Jan appears to be confusing a number of different stories when he wrote:
"What happened was the Fontan blew up badly in the mountains, but his team controlled the race tightly. Fontan was barely hanging on, but nobody attacked, and so he kept the jersey. It helped that Alcyon was the biggest team."
I see that Jan has realized one of his errors and admits to mixing up De Waele and Fontan. Fontan obviously had nothing to do with Alcyon. This does not however make the statement about the size of the Alcyon team be any more correct. Alcyon was also not the biggest team in the 1929 Tour, as the 1929 race was not strictly a race by teams anymore. As mentioned in another post, the race had been divided into two categories: A and amateurs. Even in 1928, when the Alcyon team placed three riders on the podium, the team was made up of only 6 racers, whereas there were 2 other teams with more riders. Furthermore, the fact that Alcyon had what one expected to be the strongest team on paper was not necessarily true in 1929. If you went by the previous year's results, De Waele was only the Alcyon team's third strongest rider and had the 'team' been so strong, there was no need to wait for him (he had placed third overall the year behind two of his teammates, both of which were riding in the race described by Jan.)
"This was the last straw that persuaded Henri Desgrange to get rid of trade teams, and use national teams starting in 1930. The idea was that while a bunch of French racers would give the Alcyon guys some slack, you could count on the Italians to use the opportunity if it presented itself."
This theory does not stand up to logic, as Alcyon had always been an international team. In every year of its existence there were always at least three countries represented on the team (including Italians).
"Add that the 1930s were a time of Nationalist fervor, and the National teams duking it out made for a great success. And certainly, the 1930 Tour was a lot more exciting than the previous ones. (Which is why I selected that for VBQ, and not the 1929 edition.)"
What qualifies as exciting? In the 1929 tour, there were more individual stage winners than in 1930. There were also many more changes in the yellow jersey holder in 1929 than 1930. In fact in 1930, there were only three riders to hold the yellow jersey: Pélissier after the first stage, then Guerra after stages 2 through 9 and then Leducq until the end. In 1929, a total of 8 riders who wore the yellow jersey. In 1929, the final winner took one stage whereas in 1930, the eventual winner took two stages. Given the means of communication of the time, I doubt that your average 'spectator' would have said that the 1930 edition was more exciting.
Steven Maasland
Moorestown, NJ
USA