Tour De France Legend from the early years.

In such conditions legends quickly sprang to life. One concerns perhaps the unluckiest of all Tour riders, Eugene Christophe. He was challenging for the lead in the Pyrenees when his fork broke. In those days Desgrange saw the race as a test of man and machine. There were no following cars with extra bikes as there are today. So poor Christophe had to walk 14 km down a mountain to the little village of Sainte Marie-de-Campan where he went to the village blacksmith and beat out a makeshift repair. So strict were the rules that he was fined for having a boy pump the bellows! Under the circumstances his final seventh place at the Paris finish was something of a miracle. (Some idea of the esteem France holds for the Tour can be gained by visiting Ste. Marie-de-Campan. The little stone blacksmith shop where Christophe hammered his fork back into one piece is today a national historic site.)