EARLY TOUR WINNERS
One hundred years ago the world was a different place. Dirt track roads and inhospitable mountain passes. There wasn’t the real-time media and live television footage of races that we are lucky enough to enjoy today. Tour riders were tough men. Stages were raced over huge distances of up to 482km. Unlike today’s finely tuned career athletes backed with the latest science and support teams, they were gifted cyclists and equally importantly they were physically and psychologically robust enough to be able to endure the harsh race conditions and rules of the races at that time.
I love black and white photos. I think they have a certain texture and warmth that isn’t present in a colour photo. For me the Tour photos from 100 years ago also offer an insight into the riders and conditions of the day. They capture a moment in time, atmosphere, emotion or unsuspecting glance from a rider that for me words can’t describe. Rough weathered faces with deep creases belying their age. I look into their eyes and attempt to see and then capture in my work the suffering they endured in becoming successful cyclists at that time.
Lucien Buysse
Winner of the 1926 Tour de France.
Born in Wontergem, Belgium, Buysse began racing professionally in 1914, when he entered the Tour de France but did not finish. He resumed his career after World War I, entering but abandoning the Tour again in 1919 but placing third in the Paris–Roubaix classic in 1920. In 1923 he completed the Tour de France and finished in eighth place. In the 1924 and 1925 Tours, he rode with the Italian Automoto team led by Ottavio Bottecchia, where he was perhaps the first domestique in the history of the Tour. He placed third in 1924 and second in 1925.
The 1926 Tour was the longest in its history (5,745 km), comprising 17 stages averaging 338 km. Buysse, racing with his two brothers Jules and Michel, took the yellow jersey on stage 10 by attacking during a furious storm on the Col d’Aspin in the Pyrenees. He gained almost an hour during the stage over his team leader Bottecchia who then abandoned. Buysse arrived in Paris as the champion despite suffering the loss of his daughter during the race.
Buysse went on to win a total of five stages of the Tour during his career: one in 1923; two in 1925 and two in 1926.
Léon Scieur
Léon Scieur was a Belgian cyclist who won the 1921 Tour de France.
Léon Scieur was the son of a farmer from Florennes, Belgium. He began work as a glassmaker before being introduced to cycling by his neighbour, Firmin Lambot, who taught him to ride a bike at the age of 22.
Scieur turned professional in 1913 and rode his first Tour de France that year but didn’t finish. After working as a mechanic in World War I Scieur rode the revived Tour de France in 1919 placing in fourth. He had punctured four or six times, according to reports, between Le Havre and Cherbourg. The weather was foul and he had no more spares so had to huddle in a doorway to repair one of the punctures. Mending a race tyre involved taking it from the rim, cutting the stitching that held the base together, mending the inner tube, then sewing up the tyre before replacing it. Scieur had acquired a needle and thick thread from the woman in whose doorway he was sheltering but his fingers grew too cold to use them. He asked the woman to help but the chief official told him: “It’s forbidden to receive help; you’ll be penalised if madame threads the needle for you.” Scieur completed the repair but lost the Tour to Lambot by about the time it had taken.
Leon had his first great victory in 1920, winning the one day monument, Liège–Bastogne–Liège.
Léon won the Tour at his fifth attempt, in 1921, when he was 33. He went into the lead on the second day and rode so hard to defend his position that reporters nicknamed him The Locomotive. He pedalled fast on a low gear and won two stages, from Cherbourg to Brest and from Nice to Grenoble.
Another Belgian, Hector Heusghem, attacked when Scieur punctured on the col d’Allos, which climbs to 2,240m. Scieur was so angry at the breach of etiquette that riders weren’t attacked when they had mechanical trouble that he set off after Heusghem, lectured him on politeness and tradition, raced off angrily alone and won the stage to Grenoble.
Scieur broke 11 spokes on the last but one stage, from Metz to Dunkirk and again fell foul of Desgrange’s rules. He managed to get a replacement wheel but new rules for that year’s Tour said he didn’t have the right to use it unless he could show Desgrange’s judges that the original was beyond use. No judge saw the incident and so Scieur carried the broken wheel on his back for 300 km to the finish. He said it left a mark on his back for 15 years.
Firmin Lambot
Firmin Lambot was a Belgian rider who won the Tour de France twice.
Born in the small town of Florennes, Lambot worked 12 hours a day as a saddler. He bought his first bicycle at the age of 17 and began riding 50 km a day to and from work. Lambot began racing professionally in 1908. In that year he won the championships of Flanders and Belgium. He rode the Tour de France from 1911 to 1914 but the First World War ended the race for the next five years.
When the Tour returned in 1919 it was a miserable affair of war-torn roads, fractured logistics and many former contenders no longer alive to compete. Only 11 riders finished. He was second for much of the race but took the lead when Eugène Christophe broke a fork. Observers felt Lambot owed his victory more to Christophe’s bad luck than his own ability and a collection for Christophe surpassed the prize money Lambot received.
In the 1922 Tour de France Lambot won for the second time after Hector Heusghem was handed an hour penalty for swapping his bicycle after breaking the frame. He became the first to win the Tour without winning a stage. Lambot was 36 when he won the 1922 Tour, the oldest winner of a grand tour at that time and a record that stood for over 90 years
