The Fast Times of Albert Champion Page 4
Clément commissioned Chéret’s young understudies along with other artists to promote bicycles, tandems, and tricycles—and Dunlop tires. Advertisements flaunted Clément’s name in large letters across the top. His address along the bottom was just as prominent: 20 rue Brunel, off the Avenue de la Grande Armée.
Posters brashly declared that Clément was the most important and the oldest bicycle manufacturer in France. His four-color advertisements stood out with France’s national symbol, the rooster, balancing on a wheel. It was inevitable that Champion would ride for Clément, but not in the way either of them expected.
THE FRENCH PEOPLE WERE LED TO HAVE GREAT FAITH IN THE TYRE BY THE FACT THAT A CELEBRATED RIDER NAMED JIEL-LAVAL, RIDING WITH DUNLOP TYRES, EASILY BEAT THE FRENCH CHAMPION, TERRONT, IN AN IMPORTANT RACE FROM PARIS TO BREST.
—TO-DAY (LONDON), JULY 18, 18961
When Champion pedaled some twenty miles on the unicycle back and forth between his home on rue Debarcadere and Noisy-le-Sec, he passed an increasing number of vibrant four-color posters proliferating on walls and fences. The advertisements beckoned him like sirens, promising a better, smarter, sexier life. They cultivated his thirst for glamour and, of course, la gloire! He was feeling good about the money and attention he was pulling in from unicycle exhibitions.2 In the summer of 1891, he learned of a bicycle race so radical it captured the fascination of Paris and changed his destiny.
An announcement of the race appeared on the front page of the June 11, 1891, edition of Le Petit Journal, a daily aimed at the working class.3 The paper’s correspondent Pierre Giffard, pudgy and partial to blowing smoke rings with cigars, had recently learned to ride a Clément cycle equipped with Dunlop pneumatics. He found the experience exhilarating and wrote articles about cycling as a social benefit, especially for les petits—the little people, workers toiling for low wages and never counting the long hours that bled them white. Le Petit Journal boasted one of the largest circulations in France, one million. Giffard had been a journalist long enough to realize the difficulty of impressing people to take advantage of something even when it was to their advantage. He concocted a preposterous idea calculated to grab the attention of les petits, and he astutely garnered support from the publisher.
Endurance races from one city to another far away were in vogue for newspapers to boost circulation. Advance articles glorified the event like carnival barkers in print. Prerace favorites were profiled, a map of the course was laid out, towns’ unique attractions were listed, then race-day coverage transformed winners into heroes—all to pump up newsstand sales.
Giffard promoted his contest, which would require the racers to go from Paris west for 375 miles to the Atlantic coastal city of Brest, so far away it seemed outright beyond the capabilities of anyone on a bicycle, with the added fillip that contestants must double back. Ancient Bretons had considered Brest the end of the earth, which translates to the region’s name, Finistere. The round trip of 750 miles was equivalent to fifteen days by a stagecoach pulled by four-horse teams, replaced with a fresh team every twenty miles.4 Le Petit Journal promised an extravagant 2,000 francs to the winner, 1,000 francs for second, 500 for third, paying down to twenty-one places—the richest sports purse in France.5 Paris-Brest et retour drew attention as being as outrageous—and as exclusively French as Eiffel’s Tower.6
Over the twelve weeks leading to the start on Sunday, September 6, Giffard wrote a steady flow of articles extolling the social benefit of bicycles and touting his daring Paris-Brest-et-retour. He signed articles Jean de Sans Terre, translating to the everyman whose feet never touched the ground.7 Paris-Brest-et-retour turned into the talk of the town. Giffard laid out the route from the Journal’s building on rue Lafayette in Montmartre west over rugged cobblestone and country dirt roads to the ocean. Science fiction author Jules Verne, famous for novels about space travel to the moon and exploring twenty thousand leagues under the sea, gave it his endorsement.8
To most folks, Paris-Brest-et-retour generated curiosity and wonder. To the sporting world, it posed the supreme test of character, intellect, and physical strength and endurance. To Adolph Clément, the contest presented a high-stakes bonanza. It pitted his Dunlop franchise against new tires from André and Edouard Michelin. The Michelin brothers had created a pneumatic tire after the recent disclosure that the original inventor was not John Boyd Dunlop.9 After granting him a patent, the English Patent Office discovered it had overlooked a nearly identical patent it had issued in 1845 to Robert W. Thompson,10 an engineer in Scotland. Thompson also had registered his patent in France and the United States. His patent had expired in 1860,11 and he had died in 1873.12A surprise revelation was that the claims of both Thompson and Dunlop were nearly identical. Thompson had called for an improvement in horse-drawn carriage wheels,13 whereas Dunlop intended his for wheels of bicycles, tricycles or other road cars.14 Thompson’s tires were so far ahead of their time that they disappeared in commercial failure. Dunlop’s tires were a difficult sell, but some cyclists were beginning to accept them. Thompson had had the patent and no business while Dunlop had the business and no patent.
The abrupt loss of patent protection coincided with the Michelin brothers’ struggle to save their late grandfather’s rubber and agricultural equipment company in Clermont-Ferrand, in France’s south-central region, from bankruptcy.15 Neither knew anything about the business they had inherited. André was an engineer with a metal-framework company in Paris.16 Younger Edouard had graduated from fine arts studies in Paris and had rented a studio in Montmartre to begin his career as a painter.17 Nevertheless, they were passionate about preserving the company that had been in the family for three generations and moved to Clermont-Ferrand.
They had developed a pneumatic tire, and they were planning to market it when they learned about Paris-Brest-et-retour. The Michelins hailed the race as providential. They scurried back to Paris and hired French national champion many times over, Charles Terront, to ride their tires. Short with a bushy mustache, Terront in street clothes looked like nothing special, what Giffard might describe as Jean Ordinaire, a regular guy. On a bicycle, however, Terront had a deserved reputation as a giant, a pioneer pro athlete racing on dirt horse tracks and board-cycling ovals called vélodromes in every big city on the continent. Terront, now thirty-four, had even been invited in his youth to America in 1879 to tour with a vaudeville troupe—he rode high-wheel exhibitions on roller-skating rinks to demonstrate cycling to thousands in Chicago and Boston. The Michelins bet the future of their company on Terront.18
Clément was also competing against dozens of other French and English bicycle manufacturers to win Paris-Brest-et-retour. He had to contend with the Peugeot family—brothers Jules and Émile and their adult sons, Eugène and Armand. They followed generations of artisans who made practical household products—coffee grinders, sewing machines, winding mechanisms for clocks, whalebone corset stays, and umbrellas.19 Since the nineteenth century the family trademark, the Peugeot lion, either rearing back on hind legs or striding on an arrow, had been familiar across Europe. Now from their plant in Valentigney, in eastern France, the Peugeot clan made bicycles adorned with their lion on the frame’s head badge.
A recent challenger was Alexandre Darracq, who had converted his plant in northeast Paris from manufacturing sewing machines. Darracq did not put his name on bicycle frames like Clément and the Peugeots. In an appeal to the masses, Darracq invoked the Roman warriors who fought in arenas against great odds. He called his two-wheelers Gladiator.
There were arms manufacturers in France’s eastern cities producing bicycles and muscling in for their share of the growing market, too. And British companies had established factories in Paris, among them Thomas Humber of the London Borough of Kingston-on-Thames.
Clément hired a greyhound of a man and rising young talent from the east-central wine-growing region of Burgundy, Pierre Jiel-Laval. When Frenchmen took pride in distinctive facial hair, Jiel-Laval wore a handlebar mustache,
waxed to keep the ends flaring to the borders of his face. The day Jiel-Laval came to collect the Clément cycle he would race, the manufacturer hired a portrait photographer. Clément, in suit and cravat, stood next to Jiel-Laval, in shorts and jersey, behind the two-wheeler, a one-speed model; the frame with a sloping top tube anticipating contemporary mountain bikes.20 They were flanked by Jiel-Laval’s manager and support crew of nine men, selected to shield him from the wind—all showing off their Sunday finery.
Before the sun rose on Sunday, September 6, 1891, thousands of Parisians swarmed over rue Lafayette to witness the start of the momentous Paris-Brest-et-retour. Weeks of Giffard’s journalism had roused them to engulf Le Petit Journal’s fortress-like stone building, draped in red-white-and-blue bunting. Gendarmes shouted above the hubbub to clear spectators from the street. Thousands lined deep on both sides of the road and created a tunnel of humanity nearly a mile long. In the dark some fifty pros lined up in rows on their cycles ahead of a throng of about 150 amateurs, contesting for trophies. The atmosphere was jubilant yet anxious. Nowhere in the world had there been such a sports extravaganza. There was no telling what would happen to the adventurers. Only Frenchmen were allowed—a point of national pride. Rules required contestants to finish on the same bicycle they started with. More than three hundred had signed up, but only two hundred came.21
At first light, a bugle blared. Thousands cheered, their voices echoing off adjacent buildings. Giffard led the rolling parade down the long street on its way to the Champs-Élysées and into the Bois de Boulogne for the seven o’clock rolling start.22 Another bugle blast set the racers off to Brest.
Champion could have been a witness taking in the impact of this great adventure. He also could have followed the reporting by the pack of journalists following the race by train. Members of the Fourth Estate filed dispatches along the route by jumping off at station stops and telegraphing dispatches. News was chalked longhand onto a big slate sandwich board set on the sidewalk outside Le Petite Journal’s entrance.
The contest turned into a duel between sentimental favorite Charles Terront on an English Humber cycle equipped with untried French Michelin tires and the younger Pierre Jiel-Laval on a French machine and Irish Dunlops.
On Monday afternoon, after thirty-three hours and 375 miles of nonstop pedaling, Jiel-Laval encountered a massive throng of Bretons on the outskirts of Brest clapping and screaming Allez Jiel-Laval! A noisy mass of folks filled the road—at the last moment, they opened a narrow passage for him to glide through unharmed. In his wake, the patch of road he had just cleared at once filled with people jostling back in their places. Before automobiles and motorcycles could keep up with the race leaders for crowd protection, contestants went alone and were required to stop at a number of designated village squares where two or three officials sat at a table holding an inkstand and sign-in sheet. In village after village, Jiel-Laval had encountered similar loud, riotous welcomes. He hurried through the sea of people shouting his name and parting just in time to accommodate him on his way to Brest’s rustic town square.
When he arrived there, dirt covered him from head to shoes. His face was haggard with fatigue. Yet his mustache retained its flared ends. It seemed every citizen in Brest shouted Jiel-Laval’s name. He basked in la gloire! He barely had space to dismount in front of the table to write his name. He accepted a cup of beef soup and some pears.23
Jiel-Laval had won the race to Brest. It was the greatest moment of his life. Then he hopped back on his Clément cycle, waved to the crowd, and headed to Paris.
Fifty minutes later Terront, slowed by two punctures in the countryside, spun into view. He received a similar tumultuous reception.24
Late that night, Jiel-Laval’s support crew heard from Terront’s manager that Terront was distraught at being so far behind and had threatened to quit. Jiel-Laval’s crew suggested he take time off for overdue bed rest in a hotel they had secured.
However, the information was a ruse. All’s fair in love and war, and this was a commercial war. The formidable Terront kept pumping his legs straight through the night, with his support riders ahead pacing him. They had kerosene lamps hanging from their handlebars for guidance. In the dark, Terront stole the lead from the sleeping Jiel-Laval. Terront kept up his effort through the night, the next day, and the following night.
At sunrise Wednesday, ten thousand people milling around Porte Maillot in western Paris spotted Terront headed in their direction.25 The morning stillness was shattered by ear-splitting cheers. Terront, coated entirely in dirt thrown up from tires, face streaked with snot and sweat, rolled over the finish line. He dismounted and stood on unstable legs. He straightened his back and waved an arm in every direction to fans shouting at the tops of their lungs. He wiped his forearm over his nose and mouth. Someone handed him a bottle of wine. He seized it by the neck and guzzled as though it were water.
André and Edouard Michelin stood in black morning coats, white shirts, and silk top hats in the enthusiastic mob filling the air with Terront’s name. The Michelins made their way through the crush to embrace Terront like fathers welcoming their heroic son back from battle. Victory gave the Michelins a tidal wave of publicity in newspapers across the continent to launch their new tires. Their bet on Terront had paid off.
Champion, like all Petit Journal readers, learned that Terront had grown up in the cramped, congested slums of central Paris’s Île de la Cité. A chord that must have struck Champion was that Terront came from nothing, a nobody, vin ordinaire. Yet through the force of willpower, keeping his wits under extreme physical demands that made Jiel-Lavel give in, and drawing on the strength of his body, Terront turned into a grand winner. Perhaps Jiel-Laval had more talent, which he showed as the first to reach Brest. Nevertheless, Terront had greater tenacity—and that difference made him the victor. Parisians cried out Terront’s name with unreserved adulation. Such gloire! Champion could see he could do that, too.
Eight hours later, Jiel-Laval came in second, to a similar frothy ovation—a worthy opponent who had put up a spirited fight. Nearly a hundred finishers wobbled in for the next seven days. The other hundred starters had abandoned the race.
Terront’s feat of going on his own means from Paris to Brest and back in less than three days (71 hours and 22 minutes), without any sleep whatsoever, evoked collective fascination. He had endured tire punctures, but after repairs he continued on his way. Pneumatic tires proved their worthiness.
Fulsome details of his exploit were published in Petit Journal and all the city’s publications. An illustration depicting a refreshed Terront standing with his Humber cycle and Michelin tires covered an eight-page Petit Journal illustrated supplement. It sold one million copies.26
Michelin tires gained overnight fame.
Clément had orders pouring in from around France, Great Britain, and Europe.
Paris-Brest-et-retour fulfilled Giffard’s goal of educating commoners about the social benefit of bicycles and he moved on to other projects. The French masses embraced bicycles for personal transportation and called the bicycle la petite reine—the little queen. She appealed to men and women across the social register, from chimney sweeps to aristocrats. The Bois de Boulogne soon filled with men and women cyclists spinning la petite reine through on its paths.
Solid-rubber tires faded from sight along with high-wheelers.
Pneumatic tires began their march to conquer the world.
Modern bicycles with pneumatic tires presented the first threat to the hegemony of horses on roads.
Giffard planned his event as a one-off, and he succeeded in making a big impression upon the general public regarding the social benefit of bicycles. His idea for a race across France impressed a law clerk who would take what Giffard had started to another level.
Champion realized he could have a future in cycling. He bought a top-of-the-line Clément racing bicycle with Dunlops.27 It was a one-speed machine, built for riding on roads and banked-board vélodrome
s. Racing bicycles did not have a brake; riders slowed by using their legs to hold back the pedals propelled by “fixed gear,” which did not coast. They were like toddler tricycles today. It’s a measure of how much young Champion was earning that he helped support his mother and three brothers and paid about 700 francs for his cycle.28
He took a day to practice.29 Feeling the cushion of pneumatic tires for the first time must have been sensational. Then he felt ready to win prizes in Sunday competitions in the Paris suburbs.30 He took out a license from the French governing body. Thirteen-year-old Champion was among the youngest and smallest in the junior category, for boys under age eighteen. He joined packs of teenage hopefuls, backs bent low over dropped handlebars, legs pumping as fast as they could go through the streets in circuit races, known as criteriums. His legs were strong from so many miles on the unicycle, and he had developed impeccable balance, an invaluable asset to negotiate sharp corners at speed.
“From the first time he touched a racing bicycle, he rode like a beautiful devil,” a journalist recalled. “His skill was extraordinary—he was a diabolical break-neck.”31
Word about Albert Champion soon spread. A former racing celebrity, Henry Fol,32 had retired to open a bike shop, Select-Cycle, on Avenue de Malakoff,33 near where Champion lived, and he offered Champion a job as instructor.34 Fol had won track titles as junior champion in his teens,35 racing bicycles and tricycles on vélodromes in his hometown of Bordeaux. Fol, barely five feet tall, came to Paris as a pro and made his name as a sprinter. He paid Champion a decent wage and shared winning tricks of the trade.36 When a tail-wind blew down the final straight to the finish line, sprint a long six hundred to eight hundred meters. Into a headwind, hold back the final spurt until the finish line is within one hundred meters. A dry surface is fastest, calling for a long sprint. A wet track requires a decisive move late in the game. Champion absorbed Fol’s advice and shined in races.37