I forgot to mention this earlier - I actually got to watch some of the OLN coverage live this year, as I was on vacation. I forget which day it was that they talked about my personal French hero, Eugene Christophe, showing some old newsreel footage and several still photos of EC.
While they cropped it down tightly, they showed a France Presse photo that haunts me to this day - Christophe, standing and holding his bike, surrounded by a crowd. There's a boy at his left, a man in an overcoat and Homburg hat at his right. Their eyes are downcast, but one of them appears to have a hand on Christophe's shoulder.
Everyone else in the photo appears to be looking at someone outside the frame, as if someone else is getting the awards. Christophe looks directly into the camera, and his craggy face has the most haunted look I've ever seen.
The photo is in Bike Cult, also in the mid-70s American Bicycle Racing book. I still wonder where the photo was taken, and what the story behind it is.
My sweetie was watching it with me. She gets points for agreeing that should we ever go to France, there's a certain forge in the Pyrenees we have to visit. Also a certain monument on Mont Ventoux ...
Russ Fitzgerald
Greenwood SC
velocio@meta-net.net
http://www.anaburrous.com/