Tour de France on Fixed?

Might be a tough one now, but I know of a man who won it on fixed-Maurice Garin.

He used a bike weighing 16 kilos, with 32 mm tubs,no brakes and a* 'developement'* of 5.85metres (about 73 inches or 52x19 - for comparison 42x16 is 69.7 inches, 42x 15 is 74.4 inches.)

His victory was in 1903, he won again in '04 but was disqualified. In an interview he gave in 1949, when aged 79 he said he was still riding 25 miles a day, in defiance of his doctor. He claimed he was still using an identical bike, same gear, same position, same lack of brakes.

He died in 1957 aged 88.

Is this interesting to London Fixed Wheel?
What about actual racing ,today and now,on the road, on fixed?

"...I still feel that variable gears are only for people over forty-five. Isn't it better to triumph by the strength of your muscles than by the artifice of a derailleur? We are getting soft...As for me, give me a fixed gear!" (L'Équipe article of 1902)

My fav quote :)

I love these old stories. I too ride Gods gear of 52x19.

Oh... I'm 44, do I need to get a new bike next year?

Might be a tough one now, but I know of a man who won it on fixed-Maurice Garin.

He used a bike weighing 16 kilos, with 32 mm tubs,no brakes and a* 'developement'* of 5.85metres (about 73 inches or 52x19 - for comparison 42x16 is 69.7 inches, 42x 15 is 74.4 inches.)

His victory was in 1903, he won again in '04 but was disqualified. In an interview he gave in 1949, when aged 79 he said he was still riding 25 miles a day, in defiance of his doctor. He claimed he was still using an identical bike, same gear, same position, same lack of brakes.

He died in 1957 aged 88.

Is this interesting to London Fixed Wheel?
What about actual racing ,today and now,on the road, on fixed?

Thats a massive first post well done!

what did the doctor say was wrong with him?

Is this interesting to London Fixed Wheel?
What about actual racing ,today and now,on the road, on fixed?

google ally cat.

no, google alley cat, then you'll actually get results. ;)

Oh... I'm 44, do I need to get a new bike next year?

No way if old Maurice can ride Gods gear at the ripe old age of 88, so can we!!

:)

No way if old Maurice can ride Gods gear at the ripe old age of 88, so can we!!

:)

but dude lemmings

Also I bought a the Tour mag, and this year its got a lot of good content. gives you all the stats of previous years;
ave speed at the dawn of the Tour was 28Kmh and for last year it was 54Kmh....HTFU you derailleur fancying pooftas! get set to Gods gear I say!! ..hey thats good for us watching too cause it will last another few weeks! ;)

At the top of the Col du Tourmalet is a little cafe which has a few old fixed bikes from the early Tour days on the wall, well worth a look. It's a humbling experience when you've just suffered like a dog riding up there on a tupperware bike with a 34x25 lowest gear....

(bet I was faster than Maurice Garin on the way down though)

"...I still feel that variable gears are only for people over forty-five. Isn't it better to triumph by the strength of your muscles than by the artifice of a derailleur? We are getting soft...As for me, give me a fixed gear!" (L'Équipe article of 1902)

My fav quote :)

I read that quote outside the Design Museum last year in their Tank where they're showing fixed wheel bicycles, is that where it also come from?

I read that quote outside the Design Museum last year in their Tank where they're showing fixed wheel bicycles, is that where it also come from?

I think it was and still is a French sports newspaper, which covered the Tour from the start. I have read it in a few places, It must have first been in L'Équipe to begin with :)

i thought it was a rider of the tour, your version is abridged

I would liek to see this happen in the tour again. It would make for good entertainment

From http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/?id=2006/woodland_garin

You can see pictures of old-time riders with wine bottles in their racks. In the absence of food stations or team cars, there are pictures of riders breaking into their 10-hour stages by sitting in a restaurant with a plate of food and yet another bottle of plonk. It was just the way it was.

 After winning Paris-Brest-Paris 

Photo ©: AFP And it was the way it stayed until the 1960s. The Tour's organisers limited the water that riders could accept on the move. Anything they wanted above the limit had to be obtained from village pumps, springs or from helpful spectators. Or it had to be stolen from bars.
The chasse à la canette - the romantic name for jumping off your bike and running into a bar to steal any drink that could be picked up - was a shameful if colourful episode of Tour history that made for good pictures but a poor image. The big stars didn't do it but their domestiques did and they were expected to race back to the bunch to hand out whatever they had plundered.

 Maurice Garin 

Photo ©: Roger Thomas Vin Denson, when he was a domestique for Rik van Looy, spoke English but only elementary Dutch and French. When van Looy bellowed "Denson… café!" in French, Denson knew his leader wanted a drink. Come the next bar, Denson brought van Looy a bidon. Van Looy, puzzled he hadn't been presented with a glass bottle, sniffed the contents and, with a wrinkled nose of contempt, poured the whole lot on the road.
"It was that day", Denson recalled, "that I learned that café meant not only 'coffee' but 'bar'."

.

Ill abridged you in a minute!

"Put me back on my bloody bike!"

name that rider? ;)

altho after reading more about him apparently his last words were actually "go on....go..on..."

Tommy of course

L'Equipe (the team) is a sports newspaper, it created the Tour de France, was printed on yellow paper, hence the yellow jersey........

Thanks for this clubman, I was thinking the other day of trying to find what gear inch those guys rode the tour in, absolutely amazing, I ride a 46x17 (71inch) and just about get up the short hills we have around here. I wonder what size the flip side cog was?

Originally Posted by hael
"...I still feel that variable gears are only for people over forty-five. Isn't it better to triumph by the strength of your muscles than by the artifice of a derailleur? We are getting soft...As for me, give me a fixed gear!" ([I]L'Équipe article of 1902)[/I]

I am pretty sure was said by Henri Desgrange the man behind the first tours.

And i thought he said it in the '60s? I guess he might have said it twice.

fascinating innit

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.

Reminds me of when Professor Griff got thrown out of Public Enemy for refusing to let Chuck and Flav use tri-bars.

Yeah but Flav using tribars was always going to be an accident waiting to happen.