The photo is apparently of Fontan in the 1930 tour. Which I believe the bicycle to date from. The bicycle has no signs of frame repairs. As for the story of his loss of yellow jersey, it seems to be that French artistic licence was liberally used.
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Tim Tim Gunn (Director) The Old Bicycle Co. Cut Elms Farm, Aythorpe Roding, Near Great Dunmow, Essex, CM6 1PQ. United Kingdom.
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----- Original Message ----- From: Jan Heine To: aldoross4@siscom.net ; The Old Bicycle Co ; classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Sent: Wednesday, November 08, 2006 3:38 PM Subject: Re: [CR]c. 1929/30 FONTAN BICYCLE OF PAU (TOUR DU FRANCE).
At 9:10 AM -0500 11/8/06, aldoross4 wrote: >The modern interpretations of the story of Fontan's loss of >the yellow jersey vary wildly... broken fork, broken frame,
The bike in the photo posted earlier (link below) seems to have an intact fork, but the head angle is very shallow (huge front-center), even by the standards of the day. Broken frame perhaps?
> >I have some original articles from 'Le Miroir des Sport' >with coverage of that stage.
Nothing better than going back to the sources of the day. However, even those can be unreliable. There is the controversy over whether Anquetil illegally changed a bike in the 1963 Tour. Most histories of the Tour, including Ollivier's excellent books, report Anquetil used a superlight climbing bike for the uphill, but was afraid to descend on it, so he pulled over at the top, claiming that his derailleur gave trouble. The mechanic quickly cut the derailleur cable, and this defect allowed Anquetil to change bikes.
However, later that year, Rebour commented, obviously in response to press articles that mentioned this story, that a) bike changes were already legal in the Tour, so there was no need for the ruse, and b) that observers who had been there saw that the mechanic adjusted something on the bike, but that no bike change occurred.
Who is right? Rebour often was an apologist for the bike industry, so perhaps he was trying to downplay the story. Or perhaps it really was just a wild rumor. Does anybody know more?
Jan Heine Editor Bicycle Quarterly 140 Lakeside Ave #C Seattle WA 98122 http://www.bikequarterly.com
> > http://photos.bravenet.com/
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