You are reading a single comment by @maxl and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@maxl
Yeah, it was said by Henri Desgrange, one of the founders of the Tour, in l'Auto-Vélo, which more or less went on to become l'Équipe (which is still going today). The Tour was dreamed up by one of his journalists as a publicity stunt for the paper, which was struggling.
Don't be too excited by quoting Desgrange, though... L'Auto-Vélo came into being after a few journalists and advertisers split from Le Vélo because they disagreed with the paper's stance on the Dreyfus trial. Dreyfus was a French army officer who was prosecuted for treason basically because he was Jewish.
The affair split French society down the middle, and unfortunately Desgrange was on the wrong side of it... basically an old racist/anti-semite/fascist and lots of other nasty things once you start reading what he said. Funnily enough, I've never managed to track that quote down in French. Perhaps this is why.
Still... he did like his fixed-wheels. He tried to ban freewheels from competing, and succeeded for about five years. I think a freewheel won in 1908, but was disqualified for being too soft. Derailleurs weren't allowed until 1936 or so, when Desgrange was dying.