Mapping Le Tour: The unofficial history of all 100 Tour de France races. Ellis Bacon
1909 Tour champion, and the race’s first non-French winner.
Mondialisation – globalisation – is an oft-bandied-around term in modern Tour de France circles to describe the ever-growing number of countries that the race has visited and the ever-increasing number of nationalities that have taken part as riders. But the 1909 Tour saw not only its first foreign winner in Faber, but after Belgium’s Cyrille van Hauwaert won the opening stage, non-French riders and French riders shared the fourteen stages with seven wins apiece.
The 1909 race had again followed a very similar route to that used in both 1907 and 1908, but the Tour was about to become much more mountainous…
François Faber won six stages on his way to overall victory in 1909
France’s Octave Lapize trudges up the Col du Tourmalet in 1910. It was the first time that the 2115-m (6939-ft) pass had been used at the Tour, and was in fact the first time that the Pyrenees had been used at all. Despite having to walk, he was the first rider across the summit, and on the next climb — the Col d’Aubisque — he accused the race organisers of being murderers for taking the race over such difficult terrain. Lapize nevertheless went on to win the 1910 Tour overall.
“Crossed the Tourmalet. Very good road. Perfectly passable. Steines.”
Alphonse Steines’ telegram to boss Henri Desgrange having failed to cross the Col du Tourmalet in January 1910
| Start: Paris, France, on 3 JulyFinish: Paris, France, on 31 July | |
| Total distance: 4737 km (2944 miles)Longest stage: 424 km (264 miles) | |
| Highest point:Col du Tourmalet: 2115 m (6939 ft) Mountain stages: 6 | |
| Starters: 110Finishers: 41 | |
| Winning time: 63 pointsAverage speed: 28.680 kph (17.822 mph) | |
| 1. Octave Lapize (Fra) 63 points2. François Faber (Lux) 67 points 3. Gustave Garrigou (Fra) 86 points |
Although the overall race distance changed little, with only one extra stage added to make fifteen at the 1910 edition of the Tour, the big change was the addition of Pyrenean climbs to the race.
The Portet d’Aspet, Col du Peyresourde, Col d’Aspin, Col du Tourmalet and Col d’Aubisque all featured for the first time.
It was one of Henri Desgrange’s employees, Alphonse Steines, whose job it had been to map the race since its 1903 beginnings, and it was therefore Steines that Desgrange sent to scout out the Pyrenees in January 1910 in the hope of including some tougher climbs that summer.
Steines almost killed himself trying to cross an impassable, blocked-by-snow Tourmalet but, for reasons only known to himself – perhaps not wishing to upset Desgrange – he sent his boss a telegram to say that the 2115-m (6939-ft) climb was “perfectly passable”.
Come July, the snow had indeed gone, but 18 km of riding and walking up gradients of up to 10 per cent on unmade roads would test even the Tour’s best riders in 1910.
Reaching the top of the Tourmalet without stopping – an easily quantifiable feat of strength in those early days of the Tour’s climbs – earned Gustave Garrigou a 100-franc prize for his no-doubt considerable trouble.
He wasn’t even first over the Tourmalet, though; that honour fell to overall race winner Octave Lapize, who then crested the summit of the stage’s next climb, the 1709-m (5606-ft)-high Col d’Aubisque hollow-eyed and spitting, “You’re all murderers!” in the race organisation’s general direction.
1910 also saw the first appearance of the voiture balai – the broomwagon – so called because it’s the final vehicle in the race convoy, ‘sweeping up’ riders unable to go any further due to exhaustion or injury. With the Pyrenees making their first appearance in the race, there were plenty of riders who needed it.
The inclusion of Pyrenean climbs takes its toll on a shattered Octave Lapize as he reaches the summit of the Col du Tourmalet during stage 10
“Oh Sappey, oh Laffrey, oh Col Bayard, oh Tourmalet … You are nothing compared to the Aubisque.”
Henri Desgrange congratulates himself for having organised such a spectacular 1911 Tour
| Start: Paris, France, on 2 JulyFinish: Paris, France, on 30 July | |
| Total distance: 5344 km (3321 miles)Longest stage: 470 km (292 miles) | |
| Highest point:Col du Galibier: 2556 m (8386 ft) Mountain stages: 7 | |
| Starters: 84Finishers: 28 | |
| Winning time: 43 pointsAverage speed: 27.322 kph (16.977 mph) | |
| 1. Gustave Garrigou (Fra) 43 points2. Paul Duboc (Fra) 61 points 3. Émile Georget (Fra) 84 points |
With Pyrenean climbs appearing for the first time in the 1910 Tour, it was only natural that the 1911 Tour should visit France’s other great mountain range, the Alps.
As it had been every year since 1905, the climb of the Ballon d’Alsace was on the menu again, but stage 5 saw the riders face nothing short of an epic day as they tackled the Col des Aravis, the Col du Télégraphe, the Col du Lautaret and the monstrous Col du Galibier – all now today very familiar and oft-used climbs in the Tour.
Despite the anger of the previous year at having been sent over such an inhumane route as that through the Pyrenees, and despite the Alps being higher and arguably harder, the riders surprised even themselves by being dazzled by the beauty of these new Alpine climbs.
Émile Georget – who was to eventually finish third overall – was the first over the top of a still-snow-covered Galibier, having heaved his way up its muddy, unmade roads. He held his lead all the way to the finish of that fifth stage between Chamonix and Grenoble, too, taking the stage win over Paul Duboc by a whopping 15 minutes.
There was a step backwards, however: Germany no longer allowed the race to cross its borders and, with no Swiss visit this time, the race remained entirely within the borders of France.