nonetheless wished to cross the Tourmalet. I shall be extra eloquent after we get to speak.

“For at this time, it’s going to suffice to inform you that [Louis] Trousselier fell right into a swollen river, that [Georges] Cadolle suffered a fall which might have been critical following a slip within the snow on the descent to Barèges, and that each one my riders arrived exhausted at Barèges.”

“The highway on the Tourmalet doesn’t exist. It’s misplaced underneath six to eight metres of snow. The poor devils, after a particularly painful climb, have been obliged to descend the formidable slope seated on the snow, holding their machines behind them to brake, having connected themselves to the wheels with both their stockings or with handkerchiefs.

“They scampered down like this, with naked ft, and arrived at three-thirty in Barèges, having travelled 13 kilometres in 4 hours, with 10 kilometres of descent. It was there that we caught up with them once more, Gauderman and I having – such as you – been obliged to go round by the use of Lourdes.”

Baugé went on to say that he anticipated circumstances to be simply as dangerous on the Aubisque and that his riders can be again in Paris in a few days, with he following a day or two behind them.

L’Auto / BnF

June 23 – P-26 days

Arriving at Gare d’Orsay at eight o’clock within the morning of June 23 the riders have been met by L’Auto, with Charles Ravaud interviewing them. They instructed him that it was appalling to make them cross the Tourmalet, and that that they had horrible reminiscences of the Pyrenean passes. Even earlier than that they had reached the snowline that they had been struggling, with some getting off and strolling, whereas others tried to hold on to Baugé’s automotive.

“Lengthy earlier than the summit of the col they discovered the snow, and the highway gone! Luckily, three road-menders took it upon themselves to information them up the mountain. With out this sudden assembly, they’d have been obliged to return right down to Sainte-Marie-de-Campan.

“Baugé instructed you about their descent. The riders from Alcyon and Legnano confirmed it to me. Cadolle, slipping on the snow, nearly fell off a precipice. Trousselier tumbled right into a river. There have been many damaged brakes, and above all quite a lot of worn pads. In brief, within the riders’ reminiscence, it appears that evidently no race has ever taken such a tough route.

“The ordeal started once more on Tuesday with the three passes of Goulor [Soulor], Tortes and Aubisque. Our riders needed to cling to Baugé’s automotive to climb it. They coated 36 kilometres in seven hours. It is sufficient to underline the improbable effort they should have produced.

“All got here again to us in good condition and hoping that the passage shall be simpler, within the Pyrenean passes, on July 21.

“We’re satisfied that their hope will come true. In any case, if likelihood would have it that, opposite to earlier years, the Tourmalet and the Col d’Aubisque have been as impassable as they’re presently, we’d take into account modifying the route sooner or later.”

That L’Auto would publicly take into account at this late stage – the beginning of the Tour was simply ten days away – modifying the route of the race is one indicator of simply how critical they took the phrases of the Alcyon and Legnano riders. However earlier than accepting the necessity to make any modifications to the route of the race L’Auto meant to play another card:

“Our collaborator Steinès shall be leaving shortly to evaluate the state of the roads and he’ll put together a really detailed report for us upon his return. Nonetheless, it’s infinitely possible that the route of the tenth stage is not going to bear any modification, as a result of many vacationers and particularly Mr Moutin, who just lately described the Pyrenean passes for us, are unanimous in telling us that the col shall be freed from snow by the point the race reaches it. One month nonetheless separates us from the second when the riders of the Tour de France shall be referred to as upon to try the assault on the Pyrénées. By then the snow could have absolutely melted. So let’s not beat ourselves up an excessive amount of and as an alternative merely report the Alcyon and Legnano groups’ scouting of the route of the brand new levels as another feat to the credit score of the longer term rivals of our nice journey.”

To the general public, Ravaud and his colleagues in L’Auto have been placing as calm a face on it as they may. Contained in the workplaces on the Rue du Fabourg, nevertheless, issues have been removed from calm. In 1910 readers of L’Auto weren’t conscious of simply how panicked issues had change into: that story would take a number of years to seep out.

Half VII – The Steinès Model

June 28 – P-21 days

Throughout 5 days – June 28 by means of July 2 – L’Auto revealed Alphonse Steinès’s account of his adventures within the Pyrénées.

Steinès arrived in Bagnères-de-Luchon on June 27. “This morning, a radiant solar flooded the peaks,” he wrote. “All of the snow round Luchon is gone and the roads are being restored.” Along with one in every of L’Auto’s just lately appointed stringers within the space – Paul Dupont, who can be serving to with the stage end in Bagnères-de-Luchon – he met with a person referred to as Darrespen, one of many engineers with duty for roads and bridges within the native space. Steinès was assured – and he in flip reassured L’Auto’s readers – that each one was effectively and all roads can be open in time for the principle vacationer season, working from July by means of September.

Extracting a promise from Darrespen that the roads to be travelled by the Tour would obtain explicit consideration Steinès and Dupont, aboard a 16 HP Dietrich pushed by Isidore Estrade-Berdat, got down to cross the Col de Peyresourde, the Col d’Aspin, the Col du Tourmalet and the Col d’Aubisque. “I’ll telegraph you this night the results of our explorations,” he wrote in a message despatched earlier than leaving Bagnères-de-Luchon, “however as of now I can inform you that a lot has been exaggerated this manner and that with claims that it was simple to go when others mentioned it was inconceivable. It’s neither inconceivable nor simple, it’s merely doable.”

Reaching Campan within the afternoon Steinès was in a position to dispatch an replace to Paris: “We now have simply crossed the Col de Peyresourde and Aspin. They’re each fantastic and I ponder the way it obtained in anybody’s thoughts that the riders of the Tour wouldn’t climb these mountains.” Steinès and his two travelling companions then headed for a date with future, an evening a lot misremembered.

June 29 – P-20 days

On June 29 L’Auto’s readers have been instructed that Steinès had crossed the Tourmalet on foot and that additional particulars would comply with sooner or later. The information had reached Paris by the use of temporary dispatch despatched by Lanne-Camy, the hotelier in Barèges who had just lately been appointed one of many paper’s stringers. His message was reproduced in full:

BAREGES, 28 juin – Alphonse Steinès a passé le Tourmalet, à pied, hier soir, à 10 heures – Lanne-Camy

BAREGES, 28 June – Alphonse Steinès crossed the Tourmalet on foot final night time at 10 o’clock – Lanne-Camy

L’Auto / BnF

The identical day that that message was reported, L’Auto additionally reported {that a} 38 HP Minerva vehicle with six folks on board had efficiently crossed the Tourmalet. Shortly that they had motive to doubt the accuracy of that report.

July 1 – P-18 days

It was July 1 earlier than L’Auto’s readers discovered what had befallen Steinès on the Tourmalet, with the person himself writing an in depth account of his Pyrenean adventures. By that point the paper had already knowledgeable them that he had efficiently crossed the Col d’Aubisque too and would quickly be returning to Paris, job achieved.

Steinès’s account of his night time on the Tourmalet was each dramatic and poetic.

“Have been I to dwell to be 100 I might at all times bear in mind the journey of my wrestle towards the mountains, the snow, the ice, the clouds, the ravines, the darkness, the chilly, towards isolation, towards starvation, thirst, towards – in a nutshell – every thing. All that Baugé wrote, all that the riders instructed Ravaud, is correct. Nothing was exaggerated. As it’s now, it’s insanity to attempt to cross the col.

“The lads of the mountains warned me that I couldn’t go. However on leaving Paris I had promised our Director to see for myself, and I wished to get by means of in any respect prices; I almost paid for this reckless folly with my life.”

Steinès’s try and drive over the Tourmalet was halted two kilometres from the summit. A shepherd was tending a herd of cows close by. Steinès quizzed him on the state of the go. Deciding that the shepherd’s responses have been too obscure Steinès resolved to seek out out for himself. Leaving his driver and his travelling companion – Estrade and Dupont – to take the Dietrich again down the mountain Steinès, guided by the shepherd, set out on foot for the summit. It was seven o’clock within the night.

The sky was blanketed in cloud and a sepulchral silence enveloped the mountain. They have been in a wasteland of snow, snow that had been hardened by the chilly in order that it was attainable to stroll on it. Once in a while the snow gave method beneath Steinès. It took an hour to cowl the 2 kilometres to the summit, recognized by a trig level, displaying an altitude of two,133 metres, just a little increased than the mountain is measured at this time.

Wanting down towards Barèges Steinès might see that the snow prolonged additional than the 2 kilometres it coated on the Sainte-Marie-de-Campan facet. It was by then seven days because the riders from Alcyon and Legnano had had their very own journey on this mountain and all hint of their passage was gone. The sunshine was fading – it was by now eight o’clock – and Steinès’s garments have been soaked by the snow. The shepherd instructed him he might take him no additional and needed to return to his cows.

“Have you ever ever felt in your life an immense despair, an immeasurable vacancy, this indefinable factor that one feels in entrance of the unknown and that one should understand when one sees loss of life coming? Sure! Properly, that’s how I felt. I first beg my shepherd to not depart me like this, to not abandon me in these Siberian steppes, on this snowy desert the place I might not dare to take a step, as a result of I might threat breaking my bones, on this nation that I don’t know, the place there may be neither path nor monitor, on this go which is frequented by bears who come from Spain. After having begged, I threaten, and I consider that if I had been carrying a revolver I might not have hesitated to make use of it. We defend ourselves as greatest we will when life is at stake, and I spotted very clearly that mine was. Nothing helped; he ran away, disappearing within the snow.”

Steinès obtained down on all fours, to crawl down the mountain. He tumbled, head over heels. Rolling, falling, crawling, he descended 4 kilometres down the mountain. Having hermetically sealed his pockets he was in a position to extract some matches and lightweight one, as a way to verify the time on his watch. Nevertheless it had stopped at 8:20. By now it should be 9, or ten. He continued, guided by the sound of water falling. All of the sudden he noticed tracks within the snow.

“It’s the wake of a bicycle wheel. Secure! Sure, saved! I comply with this monitor on all fours, touching it with my finger. A stroke of fine fortune!”

After a kilometre he got here out of the snow and onto the highway. He rose and ran, as quick as his legs might carry him. A kilometre, no extra. Then he collapsed with fatigue.

“I sit down by the facet of the highway and, alone, deserted within the limitless night time, I cry, I cry profusely. I consider every thing: of my household, who consider I’m in a great lodge chatting with different travellers; of my colleagues little question busy making ready a shaggy dog story for the paper. Let’s dry these tears. Let’s go!”

Forward he spied a lightweight. And two shadows within the mild. Gendarmes. He made himself recognized to them. Informed them the story of his adventures. They took him to the Hôtel Richelieu. He was in Barèges. The lodge run by L’Auto’s just lately appointed stringer for the world, Lanne-Camy. The person who, the subsequent day, despatched the message to L’Auto we’ve already learn. His baggage within the Dietrich, Steinès borrowed a change of garments from the hotelier.

“Ten minutes later, I used to be seated in entrance of a lavish dinner. It was half previous ten within the night. The opposite travellers got here and stared at me like I used to be a circus freak. I’m the gentleman who has crossed the Tourmalet at night time. They’ll be speaking about it for a very long time in Barèges and the encompassing space.”

A century and extra on, they’re nonetheless speaking about it in Barèges, and far additional afield too, albeit in a a lot mutated type.

Recovered from his exertions, on June 29 – his third day within the Pyrénées – Steinès crossed the Col d’Aubisque, which was reported in L’Auto the next day: “Properly! We now have simply crossed it, the one that everybody mentioned was impassable; we now have simply crossed the Col d’Aubisque.” Persevering with, Steinès summed up his complete journey: “Let the riders know that out 16 HP Dietrich, with its Bergougnan tyres, has handed and subsequently a bicycle will be capable of go. It’s bodily attainable to cross all of the cols which can be on the route chosen by our editor-in-chief. It was essential to show it and to show it in an irrefutable method. It’s achieved.”

July 2 – P-17 days

Three days later a full report of the crossing of the Aubisque was revealed in L’Auto. Beginning out from Argèles-Gazost, Steinès and his travelling companions – L’Auto’s stringer in Bangères-de-Luchon, Dupont, and their driver, Estrade – had been knowledgeable that the highway over the Aubisque was nonetheless closed. Needing extra data he detoured 50 kilometres north, to Pau, as a way to speak to the person with general duty for roads and bridges all through the Basses-Pyrénées division (France’s equal of counties). There he was instructed that the clearing of the highway over the Aubisque had been accomplished two days beforehand.

Fairly than returning to Argèles-Gazost and crossing the the mountains east to west, the identical because the Tour would, Steinès as an alternative went to Eaux-Bonnes and crossed the mountain west to east. This enabled him to then head to Tarbes after crossing the Aubisque, the place he meant to fulfill the chief engineer for the Hautes-Pyrénées division.

Shortly after reaching Eaux-Bonnes and commencing the ascent of the Aubisque – from the underside of what, for the riders, can be the descent of the mountain – the climate took a flip for the more serious:

“It’s a deluge: raindrops the dimensions of saucers, hail the dimensions of pigeons’ eggs, snow, every thing is blended up. It’s extraordinary. We not dare transfer ahead. Torrents of water descend the naked mountain, carrying rocks. There’s nowhere to shelter. We stoically climate the storm.”

The storm weathered, Steinès and his companions started their ascent. Timber blocking the highway needed to be cleared. They climbed by means of a bit the place nothing separated the sting of the highway from the void beneath: “On one facet a precipice whose depth can fluctuate between two and 300 metres; no railings, no boundary stones, not the slightest ledge to point the place the highway ends and the precipice begins. And it lasts for kilometres.”

They handed a highway crew working to restore the injury achieved by landslides and many others. Finally they reached the col itself, the place sheep, goats, and cows roamed freely. “These herds occupy the whole highway and don’t dream of letting us go. Why would they trouble. They’re at house right here. We’re the intruders.”

Within the passage between the Aubisque and the Soulor, through the Tortes, the highway was in an indescribable state of disrepair. “That is the place we absolutely understand the devastation achieved by the tough winter that has simply ended. There’s nonetheless snow in all places, and there shall be nonetheless when the riders come, however the highway is cleared, and in some locations we drove between two partitions of snow.”

The descent right down to Argèles-Gazost – what for the riders would the climb of the Soulor – Steinès thought was in good situation, albeit considerably daunting for the various activates the highway.

His activity accomplished Steinès reported that he was returning to Paris.

His conferences in Pau and Tarbes with the chief engineers for Basse-Pyrénées and the Hautes-Pyrénées departments served as bookends to a visit that had begun three days earlier than in Bagnères-de-Luchon the place Steinès had met one of many folks answerable for roads and bridges within the space, Darrespen. He was a conducteur des ponts et chaussées, an engineer accountable for the upkeep of roads and bridges working on the degree of a supervisor. Over the course of his journey Steinès met a number of different supervisors. There was Freche, in Arreau, who had duty for the Col d’Aspin. Lesparre in Bagnères-de-Bigorre, who handled the Col du Tourmalet, as did Lartigue in Luz-Saint-Sauveur on the opposite facet of the mountain. In Argèles there was Gassan, additionally answerable for a part of the Tourmalet, in addition to the Col d’Aubisque. In Larans there was Meheut, who shared duty for the Aubisque.

Of all of the folks he met, it’s the chief engineer in Pau who has gone down in legend, along with his request for five,000 francs to convey the highway over the Aubisque as much as an appropriate customary for the Tour to cross it. That a part of the story, although, was not made recognized to readers of L’Auto in 1910.

Earlier than shifting on to how we obtained from what Steinès wrote in L’Auto to the model of the story we inform at this time, a fast recap of Steinès’s model of the story.

Steinès arrived in Bagnères-de-Luchon on Monday, June 27. He met with one of many engineers answerable for roads and bridges within the space, Darrespen. He was accompanied by one in every of L’Auto’s just lately appointed stringers within the space, Paul Dupont. In a Dietrich pushed by Isidore Estrade-Berdat they set out for the mountains. From Campan later within the day Steinès reported that that they had crossed the Col de Peyresourde and the Col d’Aspin and have been en path to the Col du Tourmalet.

On Tuesday, June 28, Lanne-Camy reported to L’Auto that Steinès had crossed the Tourmalet the earlier night time.

On Wednesday, June 29, Steinès crossed the Aubisque, met with the chief engineers for the Hautes Pyrénées and Basse Pyrénées departments and ready to return to Paris.

Every of those occasions was reported in L’Auto the day after they occurred: Steinès’s arrival in Luchon on the June 28, Lanne-Camy’s message on June 29, the crossing of the Aubisque on June 30. On July 1 and July 2 L’Auto supplied extra element of Steinès’s ascents of the Tourmalet and the Aubisque. On July 3 the 1910 Tour de France commenced.

Throughout all of that reporting there may be one notable absence: there was no telegram from Steinès claiming the Tourmalet was satisfactory.

Half VIII – Forging a Legend

Some hypothesis. Have been you to be instructed that, simply 4 days earlier than the beginning of the 1910 Tour de France, Alphonse Steinès was negotiating with the chief engineer of the Hautes-Pyrénées division as a way to have a highway constructed over the Col d’Aubisque, you wouldn’t consider it. And also you shouldn’t, as a result of it didn’t occur. However Steinès did meet that man a number of days earlier than the beginning of the Tour. It simply wasn’t to get a highway constructed. It was to make sure that an current highway was absolutely repaired forward of the arrival of the Tour’s riders three weeks later.

As a substitute of approaching the story from that angle, nevertheless, some have determined {that a} highway was constructed and since that’s such a colossal enterprise then it should have been constructed lengthy earlier than the Tour’s arrival. And they also’ve despatched Steinès to the Pyrénées in January. Some have even taken the date of Steinès precise go to – June 27 – and determined that that should be a typo and it was actually January 27.

Partly, I think about, that’s how we obtained from the story Steinès initially instructed then to the story we inform now: like Eric Morecambe’s try and play Grieg’s Piano Concerto, our model has all the suitable notes, however not essentially in the suitable order. We’ve additionally jazzed it up a bit, including element from different tales and improvising new components. Most notably we’ve stored Steinès on the mountain till three o’clock within the morning and we’ve reworked a message despatched by Lanne-Camy right into a telegram despatched by Steinès.

We’ve been in a position to do that – have had to do that, even – partly as a result of a lot of L’Auto’s historical past obtained misplaced within the second world warfare and partly as a result of really going again and studying out there copies of L’Auto has been such a troublesome activity to undertake till just lately. It’s solely in the previous couple of years that Gallica has made made L’Auto out there on-line to all of us, irrespective of the place we’re on the planet, eradicating the necessity to go to Paris to learn the paper.

That’s a beneficiant studying of what has occurred, a simple excuse for the lies instructed by many within the identify of historical past. The fact is that that we’ve turned Steinès’s story into the whispers recreation, each telling of the story totally different, distorted. Nevertheless it’s not simply us, at this time. Even within the Twenties Steinès’s adventures on the Tourmalet have been being twisted this manner and that in keeping with the tastes of the teller. Take, as an example, a model of the story that appeared in La Pédale in 1924.

La Pédale / BnF

Ravaud having didn’t cross all the Pyrenean cols to be included within the Tour, in keeping with La Pédale’s telling of the story, Steinès was despatched south to see what the story was. He crossed the Peyresourde and the Aspin. He obtained to inside three kilometres of the highest of the Tourmalet earlier than snow stopped him. He set out on foot and three hours later he reached the col. Two metres of snow crammed the highway as he began his descent to Barèges. It was by now darkish. Twenty instances Steinès nearly stumbled off the highway into nothing. Twenty instances his blood ran chilly with fright. He sat within the snow and cried like a baby for his mom. He resumed his descent, utilizing matches to mild his method. Once they ran out he obtained down on all fours and crawled down the mountain. Lastly he reached Barèges, at 9 o’clock within the night.

By the point that Victor Breyer (briefly) touched upon Steinès’s adventures of the Tourmalet, in a 1950 version of However et Membership, he had closed the hole between Desgrange changing into satisfied of the necessity to enter the Pyrénées and Steinès being despatched to evaluate the situation of the Tourmalet and the Aubisque, leaving the impression that one had shortly adopted on the heels of the opposite.

These tellings of the story are simply two examples of the way in which by which the story could be seen to vary over time. Two later variations of the story appear to be necessary steps in the way in which we now have arrived on the model of the story we now have at this time: a model present in Marcel Diamant-Berger’s Histoire du Tour de France (1959); and a model present in Pierre Chany’s Fabuleuse Histoire du Tour de France (1983).

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The Diamant-Berger Model

In Diamant-Berger’s model it’s the start of 1910 when Steinès convinces Desgrange to take the Tour into the Pyrénées. The plan is introduced in L’Auto and there’s a public outcry. Steinès is shipped to recce the route. When he arrives within the Pyrénées – no date is given however this should nonetheless be early in 1910 – he’s instructed a Mercedes with 4 folks in it had overturned the earlier week.

Steinès travels to Pau to fulfill the person accountable for roads and bridges, Blanchet, as a way to speak to him in regards to the Aubisque, which he has simply come from. Blanchet needs 5,000 francs to convey the highway as much as the usual wanted to let the Tour cross it. Steinès calls Paris, speaks to Desgrange. He gives 1,500 francs. Steinès talks him as much as 2,000 and guarantees Blanchet he’ll discover the remaining someplace. Blanchet guarantees to begin work on the highway the subsequent day. Steinès returns to Paris, leaving the Tourmalet to be tackled one other day.

He returns to the Pyrénées a month earlier than the Tour and heads to Saint-Marie-de-Campan, the place he has lunch within the inn reverse the church. The proprietor tells him he doesn’t know if the Tourmalet is open but. Somebody is available in and says the highway is open. One other individual says the highway remains to be closed. Steinès decides to test it out for himself. Dupont, from Bagnères-de-Bigorre, is his driver. Three kilometres from the summit they encounter snow. After one other 500 or 600 metres the highway is blocked. Dupont says that this may convey out the bears from Spain, to eat the French livestock. It’s six o’clock.

Steinès units out on foot. Inside a kilometre the snow is greater than 4 metres deep. He sees within the distance shepherds guarding sheep. He asks one in every of them to information him to the col. It takes two-and-a-half hours to cowl the remaining two kilometres. Night time is falling, a cloudy sky blocking out the celebs. Steinès asks the shepherd to take him right down to Barèges however he refuses and returns to his sheep. Steinès does the mathematics: it’s 19 kilometres to return the way in which he got here, 14 kilometres right down to Barèges. He heads for Barèges.

The snow collapses beneath him and he slips off the facet of the highway. His ft get moist in a rivulet. He climbs again up onto the highway. He makes use of the sound of a river to information him. The snow begins to clear. He comes throughout a kilometre marker, sits on it and cries. He continues. He sees lights within the distance. The outskirts of Barèges. They’ve had a phonecall from Sainte-Marie-de-Campan, a number of groups of guides are out in search of him. It’s three o’clock.

He’s taken to Lanne-Camy, L’Auto’s native correspondent. Has a heat bathtub and borrows a change of garments. Sits down to a different meal. Has a sleep. When he awakes he tells Lanne-Camy he should telegraph Desgrange. He’s requested what he’ll say. He pauses for thought. Writes: ‘Henri Desgrange. L’Auto. Paris. Handed Tourmalet, cease. Superb highway, cease. Completely doable.’

« Henri Desgrange. L’Auto. Paris. Passé Tourmalet, cease. Très bonne route, cease. Parfaitement faisable. »

Diamant-Berger’s model of the telegram that by no means was.

Paul Harle / INA / Getty

The Chany Model

The second model of the story comes from the fabulist Pierre Chany, who for greater than 30 years was L’Équipe’s chief biking author. His aptly titled Fabuleuse Histoire du Tour de France (1983) – a vibrant and creative historical past of the Tour – takes Diamant-Berger’s model of the story and provides new components to it.

It’s the start of 1910 when Steinès convinces Desgrange to take the Tour into the Pyrénées. Steinès heads south, to Eaux-Bonnes on the backside of the Col d’Aubisque. He will get the story of the Mercedes. Goes to Pau. Meets the person accountable for roads and bridges who needs 5,000 francs to kind out the highway over the Aubisque. Steinès wires Paris. Desgrange gives 2,000 francs.

Steinès heads to Sainte-Marie-de-Campan, the place he goes to the inn reverse the church. He’s instructed the highway over the Tourmalet isn’t often open till July. Steinès decides to test it out for himself. Dupont, from Bagnères-de-Bigorre, is his driver. 4 kilometres from the summit they’re stopped by snow. It’s six o’clock.

Steinès units out on foot. Quickly the snow is greater than 4 metres deep. Night time falls. He crosses the col. Begins the descent. Disappears right into a snowdrift. Falls right into a stream. Sees the lights of Barèges. Meets L’Auto’s correspondent, Lanne-Cany, on the outskirts of the village. Lanne-Cany has been alerted by Dupont to be looking out for him, a number of groups of guides are out looking for him. It’s three o’clock.

Bathtub. Meals. Sleep. Steinès prepares a telegram for Desgrange: ‘Handed Tourmalet. Cease. Superb highway. Cease. Completely satisfactory. Cease. Signed: Steinès.’

« Passé Tourmalet. Cease. Très bonne route. Cease. Parfaitement praticable. Cease. Signé : Steinès. »

Chany’s model of the telegram that by no means was.

Steinès returns to Paris. Conceals what actually occurred. Tells Desgrange that he’s ready a brand new route for the Tour, one which bypasses Toulouse and goes as an alternative to Perpignan, from the place the race will cross the Pyrénées by the use of Bagnères-de-Luchon earlier than tackling the Peyresourde, Aspin, Tourmalet and Aubisque en path to Bayonne. The information is revealed the subsequent day in L’Auto. Different papers condemn Desgrange for a harmful and far-fetched initiative.

Half IX – The Steinès Model, Revisited

To complicate this story considerably, we now have a second account from Steinès of his adventures within the Pyrénées. This appeared in early 1959 in {a magazine} revealed by L’Équipe, the successor to L’Auto. This account heaps confusion upon the model Steinès first supplied in 1910, starting with its headline: “Alphonse Steinès (86 years outdated), the person who satisfied Henri Desgrange to take Tour into the mountains tells us how he made the highway over the Aubisque for 3,000 francs!”

La Vie au Grand Air / BnF

This account begins by bearing on the difficulties of convincing Desgrange to make modifications to the Tour. “With persistent obstinacy,” Steinès wrote, “I managed to persuade the ‘patron’, Henri Desgrange, {that a} Tour de France ought to comply with the the roads closest to the borders, whether or not they be plains or mountains. It was a primary victory that was to offer the race a lustre it didn’t but have. There was a lot shallowness to handle, so many pursuits, that Desgrange hesitated for a very long time.”

Steinès’s first success had are available 1905, with the ascent of the Ballon d’Alsace. In 1907 he had satisfied Desgrange to take the race into the occupied territories of Alsace and Lorraine, with a stage that completed in Metz. He additionally took the race deeper into the foothills of the Alps.

These successes weren’t all warmly acquired. In 1907 the Touring Membership de France mocked the Tour’s temerity, criticised it for its failure to embrace the excessive passes of the Galibier, Izoard, Vars and Allos on France’s jap borders, and for not venturing into the mountains that fashioned the southern border.

Although little criticism of the Tour’s entry to the Pyrénées appeared in L’Auto in 1910 – and just about none appeared in another paper – Steinès claimed that, from the second it was introduced that the Tour would cross the Peyresourde, Aspin, Tourmalet and Aubisque, they acquired an avalanche of letters heaping insults upon them. Whether or not that was in September 1909, when the route of the race was introduced however with out naming the principle cols to be crossed, or after Might, when Ravaud and Abran had tried to traverse these passes, is just not instructed. The one crucial letter L’Auto did publish was the one which got here from JT Burton in early June.

Steinès was in a position to recall the contents of one of many letters acquired:

“‘So that you don’t know that the roads of which you communicate don’t exist? If there’s a good one on the Tourmalet there may be none on the Aubisque. It’s a easy path by which loggers convey tree trunks down the mountain, pulled by groups of oxen.”

These trunks, Steinès defined, dug holes within the highway, holes deep sufficient to bury a person in. Although, in fact, when he wrote in 1910 of driving over the Aubisque Steinès didn’t point out any holes deep sufficient to bury males in. Possibly to explain them so was simply an exaggeration for impact, one thing we will’t assist letting potholes convey out in us each time we speak of them, then or now.

This letter quoted by Steinès led to a stormy argument with Desgrange, who not wished to listen to in regards to the cols of the Pyrénées. “Nonetheless,” Steinès wrote, “I obtained the higher of his aversion to the excessive passes and, that very same night, I set off with my bike to reconnoitre the contested elements of the route.”

Lacking from this account are some necessary factors. That Ravaud and Abran had didn’t cross the Aspin, Tourmalet, and Aubisque in Might. That Lanne-Camy had instructed L’Auto the Tourmalet was open on the identical day that the Alcyon and Legnano riders discovered it buried deep in snow. That, when the Alcyon and Legnano riders returned to Paris, they have been interviewed by Ravaud and it was instantly introduced that Steinès was being despatched to the Pyrénées to report on the true state of the roads over the excessive passes. This maybe is the most important downside with this 1959 account: it’s problematic not a lot for the issues it says however for the issues it leaves unsaid. The gaps it leaves for others to fill.

With these components omitted, we get one thing very near the model instructed by Diamant-Berger and Chany, each of whom embrace the argument with Desgrange in regards to the situation of the highway over the Aubisque, with Desgrange lecturing Steinès on the injury achieved to the highway by the forestry employees.

“As I had promised the ‘patron’,” Steinès’s 1959 account continued, “so I left with my bicycle to reconnoitre the 4 passes, from the place I nearly didn’t got here again alive. The occupation of a journalist has its dangers, is typically deadly. I had the dreadful expertise of that. The guides in Barèges can testify to this. I nonetheless undergo at this time, at 86, the implications of it.”

Steinès’s account of his night time on the Tourmalet is right here lowered to a single paragraph:

“I have to return to my tragic misadventures on Tourmalet the place, at night time, within the darkness, I used to be misplaced and alone within the icy desert, struggling and never desirous to die on a hostile and unknown mountain, at an altitude of two,255 meters, coated with a thickness of 4 meters of snow, over an extent of ten kilometres. Groups of guides from Barèges and Sainte-Marie-de-Campan, who went to my rescue, didn’t discover me. I saved myself alone, however not with out problem and never with out horrible risks, after having lived for hours on finish in mortal anguish, with out help, and within the sinister and nocturnal silence of the excessive mountains.”

Steinès’s story then jumps to the Aubisque:

“Having crossed the 1,750m Col d’Aubisque and stopped at Gourette for a snack – Gourette at the moment was solely an antimony mine with a modest canteen, whereas at this time it has change into a well-known winter sports activities resort – I slept that night time in Eaux-Bonnes. There I discovered that, a number of days earlier, an enormous Mercedes that had, like me, wished to cross the go – however as an alternative of being on a bicycle, it was on 4 wheels with 4 passengers together with the motive force – had skidded on the free highway floor, and crashed 400 metres beneath. The automotive was in items and the travellers in a greater world. 4 lifeless, it throws a chill, particularly while you’ve come near assembly the grim reaper two days earlier than.”

Steinès by his earlier account – and supported by a quick message despatched to L’Auto by one in every of this two travelling companions – had crossed the Aubisque west to east, beginning in Eaux-Bonnes. After descending to Argèles-Gazost he had headed to Tarbes to fulfill the chief engineer of the Hautes-Pyrénées division, who had general duty for the Col du Tourmalet. He had already been to Pau earlier within the day to fulfill the chief engineer of the Basses-Pyrénées division, who had general duty for the Col d’Aubisque. To get again to Eaux-Bonnes that night time should have concerned greater than 250 kilometres of driving in someday.

Returning to Pau the next day, that may be reconciled with what we’ve beforehand been instructed. Steinès’s first go to to Pau was in consequence of being instructed that the Aubisque was nonetheless closed. Informed it had been opened two days earlier than he was then in a position to go and see for himself what state the highway was in. Involved by what he noticed, it isn’t unreasonable for him to have returned to Pau the subsequent day as a way to speak to the chief engineer about getting the highway repaired.

In his 1959 account, Steinès supplied this tackle his assembly with chief engineer in Pau:

– You realize of the accident with the Mercedes? The highway is just not satisfactory.

– I do know all of that. It’s good to repair the highway. The riders will go there in a month. Perceive me effectively: they are going to go.

– Nevertheless it’s inconceivable! To begin with I’ve no finances!

– If it’s a query of cash, we’ll present it for you; however they are going to go.

He requested the chief engineer to see if he might get Paris on the telephone, and to ask for the workplaces of L’Auto, and the ‘patron’ himself, Desgrange.

“Half a century in the past, you couldn’t get a name from Pau to Paris in a single or two minutes like at this time. After an hour the bell rang and – oh miracle! – I had Desgrange on the road. I gave him a brief – very brief – account of my journey throughout the Pyrénées, assuring him that each one was effectively, that the Tourmalet was very tough, very doable for a median bicycle owner, and can be so as in a month as a result of males have been already engaged on eradicating the snow. Furthermore, our correspondent in Barèges would maintain us knowledgeable. Good! As for the Col d’Aubisque, clearly the highway was not very satisfactory, however I used to be discussing that with the chief engineer of roads and bridges for the entire of the Basses-Pyrénées division. He not having a finances for the upkeep of the routes thermales I promised we might assist him.”

Desgrange requested how a lot was wanted. Steinès mentioned it might price about 5,000 francs. Desgrange instructed him to supply 500. At which level the decision was abruptly minimize off. Steinès promised the engineer that, as soon as again in Paris, he would work on Desgrange and get him to extend his supply. He succeeded in rising it to 1,500 francs. The chief engineer was capable of finding sufficient to match that and Steinès reported that, at a value of three,000 francs, repairs have been carried out on the highway protecting the second half of the climb of the Col du Soulor and the passage over the Col de Tortes to the Col d’Aubisque.

“Properly! expensive readers and mates, it’s with this modest sum of three,000 francs that the work to enhance the highway over the Aubisque, between Arrens and Gourette, was undertaken the very subsequent day, with me watching on. It’s due to this very modest sum of cash that we have been in a position to take the Tour over this route some had deemed inconceivable, and with nice success. And it was, and nonetheless is, due to this that the routes thermales, beforehand not effectively maintained, have change into nationwide roads, and these days rank among the many most lovely and picturesque roads in France.”

Steinès’s personal declare of getting the highway between the Aubisque and the Soulor improved is markedly extra modest than what L’Équipe claimed in its headline, which steered {that a} highway was constructed from scratch. How modest is Steinès’s declare that it’s due to the Tour that the route thermale grew to become as widespread because it did? That’s more durable to evaluate. As talked about earlier, the Touring Membership de France had by 1910 already been working for a number of years on selling a route Pyrénées. Books like CL Freeston’s 1912 Passes of the Pyrenees present that motor automobiles additionally performed a task in popularising the Pyrénées. The Tour alone was not answerable for what adopted in subsequent years. However on the similar time I don’t assume it’s an exaggeration to assert that the Tour performed a serious half in that.

Between these two accounts by Steinès – from 1910 and 1959 – we now have most all the foremost components of the story we inform at this time, albeit in a distinct order and with a number of additions drawn from elsewhere. Probably the most notable hole within the story is why we maintain him on the Tourmalet till three within the morning when, by his personal account – and by Lanne-Camy’s message telegraphed to L’Auto – he was off the mountain by ten o’clock and consuming a meal by ten-thirty. Different variations of the story instructed earlier than 1959 might someday assist clarify how we got here to invent that a part of the story.

Jules Beau / BnF

Half X – The Abridged Model

• As early as July 1909, a full yr forward of the Tour’s first Pyrenean levels, Henri Desgrange was indicating that the 1910 Tour would enter the Pyrénées;
• The route of the 1910 Tour was introduced in September 1909, with two levels within the Pyrénées included. Alphonse Steinès has to have satisfied Desgrange to take the Tour into the Pyrénées earlier than that;
• The Tour’s route by means of the Pyrénées was scouted by Charles Ravaud and Georges Abran in Might 1910 with common studies of their progress showing in L’Auto;
• Ravaud adopted these studies with detailed descriptions of the 2 new Pyrenean levels, whereas an area cyclo-tourist, Émile Moutin, added additional element on the second and more durable of the 2 levels;
• The specter of bears within the Pyrénées might have been actual however it was the specter of the cows, horses, sheep, and pigs that freely roamed the roads that L’Auto felt riders wanted to be warned about;
• L’Auto revealed only one letter criticising their alternative of Pyrenean climbs, although Steinès claimed they acquired many extra. Not one of the different papers or magazines criticised L’Auto;
• The Touring Membership de France had already despatched riders over the Col du Tourmalet in 1902, together with Hippolyte Figaro, the primary Black rider to begin and end Paris-Roubaix, and Marthe Hesse, one of many ladies driving in these days whose identify remains to be recalled. Riders within the TCF occasion additionally included a number of professionals whose names we at this time nonetheless recall for his or her participation in early Excursions;
• It was following the Alcyon workforce’s recce of the Col de Port and the Col de Portet d’Aspet that Alphonse Baugé first used the time period Circle of Loss of life to confer with any of the mountains within the Pyrénées;
• Six riders from the Alcyon workforce, together with 5 from Legnano and two isolés, had their very own misadventures within the snow on the Tourmalet and have been compelled to descend to Barèges on their backsides with their bikes held behind them to behave as brakes. One rider almost slipped off the highway into the abyss beneath whereas one other fell right into a river;
• Steinès was dispatched to the Pyrénées and arrived in Bagnères-de-Luchon on June 27. After having crossed the Peyresourde and the Aspin throughout the day, that night he set off up the Tourmalet accompanied by Paul Dupont and their driver Isidore Estrade-Berdat. It was seven o’clock when he deserted Dupont and Estrade and began strolling. By ten-thirty he was again in civilisation and consuming a meal within the Hôtel Richelieu in Barèges;
• Whereas it’s true that search events have been despatched out to search for him, Steinès made it down off the Tourmalet underneath his personal steam;
• Steinès’s telegram is a fiction. The precise message was despatched by Lanne-Camy and easily mentioned that Steinès had arrived in Barèges having crossed the Tourmalet on foot;
• Having crossed the Tourmalet Steinès then tackled the Aubisque and had a gathering in Pau with the chief highway engineer for the entire of the Basse-Pyrénées division. He wished about 5,000 francs to convey the highway between the Soulor and the Aubisque as much as the usual Steinès desired. Desgrange supplied 500 francs, Steinés was subsequently in a position to enhance that to 1,500 francs, with the chief engineer securing matching funds;
• It was solely on the finish of his journey, with all of the cols handed, that Steinès discovered {that a} Mercedes with 4 folks on board had just lately crashed on the Aubisque killing all on board;
• A full account of Steinès’s journey to the Pyrénées, together with his night time on the Tourmalet, was revealed in L’Auto over a number of days instantly after;
• A lot of the model of the story we inform at this time seems to return from a 1959 guide by Marcel Diamant-Berger, which was later copied and added to by Pierre Chany within the Nineteen Eighties.

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Subsequent: The Assassins of the Aubisque!

My thanks go to: Tom Isitt, whose 2017 Rouleur article, ‘Fact or Lies’, kicked off this try to take a look at the much less fictitious historical past of how the Tour found the Pyrénées (at this distance we might by no means know the reality however we will dismiss these accounts which can be patently false); and to Max Leonard whose personal analysis unearthed an important portion of the story instructed above, which he graciously shared with me. Go raibh mile maith agat.