FIRST BICYCLE RACE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 August 1938, Page 5

FIRST BICYCLE RACE

ENGLISHMAN’S WIN IN FRANCE. The first bicycle race in France, held in the park of St Cloud, one of the beauty spots of the immediate neighbourhood of Paris, on May 31, 1868, was won by an Englishman, James Moore. His son came speocially from London to be present at the unveiling of a tablet recalling the event. Among the notabilities present was another English veteran cycle champion of France of the end of last century, Mr H. O. Duncan. Less than a dozen competitors lined up for this first bicycle race on the last day of May, 1868, mounted on real old “bone-shakers” of wood weighing anything from fifty pounds up. Two Frenchmen, Drouet and Poloccini, were favourites, but the slim young Englishman whom nobody had taken much notice of overtook them in the run home and was first past the post. The first pedal bicycle, invented by a locksmith Michaux, six years before, had been demonstrated at the Paris Exhibition of 1867. Bicycles which took part in the historic race were of the high two-wheel type, the wheels almost of equal size, made of wood, with iron tyre. The pedals were set at the hub of the front wheel. They did not appeal to the eye, and a reporter of the time wrote: “The ‘velocipede’ is an ungraceful instrument, with wheels of which the spokes are more slender than the handle of a scythe, which, swift as the wind, dashes through space and abolishes distance."

Cycling has since that day become the national sport of France, and the bicycle in France is known familiarly as the “petite reine” —the “little queen.” There are eight million bicycles in use in France today, a figure based on the number of licences issued —for in France every cyclist has to carry a licence plate, to be renewed annually, costing 12 francs (Is 3d). It is a cycling event which every year arouses the greatest enthusiasm. The Post Office sends out motor cars carrying special equipment for telegrams, telephone calls, the transmission of telephotos, as well as for broadcasting—in a word every means by which newspaper correspondents and broadcasters can convey to the whole of France news issued several times daily telling how competitors are doing in the annual cycle race round France. The race lasts a month, starting from Paris and ending at Paris, and interest and enthusiasm never flag an instant. Excited groups crowd round the doorway of every shop where radio sets are sold, listening to the news of the race, following the fortunes of their favourites in this gruelling contest in which the eighty to a hundred competitors have to negotiate the highest passes of the French Alps and the Pyrenees.