Tour de France 1904: Trains, Nails and Disqualified Riders

01A Tour at night, perfect for cheats

The race runs from July 2 to 24, 1904, in six stages and about 2,430 km. The stages are so long that part of them are ridden at night: the first starts at 8:30 p.m., and L’Auto sets up secret checkpoints in the dark. Not enough. Dropped riders reappear hours later with the head of the race: some had covered part of the route by train or by car.

02Fans, nails and gunshots

On stage 2, Lyon–Marseille, the crowd roots for a local rider, Faure from Saint-Étienne, and turns on Garin and Pothier. According to Reuters, some 200 supporters block the road to stop the bunch from following him, and officials fire shots in the air to disperse them. In the scuffle, Garin hurts his hand. The next day, in Nîmes, it happens again: stones are thrown, and a man in the L’Auto car threatens the crowd with a revolver.

On the road, there are nails, and the punctures that come with them. On the last stage, Henri Cornet punctures and has to ride 35 to 40 km on flat tires, depending on the source.

03The 1904 Tour de France scandal: Garin wins, then doesn’t

Maurice Garin crosses the line first in Paris. But the Union vélocipédique de France (UVF) investigates and hands down its verdict about four months later, in late November or early December 1904 depending on the source. It disqualifies the top four of the standings: Maurice Garin, Lucien Pothier, César Garin and Hippolyte Aucouturier. In all, at least twelve riders are disqualified (sixteen according to the Italian daily Il Foglio). Garin gets a two-year suspension, Pothier is suspended for life. For Garin, Il Foglio cites two articles of the rules: riding with riders he should not have been riding with, and taking food from unofficial cars. He always cried conspiracy.

04Cornet, 19, “le Rigolo”

The official winner becomes Henri Cornet, fifth on the road, who gets off with a simple warning. Born on August 4, 1884, he wins at 19 years and 355 days, according to Guinness World Records. He is still the youngest Tour winner. His nickname: “le Rigolo” (roughly, “the Joker”). A winner who jokes around is exactly what the Tour needed.

05“It’s over”

On the day of the finish, Desgrange writes in L’Auto that the Tour is finished and that its second edition will probably be its last, a victim of its own success. He relaunches it the very next year anyway. In 1905 it goes from six to eleven stages, shortened to avoid the night racing that invited cheating, and the standings are now decided on points. Moral of the story: The Tour died in 1904, and it did just fine afterward.