Eugène Christophe (born
Malakoff, Paris, France, 22 January 1885, died in Paris, 1 February 1970) was a French
road bicycle racer
Road bicycle racing is the cycle sport discipline of road cycling, held primarily on paved roads. Road racing is the most popular professional form of bicycle racing, in terms of numbers of competitors, events and spectators. The two most com ...
and pioneer of
cyclo-cross
Cyclo-cross (cyclocross, CX, cyclo-X or cross) is a form of bicycle racing. Races typically take place in the autumn and winter (the international or "World Cup" season is October–February), and consist of many laps of a short (2.5–3.5&nb ...
. He was a professional from 1904 until 1926. In 1919 he became the first rider to wear the
yellow jersey
The general classification of the Tour de France is the most important classification of the race and determines the winner of the race. Since 1919, the leader of the general classification has worn the yellow jersey ( ).
History
For the first t ...
of the
Tour de France
The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage cycle sport, bicycle race held primarily in France. It is the oldest and most prestigious of the three Grand Tour (cycling), Grand Tours, which include the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a ...
.
Eugène Christophe rode 11 Tours de France and finished eight. He never won but he became famous for having to weld together his bicycle while leading. It was one of a series of events that coloured his racing career.
Origins
Eugène Christophe rode his first race when he was 18 and his last when he was 41 in 1926. He worked as a
locksmith
Locksmithing is the work of creating and bypassing locks. Locksmithing is a traditional trade and in many countries requires completion of an apprenticeship. The level of formal education legally required varies by country, ranging from no formal ...
until racing took over his life.
Tour de France
The 1906 race
The 1906 Tour de France was Christophe's first. He finished in ninth place behind
René Pottier
René Pottier (5 June 1879 – 25 January 1907) was a French racing cyclist.
Pottier won the amateur category of the 1903 Bordeaux–Paris race before turning professional. He came second in Paris–Roubaix 1905 and Bordeaux–Paris 1905, the ...
.
The 1912 race
In the
1912 Tour de France Christophe was denied victory by the system of awarding victory to the winner on points. Throughout the race he was the strongest rider, but the Belgians rode together to win sprints to amass points. Only when Christophe could drop the peloton did he finish ahead of eventual winner
Odile Defraye.
Christophe won three consecutive stages using this method (including the Tour's longest successful solo break of 315 km to
Grenoble
Grenoble ( ; ; or ; or ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of the Isère Departments of France, department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regions of France, region ...
). Had the race been decided on time, the result would have been closer – Christophe would have led until the final stage, when he sat up in disgust allowing a group to ride away. As a result, the 1913 race reverted to a time-based classification.
1913 and the Tourmalet incident
In
1913
Events January
* January – Joseph Stalin travels to Vienna to research his ''Marxism and the National Question''. This means that, during this month, Stalin, Hitler, Trotsky and Tito are all living in the city.
* January 3 &ndash ...
Christophe was well placed to win when a mechanical failure cost him the race. He rode the first part, from Paris to
Cherbourg
Cherbourg is a former Communes of France, commune and Subprefectures in France, subprefecture located at the northern end of the Cotentin peninsula in the northwestern French departments of France, department of Manche. It was merged into the com ...
and then down the coast to the
Pyrenees
The Pyrenees are a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. They extend nearly from their union with the Cantabrian Mountains to Cap de Creus on the Mediterranean coast, reaching a maximum elevation of at the peak of Aneto. ...
cautiously.
[Sporting Cyclist, UK, May 1967, p19] He was in second place when the race stopped in
Bayonne
Bayonne () is a city in southwestern France near the France–Spain border, Spanish border. It is a communes of France, commune and one of two subprefectures in France, subprefectures in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques departments of France, departm ...
on the night before the first day in the mountains, when the course featured a succession of cols: the Osquich, Aubisque, Soulor, Tourmalet, Aspin and Peyresourde. The field set off at 3am with Christophe 4m 5s behind
Odile Defraye, of Belgium.
Christophe rode for
Peugeot
Peugeot (, , ) is a French automobile brand owned by Stellantis.
The family business that preceded the current Peugeot companies was established in 1810, making it the oldest car company in the world. On 20 November 1858, Émile Peugeot applie ...
and his team attacked from the start to demoralise the rival
Alcyon riders and, in particular, Defraye. It worked. Defraye was 11 minutes behind at Oloron-Ste-Marie, 14 in
Eaux-Bonnes, 60 at
Argelès. He dropped out at
Barèges, at the foot of the Tourmalet, the highest pass in the Pyrenees. Christophe dropped all the field except another Belgian,
Philippe Thys, who followed at a few hundred metres. Thys was of no danger, however, because he had lost too much time earlier. The two were five minutes ahead of the rest.
Christophe stopped at the top of the mountain, reversed his back wheel to pick a higher gear
Christophe said:
:I plunged full speed towards the valley. According to
Henri Desgrange
Henri Desgrange (; 31 January 1865 – 16 August 1940) was a French cycle sport, bicycle racer and Sports journalism, sports journalist. He set twelve world track cycling records, including the hour record of on 11 May 1893. He was the first o ...
's calculation, I was then heading the general classification with a lead of 18 minutes. So, I was going full speed. All of a sudden, about ten kilometres from Ste-Marie-de-Campan down in the valley, I feel that something is wrong with my handlebars. I cannot steer my bike any more. I pull on my brakes and I stop. I see my
fork
In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods either to h ...
s are broken. Well, I tell you now that my forks were broken but I wouldn't say it at the time because it was bad publicity for my sponsor.
:And there I was left alone on the road. When I say the road, I should say the path. All the riders I had dropped during the climb soon caught me up. I was weeping with anger. I remember I heard my friend
Petit-Breton shouting as he saw me, 'Ah, Cri-Cri, poor old lad.' I was getting angry. As I walked down, I was looking for a short cut. I thought maybe one of those pack trails would lead me straight to Ste-Marie-de-Campan. But I was weeping so badly that I couldn't see anything. With my bike on my shoulder, I walked for more than ten kilometres. On arriving in the village at Ste-Marie-de-Campan, I met a young girl who led me to the blacksmith on the other side of the village. His name was Monsieur Lecomte.
It took two hours to reach the forge. Lecomte offered to weld the broken forks back together but a race official and managers of rival teams would not allow it. A rider, said the rules, was responsible for his own repairs and outside assistance was prohibited. Christophe set about the repair as Lecomte told him what to do. It took three hours and the race judge penalised him 10 minutes – reduced later to three – because Christophe had allowed a seven-year-old boy, Corni, to pump the bellows for him.
Filling his pockets with bread, Christophe set off over two more mountains and eventually finished the tour in seventh place. The building on the site of the forge has a plaque commemorating the episode.
The forks which cost Christophe the race were taken away by Peugeot. He didn't see them again until a dying man bequeathed them to him more than 30 years later.
[Sporting Cyclist, UK, May 1959] Some reports say that Christophe broke his forks because he ran into a car on the descent. The historian and author, Bill McGann, says:
:I have found no mention of a car in Christophe's own retelling of the story. Broken forks were not unusual. I am sure that the poor state of 1913 metallurgy and bad mountain roads caused the disaster. My own theory, based on little information, is that the car story is probably a piece of Peugeot disinformation. It must have been awful for Peugeot to have their famous rider celebrated for having broken a fork. A car crash makes this all easy to explain. The final nail in the coffin of the story is that Christophe said 'I wouldn't have told you then because it was bad publicity for my firm.' If it had been a car crash, there would have been no bad publicity because no one expects a bike to withstand a car crash.
First world war
Christophe became a soldier when France declared war in 1914. He served with a cycling battalion.
1919 race and the yellow jersey

In
1919
Events
January
* January 1
** The Czechoslovak Legions occupy much of the self-proclaimed "free city" of Pressburg (later Bratislava), enforcing its incorporation into the new republic of Czechoslovakia.
** HMY ''Iolaire'' sinks off th ...
Christophe became the first man to wear the
yellow jersey
The general classification of the Tour de France is the most important classification of the race and determines the winner of the race. Since 1919, the leader of the general classification has worn the yellow jersey ( ).
History
For the first t ...
of race leader, though he was destined not to win the race overall. Christophe was riding with a grey
La Sportive jersey when, while leading, Desgrange gave him the first yellow jersey. Christophe said:
:So soon after the war, the cycle industry was not yet in action again, and the only ''marque'' supplying material was La Sportive and there was little difference between any of the jerseys they supplied. One day – it was on the 482km stage from
Les Sables d'Olonne to Bayonne – Monsieur Baugé, an official, remarked to Henri Desgrange that it was difficult enough for him to pick out the various riders and the public must find it impossible. Couldn't the race leader wear a special jersey?
However, Christophe was not at first pleased to wear the yellow jersey as he complained that the spectators laughed and told him that he looked like a canary.
By the start of the penultimate stage from
Metz
Metz ( , , , then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle (river), Moselle and the Seille (Moselle), Seille rivers. Metz is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Moselle (department), Moselle Departments ...
to
Dunkirk
Dunkirk ( ; ; ; Picard language, Picard: ''Dunkèke''; ; or ) is a major port city in the Departments of France, department of Nord (French department), Nord in northern France. It lies from the Belgium, Belgian border. It has the third-larg ...
, he was leading by 30 minutes. His fork broke again, this time on the cobbles of
Valenciennes
Valenciennes (, also , , ; ; or ; ) is a communes of France, commune in the Nord (French department), Nord Departments of France, department, Hauts-de-France, France.
It lies on the Scheldt () river. Although the city and region experienced ...
and, although being within a kilometre of the nearest forge, he lost more than two and a half hours and the race while he made repairs. On the final stage he had a run of punctures and dropped from second to third overall behind
Jean Alavoine. His story captured the public imagination and he was awarded the same prize money as winner
Firmin Lambot. His prize – 13,310 francs – came from a subscription opened by ''
L'Auto'', the paper which organised the race. Donations ranged from three francs to 500 given by
Henri de Rothschild
Henri James Nathaniel Charles, Baron de Rothschild (26 July 1872 – 12 October 1947) was a French playwright who wrote under the pen names André Pascal, Charles des Fontaines, and P.-L. Naveau. He was also qualified as a physician (although h ...
. It took 20 lists in the paper to name every donor.
Christophe kept the repaired forks in the basement of his home.
1922 race and another broken fork
Placed in the top three and still in with a chance of overall victory, another broken
fork
In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods either to h ...
on the descent of the
Galibier in the
Alps
The Alps () are some of the highest and most extensive mountain ranges in Europe, stretching approximately across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia.
...
forced Christophe to once more walk out of the mountain on foot.
The 1925 race
The 1925 Tour was Christophe's last. He was 40 and finished 18th, 19 years after first riding the race. The anecdote of the race was that the Belgian,
Émile Masson, was so tired from long and repeated days of racing that he asked Christophe to punch him in the face to wake him up.
Commemoration
The French cycling federation in 1951 placed a plaque on the wall of the building that stands now where the forge once stood at Ste-Marie-de-Campan. Christophe, then 66, re-enacted the day that cost him the Tour de France. He carried his bike on his shoulder, the front wheel in his hand, to the forge. There, wearing race clothes, he played out the way he had repaired his forks. With him were the judge who supervised him that day, and Corni, who as an 11-year-old had helped pump the fire. They were joined by Mme Despiau, the first woman Christope met on entering the village.
The plaque on the wall read:
:Here, in 1913, Eugène Christophe, French racing cyclist, first in the general classification of the Tour de France, victim of a mechanical accident on the Tourmalet, repaired the fork of his bicycle at the forge. Having covered numerous kilometres by foot, in the mountains, and having lost numerous hours, Eugène Cristophe didn't abandon the race that he should have won, showing a sublime example of willpower. Gift of the Fédération Française de Cyclisme "under the patronage of ''L'Équipe''.
Christophe's name was spelled the second time, as shown, with a missing H. The plaque stayed there until 2003, when it was replaced to mark the 100th anniversary of the Tour.
In 1965,
Radio Luxembourg
Radio Luxembourg was a multilingual commercial broadcaster in Luxembourg. It is known in most non-English languages as RTL (for Radio Television Luxembourg).
The English-language service of Radio Luxembourg began in 1933 as one of the earlies ...
held a party to mark Christophe's 80th birthday. The station announced that he was cycling to the station from Malakoff and, jokingly, said anyone seeing a tiny old man riding a heavy bike through Paris should give him a wave: it would be Eugène Christophe. By the time Christophe reached the studio, he was in a cortège of 100 cycling fans, among them the former world champion,
Georges Speicher.
The square at Ste-Marie-de-Campan, and a make of toe-clips, are named after him.
1910 Milan–San Remo
Christophe is most famous for the broken forks of the Tour de France, but his suffering was far greater in the
1910 edition of Milan–San Remo which was run in dreadful weather with glacial temperatures. There were 71 riders at the start; only four finished in
San Remo. Christophe recounted:
:The weather had been good at the start of the week but it turned really bad and Alphonse Baugé
he managertold us that we'd be going over the Turchino even though the road was bad and covered with snow.
François Faber
François Faber (; 26 January 1887 – 9 May 1915) was a Luxembourgish racing cyclist. He was born in France. He was the first foreigner to win the Tour de France in 1909, and his record of winning 5 consecutive stages still stands. He died in ...
and
Louis Trousselier cheered us up by saying 'What does it matter if we've got Lapize and Christophe the two cyclo-cross champions with us?'
:The roads were muddy and frozen and we had to bounce along in the ruts, riding on the verges between the posts that were spaced every 20 metres as far as Pavia. We rode the first 32km in 56 minutes, the 53km from
Milan
Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...
to
Voghera
image:Voghera Castle.jpg, The Castle of Voghera in a 19th-century etching.
Voghera (Emilian dialect, Vogherese dialect of Emilian: ''Vughera''; Latin language, Latin: ''Forum Iulii Iriensium'') is a town and ''comune'' in the Province of Pavia i ...
in 1h 50. There were attacks after attack and it was more like a ''course des primes'' than a long-distance race...
:We go to the notorious col de Turchino. The clouds were low, the countryside was unattractive and we started to feel the cold more and more. We started to shiver and every turn of the pedals was heavier. The half-melted snow made the race very hard and we were struggling too with a glacial wind. I dropped my friend
Ernest Paul to get up to Ganna, whom I could see on the hairpins. I got up and past him without too much trouble because he didn't seem to be standing the cold any better than I was. Not far from the summit I had to get off my bike because I started feeling bad. My fingers were rigid, my feet numb, my legs stiff and I was shaking continuously. I began walking and running to get my circulation back, looking at the countryside. It was bleak and the wind made a low moaning noise. I'd have felt scared if I hadn't been used to bad weather in cyclo-crosses.
:Well, I got back on my bike and I got to the top of the col. There's a tunnel at the top and I asked a
soigneur how far down I was on the leader. He told me six minutes. I found van Hauwaert at the exit of the tunnel with his bike in his hand and a cloak on his back. He told me he was packing it in. I was beyond feeling happy about it and I just got on with going down through the snow that lay on the road on that side of the mountain.
:The view was totally different now. The snow made the countryside beautiful. The sky was really clear. But now it was my turn to have trouble. It was hard to keep going. In places there were 20cm of snow and sometimes more. Each time I was obliged to get off and push. It was cyclo-cross – off, on, riding, walking. I could keep going but it was slowing me right down. Then I had to stop with stomach cramp. Doubled up, one hand on my bike and the other on my stomach, I collapsed on to a rock on the left side of the road. I was bitter with cold. All I could do was move my head a little from left to right and right to left.
:I saw a little house not far away but I couldn't get there. I didn't realise just what danger I was in. I just had one thought: to get to San Remo first and I attached no importance to the pain I felt… I thought too of my contract with the bike factory. I'd get double my wages if I won as well as primes and there'd be my 300 francs for first place. Happily in my misfortune a man chanced to pass by.
:' ''Signor, signor''…'
Christophe looked at the man and said ''casa''
ouse He took him into the house, undressed him and wrapped him in a blanket. Christophe did physical exercises to get his blood restarted. Then van Hauwaert and Paul came in. "They were so frozen that they put their hands into the flames. Ernest Paul had lost a shoe without noticing", Christophe said.
:I was there for about 25 minutes. I saw four riders go by, or at least four piles of mud. I decided to press on. Ernest Paul said 'You're crazy.' And the innkeeper didn't want to let me go. I had to trick him by saying I could meet someone who would get me to
San Remo by train. I set off and caught Cocchi and Pavesi and I got to the control just behind Ganna, who was setting off as I stopped. I set off again after Baugé told me I could win and I passed Ganna at the edge of the town. And I caught Albini a few kilometres later.
:At the control at
Savona
Savona (; ) is a seaport and (municipality) in the west part of the northern Italian region of Liguria, and the capital of the Province of Savona. Facing the Ligurian Sea, Savona is the main center of the Riviera di Ponente (the western se ...
(90km) everybody was astonished to see me alone. I didn't stop long and took Trousellier's spare bike, because I knew he and Garrigou had abandoned before Ovada. I was sure of my victory and with only 100km to go I felt a new strength. The idea of crossing the line alone brought back all my energy. I got to San Remo well behind the scheduled time. It was 6pm when I stopped underneath the blowing banner that showed the end of my Calvary.
It took a month in hospital for Christophe to recover from frostbite to his hands and the damage the cold had done to his body. It was another two years before he got back to his original health. Only three riders finished and the result is still uncertain because some reports say van Hauwaert came fourth and others that he was disqualified for hanging on to a car.
Cyclo-cross
Christophe was national
cyclo-cross
Cyclo-cross (cyclocross, CX, cyclo-X or cross) is a form of bicycle racing. Races typically take place in the autumn and winter (the international or "World Cup" season is October–February), and consist of many laps of a short (2.5–3.5&nb ...
champion from 1909 to 1914, then again in 1921.
Personality
Christophe was a short and methodical man who raced with a 20 franc coin, a 10 franc coin, a chain link and a spoke key in a chamois bag hung round his neck. The journalist
Jock Wadley, who visited him at Malakoff, said: "M. Christophe had a tidy mind. That is why his workshop is tidy, with every tool clean and in its place. His home is equally in order. I had merely to mention some subject and he would go to a drawer, take out an envelope or a file, marked 'Tour 1912' or 'Paris–Roubaix 1920' or ' ''cross-cyclo pédèstre'' '. Every photograph had a neatly written caption on the back."
His race diary dated from the start of the 1920s. A neat, small hand described every race, stage by stage, his impressions, results and expenses. Christophe said that every night in the race hotel he laid out his kit like a fireman, "so that the moment I was called in the morning I didn't waste time looking for my clothes and equipment. Shoes, jersey, goggles, shorts and the rest of it were laid out neatly."
Wadley added:
:He said not the first time during my visit that he was not a rich man in the monetary sense but had a wealth of happy memories and good health to show from his racing exertions. He still rides a lot, is at most of the touring rallies in the Parisian area, but likes to take it easy. 'I have suffered enough on a ''vélo'',' he said, but last year he did 115 miles in 8½ hours, with 12lb of luggage, stopping 10 minutes every two hours to eat biscuits, pears and grapes and drink a glass of
Vichy
Vichy (, ; ) is a city in the central French department of Allier. Located on the Allier river, it is a major spa and resort town and during World War II was the capital of Vichy France. As of 2021, Vichy has a population of 25,789.
Known f ...
water.
Death
Eugène Christophe died in the Hôpital Broussais in Paris. He lived in
Malakoff, near Paris, all his life. He was a member of the L'Étoile Sportive de Malakoff cycling club from his first races until his death.
Jacques Anquetil
Jacques Anquetil (; 8 January 1934 – 18 November 1987) was a French road racing cyclist and the first cyclist to win the Tour de France five times, in 1957 and from 1961 to 1964.
He stated before the 1961 Tour that he would gain the ye ...
awarded him the Tour de France medal at the end of the 1965 race. Christophe was 81.
[Television pictures are at http://www.ina.fr/archivespourtous/index.php?vue=notice&from=fulltext&num_notice=6&full=Chapatte%2C+Robert&total_notices=224]
Reputation
Christophe never won the Tour, but his stories have become part of the race's mythology. Christophe (like
René Vietto and
Raymond Poulidor
Raymond Poulidor (; 15 April 1936 – 13 November 2019), nicknamed "Pou-Pou" (), was a French professional road bicycle racing, racing cyclist, who rode for his entire career.
His distinguished career coincided with two other outstanding ride ...
after him) is celebrated as an eternal second, more famous for his near-misses than his more successful rivals.
Major results
;1909
:French cyclo-cross champion
;1910
:1st
Milan–San Remo
Milan–Sanremo (in italian language, Italian ''Milano-Sanremo''), also called "''The Spring classic''" or "''La Classicissima''", is an annual road bicycle racing, road cycling race between Milan and Sanremo, in Northwest Italy. With a distance ...
:3rd
Paris–Roubaix
Paris–Roubaix is a one-day professional bicycle road race in northern France, starting north of Paris and finishing in Roubaix, at the border with Belgium. It is one of cycling's oldest races, and is one of the 'Cycling monument, Monuments' ...
:French cyclo-cross champion
;1911
:2nd
Tour of Belgium
The Tour of Belgium (; ) is a five-day bicycle race which is held annually in Belgium, and is part of the UCI ProSeries.
It was held annually between 1908 and 1981, except during both world wars. Between 1982 and 1990 several races were not org ...
:French cyclo-cross champion
;1912
:3 stage wins and 2nd overall
Tour de France
The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage cycle sport, bicycle race held primarily in France. It is the oldest and most prestigious of the three Grand Tour (cycling), Grand Tours, which include the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a ...
:French cyclo-cross champion
;1913
:French cyclo-cross champion
;1914
:French cyclo-cross champion
;1917
:3rd
Paris–Tours
Paris–Tours is a French one-day classic road cycling race held every October from the outskirts of Paris to the cathedral city of Tours. It is a predominantly flat course through the Chevreuse and Loire valleys; the highest point is 200 m ...
;1919
:3rd
Tour de France
The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage cycle sport, bicycle race held primarily in France. It is the oldest and most prestigious of the three Grand Tour (cycling), Grand Tours, which include the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a ...
;1920
:1st
Paris–Tours
Paris–Tours is a French one-day classic road cycling race held every October from the outskirts of Paris to the cathedral city of Tours. It is a predominantly flat course through the Chevreuse and Loire valleys; the highest point is 200 m ...
:1st
Bordeaux–Paris
The Bordeaux–Paris professional road bicycle racing, cycle race was one of Europe's classic cycle races, and one of the longest in the professional calendar, covering approximately – more than twice most single-day races. It started in north ...
:2nd
Paris–Roubaix
Paris–Roubaix is a one-day professional bicycle road race in northern France, starting north of Paris and finishing in Roubaix, at the border with Belgium. It is one of cycling's oldest races, and is one of the 'Cycling monument, Monuments' ...
;1921
:1st
Bordeaux–Paris
The Bordeaux–Paris professional road bicycle racing, cycle race was one of Europe's classic cycle races, and one of the longest in the professional calendar, covering approximately – more than twice most single-day races. It started in north ...
:French cyclo-cross champion
:2nd
Paris–Brest–Paris
:3rd
Paris–Tours
Paris–Tours is a French one-day classic road cycling race held every October from the outskirts of Paris to the cathedral city of Tours. It is a predominantly flat course through the Chevreuse and Loire valleys; the highest point is 200 m ...
References
External links
Christophe's palmares at memore-du-cyclisme.net*
Christophe's palmares at veloarchive.com This site also contains information on Christophe's Tour de France rides.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Christophe, Eugene
French male cyclists
French Tour de France stage winners
French cyclo-cross cyclists
1885 births
1970 deaths
People from Malakoff
Cyclists from Hauts-de-Seine